Southwestern Ontario Chapter STC

Nicky Bleiel — Candidate for STC Vice President

2012-01-31T11:58:00.006-05:00

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

2012-01-04T11:19:00.006-05:00

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!

Travelling to see a different chapter

2011-12-04T12:39:00.008-05:00

By Gwyneth Evans

Membership has its privileges™. OK, so that saying belongs to a credit card company (American Express), but regarding STC membership privileges the spirit of that message is 100% true. One under-exercised privilege is the right to meet up. Meet up with your own chapter! And meet up with local and international chapters!

Recently, I travelled to see what was up at a nearby STC-Toronto membership social event. Like our own STC-SOC chapter events, it was advertised on-line, open to members and non-members, and hosted at a central location in the region - in this case a Milestones restaurant on the subway line and by a highway. After our group of 10 did introductions and ordered a brunch feast, conversation began to flow.

Technical communicators are an interesting group. We enjoy terms like “context of use”, “progressive disclosure”, the problem of “findability” and might use expressions like, “That’s Madcap!”, “I grow my own wiki,” and "Darwin Information Typing Architecture" while debating the future of fine print and internet media as we know them. The STC Toronto council and members did not disappoint. Conversation addressed the place for documentation in mobile application spaces, the finer points of automatic and manual indexing techniques, new CAD and DITA tooling, the managing of it all and more.

Regionally specific topics including talk of local STC events, goings-on in the city of Toronto, mayoral views on public libraries versus the right of the individual to literacy resources, the likelihood and date of a first snowfall or ski season all came up. We found we all could relate to the globally available STC education webinars: Technical Communicator in a Business Process Model World, Organizing Help Content, Document standard for Technical Publications, held high hopes for successful completion of work and wrap-up of documentation projects before the December holidays whether Hanukah, Kwanza, Festivus or Christmas, and hey… the pancakes – they were good. By the time our brunch meet-up was done, I had discovered that while our STC members come from different chapters, we all do and have a lot in common.

Successes & Lessons learned:
Travelling to regional STC events is energizing, is encouraged, leads to new relationships and new ideas to bring back to your chapter. You might, like I did, discover a funny, but good, understanding that under the STC umbrella, wherever you go, you will be welcome within a community that speaks your language.

So, keep your membership up to date, enjoy meeting up with your membership and when you do travel, bring your STC membership card – Don’t leave home without us. ™

See: Upcoming STC-SOC events
Let us know: Share your STC meet-up story
Been away? Renew your membership

Pub Night at The Firkin

2011-11-20T20:20:00.001-05:00

Untitled Documentby Fei Min Lorente, President

Who says technical communication is boring? The Southwestern Ontario Chapter got the year off to a fantastic start by meeting at The Firkin during Okoberfest. Completely informal, the attendees were free to talk about business, or not. Most of the council was there, so it was a great opportunity to meet the people who are planning your events and spending your money.

Welcome to the new recruits who came out that evening and volunteered to help the chapter:

Ann Garniss will be helping with Education Days, which are our annual workshops.
Sian Waterfield will be helping with competitions.
Dwight Baer will be helping with the Heidi Thiessen Memorial Award (the student award competition).

We had an enthusiastic response to this social get-together, and we'll plan more of these in the future. Thanks to Rob Cundari who had this great idea and who did the organizing.

Isn't that interesting? President Fei Min Lorente listens
intently to the conversation over chicken fingers and fries.

I can visualize all kinds of things while I'm wearing this hat.
Jim Bousquet, Treasurer

Everyone's happy during Oktoberfest, especially with a drink and that hat.
Veronica Kutt from Front Runner Training and Rob Cundari, Vice-President.

These nachos require serious consideration.
(left to right) Ann Garniss, Education Manager assistant;
Ilmar Kutt, Front Runner Training, and Debbie Kerr, Past President

What do you really think about the virtues of Irish stout vs. a winter porter?
Sian Waterfield, Competitions Manager assistant, and Nancy Halverson, Competition Manager

Digital Futures: Technical Communication in the Digital Age

2011-08-29T21:17:00.002-04:00

by Fei Min Lorente, President

Ken Coates, Dean of Arts at the University of Waterloo, was the guest speaker at the 2011 Annual General Meeting for the Southwestern Ontario Chapter of the STC. He discussed technical communication’s future in the digital age – where are we headed, and how will we fit with the new trends.

The effects of the Internet on worldwide communication have been hard to predict, but several decades after its inception, we’ve observed a deleterious effect on reading and writing. We spend more time skimming a search engine's results or a web page than actually reading. When we do read a web page, we find it usually provides a superficial treatment of the subject because writers know that it’s hard to read a lengthy article online (often on a small screen like a smart phone), and readers have low expectations. Lack of publishing rigour leads to incorrect grammar and articles that are typically written for a grade five level.

Most of the writing done now is in the form of emails, text messages, or tweets. Even university level exams are moving away from essays and long answers and moving towards multiple choice because they are machine readable. Between the reduction of book reading and the rise of writing for the Internet, writing skills are in decline.

In the meantime, the fastest growing economies are in non-English speaking countries, such as China, India, South Korea, and Germany. Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Finland lead the way in digital media. They are learning English as a matter of course; as a result, they can harvest information from the English websites. About 350 million people in China are learning English, while very few North Americans or Europeans are learning Mandarin or Japanese. These countries are rapidly gaining a huge advantage over North America.

Emerging countries have embraced the digital revolution on a scale that is hard for us to imagine. The University of Waterloo started a digital media campus in Stratford this year. The masters program can accommodate up to 20 students. Compare with China—they built a digital media campus that can accommodate 425 000 students. The digital economy has shifted to Asia.

Asian students have to compete for the relatively few spots available in universities. In the international workplace their graduates have many advantages over ours: multilingual ability, better work ethic, competitiveness. One advantage we still have is that the English that they are learning is not very good.

Our educational institutions are part of the problem. Schools require less book reading and expect more Internet research. As a result, students get used to finding simplistic information about a subject. Furthermore, schools provide little instruction on basic writing skills, and few opportunities to learn and become proficient in a second language. Students with short attention spans are accommodated by the curriculum.

As a consequence of the digital age, the audience that technical communicators are writing for has changed. Readers expect to find information faster, and when they do find it, they expect it to be simple and easy to understand. With the global economy, our readers are a more multicultural group. Many readers understand English as a second language, and might be reluctant to ask questions when they don't understand something.

Digital media will continue to grow at a rapid pace, and as technology matures, the majority of workers in the field will shift from technology makers to technology users. We can already see that content is growing in importance. This enables communicators like us to find new career opportunities. See Michael J. Totten’s blog (http://pajamasmedia.com/michaeltotten/) for an example of some of the best freelance journalism, and he doesn’t have to sell anything to a media company. He makes enough money from his blog to travel to the areas that he is reporting about.

Dean Coates' advice to us was to learn another language if you have the chance. Instant translation is still at least 25 years away. If you can’t learn another language, at least try to understand other cultures so that you can write for a global audience. Our ability to write properly and organize material to explain a complex technology will be a rare talent in the future. It will be up to us to maintain the art and science of good communication.

He recommended reading Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 by Michio Kaku. This book will give you an inkling of the social ramifications of communication in a digital age.

Shortly after Dean Coates’ presentation, I came across two other related items of interest:

· See guest post on Tom Johnson’s Idratherbewriting blog, http://idratherbewriting.com/2011/06/15/technical-writing-in-china/ about “Technical Writing in China” by Ivan Walsh

· Listen to the interview on Spark, a CBC program hosted by Nora Young. Author Cyrus Farivar talks about his book The Internet of Elsewhere: http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/06/full-interview-cyrus-farivar-on-the-internet-of-elsewhere/. It examines the internet experience in four very diverse societies: Iran, Senegal, Estonia and South Korea.

Dean Coates’ presentation and these other sources are signs that we have to start looking beyond our own language and culture to see the future of digital communication.

Southwestern Ontario Chapter Second Annual General Meeting

2011-07-04T21:09:00.001-04:00

by Carol Lawless, Secretary

Another year wrapped up and while we didn’t pop the champagne or launch into Auld Lang Syne, we did have good friends, old and new, and good cheer. The Huether Hotel’s Boardroom was the scene of our second Annual General Meeting (AGM) on June 12, 2011. We welcomed Ken Coates, our guest speaker who is the Dean of Arts from the University of Waterloo, enjoyed a good meal and participated in some excellent networking conversations. And of course, conducted the official business that’s crucial to any non-profit organization.

The evening’s sponsor was Technically Write Consulting Ltd. Thank you for paying the balance of our food and drink bill!

Our outgoing President, Fei Min Lorente, recapped the year. We had a successful ten months with our core offerings (education evenings, webinars, workshops and competitions). But we also had an innovative year. We:

offered several education evenings by webinar. For our members who live too far to drive in for an evening, this offers a chance to be involved in the chapter.
opened our student award competition to all post secondary schools in Ontario.
hit social networking, using LinkedIn and Twitter as well as the new STC website to move towards two-way communications.
introduced the participation contest.
leveraged our partnership with Communitech.

Looking ahead to the future, we need to provide a venue where members and non-members are more excited to participate. To that end, we will be doing a survey later this summer to find out what you think we need for a vibrant chapter and what would fulfill your needs. Some ideas we floated informally were more relaxed networking evenings, pub-style, to complement our education evenings.

Our chapter is working with other Canadian and International chapters to support one another with ideas and resources. The Canadian chapters, specifically, are working on a Canadian salary survey and are looking to revive the Canadian Issues SIG.

For the official business we had a quorum – enough members were present to vote and elect the board of directors for 2011-2012. We began by reading and approving the 2010 minutes. Treasurer, Jim Bousquet presented a view of the audited financial statement for 2010. All members are entitled to see the financial statement, which they can obtain from the treasurer. The members accepted the report unanimously and also agree to retain the auditors for the 2011 statements.

The election of officers yielded the following results (all were elected unanimously):

• President: Fei Min Lorente

• Treasurer: Jim Bousquet

• Secretary: Carol Lawless

While the president can (under our bylaws) serve for a maximum of two consecutive terms, she may run for a third term at the request of the membership. Since there were no other nominations put forward for President, Fei Min graciously agreed to stay for a third year. Rob Cundari was appointed as Vice-president. We wish him well as he learns the ropes! Thanks to both of you for stepping up to keep our chapter alive and vibrant.

Fei Min presented several awards – She announced the participation contest winners:

• third place (150 points): Carrie Warner won $50

• second place (150 points): Ursula McCloy won $100

• first place (200 points): Tricia Ward won $250

Jim presents a cheque to Ursula, the happy second place winner in the Participation Contest

Jim presents a cheque to Tricia, the happy first place winner in the Participation Contest

Debbie Kerr receiving her award from Fei Min Lorente

Debbie Kerr officially received her Distinguished Chapter Service Award. Debbie was unable to attend the March awards night to receive this well deserved recognition for her huge contributions to the chapter. We were delighted that she could receive it at the AGM.

And finally Fei Min thanked the council members for their dedication this year:

Absent: Gwyneth, Elaine, Patrice, Tracey, Heather, Sam

Sylvia - liaison with Fanshawe College and University of Western Ontario, and liaison with London Word Fest in 2012

Ursula - Employment Manager

Nancy - Competitions Manager and Hospitality Manager

Rob -Membership Manager

Debbie - Past President and jack of all trades

Jim - Treasurer

Carol - Secretary

Fei Min - President

And finally, a special thank you to all our families for their support and understanding.

Our chapter is run by volunteers and we are always looking for new faces around the table. Your input and help are essential for an energetic and exciting chapter. Volunteering is a great way to build your portfolio, learn new skills, and impress people. If you’re interested, we’d love to have you on board! Specifically we’re looking for people to fill the roles of webmaster and education manager.

We are taking a break from events for the summer, but we look forward to seeing you again in September. In the meantime, stay in touch. There are so many ways...

Awards Night 2011

2011-06-23T21:17:00.002-04:00

Why read about it when you can watch it? Here's the video, thanks to ExpoTube, our partner in communication.

If you want to know how you can become an award-winner, see the requirements on our website for the awards that were handed out that night:

Distinguished Chapter Service Award--Debbie Kerr was our winner this year. She couldn't make it to Awards Night, so she received her award at the Annual General Meeting.
The Summit Award--Ursula McCloy wrote about her award-winning experience on this blog; see Reaching the Summit (Part One) and Reaching the Summit (Part Two).
Technical Publications Competition--a team from Manulife won an award of Excellence for their entry; congratulations to Meaghan Campbell, Lori Jamieson and Christa Ptatschek!
Heidi Thiessen Memorial Award for students--see Student Award Winners for more information about this year's winning entries.

Maybe you'll be in the picture next year!

Reaching the STC Summit (Part Two)

2011-06-02T20:04:00.003-04:00

By Ursula McCloy

Main Entrance to the Convention Centre

Monday -- Day 1

Sessions started on Monday, and I have to say I was disappointed. I musta picked the wrong topics or something, but they were all so general I couldn't find anything useful to take away. Everyone was going on about DITA, single sourcing, social media, Web 2.0, and Agile development. Well. If you don't happen to be able to completely re-invent your work environment, most of that is useless. I write SDK documentation for a niche market. There ain't no hashtag for it, and I don't think there ever should be. There is no point in single sourcing something that only gets used in one place anyways. And there's no way you can write a cute little task topic for the hairy situations our customers use our software for.

Entrance to the Vendor Showcase

But I loved the vendor showcase. I'm in the market for a new help authoring tool, and have been pondering the best option for over a year. This was my opportunity to corner their reps and ask all the questions that are relevant to me. And they listen! Little ol' me who only needs to buy three licenses -- they listen to what I'm saying as if I was outfitting a team of hundreds! I've got two private discussions lined up for when I get back, to see how two different pieces of software can be used in a new workflow.

End of day wrapped up with a get-together at a pub, with a strong Canadian presence and a younger (ahem) demographic. The pub had 14 kinds of their home-brew on tap, which made it an excellent opportunity to network. Nuff said :). I've never been to Sacramento either, so I really enjoyed the downtown core where the conference was located - a blend of old & new architecture, civic art, beautiful gardens, restaurants, pedestrian ways, and so on. I wonder if all the STC summits are so happily situated?

Tribute to the Pony Express in Old Sacramento

State Building

The Peace Garden, full of roses and writings from children about peace

Tuesday Day 2

About face. The sessions today were AWESOME. Lots of new concepts I could directly apply to current work: better ways to map requirements to user design; faceted navigation to assemble documentation pieces into content that is applicable for the situation; ways to start planning content strategy; better ways to estimate projects work.

Beyond that, there were thought stretching times. At a meeting for one of my SIGs (Information Design & Architecture), we had a heated discussion about the difference between the architecture of information, content strategy, and visual design, and how they relate to one another. Another session where Michael Priestly (godfather of DITA; he actually presented DITA at our chapter meeting about 4 years ago, waaaay before any publishing tool supported it) demonstrated their new, open source, online content delivery system.

There were also ideas that I could take back to others at my company: for the S&M team (that's Sales & Marketing in case you're getting any ideas about my workplace), ways to manage content and analyze our website; for my team's Product Manager, ways to identify and prioritize real user goals (not just the ones we dream up).

