Hmmm, interesting discussion. I was wondering how you had gotten away with it for so long. "Gotten away with what?" Don't worry, I'm not being nasty. First , we are talking ONLY about Word . Second, let's differentiate between in-house and public documents. I am talking about "in-house documents" and also external documents like tender documents, but NOT about marketing products or support materials for external products. Third, let's differentiate between two schools of thought relating to "in-house documents". There is the "KISS" approach, and the "design, lock down and manage complex templates in the hope that no-one can mess them up, and if they do you will fix them", approach. I follow the former approach, and I know many of you follow the latter - for one thing, it is a good way to stay employed. You believe that it is possible to design Word documents that cannot be messed up, and somehow achieve an overall high corporate wide standard. I don't. If I am right, then what is left is the KISS approach - to make the templates absolutely as simple as possible, and ensure that they are designed to use the ribbon bullets and numbering (which has become possible with 2007). If you follow this approach it is a good idea to cut and run, as it doesn't work either, but it, in my opinion, makes less mess than the other approach when it goes wrong. I started following the KISS approach when I realised that no-one but a tech writer gives a pinch of putrescible matter what the document looks like as long as it is readable and serves its purpose. It can use ugly fonts, ugly layout, 27 different bullet styles, 38 different margin indentations, spaces to force layout changes, faulty headers and footers, blah blah blah, and no-one but us even sees the mess, let alone cares. To me this is the simple truth, so it doesn't really matter how much value we add or think we add, and it doesn't matter how much it &!$$@$ me off. "They" don't think we add value, and they get what they pay (or don't pay) for. So where would productivity loss show and how can it be remedied if it is? 1 Can you show productivity loss resulting from reading badly formatted documents? I doubt it. 2 Can you show productivity loss resulting from excess time taken by the writer to format a bad document? I think that one might be possible and would provide an argument for training in the use of simple templates. 3 Can you show productivity gains from having complex documents managed by a professional and highly skilled document manager? I seriously doubt it. At best, that person is an added optional expense on top of mandatory expenses. That expense can only be justified if the documents in some way contribute to the public perception of the company. ck -----Original Message----- From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Suzy Sent: Monday, 19 October 2009 12:24 PM To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: atw: Statistics to demonstrate value ... Hi writers I'm currently having to justify my employment value; not sure if it's possible. This might be a long email, apologies, but I'm hoping the information and feed back will be useful to more than me. I hope this isn't off-topic - if so, please accept my apologies and ignore this post. The Director of Finance has the view that 2007 is so easy to use that the corporation shouldn't need additional Microsoft Word support. Firstly - if you worked for a corporation with 100 engineers all creating new technical documents, from Functional Specifications, to System Design documents,to Tender Responses (all over 50 pages) in Microsoft Word 1. Would you agree that they required no additional Microsoft Word support in ensuring their documents adhered to the corporate brand and style guide? And if so, would you only see that support as being required for setting up templates? Or adhering to the style guide? And would you believe that these document authors would necessarily have the Word skills to format in accordance with the style guide. (Note: These authors do not have time to attend training, or glance at the style guide). At the risk of opening up World War III, I have been making the point that Microsoft Word in any version is flawed as a long document tool. Yes, 2007 is easier to use than earlier versions (for new users and once you get used to it for other Version users) for creating short documents, but I personally see the same problems in long documents that I have seen from unskilled Word authors/formatters in earlier versions. From what I have seen, those who don't find Word a problem for large documents, usually work with a conservative template structure, for example, it utilises tables to keep the paragraphs aligned, and does not require the author to understand correct style usage to create a consistently formatted document. And the documents have a standard structure that doesn't require or allow for added sections etc. It's conservative and does the job, but doesn't necessarily look like it has been formatted by a professional (desktop publisher). Please feel free to let me if you agree or disagree with my assumption. I haven't worked in a wide range of organisations over the last couple of years and things may have changed as 2007 has become more widely used. Would be very happy to hear your views on that! I was wondering if someone on this list knew where I could find some technical writing statistics, or if as I suspect they are not published, if people on this list would like to respond with their experience, I will collate and forward back to the list. If you want other categories added in, let me know I'll add them in and re-send. As you can see, Statistical analysis is not really my area of specialty. Appreciate any feedback. The role I am in is a Senior Technical Writing role, which is more of a Documentation Management role; I don't do a lot of writing, but I assist others in improving their content, develop content libraries, and setup templates and provide VBA tools to assist authors with more complex Word tasks, such as Insert Landscape pages. It falls to me to ensure documentation standards are kept, I provide templatea nd formatting support to around 100 engineers. The role has very little requirement for online Help authoring, and a lot to do with Proposals and Delivery documentation. It would be good to know even what percentage of the Technical Writing community have over 5 years experience as start. Do you have over 5 years experience? Your Answer: For those who do have over 5 years experience, things I need to know are: - % who use Microsoft Word vs Other tools for the majority (over 75%) of their authoring work Do you? Your Answer: Of those who use Word in their authoring work: - % who are IT technical vs IT procedural vs Other technical vs Other prodedural vs Other Is your experience in one or more of these categories, and which? Your Answer: - % who have proposal/tender response experience (over 5 years) Do you? Your Answer: - % who have IT system documentation experience (over 5 years) Do you? Your Answer: - % who have technical copyrighting experience (over 5 years) Do you? Your Answer: - % who have experience in more than one category of proposal writing experience, system documentation and technical copyrighting experience. Which categories? Your Answer: - % who have template design and build experience for technical documentation in a large corporation as well as corporate documentation (ie letters, fax covers, forms etc) (over 3 years) Do you? Your Answer: - % who have Word VBA macro development experience. Do you? And at what level -Beginner, Moderate or Advanced. Your Answer: Any help would be appreciate, whether you know of similar studies etc would be great. I realise this might be a big ask - but if so, just ignore. It's voluntary! thanks in advance! regards Suzy ************************************************** To view the austechwriter archives, go to www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe" in the Subject field (without quotes). To manage your subscription (e.g., set and unset DIGEST and VACATION modes) go to www.freelists.org/list/austechwriter To contact the list administrator, send a message to austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx **************************************************