Re: Tool knowledge versus Task knowledge

["D. Margulis" <ampersandvirgule -at- WORLDNET -dot- ATT -dot- NET>]

This has been a great thread. Gotta jump in.

Let's start from first principles:

1.      Every single one of us is capable of rationalizing our own
preferences. And being wordsmiths all, we are capable of making our
rationalizations appear plausible to others.

2.      The world if full of people of different abilities, all of whom
deserve to work at tasks that give them a sense of personal fulfillment.

3.      A valid goal of personal growth is to reach a level of tolerance for
the divers opinions of others. Most people approach this goal only after
passing through stages in which they are less tolerant of such
diversity.

Now let's step back from the discussion to see what is really being
proposed. Maybe there is something here that all of us can agree on,
with one simple adjustment: instead of saying that a technical
communicator should be able to do X, let's say that technical
communication requires X.

So what do we have?

Technical communication requires (not in any particular order):

        Organizing information
        Audience analysis
        Clear language, good grammar and style, spelling
        Layout and design
        Typography and composition
        Information gathering
        Research
        Indexing
        Editorial judgment
        Use of applications
        Understanding the technology being documented
        Political survival skills

...and I'm undoubtedly leaving out several other things that have been
mentioned.

I submit that a very few of us humans truly have high levels of skill in
all of those areas. Further, I submit that even the very brightest among
us cannot be said to be truly expert in more than a few of those areas.
Beyond that, some people have a fairly narrow and focused skill set and
others take the same amount of energy and ability and spread it across
the spectrum of skills. (Alert! Alert! that last sentence is just me
defending my own dilletantism.)

What I would suggest is that a technical communications department
should embody the full spectrum of needed skills. To the extent this is
difficult when the department consists of one person (as in my case, for
example), companies should look for generalists, to be sure. But in
larger organizations there is no reason for managers to insist that
every individual have expertise in everything. That is not the way any
other part of a company is organized, nor, indeed, how the world is
organized.

The skilled, mature manager understands, I would hope, that division of
labor got us this far and should not be thrown out just because the
company bought a software package. Nor should someone who has broad
skills be stuffed into a pigeonhole. I think productivity is enhanced
when people take on tasks they do well and that are varied or not in
accordance with the individual contributor's proclivities and
preferences rather than the manager's prejudice about the one true way
to organize work.

But that's just my opinion.

Dick

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