Attention Intermountain Chapter members!

On September 17, 2010 we will hold our annual business meeting. This annual meeting is required by STC bylaws, and will be a place where we conduct official business of the chapter.

This year, we will hold the business meeting at a restaurant. Everybody is welcome, but only current chapter members will be able to vote on chapter business.

As we get closer to the event, we’ll post the location and the agenda, however we already know the most important item of business will be adopting new chapter bylaws. Our chapter has never officially adopted bylaws. Ben Minson (immediate past president) and myself (current chapter president) are working on creating bylaws for our chapter. We will present these bylaws for a vote at the business meeting.

Please make every effort to attend this meeting, as it is a time that you get to make your voice heard.

More details will be provided closer to the event.

We are using DimDim as our web conference provider, and technically, things went smoothly with one exception. Apparently you cannot record the phone bridge conversation. If you want to record the meeting, you have to have all your attendees use the VOIP (using headphones and microphones attached to their computer) feature. And if people are connected via VIOP, they cannot be heard on the conference call. So you have to have everybody use either VOIP or phone bridge. For next month, we’ll try to work out some of those kinks so things run even better.

The down side of that glitch is that we didn’t get a recording of today’s meeting. Next month, I’ll use my computer’s microphone to pick up the speaker phone audio, which should at least provide SOME ability to record the call.

Speaking of next month, I’m about to schedule our next town hall. In June we are going to be discussing STC Certification. We’ll talk about what it is, why it matters, and what you need to know. We’ll also have an open forum where you can bring your own questions or comments to the table.

Please remember — you don’t need to be a member of the chapter to join in our conference call (one of our participants today was not a chapter member). This town hall is open to all technical communicators who want to participate.

See you next month. Watch the site for a date and time announcement.

Last year, I was the incoming Intermountain Chapter president. I missed the beginning of Leadership Day where then-president Mark Clifford took the chapter presidents and SIG managers aside and dropped the bomb labeled “$1.2 million shortfall.” The rest of Leadership Day, most of which I attended, held a tense atmostphere. People were upset and probably panicking to some degree. I felt somewhat overwhelmed as a new chapter president stepping into office and being handed these problems.

I wouldn’t say that I doubted the Society board over the following twelve months, but I tried to voice my concerns where members of the board would hear them. I admit that my dissatisfaction with the board stemmed from a perception that they weren’t open and transparent enough. They solicited ideas from all members, but I didn’t see much communication back that described which ideas the board was discussing. I wasn’t alone on this.

This year, the proceedings of Leadership Day left me with a feeling of greater confidence in STC and its board. I believe that STC is moving forward with more strength and a clearer vision. We still have problems to solve and obstacles to remove, but I believe the board has made huge strides. I’ll tell you about four things that are reassuring for me.

Recommendations from the Community Support and Funding Task Force

Hillary Hart, now vice president of STC, assembled a task force with leaders of communities from all size categories. I had the opportunity to join but didn’t think I could give it the time it would deserve. But the task force surveyed members and made recommendations for board consideration that would boost the support that chapters receive and improve members’ perceptions of the organization and board.

The main recommendations that I support are:

• STC should position itself as the place to go for employers to find technical communicators.
• STC should position itself as the place to go for training on how to write technical papers and how to write technical presentations.
• STC should create a marketing committee to promote STC.

Having been told by chapter members who declined to renew membership this year that STC’s value level didn’t justify the cost, I felt strongly enough about these items that I stood up at an audience microphone and thanked the task force for their work and their recommendations. I think if acted on, these recommendations will significantly increase STC’s importance.

Certification

Cindy Currie announced that the board approved a plan for a work-based certification program with a revised plan due in June. Instead of having to pass an exam, practitioners in the field of tech comm can submit work to be critiqued in six areas. I wonder what this means for communicators who deliver proprietary, private, or sensitive information and will be finding out before the conference is over.

Still, this provides technical communicators with the opportunity to obtain credentials in the profession. As a result, employers will have this specific standard against which to judge candidates and know that someone who has been certified by STC has certain skills.

Marketing Committee

Of course, if employers continue to lack understanding of technical communicators, our skill sets, and why we’re important, they won’t care about our credentials. The task force recommended a marketing committee be formed, and this made perfect sense to me. Chapters have a PR manager position, so why isn’t there such a thing at the Society level?

Mike Hughes wrapped up Leadership Day with a preview of his speech for the annual business meeting the next evening, and he told us that he had already begun forming a marketing committee. This group will focus on making sure employers know who STC is and who technical communicators are.

Transparency and Building Trust

In his closing comments, Mike also told us that one of his emphases as president of the Society will be for the board to open up to the members a lot more. Mike wrote on his personal blog about struggles the board faced, and I think doing so increased his credibility because people could see that the board is composed of real people who wrestle with real problems, and it wasn’t their intent to force a policy or procedure on people. Mike’s posting about it didn’t hurt the board’s image in my mind.

