CompuServe Messages

Alfred: I am continually amazed at what passes for "documentation" for home computer users. However, the problem is endemic to virtually all areas of specialized knowledge. For the past 25 years, my job has been to learn about things, and tell other people about them. I have been a business and technical journalist, a PR manager for a chemicals, plastics and oil and gas company, a financial pr manager for a pneumatics and hydraulics parts company, and am now a writer specializing in shareholder communications in mergers, proxy fights, and hostile tender offers. Whether it it engineers, scientists, accountants, lawyers, or MBA's — the communications problems are the same as in software. The specialists just can't understand that their audience did get the same degree they did, nor do they spend 90% of their time deeply involved in that person's specialty. I guess that's good in a way — I get paid very well translating their jargon into somthing ordinary people can understand (grin). Ray Lewis