RE: New TECHWR-L Poll Question

[jgarison -at- ide -dot- com]

Bruce,

It's not necessarily true that all - or even many - developers and SMEs
would continue to follow the ins and outs of a specific industry application
area if they were no longer working in that market space.

For example, I have worked at a lot of places on a lot of very interesting
applications. While I was immersed in them then, it doesn't mean that I am
now, no matter how intrinsically interesting they are. 

To be concrete about it, I no longer follow the intricacies of the
e-learning application area since I don't work in it any more. Does it mean
that I no longer care at all about it? No, just that I now have more of a
curiosity instead of a driving urge to know what's going on. I read articles
and am pleased to see my former employer is doing well (I also track the
stock price!). I just don't care like I used to.

I would say it would be very rare indeed for someone to continue to follow
the details of some industry or application when they are now working in a
new industry or application. There are only so many hours in the day, and I
can only follow so many topics!

My 2¢,

John



-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Byfield [mailto:bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2001 2:43 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Subject: Re: New TECHWR-L Poll Question


Deborah Ray wrote:

 
> How interested are you, as a technical writer, in 
> the subject that you document?
> 
> * Very, and would follow the subject on my own
> * Somewhat, but would not follow it on my own
> * Not very, and take only a professional interest
> * Not at all interested in the subject
> * Other/none of the above
> 


I suggested this question as a result of the reoccuring discussions 
about how much technical knowledge technical writers need.

It occurs to me that those who believe that as high a degree of 
knowledge as possible should be sought might be more likely to answer 
this question "Very" - that's certainly true of me, anyway. By contrast, 
those who suggest that expert knowledge isn't necessary might tend to 
answer "somewhat" or "not very." I'm looking forward to seeing whether 
I'm right or wrong.

I also notice that, so far, over three-quarters of those who answered 
would not follow their subjects on their own, and that almost half are 
either "not very" or "not at all" interested.

I'm saddened to think that so many people are spending their lives at 
work that they don't especially care for. However, more to the point, I 
strongly suspect that the answers would be very different for 
developers. At least a large minority of geeks are regularly increasing 
their knowledge, and some even program in their spare time for open 
source or free software projects. I wonder: could that be the reason 
that so many tech-writers don't get along with their SMEs? Could the 
geeks unconsciously sense the indifference to the topics that occupy 
large chunkes of their lives?


-- 
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

"Wherever we go, we celebrate
The land that makes us refugees."
-The Pogues, "Thousands Are Sailling"


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

*** 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

---
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.