Society for Technical Communication—Israel Chapter

Mustafa Askari, working from his office at his home in Amman, is one of Jordan's few technical writers. Following a highly successful career in engineering, Mustafa, at 58, looked for a way to combine his technological expertise and writing skills and, "....for lack of anything better to do, I chose technical writing. However," continues Mustafa, speaking from London where he was enjoying a 2-week vacation, "I like the freedom that working from home brings. I don't have to clock in and out and can choose my own hours."

One of Mustafa's  projects was to localize into Arabic the Israeli product, Quicktionary. Another project, involving online documentation for an Israeli insurance company, is currently being negotiated. In addition, Mustafa is attempting to attract Japanese companies whose level of Arabic documentation is very low. "It is important," says Mustafa, "that the translations are written in clear and accurate Arabic for what is generally an audience with little technical knowledge. Another consideration is the lack of accepted Arabic substitutes for common terms, such as computer and telephone, as well as the variety of Arabic dialects. Thus a manual written for the Gulf  States may not be entirely suitable for North Africa, leading to sub-localization!" The preferred DTP tool is MS Word, version 7.

Members of Jordan's fledgling technical writing industry are not yet organized into a distinct professional group, nor do they have a local chapter of the STC. In fact, unlike Mustafa, most other technical writers are full-time sales or engineering employees of their companies who do it as a side line.

As a member of STC Israel, I welcome this opportunity to make contact with a fellow professional in the region and look forward to the possibility of meeting Mustafa - and other Jordanian tech writers - some time soon at a forum convened in a spirit of professional cooperation. As Mustafa says, "Inshallah!"