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If you fail to set up single sourcing correctly, if you screw it up, if
you are inept, or if single sourcing is not appropriate for the tasks at
hand, single sourcing will fail.
Agreed, too, measuring the benefits is tricky. That's why I specify the
minimum; it's really the minimal number I can nail down, the benefits
are actually larger.
Agreed, too, that single sourcing requires structure that has a benefit
of its own, and had that structure been implemented separately from
single sourcing, some benefits would have been seen. The structure I'm
replacing with single sourcing is the age-old write the online help and
write the printed doc as two projects for each module of our ten-module
software product scenario. I can apply single sourcing and structure at
once to software documentation across ten software products. The
previous regimen wasn't horribly done, it was . . . well . . .
multi-sourced in a traditional way by efficient writers using
traditional tools.
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Plato [mailto:gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com]
"Andrew Plato" <> wrote
One positive results does not make a trend, Sean. Of course you saved
time, you
controlled it and were consumed with making it work. That does not mean
everybody
else will have the same results you had.
There is a grave assumption in this that using a single-source system
will
produce quality results in less time then other methods. Well, what are
those
"other methods."
Furthermore, time savings is a far more complex equation than merely
shortening
the turn-over rate or the "repurposing rate." Most single-source folks
fail to
mention the tremendous amount of time it takes them to set up, manage,
and
maintain this system.
> I'd say, in many cases, if you are not single sourcing you are wasting
> time and your employer's money; imagine that, Andrew Plato, fondling
> fonts!
And you may be right. However, I also know that people LOVE to
"reclassify"
themselves into "fun" jobs and ignore the job they were hired to do. We
have
proven that in the "Like Long Hours" thread where one of my uncontested
conclusions was that people were happy to work overtime on work they
enjoy
(setting up single sourcing systems) but were not happy to work over
time on work
they did not enjoy (and were hired to do, presumably.)
You may very well build a better mousetrap, but if while you were
constructing
your mousetrap, the mice ate all the grain - your new mousetrap is kind
of moot.
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