Re: Make it Pretty for the SMEs You Want to Interview

[NarrWriter -at- aol -dot- com]

Though you would not think so, there are a few professionals who are insecure 
and translate that tremulous state into seeming disrespect for the people 
that transform what they say into readable or listenable form. How many times 
have you heard, 'Oh, I'll just write that up, it's easy."? Then easy becomes 
difficult when the words don't flow quite as simply as they thought they 
would. 

A lot of what I do takes the written work of scientists and present it to 
sales or stockholders or at conferences in either written or mostly video 
format. Over the years I have met a general behavior I'll call the I know 
more than you syndrome. During the interview there are all kinds of 
qualifications and admonitions. There are sometimes little agonies over 
descriptions or objections to a particular suggested analogy. I think this 
comes form the fear that there will be either misinterpretations or 
misunderstandings. I assure them, at this stage, that we will work together 
to get every detail correct. Sometimes this helps.

When the project/script is ready, I'll give it back to the person I'm working 
with for review. There might be an objection about the subject treatment 
being too simple - to which I might respond with a discussion of how to bring 
complex information to an audience with less comprehension of the subject 
matter than the scientific community. I might even give the person a video or 
two and let them hear for themselves. The point is there are always going to 
be people who think that writers don't do all that much or know all that 
much, in spite of the fact that Hollywood and television were shaking in 
their Guccis from the threat of a strike by the WGA.

It takes an experienced mature individual to understand the reality of a well 
written project/script and they don't seem to be making as many of them as 
they used to. 

If you are given a person of lesser light with whom to work, do the best you 
can to help them. The idea is to get through each job and on to the next. I 
always share the credit with the scientists or the experts who work with me. 
When they see the final form of the project or the video and the credits 
roll, their attitude is usually changed and on the next job the work flow is 
much easier.

We're not only writers, sometimes we have to be psychologists, confessors, 
and hopefully collaborators. If you are able to concentrate on the project 
and not the personality, you can usually get through and come out the other 
side.

Rodger Parsons
NarrWriter - Voicing the Written Word



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com

Sponsored by Information Mapping, Inc., a professional services firm
specializing in Knowledge Management and e-content solutions. See
http://www.infomap.com or 800-463-6627 for more about our solutions.

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.