TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Hi All,
(Cross posted to STC Mgrs list)
I've been involved in producing a marketing doc and would be the first to
admit that my involvement in it has been sort of half-a@@%&. Here's the
skinny.
Marketing wanted to do rewrite of our overview white paper. They said -
"Hey, can you help us gather together the latest info." I said okay, scraped
together some content from the docs we've been working on, and dropped it in
the old paper. The whole time this is taking place I'm saying - hey, I'm
sorry, this is sorta half-a@@%& - a lot of other things have priorty over
this right now... I chased down some review comments on the text, looking
for technical accuracy, compiled with Marketing's changes, and sent the
whole thing off to one of our Sr. Engineers for some feedback on the black
box part of our technology.
"That is when I made my last mistake", sings Lyle.
Major harsh review ensues. After the initial pain, I accept that the
reviewer has excellent points indeed. Because she does. And a harsh review
now is so much better than such a thing after publication.
I accept that there are many broken things about what happened here. Many
lessons learned.
But there are things that I don't know how to fix.
1. I feel sorta stupid. Yeah, bruised ego, get over it. Since I was the one
who sent the copy on to the Engineer to review, I'm taking the heat for the
quality. I look BAD. Even worse, my team looks BAD. I hate that.
2. Marketing does not have a writer.Marketing has no intention of hiring a
writer. The driver for this project and for all subsequent publications is
fairly non-technical.
3. The head of marketing doesn't understand. I met with our first VP of
marketing when she started. We agreed that marketing and tech comm would
have pretty much nothing to do with each other. It was all hearts and
flowers. She's gone now and has been replaced with a sales VP who thinks
tech comm can produce custom online help for our customers at V1.
*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available 4/30/01 at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com
Sponsored by DigiPub Solutions Corp, producers of PDF 2001
Conference East, June 4-5, Baltimore/Washington D.C. area. http://www.pdfconference.com or toll-free 877/278-2131.
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