Wednesday Day 3

Where'd the time go? The last day went by in a blur of sessions. Learned to duck out of ones that just didn't live up to their descriptions or were too general for my liking. Some speakers are insightful enough you just go see them, even though the topic seems like it has nothing to do with your work. Sometimes there would be three sessions I was interested in running simultaneously, so I'd have to make a tough choice. But with summit registration, you now get access to all recorded sessions (speaker audio and screen capture), so there's a way to catch the ones you missed. I'm also super excited about sharing the best sessions with my team mates back home. Maybe we'll listen to one a week over lunch, and talk about the ideas it presents and the changes we can make as a team.

Spent more time talking to people, between sessions, finding how they handled the topics we had just listened to (or were about to listen to) at their companies where they were stuck, where they had made a change, what kind of transition they were in, how their work environment differed from mine. Yeah, I know you're supposed to network for personal career development, but really it felt more like finding someone with a common interest or hobby, and getting right into it with them. It's like a club with a secret handshake. Where's the best fishing hole? The best place to buy lures? The biggest fish you caught? What technique did you use? The tacit understanding of what it takes to go out for hours and sit in a boat, to produce a single edible specimen.

Convention Centre Ceiling

Then, in a flash the Summit is all done. The last session is over, suitcases are packed and wheeled away, my mind is full of ideas and innovation. On the long flight home to reality, I pondered what things I can try to implement right away, and what will just percolate in the back in my mind until an opportunity arises. At work, I've bored all the non-writers with details of the DITA methodology, and peaked some interest in distributing our documentation more dynamically through our website. Maybe I can get something to change after all!

Reaching the STC Summit (Part One)

2011-06-02T20:00:00.009-04:00

By Ursula McCloy

It's strange being a newbie again. I've been a tech writer and an STC member for over 13 years (or is it 14?), and normally I feel a bit weathered around the edges. But I've never made it to a summit, so it was a brand new experience for me. I've been wondering for a few years - why, oh why, did I not go in '97 when it was in Toronto? So I was pretty excited to get the opportunity to attend: hoping to learn a bit, network with the people who I know by name but not in person, and spend a few nights in a quiet hotel room, sans enfants.

Sunday - Day 0

Leadership Day isn't strictly part of the education portion of the summit. Instead, it's time for the community leaders (SIGs, chapters, special committees) to talk STC shop: what the society is doing, what it's changing, what it's looking for feedback on. After the requisite intros, awards, and thank-yous (yawn), we got right down to work. The burning question this year is what can STC do to serve its communities and individual members better? What do people want from the STC?

The day was a series of progressions, so I picked some of the topics that seemed most relevant for our chapter.

Competition: Discussed how they're improving the evaluation forms. Last year, they threw away the old checklists, since what people find most valuable are the actual reviewer comments. But they are hoping to improve the forms this year so they're less work for the reviewers to fill out. Wonder if that will mean less review comments in general?
Virtual marketing of your community: I'm suspicious of stuff like this, since I don't have time to moon about on Facebook and tweet about what I had for lunch. But the main point was whatever method you use to communicate with your members, make a plan for the year, stick to it, and be consistent. So whether your channel is a newsletter, a Facebook page, or a mailing list, you've got to know when you need to communicate something, communicate it at the same time, and in the same way. You need to make message consumption simpler by making it as easy to digest as possible.
Problems/successes faced by geographic communities: Lack of participation in chapter events concerns everyone, particularly when members are polled and say that is what they value. What to do about decreasing attendance? Virtual seminars (either entirely remote, or live webcasts of an actual meeting), moving locations, planned communication about events are ways to encourage people to come out. Or just do stuff together. Like go to movies, hikes, baseball games, the pub. There is a general feel that we need to re-establish the community aspect of a chapter.
How can we recruit, support, and maintain volunteers in a virtual environment? Bodily presence at events isn't always possible, so how can we harness people to help out remotely, and how do we outline terms of engagement? For example, what is an appropriate time period for people to respond to an email, before they've missed the window of opportunity? Answer: 1 business day or less. I think that's pretty true for work too.

Leaders and Attendees Mixing It Up at the Community Reception

Finally, we wrapped up with a demo and Q&A session about the MySTC networking site its features, the planned enhancements, and so on. I think it's neat that our local chapter can have its own group; maybe we can have a forum where we can ask for advice, voice opinions, and get to connect with people in our own area? So scratch my above comment about mooning about on Facebook -- I've already signed up, connected with a bunch of people I met at the conference, and am looking forward to some collaborative inspiration.

The My STC Network is Open for Business!

2011-05-13T13:06:00.000-04:00

Today we launched the My STC Network on STC.org.

This new feature will change the way technical communicators interact online. Combining the knowledge-sharing capabilities of a professional network with the interactivity and user experience of a social network, My STC is an important platform for networking, collaboration, communication, community management, and more.

We’ve worked hard to ensure that the interface is simple enough to be intuitive while still incorporating the tools and resources that will provide the greatest value possible. We’ve involved community leaders from STC chapters and SIGs in our pre-release site testing, and their feedback has helped shape our efforts in refining the interface and determining which features are top priorities for STC members.

To experience the My STC Network, please visit www.stc.org. (Because of DNS propagation, it may take some time before you see the updated site. This depends on your ISP. However, over the next few hours, the site new site should be available to all users.)

To log in, just enter your existing STC username and password. You can do this by clicking on the “Site Access” link at the top right-hand side of the page or by clicking on the “My STC” tab on the navigation bar.

Once you’re inside, you’ll have the opportunity to personalize your user experience. You can edit your profile, add personal information, upload an image or video, create or view events, and begin participating in discussions. If you’re a member of an STC chapter or SIG, you’ll be automatically added to the corresponding discussion groups when you sign in. If you’re not a member of an STC community, you can participate in open discussion groups or start your own.

With this new platform, STC can also invite any STC.org visitor to register for the website, providing the opportunity for nonmembers to purchase education offerings, publications, and other STC services. These accounts will also allow nonmembers to gain limited access to the My STC Network, where they will be able to participate in designated nonmember groups and view or join open community groups. (A group’s status as “open” or “private” is determined by the administrator; in the case of STC communities, usually the president or manager.) If you’re considering inviting a technical communicator you know to join STC, this is a great way to get them involved.

We’ve prepared a video tutorial that explains the new features of STC.org. If you’d prefer a walkthrough before signing in or need some help finding your way around, please have a look at the following instructional video:http://youtu.be/WDo99UUhj9s.

We’ve taken great care to make this new platform as user-friendly as possible. If you should happen to encounter any problems, however, please let us know. You can leave feedback using the “Feedback” tab on every page of the site. This will take you to Get Satisfaction (separate login required), a tool we’re using to aggregate and address site issues and suggestions.

We hope you enjoy these new Web tools developed to enhance collaboration, networking, and knowledge sharing among professionals in the field of technical communication. We look forward to seeing you online.

Reprinted from STC's Notebook Feed by Kevin Cuddihy on 12 May 2011

The STC Southwestern Ontario Chapter’s Discussion List

2011-04-28T21:39:00.002-04:00

This list provides a place to discuss any topic that might be of interest to a technical communicator. You do not have to be a chapter member to join this list. If you want to join, send an email request to mailmaster@stc-soc.org.

The chapter will publicize events related to technical communication on this list. Some of the events are ones our chapter is offering, while others are offered by other chapters, organizations and companies. While events offered outside of our chapter might be very worthwhile, we can only endorse those that our chapter offers. The STC Southwestern Ontario chapter does not receive any remuneration for advertising these events; this is simply a public service to our community.

To post messages to the Discussion List, do one of the following:

Email your message to stc-southwestern-ontario@googlegroups.com.
Log onto https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/stc-southwestern-ontario with your email address as your user ID, and click the + new post (or New Topic) button

This list is moderated. Please review the Posting Guidelines below.

Posting Guidelines

When posting messages to the main mailing list, follow these guidelines:

Ensure that posting are relevant to technical communicators. Under no circumstances can any postings include references to religion or politics.
Respect individuals who post information. Personal attacks are not acceptable on the discussion list or during exchanges that have been taken off list.
Keep in mind that this venue is for discussion and sharing information. Alternate points of view are encouraged, and participants should keep an open mind.
Accept that we are all human. Refrain from editing other members’ posts and overcome your technical communication tendencies by refraining from reposting your message or apologizing if you make a typo unless it really changes the meaning of the sentence.

Repeated violations of these guidelines will result in your removal from this Discussion List.

Student Award Winners

2011-04-01T10:03:00.012-04:00

About Heidi Thiessen

The Heidi Thiessen Memorial Award was officially named in 2000, although the award itself was established years before that.

The Southwestern Ontario Chapter of the STC created this award to keep her memory and legacy alive. Beyond her involvement as an active member of our chapter, Heidi was influential in hiring new graduates, and she mentored many students and young writers. Through her work at the University of Waterloo Centre for Professional Writing, and later at Storm Technical Communications, many co-op students gained valuable work experience in a supportive environment. Unfortunately, Heidi passed away from breast cancer while she was still in her 30s.

Requirements for Submission

To apply for this award, students had to meet the following requirements:

- Attend a college or university full time
- Be in second year or higher in their program
- Have a minimum of a 75% average (official transcript required)
- Write a letter describing how their writing skills have improved with experience
- Submit two writing samples to demonstrate their technical writing skills (for example, reports, newsletter articles, and essays).

General Comments

This is the first year that we made the Heidi Thiessen award available to all college and university students in Ontario who are in their second year of study. Previously the award was restricted to the University of Guelph, University of Waterloo, and Wilfrid Laurier University. It was also previously restricted to 3^rd and 4^th year students. These changes are definitely reflected in the winning entries. Two of the winners are in their second year of study, and all of them would not have met the requirements for this award in the past.

1st Place – Josh Wellstood

4^th year student at McMaster University (Electrical Engineering Management Program)

His Letter

The following sentence captures an important concept about technical communication:

“I have worked significantly to develop key communication skills to effectively explain technically detailed material in a manner that a person without a background in the subject can understand.”

Submission Titles (Topics)

- Analysis of the SLN-Aecon Field Change Notice Process for Bruce ‘A’ Restart Balance of Plant Project

- Arc Flash Hazards: Causes, Calculations and Controls

Comments

While the titles seem complex, the well-written text and great use of graphics within these submissions made the information easy to understand. In addition to content, the information was laid out well with useful headings and groupings of information. These are truly impressive entries and very worthy of their 1^st place finish.

2^nd Place – Daniel Pinelli

2^nd year student at McMaster University (Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering)

His Letter

Daniel’s cover letter was very strong. In fact he started with a definition of communication:

“Communication. A skill that is immensely important in the fields of science and engineering and yet is rarely given the emphasis it deserves in academic study.”

Submission Titles (Topics)

· Propeller Selection

· ECCS Work Term Report for a company that is a component repair shop for the aerospace industry. His main task during his work term was the improvement of the thermal spray process.

Comments

Daniel made good use of flowcharts to illustrate processes with corresponding explanations and formulas. He also provided good descriptions of elements before providing more details. He did an excellent job of presenting his goals and then following those goals with examples of how they were met. He also included examples of problems and solutions.

3^rd Place – Daniel Dulcin

2^nd year student at Lakehead University (Honours Bachelor of Science in Biology)

His Letter

The following is a quotation in Daniel’s letter:

“I am determined to strive for excellence in my written work and have already registered for two writing classes this summer that are not requirements in my degree.”

Submission Titles (Topics)

The following articles were written as part of the SPARK program at Lakehead University. The SPARK program conveys to the public the importance and significance of local research. Daniel wrote two such articles:

· Mussel Man (Note: Since you cannot see the spelling, it refers to the one in the Clam family.)

· Evolution: An Evolving Science

Comments

Daniel’s two submissions demonstrate that technical documentation can be easy to read, even by people not educated on the topic. It also shows that the length of the document is not necessarily reflect the quality of the writing. If you can say the same thing with fewer words then you should be commended. Daniel has demonstrated that he knows his audience and recognizes how much content that audience can grasp, and how much time that audience will spend to read an article.

Debbie Kerr

Immediate Past President

Southwester Ontario Chapter, STC

Education Days 2011

2011-03-22T12:20:00.003-04:00

Don’t miss our upcoming and exciting Education Days 2011! Pamela Kostur of Parallax Communications will be with us to lead an exploration of modular content design and reuse. Fernando Santiago MBA PMP CSM, with 20+ years of project management experience and certified Scrum Master Certification, will share his perspective on how to integrate and adapt Agile project management practices to documentation requirements.

Modular content design approaches break content into a larger volume of smaller reusable information units supported by storage, meta-data and relationship management techniques. Regardless the project management approach or size of an organization, content-reuse generally reduces content duplication and increases accuracy and consistency across libraries while enabling dynamic and flexible development of multiple deliverables from content sub-units.

Agile project management practices increase the number of completed prototypes along an iterative development path. These practices are also characterized by increased stakeholder and client engagement so as to increase likelihood of customer acceptance of the final product. Documentation practices can be partially or fully adapted to the Agile model. Learning the key concepts and gaining practical experience can help you minimize common project risks: excess production overhead, discarded prototype work, and tight deadlines. By leveraging the gains of this approach and being part of the critical project path, you will achieve improved requirements, status reporting, teamwork and communication.

Both modular content design and Agile practices, have gained recognition in recent years and are quickly becoming standard practice.

Learn the terminology, concepts and practices of each process now and become a documentation leader capable of managing the critical documentation project path.

Agile approaches to documentation requirements

This one-day introductory training course will provide you with a solid understanding of the core knowledge, terminology and concepts that define the Agile project management approach. A comparison of various project approaches highlights the key differentiators of Agile methods, and the implications within product development environments on communications, documentation and other related processes.

Hands-on exercises done in small groups provide practical preparation for applying the communication methods and concepts with a combination of basic tools, including Excel. You will become comfortable defining user-stories, as well as creating and sizing a project work item backlog. You will become confident defining "Done!" in the context of your project, be able to articulate project work velocity, plan work iterations, and generate tasks from backlogs and communicate the status of iterations using accumulated data. By the end of the course, you will be able to establish scrum procedures, a project backlog, a burndown chart, and have practical experience executing basic project iterations.

This course is intended for beginners or those with some previous knowledge or experience with Agile practices.

Writing modular reusable content

Modular content design approaches break content into a larger volume of smaller reusable information units requiring storage, meta-data and relationship management techniques. Regardless of the project management approach or size of an organization, content-reuse generally reduces content duplication and increases accuracy and consistency across libraries while enabling dynamic and flexible development of multiple deliverables from content sub-units.

In this course you will learn the key terminology and concepts related to modular documentation design. You will then learn how to analyze content, plan and structure content deliverables and the reusable content modules that will be required to satisfy the independent and collective deliverable requirements. Lastly, you will learn how to apply structure to the writing within the modules to maximize the clarity, accuracy and consistency of the module content which can be integrated with and used alongside writing guidelines.

This course is suitable for technical communicators with varying amounts of experience, from novice to well-seasoned.

Gwyneth Evans

Public Relations Manager

2011 STC Director Candidates

2011-03-08T11:03:00.014-05:00

To be eligible for voting, you need to renew your membership by February 28. Voting starts on March 9 and ends March 30.

