Some initial thoughts on technical publications and ROI

22Jul08

Companies that document their products always need to determine how much to invest in the process. Publishing requires people and systems to design, author, edit, format, brand and illustrate, and produce.

Once the books, help systems, web sites, etc. are created and distributed, their value is generally estimated subjectively; historically, it just hasn’t been easy or cheap enough to find out whether doing more, less, or different documentation would help or hurt a company overall.

In my experience, the process of determining the right level of investment in technical publications has generally been ad hoc, and influenced more by external factors, such as the culture of the company, the location of tech pubs within the organization (marketing, education, or R&D?), the savvy and charisma of the pubs dept management, etc. than by any concrete knowledge of what tech pubs contributes to the bottom line.

Granted, there have been more than a few projects aimed at proving or calculating roi for technical content, conducted by smart and talented people. I encourage those of you who have knowledge of specifics to respond to this post so we can follow up and share whatever insights emerge. But my point is that the data available on this topic don’t provide the same basis for decision-making as, say, the data that drives call center operations.

In the absence of available data with which to argue the value of tech pubs, budget decision-makers can safely rely on their own prejudices rather than substantive analysis. This state of affairs leads to a tension between between cost containment and quality, with the various tech pubs stakeholders engaged in a continuous tug-of-war over resources.

Filed under: Monetization, ROI   |  1 Comment