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RE: New poll question? (Was Re: Pinsky poem in the Atlantic "Jar of Pens")
Subject:RE: New poll question? (Was Re: Pinsky poem in the Atlantic "Jar of Pens") From:Richard Lippincott <richard -dot- lippincott -at- ae -dot- ge -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 16 May 2002 13:20:34 -0400
>In your current job as a technical writer, what are you
>considered (by others) to be a Subject Matter Expert of?
In the current job, SME of SGML and of our file configuration control
system. We're documenting aircraft engine maintenance procedures, and most
of the other writers here have more extensive hands-on experience with
engine maintenance or engine manufacturing. But I'm the guy to grab if
there's a problem with Epic/Arbortext or Documentum.
A couple of jobs and about three years ago, though, I became the company SME
on digital message networks (DMN) by default. There was an old manual for
DMN configuration, it hadn't been updated or reviewed in years. This was
during the Y2K effort, and I volunteered to do the Y2K testing on the DMN if
they would let me do a line-by-line test of the documentation at the same
time. They agreed quickly, the task took about three months, and involved a
lot of consultation with the real SMEs. As time passed, they kept tapping me
to QA the DMN in new releases ("Rick did it right the last time..."), but at
the same time the real SMEs kept drifting out to other jobs. One day I
looked around and realized "HEY! I'm the only one left that really
understands this thing!"
Rick Lippincott
Saugus, MA
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