For full election details: http://notebook.stc.org/election

Bernard Aschwanden

http://notebook.stc.org/election/bernard-aschwanden

Member Status: Senior Member

Current Community: STC Toronto

Current Professional Title: President of Publishing Smarter

Company: Publishing Smarter

Company Location (City, State, or Country): Canada

Ray Gallon

http://notebook.stc.org/election/ray-gallon

Member Status: Senior Member

Current Community: France Chapter

Current Professional Title: Global Software

Technical Information Systems Designer

Company: Carestream Dental, division of Carestream Health Inc.

Company Location (City, State, or Country): Marne La Vallée (Paris region), France
(HQ in Atlanta, GA)

Brian J. Lindgren

http://notebook.stc.org/election/brian-lindgren

Member Status: Associate Fellow

Current Community: South Carolina Midlands Chapter

Current Professional Title: Systems Analyst

Company: Imagine One Technology & Management Ltd.

Company Location (City, State, or Country): Charleston, SC (HQ in Colonial Beach, VA)

Rich Maggiani

http://notebook.stc.org/election/rich-maggiani

Member Status: Fellow

Current Community: Vermont

Current Professional Title: Communication Consultant

Company: Solari Communication

Company Location (City, State, or Country): Essex, VT

Tricia Spayer

http://notebook.stc.org/election/tricia-spayer

Member Status: Senior Member

Current Community: Northeast Ohio, all SIGs

Current Professional Title: Technical Writer/Illustrator

Company: Pressco Technology Inc.

Company Location (City, State, or Country): Solon, OH

Recording of STC Vice President Candidate Discussion

2011-03-03T21:43:00.000-05:00

Sarah O’Keefe and Scriptorium recently held a webinar discussion with the two candidates for STC Vice President, Alan Houser and Victoria Koster-Lenhardt. If you missed the live webcast, watch this recording to get to know the candidates.

Thanks again to Sarah for hosting. Remember, the STC election opens 9 March and runs through 30 March at 4:00 PM EDT (GMT-4). You must have renewed your STC membership by 28 February in order to vote in this election. To learn more about all candidates and ask questions of the candidates, visit the STC Election site.

Republished from STC's Notebook Feed

Summary of the Winter Council Meetings for Southwestern Ontario

2011-02-19T15:48:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the power of technology, council continues to meet monthly. Did you know our council members live throughout Ontario, from North Bay, to London; Paris to Toronto; Guelph to Waterloo? We alternate our meetings from virtual to in person; some people dial in monthly. Our newest volunteer, Sylvia Squair, is our new liaison in London with University of Western Ontario and Fanshaw College. Our winter has been busy with event planning topping the monthly agendas:

Education days:

We’re still finalizing instructors for our Education days this spring. We are working on the same profit sharing model we established last year. We bandied about a number of topics and finally narrowed it down to content reuse and working with agile development.

Monthly events:

We are continuing to plan for a Webinar in the months we do not have an education evening. However, we did cancel February due to lack of interest.

Awards night:

Our annual Awards night is scheduled for March 30 at the Davis Centre. We’ll be presenting the Heidi Thiessen Memorial scholarship, Publication Competition awards, Summit award (drawing will take place that night) and Distinguished Chapter Service Award. Fei Min is looking into bringing the STC Travelling Road Show to the event. The road show showcases the International Competition winners from last year.

Annual General Meeting:

In June, we’ll have our Annual General Meeting and are looking for a speaker.

Other items of interest:

• Student competition is underway. We posted notices in London, Toronto, Waterloo and Guelph. Judging will begin shortly.

• Technical publications judging was completed in conjunction with the Toronto chapter, in one day. One entry in the group will go on to the International competition. Nancy will arrange to have the certificates for our chapter winners ready for the awards night.

• We finalized and rolled out the participation game. See our website for the current leaders.

• We’ve purchased an early bird registration to the Summit (transferable) that will be awarded to one volunteer at the Awards night. The person selected is expected to attend the Leadership day, write an article on the Summit and present a seminar on their learnings.

• We discussed the best way to communicate to members and decided to use a variety of options so people can pick the one that best suits them. With that in mind, we’ve set up Linked-in and Twitter accounts.

• The STC launched their new website. In future we will be able to set up a micro-site on the site. At that point, we’ll investigate how best to tap into this.

• Communitech representatives have attended some council meetings. Avvey Peters is our new Communitech liaison.

• As of year end (2010) our chapter membership is at 73 people.

• The audit has been completed on our 2010 financial statement.

• We’re pursuing sponsorship options with Front Runner.

• STC elections are coming soon. We’ll provide election information on the Blog and website. There are several international candidates including Canada’s Bernard Aschwanden running this year.

• And last but not least, our February council meeting was completed in a record breaking sixty one minutes!

Carol Lawless
Secretary
Southwestern Ontario Chapter STC

STC’s International Candidates

2011-02-10T21:21:00.000-05:00

My fourteen years of STC membership have undoubtedly provided excellent professional development value, from a local perspective.

Initially, I relied on STC for contacts in my neighborhood to help me become established in the profession. As I grew in confidence and experience, I joined my chapter executive and tried to pay it forward by helping to provide a platform for new tech writers, as others had done for me.

The work is rewarding, and my colleagues on our chapter executive are first-class. So I guess you could say, I love the STC.

But at the international level, I have certainly felt some frustration. A particular sore spot for me is the way this international organization seems to remain firmly focused on what happens within the United States.

In 2010, I joined first the Community Funding and Support Task Force, and then the Community Affairs Committee, to help define the kinds and quantities of support that would most benefit our chapters and SIGs. My particular interest was the full inclusion of international members.

I participated out of concern that STC membership fees purported to provide a number of benefits that weren’t practical (US-centric job bank and salary data) or weren’t available (insurance) to international members. During our sessions, I learned that even within the US, rules vary so much from state to state that things are not substantially better for Americans!

At the Dallas conference in 2010, the Community Funding and Support Task Force summarized a number of recommendations. Many of these ideas are now being put into practice, and I hope they will benefit all STC members.

I believe that the STC executive genuinely desire to improve the value of STC memberships for all members, but change is always hard. Even characterizing myself as an “international” member suggests that “American” is the default position – exactly the perception I am struggling against.

But my experience on these committees has helped me see that the STC needs leadership from its international members, before it can become the organization it is striving to be.

In the upcoming STC election, we have a chance to vote for two international candidates. Bernard Aschwanden (Canada) and Ray Gallon (France) are both running for election as Directors of our Society.

I believe that the fresh perspectives these experienced members bring can help the STC transform itself into a truly international organization.

So when you vote for your new Society Officers between March 9 and March 30 this year, ask yourself whether the STC could use a helping hand from some international candidates.

And if you agree, then remember: Bernard and Ray are willing to step up and help us all.

Thank you,
Tracey Martinsen

Tracey Martinsen has been a member of the STC (Canada West Coast) since 1997.

Education Evening: Arbortext Service Information Solution

2011-01-21T10:49:00.007-05:00

By Kaitlin Ojamae

If you’re using Adobe® Technical Communication Suite for your documentation projects – or perhaps grinding away with the Microsoft Office® suite like I am – prepare to be impressed by the Arbortext Service Information System.

An hour was not enough time for our presenters, Richard Ernst and Anthony Villa, to showcase all the tools and functionalities of this system. In fact, two hours were not enough to do it justice! The information-rich presentation was punctuated by our members’ sighs of, “Oh that’s wonderful,” and “Oh, that would make things so much easier!”

Overview of the Arbortext Service Information System

Anthony Villa, President of Newbook, credits the success of Arbortext to the manner in which all the components are connected in a fully integrated system; the product and all its information is centralized in one place, so users avoid delays most commonly caused by the inability to locate up-to-date information.

“If it’s not connected back to the product data, you lose the connection to the product data itself,” Villa explains.

As technical communicators, we are all familiar with the frustrations of lost requirements and valuable time wasted by information hunting. As an all-in-one solution, Arbotext allows you to “go to the source” of the product itself. For example, if you need information fast, simply do a query and get a list of information – you can then decide what format you want the information in. It is all associated with the content, which drives efficiencies, like a feedback system.

Villa admits that the system is “not perfect,” but it connects people with the data, and the data with the products.

The Integrated Tools

We were fortunate to get a demonstration, from Training Coordinator Richard Ernst, of the five tools that comprise the system. Ernst went through the stages of a typical documentation project, to showcase the system and how it encompasses all the phases of documentation (authoring, illustrating, revising and updating, styling, collaborating and reviewing, publishing).

The Arbortext Editor allows you to create content, edit and collaborate globally. The interface allows you to integrate text and illustrations, DITA maps and concepts. In fact, the system is designed to work with DITA. You can insert mark-ups and view tags – it even has a handy quick tag menu to make authoring more efficient. You can copy and paste from anything, including the web, PDF, Word, etc. When creating DITA maps, you can either layout the structure of the document or assemble the topics into a structure (working up or working down).

Revision and change management is easy – everything uses an associative link, so when you change a topic or illustration in any document (or tool), all files containing the same topic or illustration can also be updated automatically (if you want them to).

When you close the application, it retains your preferences of how you like to work (e.g.: with tags visible) for the next time you open it. These are just a few of the features that make the Arbortext Editor more intelligent than the average editor.

The Arbortext IsoDraw is CAD neutral and standard for technical illustration. You can work in 2D or 3D, in perspective or go to plane view; you can even work with legacy drawings and draw on the existing perspective planes. IsoDraw supports any export file type (even ones you haven’t seen since 1996). Your 3D CAD models can be made to match the grid and repurposed for different audiences and documents. Animations can also be made from existing 3D CAD models and played within the Arbortext Editor (there were many OOOs and AHHs at this point in the demonstration).

Another feature to give your illustrations an artistic flair – IsoDraw maintains thick and thin pen strokes in legacy drawings, even as you edit them.

The Arbortext Styler allows you to define many different stylesheets to apply to your content. Using these dynamic stylesheets, you can ensure that the information published is consistent across all media types. If you choose, you can create a master stylesheet to apply to multiple channels or enable multiple delivery formats (web, print, PDF, Word, HTML Help). You can also apply style rules from DITA or other standards.

The Arbortext Publishing Engine can take the same content and publish it to multiple outputs such as the web, PDF, Word, DVD, CD-ROM, and HTML Help. Using the engine, you can choose from multiple document layouts such as two-column or single column, fold-out page formats, or automatic styling. Of course, front and back matter can be automatically generated, including tables of contents, list of figures, and indexes.

Arbortext also has a Content Manager, although it is not required in order to use the tools and get most of their benefit.

For more information on the Arbortext Service Information System (because you know that this single blog article barely scratches the surface of what this robust system can do), check out Newbook’s website.

7 Simple Steps to DITA

2010-12-15T10:49:00.009-05:00

By Lori Jamieson

At our November meeting, Tim Grantham from Front Runner Training offered a practical training session on what might be considered herding ducks – making documents line up nicely into a row so they can be moved into and managed in DITA.

In his “7 Simple Steps to DITA” talk, Tim acknowledged that simple rarely means easy, but encouraged us to cling to the goal of using DITA to achieve productivity gains. “There’s a lot of wasted energy in managing conventional documents,” Tim says. That includes manually reformatting translated documents, manually copying and pasting content from one document to another, manually updating copies of content in multiple documents and manually converting documents from one proprietary format to another.

So what’s Tim’s recommended starting point? “Identify a common document type. Really dig in to find the documents that belong together... the shorter and more commonly used the better. His next steps?

Step 2 – Identify the structural elements common to most instances of the document type. For a product brochure, this might be title, product, value proposition, features and benefits, contact information.

Step 3 – Identify common content.

Step 4 – Identify unique content. Example: product name will be different from one brochure to the next.

Step 5 - Define a form or content template for each document type.

Define variables/ properties for fragments of content that occur frequently within an instance of the document type.

Step 6: Once you have standardized structure, then standardize content. Find chunks of content that are the same everywhere they are used.

Step 7: Standardize formatting. Keep paragraph, character, table styles as simple as possible.

Other hints for beginners: Use only defined styles. Define the number of text styles that you really need and resist every urge to start customizing. Define styles for structural elements – titles, images, terms, cross-references.

Tim’s recommendations for additional investigation: DITA Open Toolkit, a software add-on that can apply formatting to content. Tim says it is fast and reliable but that customizing the default formats is complicated for non-technical users. He also recommends Introduction to DITA, a new book by JoAnn Hackos.

2011: A Year of Renewal

2010-11-29T13:43:00.011-05:00

By Robert Cundari

With the final days and weeks of 2010 winding down and the heavy weight of the global economic crisis finally becoming less detrimental to our recognized way of life, ask yourself “Have I chosen the right professional tools to promote my career in 2011?”

As technical communicators, we recognize and seize opportunities to enhance our skills as often as we can. With that in mind, the STC is once again encouraging all current members to renew their memberships for 2011 as soon as possible - to receive the most “bang for your buck”. With several head-office run initiatives and our local chapter incentives, there simply isn’t a better time to renew your STC and local chapter memberships.

Here is a summary of the joint incentives:

1. STC-sponsored Community Horse Race – prizes are awarded to the chapters that achieve the highest renewal rate in the first quarter of 2011.

2. Prize giveaways upon membership renewal including iPods, Kindle e-readers, etc.

3. Member-Get-a-Member referral program to receive up to $50 off your membership (See STC's Member-Get-a-Member page for recruiting tips, sample emails to send to colleagues, talking points, and more.)

4. Southwestern Ontario Chapter-sponsored Participation Contest – points are awarded for membership renewal, referrals, event participation, etc. – Prizes will be handed out at the AGM to the top three “point-getters”. Monthly results of the contest will be posted on the STC-SOC website.

Time is Running Out ....

Current members, remember that your membership expires December 31, 2010. Membership renewals have begun in earnest and for those considering renewal, you can do so by clicking on the RENEW button at:

http://www.stc.org/membership/renew-your-stc-membership.asp

Renew your STC membership with the Southwestern Ontario Chapter before December 31^st and receive 50 points towards the Participation Contest.

What are you waiting for?

Technical Communication Tools Education Evening

2010-11-19T09:30:00.022-05:00

By Sam (Suman) Saha

The Southwestern Ontario Chapter of the STC presented an Education Evening on Tuesday, September 15th 2010 featuring many of the common applications that technical communicators use at their jobs. The SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) readily answered questions related to the tools, highlighted the relative strengths and weaknesses of these tools, and provided tips and tricks for their use.

The Education Evening was held in "progression" format, where each expert hosted a table, and attendees choose the table based on their level of interest. The attendees switched between the various tables according to the degree of detail desired.

The presenters were:

Julia Oulette - Adobe Illustrator

Peter Kehoe - Adobe Photoshop

Shannon Lerner - Adobe Acrobat

David Jaarsma - Microsoft Word

Jessie-Lee Schwartz - Microsoft Word

Bernard Aschwanden - Framemaker

Christine McKarney - Robohelp

Feedback received from some of the attendees is below:

Fei Min:

Advanced MS Word

The coolest thing that I learned is that there is a RefStyle in the field codes. If you create a unique paragraph style, then a template user can type in that paragraph and whatever they type will appear wherever you’ve used the RefStyle field. This makes filling in document information like the author, date and version really easy, and that information can be displayed on every page in the footer. Jessie-Lee and David had plenty of neat tricks to show.

