We have learnt a few things about cost during the recession. Now that the nightmare is behind, we are busy with the post-mortem. The concern is that unless we find the root cause of the problem, we might be staring down the barrel of another gun called recession. This time, we might not be lucky. Economists have a lot of explanation to offer on the cause of recession but the industry has to implement the suggestion and come out on top of it with as little scratch as possible.
How's that possible?
Simply put, we need to be penny wise. Let's say, this principle is applicable to both organization as well as individual. If we are lean, we will succeed. There is no denying the fact that the bigger you are, the harder you fall. Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to find an escape route. We will grow big. We should grow big. But it should a all muscles and bones. It should not be fat at all the wrong places.
As a technical writer, I feel that technical publications team also needs to contribute to the cost saving effort. We can contribute in a big way. I have been working in technical publications for the last 7 years and I have been a part of a lot of stories where things were unnecessarily changed incurring huge costs with little or no improvement in customer experience.
Well, everybody know that only change is permanent. But does that mean we change for the sake of change? Or does that mean we find way to spend a budget that has been allocated to us.
In technical documentation, we have FrameMaker, RoboHelp, Epic Editor, Author IT, XMetal and a host of other content creating tool. We have a number of content management tools. A bunch of photo editing tool. A number of documentation methodologies. Interestingly enough, from my experience I have found out, 90% of the companies use more than one content creating tool and more than one content management tool. I have also found out that 80% of the companies are always in the process of migration of content from one system to another.
You have the budget, you buy more than one licence. You have the resource, you employ them to migrate form one system to another. But that is what I mean by "fat at the wrong place".
I have been and am a part of this fat as well. Being a "fat", I have learnt a lot of things. I have learnt FM, RoboHelp, XMetal, DITA, Photoshop, SnagIT, etc. But do I use these all the time. The answer is an emphatic "NO".
Let's then see what we need. Tools are tools. It's we who are responsible for the product created by using the tools. Do we really need all the tools or do we need some of them.
Frankly, I am not sure of a viable solution. But my experience says that a technical writer hardly gets to use two content creation tool, one content management tool and one image editing tool through a preriod of 10 years. Knowing how to use a tool and extensively using it for a productive purpose are two different proposition. So we need to understand this aspect.
The faster we find a balance in cost and productivity, the better it is for the technical publications community.
