RE: A dark take on Tech Writing...do you agree?

["Leonard C. Porrello" <Leonard -dot- Porrello -at- SoleraTec -dot- com>]

I think it is an uncalled for slight to alien engineers. If there are
any aliens who are knowledgeable about humans, I wonder if they say
things like, "What a piece of garbage; what did you do, have it designed
by humans?!"

Leonard ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- c
om] On Behalf Of Keith Hood
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 11:36 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com; Gene Kim-Eng
Subject: Re: A dark take on Tech Writing...do you agree?

Good line - I'm working on a story where I can use that after I file off
the serial number.

I have also seen my share of things that seemed designed to violate the
tenets of known good development methods. They seem to cluster in
projects run by and for government agencies. 

I've worked places where all the technical writing was under the control
of the sales & marketing group. The logic in each place was, most of the
company's technical writing was for the use of customers (help systems,
white papers, etc.). That meant the CRM aspects of the documents were
paramount, so the docs had to be done according to guidelines determined
by the marketing people. In those places the work seemed to go pretty
much the same as in other companies - the main difference was in having
to make it more the content more "personable" than it might otherwise
have been.


--- On Wed, 11/5/08, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:

> I've
> encountered many products that convinced me they sprouted
> from some sort of alien pod rather than from an engineering
> process.
> 
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