Adobe Photoshop

This program has so many cool things that it’s hard to pick just one. I guess my favorite was using Image > Adjustments > Shadows/Highlights to fix a photograph when the lighting was too dark or too bright. It works better than using Brightness/Contrast. Julia demonstrated this on a picture where there was a black lump on a sofa, and with one click on the Shadows/Highlights dialogue, you saw that the black lump was really a dog.

RoboHelp

Christine showed me how she is using RoboHelp at work right now, and pointed out what it can and can’t do. Their source files are in HTML, and they use RoboHelp to organize the HTML files into an online help system, with a few special features courtesy of Java scripts. RoboHelp also promotes the re-use of text by supporting shared text with “snippets”, conditional text and variables.

Sam:

Robohelp

I was amazed to see that Robohelp has progressed so much since the time I last worked on it, which was about 5 years ago. It is much more user-friendly, and comes with a lot more functionalities. Christine demonstrated the various ways Robohelp can be manipulated to produce awesome documents, which was really great!! I look forward to working with Robohelp again very soon.

Adobe Illustrator

Although I never had a chance to work with Adobe Illustrator before, going forward I would definitely love to work with this particular tool. The features and functionalities are a great help for any writer in the business of creating user friendly documents. Never knew that a picture can be broken down and manipulated in so many ways to suit the end user’s needs. Really awesome!!

Debbie:

I don't know quite what I expected from the Tools progression, but it provided everything I wanted and more. I attended the Adobe Acrobat, Advanced Word, and Illustrator sessions.

The Adobe Acrobat session was an eye-opener. Most of my exposure to the product was for creating PDFs. Little did I know that there were so many other functions that I had never even explored. I watched as presenter, Shannon Lerner, walked through the process of having multiple authors provide feedback on one document. She also demonstrated the steps to creating forms. While I have seen forms created in other applications, I have never seen it done in Acrobat.

As for Word, I have just started to use Word 2007 so I figured I would be learning something new about this version. I was not disappointed. For example, while I know about macros I have not used them very effectively. David Jaarsma showed me the light. He demonstrated several macros that he had created. Frankly, I hadn't even considered developing a macro so that I could create a table to meet the company standards and in only one step. Jessie-Lee Schwartzalso offered her expertise. It was great how she worked with David so that the information they provided complemented each other so that you were doubling the amount of information received in a relatively short time.

Illustrator and Photoshop are not applications that I use every day. In fact, they are applications that I would love to use. Presenter Julia Oulette showed me why my interest is justified. While my focus has always been on Photoshop, it was great to see what Illustrator can do. I could immediately see how it could be extremely useful for technical communication. While I am used to looking at a picture as a whole, I have a new found interest in vectors and what you can do once a picture is broken into parts.

Overall, the Technical Communication Tools Education Evening was definitely an eye opener about the various tools that are used in producing high quality user friendly help guides and documents. For more information about the Education Evening, please visit http://stc-soc.org/calendar/Sept13Bios.php

What has the STC – SOC Council been up to?

2010-11-04T15:46:00.005-04:00

Meeting monthly, Council and chapter members discuss and plan activities that promote the STC mission and help support the chapter’s vibrant membership with events and education evenings.

Briefly, here are the highlights of what has happened over the past two months:

The community partnership with Communitech is now established: Included in this partnership is joint meeting participation, joint website promotion and dedicated liaisons who ensure an ongoing communication link.

The Participation Game criteria will soon be finalised: The game’s objective is to track and reward member and non-member contributions to chapter activities.

The Technology Spotlight: Look for our chapter’s advertisement in the Who’s Who section of this publication.

Social Media: We plan to set up chapter profiles in Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Groups to help improve our visibility and offer you more flexibility in obtaining your chapter updates.

2010/11 STC Regional Competition: We’ve joined with the Toronto chapter again to determine the region’s best technical publications and online communications.

Heidi Thiessen Memorial Award: There are revised rules; promotion will begin in November and the entrant deadline will be set for January 2011. Final details will be advertised shortly.

Education evenings: The November evening will feature Tim Grantham as he talks about how to get all the benefits of DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) without the pain. The agenda for January’s session is being developed.

Spring Workshop: Planning is underway for our annual workshop in the spring. Think about budgeting for this event now. Stay tuned for details!

As you can see the Council, chapter members and volunteers have been busy getting things done. Check back shortly to see where their hard work and dedication is leading the chapter.

2010/11 STC Regional Competition

2010-11-02T06:54:00.000-04:00

This year’s competition is now open!

We’ve joined with the Toronto chapter again to determine the region’s best technical publications and online communications in these categories:
• Informational Materials
• Instructional Materials
• Promotional Materials
• User Support Materials

The simplified categories should make entering and judging the competition easier, allowing judges to give great feedback on each entry.

You can get all the information you need by clicking the Competitions link on the STC-SOC website.

The deadline to enter is December 3rd, 2010.

Judges are also needed – please contact Nancy Halverson competition@stc-soc.org if you’re interested.

STC - SOC - First Annual General Meeting

2010-08-29T11:30:00.028-04:00

This June we held our first Annual General Meeting at the Heuther’s Boardroom. Members and non-members were welcomed. Since only chapter members have voting privileges, the 12 members in attendance comprised quorum for the business component of the agenda. Fei Min Lorente opened the evening with a recap of our accomplishments this year. It’s an impressive list - 16 activities long. These are just the highlights!

1. Registered as a non-profit organization
2. Wrote our bylaws which were approved by head office
3. Hosted four education evenings and four web seminars
4. Ran a successful student award competition
5. Jointly held the technical publications and online competitions with the Toronto chapter
6. Held our wine and cheese awards night
7. Organized two days of workshops
8. Published the newsletter
9. Launched a Blog and events discussion list
10. Sent a council member to the International STC conference to participate in the leadership day
11. Revised the International Affiliation Agreement and sent it to head office
12. Mounted a membership renewal campaign
13. Presented the benefits of the STC to the editor’s group at RIM
14. Organized regular meetings and correspondence with the other Canadian chapter Presidents
15. Signed a limited partnership agreement with Communitech
16. Moved the website to a new host

We’ve also started planning for next year, and are investigating technology to allow our members to be more involved. The new Blog and the events list permit more timely and interactive communication. We’d like to expand this forum into a discussion area for questions and answers and increase the number of web casts and teleconferences so members who live and work at a distance can be included. We’re also working with other chapters on various issues. At the Canadian level, we’re working on a re-write of the International Affiliation Agreement and producing a Canadian Salary Survey.

Financially, our chapter is in the black. Our Treasurer, Jim Bousquet presented the audited financial statement for 2009. Details are available on request.

From the business side of the annual meeting, the members in attendance approved the bylaws unanimously. Then we held the Board of Directors elections. Fei Min Lorente continues as President, Jim Bousquet as Treasurer and Carol Lawless as Secretary.

That wrapped up the General Meeting agenda, but not the evening. Aside from enjoying a scrumptious dinner, and great company, we announced our partnership with Communitech. It’s a great opportunity for us to tap into their large local membership and Communitech now has another professional offering for their members. We also officially presented Lori Jankowski with her Distinguished Services Award.

Finally, Fei Min thanked the many volunteers who have made the year a success through their hard work. And of course, Fei Min deserves much thanks and credit for her hard work. Debbie Kerr, Past President took the floor to acknowledge everything Fei Min has done.

We wrapped up the evening with Wilfred Laurier University’s Nashifa Carter, who gave a very interesting and informative talk on persuasion and working with Subject Matter Experts and other colleagues. See Working effectively... for a summary of her talk.

Annual General Meeting Guest Speaker: Nashifa Carter

2010-07-31T07:34:00.001-04:00

Working Effectively with Subject Matter Experts

Technical communicators usually share a common contradiction between their position in an organization’s hierarchy, and the job they have to do. For the most part, they are not in positions of authority. From this powerless position, they have to get information from co-workers (SMEs and managers) who are busy with their main duties, and convince them to adhere to the documentation schedule.

In an engaging and entertaining discussion, Nashifa guided the audience through the obstacles to working with people who have a higher status than technical communicators. We discussed some of the challenges to working relationships: people have different ways of communicating, they often misunderstand each other, they sometimes don’t respect each other, and in the case of technical communicators, we are often bearing bad news, such as “This description is unintelligible” or “I found another bug”. We also talked about the best way to present bad news, which is to state the problem in a way that does not accuse the SME of doing something wrong, but puts the emphasis on difficulty we are having. We compared “you don’t make any sense” to “I don’t understand”.

Conflict between people can be caused by generational gaps. People of different ages often have different expectations and attitudes with respect to acceptable behaviour at work, what constitutes good work ethic, and how to be compensated for productivity. Different corporate cultures, or simply different cultures, can cause conflict, too, for the same reasons as generational differences. And there are still many basic gender differences that have nothing to do with equality, but everything to do with the fact that male and female brains operate differently. (At this point, Nashifa reminded the audience that our discussion of differences and their causes are sweeping generalizations, but are still useful in a broad sense because they raise awareness about the source of interpersonal differences.)

To gain the co-operation of SMEs, technical communicators might try working on their interpersonal skills. They can look at the problem from the SME’s point of view. From there, a technical communicator and SME can try to find common ground.

To gain the respect of the SMEs, technical communicators must establish credibility by demonstrating competence in the job, good work ethic, and professional behaviour. Technical communicators should make the extra effort to say “thank you”, and be confident enough to say “I’m sorry”, showing that they take responsibility for their actions. Most of all, they must form relationships with the SMEs.

As for how to form relationships, we had two different methodologies from the audience. One person uses the “bring cookies and buy them a coffee” method. She found this inexpensive form of bribery to be effective, especially when you can get information from the SME over coffee. Another attendee deliberately avoided the cookie method and chose instead to go out for a beer with the guys, and share in their jokes. In both cases, these women formed relationships with the SMEs, and gained their co-operation.

The audience left with the encouraging message that although technical communicators are often in powerless positions, they can still wield influence. Nashifa also kindly offered her contact information in case anyone has more questions or would like to discuss a particular case. You can contact her at ncarter@wlu.ca.

----------------------------------------

Nashifa has over 10 years' experience in Human Resource Management, focusing on recruitment and selection, performance management, training and development, and organizational development. Her experience encompasses both the private and the public sectors, and she has taught at Laurier’s School of Business & Economics for the past 13 years.

Her management and consulting experience includes both a strategic focus: reviewing and recommending changes to organizational systems; and a tactical focus: implementing change. Her strengths lie in training and development, downsizing and reorganization, performance management, and recruitment. She assesses needs and develops materials for management and staff training programs that she delivers on a variety of subjects, including:

• Communication and interpersonal skills

• Conflict management

• Problem solving

• Customer service

• Human Resource Management (HRM)

In addition, Nashifa has undertaken several communication projects: creating and writing training materials, HR manuals, employee handbooks, brochures and newsletters. Currently she is the Harassment/Discrimination Coordinator at WLU.

Education Days 2010

2010-06-15T12:16:00.017-04:00

It’s nearly impossible to explain two days of workshops in less than a thousand words; you just had to be there! As a result, I decided that this article will contain the main points that I took away from the workshops. If the other attendees noticed different things, I hope they’ll add their comments to this blog.

Topic-Based and Structured Authoring – Neil Perlin

We learned to write in topics instead of documents. A topic is a self-contained piece of information about a subject. If it is self-contained, it can be re-used or put in a different order. It encourages minimalistic writing, forces writers to organize their writing, and allows many different writers to contribute to a “document” without overwriting each others’ work. If your target documentation format uses an online help paradigm instead of a book paradigm, it’s much easier to think and write in topics.

We learned to develop a structure and use it consistently. Structure provides standard sectional, syntactic and stylistic rules. The structure can be unenforced and simply defined in a template or style guide, or you can enforce structure using various tools such as XML (eXtensible Markup Language).

We learned how to plan and manage the project of implementing topic-based writing and structured authoring, such as becoming aware of the company’s goals and promoting how this project can contribute to those goals. Neil was especially helpful with tips on dealing with the political situations that can develop between departments when implementing such a project.

We learned that the answer to all questions begins with “It depends…”

As he taught, Neil illustrated his points with stories from his extensive consulting experience. For example, sometimes he recommended the same conclusions that the employees reached, but since he’s a consultant, management listened to him. If you’re having trouble convincing management to do something, a consultant can be helpful in this regard. Sometimes he’s called in to review two competing proposals and choose one. If you’re looking for the best way forward, a consultant can provide an objective, knowledgeable opinion, but you don’t have to hire a consultant to do all the work.

In the afternoon, we did some hands-on exercises with our own work samples. We practiced looking at common elements, identifying the topic type, and creating an appropriate structure that would encompass all instances of this topic type. It was an interesting exercise to apply all the theories from the morning to actual documents.

After all Neil’s hard work, we took him out for dinner at Hog Tails BarBQue to satisfy Neil’s other professional interest…. See Neil’s blog for a restaurant review. You’ll have to scroll down to find Hog Tails.

DITA from legacy to the future – Bernard Aschwanden

Building on Neil’s information about topic-based authoring and structured writing, Bernard taught us about DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture). DITA is a standardized XML (eXtensible Markup Language), so it enforces structure and uses the topic paradigm. Since DITA is a standard, all the tools that support DITA can exchange information seamlessly. At the end of the hands-on section, Bernard proved this to us by taking topics we wrote in FrameMaker or XMetal, and opened all of them in both tools.

In a nutshell:

· Information is written in topics, and the topics fall into three basic categories: task, concept and reference.

o Task is a procedure; how to do something

o Concept is what something is, and why it’s useful.

o Reference is quick access to detailed facts when the user already knows how and why.

· A map defines the organization and hierarchy of the topics. It creates relationships between them.

· A reltable is another organizational component of DITA that allows you to create cross-references between topics that don’t depend on hierarchy. Gathering cross-references in a single entity allows you to manage these links separately from the information.

· Special elements for content re-use and publishing:

· A conref for shared topics; the topic in its entirety appears wherever the conref is.

· A ditaval for conditional text; allows you to filter the information on an attribute so that only some information appears in the publication.

Besides learning about the components and composition of DITA, we learned how to convert legacy documentation to DITA. We heard about the cost, procedures for reviewing existing documentation, a conversion plan, mapping existing documentation to the DITA paradigm, and available tools. Since the information that is written in DITA is independent of formatting, you define the format using whichever scheme or tool you choose. For instance, you might choose a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) if your output is HTML, or FrameMaker if your output is PDF.

Armed with basic information about the most commonly used DITA elements, we wrote a topic in either FrameMaker 9 or XMetal 6. Besides putting the DITA information into practice, most of us had the opportunity to try out a new tool or a new version. I found that writing to comply with the DITA structure requires a different way of thinking because each unit of information is compartmentalized into a predefined bucket. You begin by deciding whether you are writing a concept, task or reference concept; the order and structure of the rest of your writing is then determined by that decision. This is the nature of adhering to a standard, which brings about the benefits of content re-use and tool independence.

