Re: Writer vs Author (was Techwriting after the boom)
All of these questions, while interesting, are not of concern to mostI clearly agree with Andrew on this one. I remember one evening at an art opening for a photographer friend of mine. A lady was looking at a gelatin-silver (B&W) print of a waterfall and remarking how beautiful it was. The photographer started to go into great detail about how he waited until the light was right, shot at a low speed to soften the falling water, then used UFG with Ilford Bromophen to get the contrast to make the picture pop. The lady more or less said, "That's nice, it's still a good picture." The moral of the story is most customers (executives in this case would be our customers) are more interested in the final product and not in the minute details on how we create it. While it is true that some executives may know a little about technical writing and publishing techniques, their job is to run the department (division, enterprise, etc.) and ensure products are completed and deadlines are met. We writers, on the other hand, need to know who to create a professional product out of the gobblygook handed us by developers, SME's, marketing, etc. Michael West's questions are all valid from a technical writing standpoint, but not from an executive's viewpoint.
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.
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