Re: Satisfaction (was ... Re: The value of technical writers)

[Tom <eagles -at- CONNECTION -dot- COM>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cam Whetstone

> This hardware
> sells for $xx,xxxx, that program sells
> for $yy,yyyy.  The technical
> documentation does not sell--it is
> given away with the equipment.

Well, nobody would buy speedometers if they didn't
have a vehicle in which to use it. You could say
that the speedometer is "given away" with the
equipment (car), or you could say it is built into
the price of the equipment - depending on whether
you are a salesman or an accountant.

Sometimes, the manuals actually ARE sold. I worked
for Lotus. They "gave away" the online manuals,
but they sold the printed ones. Countless
publishers sell countless software "how-to" books
that are nothing more than glorified manuals (some
of them are even written "for dummies").

> Therefore, the documentation group is
> overhead.  they subtract from the
> profit, they do not pay the bills.  Is
> this valid?  I don't think so,
> but most engineering managers I've
> worked with think that way.

Most? Some I've worked with thought that way.
Again, you COULD tell them the story of the
neurologist who confided to the writer that he
planned to write a book when he retired. The
writer responded that he planned to do some brain
surgery when HE retired. Nuff said.

> Also, most of the engineers and
> managers do not understand what we do.

Show them a bad user guide. Tell them it was
probably written by an engineer. Show them a good
user guide - yours, for instance (it better be
good). That should say it all.

> They feel anyone *can* write, even they
> themselves wrote papers in
> college.

Did they? What was the criteria for marking? Did
they get marks for grammar, spelling, composition,
ease of understanding, creativity, or
presentation? Not likely. Companies that
understand the value of docs have probably spent
some money on usability testing. Have any of the
companies you've worked for? (it doesn't sound
like it)

> What do we do that is so
> special?  That is the mindset of
> those we work with.  Is it any wonder I
> sometimes feel like a second
> class citizen.

If that's their mindset and you can't change it,
leave. I would. I've been attempting to change the
mindset of a manager I work with - he's finally
coming around, after I showed him the flaws in his
documents, red-inked his errors and showed him my
version of the same document. If you can tactfully
show an intelligent person that they are wrong,
they'll usually listen. It's just a matter of
having people skills (speaking for myself, it's an
area which I recognize still needs a lot of work).

> I remember a social worker once
> espoused her theory that garbage
> collectors should earn as much as
> doctors because we need them too.

Well, that's an absurd extension of our
discussion. Consider the supply/demand rule. Not
everyone CAN write. Not everyone is WILLING to
collect garbage for a living. However, there are a
hell of a lot more people who are WILLING to
collect garbage than there are people who CAN
write good user documentation. I don't expect to
make as much as a neurologist, but I do appreciate
being respected for my work - and would lose
respect for any neurologist who thought that just
anybody could do MY job - since, after all, it's
not brain surgery <g>.

> didn't listen to her theory, and I
> doubt that managers are listening to
> ours.

See above. Perhaps the argument needs a second
draft.

> They need our output.  However
> it is secondary to the product.

Humbly disagree. Without the proper docs, (that's
documentation, not doctors) brain surgeons may
scoop out the wrong chunk of the grey stuff and
leave the patient with wits as dim as those of a
technical communicator. <bg>

Tom Eagles
Technical Communicator
eagles -at- connection -dot- com

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=