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Importance of Trainers (was: Re: Summary: Tech Trainers and Tech Writers)
Subject:Importance of Trainers (was: Re: Summary: Tech Trainers and Tech Writers) From:Gil Yaker <gyaker -at- CSC -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 11 Jan 1999 16:04:05 -0500
Got a question:
Do you think that tech trainers are taking over the role of tech writers in
today's arena for custom apps?
In my project, there are two of us in the department. The title for our job
roles are "Technical Documentation and Training Specialists" (heh, that's
one for the previous thread :). The way this project is designed, the one
with more training background takes the lead and the one with more of a
writing background takes a back seat. Looking through current job postings,
it seems that to many companies, the trainers command the higher salaries
and more prestige on the job. Any ideas why that is? Seems to me, all
things being equal, both jobs are similar in their complexity and
challenge.
I was getting the feeling from the thread that people were saying "if you
are a good technical trainer, then you can be a good technical writer."
Hopefully I'm interpreting what was posted incorrectly. Each of the two I'd
think requires its own specializations which aren't too easily
transferable, unless you're just that talented. Of the few times I've been
a student in training courses, the trainer has proven him or herself pretty
useless. He or she is usually experienced in the product that is being
explained, but there's nothing they can do that good documentation can't
(for the way that my mind learns. guess I'm showing my bias here :).
Oh, and I'm only interpolating when I say custom apps. I can't really
imagine that a software company that makes a product for large scale
distribution has much of a training department (usually 3rd party training
companies take care of that, right?). Seems most of these types of
company's products rely on the printed docs and on customer support
available via telephone. But from what I've seen and been exposed to first
hand, applications created for a single instance of use, more often rely on
live training and tech support than end-all-be-all documentation.
Or does anyone know what in general, management's view of training vs.
documentation is?
etc etc....
Gil Yaker
gyaker -at- csc -dot- com
Computer Sciences Corporation
Federal Black Lung Project
