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Subject:Re: This too is technical communication: From:Troy Klukewich <tklukewich -at- sbcglobal -dot- net> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Fri, 8 Jun 2007 09:25:40 -0700 (PDT)
<quote>
Personally, I have stopped tilting at windmills and instead concentrate my efforts at finding companies who have already bought into the need.
</quote>
I'm with Gene. It's hard to sell a cure to patients who think they're perfectly healthy (even when their limbs are falling off). I've found the best situations are when a company has experienced some kind of highly visible pain-point around documentation.
Maybe they've grown and their casually generated documentation is no longer working. Customers are increasingly complaining about the documentation and localization costs are going throughy the roof. Maybe an entire project failed because they didn't put enough thought into doc (it happens). They need pros and they know it.
I'm still not sure why our value is so often shrouded in mystery or even considered a "nice to have," relegated to the back of the train. Try selling a software product of any sophistication in the marketplace with no documentation and see how long you stay in business. There is clearly an essential requirement to technical documentation. Cut into doc too deeply and suddenly past a critical threshold the whole business model collapses.
One of the best experiences I had in doc was while working a contract for a utility company many years ago. They had just experienced a catastrophic failure in a very expensive, custom software project. They underestimated the need and value of documentation and the whole project failed. It cost millions.
After that, the company implemented the best set of documentation practices into the development org that I've ever seen. It's the only place I've worked at where developers would proactively come to me, almost in a panic, asking for content to review. Their reviews were part of the development cycle itself.
Product and doc were fully integrated as a process, a best practice considering that documentation is an integral part of the product and is delivered to customers, too.
It is a fact of life that for many companies they must first experience blindness before seeing the light. :-)
Go, doc! ;-)
Troy Klukewich
Information Architect
Oracle
----- Original Message ----
From: Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Sent: Friday, June 8, 2007 8:20:09 AM
Subject: Re: This too is technical communication:
Trying to get employers to "understand what we do" is
a dead end, because "what we do" is whatever the
employer is willing to pay us to do. What needs to be
sold to employers is the case that they need something
that we can do. If you can figure out how to do this,
go for it. Personally, I have stopped tilting at windmills
and instead concentrate my efforts at finding companies
who have already bought into the need.
Gene Kim-Eng
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Borokowski" <athloi -at- yahoo -dot- com>
> Good point. I think that the first step toward this is
> having them understand what we do as something more
> than writing the manual after all the other work gets
> done.
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Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more. http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com
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