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Subject:RE: outsourcing technical communication From:John Posada <JPosada -at- book -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 4 Nov 2002 16:20:13 -0500
>I do.
>
>Am really curious. If it's good, please share. If it's bad, please
>share. Just the facts. We are all mature enough to know that your good
>
Keep in mind that this was one experience and it may have nothing in common
with yours.
I was at a company where we outsourced web development and online help. The
problems we had would probably be typical with printed documentation.
The problem was on three fronts.
1) Maybe they used writers who's first language was not English (British or
otherwise), but the writing was, for lack of a better word, mechanical. Word
usage was like you'd expect from a SW translator, though not nearly as
bad...it was as if the person was trained on how to write, but didn't speak
it, so didn't have the ability to write it conversationally. it was very dry
and many sentences were much longer than they should have been.
OTOH, when it did go towards the conversational, one of the sentences that
sticks in my mind is "I'm thinking that you want to click the Next button
for the next step."
2) With the distance and time change difference, it was hard to just pick up
the phone and get a straight answer. Anything we wanted to know took 24
hours to resolve.
3) Moral...they needed to work with our developers. However, since the
developers knew that what they were doing could also be outsourced, they
didn't cooperate too well.
All in all, I don't know if there was a $$ benefit, but it wasn't a pleasant
experience and I wouldn't want to do it again.
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
Barnes&Noble.com
jposada -at- book -dot- com
212-414-6656
"Be accurate...the 4am wakeup call you prevent could be your manager's"
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