Re: A technique to get on development's good side

Subject: Re: A technique to get on development's good side
From: "Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 10:39:32 -0700


----- Original Message ----- From: "Poster" <Poster -at- aurora -dot- cotse -dot- net>

This is quite confusing to me. I always view myself as a user
advocate, and I expect that everyone at every level to think of
themselves as the same. Why? Without the user, there would be no
company. If the tech writer (and others) are not interested in seeking
to better the product by fulfilling more of the user's needs, then the
company is out of synch with its audience.

Users have lots of needs. Some of them you may be able to meet with a reasonable return on investment, others may sink you.
As a writer or publications manager, you may often be able to do
the necessary research to determine what your customers need,
think they need or just want, but you will almost never be in a
position to know which of these is going to be the one that will be
your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and which will be the iceberg pointed at your bow. The successful product or service is not the one that meets more or all of your customers' needs, but the one that meets the needs that they're most willing to pay a price
for that will produce an acceptable profit to your company after all
your costs have been deducted.
Why, I thought that market research was part of the TW experience!
Seriously, in some companies I realize that MR is a separate position,
but it's never been the case in any TW position that I've had.

It often is in small companies, especially in startups where there
may not be people with specific expertise in market research and
everyone is doing the best they can based on their specific areas of
experience (design, writing, etc.). I probably don't need to mention
the high percentage of failure among startups. :)

Gene Kim-Eng



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References:
Re: A technique to get on development's good side: From: Mike O.
Re: A technique to get on development's good side: From: John Bartol
Re: A technique to get on development's good side: From: Gene Kim-Eng
Re: A technique to get on development's good side: From: Poster

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