TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
At 07:29 18/10/95 EST, you wrote:
>A client called us the other day with an unusual question. His company is
>undergoing the rigors of global expansion, and each department therein is
>being asked for its own definition of what it means to be "World Class." Our
>contact, the only tech writer in the company, wanted our opinion of what it
>meant to produce world class documentation. Anybody out there care to take a
>cut at this? We'll pass the comments along to the client, and if there's
>enough interest, we'll assemble the comments into a list, too.
[...snip...]
______________________________________________________________
At 9:05 19/10/95, I wrote:
Interesting question.
I checked my dictionary (The Macquarie Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1990)...
"world-class, adj. sufficiently good to be acceptable anywhere in the world."
A minor problem. On the one hand the above definition holds true only if the
documentation is translated into many languages -- a sizable percentage of
the world's population doesn't understand english. On the other, is it safe
to assume the company's global audience understand english?
__________________________________________________
Geoff Bradbury - Technical Writer for InTEXT Systems
"Makers of extraordinarily fine text storage and retrieval software"
