Re: Styles for User Guides

Subject: Re: Styles for User Guides
From: John Posada <jposada01 -at- YAHOO -dot- COM>
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 09:22:41 -0800

Hi, guys...just giving my brain a chance to think about
something other than my User Manual...

Hmmm...re-using a template...

To be honest, this isn't a black and white issue. I
think alot of what can be allowed is based on how it
got to that point.

Let's say a client says "I want a manual produced from
scratch, something that nobody has ever seen before,
that will make my manual different than anything anyone
has ever seen before.

In this case, using their template later on would
indeed be stealing. After all, part of the scope of the
project was that they wanted it to be different and to
make something later on similar would be removing the
effectiveness they were paying for.

OTOH, walk into a client with no documentation and when
you start discussing template, they pull out a manual
done by someone else for someone else and they say "I
like the look and feel of this document. Produce a
template that is different, but similar enough that a
user in the same field would probably be familiar with
its methodologies and therefore, feel comfortable."

I might therefore create a document that uses a body at
11.5pt Times, in-column sideheads with 14ptBld H2 and
12ptBldItal H3, 6pt above, 3pt below, new H2 heading on
the right facing page, 2 inch left margin, 1 inch right
margin, has a black header and footer with white font,
yada yada, yada.

Do they also have the same right of ownership of this
template as the first example?

I thnk not. After all, their template was designed
based on someone else and must fully expect that the
same might be done with theirs.

No rule in this business is absolute (except maybe no
spelling errors in a resume, but I degress). Each
situation must be based on the situation and your best
effort at being ethical must be the guide.

--- Sharon Burton-Hardin <sharonburton -at- email -dot- msn -dot- com>
wrote:
> While it may be perfectly legal to re-use a template
> that a client paid you
> to create, I think it is unethical as all get out.
> And may be theft of
> intellectual property. The client paid for the
> template.
>
> For example, I taught Frame last month for 5 weeks.
> In one of those classes,
> a student who works in the aerospace industry said
> that there is a large
> market for templates in his industry. He would be
> happy to bring me the
> templates they use at R**. Then I could make a
change
> or 2 and then we could
> sell them to other aerospace companies. I nearly had
> a nervous breakdown
> right there. My students' mouths all fell open.
>
> I explained calmly that the templates belonged to
the
> company and that would
> be stealing. No, no, he assured me, they use the
> templates all the time.
> There was nothing wrong with it. I kept trying to
get
> across that these were
> at least the intellectual property of R** and that I
> couldn't do that. It
> was unethical as all hell, at least.
>
> I thought about it all week and talked to friends in
> and out of the
> business. Everyone agreed that it could fall into
> theft of intellectual
> property. So if he brought me the templates the next
> week, I was going to
> have to refuse to touch the disk and make sure that
I
> had witnesses. I was
> very nervous about it but he dropped the discussion
> the following week.
>
=====================================================

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