ABSTRACT
As scholars such as Manuel Castells (1996) remind us, a consequence of the transformation to an “information society” is that information itself is a valuable commodity. Organizations view the content types they produce as assets, and they look to get the most value from those assets that they possibly can. Regardless of where technical writers find themselves working, odds are that they will be charged not merely with the activity of writing, but also with the task of supporting or managing a network of people who develop content for a variety of internal and external types of communication channels. Often, it falls to them to look after the information assets of the organization. Today’s technical writer, with expertise in writing, editing, and communication, typically is expected to create templates, establish editorial guidelines, create metadata formats, and perform a host of other tasks that relate directly related to the management of content and not necessarily to its creation. In short, today’s technical writer could very well be a content manager.
