B Y  J O A N   K A L K

In this beautiful land of ours, we have no less than 11 official languages, namely English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, North Sotho, South Sotho, Tsonga, Swazi, Ndebele, and Venda. Can you envisage having to ensure that all technical communication is made available in each and within the same deadlines? Fortunately, we do not have to do so - yet! Almost all our technical communication is written in English and, occasionally, Afrikaans is used too.

Despite the great distances separating our country from Europe, the United States and the rest of the world, state-of-the-art technical communication is very prevalent in South Africa. Technical communicators, who have been fortunate enough to attend conferences in Europe and the United States in recent years, have reported that what we are doing in all arenas is on a par with current trends world-wide. The main difference is the obviously smaller size of the audience for whom we cater. Stand-alone and software linked online Help systems are being developed. Training material is being developed and delivered. Online distance learning infrastructures are being created. Solutions specific to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems such as SAP and JDE are being provided. Web pages for both the Intranet and the Internet are being created. Specialist documentation companies, corporations and individuals are involved in all of this.

There are no special bodies representing technical writing in South Africa, so it is difficult to estimate the actual size of the technical writing community. About three years ago, an Online Writers User Group (OLWUG) was formulated in Johannesburg. Meetings were held once a month and attendance ranged between 20-40 people. This petered out after about 8 months, mainly due to the scheduled time of the events.

There are at least 6 specialist documentation companies in the country that I am aware of. One is international and the others are local. They focus specifically on the development of online Help systems, HTML documentation for the Intranet/Internet, SAP solutions and training programs. In addition, consulting companies such as Anderson Consulting, Deloitte & Touche, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Ernst & Young and Anglo American Corporation of SA Ltd., employ staff to focus on this type of development, although this is not their core company business. In large corporations development can take place in-house, be out-sourced or a combination of methods used. A source in one of the specialist companies advises me that the top 100 local and international corporations have been developing training material and online Help systems for both stand-alone and application linked documentation in a WinHelp format for many years. Of late there has been a shift towards the creation of HTML Help and development for the Intranet and the Internet has become quite prolific.

My designation at Liberty Life, the large national life insurance company which employs me, is Development Consultant and I am based in our Johannesburg Head Office. My department is called Sales Development & Accreditation (SDA) and we are responsible for developing and delivering product, behavioural and systems training material as well as online Help for software.

I am a South African citizen and have been responsible for the development of online Help systems for our in-house developed software, Blueprint and Blueprint Corporate since 1993 and 1998 respectively. I was the first person at Liberty Life to ever develop online Help and until 1996 was the sole Help author for Blueprint. Since then I have had assistance and my team currently consists of 3 Help authors and 1 training material developer.

Blueprint is a very sophisticated PC-based sales tool, comprising 19 components, which is used by Intermediaries to do Financial Needs Analyses and Quotations for their clients. On successfully making a sale, they can then complete the product application form online and electronically upload it to the mainframe. Information about an Intermediary's clients and their respective policies can be regularly downloaded from the mainframe and changes to the details or requests for loans can also be done electronically. Blueprint Corporate is a similar system that caters for corporate as opposed to individual business. As it is installed on a server, we can enable corporate clients to access it and use it from their offices. There are about 2-3 releases of Blueprint and 2 releases of Blueprint Corporate annually.

When I started developing the Blueprint Help system in 1993, WinHelp online Help development was a fairly new innovation countrywide. One of the available authoring tools at the time was Doc-to-Help and many budding Help authors used it. Another was ForeHelp. I personally used Doc-to-Help for several months before migrating to RoboHelp, which I have used ever since.

Other Help authors currently use RoboHelp, Doc-to-Help, and ForeHelp to develop WinHelp files. The predominant package being used, however, is RoboHelp. With the advent of HTML Help, RoboHTML is being used to create HTML Help. Some WinHelp and HTML Help authors create .RTF and .HTM files directly and then use Microsoft's Help Workshop and HTML Help Workshop respectively in order to compile them.

From a training perspective, a frequently used methodology for paper-based material is Information Mapping, while Toolbook is used to create computer based training. FrontPage and HTML is being used for Web development.

Where to now for SDA? Development of new and maintenance of old training material and Help files is continuing, but with exciting innovations. In the training arena we have commenced the development of Web-based training, which we plan to administer in an online distance learning environment using a Web based training application called Topclass. In addition, we are about to embark on Video conferencing and use Webcam. In the Help arena, pursuant to attending the Tech/Comm 99 conference in Washington in July, I am about to incorporate Integrated Performance Support into the first component of Blueprint being redeveloped in Visual Basic. By using embedded Help, more screen text, inline text, What's This? Help, wizards and coaches wherever feasible, we hope to provide anticipatory User Assistance and make the system more intuitive. Consequently, we will be moving to RoboHTML, DHTML, Javascript, Help Xtender and the Keytools CHHCTRL in order to create our embedded HTML Help.

Information technology is a growing industry in South Africa and generally reflects trends world-wide. There are 40 IT companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). These normally do very well, but lately the Y2K issue, causing a hiatus world wide, is also affecting the local market. There are many companies dealing in hardware and software sales, software development, networking, multi-media, web development, consulting and support. Colleges provide courses in computer usage. van Zyl and Pritchard (ZAP) is one of a number of institutions providing specialised intensive courses in programming and Microsoft's MCSE diploma is very popular as are all Microsoft courses. Available documentation courses include Info Mapping and Effective User Documentation. While books on software usage such as "Windows for Dummies" abound, good reference books on usability or online Help development/web development, for example, are scarce. Hence my return from the Tech/Comm conference with eleven books in tow.

All brands of desktop and laptop computers are readily available, but at a great cost compared to prices in the United States. The Rand/Dollar exchange rate is about $1 = R6. Most businesses use computers today. It is estimated that about 90% of the white-collar population use computers on a regular basis, while blue-collar workers such as factory foremen also use them for data input. There is also a growing trend for individuals to have computers at home, especially since the advent of the Internet and e-mail. Socio-economic factors obviously impact on affordability.

Internet access and e-mail are readily available. There are about 50 Internet service providers; some dedicated to corporations, others to individuals. Many of these are well established, but fly-by-night companies abound as well. All are dependent on the only telephone company in the country - Telkom.

Telkom's current telephone system is analogue in some areas and digital in others. As exchanges are upgraded countrywide, they are being converted to a digital format. Individual users in analogue areas require modems to turn digital pulses from computer equipment into analogue pulses, and vice versa, for transmission over a telephone line. Most corporations use Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), which is a digital telephone connection providing more bandwidth and speed than the regular telephone line. No conversions between analogue and digital signals take place with an ISDN connection. This results in a higher data throughput, with virtually no transfer errors.

I personally am not aware of any survey being done with regard to Technical Communicator's salaries and therefore can't provide any scientific facts or figures. Salaries, which are higher in Johannesburg than anywhere else in the country, vary between company and company and contractors earn far more than full-time employees. Depending on experience, an annual salary package for a full-time employee could range from R60 000 - R250 000 per annum. A package would generally include fringe benefits such as Medical Aid, parking, bonus income, pension funding and in some instances a car allowance. Contractors, who are hired by companies to compensate for the lack of permanent skills, charge between R200-R250 per hour.

The past few years have shown a definite increase in the number of technical communicators in the Rainbow Nation as well as exciting developments. Hopefully, we shall be able to stage an international conference or seminar here sometime in the near future, to enable some of you to share your ideas with us.

 * Yebo means "Yes" in Zulu.

Fall 1999
Volume 2, # 4