Re: Isolation and the technical communicator

[Melonie Holliman <mrh -at- ABMDATA -dot- COM>]

Howdy,

I think it depends on what you are doing. I had a contract once where I only
talked with my SME for about 15 minutes once a week. And that was just
to get my timesheet signed and give a progress report. The job was a bunch
of conversions; I did not need any information from the SME beyond the
original assignment.

Now, I am a lone writer for a small company so I do not have interaction with
other writers or editors. The majority of my job consists of someone handing
me an assignment and either some old documents or a new software. I am
expected to create something from that then hand it over for review. The majority
of my day is spent in an office with the door shut and only my computer for company.

I do have to communicate with SME's every once in awhile. Since most of them
would much rather communicate via email, I often do not need direct communication.
I do have to attend meetings and I will even work with one of the marketing folks every
once in awhile. Still, the majority of my day is spent alone.

Again, I think it depends on your position. I have worked in big companies with
a team of writers and engineers doing BIG documents. In that situation, isolation
was not an option (I also did not get near as much actual work done).

Different jobs have different characteristics. What a concept!

Melonie Holliman
ABM Data Systems, Inc.
Austin, TX
(mrh -at- abmdata -dot- com)


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Some writers perfer to work in isolation?   I don't get this.  Technical
writing is procedure specification.  And procedure is turf.  To get it
the writer has to go out and "drag-it-out" of the end user or SME.  The
ability to do such is key to success.  I really can not see how any
technical writer can efficiently and effectively function in isolation.

Tony Markatos
(tonymar -at- hotmail -dot- com)