atw: Re: Accreditation...but long before that?


1. Decide clearly WHAT you want to achieve, ie, the benefits; spell it
out
in terms that can be measured unequivocally.

A document which outlines briefly the skills a technical writer brings
to a job and what can be expected when you hire one. Colin's 3-part
breakdown into types of skills (developing content, skills with tools
and skills with subject matter) is a good outline, I would break that
into beginner, intermediate and advanced but the actual breakdown will
depend on the group doing the work.

I think the document is best developed by a small group who will publish
results to the list.


2a. Identify WHO the main groups of players with a stake in the field
are -
the stakeholders; ie, who gives out credentials, who gives out jobs, who
decides pay rates, who makes the rules.
2b. Identify all the players who are likely to be affected - potential
providers and clients.

Employers give out the jobs, mostly through agencies.

Rules and payrates, we can leave these to be decided by employers and
agencies or we can attempt to influence them by deciding what rules and
payrates we individually would like and attempting to stick to them. For
example, I understand most people are asking for $65-70 an hour. If we
all refuse to accept anything lower than $60, then employers and
agencies will have to pay that or accept someone with lesser skills. If
there are lots of jobs, prospective employees are less desperate and
more likely to hold out for better pay and prospective employers become
more desperate. Now we currently have a situation of low unemployment,
so we can use it to help influence the rules. When unemployment rises,
with any luck we will stabilise at a higher payrate and employers will
be budgeting for this higher rate. Marketing students know this as
supply and demand plus there's an inertia to the market which is
actually predicted by chaos theory (strange attractors).


As for the rest of it Brian, I think we should make a list of agencies
and circulate our document. Most agencies are staffed by hard-working
people whose own income depends on getting people into jobs and making
money for their own employer. They will probably be grateful for any
help we can give them.

But exactly what we do, will depend on the group doing the work.

Michelle



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