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During a discussion here last year about the merits of Marketing vs
Engineering as a home for tech pubs, a couple of people mentioned the idea
of gathering responsibility for all publications, technical, marketing, and
sales material, into one department. I'd like to ask for comments from
people who are using this model, particularly those who've been involved in
setting it up. How is it working? What did you change from and why?
The particular situation is a small software house (40 people) with a niche
market and a recently appointed sole tech writer (not me) who has wide,
deep, and long experience in the whole publishing process. Marketing and
sales material, including the company website, is produced by a Marketing
Assistant and the VP of marketing. The company's management team has agreed
that their marketing and sales material, as well as their user
documents, have a lot of room for improvement. However the VP of marketing
can't see how a single pubs department, handling tech, sales and marketing
publications, would work, and doesn't know of any company that does this.
I'm on digest, so if you reply to the list it'll be a while before I can
respond.
