Nicky Bleiel — Candidate for STC Vice President

I am very enthusiastic about our profession, the professionals in it, and the technical communicators yet to come. I am running for STC Vice President because the growth of our profession is dependent on a robust, active, and vibrant STC, and I want to help lead the way.

From my experience as an STC Director, as well as an STC Chapter leader, I know the members, the Society, and the issues. From my 17 years of experience as a technical communicator, I know the profession and the challenges our members face every day.

I want to take my years of management, leadership, tech comm, and STC Board experience, and use them to move STC and the profession forward, and to continually improve member value.

STC has tackled some big initiatives in the past few years (including a new website, the “MySTC” social network, work with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, partnerships with other international tech comm organizations, and certification), while still providing important core services such as publications, the Summit, and recognitions.

I plan to build on that foundation, and champion some new ideas, such as holding virtual “summits” with industry leaders, producing YouTube videos to educate the public and potential students about our profession, and creating STC apps and content for mobile devices.

My professional experience includes writing and developing information for software products in a variety of industries. I have presented talks at the STC Summit, WritersUA, tcworld, CIDM, and LavaCon on many topics. I have been published in STC's Intercom, Tieline, STC conference proceedings, tcworld magazine, TechCom Manager Newsletter, and the WritersUA and the Content Wrangler websites. I also teach Technical Writing at the Community College of Allegheny County.

My STC leadership experience includes service as an STC Director for four years. I am the Board Chair for Recognitions, where I oversee the guidelines and processes for the Society’s extensive recognitions program. I also serve on the Audit committee. I am a past president of the Pittsburgh Chapter of STC. I am currently conducting a survey project to assess how software development managers view technical communicators. The data will help STC formulate a strategy to promote our profession and its professionals—as well as STC—to these managers.

I have served as an STC International Student Technical Communication Competition judge, an STC Pittsburgh Technical Publications judge, and as a reviewer for the STC Summit and the Technical Communication journal. I am a member of the Pittsburgh Chapter, as well as the Instructional Design and Learning, Single Sourcing, and Usability and User Experience SIGs.

To learn more about me, please see my website: www.nickybleiel.com. It includes my biography; a list of recommendations from members; a list of my presentations, articles, and podcasts; and a rundown of my service to STC over the years.

Albert Einstein said “All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.” STC is about opportunity, pure and simple. There are opportunities to lead, teach, learn, mentor, write, serve, judge and win awards, and interact with other professionals. Every technical communicator should want to be a member, because STC is a rich source of opportunity. And that is why I am running for Vice President, because I want to keep those opportunities coming, and to help develop even more.

I kindly request your vote. Polls open March 2. (Reminder: you must renew your membership by Feb. 29th to be eligible to vote.)

Thank you.

Nicky Bleiel
STC Director-At-Large
Candidate for Vice President
www.nickybleiel.com
Follow me on Twitter: @nickybleiel

Sidebar

Here are just a few of the endorsements I’ve received from members:

"Nicky Bleiel is a leader with practical know how and good sense. As the STC moves forward it will be important to draw on the leadership of talented individuals who can not only work well in teams, but who can also enlist the trust of the membership. Nicky has a track record of making the value of STC more visible in the professional lives of its members. She is prepared to take on new challenges and devise new strategies for making the STC even more responsive to its membership. I urge you to vote for Nicky Bleiel for STC Vice President!"
Karen Schriver, PhD
President, KSA Communication Design & Research
STC Fellow and Recipient, STC Ken Rainey Award for Excellence in Research

"I have known Nicky Bleiel for many years, both on and off the STC Board of Directors. I know that she is passionate about doing the right thing for STC and that she follows through on her promises. She is a great team player and is just as wonderful as a team leader. I give my endorsement to her as STC VP. I know that she will continue working at her usual high level as she approaches and then embraces the STC presidency"
Linda Oestreich
STC Fellow and Past President

"STC needs Nicky at the helm to see it through these times of rapid change, financial challenge, and redefinition of our field. She has shown her dedication, giving freely of her time and energy to the tasks of directorship, and I've seen her openness to listen to new ideas. She brings the fairness and assertiveness that we need to get past inevitable disagreements and misunderstandings. And Nicky is grounded in that critical capacity, a strong sense of humor, which defuses hostility and wins good will."
Mary Connor
Documentation Architect, Advanced Solutions International
STC Senior Member

Looking to 2012

By Carol Lawless

Wow! It’s hard to believe the new year is upon us already! Your local council has been as busy as elves to fill your STC stockings over the holiday season and into 2012.

First, we’re delighted to welcome our newest volunteers – Ann, Sian and Dwight.

We finalized our budget and submitted it to head office for approval in October. We still retain a working bank balance but continue to strive to keep our books balanced, through careful scrutiny (thanks, Jim) and watching for opportunities to produce some income. Specifically we’re looking for sponsorships for events and scholarships. If your company might be interested, contact our Vice-President, Rob Cundari.

We’ve decided not to renew our partnership with Communitech. While we hope to re-connect with this unique organization in the future, the timing wasn’t quite right. We have, however, started another initiative with the Accelerator Centre. Watch this blog for more details, but it’s an exciting opportunity for senior writers to mentor and consult with entrepreneurs who operate under the Centre’s aegis.

Our two competitions are under way. The Publication Competition is looking for your entries by the middle of January. If not quite ready but you’re planning to enter this prestigious event send us the webform entry early to let us know you’ll be submitting an entry. It’s on the stc-soc.org website.

We’re also ramping up for our student awards competition. It’s open to all Ontario, post-secondary students. With a $1000 scholarship on the line, we’re expecting another good crop of student entries.
Council has also been working to put together our spring workshop.

We’re expecting two days of top-notch learning at the end of April. We’re still in the planning stages but we will have three or four separate workshops on different topics. There will be lots of flexibility, if you can’t manage two days away from your office. It’s always a great opportunity to upgrade your skills and a very reasonable cost. And, with no long-distance travel required! Pencil in April 26 and 27, now. We’ll let you know speakers and topics, soon.

For education events, we’re planning for Tom Johnson to join us in January via the web. He’ll be delivering a lunchtime talk on organizing help content for “findability”. In February, we’ll have Joe Welinske present “Write More, Write Less: Embracing the value of crafted words and image”.

Outside of the local chapter, the Canadian Chapter delegates continue to discuss items of interest to Canadian technical writers. Their biggest initiative is a Canadian Salary Survey.

Remember, we’re always looking for volunteers, so contact us if you’d like to become involved with other technical writers in the area. There’s lots of work to do this year!