RE: TW Salaries--Is it me, or are people greedier? (Mild Vent)

["Le Vie, DonaldX S" <donaldx -dot- s -dot- le -dot- vie -at- intel -dot- com>]

Lisa Miller said:
<snip>
>>I'm very glad to see colleges offering degrees and advanced degrees in
technical
writing.  At least business has a record of valuing the "pieces of paper"
that
put the stamp of "qualified" on a person.  I think this may increase the
price
we as writers can command.  In this way, sort of via the backdoor, business
may
think "hmmm, I'm paying more,so this writing thing must be valuable."  In
other
words, business will justify the price by "seeing" that technical writing
adds
to the bottom line.<<

I've been researching for some time the relationship between technical
publications organizations and   an organization's bottom line. I have
several articles in development as well as presentations, and this I can
tell you:

There is no relationship between the kind/number of degrees on your office
wall and a quantitative assessment of their contribution the bottom line.

There is also no correlation between paying more for writing and seeing how
tech comm adds to the bottom line.

The IT industry spent 10 years trying to determine valuation models for
determining the bottom line contributions IT makes to organizations. Upper
management used to laugh when you'd ask them about how much ROI they are
getting from their IT. IT organizations were treated like red-headed
step-children until several valuation models (there are about a dozen being
used today)were able to quantify the contributions IT was making to the
bottom line. Part of that quantification involved "cost of avoidance." In
other words, what would happen if we DIDN'T put money into the IT
infrastructure?

Tech comm needs to follow a similar path. We don't add value because of
advanced degrees or commanding high salaries. We have to show direct
relationships (using quantitative measures)with how the raw information we
transform into value-add knowledge for customers does in fact justify the
higher salaries. You have to speak the language that executive management
understands: numbers and dollars, not with efficiency statistics or
mechanical "feel good" metrics.

Donn Le Vie


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