Techwriter Justification

Subject: Techwriter Justification
From: Suzette Leeming <suzette -dot- leeming -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:50:43 -0400


Thanks to all who responded to my query. I know it's difficult to
come up with ratios of developers to techwriters, but I wanted to have
a reality check to see if my assumption that it should be a full time
job was realistic.

By "everything I can give them by September", I meant printed docs and
online help as a minimum. The software is developed in Progress and
pertains to the financial industry, for example, there are modules to
deal with retail banking, investments, mortgages & loans, accounting,
etc. Quite complex, each module's current documentation consists of
several hundred pages (and in the case of loans, a couple of thousand
pages).

They loved what I presented to them and want a world class
documentation suite - their issue is paying the price for it. They
don't feel it is a full time job, and therefore want me to work in
customer support answering calls, while I work on the docs in my
"spare" time.

Now, they did ask me if I would be willing to "help out" in customer
service initially, but when I realized yesterday exactly how much time
that would take, I started to panic a bit. I'm not a customer service
type person, just a lowly techwriter trying to do a good job.

My next step is to find out who their main competitor is, and how many
techwriters they have ~ presumably the software will have some
similarities.

Thanks again for the input.

Suzette Leeming

--
The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as
long as life remains.
- Josephine Baker

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