Re: Great piece on marketing collateral
if your experience is that people aren't
reading the documentation they're being provided, what is the alternate
strategy to support your product's information needs?
Gene,
I think there is a limit to what we can get other people to do. As Dorothy Parker observed when she was challenged to use _horticulture_ in a sentence, "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."
Aliterate people will read what they want to read. That is not the same as saying they will read what you and I want them to read. I'm quite certain that most of the folks at our company have read the instructions for the various features of their Blackberry devices, cell phones, CD players, digital radios, and whatever other high-tech toys they have. I'm sure, as well, that they take their cars in for routine maintenance. But can I bribe them to follow a four-step procedure once a year to update their PowerPoint templates? No. Can I cajole or scare them into remembering to lock the office doors when they're the last to leave at night? No. Similarly, I guarantee that when an email from the CEO pops into their mailboxes, they read it. But I know, because I track it, that several people get around to deleting messages from me, unread, sometimes as long as six months after I send them out.
I think it is a lot of fun to create attractive, well organized, well written documents that are focused on what needs to be communicated to the intended audience. I don't ever expect that anyone will read them, though, and I'm always delighted when someone does. The world is full of people who manage to get their jobs done--maybe not as efficiently as possible--without ever resorting to RTFM. I don't accept responsibility for what they do or don't read. Life's too short.
Look. My CEO is a heck of a guy--very smart, very intuitive with people, a Sunday school teacher and youth group leader in his church. But when he takes his family to Paris, do they go to the Louvre? Tour the cathedrals? Enjoy the food and the culture? No. They go to EuroDisney. Why? Because that's their choice, and it's not my job to tell other people what choices to make. Even if all they have to do is click a button on the interface.
Dick
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ROBOHELP X5 - ALL NEW VERSION. Now with Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author support, PDF and XML support and much more!
Now is the best time to buy - special end of month promos, including:
$100 mail-in rebate; Free online orientation on content management
functionality; Huge savings on support and future product releases;
PLUS Great discounts on RoboHelp training. OFFER EXPIRES April 30th! Call 1-800-358-9370 or visit: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
Follow-Ups:
- Re: Great piece on marketing collateral, eric . dunn
References:
Re: Great piece on marketing collateral: From: Gene Kim-Eng
Re: Great piece on marketing collateral: From: Gene Kim-Eng
Previous by Author:
Re: Great piece on marketing collateral
Next by Author:
Re: Great piece on marketing collateral
Previous by Thread:
Re: Great piece on marketing collateral
Next by Thread:
Re: Great piece on marketing collateral
Search our Technical Writing Archives & Magazine
Visit TechWhirl's Other Sites
Sponsored Ads