RE: This too is technical communication

["Condo, Candis" <ccondo -at- c-cor -dot- com>]

Wow, I am impressed. You and your customers are very fortunate. I have
always said that making doc review a part of dev's defined
responsibility (as in part of their job description AND a part of their
year-end review) makes all the difference in the world.

Candis Condo

-----Original Message-----
From: John Posada [mailto:jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 4:33 PM
To: Condo, Candis; Ned Bedinger; Caroline Tabach
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: This too is technical communication

> I don't think any company pays that close attention to product doc
> today. I have not worked for such a company in, oh, 5 years. The

Because you aren't with one doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and I'm
sure there are lots of companies take as much pride in their docs as
we do.

My product documentation first gets reviewed by development and QA.
Not lip service...it is part of their defined responsibility. They're
given a week to do their final review.

After they submit their commnents and I make the changes, it goes to
what is called SVT. The SVT people are the customer advocates. They
put themselves in the place of the customer and act like the
customers. When they aen't acting like customer, they're intouch with
customers...SEs and CEs are in this group. For instance, they do an
install exactly acording to the installation and configuration
manual. I then get comments and changes from them. At release time,
they have a week.

When that is done, it goes to the mother ship, they do an editorial
review and I get those comments. They have a week. After they're
done, we create the distribution version (PDF) and that PDF gets a
peer review...two other writer in the department go through and check
for broken links and incorrect bookmrks, pagination, various stuff.
This takes a day.

Then the docs go on the manufacturer's CD.

John Posada
Senior Technical Writer

"They say everyone needs goals. Mine is to live forever.
So far, so good."

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