TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
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Subject:Re: All TECHWR-L Poll Questions From:edunn -at- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 31 Jul 2001 11:31:29 -0400
I would argue that all polls and questionnaires suffer from the same problem.
While they may be altruistic and want to find out the desires of the public or
specific audience, very few (if any) are actually objective. Most start out with
some preconceived vision and, while deliberately or not, instead of finding the
vision of those polled instead only counts those that fit the preconceived view.
In this case the notion that unless you pursue work in your technology outside
work hours, you must hate your job and have little or no interest in what you
are documenting. As one poster pointed out, it's sad how many define themselves
by what they do for a living. Additionally, this poll has raised once again what
I view as one of the biggest debates/misunderstandings on TECHWR-L. Just what
'technology' are techwriters involved with?
With coders, it's easy. Their technology is the programming language they work
in. For techwriters it's a much more broad area as far as technologies go. For
the same product the following technology areas exist: code, hardware, product
use, teaching, industry knowledge, documentation, process/project management,
etc. To me the area of COMMUNICATION is a technology all to its self which while
related to what is being communicated, is still vast enough to have a large
component that is separate from the nuts and bolts or lines of code. Some get
great satisfaction and are successful techwhirlers from the nuts/bolts/code
side, others from the communication side. The truly specialized are those that
excel at both. The truly great are those that can excel at both regardless of
what product or industry they are asked to work in.
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