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Subject:RE: What is our real area of expertise? From:"Giordano, Connie" <Connie -dot- Giordano -at- FMR -dot- COM> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 11 Dec 2000 15:46:21 -0500
Thom and Tom,
I suppose some of your points are dependent on whether you're a contractor
or FTE, and how you view your ongoing role. I'm an FTE, and as such find it
much more beneficial to know my industry, and take part in design and QA, as
well as the development of content. Long-term, I see opportunities for
strategic product design roles, and that's what drives my desire to become a
SME, as well as guru of all things communications-related.
If you choose the contractor route, then I'm sure your observations apply.
I guess I should start prefacing posts with some caveat about FTE versus
contractor:). Obviously there are great differences in the roles.
Connie Giordano
-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Murrell [mailto:trmurrell -at- yahoo -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 3:26 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: What is our real area of expertise?
--- Thomas Quine <quinet -at- home -dot- com> wrote:
> The client is not hiring you as a subject matter expert - they
> usually have the experts on staff. They need your expertise in
> gathering, sorting, packaging, and delivering information. I think
> that's where you have to focus your studies.
> - Thom
>
> Thom Quine
> www.documen.com
I agree with what you're saying. In fact, your entire post is a fancier
way of saying what I say in interviews: "My job isn't to know much of
anything, but it is to learn it well enough to be able to explain it to
those who need to understand it and, if appropriate, use it.
No one, not even AP, is advocating that a technical writer become an
SME. But I don't think that a good TW can do the job without learning
something about what they're writing about. Sure you flush the details
after the project is over so you can go off and learn something else
for your next project. I look back at the work I've done in other areas
and marvel that I knew that once well enough to write about it
intelligently. I'm probably not as good at 'flushing' as you are; my
hard drive is a little balky when it comes to erasing information. But
I do believe that I knew it well enough to write, rather than edit
other's writings, about the topics, and I could relearn it if I needed to.
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