Mike wants members of the board to speak more openly about their deliberations so that members of the Society can become engaged and offer input early—of course with the caveat that we will be listened to, but our ideas may not be acted on. But that openness and encouragement of conversation will help to build the trust that many members lost over the last year.

Wrap-Up

I believe that having made it through the financial crisis, STC can make big strides toward being what it should and being the gathering place for technical communicators of all varieties. It’s encouraging to have received confirmation that Mike and the rest of the board see our problems and want to engage in more open communication with the rest of the members.

When I renewed at the beginning of the year, I was giving the board a year to show me what they would do. After what happened on Leadership Day, I expect I’ll be renewing my membership again in 2011.

Cross-posted at http://gryphonmountain.net.

If you feel, though, that your voice isn’t being heard or that you can provide guidance for the chapter’s program, becoming an officer will give you a chance for frequent and direct input into what the chapter offers. You will also be able to interact with some very talented and enthusiastic people, just as I have.

To run for a position, fill out and submit the Candidate Election Form.

Elections will proceed on the following schedule:

• Sunday, Feb 28: Deadline for sending in your Candidate Election Form.  The Nominating Committee selects candidates.
• Saturday, March 6: The Nominating Committee announces candidates. Voting opens.
• Monday, March 22: Voting ends. 
• April: Results announced at the chapter event. (More information coming.)

For information about positions, see the Chapter Leaders page. Feel free to contact any of the current officers to ask questions about their positions.

I again invite you to run for office, join a great group of officers, and help guide the chapter’s direction in 2010 and 2011.

Note: The overall STC organization’s election process is also proceeding. See schedule and candidate information.

Download MP3
Length: 90 min.

Joe Christensen began with a presentation about Linked In. His takeaway message: “Be careful what your online presence looks like.” Good advice, especially for students who are just getting started in their careers. A couple of Joe’s technical tips: edit the metadata in PDF files (located under “Document Properties”), especially if you’re claiming a document as your own and assemble the PDF files at “Press” quality. Some useful sites: oDesk and spokeo.com.

Amelia Chesley then gave a presentation on ePortfolios. She uses WordPress and Picasa. A tip from Amelia: when you export images, add a watermark so that others cannot claim your work as their own. She emphasizes the communicative nature of ePortfolios–something we don’t usually think of when displaying our work–and encouraged us to think of our portfolios as interactive and a way to make connections, rather than just a place to put stuff. Men with Pens is an interesting example of a company website/ePortfolio.

Tom Johnson introduced us to Twitter and led us through an interactive session using the tool to share our responses. This was cool! We discovered that the main areas of concern with blogging are time and topic–not enough time to write and nothing to say. His advice: don’t feel compelled to write every day and write short posts. A couple of neat blogs: Keith Saltys “coredump” and Penelope Trunk’s blog.

For the final session, Tom, Paul Pehrson, and Ben Minson held a social networking panel. They discussed their blogs (listed below) and took questions from the audience. These guys are inspirational. They deftly combine their technical expertise with their writing skills to converse about their experiences online. It’s a fascinating world out there. Go check it out!

Tom’s sites: idratherbewriting.com; writerriver.com
Paul’s sites: blog.paulpehrson.com; paulpehrson.com; docguytraining.com
Ben’s site: gryphonmountain.net

I’m sitting right now with 13 fellow chapter members listening to Grant Skousen’s presentation at our October meeting.

I thought I’d give you my thoughts on the meeting, for those of you who are unable to be here tonight. This is sort of a “live-blog” post, so you will get some stream of consciousness thoughts. They probably don’t all connect like a normal, finished article.

Grant is talking about design and data; how you should design your products and where you get the data from on which you base your design.

I really like Grant’s emphasis on having writers involved early in the design process. As writers, we have a broader perspective, sometimes, than do the developers. Grant included several quotes that all point to the idea that you have to design your product with the end users in mind. You need to totally understand how your users think, how they work, and what they want.

He discussed contextual design: watching the users actually do the task, then figuring out how you can make the task easier for them.

It would be interesting to see writers involved early in the design phase. It seems that the interaction designers or the developers don’t want to include writers early on, because they think all we do is write the help docs when the product is almost done. But if we could really sell our value earlier in the process, we could make a difference in ensuring the product is adequately designed for the end user.

I hope Grant will let us post his slides of the meeting afterward. He had some great quotes and content that you might be interested in, even if you weren’t here.

“What is the most ignored paradox in software development? Every time you add something you take something away. Screen real estate, interface quality… [etc...]”