DITA is a large and comprehensive standard. Bernard did an excellent job of providing us with the maximum information possible in a short amount of time. The hands-on exercises helped us to grasp the concepts and put them into practice, and gave us a taste of the challenges involved. The final demonstration where he took the topics we all wrote and displayed them in two different proprietary tools, with no conversion or reformatting, showed us some of the possible benefits if we were to take on the challenge of using DITA. Love it or hate it, DITA is a fascinating construct.

Education Days 2011

If you feel like you missed something, you did! Hope you can join us next year.

We’re already thinking about Education Days 2011 and we’re open to suggestions. Please get in touch with Tracey Aitcheson if you have a topic or a speaker who you’d like to hear.

Canadian Chapters Meeting #4

2010-06-08T21:14:00.002-04:00

Five of the six Canadian STC chapter presidents met in April by teleconference, and we discussed the following ideas.

Electing a Canadian Director

The directors who won in the 2010 election each garnered from 306 to 457 votes. Considering this, we think we could elect a Canadian director with just over 300 votes. Bernard Aschwanden from the Toronto chapter intends to run for a director position next year. STC policy states that chapters cannot endorse a candidate, but we can certainly help to publicize the candidacy of a Canadian. We can’t expect a single Canadian director to change the entire STC organization, and every director has a duty to the entire organization, not just one country, but a Canadian director can advocate for issues affecting members outside of the USA, and facilitate communication between the Canadian chapters and the Board of Directors. The Canadian chapter presidents agreed to continue working together to facilitate this two-way communication.

Salary Survey

The national salary survey has been drafted, but we are debating who should participate in the survey. On one hand, the survey results are a significant benefit, and we would like to restrict it to STC members. On the other hand, if we include non-members, we will obtain a better statistical sample. However, concerns have been raised about the accuracy of the survey if we cannot be sure that the participants are technical communicators. One possibility is that we send the survey to employers and clients in addition to members. Discussions are ongoing, but we feel we can meet the intended schedule of an October distribution for December results.

Insurance Proposal

Canada West Coast chapter is spearheading the investigation into health insurance for independent contractors and consultants because many of the STC members work in this capacity. The CWC chapter has found several alternatives, and are developing a survey to find out which option their members prefer. The other Canadian chapters are welcome to re-use the survey and offer the same insurance coverage as a chapter-member benefit.

Proposed National Organization

A senior STC member and STC Fellow, Geoff Hart, has proposed the idea of creating a Canadian umbrella organization. This organization would collect STC dues and give a portion of them directly to the Canadian chapters (thus avoiding currency conversion fees), send the rest of the money to Head Office (so it’s only converted once), centralize the international affiliation agreement, and co-ordinate communication and joint efforts between the provinces. We had some concerns about the availability of volunteers to work in a national organization, and whether it would be cost-effective. A business plan is required; however Geoff is unable to commit his time to develop one. Is anyone else interested in pursuing this? If so, please contact your chapter president.

Usefulness of Canadian Chapter Meetings

The Canadian chapter presidents agreed that these conference call meetings have been helpful to all participants, and we intend to continue having them on an as-needed basis. We also took the opportunity to compare membership numbers. Most chapters have experienced a 50% drop in membership and are taking steps to attract more members and encourage people to renew. Both the Toronto and Alberta chapters are exceptions to the membership decline; Alberta even won the STC renewal race for chapters of 150 to 300 members! Congratulations, Alberta!

Several chapters introduced their incoming presidents who will participate in meetings after June 2010.

As always, if you have any concerns, questions or suggestions, please discuss them with your chapter president.

A Monumental Day Dawns for Technical Communicators: Certification!

2010-05-14T18:38:00.002-04:00

Republished from STC's Notebook Feed, May 2, 2010...

The Society for Technical Communication (STC) announced today that certification for the technical communication field has been approved. Within the next year, technical communicators will be able to attain certification in their profession.

Certification creates two enormous benefits for our profession and for practitioners. First, certification establishes a solid foundation for the legitimacy and economic contribution of technical communication. Second, certified practitioners can clearly demonstrate their expertise as technical communicators, greatly enhancing their value in the marketplace.

Practitioners will become certified in six core competency areas:

• User analysis
• Document design
• Project management
• Authoring (content creation)
• Delivery
• Quality assurance

As a result, employers and clients alike will now have a concrete idea of the expertise, contribution, and value that technical communicators bring to the marketplace. STC is developing a page on its website dedicated to promoting certification and explaining the value of certified technical communicators.

Two days ago, on 30 April, the STC Board of Directors accepted a business case from its Certification Task Force. This historic event occurred after 35 years of ongoing and difficult discussion. The Society has embraced the idea of certification for technical communicators, and in the coming months will be developing a certification program.

Certification will be based on assessing portfolios and work artifacts, not examinations. (In other words, there are no tests.) This method takes advantage of the existing methodology and infrastructure of both the publications competitions and the Associate Fellow and Fellow process. To implement the program, STC is defining assessment criteria for each of these six competency areas, then recruiting a network of examiners to review applications. In the future, as the Body of Knowledge is fleshed out, STC will look at adding an exam-based assessment as another certification method.

Once conferred, certification will be valid for three years. To ensure that competencies are kept relevant, certified professionals must become recertified for another three years. As with many other professions, recertification involves completing and participating in educational and professional activities. STC currently has a number of these opportunities available, and will be creating more in the upcoming year.

Member and nonmember certification and recertification fess are still being developed; however, these fees will be comparable to certification programs of similar associations.

To learn more, attend the “Status of Certification for Technical Communicators” session Wednesday morning, 5 May, at 11:30 AM in Cumberland KL during STC’s Summit in Dallas, Texas. The Certification Task Force will report on its process, progress, and future. You can also expect to hear much more about certification in the coming weeks!

STC Summit - Topic Trends

2010-05-08T22:35:00.021-04:00

By Debbie Kerr

Prior to coming to the conference, I tried to plan which education sessions I wanted to attend. Since I was going to a conference for technical communicator, nearly every session seemed to apply to me. I took my best guess at what I thought would be the best for me. However, once I got to Dallas and started looking again, I started to develop stronger feelings about some sessions over others. The name of the speaker made the difference. In other cases, I noticed something in the session descriptions that I hadn't notice it before. It was like being told you could only have one piece of candy when all of them looked good. With this in mind, I spent every night reviewing the next day's sessions to make sure that what I thought were my best selections before I arrived at the Summit were still my best choices.

When I was planning for the conference, Fei Min Lorente (your fearless president) and Carol Lawless (your chapter secretary) suggested that I select two sessions for each time slot so that if one session wasn't providing me with the information that I wanted I could go to my second choice. I am happy to report, in all cases, that I was satisfied with my first choice.

On May 3, I attended the following sessions:

Assessing Your Corporate Value - Jack Molisani

Using Stories for More Effective Usability - Whitney Quesenbery

Content Management as a Practice - Pamela Kostur (my favourite for the day)

On May 4, I attended the following sessions:

How to Edit Online Like a Pro! - Linda Oestreich and Michelle Corbin

Creating Visual Help and Training Using Adobe Acrobat - Neil Perlin

Managing Documentation Projects in a Collaborative World - Larry Kunz (one of my favourites for the day)

Content Strategy SIG Progression - too many presenters to mention

Building Visual Explanations: Practical Advice for Writers - Don Moyer (my favourite of the Summit)

On May 5, I attended the following sessions:

Results of Interviewing Editors: Best Practices, Challenges, Insights - Angela Eaton, Liz Pohland, Cynthia McPherson

Thriving in an Agile Environment - Kathryn Poe

Enhance Your Writing Career with Improved Speaking Skills - Barrie Byron

While the topics may seemed varied, there were two hot topics for the Summit: Content Strategy and Agile. Some of these topics you can see in the title of the sessions and others were embedded in the topic descriptions.

Social Media

With changes in the way that information can be presented to users, a content strategy is becoming more accurate than preparing a documentation plan. With the various social media options available (e.g. forums, wikis, Twitter, and blogs), many organizations are looking toward using these resources in addition to traditional documentation. In some cases, these other methods of communication will replace all or some of the more traditional methods. For this reason, the method for planning how to provide users with information must be an entire content strategy, and not merely focused on documentation.

For example, in one education session, the presenter talked about how someone had used Twitter to learn when users were having trouble with a product. Since the success of a company is often based on customer service, being proactive in providing information is an excellent place to start. Imagine being on Twitter and complaining to someone that a particular feature doesn't work. Wouldn't be great if someone from that company contacted you and provided you with an answer without you even having to contact them? In many cases, users don't even ask for assistance from the company. They often complain about the company/product without trying to get an answer to their questions. Using Twitter helps to eliminate this step.

Another interesting way to use Twitter is to get sales leads and to obtain feedback about what features users would like to see in a product. Another way that companies are using social media is to use wikis for Help and forums for customers to obtain support from either the company or fellow users. Social media seems to have more uses than just being sociable.

Agile

Agile is a new way of planning and completing a project. This methodology replaces the traditional waterfall and iterative waterfall that is usually used for the software development life cycle. With Agile, requirements, development, documentation, and testing, take place over and over in iterations that build on the previous iteration. One iteration might include A, B, and C. The second iteration will include any necessary changes to A, B, and C, and new items D and E. This process will continue until everything is complete -- development, documentation, and testing.

The major change for technical communicators is that everyone involved in the design and development cycles are part of the project right from the beginning. This means moving from the end of the development cycle to being involved right from the beginning. As you can imagine, for many technical communicators, this is a big and welcome change.

Some people enter into the Agile world for the wrong reasons, for example, they believe that it will eliminate the need for documentation and that everything will get done faster. The truth is that documentation will still be needed; it just might be created using different timelines, which will necessitate writing and reviewing documentation in a different way. As for getting work done faster, this will only be true if the people involved in the process have the discipline needed to complete their work on time and in the way that is needed. Without this discipline, companies can end up with more chaos than they may have had before.

Conclusion

It seems like there is a lot of potential changes to the role of technical communicator. It also emphasizes that the term technical writer does not accurately reflect our changing role.

STC Summit - Tourist Tidbits

2010-05-06T22:36:00.024-04:00

By Debbie Kerr

The Summit was held in the Hyatt Regency hotel, which is the building on the right. The structure on the left is Reunion Tower, which has several components that include Wolfgang Puck's restaurant (Five Sixty) and an observation deck. Unfortunately, the tower was closed for renovations. Based on information that I found on the Internet, it seems that the tower has been closed for over a year.

Although the tower was closed to the public, the lights on the top of the were still visible at night. My husband managed to take this picture when we were returning during one of many trips to the nearby Historical District.

The Historic District contains items associated with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. There is the Book Depository, the grassy knoll (where some believe there was a second gunman), the JFK Memorial, and even an X on the road where President Kennedy was shot. The Book Depository is where the Sixth Floor Museum is located. This is the location from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy. Ironically, while we were there, someone tried to rob the museum of both money and some artefacts; however, the thieves never got away.

One day, while I was attending some of the education sessions, my husband rented a car and looked at some sites farther away from the downtown area. His day trip included the Texas Motor Speedway, the Cowboys Stadium and the Rangers Ballpark. At the speedway, his tour guide (shuttle bus driver) got permission to go around the track with my husband, so they sped around the track going 80 mph. At the stadium, my husband did his own walking tour and got lots of valuable information by talking to the employees onsite. While he did not go into Rangers Ballpark, he did get some great pictures.

On 4.2 acres of downtown Dallas, there is Pioneer Plaza, which contains approximately 40 statues of longhorn steer, complete with cowboys. These larger than life statues show a typical cattle drive. My husband found out about this site when he talked to Manny, who worked at the hotel. Manny turned out to be a wealth of information.

One of the sites that I did see, and the one that is my favourite, is a 120 year old building in downtown Dallas called the Old Red Museum. On top of this building are four decorative creatures called Acroteria/Wyverns (from the Latin word "serpents). Each of these creatures also have two feet and wings. There is also a clock tower and stained glass windows.

As you can see, there is lots to see in Dallas.

The Summit 2010, Keynote Speaker and Education Sessions Begin

2010-05-04T16:54:00.013-04:00

By Debbie Kerr

For most of the conference attendees, this was the day when the bulk of us started learning. The Leadership Day enabled me to learn from one perspective, the remaining days were opportunities for me to learn from another perspective.

The first stage of learning was from the keynote speaker. Erin McKean—Chief Consulting Editor, American Dictionaries for Oxford University Press, as well as founder and CEO of Wordnik —showed us how words, especially when considered as part of the history of the dictionary, are as much fun as we expected. She talked about the first issue of the dictionary and how there were instructions on how to look up things in alphabetical order. There was even a description of what alphabetical meant! To top this off, it was written in an older form of English (looketh up writing from the 1600s and you will knoweth what I mean). :-)

She poked fun at the dictionary itself because it describes a dictionary has having one-sentence descriptions of words that are captured in a book. If you have ever looked at a dictionary, you know that there is far more content than one sentence and it no longer needs to be in a book.

She also talked about dictionaries defining what without capturing, who, how, where and when. Her example was the word "tuxedo". Without context, how would you know if the person wearing the tuxedo was a waiter or James Bond? To give you an example of Erin's sense of humour, this was conveyed with pictures of Lego figures, where only one was carrying a gun and an attache case.

She also gave an example of a definition of a feather that went on for about five lines, which left us more confused than ever before. Talk about poor choices of words and the passive voice!

All in all, the topic struck a chord with the audience, and it became quite clear why she had just been made an Honorary Fellow of the Society.

After the keynote speaker, the more intense learning began. Because of the keynote speaker, the education sessions did not start until 1:30 pm, but they continued throughout the day until 6:15 pm. During that time I attended the following sessions (each of which is about 1.5 hours long):

Assessing/Increasing Your Corporate Value

Using Stories for More Effective Usability

Content Management as a Practice

The last session hit home with me because it related to some projects that I have been working on lately. It emphasized the importance of putting processes in place even before selecting a tool, and even deciding if a tool is needed. Ironically, the speaker is from Toronto. It was particularly funny (for me) when she mentioned Canada's win over the U.S. team in the Olympics. Things went uphill after that. :-)

After these learning sessions, I attended a Community Reception. It's at events like this that you get a good sense of just how international the organization is. As a member in your own town or city, you don't really think about India, France, Israel, Australia or even the vastness of the United States, and just how many states there really are. After a short time at a networking event—not to mention Leadership Day, and talking to the person beside you at one of the education sessions—you have a real eye-opening experience. You start to recognize the vastness of the technical communication profession, of which you are an important part.

I am writing this blog entry between learning sessions, which is when I am supposed to be eating; however, to get free Internet access, which is set up in the Exhibitition Hall, I have to use the terminals a little off hours, although, as you can see from the picture, there really is no down time.

My head is getting ready to burst with all the new information. It helps to write about it and share it with others. Stayed tuned for more details about some great sessions that I have attended so far today.

The Summit 2010, Leadership Day

2010-05-04T10:49:00.002-04:00

By Debbie Kerr

Leadership Day started at 7:30 am Sunday morning. Perhaps it was a test of leadership to be on time for this event and still follow the great presentations going on. Not all people are morning people.

The day started with Cindy Currie, STC President, providing a summary of the financial crisis and how the Society survived and even made a small profit after taking many actions to deal with a projected deficit.

