You've Got to Hear This
...to believe it. Geek Rap. (WARNING: Contains explicit technical content.)
More on Geek Rhythms here.
The goal, per Howard Lovy, is to "attract high school kids to the coolness of high-tech careers." This reminds me of something. A number of years ago, in an essay entitled "What's Technical About Technical Writing," David Dobrin provided this pithy answer:
Technical writing is writing that accomodates technology to the user.
Dobrin's definition, which I first encountered when doing graduate work in Technical Communication at the University of Colorado at Denver, has proved to be somewhat liberating to the field. Of course, anything that would help technical writers see that there's more to life than churning out manuals was a good start.
In my final graduate paper (the practioner's degree required a final project and report rather than a thesis), I argued that the Dobrin formulation was a bit too broad, seeing as it would allow even science fiction to be labeled "technical writing." (Lord knows that I have personally learned a lot about science and technology from reading SF.)
But I made those arguments back before the web, Slashdot, or the blogosphere. At the time, I was defending what I saw as the integrity of my profession.
It all looks a lot different from here in the future. Dobrin's formula starts to make a little more sense.
I would venture to say that, like the myriad bloggers out there covering a host of technical issues, not only is Rajeeve Bajaja a technical communicator, he is probably more effective than most. Is it possible that the new media threatens extinction to more professions than just journalism?