RE: know your ... who?

[Gause_Brian -at- emc -dot- com]

You could get to know your readers by creating a page on your company
website where customers can gather and talk in a forum. 

Or you could create a email distribution list where customers and
writers can share ideas. 

Or you can create an email account in your domain for users to send
documentation feedback.

If your company is large enough, you might have an annual tech
conference where customers and employees interact. If your company is
not large enough, you might still attend a tech conference relating to
your industry.

There are definitely ways to interact with your users. I've listed four
that quickly come to mind.

When you use words like "I will never", then your words becomes
self-fulfilling. "I will never meet them. I will never talk to them. I
will never correspond with them via e-mail."

Well, not with that attitude, you won't...

I know you're chuckling to yourself about others who talk about "know
your reader", but I'm shaking my head at writers who should know better
than to use words like "never", and give up on customer-contact before
it even begins.

Maybe your message was intended to be funny, but what it says about your
work habits and creativity is a dispiriting notion, indeed.

Brian Gause

Technical Writer


-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+gause_brian=emc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+gause_brian=emc -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of technical writing plus
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 12:52 PM
To: 'McLauchlan, Kevin'; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: know your ... who?

Methink that this mantra means know what your readers are like in the
sense
of knowing what the audience is like -- and not that the writer should
know
them personally. Altho there is a benefit to the latter. But it can
hardly
ever be arranged, of course. 

Yours was a humorous message though.

Jim Jones

-----Original Message-----
Whenever people (on this list and elsewhere) earnestly utter "know your
readers/users", I have to chuckle.

On the days when I need a break from the techy stuff, it amuses me to
wonder how I would go about knowing them. 

I will never meet them. I will never talk to them. I will never
correspond with them via e-mail. 

If/when they visit our location, they are business people and very
senior engineers, not the technical grunts (who stay back home in
Europe, India, Korea, Australia, Japan, working in their labs and server
rooms), and they meet with selected staff members here for specific
business purposes.

With one exception that I know, none of the customers has a branch
office in my city. Well, the banks and some governments do, but ...

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