RE: New TECHWR-L Poll Question

Subject: RE: New TECHWR-L Poll Question
From: "Dana Worley" <dana -at- campbellsci -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 11:01:39 -0600

> I feel pretty fortunate to have been able to answer "always," and
> perhaps not surprisingly I think this is the way it should be and I'm
> disturbed to find my category rating only a 5% response and "rarely"
> and "never" achieving 43% and 25% respectively after 100 votes.

Wow, I thought I'd better "go to the polls" and get counted! I did,
and I am one of those few who has answered Always to this
question.

I suppose my job is different than many of your jobs (my title, for
what it's worth, is Applications Engineer). A substantial part of my
job does include writing help files and manuals (for software and
hardware -- we manufacture dataloggers and software to support
them). However...

I also spend some time doing customer support (answering the
"hard" questions on software that other AEs can't answer) and I
take my turn every four months or so teaching a 3 day training
course on our hardware and software. I also get a chance to attend
an occasional trade show. In these roles, I get to see if my
documentation is being used and whether or not it is effective, and
also how the product is being used. Additionally, I've found after I
have explained something verbally in training, it is a lot easier to
write a procedure for it.

To tie in with other threads on the list: I use our products
extensively -- right now I have 3 dataloggers and a half dozen
sensors and peripherals on my desk. One of my duties is to help in
alpha testing (mostly software, but some hardware by association).
You wouldn't believe how many issues I find with the products
because of my "stupid user tricks" (so I suppose I should be
counted as a tech writer who does QA). We have another writer
who has not used the product very much (takes most of what she
writes from other manuals and informal white papers from SMEs),
and that lack of use is quite obvious in the documentation that this
person produces. In fact, I just got an email from someone this
week that asked if I could rewrite something because the other
person had "missed the point".

On another thread: Our dataloggers have to be programmed in
order for them to make measurements. So... starting off with no
programming experience, I have had to learn how to program. We
have two different languages, and I've had to learn both of them.
While not traditional programming languages (their unique to our
loggers), it is a similar thought process just the same.

I love my job. I love being required to learn how to program, learn
how the hardware works, and train others on the use of our
equipment (seems like someone was fretting over training a month
or so ago, too...). It is surprising to me that some people are
content to be "just writers". I feel like I learn something new every
day (and I've been here 4 years). I don't think I would feel that way if
I were "just a writer".

Crawling back to my observation corner now...

Dana W.

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TECH*COMM 2001 Conference, July 15-18 in Washington, DC
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