This too is technical communication

[Beth Agnew]

In a meeting, I'm doing many of those things, too. I am certainly taking
notes, and have developed the skills of taking much better notes than most
people I've seen. Therefore, it's easy to develop minutes from those notes
later. Minute-taking is all about noting salient points and capturing
decisions and action items, it's not a recap of the entire meeting. As a
techwriters, I automatically capture the information necessary that goes
into good minutes.
--Beth


-----Original Message-----
From: John Posada [mailto:jposada01 at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 2:03 PM
To: Beth Agnew; techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: RE: This too is technical communication

> Digital Voice Recorder. Multitasking.
> 
> On Behalf Of John Posada
> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 5:12 PM
> 
> How do you do your job when you are taking minutes?

When I asked the question, here was my thought. When I'm in a
meeting, I'm in with my laptop. I listening to the discussion for
issues that affect me and my job, I'm accessing our bug depository
(Rational ClearQuest) for similar issues. I'm taking notes on what
are going to be Release Note impacts, I'm asking if problems are
customer facing, I'm doing all kinds of tech writer stuff.

How can I do this stuff if I'm paying attention to what Bill, Marsha,
Harry, and Sally said, what Mary and Marsha agreed to, what
everyone's action items are, who agreed and disagreed with a
resolution, etc.

When I'm in a meeting, my whole thought process is different if I'm
doing meeting minutes from when I'm running a document project.

John Posada
Senior Technical Writer

"They say everyone needs goals. Mine is to live forever.
So far, so good."