In an effort to let chapters participate in how we move forward, the Society asked for volunteers to be on a task force -- Community Funding and Support. One of the members of that task force is from the West Coast Chapter in British Columbia. Four members of the task force gave a presentation, which was really well received. In fact, their observations and recommendations were one of the highlights of the morning as the leaders (both Chapters and Society) recognized the validity and value of the information.

In the afternoon, there were various progressions to attend. I participated in the following:

Re-engineering Your Community
How to Create Webinars
Community Funding and Support
Developing Educational Programs

Everyone had some great ideas. The day was full of a lot of questions and answers -- so many that one of the items on the agenda had to be dropped. Some of the suggestions require more research at the Society level. I look forward to seeing the end result.

Look for my next post about the keynote speaker and my first education seminars.

The Summit 2010, Travelling to Dallas

2010-05-03T14:31:00.008-04:00

By Debbie Kerr

I am the Immediate Past President of the chapter. In a draw that the chapter held to see which council member would attend this conference, my name was selected. The last conference did not go well for me -- my appendix ruptured and I spent my time in Las Vegas, the place of the conference, in a hospital room. The standard bon voyage message as I left for the conference had something to do with returning and having all my organs intact.

In an effort to keep costs down, I decided to fly out of Detroit. Although the drive was a long one, the weather was good and I saved about $400 in the process.

While the drive was long, the sleep was limited. I got up at 3:30 am to make sure I caught my 6:45 am plane. The lineups at the airport were like those at Wonderland. I couldn't believe that there would be so many people at the airport at that awful hour. The plane out of Detroit was delayed because of a storm (lightning, high winds, and heavy rains). I was glad that it started before takeoff rather than after. Although there was some turbulence, I arrived in one piece.

My husband came with me on the trip, so in an effort to do something together before all the meetings and education sessions started, we tried out Dallas's transportation system and went to the Dallas Zoo. The zoo in Toronto is a lot bigger, but from the walking we did and the pain in our feet, my husband and I were glad that the zoo wasn't any bigger.

Bedtime was early because, between the 3:30 am start and the amount of walking, we were exhausted. Our last bit of exercise was trying to climb up into bed. The top of the mattresses was about 3 feet off the floor, which meant that neither my husband or I could touch the floor when we were sitting on the mattress.

The Leadership Day started at 7:30 am the next day, so I wanted to be wide awake for the discussions.

Look for my next blog entry about Leadership Day. I am off to my first education session.

2010 Awards Night Video

2010-04-26T20:16:00.005-04:00

If you missed the party, here are some sights and sounds from the event. If you were there, take a look; you might see yourself!

> 2010 Southwestern Ontario Chapter Awards Night

Many thanks to Rhonda Lee for putting the video together.

STC Celebrates Excellence

2010-04-21T20:11:00.008-04:00

by Patrice Bernard

Many people assume that it is easy to write – reports, letters, blogs. For some it is true, and the evidence is obvious. For others, it is not so. A well written document is magical; easy to read and easy to understand no matter how complicated the subject. The reader’s eyes just flow across the words almost effortlessly. Isn’t that the craft of technical writing?

During Awards Night, held on the evening of April 6, 2010, the Society for Technical Communication Southwestern Ontario Chapter (STC – SOC) celebrated the excellence of the written word and the contributions made by students and writing professionals to the development and promotion of both the Society’s mission and our Chapter.

Three award categories were recognised during the wine and cheese gathering. Debbie Kerr (past President STC – SOC) and Fei Min Lorente (current President STC – SOC) presented certificates to the recipients.

From left to right: Alex Chortos, Arthur Churchyard, and Ushnish De

The first was the Heidi Thiessen Memorial University Student Award – named in memory of a devoted mentor of students and young writers, this recognition is awarded to a 3rd or 4th year student who submits a cover letter, writing samples and a record of academic achievement. A panel of judges chooses the top three entries.

First Place was awarded to Alex Chortos a 4th year Nanotechnology Engineering student at the University of Waterloo. Alex’s submissions were Modeling of Diffusion of Excitons Generated by Pulsed Laser Excitation in Titanium Dioxide Thin Film and Analysis of the Process of Measuring Electrical Properties of Silicon Nanocrystals Embedded in a Silicon Oxide Matrix. The judges remarked that “Alex did a commendable job of presenting a highly technical topic, while being constrained by standard scientific reporting methods.” Alex received $1,000.00, plus an STC Student Membership.

Second Place was awarded to Arthur Churchyard, a 4th year Biology and Environmental Studies student at the University of Guelph. Arthur’s submissions were entitled The sticky side of water and waste–water treatment and Video offers best practices for water controllers. The judges noted that “Arthur’s work was consistent with the requirements for a journalistic piece. Language was appropriate for the audience, and the material, especially in the first article, was well organized and engaging.” Arthur received $500.00, plus an STC Student Membership.

Third Place was awarded to Ushnish De, a 4th year Honours Computational Mathematics student at the University of Waterloo. Ushnish’s submissions were IReport for Reports and The Velocity System. The judges commented that “Ushnish’s piece on IReport did a good job of describing the work involved, and the procedures in particular are appropriately chunked and easy to follow.” Ushnish received $200.00, plus an STC Student Membership.

The second award category presented was the 2009/2010 STC Regional Technical Communication Competition recognising excellence in online communication and technical publications. This year STC Southwestern Ontario Chapter partnered with STC Toronto to judge and select the best entries.

Roxanne Eszes, a member of STC Southwestern Ontario Chapter, received an Award of Merit for her online tutorial entitled Segregated Funds E-Learning Course. The judges commented that “the test exercises are well designed.” Roxanne, owner of Learning Partner, develops online tutorials for the insurance and financial sectors. People successfully completing Roxanne’s tutorials receive continuous education credits toward the maintenance of their professional designations.

The third award category during the evening was the Distinguished Chapter Service Award which acknowledges the work of those Chapter members who repeatedly provide exemplary service to the Society through their activities. Lori Jankowski was recognised for her great service, her sense of professionalism, and her commitment to the Chapter during the past 8 years.

Lori has served on the STC-SOC council, in various roles, for almost as long as she has been a technical communicator. She has worked in a team of writers, as an independent contractor, and as a lone writer. As a former manager said, “she continually demonstrated a passion for communication and a genuine enthusiasm for delving into various technical issues with the goal of writing the clearest, most audience-friendly documentation possible, which she was regularly successful at accomplishing.” Lori currently works for North Plains Systems in Toronto, and in spite of the distance, continues to be a member of the STC-SOC.

Congratulations again to all recipients. It was a pleasure for me to attend the relaxed social gathering where I witnessed members renewing acquaintances, welcoming visitors and recognising writing excellence.

2010-04-18T14:49:00.009-04:00

By Jim Bousquet

Have you ever wondered how to properly attribute trademarks to their owners? Finding authoritative sources on correct trademark usage can be difficult, which is why the STC’s Southwestern Ontario Chapter was particularly fortunate to have Richard McClurg, Senior Marketing Manager at ON Semiconductor’s Medical Division, speak about both copyrights and trademarks on March 9. Richard has 17 years of experience applying trademark and copyright guidelines while creating, launching and working with global brands and the related marketing and technical communications.

The bottom line? Following what other companies and publishers do might not be the way to go. As Richard noted, ‘Even in larger organizations, guidelines for claiming and acknowledging copyrights and trademarks may not reflect current law or best practices.’

Copyright

As writers, many of us are somewhat familiar with the concepts, if not the laws, surrounding copyright. Copyright laws exist to balance access to creators’ works with their right to make a living. Creators automatically own the copyright on their work unless the work was part of a job for an employer or client. In these cases the party paying for the work owns the copyright, unless a contract states otherwise.

While notice isn’t required in Canada or most countries, it is required in some so proper notice is a good idea. Proper notice includes (in any order):

• The ‘C in a circle’ symbol (©)
• The year of publication
• The name of the copyright owner

Company style guides should include a format for copyright notices. The actual word copyright isn’t required. Interestingly, the commonly used phrase ‘All rights reserved’ is obsolete. It’s a vestige of the Buenos Aires Copyright Convention, whose signatory countries are all now members of the Berne Convention.

Trademarks

Trademarks distinguish a seller’s product, creating brand awareness and expectation for consumers. Trademarks can be logos, slogans, or even designs (the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle is one). Owens-Corning used the pink colour of their fibreglass insulation as a trademark. Harley-Davidson was unsuccessful in their attempt to register their motorcycles’ familiar rumbling sound as a trademark, because engine noise was deemed to be integral to the function of the product. On the other hand, a Netherlands marketer was able to register the scent of ‘fresh cut grass’ for tennis balls.

Registering a trademark, while not mandatory, provides evidence of ownership and ensures that the mark is unique. In the US, proper use of trademarks can affect the amount of damages the owner can claim in an infringement suit.

Owners can lose the rights to their trademarks if:

• They use them inconsistently
• They fail to police them
• The mark becomes a generic term

The last point explains why some companies seem to have such extensive guidelines and requirements around the use of their trademarks. Corn flakes, zipper, escalator, aspirin and many other generic words were once trademarks. The Google trademark is also in danger of becoming a generic term. Richard pointed out that while the word has made it into some dictionaries, the dictionary definitions are careful to state that Google is a trademark.

So just what are the guidelines to use a trademark properly?

• Distinguish it from surrounding text (by using quotation marks, initial capitals, etc.)
• Use it as an adjective modifying a noun (instead of ‘a Kleenex’, it’s ‘a Kleenex tissue’), or follow with the work brand (as in ‘Band-aid brand adhesive bandages)
• Never pluralize the trademark; instead pluralize the generic word (rather than ‘two Oreos’, it’s ‘two Oreo cookies’)
• Never make the trademark possessive, unless it already is
• Never use the trademark as a verb
• Be consistent and careful to avoid deviations (for example, it’s ‘Coca-Cola’, not ‘CocaCola’; ‘A&W’, not ‘A and W’; and so on); a deviation is a different trademark

Complicating things, some companies have trademarks that are the same as their trade names. For example, Oracle Corporation has a database product with the registered trademark Oracle. While it would be correct to use the possessive when writing about the company (for example, ‘Oracle’s third quarter earnings’), it’s incorrect to refer to the product that way (as in ‘Oracle’s data compression feature’). Similarly, it would be incorrect to use the ® symbol with Oracle the company.

Richard brought this subject to life with plenty of engaging examples. He described which symbols to use when and how to give proper notice in Canadian, US and international markets. For more information, refer to:

• The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/)
• The Canadian Copyright Act (http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42)
• The Copyright Handbook: What Every Writer Needs to Know by Stephen Fishman (http://www.nolo.com/products/the-copyright-handbook-COHA.html)
• Michael Geist’s blog on Canadian copyright reform (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/)
• The Canadian Trade-marks Act (http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/T-13)
• The International Trademark Association (http://www.inta.org/downloads/documents/2009_TrademarkUse.pdf)
• Patent, Copyright & Trademark by Richard Stim (http://www.nolo.com/products/patent-copyright-&-trademark-PCTM.html).

About Jim Bousquet
After 14 years as a professional engineer in the database, hearing aid, semiconductor and medical measurement industries, Jim Bousquet (jim.bousquet@primal.com) turned to technical writing and now works at Primal, a semantic technology company in Waterloo. Besides being Southwestern Ontario Chapter’s treasurer, he enjoys running, cooking and playing the bagpipes, and would like to travel much, much more.

What Makes a Good Website?

2010-04-09T18:27:00.004-04:00

The STC Leadership Community Resource (LCR) sponsored Tom Johnson, who offered to critique some STC community websites during a free webinar. In addition to being a WordPress consultant, Tom is a senior technical writer for a non-profit organization in Salt Lake City, Utah. He writes a popular blog, Idratherbewriting.com, where he explores the latest trends in technical communication. He also records podcasts of interviews with technical writing luminaries around the world.

Tom had a co-presenter, Will Sansbury, who is a usability specialist in the area of web-based design.

The session ran overtime, so I couldn’t stay until the end, but here’s what I learned:

They suggested using SharePoint as a CMS (Content Management System) for your website. Its one drawback is that it’s hard to make it look less like SharePoint.
SharePoint has a Wiki that can be used for meetings, newsletters or news items.
You only need generic skills to work with SharePoint, but you need specialized skills to customize it.

They critiqued the following three websites:

Twin Cities (http://www.stctc.org/)

Protected site; social networking component so you can find other members
Can load a photo and profile; good for interactivity, bad for broadening user base - since people are loading personal information, you can’t make it public
Recommend adding an RSS feed for the blog; the feed enables easier access for RSS users
Note: Facebook is blocked by some employers; if you plan to use Facebook to communicate with your members, their access might be limited
Allows members to post jobs (with recommendations)—the personal recommendations are useful
Job bank restricted to members; while this enhances member value, it limits the number of people who can see the jobs, and discourages employers from posting
Everyone on the council is able to publish on the website; takes the pressure off the webmaster

Heartland (http://www.heartland-stc.org/)

It’s very attractive; aesthetics count
They have a problem making changes to the website because only one person (the webmaster) has access
Static site; they can’t have more than one person making changes to the website
He recommended adding interactivity, such as a discussion list, a Wiki or a blog
All community websites should have the STC logo and a link to Head Office

Technical Editing SIG (http://www.stc-techedit.org/)

Using Tiki; good because it’s open source, which means it’s free, there are a reasonable number of people who know how to use it, there are good sources of information about it, and it allows the website to be dynamic
Opening new pages is slow
The email list postings are automatically copied to a discussion forum to allow people to search the information

My notes abruptly end here because I had to leave the webinar, but if you visit some of the sites listed above, you might find some inspiration for your website.

Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics

2010-03-23T06:42:00.003-04:00

I recently attended a webinar about Google Analytics that was aimed at post-secondary institutions who would use Analytics to gather data on how effective their website is. Not all the information was relevant to a small, non-profit organization, but I did learn a few gems:

It’s important to define the goals of your website. Then the data you gather will have meaning.
All data gathered by Analytics is anonymous and not shared with any other organization.
The Pageview data tells you how many pages on that website were viewed.
A visit or a session is 30 minutes long or until the person leaves, whichever is shorter.
Each visitor is uniquely identified so that the data isn’t muddled by some very frequent visitors.
Bounce means that the visitor only viewed one page for a brief amount of time. Your bounce rate is bad if it’s over 50%. To improve it, you should check the keywords for your site, and the pages where people land who are bouncing.
The URL builder allows you to track what media sent people to your website. It tags your website’s URL which you could distribute, for example, by email. Then you can track the success of a particular promotional campaign.

Thanks to EDge, the Student Recruitment Solutions Company, for running this free webinar.

Education Evening Recap: Get a job! Or, at least learn how to get one

2010-03-02T20:19:00.007-05:00

The Southwestern Ontario Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication hosted an Education Evening on February 9 at the University of Waterloo, which was designed to help job seekers learn about finding–and keeping–a job. The evening’s five speakers, Margie Yundt, Kate O’Donnell, Susan Malcolm, Cheryl MacDonald, and Janice McVey, used their considerable and varied professional expertise to address a diverse range of topics, all related to employment within the technical communications sector.