“To innovate does not necessarily mean to expand; very often it means to simplify.” (M. Russell Ballard)

“With the right amount of user data, you can help get things designed for the user.” (Grant Skousen)

Tom Johnson asks an interesting question: does this idea of simplifying apply to documentation as well, or are we just talking about the interface itself? Grant’s answer is that as you simplify the product, you can simplify the documentation. Complex products require complex documentation. However, simple apps don’t require complex documentation, because they are so much easier to use.

Ben Minson asks how do you determine how many users to watch? Grant says it depends on your budget, but generally, you watch until you can see emerging patterns that repeat. Then you have an idea of where you need to focus your efforts.

In wrap-up, thanks to Marj, Kurt, Greg, Bruce, Deloris, Ben, Ann, Lisa, Mandy, Tom, Lynn, and Shawn for attending our meeting. A special thanks to our presenter, Grant Skousen, for an informative and interesting discussion on user experience design.

(Get the slides.)

Members listen intently as Joe talks about the skills managers and HR departments should be asking for.

On Thursday, September 17th, members of the chapter met for some food and discussion about issues affecting technical communicators. The main topics were the job market and how students can prepare themselves for the profession. We also talked briefly about what brings people to STC. This post shares some of the thoughts and ideas given during the discussion.

The Job Market

This is an issue on many of our minds, and this topic was brought up by an educator wanting to know what to tell her students.

One member said that as an independent consultant and contractor, she uses the number of job postings per day is an indicator of how well the economy is doing as a whole, since technical communicators are often hired last and let go first. Currently, Monster.com has four to six postings for technical writing–related jobs.

Postings often ask for three to four years of experience minimum. One person asked how critical these numbers are to hiring managers. A technical writing manager present told us that for him, if the team is small, he values senior technical writers (minimum five years of experience) because he needs people who can get going quickly after being hired. The five years of experience was a must.

However, many managers and HR departments don’t know what’s important in a technical writer. They ask for knowledge of specific software, which can be learned in relatively short time, instead of skills in project management, problem solving, and audience analysis, which aren’t as easy to learn. Being able to be trustworthy with the customer and get answers is also essential.

When managers and customers don’t really know what they want in a technical writer and the deliverables, it’s up to the tech writers they already work with to educate them one on one. We can’t make a big change in perspective all at once.

These days, someone pointed out, it’s important to be willing to reinvent yourself, or you may not be able to find a job. The profession is changing, and we need to keep up with it. STC can be a way to help technical communicators and educators stay on top of changes.

Note: E-Learning and the Science of Instruction by Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Mayer was mentioned as a resource for learning to analyze the audience and planning materials to meet their needs.

How Students Can Prepare

One way is to follow the instructions when applying for a job! If it asks for a cover letter, to email the application, or anything else, do exactly that. Those who don’t follow the instructions are the first to be passed over, no matter how appealing their qualifications may be (because their qualifications aren’t even seen).

It was suggested that tech comm educators look for opportunities within their schools for internships. For example, a professor at Utah State University arranged a technical editing internship with the engineering program so that technical writing students could work with engineering students on their proposals and project plans to give them a more professional quality. Tech writing students need these internships to answer the “how to get experience” problem.

Students should also not think “I’m done” when they walk out the door of the university or college. Always keep learning and sharpening your skills. This is also important if your career shifts and different things are expected of you over time than when you began the job.

Students can work on open-source projects, such as those at the wiki at http://tech.lds.org. This gives real-world experience working with project managers, developers, and testers.

They should develop the skills mentioned above, such as project management and audience analysis, as much as they can. Technical communicators often have to work as project managers as they plan and produce their deliverables.

Bringing People to STC

One of the reasons people come to STC is for continuing education, particularly while interacting with the chapter. Meeting with chapter members is a reality check—it allows us to see what other people’s experiences and knowledge are.

One member said in the two STC Summits he attended, he got more out of the day of classes than out of the presentations, so providing training would be helpful. STC also provides a way to continue learning through the members who are experts in the field.

SIG listservs provide a great resource for members when they are active.

Intermountain STC invites writers, editors, web developers, artists, designers, and illustrators to submit their entries to the STC Competitions.

See http://www.intermountain-stc.org/Resources/STC Competition for details on how to submit your materials.

Here is a list of the categories:

Publications:

1) Reports

Annual

Technical

2) Books

3) Reference Materials

Training

Documentation Sets

Manuals

Quick Reference Guides

Organizational Materials

4) Periodicals

Magazines

Newsletters

Scholarly-Professional Journals

5) Articles

Scholarly/Professional

Trade/News Articles

6) Technical Marketing Support

Informational

Promotional

Online:

Help

Reference

Promotional

Tutorials Training

(Image licensed under a Creative Commons License: CC BY-SA 2.0)

• steps you can take to combat implicit age discrimination in your job search
• how you can adapt the lessons of politics to your office politics
• an exploration of moving from technical writing to marketing writing
• a list of foundation books for technical communicators