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Subject:RE: the liaison between or the liaison among?? From:Paul Hanson <phanson -at- Quintrex -dot- com> To:"techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:44:10 -0500
I'd giggle every time I wrote 'gatekeeper,' recalling the line in Ghostbusters (and parodied in "Be Kind Rewind") "Are you the gatekeeper or the keyholder?"
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+phanson=quintrex -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+phanson=quintrex -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Hemstreet, Deborah
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 12:42 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: the liaison between or the liaison among??
Hi all,
Following comments, the text has been changed to: The XX Representative
is the liaison between all affected parties (including a, b, c, and d).
Thank you all for your input. The SME is happy and the doc is done!
Deborah
(P.S. I like the "gatekeeper" idea, but no one here knows what that is!)
_____
From: voxwoman [mailto:voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 1:37 PM
To: Hemstreet, Deborah
Cc: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: the liaison between or the liaison among??
Then I would call the X Dept the "gatekeeper" rather than the
"liason"
-Wendy
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 10:50 AM, Hemstreet, Deborah
<DHemstreet -at- kaydon -dot- com> wrote:
Hi Peter,
Well, the dictionary definition of liaison is: "A
channel for
communication between groups".
What it amounts to is this - for a particular process,
no one is allowed
to do anything without input from X Dept. If X Dept.
does not provide
that input, the process stops. Depts. A and B can
communicate with each
other, but if X Dept. has not communicated on this
particular process to
Dept. A and B and C, then neither, A, B, nor C is
allowed to proceed,
even if they are communicating with each other.
Does that make sense?
Deborah
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Neilson [mailto:neilson -at- windstream -dot- net]
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:28 AM
To: Hemstreet, Deborah
Cc: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: the liaison between or the liaison among??
Hemstreet, Deborah wrote:
> Should I write:
>
> The X Dept. serves as the liaison between a, b, c, and
d.
> OR
> The X Dept. serves as the liaison among a, b, c, and
d.
First of all, it probably doesn't. More likely it gets
in the way, or at
least introduces noise. (We know from your previous
writings that the
place has room for improvement. But then so does
everything, even you
and me.)
Secondly, when faced with a choice like that, you
probably need a
different statement. You could turn it inside out,
something like this:
"A, B, C and D use the X Dept not only to make coffee
and to shake the
toner in the laser printer, but also to resolve
conflicts that may arise
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