Hyperviews:Online Fall 1999 Feature

	TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION IN ISRAEL B Y J O A N M I C H A E L I Israel Chapter
The computer industry	If you board a boat that sails due east from the United States, carries on through the Straits of Gibraltar, and continues east until it reaches land (but it may have to swerve to miss Crete and Cyprus), you'll be in Israel. You'll find a thriving hi-tech industry, mainly based around Tel Aviv, but with growing campuses in Jerusalem and Haifa, the other main cities. North of Tel Aviv we have our own version of Silicon Valley, only here we call it "Wadi Silicon" (wadi is Arabic for valley). A country with few natural resources, apart from its beauty and history, Israel has become one of the major suppliers of software to the world (at least according to what I read in the newspapers). Not being large enough to compete with the international software houses (such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle), local companies survive by finding suitable niches in technological areas deemed insignificant by the big fish.
Technical writing community size	Statistic: Over a hundred people in Israel are members of the STC, and a couple of hundred people are notified of upcoming technical writing events. No Israeli university offers a degree in technical writing, so technical writers usually get their basic training at a private school in Tel Aviv, as I did myself. And, yes, here too we have the recurring discussion about what qualifications are most necessary for a technical writer: a degree in Computer Sciences, in English, in Journalism, experience in the field, and so on. Local information available to technical writers comes in various forms: An STC Chapter Web page A newsletter (i-contact) An e-mail list similar to TECHWR-L Events organized by the local STC chapter If you work in Jerusalem's Har Hotzvim area, you can also network with us technical writers every Tuesday at 1 pm at the local coffee and bourekas cafe. Technical writers suffer here the same slings and arrows as in other parts of the world. In a previous job, I’ve actually had a software engineer say to me that there was no need for me to write a user manual as he’d given the job to the secretary. Also, we all complain that no one reads our manuals, that we don’t get feedback from the customers, that we don’t even know if our manuals "work," in short all the complaints I’ve seen on the TECHWR-L list.
	Statistic: Since April, advertisements for about one hundred technical writing jobs have appeared on our local technical writers' list. To put this number in perspective, the population of Israel is about six and a half million.
Internet and phone access	The Israeli phone system has undergone extensive modernization in the last decade so that efficient communication by phone, fax and e-mail is taken for granted. The local phone company regularly offers deals on a second, dedicated line for people running computers from their homes. Also, many hi-tech companies understand the need for employees to use the Internet and have a liberal policy about providing access. This is despite firewalls and irate messages from IT that people will have their internet privileges withdrawn if they continue downloading large games files. So information is freely available. Access to the Internet together with Intercom and Technical Communication enable us to stay up to date on what is happening in other parts of the world, notwithstanding the geographical distance and the fact that often we cannot attend seminars and conferences.
Salaries	Statistic: A newbie technical writer can earn about $27,000 annually. Three years experience is probably worth about $37,000, and so on, according to a local Internet site. We probably get paid more than programmers, but less than business and system analysts.
About myself	I am the head of the technical writing unit in a software house in Jerusalem. My company writes customized software for the field service management industry. I am responsible for the production of the user manuals, but as the company is small (a couple of hundred people world-wide) we technical writers get to do other jobs, such as writing the company newsletter, editing software development documents, helping with application messages and preparing presentation slides. I’ve recently begun a new, exciting career in my company as Web developer. Technical writing as a profession began for me over seven years ago when I realized I could combine two occupations that I had followed more or less simultaneously into an interesting and challenging hybrid. Previous to being a technical writer I had spent my working life editing scientific and archaeological material; and setting up and teaching computer systems at the various offices I worked in.
	You can reach Joan Michaeli at joan.michaeli@rtssoftware.com.
Fall 1999 Volume 2, # 4