know your ... who?

[Combs, Richard]

McLauchlan, Kevin wrote:
 
> Whenever people (on this list and elsewhere) earnestly utter 
> "know your readers/users", I have to chuckle.
> 
> On the days when I need a break from the techy stuff, it 
> amuses me to wonder how I would go about knowing them. 

I agree with Lauren and Jim. We don't need to literally *know* our
audience, we just need to know some things *about* them. 

I've learned about my audience from technical support staff, field
engineers, and sales engineers, and just from studying the nature of
their operations. Admittedly, it's not perfect and we're all aiming at a
moving target. Recently, one of our senior support people informed us
that a customer was using Feature X in a clever and interesting way that
bore no relationship to what we were thinking when designing (and
documenting) it. Hmm...

Stuff like that keeps things interesting, don't you think?

Richard


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Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
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