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Subject:Re: A "new understanding" about tech pubs From:"Mike O." <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sat, 7 Dec 2002 21:37:17 -0800 (PST)
Andrew writing about Company A:
> The writers at this company are pretty savvy and it shows.
> They clearly have command over their technology. They
> understand the benefits, value, and use of their product.
> As such, I have a lot more faith in this company and as such,
> I am going to sign a reseller agreement with them.
So clearly this company has the right attitude about the
importance of technical writing. They must have invested the
time and $$ into integrating their writers into the development
process and providing them with the resources to create topnotch
docs. Obviously they treated their tech writers as a crucial
part of the development team and now they are reaping the
benefits.
You can bet these writers got answers PDQ from their development
team when they needed answers, and they didn't have to sponsor a
pizza party and wash the developer's cars to get the
information.
Andrew writing about Company B:
> The docs were the standard tech doc crap: pages
> and pages of instructions with virtually no context or
> explanation. The writers took 10 pages to document every
> menu item. The writers clearly did not have command over
> the topic and as such, I am left to believe that the
> company doesn't really have their act together. I will
> not be signing a reseller agreement with that firm.
I'm guessing this company didn't understand the importance of
docs; they considered it a low-level support item so they left
it until the last minute and then went bottom-fishing for
somebody with "1-2 years experience" to do their docs.
In the end, every company gets the documentation they deserve.
Mike O.
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