RE: tech pubs organizational question

["Lurker writer" <lurker_writer -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Apoligies for the diatribe...

I have to agree with Bill and some comments from Jason on this issue. From 
my many years experience in the hardware world, in an organization that is 
engineering driven (versus market- or customer-driven), you're at the mercy 
of the people who populate the 0s-and-1s universe. Unless you happen to work 
for an enlightened engineering manager and team, engineering won't give a 
rat zass about any issues other than the technical accuracy of the content.

The plus side: you can become very well versed in a product or technology 
and you establish closer ties to SMEs. As you become more educated in the 
product or technology, you'll start to be appreciated more like a team 
member rather than the little brother who's always trying to tag along with 
big brother and his friends.

Make sure budget $$ is available for your training/skills development needs 
if you're going to be working in such an environment. Maintain contact with 
other writers in your company. At a previous employer, writers were deeply 
embedded in the engineering teams and there was a feeling of isolation, not 
unlike Tom Hanks in "Castaway." OK, that's an exaggeration, but we came 
close to using secret handshakes to identify each other in the halls. I 
started a "Company X FrameMaker User's Group" and scheduled monthly meetings 
just so like-minded people could assemble. That wasn't as successful as I 
had planned. People were too busy to attend the meetings. The company 
sponsored (they covered expenses) a "Company X Technical Communicators 
Association" that met annually immediately after the STC conference. That 
was very successful as TWs from all over the globe would meet for 2.5 days 
and focus on issues common to all business units. The company stopped 
supporting that effort in 1998 shortly before I left.