For our August Town Hall meeting, we are going to start the hour by giving you an overview of the bylaws that we (the Chapter board) are proposing. In the September business meeting, chapter members will be voting to adopt the bylaws for the chapter. This town hall is your opportunity to hear what the bylaws are, and how they will affect you as a chapter member (or as a non-chapter participant in chapter activities).

All are invited to join the town hall (regardless of your location or membership status); chapter members should attend to have an opportunity to provide feedback before the vote actually occurs in September.

We will also discuss details regarding the September business meeting, including the format and how you can participate.

As with all our town halls, the format for this meeting is casual. We will begin the hour discussing the chapter bylaws and business meeting, but we will follow wherever the discussion leads us. Call in with your questions about the topic, or about anything else!

See you on the call! Please register below to get the conference call information, and to let us know you are planning to attend.

Please join the Intermountain Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication for our July Town Hall webinar. This free event is a lunchtime conference call where we will be discussing the topic of technical writer portfolios.

Everybody is welcome to join us; you don’t have to be a member of our chapter, or even live in our area.

Town Hall meetings follow a very relaxed format. Generally we start discussing the specified topic for the month, but we follow where the discussion goes. If you have questions or simply want to interact with other technical communicators, please join us.

Let us know that you are interested in the event by registering for the event using the form below. When you register, you will get an e-mail with a personalized link you can use to join the conference. You’ll also have the option to add the calendar item to your Outlook calendar.

We look forward to talking to you on July 21st!

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.

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.