Re: What Are Writing Skills?
Granted, this is not how the vast majority of
engineers function (dispite the claims of some TW's on
this listserv claiming to know alot of people-oriented
geeks).
Nobody said that. We said that we knew geeks that were not asocial. That's a far cry from calling them "people-oriented." But I guess that the idea that they're hopeless misfits must be one of those things that "everyone knows."
I know I have a flourishing career as a contrarian, and the promise of a truly magnificent old age as a curmudgeon. Yet, even so, I find that what "everybody knows" is so often wrong that the best policy is to question it automatically until I find reason to accept it.
In this case, I see no reason whatsoever to accept the conventional wisdom, and every reason to trust my own observations. As a consultant, I've probably worked with far more engineers and programmers than the average list member. In addition, as a journalist, I've come to know a good number of uber-geeks one on one. So, while I dislike making sweeping generalizations, I do feel comfortable with rejecting the conventional wisdom.
In particular, when I hear tech-writers complaining about asocial geeks, I wonder if I am hearing an excuse. Like any other group, geeks can appear from the outside as a closed group that doesn't welcome newcomers. If you're not especially outgoing yourself, this closed circle can be intimidate you. Instead of trying to learn what the qualifications for membership in the group are, it's much easier just to dismiss group members as asocial.
To be honest, I tended to think more or less this way myself for the first couple of years that I worked as a technical writer. Then I started discovering free and open source software for myself. That discovery gave me enough credentials to be marked as provisionally acceptable. Even geeks with no interest in these areas accepted these credentials to an extent. Then, once I was considered acceptable, I was able to actually get to know geeks. Once I did - big surprise - I found that they were not that different from other people.
I also realized that relatively few other technical writers ever bothered to understand geek circles or to become part of them. Now, when I hear tech writers decrying geeks, I always wonder how much actual knowledge lies behind their comments.
--
Bruce Byfield 604-421-7177
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield
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RE: What Are Writing Skills?: From: Tony Markos
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