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Re: Culture, or What it means to be a Technical Writer
Subject:Re: Culture, or What it means to be a Technical Writer From:Marilyn Fenter <mfenter -at- PTC -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 8 May 1998 17:20:58 -0400
Chris Welch-Hutchings expresses my feelings absolutely -
Chris wrote:
> Funny - I have always [thought] of myself as standing shoulder to
> shoulder with the user, facing the engineer. As a TW, my most important
> task is to help the user use the product. That means I must look at the
> product from the user's perspective, not the engineer's.
We need all the help we can get against them ornery engineers. :-) Many
development engineers do not think that they need to develop communication
skills with user types. They leave that to marketing and sales. A lot
gets lost in the translation. That's why I think that TWs should be
allowed to visit customer sites to interview users directly.
Marilyn Fenter
Technical Writer
Parametric Technology Corporation
Waltham, MA
mfenter -at- ptc -dot- com
