RE: New TECHWR-L Poll Question

["Dana Worley" <dana -at- campbellsci -dot- com>]

> I feel pretty fortunate to have been able to answer "always," and
> perhaps not surprisingly I think this is the way it should be and I'm
> disturbed to find my category rating only a 5% response and "rarely"
> and "never" achieving 43% and 25% respectively after 100 votes.

Wow, I thought I'd better "go to the polls" and get counted! I did, 
and I am one of those few who has answered Always to this 
question. 

I suppose my job is different than many of your jobs (my title, for 
what it's worth, is Applications Engineer). A substantial part of my 
job does include writing help files and manuals (for software and 
hardware -- we manufacture dataloggers and software to support 
them). However...

I also spend some time doing customer support (answering the 
"hard" questions on software that other AEs can't answer) and I 
take my turn every four months or so teaching a 3 day training 
course on our hardware and software. I also get a chance to attend 
an occasional trade show. In these roles, I get to see if my 
documentation is being used and whether or not it is effective, and 
also how the product is being used. Additionally, I've found after I 
have explained something verbally in training, it is a lot easier to 
write a procedure for it. 

To tie in with other threads on the list: I use our products 
extensively -- right now I have 3 dataloggers and a half dozen 
sensors and peripherals on my desk. One of my duties is to help in 
alpha testing (mostly software, but some hardware by association). 
You wouldn't believe how many issues I find with the products 
because of my "stupid user tricks" (so I suppose I should be 
counted as a tech writer who does QA). We have another writer 
who has not used the product very much (takes most of what she 
writes from other manuals and informal white papers from SMEs), 
and that lack of use is quite obvious in the documentation that this 
person produces. In fact, I just got an email from someone this 
week that asked if I could rewrite something because the other 
person had "missed the point".  

On another thread: Our dataloggers have to be programmed in 
order for them to make measurements. So... starting off with no 
programming experience, I have had to learn how to program. We 
have two different languages, and I've had to learn both of them. 
While not traditional programming languages (their unique to our 
loggers), it is a similar thought process just the same.

I love my job. I love being required to learn how to program, learn 
how the hardware works, and train others on the use of our 
equipment (seems like someone was fretting over training a month 
or so ago, too...). It is surprising to me that some people are 
content to be "just writers". I feel like I learn something new every 
day (and I've been here 4 years). I don't think I would feel that way if 
I were "just a writer".

Crawling back to my observation corner now...

Dana W. 

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

*** 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

TECH*COMM 2001 Conference, July 15-18 in Washington, DC
The Help Technology Conference, August 21-24 in Boston, MA
Details and online registration at http://www.SolutionsEvents.com


---
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.