The Technical Communication Graduate Certificate at UNO consists of 5-6 courses (I hope to add Advanced Technical Communication next year), which does not allow time for more than building a basic foundation. Unlike universities with bachelor's or master's programs in technical communication, 5-6 courses simply don't allow time for specialized technical knowledge.

Every community of practices has an enterprise around which members practice, learn, and reflect upon. If one is a carpenter, that enterprise is construction.

So, for me and my classes, I focus on technical as techne, the art of making.

The Meaning of Technical

Technical began in the Classical Age as techne, which Aristotle included in his taxonomy of knowledge and defined as the art of craft or making. The crafter-apprenticeship model grew out of this perspective.

During the Enlightenment Age to the Industrial Age, techne evolved into technical, which is defined in terms of mechanical inventions that allowed for automation, efficiency, and mass production.

From the Industrial Age to the Modern Age, technical turned into technology, a term defined mostly in terms of computers, emphasizing speed, databases, progress, standardization, and uniformity.

The Information Age to today, what I call the New Media Age, all three terms have accumulated into a yet-indefinable definition, media, which is thought of mostly in terms of innovation, emphasizing creativity, diversity, individual preferences, customization flexibility, and adaptability. It is in this Media Age that I see the terming process coming back around to techne and a focus on the art of craft.

For my classes, then, technical refers to . . .

• a particular work (what the work is),
• the members (who is involved in that work),
• the practices (what that work means),
• the situation and contexts (where that work gets done),
• the procedures (how that work gets done),
• the processes (style of that work),
• the reasons (why that work gets done), and
• the ethics (what the work is responsible for