Re: Writer vs Author (was Techwriting after the boom)

[Andrew Plato <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

"Michael West" <mbwest -at- bigpond -dot- net -dot- au> wrote in message news:201555 -at- techwr-l -dot-  -dot-  -dot- 
> 
> If this were true, I would be asking the following questions:
> 
> 1. Define "technical".
> 2. How close is the CIO to the audience for whom
>     the publications are designed?
> 3. What are the users saying about the publications,
>     and how does the CIO know? Are there other
>     people in the organization who might have a different
>     perspective on what the end-users are asking for?
> 4. What analysis has been done to assess end-user
>     needs and skills?
> 5. What publication design strategies have been tried,
>     and how effective were they, and how does the CIO
>     know that?

All of these questions, while interesting, are not of concern to most
executives. Executives want to see that writers understand the business, the
market, and the technologies in use. They don't care about the process of tech
writing, they care about the results. Presumably, tech writers are
professionals and the processes they use produces good results. When that
process produces poop, then clearly the writer isn't up to par.

Your questions therefore demonstrate why many places dislike tech writers. The
questions, with the first as a possible exception, show a deep concern with the
"process" of publishing documents not the content (results). Many people,
myself included, find it laughable and absurd that a person with the title
"technical writer" refuses to focus on the content of their own documentation.
I've laughed with engineers and executives in meetings about the state of
technical writers, and the overwhelming attitude is that tech writers are
annoying and mostly unqualified because they will not focus on the content. 

A few years ago an IT director said to me, in exasperation (I am paraphrasing
here), "We had some writer here last year - dumb as a rock. No matter how many
times we explained the software to her, she just would not get it. All she did
is play around with fonts and styles all day. Her material was complete shit.
We had to re-do everything after she left."  I've heard that story so many
times, its not even funny. 

Question: Why are there so many writers out there who keep consistently
producing bad documentation? 

Answer: those writers have based their work on incorrect assumptions about
their job. In other words, they focus on the process and not the results. A
good process does not necessarily yield good results. And the outside world
judges work on results, not process. I've said this a thousand times to this
list, and yet there are always a few people who just refuse to accept this
universal reality of life.  Nobody cares one tiny iota how you do your job.
They just want to see good results. 

Thus, executives don't give a rip about documentation strategies. They only
care about results. So if you asked these questions to an executive, they would
likely answer - I don't know and I don't really care. I just want documentation
that sells more products. Process is easy to fix. Lost customers because the
docs suck is hard to fix.

Now, you can ignore my advice and perspective - many people here do. But the
fact is, you're never going to impress people with a really swell process.
Results are all the matter in this world. And if processes cannot produce
results, then there isn't much of a reason for even using them. 

Andrew Plato 

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Robohelp X3, from eHelp, lets you quickly and easily create 
professional Help systems for all your Windows and Web-based 
applications, including Net.

Buy RoboHelp Office X4 by June 13th and receive
$100 mail-in rebate, Plus FREE RoboHelp Plus Pack.

Order RoboHelp today: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

---
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.