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.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Scott wrote:
<And in the final analysis, what are you going to do
with this
granulation of information. If it's just nice to know,
and doesn't
add to the bottom line, don't do it.
I worked at a company for ten years where we kept this
sort of
information on our time sheets, in 15 minute
increments. Guess what?
It was never input into any database, it was never
applied to project
hours. It was manually tabulated and the information
was not
retreivable. In short, many people wasted a lot of
man-hours keeping
track of minutiae that was not used, could not be used,
and which
management didn't use.
I agree, Scott. I once worked in an agency that
required 2 pages of information filed on each client,
most of whom were involved with us for less than 3
hours. When I questioned the wisdom of this practice
(not necessarily a good "newbie" move!), I was soundly
reproved and reminded that this data would comprise the
basis for a meaningful research project. Amazingly,
three months later, after 10 years of hand-written
record-keeping, a sufficient amount of data had been
collected! To date, the sole remaining team member and
chief developer of the system (this person is listed as
an example in the MW definition of "anal") has yet to
produce a document, meaningful or otherwise,
summarizing the findings. Since I'm no longer with that
agency, I'm only guessing that the file drawers
dedicated to this project were reassigned many moons
ago.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Buy RoboHelp Office in May and you'll save $100 with our mail-in rebate.
Or switch from Doc-to-Help or ForeHelp to RoboHelp Office for only $499.
Get the help authoring tool PC magazine recently awarded a perfect score!
Go to http://www.ehelp.com/techwr
Free copy of ARTS PDF Tools when you register for the PDF
Conference by April 30. Leading-Edge Practices for Enterprise
& Government, June 3-5, Bethesda,MD. www.PDFConference.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.
