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Subject:Re: Agencies to avoid-Boston-Toronto STC From:JIMCHEVAL -at- AOL -dot- COM Date:Fri, 9 May 1997 21:45:53 -0400
In a message dated 97-05-09 15:56:30 EDT, techwriter -at- PRESCIENTTECH -dot- COM
(techwriter -at- prescienttech -dot- com) writes:
<< >Knowledge Transfer International (KTI), is the leading knowledge
management consulting firm.............................
If you do approach this firm, do so cautiously. >>
Wow. When we were kicking around a black list, I didn't think I'd have a
chance so soon to contradict another writer's view of a company.
KTI also operates in New York. For straight technical writing, it may not be
excessive to say they are the only game in town. (There are others, but with
less clout and that - so far as I know - pay lower rates.)
One playwright/TW I knew warned me away from them a few years back. A year
later he was working for them.
They ARE tough negotiators - is that sleazy or just good business? When they
asked me to shave 'just a few dollars' off my hourly rate, I simply said
'no'. And got the project.
I did know one guy who had found a third party supplier for the client, who
then complained about the work of the supplier and supposedly asked KTI for
some money back to compensate. The TW involved ended up taking a hit (after
the project had already been signed off.) I don't know the particulars, or
rights or wrongs. (I know I would never have accepted being penalized after
the fact in this way, so again, it's a question of how tough you are.)
They always pay on time, they have quality projects, they try (too much at
times, for my taste) to stay on top of their projects. Being very
sales-oriented, they're a bit more concerned about their clients than their
contractors. But certainly not to an abusive degree.
If they seem a little peculiar, it might be because everybody there takes
some kind of course which, without being an actual cult, has a personal
dimension which some could view with suspicion.
They also LOVE the latest buzzwords. But salespeople do (how much money was
made by the simple use of the word 're-engineering'?)
Russ Squires is now in New York, I believe. He runs the monthly on-line
chats.
Their web page (www.kti_nyc.com?) has a kind of on-line mag which is actually
very well done.
Everybody I knew in New York who worked for them would do so again. But
again, they're salespeople, not saints.
Jim Chevallier
Los Angeles
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<A HREF="http://www.gis.net/~jimcheval";>Chez Jim: Jim Chevallier's Home Page<
/A>
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