Re: Help - my consultants cannot write!

["William Sherman" <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>]

If you hire a bunch of technical writers who only have an English or 
Journalism degree, this might be true. Their strongpoint would be command of 
the English language.

However, if you hire a bunch of technical writers who have a technical or 
engineering background, you may be very wrong. One place I worked had about 
half of the writers holding a CCNA or higher.  I'm making an assumption 
based on a quick view of your website that you are talking network security. 
So hire a writer with a CCNP-Security or a CCSP.

You will pay more than for the typical 5 year experience with Word and 
RoboHelp writer, but how much are you wasting right now with consultants who 
can't write?

Margaret's suggestion is a very good one.

Since you have the idea inside you of what you want, then you hold a 
training meeting. The seriousness of the boss coming down to teach them 
right and wrong should not be lost on the employees if he takes the time to 
hold the class. Then those that cannot perform after a month or so will need 
to find other employment.

Right now, I think Gene may be onto something since if they are not clear, 
they get paid to make it clear on the second time through.  Remove that 
incentive to make that extra money (no pay for follow-ups or longer than 20 
minutes or whatever standard you need) and I bet they all improve their 
writing.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Plato" <andrew -dot- plato -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: "Andrew Warren" <awarren -at- synaptics -dot- com>
Cc: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 5:44 PM
Subject: Re: Help - my consultants cannot write!