Re: Not sure if I phrased my last question appropriately

["Jerry Muelver" <jerry -at- hytext -dot- com>]

Can't have certification without standards and metrics. Tech writers could 
be certified based on how much editing and rework their stuff requires.

The editing/rework ratio is a measure of writer competence, productivity, 
and ability to focus on the task at hand and avoid getting pulled into 
diffusive activities. It proved extremely valuable for project estimating 
and control. It's based on work by W. Edwards Demming in process control and 
measurement. Actually, it's based on some margin notes I saw in a web 
article on Demming that a friend of mine was writing.
The article was about Demming's vision, his uncanny knack of seeing through 
the muckity-crap encumberances of traditional production processes. Since 
the article was intended as kind of a eulogy, Demming having died a couple 
of months previously, the writer wanted to include a picture of Demming. But 
when the picture was imported into a frame, it wouldn't stay on the page, 
and the writer was at wit's end trying to get the article formatted. He 
asked my help, which is when I saw the margin notes.

I knew right away what the problem was, and grabbed the mouse from my 
friend. I put the cursor in the scrollbar at the bottom of the page, and 
clicked. With each click, Demming moved more and more into the window.

"Observe," I said. "The dead seer scrolls."

---- Jerry Muelver


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