Scary responsibility in job ad

[Jeff Coatsworth]

Ooooh! They won't fall for your Jedi mind-tricks! I bet there's beer involved in this somewhere, right Bill? 

-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Bill Swallow
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2011 10:15 AM
To: Writer
Cc: framers
Subject: Re: Scary responsibility in job ad

Don't you see that this is a mirror argument? Let me rephrase what
you're saying:

> What I object to is putting the burden and responsibility on the engineer, rather than where it belongs...on the writer. I've worked with very few writers who wanted to improve their involvement in product development or who even cared. Most writers I've worked with just want to do what they are told to do; they don't want to get into the nuts and bolts. IMHO, this requirement is setting we engineers up for failure. Just because the company wants the us to communicate more effectively, it doesn't mean that the writers want to, are motivated to, or would willingly cooperate with such "coaching". <

Don't look at it as a burden, but an opportunity to collaborate.  Yes,
engineers work very differently from writers, but a writer's honed
skills at audience analysis can certainly be reverse-engineered to
look at author-analysis, see what their workflow and workloads are
like, and work WITH them to develop means for improvement.

On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 7:20 AM, Writer <generic668 at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> What I object to is putting the burden and responsibility on the tech
> writer, rather than where it belongs...on the engineer. I've worked with
> very few engineers who wanted to improve their communication skills or who
> even cared. Richard, in your case, you were asked by people who were
> motivated to learn, and that's great; however, your experiences do not
> reflect mine. Most engineers I've worked with just want to do what they are
> told to do; they don't want to discuss it or describe it.
> IMHO, this requirement is setting the tech writer up for failure. Just
> because the company wants the engineers to communicate more effectively, it
> doesn't mean that the engineers want to, are motivated to, or would
> willingly cooperate with such "coaching".
> Nadine

-- 
Bill Swallow

Twitter: @techcommdood
Blog: http://techcommdood.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/techcommdood
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