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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:"Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sun, 26 Oct 2003 11:11:58 -0800
Without knowing the full history that preceded the remark and the
firing, we can't know if the people doing the writing did what they
were told, or if they engaged in an unwanted effort to try to make
the company's documentation meet their own personal standards
of "good" or "better." I've seen this sort of thing happen before,
when writers attempt to be "user advocates" and "push for better
products," but fail to take note of the fact that the documentation
is already meeting all the requirements adequately in the eyes of
their employers and that their additional efforts are unwelcome.
As for the Apple example, the applicable question would be,
did the shirts as made, "wrong" or not, meet the requirements
set forth by the customer, and did the customer's requirements
provide the vendor with the flexibility to deviate from those
requirements if it made sense to do so? When you lay out rigid
and detailed requirements, as the DoD often does, you have no
one to blame but yourself when your vendors follow them to the
letter.
Gene Kim-Eng
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Posada" <writer -at- tdandw -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 9:22 AM
Subject: Re: Hi-Tech Company Hasn't Used Tech Writers in Years
>
> 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
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