Hi Howard, I think it's tremendous that you can produce wonderful prose that is all neatly formatted on the page. However, I think that there is a whole spectrum of people who call themselves 'Technical Comunicators', some of whom are very good with word smithing and some of whome are very good with page layout tools - and sometimes the 'word' people struggle with formatting and the formatters struggle with prose. Technical Communication has been like that for at least the last 12 years, to my knowledge. If you are in an organisation that is rich enough to be able to do the Adam Smith thing with the production of its promotional and other documentation and you are king of the heap in being able to do all tasks equally brilliantly, how about allowing that there are others in different, smaller organisations who have different skill sets, or who are at different stages along their own, personal developmental paths? The view that you seem to be proposing for flag waving is that people can be called Technical Writers only when they can do all the things that you can do. Isn't that just a bit narrow-minded or perhaps elitist? Rather than flag waving, you could do worse than playing a different kind of political game, where you offer your services to help others, more junior in their skill development than you, to reach your lofty position. This would be far more effective than attempting to redefine what passes for work in your particular organisation. In the process, you may need to learn some skill transfer skills, which would advance your career prospects at the same time. You may even end up training the person whose political skill you have decried, but whom you despise - what a wonderful turnaround, eh? Brian. ****************************************************************************** The information contained in this e-mail and any attachment/s may be privileged and confidential and are intended for the recipient designated only. If you have received this e-mail in error, do not use, disseminate, distribute, or copy this e-mail and any attachment/s. However, please notify us either on telephone +612 9684 7777 or the sender via return e-mail and delete all copies of this transmission together with any attachment/s. Mitsubishi Electric Australia Pty. Ltd. has implemented anti-virus software, and whilst all care is taken, it is the recipient's responsibility to ensure that any attachments are scanned for viruses prior to use. ****************************************************************************** ************************************************** To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field. To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe" in the Subject field. To search the austechwriter archives, go to www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter To contact the list administrator, send a message to austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx **************************************************