Should technical authors embrace user generated content?

It may seem counter-intuitive, but we believe technical authors shouldn't fear the trend towards user generated content. Let me explain why:

1. It could get you the attention of your CEO. October's Harvard Business Review highlights an article called "The Contribution Revolution: Letting Volunteers Build Your Business" by Intuit CEO Scott Cook. User contribution is now something that is being discussed in the boardroom. Organisations are considering whether and how to engage their user community.


2. It should demonstrate more clearly the relationship between customer engagement, customer retention and how user assistance can contribute to these.

3. As the importance of user assistance grows within the organisation so, hopefully, will the importance of good user documentation - something that requires a professional writer.

4. It provides technical authors with a better understanding of their audience - what issues are important to them, the terminology they use.

There are important provisos. You need to have a sufficiently large enough user base to get users to contribute and to benefit from "the network effect". You can't expect technology to solve all the problems - information architecture and clear writing will remain as important as ever.

What do you think? You can comment here.