Re: Tuesday's news: cost-cutting measures

[kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com]

Andrew wrote: 

>>>
Such is the eternal tension between "potential" and "capability" within
any organization. There are people who "drive" the company and connect it
to the outside world bringing in sales and business (potential), and then
there are those that "do" the work and fulfill plans (capability).

Its a lot easier to scale up capability than it is to scale up potential.
However, the reverse of this is not true. Its CONSIDERABLY easier to kill
off your organization's potential than it is to wipe out capability. A
single lost executive can wipe out a company's entire potential as a
viable business. But a single lost writer will likely have a negigible
effect on the business as a whole.

You can always hire another writer. You cannot just "hire" a customer
base. Potential must be built carefully over a long period. Whereas
capability can be ramped up rather quickly. This is why we have
contractors in the world.

Many businesses built entire empires on selling things they don't quite
have yet. Microsoft basically made itself off a deal with IBM, when they
didn't even OWN the operating system they sold IBM. You might consider
that an abomination, but I have news for you - that's the way business
works. If companies truly had all the capability they claim to have in
their marketing and sales brochures, 99% of the products you buy would
cost considerably more. The pressure to keep things inexpensive and mass
produce has a fascinating effect on how organizations must manage and
control resources.
<<<


An excellent summation of The Way Things Are, which often is nothing like
The Way We Think Things Should Oughta Be. People that figure this out have
a much higher employment rate than the altruistic "nobody appreciates how
much thought I put into my style guide" types.

I've watched the processes Andrew described taking place in my own
company, which has drastically reduced its own headcount, while still
maintaining many of its executive and sales resources. I attribute my
survival of a NINETY percent reduction in workforce to the fact that I now
write sales proposals,as opposed to "straight" documentation. Everybody I
used to work with on the doc team is long gone now.

In Jane's case, I wonder if she will truly be allowed a chance to save her
own job, or if this was really a diplomatic attempt at softening the blow
by warning her in advance of her impending layoff. I hope it's the former.

If it is, perhaps if she goes down to part time, or offers to share her
abilities with other portions of her company, she'll be able to hang in
there. I hope she can! I think she should look for any possible
opportunity to contribute to her company, be it in marcomm, the Web, or
whatever. But she may already be doing this.

I hope they have offered her a valid chance to save her job. I've not seen
that done, but I'm willing to be optimistic. My fingers are crossed (which
makes it hard to type).

Good luck Jane!



Keith Cronin
___________________

Tech writers. You can't fire ALL of us. Then who'd make the coffee in the
morning?


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Check out the new release of RoboDemo, our easy-to-use tutorial software.
Plus, buy RoboHelp Office in August and save $100 with our mail-in rebate.
Get details and download free trial versions at http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

Acrobat & FrameMaker Seminars: PDF Best Practices, FrameMaker-to-Acrobat
Advanced Techniques, FM Template Design, Single Sourcing with FrameMaker
in Brussels (Oct), and in Montreal & Dallas (Dec): http://www.microtype.com/1

---
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.