by stc-office on 26 February 2010
The following is a guest post by Tom Barnett, Chair, Community Recognition Committee (CAA, CAAEC, and Pacesetter)
The leaders of STC communities work hard throughout the year to provide services to their membership and manage their communities’ affairs. The Community Achievement Award program recognizes STC communities for exceptional accomplishments in meeting Society goals. The awards not only acknowledge that the obligations of a properly functioning community have been met, but that the winning communities have performed well beyond expectations. The awards program recognizes, in a visible and meaningful manner, communities that demonstrate outstanding, innovative, and sustained performance in advancing the goals of the Society.
The application deadline is 4 March 2010. Take a look at the criteria and consider applying for a community achievement award—and get recognized for your community’s accomplishments. The guidelines and applications for this year’s Community Achievement Award program are posted on the Society’s website at http://www.stc.org/recog/awards01_comAchievement.asp.
by stc-office on 24 February 2010
I write to you today not just as Your Friendly Neighborhood Blogger, but also partially wearing one of my other hats—that of the assistant editor at STC, with Intercom as one of my duties.
You hopefully have noticed that Intercom is in the process of changing. We’ve seen some blogs and tweets that displayed a bit of confusion about the changes, so I wanted to address a few things to clarify and, in the words of the legendary Barney Fife, “Nip it.” “It” being the confusion.
To start, let me assure you that the flipdoc debuted with the January issue of Intercom is just Step One of the new and improved “yummy goodness.” (And if “yummy goodness” is not a technical term, it should be.) Over the next few months, we’ll roll out a completely redesigned magazine and starting in April will have four online versions available for our members:
[click to continue…]
by stc-office on 23 February 2010
Guest post by Judy Glick-Smith.
On Wednesday, 24 February at 1:00 PM EST (GMT-5), I will present a webinar on Managing Conflict On a Global Team. We all encounter conflict in our lives on a daily basis. Conflict occurs within us and in our relationships. How we respond to conflict makes all the difference in the world as to its resolution. Each of us, no matter where or how we grew up, has developed a style that helps us cope with conflict. In the midst of conflict this is our fall-back or predominant conflict style. No one style is better than another. However, some styles are better suited for circumstance-specific conflict.
Many studies have been done to identify and codify conflict styles, but the most often referred to modality is the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, which is universal in its application no matter where one is in the world. The styles identified in the Thomas-Kilmann are competitive, collaborative, compromising, accommodating, and avoidant. These are based on one’s penchant for having a high or low concern for others and a high or low concern for self. The webinar will cover these styles more thoroughly.
We will also cover the idea of high- vs. low-context cultures, which make the issue of conflict management even more complex. For example, Asian cultures tend to be high-context cultures. That is, much of communication goes unspoken; it is implicit and can be based on body language, choice of words, circumstances, etc., all of which may have multiple meanings. On the other hand, Western cultures tend to be low-context cultures because they are more heterogeneous; therefore, communication must be more explicit.
[click to continue…]
by stc-office on 22 February 2010
by stc-office on 19 February 2010
Sunny Days with Omar
Friday, 19 February is the last day for Omar Terrie, STC’s always-smiling, ever-helpful Assistant Manager, Community Relations. He moves on to new opportunities and new people to impress.
Any of you who have dealt with Omar here at STC—whether it be on the phone, by email, or at the Summit—surely have come away impressed. I haven’t been here that long, but legend has it that the most-heard phrase at the 2009 Summit was, “We love Omar!” His calm demeanor, happy outlook, and positive attitude have long been a blessing to STC and the office.
Everyone at the Stately STC Manor is going to miss his hard work and cheerful disposition, and we’re going to miss the laughter, the stories, the dinosaur impressions, and the teasing back and forth. He truly was a ray of sunshine in the office that brightened every day. He is, to coin a phrase, OmarVelous.
Do great things, Omar.
by stc-office on 17 February 2010
Today we bring you another episode of Exec Direct, postings by STC Executive Director Susan Burton. Exec Direct presents a more personal, informal, and direct discussion with Susan Burton on a variety of topics, STC-related and not.
