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Re: Need help please

Subject: Re: Need help please
From: Annamaria Profit <inteltek2 -at- earthlink -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 15:13:49 -0500

Nancy,

I recently worked with a wacko like that too! Worse--he couldn't construct a coherent sentence without editing. He wrote like Professor Erwin Corey spoke! (Can anyone remember that comedian?) (Actually it was about 3 people, all from the same department--"new business"!) The trouble with that kind of structure (outside having to deal with a megalomaniac without a clue) is that marketing and documentation have different agendas. Marketing's job is to spin the text to sell a product, to promote it, to entice customers. What happens in that kind of environment, is that the facts get laundered in the promotion--sometimes bleached beyond recognition. This guy probably wants you to submit all text to him to meet two requirements--he saves time and energy by not having to actually write the text himself, and can launder the text to serve his interests, not documentation's. In addition he gets to stroke himself in control/command mode! ; ))) Sorry sister, you're going to have to outsmart him, negotiate, or live with the stupidity.

At 12:47 PM 10/30/01 -0700, Nancy Mignone wrote:

We are a new company, and I have a problem. My problem is the head of marketing, a VP.
This gentleman is very creative and intelligent. He also considers techncial writing as a subset of marketing.
For example, at the moment marketing is developing a white paper on software architecture. I've never worked in a shop where that documentation type is done by marketing.
He considers that all white papers to be marketing's responsibility, with the content provided by marketing (him).
Look and feel, font colors and styles, bullet styles - all marketing. He insists on having input into and approval over everything that goes out publically, such as our Installation guide.
Are there any technical leads or department heads or field laborers like myself in TECHNICAL WRITING who can tell me what a reasonable division of work between technical writing and marketing might be?
Thanks.


Annamaria Profit
E-mail: inteltek2 -at- earthlink -dot- net
URL: http://home.earthlink.net/~inteltek2
"Where it is possible, live in peace with all men."


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Need help please: From: Nancy Mignone

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