atw: Re: Statistics to demonstrate value ...

  • From: "Caz.H" <cazhart@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:00:17 +1000

Wow, so many gob-smacking statements, I don't know where to begin or end!
Wish I had the time to do the thread justice, alas not, so I'll confine
myself to a couple of brief thoughts.

1. There are no tender criteria that cover off how pretty the tender, nor
how much everyone likes the sales guy.   It's the quality, appropriateness,
and value for money against the stated evaluation criteria that count -
nothing else matters.  This is how it works in both the private and public
sectors, period.

2.  Suzy - you've stated up front that you've formed your own company,
largely on the basis of having refined your methods during your current
contract.  You've also been honest in stating that you want to give up the
contract work and have the organization engage your company to undertake
work, as and when needed.  It seems to me that you're offering them a
business proposition that has nothing at all to do with whether you have or
do add value and nothing to do with whether or not they need a technical
writer. The difficulty for the finance guy is why they would exempt such an
arrangement from a competitive process in the open market, as opposed to
handing your company a service agreement simply because that's what would
suit you.

There are a pile of other "iss-th-ues" going on here, none of which have to
do with collecting data to prove one's worth as a technical writer.  Sounds
more like a big basket of office politics to me, and one finance guy who is
scratching his head over why he should outsource to your new company at
higher rates than you get now .... yes, that's a big assumption on my part,
but I'm figuring the hourly rate for ad hoc work via your company would be
in excess of your current full time hourly or daily rate.

CK - yes, have to agree with your points.

It's actually not that difficult to demonstrate the value proposition of a
good tech writer / document designer / writer / whatever.  It's quite a
concern that some people in the tech writing profession struggle to put
together a solid business case in support of their own contribution to the
success of an organisation.

Carolyn


On 10/19/09, Janice Gelb <Janice.Gelb@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 19/10/09 04:10 PM, Christine Kent wrote:
>
>> All sorts of
>> other prejudices come into play long before the quality of the document,
>> such as price, functionality, contract conditions, how good the
>> presentation
>> is, and how sexy the sales person is. (Oh, there you go again Christine,
>> Janice will slap you again.  She thinks you don't have "professional
>> pride".
>> She thinks you are slack. Ah well.  ;-))
>>
>>
> I went out of my way not to "slap" anyone. You provided
> your truth. I provided mine.
>
> -- Janice
>
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