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Re: Hi-Tech Company Hasn't Used Tech Writers in Years
Subject:Re: Hi-Tech Company Hasn't Used Tech Writers in Years From:"John Posada" <writer -at- tdandw -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sun, 26 Oct 2003 12:22:34 -0500
This is all fine and I understand it. However, the problem
attributed to the whole thing should not be "the
documentation was too good."
The documentation was wrong for the purpose. It was good for
the purpose of the defense contractor, but the reason the
department was fired was the documentation did not meet it's
required purpose.
This isn't a ding on the people doing the writing. They did
what they were told. The documents were simply wrong for
their intended purpose, even though the "wrong" was
intentional by design.
Example...and you may remember this as a print ad from Apple
years ago when they were selling the concept of a word
processor...a model of a shirt is given to a garment maker
who is to make 10,000 copies of the shirt. However, the
shirt has a burn hole through the shirt. The garment maker
makes 10,000 shirts with a burn mark.
The shirt is perfect. It is also wrong
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
writer[at]tdandw.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
> But in this case, the "ultimate purpose" of the
documentation,
> in the eyes of corporate management, is to meet the
contract
> requirements. Defense contracting isn't the only place
left
> where documents are considered nothing more than extra
> packing material that has to be included with "the real
product,"
> but it's probably the place where the attitude is the most
visible.
> And I think that MIL docs have definitely gotten worse
since
> most contracts were changed from cost+ to fixed price.
>
> > If the documents are not meeting their ultimate purpose,
> > then regardless of who is doing what, the documents are
not
> > doing what they are supposed to. The rest is just a way
of
> > passing blame to someone/somewhere else.
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