Re: If you had 15 minutes...

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

Perhaps it's just a personal failing of mine, but in all the years I've been 
doing this I have never once succeeded in convincing a company or organization 
that had no respect for technical writers or the job they do to change its 
attitude.  I was once asked by the CEO of a company I was interviewing with how 
I might deal with such a situation, and my answer was that I would probably have 
the conversation I was having with him with the CEO of my next company, because 
corporate attitudes about the importance of any department or function were 
always created from the top down (I got the job, btw).

If you're working in the right environment, making a case that something is 
important enough to document will result in light bulbs going off in peoples' 
heads and a request for tech writer support.  If not, you may as well save your 
energy and enthusiasm for the interview with your next employer.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pinkham, Jim" <Jim -dot- Pinkham -at- voith -dot- com>
> That's not a bad idea, Bill, and our OP could likely benefit by trying
> it. However, I'm not sure I'd dismiss what Suzette proposes, out of
> hand, as "preaching," either.
>
> One of the main things that gets us hired, and keeps us employed, is the
> presumption that our work, at some level, is profitable for the
> enterprise. If Viv can creatively illumine some of the ways (or perhaps
> just one way at a time) how her work adds value, that's not a bad thing.
> I'd not be generic about it, because you're right: Declaiming at some
> theoretical level about the value of technical communications isn't
> likely to inspire the average Joe or Jane. But if there are ways to
> exemplify how the specific things Viv does are for "the good of the
> order" and address the needs of the customers who provide the bread and
> butter, that's a different story.

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