Re: Yahoo has no staff tech writers

["Chuck Martin" <twriter -at- sonic -dot- net>]

"Andrew Plato" <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote in message
news:171725 -at- techwr-l -dot-  -dot-  -dot- 
> "Chuck Martin" <twriter -at- sonic -dot- net> wrote ...
> > I was just told this interesting piece of information today, and I think
it
> > quite remarkable if true. I was at this small job fair in downtown San
> > Francisco this morning (are there any job fairs in this economy that
aren't
> > small?) where Yahoo! had a booth. I asked if they hire tech writers to
work
> > on their extensive help/user assistance system and was told no, they
have no
> > tech writers of staff. The person said that they either hire contractors
> > when they need some writing done or they just have engineers write
content.
>

> > The attitude I perceived from this person is that the writing part of
> > technical communication can easily be done by people brought in at the
last
> > minute to create content, with no history and understanding of the
product's
> > design and no clue as to users' needs. More often than not, the role
that
> > this person plays is that of clean up, writing content to compensate for
> > programmers or marketing people designing things.
>
> The basic reason places like Yahoo do this are simply practical:
>
> 1. Most technical writers are incapable of understanding the technologies
being
> used. Therefore it is cheaper and easier to have engineering staff produce
the
> content and hire low-priced editors to merely clean up the mess.

I don't know if I'd say "most" technical writers.

However at a job fair on Monday, I was talking to a recruiiter who was
evaluating resumes. One suggestion he made was to put my degree higher (it's
now on the 2nd page with the rest of my education). He said that not many
technical writers have TC (or similar) degrees, that many writers are either
(a) people with English (or other non-technical) degrees, maybe with some
writing experience, who see the field as lucrative, but don't have the
technical savvy, or (b) other engineers who think that writing is easy and
will give them a break from their current stresses.

Meanwhile, I can say with pride that I not only fit either of those
categories, but that I'm (a) a damn fine writer, (b) very technically savvy,
and (c) passionate about my chosen career. I have no interest in doing
anything else, and I am regularly working to improve both my writing skills
and my technical knowledge.

Maybe I should take some time from my job search, install Linux on one of my
old computers, and set up the web server I've been wanting to.   :)

>
> 2. Most web sites move and change so quickly in response to market
conditions,
> documenting stuff is often a waste of time.

All the more reason to have someone on staff. Those changes are planned, and
a staff technical communicator can not only help in shaping new designs,
making them more usable, any needed additional documentation can be done as
the design is being implemented--without a need to ramp up and what's being
done. That's simply not the case with a contractor.

>
> A lot of places, Chuck, are having a hard time justifying writers when the
grand
> majority of writers in the market place are not capable of producing
valuable
> content. They are so obsessed with "shaping information" and other touchy
feely
> crap, that they can't produce valuable, insightful material.
>
> Moreover, I want to remind everybody here that Yahoo is one of the most
widely
> used, popular web sites in the world and it is marginally profitable. So
while
> they may have crappy help, it is obviously not hurting their business.
>
But their business is hurting. Many people who need to search for something
on the web, once Yahoo!'s bread and butter, now turn to somewhere else.
Heck, I even have Google's toolbar installed on my IE browser.

Plus, they are expanding into more and more web applications. Classifieds.
Bill paying. Travel. Etc. They over-reached, and then found that just
advertising didn't pay the bills for the additional resources they needed to
provide all that stuff. So they turned to a paying model--which turned many
customers away. For example, I no longer use Yahoo!'s personals. And I'm
getting disillusioned with their fantasy sports: although they are some of
the simplest to use, they are also providing less and less in the free,
advertiser-supported ones.

Their CEO has an attitute of stockholder first, not user first. I'd surmise
they are stil so popular because of (a) inertia (I still use My Yahoo! as my
default home page) and (b) they still catch some percentage of new Internet
users. But I bet the percentage of all Internet users who use Yahoo!
services has fallen, and will continue to fall.



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