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Hello.
For the second time in two days, I've posted to the list and gotten an
off-line reply that I thought reeked with arrogance. Each time I wrote back
and asked for clarification on the tone, because, as I'll be the first to
tell you, I'm somewhat defensive and tend to read a lot into e-mails, and so
I wanted to be sure I'm not being my over-protective self. (In today's case,
the tone was so obvious I'm pretty darn sure it's not just me.) But this is
such a consistent pattern--I've worked with many writers who thought they
hung the moon--that I'm starting to wonder if people in our profession
(including me, because I can definitely be a snob) are prone to being a
holier-than-thou.
Any thoughts?
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+kfcarroll=cox -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+kfcarroll=cox -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of
Gene Kim-Eng
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 1:47 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?
I have my doubts about this one. I think control enhancements will still
keep
most of the maintenance and repair operations out of the hands of end users,
and
the "future enhanced" spinning wheel will do more but require no more user
skill
than the old models peoples' grandmothers used to teach them to use. If
equipment becomes more design-for-service oriented and moves away from
disposability, the maintenance and repair manuals will still be there, but
as
long as the "back to basics" trend doesn't go all the way back to people
having
their stuff made locally by village smithies, the people doing the related
work
will be providers of repair services. There will always be some people
techy
and ambitious enough to want the Sams Photofact book, but most will bring
their
stuff to the repair shop or call the traveling fixers the way they used to
back
in the days of tube radios and TVs and cars with distributor caps and
carburetors.
The transition of tech writers' jobs *back* to being more interesting and
more
down-to-earth, but requiring more knowledge of what goes on under the
hood.has
already been in motion for some time now.
Gene Kim-Eng
----- Original Message -----
From: "McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>
When your equipment is solid and meant to last, you'll tend to learn a bit
about
how to maintain and fix it, rather than count on throwing it away and
replacing
it because a new one /i/s/ used to be cheaper than a repair.
Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing Table of
Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
2009 tips, tricks, and best practices. http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
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