Re: Changed topic to skills we need - Warning! I am wordy.

["Sharon Burton-Hardin" <sharonburton -at- earthlink -dot- net>]

Tony said:

 I'm currently learning Java.  I recently obtained an in-depth knowledge of
 Sybase SQL - performing alot of complex database joins can get real
"hairy"!
 I do public speaking at a volunteer organization that I belong to - a
 difficult thing for me to do, but I enjoy the challenge.  Why are you being
 so defensive by throwing out such falsehoods?  I don't tell falsehoods
about
 you.

Sharon:
OK. So I am wrong. I frequently am. Through email it is difficult to get a
feel for a person. But I do meet an awful lot of people, in and out of our
business, that narrow their world in the way I was suggesting.

Tony also said:
What you are saying is that you are good at everything: end-user task
analysis, estimating, project management, DTP, pre-production, - everything.
 You might be, but few others are.  I've seen alot of technical
communicators in action; I'll restate: To the degree that a TW devotes
his/her energy in "manufacturing" tasks, he/she devotes less energy in
"planning" tasks.

Then sharon said:
No, I am not good at everything. I have to be good at a lot cause I own the
place. But I know what I am not so good at and keep people around me that
are good at those other things - for example, I slip into passive voice too
often and my marketing writing sucks. I also struggle with complex
accounting stuff - so I have a bookkeeper. But perhaps another reason I am
good at a lot of this stuff is that our client base are the small companies
who don't have a full time staff and needs someone to handle all that stuff
so they get a manual(s) with a minimum of bother. All this other stuff makes
a huge difference to them because they don't have to do it.

The point to all this is that the time spent learning about designing
effective online docs, for example, is not actually time taken from
writing/planning. Without a good design that meets the users needs, all our
planning and writing is wasted. (I still have the first help I did. Ouch!
Really bad. Even I can't figure it out.)

Finally, my point was and continues to be that we have to do all this stuff
because this is what the employers/client can afford. So it behooves us to
be as good as we can in everything, and know who is better than you are when
you have to work where you are not good. In a perfect world, maybe this
would not be the case. I probably would not do well there, however. But one
of my problems in grad school was that I was a generalist - I am so
interested in so very much!

sharon

Sharon Burton-Hardin
President of the Inland Empire chapter of the STC
www.iestc.org
Anthrobytes Consulting
www.anthrobytes.com
Check out www.WinHelp.net!
See www.sharonburton.com!


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| Tony Markatos
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