RE: Promotion (was RE: IT documentation

[Mailing List <mlist -at- ca -dot- rainbow -dot- com>]

John Posada [mailto:JPosada -at- isogon -dot- com] is reported to have said:

> Doing your job well is to all the time, every day, with 
> everything you do or everything you touch, look for a 
> better/cheaper/faster/more competitive way of doing 
> it...something that impacts the bottom line. 

Hmm.  I learn about the new product or the updated product, 
and I write about it. Until recently, we had been doing 
a Setup Guide and some stray sheets as paper documents and 
all else as PDF. Recently (because we were bought by a 
company that had decided to go that way) I switched over 
to producing a QuickStart Guide (very much like that Setup 
Guide) and some stray sheets as paper documents, and all 
the rest (product Concepts, Configuration, Integration, 
Administration, Reference, etc.) as WebHelp.  Brought us 
in line with the new owners, and let me shine for a few 
months, but didn't save much money. Will probably save a 
tiny bit due to greater re-use of doc components, but I 
was already re-using a lot, anyway.

I'd love some suggestions on how to affect the bottom line.
My current pet project is an uphill battle to have us 
switch from an obscure CLI (command line interface) to 
a Webb-ish interface. It would not take very much work on 
the part of developers, but it would take a bit. Everybody 
nods and says what a good idea and how it would make our 
product look so much more polished and mature, etc., but 
it has managed to get left out of every project for the 
past three years because it's not a money-making feature. 
Marketing and Biz-Dev can't see where anybody will buy more 
units (the margins are already quite comfortable, per unit) 
if there's a sensible, structured GUI/Web admin interface.

So, where SHOULD I be looking. It's not like I can save us 
money on print costs. We sell smallish quantities of high-end 
products, so print runs are tiny (for the only remaining 
printed documents). There are no further savings that I can 
see now that everything else is Help.

I could volunteer to take on greater duties in documenting 
the requirements (though that would crimp the style of the 
people whose job it already is, and I already attend the 
meetings and make suggestions and ask semi-intelligent 
questions), or the functional specs, though our senior 
architect writes as he conceptualizes, including his hints 
on how development should proceed, and he's at least as good 
a writer as I am.  I'd be adding a layer, and not really saving 
anybody any work -- just shifting it.
 
> I may be naïve, but I need to believe that if you do this 
> consistently (and not just before review time), a company 
> MUST recognize you because if you don't, they don't just 
> loose you, they loose the possibility of future bottom-line impacts.
 
> >lone writer and the sr. technical writer, 
> >what is there to be promoted to?
> 
> Manager of the Documentation Department (of 1), though with 
> more money.

Around here, there are rules that preclude somebody 
who supervises no-one from being a manager.  Self-supervision 
doesn't count, and besides, everybody reports to somebody. 
Nobody in the company does her/his own performance evaluations.

Besides, while I report to the PV (some call it QA) manager
(who reports to the Engineering honcho), I'm protected in an 
environment that is VERY conducive to getting good technical 
docs produced... much more so than if I was reporting to 
(say) Marketing (also, our Marketing crew is being laid 
off and the functions consolidated in Maryland -- I'm in 
Ottawa, Canada).

The latest purchasing company has a couple of writers who 
are under the command of a Marketing type. They do ok, but 
their product cycles are longer. They actually have some 
time after the hardware and software are frozen... not like 
our nimble little organization where I'm delivering reviewed 
and signed-off document sets sometimes minutes after the 
real code freeze.  

What are some of these bottom-line improving strategies?
John, you are not likely to ever come to Ottawa seeking 
consultant work (snowy and wet and cold and ick-ick-ick 
located in Canada.... :-), so any hints that you give 
away to me won't be stepping on your own future income 
opportunities.  Ahem.  

/kevin (senior writer and only writer since being hired here 
        in 1998)