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If we all "let it go" as the profession develops, how will we define
what's *our own* when it comes to interviewing and giving samples of
work we've done?
Interviewer: OK, so do you have any samples to show us?
Interviewee: Sure. Here's a user guide that I... well... that I wrote a
portion of.
Interviewer: A portion.
Interviewee: Yeah. See that login sequence? That was me. Oh... and the
last step of the fifth section. That was mine as well.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+vincent -dot- latella=saic -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+vincent -dot- latella=saic -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Char James-Tanny
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 3:05 PM
To: TECHWR-L Writing
Subject: Re: Hey! She messed with *my* manual
As more and more companies go to content management and components,
this feeling will have to be addressed...and folks will have to let it
go.
I went to a meeting last year at a company that had instituted DITA.
The print author and the online Help author were there, and explained
how they had 35% reuse in the Help...even though it was a subset of
the print. My impression was that they didn't achieve 100% reuse in
the Help because the authors weren't able to work together or to let
go of owning specific topics.
So why would something like this matter? It causes an increase in
development time, it causes an increase in editing time, it causes an
increase in QA time, and it costs more to translate. And then there's
less time available to document new features or other products.
I know that it's hard to let go of projects that you've created. But
to successfully move to content management, you have to. (You can
still feel that twinge, though.)
Char James-Tanny ~ JTF Associates, Inc. ~ http://www.helpstuff.com
----------------------------------------------------------
Please send follow-up questions to the list. (Inquiries sent off-list
may not be seen.)
Contact me directly (CharJT at helpstuff dot com) with business
inquiries.
----------------------------------------------------------
Microsoft Help MVP since 2002
Find a Help Authoring Tool at HAT-Matrix.com ~ http://hat-matrix.com
Co-author of "Managing Virtual Teams" ~ http://www.wordware.com/wiki
AuthorIT Certified Consultant, Development, and Training
STC Secretary, 2006-2010
Web site Hosting and Design ~ http://www.jtfhosting.com
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ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 2009 is your all-in-one authoring and publishing
solution. Author in Doc-To-Help's XML-based editor, Microsoft Word or
HTML and publish to the Web, Help systems or printed manuals. http://www.doctohelp.com
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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