Re: Important Stuff They Don't Teach In Tech Writing School

["Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- granatedit -dot- com>]

Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
>
> I mean that the same features that supported the needs of the
> product's intended customer base could also support a number
> of other applications, but a marketing analysis indicated that
> the potential revenue that could be brought in by advertising
> those applications to a different customer base could never
> equal the cost of supporting those customers with documents,
> tech support, etc., so a strategic decision was made to reply
> to all inquiries about such potential applications with "that
> application is not supported."  In other words, "we're not
> claiming the product can do that, we're not instructing anyone
> on how the product might be made to do it and we accept
> no responsibility or liability if someone tries to use the
> product in any manner other than what we advertise and
> instruct and the results are bad."  You'll find similar
> statements in the fine print of most product documents.
> Under those conditions, a tech writer who continues to try
> to document the unsupported features and defends the effort
> with the mantra of "customer advocacy" has definitely lost
> sight of his/her objectives.
>

Gracious goodness! Of course. This is grounds for dismissal in most
places. Some even call it "insubordination." A technical writer
*arguing* with supervisors and developers over WHAT to document? I find
that incredible, actually, but then, perhaps I am naive.

Bonnie Granat
www.GranatEdit.com
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Mobile: 617-319-7461
Office: 617-354-7084



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ROBOHELP X5: Featuring Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author
support, PDF and XML support and much more!
TRY IT TODAY at http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrl

WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT: New! Document review system for Word and FrameMaker
authors. Automatic browser-based drafts with unlimited reviewers. Full
online discussions -- no Web server needed! http://www.webworks.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.