Re: How is editing organized in your company?

["Dick Margulis " <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net>]

Tom,

You will probably get one or more responses from people in traditional hierarchical organizations that more closely resemble your situation, but I thought I'd throw in my gadfly editor strategy to give you another data point.

I work for a small software company that was once somewhat larger. We're down to two tech writers in development now. They are both seasoned professionals and write well enough and consistently enough to produce documentation that is good enough. "Good enough" in this context means that a professional editor could probably improve it, but it communicates accurate information in a clear way, it is delivered in a medium and a format the users can access easily, and it doesn't delay the release of the software. "Good enough" provides a greater value to the company than "perfect" would.

However, I don't work for development. I set up my own communications services department (down to just me right now) under the company's operations VP. This enables me to offer editorial services to everyone in all departments. So if the documentation folks want me to take a pass at a document, I can. If the marketing folks (my main customers) want some prose cleaned up, I'm their guy. If the support people want help with their Web pages, they call on me. If a sales proposal or an RFP response is going out, I'm available to turn it into English. Etc.

I set my department up this way for a few reasons.

First, I wanted to take the corporate politics out of the equation. I've had the experience of being told by a PHB not to do work for department X because I belong to department Y--no matter that I had the time, was willing, and could have helped the company. I didn't want to repeat that experience here. 

Second, I wanted to encourage a consistent external presentation for the company--to give it the feel of being a larger corporation than it is. 

Third, I wanted to provide an interface where people with good technical or business skills could take advantage of my communications skills. 

This is an efficient arrangement because we don't have individual departments hiring and training their own communications specialists. They can instead request resources from my department when needed. It also means that consistency is maintained in a more natural way than having divergent style guides negotiated back into a compromise by various power centers.
 
I'm not saying this is the only way to go, but it has worked so far for us. On any given day I might be updating the Web site for the marketing department, working with the CEO on a white paper, putting together a sales proposal, designing marketing collateral, creating new PowerPoint slides for an analyst presentation, editing a letter for a sales rep, or developing a document for the customer services organization. 

I stay busy and entertained. The company knows where to go for editorial help. People own their documents whether or not they choose to avail themselves of my services, so accountability is straightforward. All in all, I recommend this approach.

Dick

Tom Storer <tstorer_tw -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:

[snip]


>The question: How *is* such an activity handled in
>real life? If those of you who work in companies with
>a well-defined editing activity could describe the way
>it's organized, and perhaps give a few tips and warn
>against pitfalls, I would be very grateful.
>


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