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I've been a TW for almost 15 years and have usually belonged to
Engineering, although at my first TW job I belonged to Customer Service.
At my last employer, Tech Comm belonged to the Corporate Communications
division, which included Tech Comm, Marcomm, and Visual Communications
(web site, training and marketing videos, etc.) At my current job, I am
part of the Product Management group, which belongs to the Marketing
division.
I am enjoying belonging to Product Management a lot and feel far more
effective here than I have in any other group. I am fortunate, however,
in that at my present company, they truly understand that technical
publications are part of the product (I've used the "product = 1/3
hardware, 1/3 software, 1/3 documentation" line on them several times
and have gotten more head-nodding than disagreement, so I guess they
concur).
It sounds like you will be handling nearly the entire gamut of
communications though, so I'm wondering if the "Corporate
Communications" moniker might work for your situation. You can then
divide your team into smaller focus groups. I'd assign the Users
Guide/Online Help Development, GUI Development, Web Site Development,
Intranet Development, QA and Usability Testing to the technical group
and assign Client Communications, Internal Communications, Proposals and
Public Relations to more marketing-oriented writers.
Hope this helps!
Chris Welch-Hutchings
Senior Technical Writer
Home Wireless Networks, Inc. mailto:cwhutchings -at- homewireless -dot- com
-----Original Message-----
From: Tracey Moore [mailto:traceym -at- APPLIEDMAPPING -dot- COM]
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 1998 2:50 PM
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject: Organizational Structure
I have checked the archives and found some help, but not enough.=20
I am in a unique situation in that I am the lone tech writer for an =
8-person software development company. We are growing quickly and the =
owner asked me where I see myself in the scheme of things. So far we =
have three departments: Project Management, Application Development and
=
Marketing.
As the only tech writer (with a marketing background), I have been given
=
the following responsibilities: Users Guide/Online Help Development, GUI
=
Development, Web Site Development, Intranet Development, QA and =
Usability Testing, Client Communications, Internal Communications, =
Proposals and Public Relations.=20
As you can imagine, it won't be long before I need some help! My problem
=
is: how to structure such activities within an org chart. Some are =
technical, some are marketing.
Does any have any thoughts? I am wondering where most technical writers
=
reside in an org chart: Under application development, marketing, =
publications (and if so, where does publications reside)?
Please respond to me offline unless you think others may benefit.
