When I consider today's economic news, and especially when I see long-time technical communicators lose their jobs, I can't shake from my head the line from Bruce Springsteen's My Hometown: these jobs are going boys, and they ain't coming back.

Time was, when an economic downturn came along, we knew that sooner or later companies would start hiring again. Today, however, technical communication work is increasingly seen as a commodity that can be purchased less expensively in the emerging markets like India and China. We're certainly not alone in this: for example, software developers, the subject-matter experts with whom I've worked most closely throughout my career, are in exactly the same position.

What can we learn from our software development colleagues? How do they keep themselves viable in a job market where downsizing and offshoring are almost the rule, not the exception?

They broaden their skill sets, reinventing themselves (for example) as software architects rather than simply as programmers. In the same way, information architects -- people who can devise systems that deliver a company's information assets to its customers -- will continue to have value, but traditional "technical writers" will not.

They learn new methodologies, like agile programming. Many of my colleagues in technical communication are learning by necessity to work in agile environments, and it turns out that good technical communication is quite compatible with agile. (For more on this, see Julio Vazquez's white paper.)

They convince their employers and prospective employers that they have value. Technical communicators have struggled with this for a long time. There are no easy answers, but we simply have to do better at this.

I worry when I encounter colleagues who resist the need to reinvent themselves, who believe that they'll be just fine with the same skills they've used for the last 1 or 20 years. To paraphrase Springsteen, I'm afraid that those are the jobs that ain't coming back.

There's good news, however, for technical communicators who are willing to accept it: We can develop and master new skills, and when we do that we'll find that our jobs are much less likely to go away.