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Subject:Re: Career paths for technical writers From:David Castro <thetechwriter -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 24 Jun 2003 06:32:56 -0700 (PDT)
> I'd like to hear about the different types of work list members do beyond
> the traditional manuals/help files/etc, especially from those who have been
> with the same company for a while. How did you get involved in these
> different types of work, and how did your technical writing experience help
> you with these projects?
At a Development Meeting (the once or twice a year I have to fly in to my
company's office), the VP of R&D talked about wanting a way to make APARs and
PTFs (updates to our mainframe product) available for our users without having
to provide access to our FTP site and assuming that they would be able to
figure out which file to download.
I spoke up with an idea of putting the documents on our web server, and using
JSP to password-protect the content. The VP looked at me with surprise, and
told me that he didn't know that I knew how to do that. I told him he never
asked. :-)
Apparently, the word didn't get passed on, because our Marcom person got a
quote from a contractor for doing the support web site. When she emailed it
out, I couldn't *believe* the price tag on the project. Either I was a lot more
efficient than this fellow, or he was padding the project, or he made a lot
more per hour than I would have ever considered charging!
So I wrote up a counterproposal, as though I was bidding on the job. I put the
number of hours that it would take me for each of the punch list items, and
pointed out that I would be much more available for bug fixes, if it proved
necessary.
They decided that giving me two weeks to put this together was easier and
faster (and cheaper) than hiring this other fellow. I was done in 4 days. (It's
good to underestimate and overdeliver!)
As for how tech writing made my work better...I think that I put a higher
concentration on the steps that it takes to get something done. And I provided
ToolTips for all of the form elements, which I was able to write myself. A
contractor may or may not have thought to add those. Coming from the inside,
knowing the problem the web app was supposed to solve, and knowing who to talk
to also made things flow more smoothly.
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