FWD: RE: Merging marketing pubs with tech pubs

["Eric J. Ray" <ejray -at- RAYCOMM -dot- COM>]

Name withheld upon request. Please reply on list.

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We've got a similar situation here. I'd like to find a way to solve my
dilemma, too! Currently we have technical documentation in Research and
Development, and marketing communications exclusively in Marketing. The
problem is that our company has grown large enough that there are all sorts
of other communications activities that need doing, and Marketing wants to
handle them all. This includes the website, intranet as well as Internet,
corporate communications, internal communications, employee newsletters, and
so on. Someone has to take these on, simply from a Quality Assurance
perspective. (Makes me crazy to see newsletters with major typos going to
customers!) BUT, Marketing doesn't have the staff, and those they do have
are not skilled in many of these areas, or have very junior skills.
Techpubs, on the other hand, has senior writers and editors. In order for me
to have a career path at this company, I'll need to supervise more staff and
larger projects. That isn't likely to occur in R&D for quite a while.

Like Beth, I really enjoy the technical side, even though I've done lots of
"the other stuff". My proposed solution is to create an Information
Development department, under R&D, where we'll continue to handle techdocs,
usability, interface design, as well as take on the website, internal
communications, and anything else that seems appropriate. Does that make
sense to anyone?


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