Kate O’Donnell, an independent contractor since 1993, spoke about her expertise in this area. She answered questions about how technical writers might consider marketing both themselves and their businesses, and was able to use her insider’s perspective to address both the advantages and disadvantages associated with contract work. Janice McVey, a managing partner for the Dean group, explained the role that recruitment specialists and agencies like the Dean Group could (and do!) play in helping independent contractors market themselves, as well as the more traditional role of recruitment agencies as matchmakers in helping companies and qualified individuals to find each other. To hear what Kate and Janice have to say for themselves, go to YouTube.

Margie Yundt, a Manager at Research in Motion who has considerable experience with interviewing and hiring, spoke about hiring practices at specific companies. Get a sample of Margie’s advice.

Cheryl MacDonald, Research Manager at The Economical Insurance Group, and Susan Malcolm, Career Consultant at the Wilfred Laurier Career Development Center, addressed resume construction, and pointed participants to websites they have found particularly useful for job-seekers.

All speakers touched on interview strategies, portfolio building, the importance of a well-crafted resume and overall interview preparedness.

As a service to the community, the SW Ontario Chapter of the STC hosted this evening for free. The extensive publicity resulted in a high attendance by non-STC members. The informal progression style of the meeting allowed all of the participants to have in-depth conversations with the speakers and ask individual questions. Participants left the evening having gained a better understanding of the technical writing job market and self-marketing strategies to improve chances of landing (or keeping!) that job.

Many thanks to Rhonda Lee for providing the YouTube videos.

By Katherine Heyland

Alberta STC Chapter Looking for an Instructional Designer

2010-03-01T19:32:00.001-05:00

The Alberta Chapter of STC is looking for a qualified presenter/seminar leader for our annual ‘New Heights’ seminar to be held in April or May of 2010 in Calgary, Alberta. This is an opportunity for a person who is experienced in Instructional Design and has perhaps already created and presented on this topic (possibly covering how to design CBT or online training) in a single-day training format. New Heights is STC Alberta's premier educational event of the year. We bring in a noted speaker for an intensive day-long workshop and provide attendees with materials, lunch and snacks, and a first-class educational experience. The seminar is held on a working day, normally a Friday. The timeline is admittedly short! If you respond to this request, we will ask you to complete our Expression of Interest form that sets out our expectations and which, properly completed, should speed up the selection process. Please respond to our New Heights Manager, Mellissa Ruryk at newheights@stc-ab.org.

Thanks,

Jessie
**********************************************

Jessie Channey President

president@stc-alberta.org

STC Alberta www.stc-alberta.org

STC Toronto presents Management Day

2010-02-18T18:44:00.001-05:00

The Toronto Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication is hosting Management Day, an interactive event designed to help technical communicators learn three important elements of effective communication:“Be Agile, “Always consider Users” and “Improve content through reuse”. Management Day: Elements of Effective Communication (sponsored by Front Runner Training) will be held on Feb 26th, from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm at Front Runner, 21 St Clair Ave. E, Toronto, ON. The event will feature four speakers who have real world experience in their areas of expertise. Participants will have a chance to meet each of these four speakers outside of their seminars before the day commences, during breaks, as well as during both the panel discussion and feedback and closing. Registration and payment is required in advance, and the cost to attend the event is $49 for members, students and affiliates; and $99 for non-members. To find out more about this event, as well as review the speakers and peruse seminar topics, just follow this link: http://www2.stctoronto.org/get-involved/events/management-day.

Canadian Questions Posed to STC Election Candidates

2010-02-13T17:30:00.003-05:00

The presidents of the Canadian chapters agreed that it would be helpful to our voting members if we asked the candidates some questions that are relevant to Canadian STC members. The questions were:

How would you propose to make international chapters like Canada feel more like they are a part of the bigger organization?
What would you do to convince Canadian members that they should pay the same membership dues as Americans, when many of the STC services do not apply to Canada?
Are you aware that the International Affiliation Agreement is currently being reworked, and what do you think it should contain?

These questions were posed on February 1 to candidates running for all positions: director, secretary, and nominating committee. They each had a choice of whether to answer them or not. The following people chose to answer them as of February 11:

Mak Pandit: http://notebook.stc.org/2010-election/makarand-pandit-member-questions/. Mak requested a copy of the International Affiliation Agreement, so I sent it to him. He responded by email:
“Since I could not answer your question I had asked forwarded it and the reply I got is STC is working with it lawyers to update this agreement. The updated agreement will then be sent to the chapters.”
Tricia Spayer: http://notebook.stc.org/2010-election/tricia-spayer-member-questions/.
Nathaniel Lim (answered one of the three questions): http://notebook.stc.org/2010-election/nathaniel-lim-member-questions/
W. C. Wiese: http://notebook.stc.org/2010-election/wc-wiese-member-questions/.
Nicky Bleiel: http://notebook.stc.org/2010-election/nicky-bleiel-member-questions/

Please feel free to scan the other candidates’ answers to see if they have responded to these questions after this blog post. You can also pose questions of your own if you are an STC member. Note that you must have paid for your membership before February 28, 2010 to be eligible to vote. Voting starts on March 9.

We hope this additional information will help you decide who to vote for.

STC 2010 Election Reminder

2010-01-31T08:31:00.003-05:00

(Copied from the STC Election Message)

Who will be STC's next...

Secretary?
Board Members?
Nominating Committee Members?

Do you know the candidates? Take this opportunity to get to know the individuals running for elected office at the Society level. Click here to visit the 2010 Election and Candidate Information page on the STC website. You can review the candidates' biographies, ask them questions, and view their responses to questions posed by other members.

The 2010 election will be held from 9 March 2010 through 8 April 2010. Information on casting your ballot will be sent to you prior to the opening of the election. As a reminder, you must renew your membership (and new members must join) by 28 February 2010 in order to be eligible to vote in the 2010 election.

Thank you for doing your part to make STC a vibrant, growing organization.

Technical Communication Predictions for 2010

2010-01-29T09:17:00.004-05:00

This blog article was posted by Sarah O'Keefe, famous among FrameMaker users and the STC community in general. It's thought-provoking. The blog is from Scriptorium, and I've added it to the "Other Good Sites" on the side.

STC Conference Award for Council Members

2010-01-21T21:56:00.006-05:00

In the past, the council set aside money that the chapter president could put towards the costs associated with attending Leadership Day at STC’s annual conference. The intent was to improve the president’s leadership of the chapter and find new ideas to try out at home. However, the budgeted amount only covered a little more than the registration fee (@ $500US).This was impractical because if the president could not afford to pay the air fare and hotel costs (which are usually much more than the registration fee), she could not attend. As a result, the budgeted amount was rarely used.

This year, the council changed the allocated amount to a maximum of $2500. Furthermore, they decided that other members of the council are in leadership positions, and the opportunity is now open to anyone who meets all the following criteria:

Any volunteer who is a chapter member, and

Has volunteered for at least one year in the past, and

Is currently volunteering.

In addition, each candidate also had to agree to:

Stay at the conference hotel.

Attend Leadership Day.

Give a seminar about what they learned.

Write an article for chapter publication about any aspect of the conference.

The benefits of sending a council member to the conference are:

The chapter will have a volunteer who is better equipped to serve the membership.

The whole council will benefit from the collected knowledge.

The networking opportunities could turn up other people who are useful to the chapter (such as potential speakers).

The attendee will raise the profile of our chapter on the international stage--be a kind of ambassador.

Some of the money will be going to the Society.

We could attract more volunteers.

Eligible candidates were identified and had the option of withdrawing from the contest. From those candidates who wanted to participate, the winner was selected by a random draw. Winners will not be eligible for the subsequent draws.

As a result of the council’s decision, the first winner of the STC Conference Award is Debbie Kerr, our immediate past president. Congratulations, Debbie!

Why not volunteer so that you can be considered for a future draw?

Technical Writer Position at Brock Solutions

2010-01-21T20:40:00.004-05:00

Brock Solutions is currently advertising a technical writer position. See their website for more information.

General Dynamics Canada Hiring Now

2010-01-05T09:07:00.004-05:00

General Dynamics Canada is currently looking for technical writers and technical illustrators to work in their London, Ontario office. See this press release for details: General Dynamics Land Systems - Canada Announces Over 200 Employment Opportunities.

Pondering When to Renew? Renew Now and Enter to Win!

2009-12-10T14:23:00.005-05:00

Posted: 09 Dec 2009 11:19 AM PST on STC's Notebook

Ponder no more! If you renew your STC membership by 16 December, you’ll be automatically entered to win an Amazon Kindle or one of five iPod Shuffles! So not only will you get all the great benefits STC has to offer, but you might get a little something-something in the bonus round as well—Wink Martindale, eat your heart out!

Last year STC gave away five iPods, but we’ve upped the ante a bit to include the Amazon Kindle this year. And with the contest ending 16 December, we’ll do our very best to get the winners their prizes as soon as we absolutely can for gifting purposes.

Valid entries must be completed by 11:59 EST PM (GMT-5) Wednesday, 16 December. At that point, we’ll conduct a drawing and notify the winners. What could be better? Renew your STC membership and continue all the benefits, and maybe win some stuff in the process!

Tips for Renewing or Buying an STC Membership

2009-12-03T11:51:00.008-05:00

As I was renewing my membership, I found out a few things that I didn't read before starting the online process. I also found out a few things by asking STC Head Office. To help you avoid some surprises, or perhaps to answer some questions before you ask them, here are my personal discoveries (all prices are in US dollars):

A Basic STC membership no longer gives you membership in a chapter or a SIG. Each chapter membership now costs an additional $25, and a SIG membership costs $10 each.

If you do not renew your membership by February 28, 2010, you are subject to an extra renewal fee of $15.

If you do not renew your membership for a year, you are subject to an extra renewal fee of $30.

When you buy an STC membership for the first time, there is an additional initiation fee of $30.

If you want printed versions of the publications, the magazine Intercom is $30 + $7.50 for postage to Canada; the journal Technical Communication is $75 + $7.50 for postage to Canada.

You have the option of paying your total dues in four equal installments over the course of the year.

If you want to add a chapter or SIG membership to your existing membership, you can do it over the course of the year.

To buy or renew your membership, go to the STC Head Office website.

If you discover something useful about buying or renewing a membership that isn't listed here, feel free to leave a comment.

2009-12-03T11:45:00.001-05:00

The Toronto chapter and the Southwestern Ontario chapter of the STC would like to hold a joint workshop session on April 19 and 20, 2010, but the questions are where and about what topics?

Please fill in the following brief survey (http://www2.stctoronto.org/get-involved/next-event/survey) if you think you would like to attend one or two days of in-depth training at an affordable price. If you provide your contact information, we'll put your name in for a draw for a free workshop pass.

Survey closes Friday, December 18, 8:00 pm.

Canadian Chapters Meeting #3

2009-11-29T21:48:00.004-05:00

The Canadian chapter presidents had another meeting on November 11. Here are the highlights:

Our request to the Society (Head Office) to enable us to elect a Canadian director has been turned down.
The Alberta chapter has shared their salary survey questions with the other Canadian chapters, where they will be reviewed to see how they can be used to perform our own Canadian salary survey.
Our chapter offered the Society an interest-free loan for two years, and the Society turned down the offer. As a result, our chapter will keep all surplus funds to pay for our chapter activities. The Society will not have to cover a shortfall in our budget for years to come.
Two other Canadian chapters have decided to make a gift of some of their surplus funds.
All Canadian chapters are interested in amending the international chapter affiliation agreement, which the Society says is open for amendments because it no longer reflects the new relationship between the Society and the international chapters. The Toronto chapter and our chapter have been drafting an amended agreement, and we will share it with the other chapters and the Society.
The Toronto chapter discovered that the council members are actually covered by the Society’s Directors and Officers (D&O) insurance, contrary to information that we were previously given. This means that each chapter does not have to buy their own insurance, saving us hundreds of dollars annually. We have a copy of the policy which specifically states that Canada is a jurisdiction that is covered.

We discussed a mutual concern about getting new and existing members to join/renew their memberships not only with the Society, but with our chapter. The new dues structure makes it easier for people to join the STC without joining a specific chapter; in fact, people will have to pay an additional fee if they want to become a member of any chapter. Since the amount of funding available from the Society depends on the number of members who join chapters, people who choose to become members of the Society only will have a big impact on what services the chapters will be able to provide.

We decided that a three-tier pricing policy (one for non-members, one for STC members, and one for chapter members) was unwanted overhead. Instead, chapters decided that a two-tier approach would be easier to manage. The structure of those tiers is something that each chapter will have to decide. For example, one option would be to give discounts to all STC members (regardless of whether or not they are a member of the chapter). Another option would be to give discounts only to members of the chapter. In all cases, fees paid for events will go directly to the chapter.

If you have any questions or concerns about these issues, please feel free to comment, or send an email directly to president@stc-soc.org.

Content Reuse Education Evening

2009-11-22T12:37:00.008-05:00

No matter what your business, efficient communication is crucial to your success. With that in mind, are the writers and content managers in your company working efficiently? Unless you are doing everything possible to reuse your content throughout your organization, you’re wasting time and money.

This special event is designed for a broader group of communicators beyond the technical writing community. We’ve assembled a team of content reuse experts for this session, which is open to anyone in the business community. As you’ll see when you attend, content reuse is not just for the technical writing community. The principles and applications are relevant to virtually any content environment. No matter what your business or your function, you can reuse your content.

Pamela Kostur, a partner at Parallax Communications in Toronto and a recognized content management expert, will describe the benefits of writing for reuse, and the process of planning and creating reusable content. Bryan Lynn, a founder of Thirty Six Software in Indianapolis, will demonstrate SmartDocs, an MS Word add-in that integrates the power of content reuse in the Word environment, and uses Microsoft SharePoint to centralize storage of reusable content and configure reusable content metadata.

The event concludes with a hands-on Smart Docs training session, conducted by Front Runner Training of Toronto, a recognized leader in technical communication training. Participants will also receive a trial version of the Smart Docs software to start work on reusing their own content.

Date: Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Time: 6:30 to 9:30 PM, doors open at 6:00
Location: University of Waterloo, Arts Lecture Hall, Room AL 208
Cost:

In person: members are free; non-members are $5

Webinar: members are $10; non-members are $20 (to cover the cost of each network meeting line)

Registration and Payment: See our website.

FrameMaker User Network Meeting

2009-11-10T10:50:00.004-05:00

Front Runner Training hosts a F.U.N. meeting...

Kitchener, Ontario
Tuesday November 17th, 2009

University of Waterloo
J.R. Coutts Eng. Lecture Hall
Room 212 (RCH 212)
6:00pm-8:00pm

Map of University

Tim Grantham will discuss DITA and FrameMaker 9.

Mark James from Adobe Systems Canada will provide a high level overview of Adobe Acrobat 9 3-D to show its cool capabilities!

Help us give a kid a Christmas this holiday...At all our events we are accepting new, unwrapped toy donations for the CP24/CHUM Christmas Wish.

