Expert: Carolyn Primus - 1/26/2003

Question
Dear Sir/Madam,

I am a computer science student in University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
I have a research about a professional's job, responsibilities and writings for "Introduction to Technical Communications" course. I plan to study in Bioinformatics field so I do this research for bioinformatics professional.  
I will appriciate if I can use your experiences and information in this interview.

My questions are
What is your job title and What are your responsibilities?
What experiences are required for the job?
How much written communication is done on a daily basis?
What kind of written communication is done?(email, letter, memo, manuals)
How much oral communication is done on a daily basis? What kind?
What are particular problems in either kind of communication?
Interesting stories about your job like strangest things that ever happend or succesful results or disasters.

I appreciate for your time.
Best Regards,
Maryam Zaheri

Answer
• I am a consultant in medical devices and my training is as a materials scientist. I have previously been a research director at a dental company. My career has been in applied research which means inventing new products, and bringing them to fruition.  
• Education is required for this job, and then one builds on each working experience. An engineering degree, particularly advanced degrees were most helpful.  I have learned lab skills, pilot plant (small scale production) and large scale production operations to enable my ideas to reach the market.  
• 80% of my communication is written with all items you mentioned. The other 20% is on the phone or in meetings.
• In e-mail, people lose the train of thought and one phone call would be preferable. Brevity in writing is essential and often lacking. Misuse of technical terms is also a problem. Misspelling is a problem and makes the writer seem uneducated.  Please check your spelling!
• Being an organized, clear speaker is essential for global communication. This has been very useful for me.
We have limited space here- so this was terse. Good luck and keep studying!  

Best regards,
Carolyn Primus  
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