I distinctly remember asking this question to my peers (and to myself!) at various companies throughout my technical writing career. Lots of times I got the same question as the answer. And most times, the "who's go it" discussion occurred in the midst of a post-mortem point release meeting or as a result of a technical support inquiry based on conflicting documentation narrative or procedures.
I worked with an exceptional group of writers during the late 80's through the mid-90's. We were dedicated to accuracy, consistency, reusability, and making sure that Engineering and Quality Assurance never forgot where we sat. We were pioneers at the time in achieving single-sourced print, electronic, and online help documentation without the benefits of mature commercial tools. When managing the translation of documentation products, we spent lots and lots of time on the phone. We were stressed. Highly stressed.
For all our good intentions, a paper-based Style Guide complete with change pages and various scribbles in the margins to document new decisions didn't cut it. Rigorously-developed templates and in turn DTDs, did not deliver the foul-proof uniformity insurance we imagined. After all, we were creative and passionate writers! Bound by common goals for quality, but invigorated by the chance to innovatively describe complex and technical subjects in new and interesting ways ;-). Unfortunately for our translator-counterparts, there were times it just didn't compute.
I've shown my age by reminiscing as a "that was then, this is now" exercise. Content creation and in particular, managing team-authored product support content has come a long way. Social computing technologies will undoubtedly take it even farther. What I'm most impressed with now, is the availability and value of authoring assistance (as opposed to absolute control) that brings a living, breathing corporate Style Guide into the technical writing and translation environments without disrupting creative flow or requiring re-training.
Join me on April 9th to discuss the value of authoring assistance with technology provider across Systems, language services provider Argo Translation, Inc., and Quad/Graphics, a customer reaping the benefits of authoring assistance technology in a FrameMaker environment.
