Re: Creativity in Technical Communications

["M. Dannenberg" <midannen -at- SI -dot- BOSCH -dot- DE>]

Shlomo Ramon wrote:

> Hello Mike,
> you wrote: "technical writing requires creativity, otherwise the engineers
> could do it..."
> I beg to disagree with that statement, without starting a new major war.

Yet another sorry attempt at humour tragically misfired ...

My point was that most engineers I know can't write worth a damn, I
would of course not claim that engineers are not creative per se, i was
juzst trying to be funny.

> It just occurred to me that many good engineers lose the interest in their
> tasks once the design is completed and just could not be bothered to write
> proper user documentation because of lack of interest and because most were
> not taught the basics of how to..

Exactly. Here are two things that really piss me off:

Engineers who wouldn't recognise a good manual if it hit them on the
head, and yet think they know everything and can tell me how to do my
job.

Engineers who think that writing manuals is some kind of menial work far
below their dignity. (Again this is due to cluelessness)

To avoid the predictable flame-war: I don't think all engineers are like
that, but many are and they get on my nerves.

Mike

Mike Dannenberg
ETAS GmbH & Co.KG
midannen -at- si -dot- bosch -dot- de

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