Here is a link to register to the event...http://www.front-runner.com/Events.php?eid=1

Thanks, hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
Veronica Kütt
President
Front Runner Training,
a Div. of Front Runner Publishing Solutions Inc.
416-515-0155
Call Toll free: 1-877-999-0155
veronica@front-runner.com

"Learn what you wish you'd known yesterday!"®

Bylaws are Done

2009-10-27T19:56:00.007-04:00

We are pleased to announce that the Southwestern Ontario chapter bylaws are done and sent to Head Office for approval. Here are the highlights:

The elected directors are the President, Treasurer and Secretary, which is standard practice for a registered non-profit organization. The Corporations Act of Ontario requires at least three elected directors. The council consists of many other people (for example, webmaster and employment manager), who are "appointed" by the directors from those who volunteer.

The President can only be in office for two years. If the President wants to extend his or her term for a third year, there must be a vote at the annual general meeting.

The chapter must hold an annual general meeting that is open to all chapter members.

Any member with the support of nine others who belong to the chapter can require the council to hold a special meeting to deal with a specific issue.

I would like to thank the subcommittee that worked extra hours to develop, review and revise these bylaws. They are Jim Bousquet, Lori Jankowski, Debbie Kerr, Carol Lawless and Gord Varney.

If you would like to see the bylaws in their entirety, all 17 pages, send me a request: president@stc-soc.org.

Canadian Chapters Meeting #2

2009-10-05T13:54:00.007-04:00

The Canadian chapter presidents had another meeting on September 22, 2009. Here are the highlights:

We are going to propose to Head Office that Canadian members be allowed to elect a Director who will represent Canadian interests.

We are developing a Canadian salary survey.

The chapters that have a surplus would like to voluntarily share at least some of it with Head Office. We recognize that the local members worked for that money and deserve to benefit from it, so we are working to balance our chapter's needs with Head Office's needs. We are currently negotiating with Head Office to find a way to do that.

We discussed contingency plans in case the STC organization goes bankrupt.

Feel free to comment if you have any concerns or ideas.

STC Montreal Teams Up with Other Professional Organizations

2009-10-03T16:41:00.002-04:00

I just heard about a one-day professional development and networking event for freelancers in Montreal on October 24, 2009. The STC chapter there has teamed up with other organizations to set up expert panel discussions. There's still time to get early-bird discount tickets. For more information, see http://mediaville.ca/.

Career Day with STC Toronto

2009-09-22T21:26:00.003-04:00

STC Toronto has invited us to their Career Day and Resume Workshop on Tuesday, September 29, 2009. Southwestern Ontario STC members get in for free. See http://www2.stctoronto.org/get-involved/next-event for the details.

Education Evening - English Usage Guide for Writers and Editors

2009-09-21T21:30:00.004-04:00

Hobgoblins, Salad Forks, and Hard and Fast Rules: An English Usage Guide for Writers and Editors
Presented by Alan Yoshioka, PhD (University of Waterloo alumnus, Chair of the Toronto Branch of the Editors' Association of Canada)

When is it okay to boldly split an infinitive? To use a sentence fragment? Even if you were lucky enough to be taught much grammar in school, you might not know which rules are still considered current and which have gone the way of the rotary phone. Sometimes there are several correct ways to make a point, and the choice between them is just a matter of emphasis, while at other times the main concern is to maintain internal consistency within a document. Then there are usages that are unsuitable for a given context and audience.

Learn to distinguish matters of editorial taste from rules that should really be followed all the time. Also get tips for dealing tactfully with team members when there’s a usage point on which they’re dead certain, and dead wrong. Come with questions about the rules you’re anxious about—or about which you’re anxious.

Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Time: Presentation begins at 7:00 p.m. / Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for networking
Where: Room DC1304 at the Davis Centre, University of Waterloo
Cost: Free for members and non-members

For more details go to http://www.stc-soc.org/calendar/2009-10-06.php

By-Laws Almost Completed

2009-09-20T22:42:00.008-04:00

The council is taking steps to register with the Ontario government as a non-profit organization. This would make the chapter a legal entity and allow it to enter into agreements with other organizations (such as banks and hotels), instead of forcing one of the council members to be responsible for the agreement. It also requires the chapter to develop by-laws defining how the chapter is run and how decisions are made. Once registered, the chapter must make annual reports to the government, proving that the chapter is meeting the standards of a non-profit organization.

The first step has been writing our by-laws and ensuring they comply with the requirements for a non-profit organization. The by-laws define:

Who the elected officers are

How and when elections are held

Which council members are appointed

The roles and responsibilities of the elected officers and appointed members

How all chapter members can have a voice in running the affairs of this chapter

The chapter's relationship with Head Office

The by-laws have to be approved by Head Office. After that, we can submit them to the government of Ontario along with our application for non-profit status.

If you would like to see a copy of the by-laws before they become official, please contact me, Fei Min Lorente, at president@stc-soc.org.

Webinar on Structure 2.0-Knowledge Delivery at Symantec

2009-09-07T22:02:00.005-04:00

The Southwestern Ontario Chapter of the STC is hosting this webinar (Structure 2.0—Knowledge Delivery at Symantec) on Wednesday, September 16, 2009.

Location: PEER Group, 72 Victoria St. South, Kitchener

Time: 1:00 to 2:30 pm

Description

Learn how the information developers at Symantec went from information in a book paradigm to topic-based, on-demand user assistance, and all the advantages of that transition.

Presenter

Tristan Bishop has been driving documentation process improvement since 1996. These efforts have included: building a knowledge management strategy for Wells Fargo Online; crafting an XML publishing environment for Invio Software; managing multiple documentation teams; migrating VERITAS FrameMaker documentation into topic-based XML; unifying Symantec stakeholders to ensure optimal content delivery.

For more information about the webinar and the speaker, see http://www.stc.org/edu/seminars01.asp.

Fee

At the PEER Group location (sponsored by the Southwestern Ontario Chapter STC):

Free for members and $35CAD for non-members.

At any location (sponsored by STC Head Office):

$79USD for members and $149USD for non-members

Registration

To attend the webinar at PEER Group, email Tracey Aitcheson. Please provide your membership number if you are a member.

To attend the webinar from any other location, register here: https://access.stc.org/imispublic/Core/Events/eventdetails.aspx?iKey=WEB0916.

More Details

Watch the calendar page on our website for more details.

Canadian Chapters Meeting #1

2009-08-16T22:51:00.010-04:00

As a result of the current financial crisis at STC Head Office and the need to ensure that Canadian members receive services that are relevant to this country, the presidents (or delegates) of the Canadian chapters met via a teleconference on August 12. The Canada West Coast, Alberta, Manitoba, Southwestern Ontario and Montreal chapters participated in the discussion, but the Toronto and Eastern Ontario were unable to join us.

To address the need to create value for Canadian STC members at a Society level, we decided that we would ask the Society to create a position for a Canadian director. To make this a convincing request, the Canadian chapters want to jointly present a business case. All the chapters are looking for volunteers to write the business case and to share ideas about what the benefits would be of the new position to both Canadian STC members and the Society as a whole.

In addition to discussing getting more value for Canadian members, the chapters also compared notes on plans to help the Society with the financial crisis. Most chapters intend to help in a monetary fashion, but the terms and amounts are still under discussion.

Although the teleconference meetings are restricted to chapter presidents or a delegate, we are responsible for representing our council's opinions and ideas. Council members are welcome to participate in an online discussion site, which serves to set the agenda for meetings. All chapter members are welcome to contact their presidents or other council members to voice their opinions or ask questions.

The Canadian chapters are planning another meeting to check on the progress of action items from the first meeting, as well as to discuss contingency plans if the Society should fail to overcome the financial crisis. It looks like this will be the first of many meetings.

Canadian Chapters Are Meeting

2009-08-09T07:17:00.003-04:00

The Canadian Chapters would like to discuss how and how much we can co-operate to provide more services for Canadian STC members. Due to the vacation season, it's taken a while to find a date when a representative from each Canadian chapter can meet via a conference call. That call is now scheduled for August 12, so check back next week to see the results of that meeting.

In the meantime, the council has created a budget for 2009-2010 and we plan to submit it to Head Office to meet their deadline of August 17. The council is also working on finalizing the by-laws which is a requirement of registering as a non-profit organization.

More to come...

A Conversation with Head Office

2009-07-26T21:47:00.016-04:00

Cindy Currie, President of the STC, talked to our chapter and other Canadian chapters about our reluctance to give our surplus funds to STC Head Office, and our general feeling that we are not fully integrated in the international organization. There were representatives from the Canada West Coast, Alberta, Manitoba, Eastern Ontario, Toronto, and Montreal chapters, as well as us. Cindy was joined by Susan Burton, Executive Director/CEO, and Aiessa Moyna, Treasurer. We had a very constructive and enlightening conversation; these are the highlights:

Canadian chapters are not legally obliged to give surplus funds to STC Head Office.

Cindy made the case that if we want to see the STC survive, we should be motivated to help them out financially because without enough funding, the STC will collapse. Passing surplus funds to Head Office is meant to be a temporary measure to see them through the financial crisis.

The Canadian chapters pointed out several important services that Head Office does not provide, such as a Canadian salary survey and group insurance. The Canadian chapters discussed taking the initiative to implement these purely Canadian services. Cindy said that the Society might fund these initiatives if we presented them with a business case.

The Canadian chapters discussed whether to form a national organization.

The Canadian chapters are currently discussing where to go from here. In my opinion, all Canadian STC members would benefit from closer co-operation between the Canadian chapters, but whether there is enough collective will to form a national organization remains to be seen.

The Southwestern Ontario chapter is currently setting the budget for the rest of 2009 and 2010 to meet Head Office's deadline of August 17. As part of the budget discussion, we will explore what, if anything, we can do to help Head Office out of their financial crisis.

Your thoughts and feedback are always welcome.

I'll keep you posted on any new developments.

The Current State of Affairs

2009-07-15T21:28:00.009-04:00

The STC Head Office has provided information about how this financial crisis came about, how they have already cut costs, and what they would like to do to remedy this situation. In addition, they have provided answers to frequently asked questions. You can read the articles about each of these items at http://www.stc.org/LCR/state-of-the-society.asp (you must be able to log into the STC site to read these).

However, if you want to read a summary before deciding if you want more detail, here are the highlights:

The shortfall for 2009 is $1.2 million USD, but Head Office plans to cover that shortfall with $400 000 from their reserves and $250 000 through a line of credit. This means that they have to obtain about $500 000 from other sources.
The shortfall is due to a drop in reserves that were held in investments, a decrease in the number of members, and a decrease in attendance at the annual conference. These are the three main areas that the STC usually depends on to sustain itself. However, although members are a source of income, the cost of serving a member actually exceeds the cost of a membership. To keep the cost of membership down, Head Office has been making up the difference through the revenue generated from their conference and their investments. Unfortunately, this year there is not enough revenue.

Head Office has implemented cost-cutting measures such as moving the office to cheaper quarters and not replacing two staff members.

They would like to make up the $500 000 shortfall by raising dues, increasing educational offerings (for example, more Web seminars), asking for individual and corporate donations, and asking chapters for any surpluses they have in their bank accounts. Our chapter has a substantial surplus from previous years when our Education Days were very successful.

To encourage all chapters to provide programs, and to spread the wealth around to needier chapters, Head Office is changing its accounting method to zero-based budgeting. This means that chapters must submit a budget to Head Office each fiscal year (something that we already do), but now Head Office must approve it prior to us implementing it. Then, instead of regularly receiving funds based on the number of members of the chapter, chapters will receive funds only if they cannot cover all the budgeted expenses themselves. Any excess reserves or profit that a chapter accummulates must be given to Head Office.

Lots of other money-generating and cost-cutting measures have been suggested and debated. If you want to follow these discussions or add some of your own, check out the STC Ideas group on the Ning network (http://twitzap.com/u/MDk?xgi=6X1VNGI).

As you can imagine, this chapter is reluctant to surrender the reserves in our bank account with little direct benefit to our members. Also, the legal relationship between our chapter in Canada and Head Office in the USA is not clear. Both sides are working to understand what this means. As we understand more and choose a definitive path, I'll share this information with you through this blog.

In the meantime, the administrative council of this chapter is trying its best to ensure that you get as many (if not more) services and programs as we have offered in the past. We hope to minimize the effects of the turmoil surrounding Head Office. Let us know if you have specific concerns, questions or suggestions.

Welcome to the Southwestern Ontario STC Blog!

2009-07-01T11:23:00.006-04:00

We've started this blog because the Society for Technical Communication (STC) is experiencing a financial crisis due to the global recession. As a result, there may be many changes taking place that will affect you as a member. Since developments are happening fairly rapidly, we thought you might like to keep informed through this blog. I'll be updating it at least once a week, and you can comment on my postings.

To make sure you are kept up-to-date, you can subscribe to be notified when there are new postings to the blog.

Depending on interest and our volunteer council's ability to keep it up-to-date, we may continue the blog after the financial crisis is over. Please provide your feedback.

Southwestern Ontario Chapter STC

Nicky Bleiel — Candidate for STC Vice President

Sidebar

Looking to 2012

Travelling to see a different chapter

Pub Night at The Firkin

Digital Futures: Technical Communication in the Digital Age

Southwestern Ontario Chapter Second Annual General Meeting

Awards Night 2011

Reaching the STC Summit (Part Two)

Reaching the STC Summit (Part One)

The My STC Network is Open for Business!

The STC Southwestern Ontario Chapter’s Discussion List

Posting Guidelines

Student Award Winners

About Heidi Thiessen

Requirements for Submission

General Comments

1st Place – Josh Wellstood

His Letter

Submission Titles (Topics)

Comments

2nd Place – Daniel Pinelli

His Letter

Submission Titles (Topics)

Comments

3rd Place – Daniel Dulcin

His Letter

Submission Titles (Topics)

Comments

Education Days 2011

2011 STC Director Candidates

Bernard Aschwanden

Ray Gallon

Brian J. Lindgren

Rich Maggiani

Tricia Spayer

Recording of STC Vice President Candidate Discussion

Summary of the Winter Council Meetings for Southwestern Ontario

STC’s International Candidates

Education Evening: Arbortext Service Information Solution

7 Simple Steps to DITA

2011: A Year of Renewal

Technical Communication Tools Education Evening

Advanced MS Word

Adobe Photoshop

RoboHelp

Robohelp

What has the STC – SOC Council been up to?

2010/11 STC Regional Competition

STC - SOC - First Annual General Meeting

Annual General Meeting Guest Speaker: Nashifa Carter

Education Days 2010

Canadian Chapters Meeting #4

Electing a Canadian Director

Salary Survey

Insurance Proposal

Proposed National Organization

Usefulness of Canadian Chapter Meetings

A Monumental Day Dawns for Technical Communicators: Certification!

STC Summit - Topic Trends

STC Summit - Tourist Tidbits

The Summit 2010, Keynote Speaker and Education Sessions Begin

The Summit 2010, Leadership Day

The Summit 2010, Travelling to Dallas

2010 Awards Night Video

STC Celebrates Excellence

Trademarks™ and ©opyrights Demystified

Copyright

Trademarks

What Makes a Good Website?

Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics

Education Evening Recap: Get a job! Or, at least learn how to get one

Alberta STC Chapter Looking for an Instructional Designer

STC Toronto presents Management Day

Canadian Questions Posed to STC Election Candidates

STC 2010 Election Reminder

Technical Communication Predictions for 2010

STC Conference Award for Council Members

Technical Writer Position at Brock Solutions

2^nd Place – Daniel Pinelli

3^rd Place – Daniel Dulcin