Attitudes toward technical communicators

[Carl Stieren <STIEREN -at- SIMWARE -dot- COM>]

ATTITUDES TOWARD TECHNICAL COMMUNICATORS

Hello Colleagues,

Has anyone surveyed high-tech industries in their region to find their
attitudes toward and needs for technical writers?

We'd like to survey our local high-tech industries to see

* what they use technical writers for
* what their documentation needs are

and, without asking directly

* what their opinions of and attitudes toward technical writers are

Several of us in the Eastern Ontario chapter of STC are considering doing
so. Before we do, we'd like to know if anyone else has done so. If so, we
would be most grateful if you would allow us to base our questions on the
ones you used. This would mean we could compare our results with
yours--which could also be useful to you if you were interested in sharing
results.

Also, we'd like to get management responses, either by

* asking vice-presidents or project managers directly, or
* asking documentation managers what their supervisors' attitudes are

Has anyone else done this?

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to include as questions?

 - Carl Stieren
Senior Information Developer
Simware, Inc. / Ottawa, Ontario
Member, Eastern Ontario Chapter, STC
Member, SIGDOC

P.S. We suspect we may find some out-of-date ideas of what a technical
writer does and what documentation can do.  We don't know how large a
fraction of industries will echo these misconceptions, though.

The next step will be to build a program to correct these misconceptions, if
any exist.

 - Carl

// The opinions expressed herein are mine and not those of Simware, Inc. //

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