In my last blog entry I wrote about how STC is similar to other associations. This posting is on how STC is different than other associations.
The first and most notable difference is that STC members’ writing skills are, well, just plain better. Better does not even begin to describe the difference. The STC membership’s collective degree of expertise is exponentially superior to members of other associations where I have worked.
STC members are intellectually curious, which makes them interesting people. They demonstrate an outstanding facility with words, concepts, and ideas. They exhibit a high degree of competence regarding correct grammar and punctuation.
[click to continue…]
by stc-office on 16 February 2010
The latest offerings of STC’s online certificate courses start tomorrow, 17 February! Click the link for full details, course schedule, and to register. STC is offering the following courses:
The first three start Wednesday, 17 February, while the last starts the next day, 18 February.
STC certificate program let you explore a subject in-depth over the course of several weeks. In addition to the practical work skills that you will develop, participating in a certificate program provides you with a unique live opportunity to learn directly from an instructor and to also exchange ideas and tools virtually with the other participants in the program.
Each course is offered separately and includes five to eight sessions. To obtain the certificate, participants must log in for each of the sessions. A discount is available for additional attendees from the same company. For these special prices please contact Lloyd Tucker. Prices are $595 each for members, $295 each for student members, and $995 each for nonmembers.
by stc-office on 16 February 2010
Technical Communication, STC’s academic journal, ranked in the Top 100 in downloads in both December 2009 and January 2010 at Ingenta.com. Out of more than 13,000 titles, the journal ranked 92nd in January and 63rd in December for number of full-text downloads. Ingenta provides an online home for Technical Communication and allows downloads by STC members and by paid subscribers.
Congratulations to Technical Communication and thanks to our members and subscribers!
by stc-office on 16 February 2010
The below is from the Washington DC Chapter, posted at their request.
The Washington DC Chapter is presenting a webinar Monday 22 February, from 7:00-8:30 PM EST (GMT-5). The speakers are Annette Reilly and George Hayhoe, both Fellows, and they will be speaking about the ISO standard for user documentation. For more information and to register, click here. The description from their website:
For the first time, international standards from the International Standards Organization (ISO) provide unified requirements for those who design, develop, review, or test user documentation. These standards, largely developed by STC members, give a common framework for the structure, content, and format of user documentation in any media. Learn how you can effectively apply user documentation standards in both large and small organizations. This webinar is presented by the co-editors of ISO/IEC 26514:2008, Systems and software engineering —Requirements for designers and developers of user documentation.
NEW INFO: The chapter will be recording the webinar to make it available to people in other time zones and at other times. You can register and pay for the webinar even if you know you cannot attend live. All registered attendees will receive a URL to the recording within an hour of the end of the webinar.[/NEW INFO]
And don’t forget the chapter’s Awards Celebration on 13 March, complete with a presentation on social media featuring Curtis “Bob” Burns, manager of the Transportation Security Administration’s blog.
by stc-office on 15 February 2010
Guest post by Alyson Riley
This economy is horrendous. I promise that this will not turn out to be a negative blog post in the end, but really—we all know these are strange times, and we’re all dealing with fear, frustration, and uncertainty in varying degrees. We’ve seen massive market failure, stress on financial systems, stress on our planet’s ecosystems, and new kinds of government and business relationships. Today’s CEOs continue to lay off employees, restructure workforces, globalize, question the value of the skills in their organizations, and relentlessly seek productivity improvements. If we’re employed (and awake), we’re looking for ways to prove our value-add and ensure the future of our profession. If we’re unemployed, we’re trying to demonstrate our value proposition in ways that make sense to employers who are streamlining, stretching to do ever more with less, and living with constant pressure to deliver mission-critical contributions.
So here’s the good news. We technical communicators have a competitive edge that no other discipline can provide. One of the tried and true tools of information architecture gives technical communicators power in this new world order—power to drive change, power to determine where to deploy scarce resources to ensure high-value impact, and power to pinpoint and eliminate low-value work. That power is data! And that powerful data comes from a source that should be a part of every technical communicator’s toolkit: scenarios.
[click to continue…]
