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"Iain.Lang" wrote:
>
> The company can boast about the award winning documentation if
> awards have been won and you cannot win if you do not enter.
>
The trouble with this motivation is that the award isn't worth
boasting about if other people haven't heard about it - and, in the
case of tech-writing awards, it's almost universally true that non
tech-writers haven't.
To give an example from outside of tech-writers, the Science Fiction
Writers of America give out the Nebula Awards. However, if a Nebula
is given to a movie, or if a movie is made from a book that has won
a Nebula, you won't see the fact mentioned in any advertising. And
why? Because the vast majority of the movie industry and the
movie-going audience have never heard of the Nebulas (Nebulae?). In
other words, the award isn't going to make people want to see the
movie. In the same way, an unknown tech-writing award won't move
boxes off the shelf.
In fact, boasting about an unknown award can look desperate. These
days, awards are given out by almost every amateur and professional
group in existence. All that's needed is a few people to volunteer
their time, and (perhaps) a couple of hundred dollars for prizes or
certificates. For all anyone else knows, you've invented the unknown
award, or else it came into existence only so some friends could
give it to you.
--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com
"Rationality itself, tied to moral decency - the most powerful joint
instrument for good that our planet has ever known."
-Stephen J. Gould, Introduction, "Why People Believe Weird Things"
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