Re: Are you innovative?

["Lisa M. Bronson" <lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com>]

I'm doing a couple of innovative things.

First, I wrote to our sales managers, service managers, and trainers and
asked them what our customers would like to see in our docutmentation, so
I can get an idea of what to ask for training (that idea came from the
anonymous poster with the item from the CEO newsletter a couple of weeks
ago). My boss thought that several of them might not know what I was
referring to when I listed "interactive pdf's" as a possible option, so I
suggested that I show it to some of them. The service managers were all in
town that week for meetings, so I asked their boss if I could give a brief
presentation to them (asking that was a bit out of my comfort zone,
because he's my boss's boss, too, but taking risks can be good). As it
turned out, I could have used a mop to wipe up the drool, they were so
excited about it! I also showed it to one of the sales managers, who was
similarly intrigued.

So, based on that, I went ahead and downloaded the trial version of the
program (IPA, at www.immdesign.com), and have spent the past several days
learning it. It's absolutely awesome! I can take a 3D CAD drawing from
SolidWorks, open it in IPA, and animate it. The one I'm working on now
will show how to assemble the pieces of a particularly troublesome
subassembly, in the right order. When the file is converted to pdf, the
drawings will retain their 3D qualities, and the user can manipulate them,
turn them, zoom in or out, and explode them. When procedures are added,
you can click on a step and the graphic will animate that step. My boss is
out of the office this week, but when he gets back, we're going to run a
feasibility study to see what kind of manpower we would need to get a
program like this going.

In the midst of this, the content management idea I've been promoting got
some positive attention when I mentioned it at the service managers
meeting, so I'm doing studies about that, too. All this at a company that,
when I started here 6 years ago, was still storing their manuals on floppy
disks!

Lisa B.




> We talk a lot on this list about word choices,
> document contents, help authoring software, etc., but
> let's think big for a few days. I wonder....
>
> What is the most innovative thing you're doing in your
> current job as a technical writer? Are you doing
> something that other writers or companies haven't even
> thought about? Are you breaking new ground or taking
> risks?
>
> Steven Brown
> Technical Writer


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