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Subject:The Future of Tech Writing In America From:"William Sherman" <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Sat, 19 May 2012 16:16:30 -0400
I started a project recently that may have a glimpse of what many of us will
be facing in the future.
A large entertainment company outsources their infrastructure and data
support to a vendor. They have probably done this for years, I don't know.
Just recently, the contract for this support went to an Indian company and
so the vendor brought over a large team to do the transition work and
prepare to take everything, or as much as if feasible, to India to provide
support. However, they have had some snag on documentation, so they began a
hunt for a somewhat local technical writer to get all the documentation in
order in a two month timeframe. After that time, with it all done and
accepted, the documentation will also go to India for all updates and
maintenance.
My guess is that they had a problem trying to get an American spin on the
docs so that they fit into the American way of speaking and such. I'm
guessing that is why I have the initial shot at this, and once it is set in
an American tone, they can probably maintain it over there.
It is kind of ironic I'm on this since about 7 years ago, I was working at a
company that was trying to have roughly one fourth of the documentation
handled by a team in India. The rework and learning curve was such that
after 3 years, we called it quits as it was cheaper to do it in one or two
passes in the US than 6 to 10 passes in India. Now I'm on the other side of
the process.
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