Truthful Titles

["EXT-Hornoi-Centerwall, Theodore" <Theodore -dot- Hornoi-Centerwall -at- PSS -dot- Boeing -dot- com>]

Fellow techwirlers,

After some thought, I would like to start a thread on
a subject that interests me and that relates to what
we are trying to accomplish as writers -- namely, communicate
the precise character of the group or process we support.

Of course there is a lot that goes into that, so I would like
to propose as a start to the discussion, to offer this
observation:

The usefulness of the title of an organization varies
inversely to the size of the organization so titled. 

For example, if we are talking about a small working group
of engineers, that group may be titled "CAD/CAM Software
Digital Engineering" and that works fine, because most of
the people who interact with them already have a pretty good
idea of what they do.

But if it is a large organization titled "Customer Service",
that may or may not mean anything relating to "service" the
way most of the customers understand the word.  

In fact, it gets so bad sometimes that the very word "service"
as in the example, may be taken in the same light as the
word "intelligence" is taken in the phrase "military intelligence".

If you have any insights into how to make titles and group
descriptions more meaningful, for their intended audiences,
that would be a step forward for all of us.  (Of course, there
are the usual studies and analysis, but how do we actually
get these insights put into practice?)

Thanks for your ideas and insights!
Ted Hornoi-Centerwall
Technical Writer                                  
CAS-CADE and CATIA Small Apps (6-6C11)
425-477-4421  7-311.1  1C13-1.2  MS 6F-06
http://www-ads.ca.boeing.com/w&e/index.html

Asking questions about your OWN work, then providing good,
solid answers for those questions is a powerful technique 
for not only refining a design, but for learning a lot about
yourself and your insights as a visual communicator.
                                -- "Fred", DTGNews -at- aol -dot- com