Re: Skills?

[Dan BRINEGAR <vr2link -at- VR2LINK -dot- COM>]

Darn, just *one* class? Well, how 'bout one semester of a course....

"Eric J. Ray" did the Dr. Laura thing and forced us to get  down to brass tacks:

>if you could mandate a single
>course/class/training session/on the job experience
>for your co-workers or employees (as the case might be),
>what would it be? Editing 101? Rereading Strunk and White
>5 times fast? Three years in customer service? Computer
>tech support for your product? Computer tech support
>for Frame?

I'll waffle and expect at least two of the following required electives [I
understand that The Society Curriclulum and Certification Committee has
final approval over any course syllabus]:

1)  Sign up for something you're convinced will bring you perfect
validation in the eyes of your peers, but which conventional wisdom sez
you'll never accomplish [ non-technical F'rinstance:  at 201 pounds and
three-packs-a-day, enter the Swiss Military Competition with your Airborne
Classmates from techschool; or attend the Winter Adventure training Special
Forces do every February  in Germany (extra credit if in your first time
off the skilift you run your own self over and manage to break one toe, one
rib, and slice the tip off yer little finger). ]

2)  Do technical support for the *other guy's* platform. [Evaluation will
include nights you're all by yourself and the first call you get is from a
new customer who's clearly gonna need several hours' help on something
you've never seen before -- especially if it's a product you quit your
previous job rather than support. Students will  be excused from the summer
practicum if the new customer tells all her friends with the same machines
to specifically ask for you, you get them online in the same amount of time
it takes you to get the customers on *your* platform up, and management
recieves no complaints about the lack of CamelCaps'98  support available on
Weds and Thurs nights.]

3) [Alternative to Elective #1, may not be taken concurrently with #1]
Spend your own money on the  TigerQuest 8.1.2 development package you're
convinced will be indispensable to your vision of the Future of Technical
Communication. Work through the tutorial that came with the package, then
   a) pick a project from _The Development Journal for CamelCaps'98
Professionals_ ( a competing
      development tool) and write the application with TigerQuest so that
it meets at least 97% of the functionality of the
      magazine's completed project and runs on your platform-of-choice.
   b) port a  COBOL program you wrote  ten years ago with your new
      development package and deploy it to *another* computer platform .
   c) document these activities with tools and techniques you already know
so that the Art and Business
       majors in the college's cross-disciplinary program can, at a
minimum, recreate and compile the
       projects in (a) or
       (b) in CamelCaps'98.

4) [Corequisite to  Elective #3, may be taken concurrently with #2] Using
the development package and platform combination you are convinced will be
the Death of User-Centric Computing if allowed to go on much longer
(CamelCaps'98 - provided by the school), accomplish the same tasks as
described for (3) above.
   a) Select your project from the _TigerQuest Forever!_ journal (your
preferred platform).
   b) Port a COBOL program *someone else* wrote ten years ago to
CamelCaps'98 and deploy the resulting
       compiled application to your preferred platform with 90% functionality.
   c) Create the appropriate documentation in CamelSuite'98 so that a
classmate on the same course
      track can recreate and Compile the projects in (a) and (b) using
TigerQuest 8.1.2 .

5) [Mandatory corequisite for Electives #3 and #4]

   (a) Using William Horton's _Designing and Writing Online Documentation_
as a style guide; create an online help system which includes *ALL*
information presented in  _RAAFM#67/231042 "Commander's Master Reference
for the Lancaster Bomber -- Operation and Maintenance"_  [ work will be
evaluated by University Regent Professor of Aeronautics LtGen. F.
LegierAbwyr-Cannon, RAF MBE, KCB, DFC (Ret.)(Mrs.) in a Lancaster Bomber
provided by the Aeronautical College of the University -- You and your
classmates will serve as pilot and crew under the General's supervision
during the flight.]
    (b) Using the _B&O Railroad Instructional Guidelines of 1912_, *OR*
_The U.S. Navy Officer's Guide to Writing Instructional Material for
Enlisted Ratings (1941)_; create user-documentation for the applications
created during the course of Electives #3 and #4 [Work will be evaluated
and scored complete when a member of the Law Faculty, as selected by the
Committee, is able to use the documentation to run the application and
recover from any errors experienced during the evaluation. Author and
development team will be available to provide technical support.  This
elective will be deemed an automatic No_pass (punitive grade 0.0 for
purposes of certain grant and/or Veterans Educational Benefits recipients)
if at any time during the evaluation an action provided by the tech support
team proves not to be covered in the documenation.]

All of these electives are exaggerated examples of activities contemplated
or recommended to yours truly <smile> (Okay, okay, I *DID* Electives #1 and
#2 as described) (I've always fantasized about doing #3 - #5).

-----------------------------------------------------------
Dan BRINEGAR, CCDB Vr2Link
Performance S u p p o r t Svcs.
Phoenix, Arizona

vr2link -at- vr2link -dot- com
http://www.vr2link.com
"Show up, be there, think it up and do it, exceed your job-description,
 control your own means of production (that's yer brain)! "

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