Alumni Profile

Christine (Wysk) Jacobs, Leading in Information Design and Development

Principal Technical Writer, Oracle Corporation, Waltham, MA
B.S., Business Communication, 1988

About Christine's Firm
A Typical Day at Work
What Christine Likes about Her Job
Other Career Highlights
Christine's Thoughts about Prospects for Careers in PR
How a Bentley Education Benefited Christine

About Christine's Company

Oracle Corporation is the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the world's second largest independent software company. With annual revenues of more than $9.3 billion, the company offers its database, tools and application products, along with related consulting, education, and support services, in more than 145 countries around the world.

Headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, Oracle is the first software company to develop and deploy 100 percent Internet-enabled enterprise software across its entire product line: database, server, enterprise business applications, and application development and decision support tools. Oracle software runs on PCs, workstations, minicomputers, mainframes and massively parallel computers, as well as on personal digital assistants and set-top devices.

In Waltham, we develop software that works with OLAP or multidimensional databases. The software runs on Windows and Unix platforms and in Web browsers. About 300 people work on Oracle OLAP software in Waltham, including software developers, quality assurance (QA) engineers, product managers, support representatives, and technical writers.

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A Typical Day at Work

As with most jobs in the high-technology field, a technical writing position does not truly have a "typical day at work." Every day brings new challenges and new things to do. It's a fast-paced world, which is fun if you enjoy that sort of work. Schedules and features change daily. You must be prepared to shift gears often. Sometimes a feature that you document today will be pulled out of the product tomorrow and replaced with a different one. Occasionally, projects are canceled after months of work. Sometimes, you must work harder and faster to complete a project once its deadline changes. This can be rewarding when you have worked as part of a team that has pulled together to complete a project in time to meet expectations and serve the customers' needs.

My job is to document the features of a product and to clearly define how users can use those features, either through a Help system or through printed or online documentation. I obtain information on features by reading specifications, working with early releases of the product, and talking with software developers and other product team members. I also work on investigating and implementing the tools (such as Word and RoboHELP) that my department uses to produce documentation.

As a member of several cross-functional product teams, I also attend various meetings throughout the week to track the status of products, to learn more about them, and to provide input into their development. I enjoy the challenges of juggling several projects, learning new products, and working with various people.

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What Christine Likes about Her Job

There are several things that I enjoy about my job:

• The opportunity to learn new things. I don't get bored doing the same old thing all the time.
• The reward of taking information, usually complex information and lots of it, and presenting it so that readers can understand it.
• The challenge of being an "investigative reporter". I'm able to use my writing and verbal skills. Most tech writers aren't holed up in their cubicles just writing away. I must interact with people from all parts of the company and research new products and technologies. This involves verbal communication with many types of people and then written communication to record it all appropriately.
• The output of my work is tangible. I can look at a book or a Help system and say "I did that." When I want to change jobs, I can bring a manual to a prospective employer and say "Here's what I can do."
• The chance for a pat on the back. Sometimes I hear praise from people in other departments or even customers who found my document helpful. It's a good feeling to know that my work has helped to make others' jobs easier.

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Other Career Highlights

Since graduating from Bentley, I have worked as a software technical writer for 12 years at 4 different companies. While in my senior year, my professors encouraged me to join the Society for Technical Communication (STC). Several Bentley Business Communication professors are  active in local and Society-wide duties.

At my first job, I met other writers who were active in STC, and they encouraged me to get involved in the Boston Chapter. I served for a few years on the chapter board with my Bentley Business Communication professors and with some of my co-workers. My STC involvement helped me to expand my list of contacts and to develop myself professionally in numerous way. I feel that my STC involvement originated through encouragement from my Bentley professors, and I'm grateful for that. I have enjoyed my STC work and have received various awards such as a Distinguished Chapter Service Award and the 1991-92 Boston Chapter Member of the Year Award for my involvement as Secretary, Competitions Coordinator, and member of various committees. I have enjoyed writing articles for the chapter's newsletter and seeing them in print.

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Christine's Thoughts about Careers in Information Design

I have been very happy in my present position, so I have not been job hunting. However, I am often contacted by recruiters who have jobs they are trying to fill. I gather from colleagues that the job market is very hot for job seekers right now; companies are desperate for good, qualified people. Many technical communications departments seem willing to accept junior people with solid college experience and references.

I would recommend that college students pursuing a career in Information Design avail themselves of the following opportunities:

• Participate in at least one internship and/or volunteer to do other information design and development work for various companies and organizations. For example, seek out non-profit groups and Bentley organizations that need such work done. Many non-profit groups need brochures or procedures manuals prepared. At Bentley, work on the newspaper or in the computer lab.
• Build a portfolio. Throughout your years at Bentley, retain copies of any reports, papers, articles, volunteer work, and so on that you prepare and are proud of. Combine all these publications into a portfolio to present to prospective employees. A portfolio can be simply a three-ring binder that holds the publications. To enhance the portfolio, include a page before each publication that provides a few paragraphs of description of the publication, such as why and how you prepared it and what challenges you faced and overcame.
• Build good relationships with Business Communication professors. They have many contacts in the field. If you express a keen interest in and dedication to it and show promise, the professors will go to bat for you.
• Learn all the software and the technology that you can. Familiarize yourself well with all the software that you use at Bentley. Build your own Web site to show prospective employers. If you are interested in technical writing, take several computer classes. Such classes show your interest in and ability to understand the latest technology. They will be of great benefit to you in a technical writing career.

Information Design continues to gain respect and prominence. More companies seem to recognize the importance of good documentation and the ways that Information Designers can contribute to their product by writing usable documentation and by providing the user's perspective in tasks such as interface design. Such recognition carries with it the opportunity for significant monetary and personal rewards.

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How a Bentley Education Benefited Christine

Without a doubt, my Bentley education has benefited my career in technical communication, especially through the following vehicles:

• The Bentley business school model. Bentley encourages all its students to have a solid business education with input from various liberal arts courses. Such a complete business education has definitely helped me adjust to and thrive while working in the "real world."
• The Business Communication curriculum. Bentley's BC program stresses mixing basic business skills with good communication and technological skills. The courses that I took and the skills that I learned at Bentley gave me a solid foundation for starting a career as a technical communicator.
• The professors. Bentley professors are excellent instructors who keep current on the latest technologies and trends. In the BC program, most professors are active in endeavors outside of teaching; most are active in STC and some even have their own businesses. They know how to participate in and teach information design and development.

  The professors can offer sound advice and have good contacts. They encouraged me to take computer courses, which I wasn't terribly inclined to do but have always been grateful that I did. Taking programming courses has really helped me in my jobs. The CIS professors at Bentley are also excellent, and I learned a lot from them.

  I still feel that I can turn to my BC professors for help with my career or jobs. Many of my professors are still there, 12 years after my graduation. One has referred an intern to me, and that person is now a Bentley graduate and a permanent member of our writing team.

However, there is one benefit that I received through my Bentley education that is beyond measure – my first technical writing job. While I was interviewing for "real" technical writing jobs during my senior year, I was sitting in my advisor's office when he received a call from a Bentley graduate and former advisee of his who was then a Documentation Manager looking for a junior-level technical writer. He recommended me to this person right on the spot, I went for an interview, and the rest as they say, is history. And for that, and the good experience I gained on the first job, I am grateful.

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