This article presents communication strategies for technical writers and engineers. These strategies are developed from applying Erving Goffman's social interaction theories to the technical writer/engineer relationship. These strategies should also help dispel some of the criticisms that engineers and technical writers have of each other.

Innovation in a company's design process is increasingly a matter of cooperation between the company and its customers. New information and communication technology (ICT) possibilities such as electronic communication (EC) media generate even more opportunities for companies to collaborate with customers during the early stages of research and development. This exploratory study examined the design process of five Dutch firms and the cultural and communicative implications of cooperation in the design process between the supplier and the customer using EC media. We found that the selected use of EC media for communication between R&D and customers has a positive effect on the design process. We also discovered that the characteristics of the most suitable EC media depend on the design activity and that the corporate and professional cultures of both the company and its customers involved in the cooperation seem to affect the communication media used. Finally, the future use of new ICT in the design area is discussed.

The role of the technical communication practitioner stems from the need for members from two distinct professions to connect; for example, engineers have created some new technology, and users who are (assumedly) unfamiliar with the technology want or need to understand that technology. The article presents an interface between the two professions which proposes a reconceptualization of the relationship between technicians/engineers and users. This reconceptualization can and should be provided by technical communicators who create a culture which encompasses both the technician and the user. In addition, this reconceptualization parallels the means originally proposed by C. P. Snow (1959) to mend the rift between the sciences and the humanities.