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i was a bit hasty in my response to this. i was reacting to gene's first sentence and also not realizing that his was a response to something david had said.
but what i said doesn't really contradict the good points that gene makes. my emphasis is simply on taking the initiative to get it done.
at conglomocorp, you can call someone who will come and plug in your computer if you accidently kick the cord out. at a start-up, you gotta crawl under your desk yourself. and if you don't know how to do it, you'd better learn, or tidy up your resume.
-diotima
--- On Thu 07/21, Gene Kim-Eng < techwr -at- genek -dot- com > wrote:
<br>This is not a decision for a tech writer to make, nor even for the<br>company's tech pubs manager, if there is one, but rather one for<br>the company's policymakers (which, hopefully, include someone<br>from tech pubs). The sending out of materials that have not been <br>prepared or reviewed according to the company's established<br>processes carries a higher level of risk, both of technical error and<br>that critical company IP that ought not to be handed out to external<br>viewers is being released. It also represents a broader issue of<br>company policies and processes being willfully violated that may<br>someday come back to bite the company on its bottom in ISO or<br>SOX audits. The fact that the engineer does not face consequences<br>for going around the process may indicate that the company is<br>willing to accept that risk in the name of customer responsiveness,<br>or it may indicate that the company is in chaos, and only someone <br>who is there on a
day-to-day basis can tell for sure.<br><br>Gene Kim-Eng<br><br><br>----- Original Message ----- <br>From: "David Neeley" <dbneeley -at- gmail -dot- com><br><br>Allow me to make strong endorcement for Geoff's observation that the<br>engineer's response was appropriate and should be encouraged.
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