RE: Thinking like a user, or sticking to tried and true?

["Sharon Burton" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com>]

I'm wondering how to justify supporting the fringe cases? If we have to
target our efforts, and by "we", I mean Tech Comm people, then how do you
justify as a business case the extra time and effort?

Which is what the VP will want to know - what's the justification for
spending the extra money when you can target the information to the bulk of
the users?

Would you lose credibility if you don't consider the business case before
you ask for the additional resources? And what would that business case be?
I'm curious...

sharon

Sharon Burton
CEO, Anthrobytes Consulting
951-369-8590
www.anthrobytes.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Gene Kim-Eng [mailto:techwr -at- genek -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 8:18 AM
To: sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com; TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Thinking like a user, or sticking to tried and true?


I am certainly not advocating that one should try to write down
to the most uneducated person who might ever pick up a manual.
But if you have done an adequate job of defining your target
audience, then I would say yes, you can and should set that as a
goal in an ideal environment, and then make it one of the things
you start compromising as time and resource pressures are
identified.  You never know when you might luck out and find
that some high-powered marketing VP is willing to fight to get
you the additional resources needed to actually do it, why kill
the possibility off before it's even discussed?

Gene Kim-Eng



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