Standardization for non-documentation documents

[Patty Ewy <pewy -at- ICONTROL -dot- COM>]

Hello all--

I have been given the task of helping set document standards for documents
*other than* documentation that are produced by our company (right now only
user manuals are considered "documentation" here, and as such are the only
docs that have any standards whatsoever.)

What I am looking for is information about what sorts of standards other
companies have in place.  We need to start at ground zero here:  right now,
we have "official" docs that have no date, no author, no revision number,
etc.  I need to be able to outline requirements for all kinds of docs, from
letters to customers to product specifications.  (BTW, if you have any hints
about how to get others to buy off and actually *use* the standards, once
set, that'd be great ...)

We have a style guide that we tech writers use--do other companies routinely
require others in the company to follow the same guidelines?  What about
revision history on things like product specifications--shouldn't there be a
history summary at the end of each new release of a document that says how
this version differs from the previous?

Any help would be very appreciated...

Patty Ewy
pewy -at- icontrol -dot- com

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