Re: Resolved: Technical communicators can create information

[Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Does it matter?  I don't think so.  I figure that we simply find information and renoberate it a bit and pass it on.  I don't care who or what "creates" information.  That is not significant in my world.  What matters to me is whether I can get a job manipulating information.  And once I have a job, how well I do it.

If anyone wants to think they create information, fine.  I guess it's a matter of how you define the word "create."   If it makes someone feel better to think of themselves as creating, run with it.

What I really wonder about whenever a topic like this comes up is, why would people need to feel they are "creating" information?  Why is it not enough to think of themselves as manipulating or refining information?  It's long been my belief - founded on first hand observation - that when people start spending a lot of time and thought on the philosophical or metaphyhsical underpinnings of their work, it's because they're not getting enough out of *doing* their work.  And that usually comes from not working enough.

I think that when people start to think of themselves as information "creators," it's because there is some part of them that has needs which are not being met by the work of being an information manipulators.  In that case, maybe they should start thinking about a different line of work.  Maybe they should look into a line of work where they are the ones who pass the information to the technical writers. 


--- On Sun, 6/13/10, John Posada <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

From: John Posada <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com>
Subject: Re: Resolved: Technical communicators can create information
To: "Keith Hood" <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>
Cc: "TECHWR-L Digest" <TECHWR-L -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, "Steven Jong" <stevefjong -at- comcast -dot- net>
Date: Sunday, June 13, 2010, 11:33 AM

Then who or what does?
 
Also...maybe your definition is different than mine.
 
In your eyes, what is information?


On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 11:36 PM, Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:





Right. But explaining is not creating.  We figure it out, we deduce it, we compare things until we go "Aha!" but we don't create it.  I'm willing to call myself an information monger but I think calling myself an information creator is a bit too grandiose.








 


-- 
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
NYMetro STC President




      
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