By Lance Winslow
Most technical writers fall down in a few key areas, sure they are great, even spectacular at their trade, and yet, they often fail to get across the main point early on. This is why more philosophy is needed in technical writing, to help the reader understand that the somewhat dry manual they are reading has a bigger picture to consider. This is important in technical writing for software, hardware devices, and company manuals.Let me tell you a story; I founded a franchise company and we had outlets in 23-states servicing some 450 cities, we had a really hard time getting the franchisees to read the 1,000 page manual, because it was dry and lots of bits and pieces of information. Because of this our system was breaking down and we could not seem to control efficiency, quality, consistency, or keep the duplication economies of scale humming like they were supposed to.
All this because no one seemed to be reading the company manuals, this upset me because as the Founder of the Franchise company I wrote those manuals myself, every single word of them, and it was 15-years of experience in there, of how to do it right, and I had built out all my mistakes. Then it hit me, the reason no one read it or paid any attention to it in detail, was because it was the most boring atrocious writing on the face of this Planet.
So, I rewrote it to save my company. In the new version that everyone read, I wrote about the philosophy behind customer service, marketing, sales, team building, equipment maintenance, etc. and I told stories and made scenarios on how to make the best decisions and why. Guess what? It was a hit and the word got out, and everyone read it and 8-years later we had built the largest company in the world of its type in our industry. See why you need to develop a little philosophy in your company manuals.
Now you might ask me why, I would write this article in the first place to warn you of this need? Well the other day a technical writer told me I knew nothing about technical writing, BS. I know what works in the real world! Think on that.***
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Lance Winslow enjoys community philanthropy - Lance Winslow likes small business. Lance Winslow has also been involved in the Oil Industry; http://www.oilchangeguys.com/aboutus.shtml/.
