Knowledge is manufactured? (take II)

Subject: Knowledge is manufactured? (take II)
From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>, Dan Goldstein <DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:40:25 -0400

Dan Goldstein noted: <<"Precious" is the word for it all right, but
maybe not in the way you intended...>>

I meant what I said, not what you snidely imply (cute, contrived,
pretentious). I meant that information is important and valuable (the
common meaning of precious), and it is. If not, why are we wasting
our time producing it?

<<I appreciate your concern, Geoff, but my lack of pretentiousness
has never harmed me...>>

Implying that I'm being pretentious, presumably. Fair enough...
different strokes and all that. But let's look at what you said in
the context of my previous message:

<<... not in my salary, nor in my colleagues' respect, nor in the
rich variety of projects I get to work on.>>

So let's get this straight: you're well paid, and respected by your
colleagues enough that they let you work on a rich variety of
projects because you don't add anything new to the process: all you
do is parrot back what your colleagues give you to say? From what you
say below, that's clearly not the case. Yet those who do nothing more
than parrot aren't paid well, aren't respected, and don't get
opportunities to try anything new. To wit:

<<Your description of the workplace is awfully bleak, and,
fortunately for me, totally unfamiliar.>>

If it's totally unfamiliar, that means you haven't been paying
attention to much of the ongoing discussion on techwr-l, and haven't
paid attention to the larger field of technical communication as a
whole and the complaints so many of our colleagues have. (Sounds
rather pretentious, actually... not to say "head up your ass", which
is precious in the sense of "cute" if you're not the one admiring
your own bowels.) My description is only bleak if you really are one
of the parrots. Which doesn't seem to be the case:

<<What I *really* do at work falls clearly into Connie's definition
of Knowledge Management, Geoff's definition of Technical
Communicator, etc. My current, official job title is QA Manager, but
my actual duties range from Development Design Transfer to ISO 13485
Lead Auditing, with a bunch of stuff in between. I have a fun job
with great pay, and people depend on me to do valuable stuff that
they can't do as well. I call myself a technical writer, but, y'know,
whatever.>>

And isn't that exactly the point of what I said? Perhaps if you went
back and read my message (rather than striving to be non-precious and
unpretentious -- and failing, by the way) you'd notice that you're
agreeing with what I said. Of course, maybe I'm just being precious
and pretentious again... whatever.


----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
--------------------------------------------------
***Now available*** _Effective onscreen editing_
(http://www.geoff-hart.com/home/onscreen-book.htm)


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Follow-Ups:

References:
Knowledge is manufactured?: From: Dan Goldstein
Knowledge is manufactured?: From: Geoff Hart
RE: Knowledge is manufactured?: From: Dan Goldstein

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