Contributed by Dave Russo, Technical Writer, SAS Publications
Most of us in the Publications division spend our days capturing, refining, delivering, or promoting knowledge about SAS software. Like many of our customers, we’re in the knowledge business.
As part of that business, I have the privilege of leading a small team of writers who develop the documentation for SAS Data Integration Studio. The DI Studio team, which includes me, Stuart Swain, and Rebecca Greene, has a combined total of 45 years of technical writing experience. We began our careers at a very young age! For this On the Job post, I thought I would focus on two ways that we and other technical writers contribute to the store of knowledge about SAS software.
One of our main jobs is to capture and refine information about SAS products. We read technical specifications, ask developers and testers for details, and take suggestions from technical support. Sometimes we hear from our consultants in the field as well. We refine all of that information and find a place for it in the help or user guides. The Publications division might capture and refine more information about SAS software than any other division at SAS.
My favorite part of the job, however, is when we discover information that is not explicitly stated anywhere, and we develop this information into (hopefully) helpful topics. No, I’m not talking about making things up! I’m talking about testing the software, and more importantly, discussing what we’re seeing with other team members. We ask each other such questions as, “What are the most useful things we can say about this feature? What is not that important? How can we help customers avoid the mistakes we made?”
Other phases of a documentation project are just as important as the ones I describe above, but my goal in this post is just to open a small window on work we do in the Publications division.
In Publications, we know that some people would rather do almost anything than read product documentation! But we try to ensure that SAS documentation is a valuable resource for customers and the people who support our customers, such as SAS technical support, customer education, and our consultants in the field.
Without documentation, most knowledge about SAS products would be locked in the heads of a few people. I’m glad to be one of the people who bring this knowledge to light.
