Abstract
This paper offers initial suggestions for teaching professional social networking as a technical communication practice. Our guidelines build from recent qualitative research analyzing the networking relationships, practices, and technologies that support technical communication entrepreneurship. This research demonstrated how technical communication entrepreneurs perceive networking to be steeped in learning and sharing knowledge across professional and personal social fields. Based on what was learned from participants, we offer a model for and guidelines toward teaching networking as connected to knowledge sharing and building. This paper next offers an example assignment sequence from a master's level technical communication course focused on online information design. Through research and theory building, we suggest that instructors and students should understand professional social networking as a multilayered practice of learning and sharing collective knowledge.
