Location:

Walden Park
5425 S. Murray Parkway Ave (1070 W)
Murray, UT (map)

When: Friday, May 21, 6:30PM

Please join us for our May social. We will be having a chapter BBQ at Walden Park in Murray. The chapter will provide meat, buns, drinks, and utensils. The rest of the food will be pot-luck.

All are invited. You do not need to be a member to attend. Please invite your friends and co-workers that have an interest in technical communication. The event is free for everybody, and we hope you bring your family. The park has a playground, BBQ pits, electricity, and sand volleyball.

Please RSVP using the link below:

http://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?inviteId=YDLUROXEVXELNUKMVDNR

If you have questions, please call chapter president Paul Pehrson at 801-938-8391.

First STC-Intermountain Town Hall held May 26

Hey Intermountain STC chapter members! The chapter has scheduled the first Intermountain Chapter Town Hall, and we invite you to attend.

This is your chance to interact with your chapter leadership. Ask the chapter board any question you want. We’ll do our best to answer it. Come with a problem that you are facing in your work, and see if others on the call have a solution to the problem you are facing.

We plan to hold these town halls regularly. Feel free to comment on this post to say how frequently they would be useful to you. Would you like to see an open forum like this on a monthly basis, or on a quarterly basis?

Please join us on Wednesday May 26th during lunch (12:00 MDT) to discuss whatever it is that you want to talk about.

Please register for this meeting by entering your e-mail address in the form below. You will receive a personalized invitation to attend the meeting, which will include the call-in number and participant code for the meeting.

There will also be a recording of the meeting available for those of you who can’t attend in person.

After you have registered, don’t forget to add this meeting to your calendar so you don’t forget to join us. We look forward to hearing from you.

Photo courtesy of Duplicon on Flickr

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.

September board meeting conference call

October Event

Marj, our programs coordinator, is chasing this one and will have more information for us as she hears back from the organization that we are inviting to speak to the chapter.

November Event

Scheduled for Saturday, November 7th, this event includes several sessions on creating an online presence, something that is increasingly useful (and even expected) in our field. Details will be coming soon.

Tentative Program

Out of our brainstorming in August, we have created a tentative program going through 2010. It is a work in progress at this point (see the next item). We hope to allow well known but distant leaders in tech comm reach us through webinars. This type of event would also allow more members to participate in events. Webinars are often costly for attendees, and we want to mitigate the expense to members as much as possible to allow more participation.

Polling Members

We will soon be sending out a questionnaire to the chapter to find out what you want out of STC and the Intermountain Chapter. The officers have our ideas, and we have a tentative plan for events, but we want to know what your ideas are. This will be your chance to make your voice heard and affect our events. What types of events do you prefer? What topics are of most interest to you? What are some good venues? We would like your answers to questions like these.

Our chapter events will also include brief evaluations. This isn’t to add drudgery to the events or make them look more fitting for a professional association; rather, we plan to actively use the information you give us through these evaluations to continually make our events more beneficial to you.

At the chapter's strategic planning meeting, we brainstormed ideas using post-it notes

At the beginning of August, the Intermountain Chapter board meeting met to discuss plans for the coming year. As part of the brainstorming session, we put our ideas about member value and needs on Lisa Ferrera’s fireplace using Post-it notes.

Here are a few notes from the meeting:

Action Items

• Put out a notice that people can join STC in October and get membership through 2010. (Tom)
• Finalize the 2009–2010 budget to send to STC. (Ben and Marj)
• Launch new website. (Tom)
• Solicit participation of previous competitors in competition this year. (Marj)
• Create outline of 2010 program. (Ben)

Member Benefits

Discussed benefits of being a member of STC, and a member of the chapter. Need to sell benefits to prospective members.

Events

Discussed member meetings/events that we can hold in 2009 and 2010. Discussed rotating events in 3 main counties: Utah, Salt Lake, and Davis.

Budget

Discussed budget for 2009 and 2010. We will not get any funding from National STC through 2010, so we will need to survive on the money we currently have in the bank, and any money we can raise through competitions, sponsors, site advertising, etc.