I want to (re)set the expectation that reinventing STC is not an event, it’s a process—and one that will take years, if ever, to complete. I say this because while we’ve made dramatic change already, we continue to seek more substantive change now and continuous improvement always. I often wonder exactly what the average STC member thinks about how quickly and how dramatically things should change. Oh, I know what our vocal minority is thinking because they willingly tell me. What I also want to know is what those who are not vocal are thinking. A few have written to me directly (and thank you for that); many others remain silent. Some think we should be done by now; others are deeply concerned about the changes already made: are they too little too late, too much too soon, not enough here and too much there? I’ve gotten feedback that wide-ranging. That, when I think about it, is to be expected, as there are wide-ranging differences among STC members themselves.
The differences among STC members include educational backgrounds, skill sets, comfort (or lack thereof) with communication technologies, and specialties and subspecialties in the various communities of practice. STC members also work for a wide range of manufacturing or service industries, government, nonprofits, and academia. Functionally, this leads to a wide range of opinions of what skills professionals need to master. It also leads to sharp differences in what members expect from their association.
So, these differences among members, then, lead to some difficulty in determining “what members want.” Even surveys cannot necessarily uncover this, because only a certain subset of any membership likes to participate in surveys. It’s interesting to note, however, that STC members are very willing to respond to surveys, with typically 6-10 percent of members responding compared to a 1-2 percent response rate for other associations. And STC’s timeframe for response is much faster, with the vast majority of answers received within a week of posting the survey, compared to a more sluggish response rate in other associations. This means that STC can gather member opinion rather quickly through a survey when we need to—which is good to know. And, for at least three years now, STC has being using Knowledge Based Governance (KBG) surveys quite regularly to help gather member feedback on various topics. The Board of Directors now relies on KBG surveys prior to many board meetings for fresh member input on agenda topics.
The challenge for the Board of Directors is how to determine what our diverse members really want and need now, versus what they may want and need in the near or longer-term future. STC’s role as a professional association is to define the profession first, and then to provide the opportunities for learning that help prepare practitioners for their future jobs, not just for the ones they have now. The art of association management is attempting to find consensus so that there can be a clear course of action. Finding consensus, to me, is STC’s biggest challenge.
I’ve spent countless hours (and more than a few sleepless nights!) thinking through all the changes we’ve made and more we’ll need to make this spring based on our membership numbers (renewals are proceeding, albeit a little slower than I would like; don’t forget to renew today!) and decisions around community support.
I’ve seen some concern expressed about whether the new a la carte dues structure would be successful, as some doubted that members would be willing pay “more” for community membership. I’m happy to report that yes, indeed, members seem quite willing to pay more for community membership, and that so far 81% of renewing/new members have chosen chapter membership and 113% of renewing/new members have chose SIG membership. This shows strong community support. (And, it also shows that 19% of our renewing/new members are not interested in being members of a chapter.)
It’s important for communities to know now that we will fund them in 2011 and beyond, so please be assured of this. It’s the details we are working on now. At my request, Hillary Hart, Second Vice President and Communities lead, has just formed a task force of community leaders to work on community funding and support. It is my hope that this task force will work cooperatively and collaboratively with the board and staff to provide input to the funding and support plans we put in place for 2011 and beyond. (Hillary will provide more information on this task force in an upcoming blog post.)
STC is in a better place than we were last year thanks to all the community participation through funds reallocation, a courageous board making some very difficult decisions, and an experienced staff working diligently to cut additional costs and stretch the dollars we did have to make it all work. I’m happy to state that we are no longer in “crisis” mode; we have moved down a notch to “high alert.” And we continue to track our progress quite closely and will continue to keep you updated going forward.
Until next month …
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Cindy, I expect that the silent majority doesn’t think about these things all that much. They’ve entrusted the hard decision making to their elected leaders, from whom they expect wise leadership and accountability. From my viewpoint I’d say that the current leaders are doing their jobs very well.
You mentioned some of the ways in which STC members differ, but you left out two of the biggest ones: age and employment status.
I strongly suspect that a 30-year old STC member and a 55-year old member have very different expectations of what a professional society should be. We need to take the pulse of those younger members because, of course, they represent STC’s future. As strategic planning manager for the Society, I’m looking forward to doing just that.
By employment status I mean full-time employee, contractor, business owner, or unemployed. The full-time employees want to know that STC is there when they need training or guidance. Those on the other end of the spectrum might rely on STC more heavily — or at least differently — as a place for networking and even as a way to define themselves as professionals.
Thanks for this thoughtful and detailed update, Cindy. Reinventing STC takes time, as you say. But we’re moving in the right direction.
“So, these differences among members, then, lead to some difficulty in determining “what members want.” ”
Shouldn’t “what members want” be to achieve strategic plan goals and thereby work toward the vision and mission expressed at http://www.stc.org/about/ ?
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>It’s important for communities to know now that we will fund them in 2011 and beyond, so please be assured of this.
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How about some of the easy, fast, and free ways that STC.org (HQ) can support its communities:
1. Add Chapter/SIG events to the STC calendar (http://stc.org/edu/relatedEvents01.asp). The fact that the calendar is blank (and has been as long as I can remember), is… um…. er…. not good.
2. Add additional Chapter/SIG information (such as syndicating the Community/SIG’s RSS feed) to each Chapter/SIG’s information paragraph (http://stc.org/membership/chapter-search.asp). Just like we used to have on the.. um… er… STC wiki.
3. Create a Chapter/SIG “dashboard” where members (and potential) members can see “what’s going on” in each community. If the folks can see (and compare) what is happening in Chapter XXXXX or SIG YYYYY, the’ll be more inclined to join.
The Chapers/SIGs have stepped up and helped out HQ by returning the surplus funds. I’d love to see HQ turn around and support us.
Just some suggestions…
I would just like to say that “The Prez Dispenser” is brilliant (I assume it’s original) and it should become the actual name of this blog, which not only gives it a blog-worthy title, but also adds a much needed human element (an important figure in this case) to the stovepipe communication. Who better to be addressing STC members than the president herself (and every president thereafter).
By contrast, the title “STC’s Notebook” has about as much zing [1] as a deflated balloon. Even the author field, “STC-Office” (why is there a hyphen?) couldn’t be more distant. Why doesn’t it say “Cindy Currie”?
Little (arguably big) things like this mean a lot! Don’t forget the little things in all that “high alert” scrambling. More importantly, never think something is done simply because it’s launched. Make it modus operandi to always tweak and improve on a regular basis. Always.
[1] – http://www.alistapart.com/articles/words-that-zing/
For me, based in Dublin, Ireland, STC means the Intercom magazine and little else. When I was a fresh–or fizzy–member I submitted suggestions such as widening the job-search database so that it included jobs available in Europe or wheeling STC around so that it became a truly international organisation. Sorry, the job-search database would lead you to believe that there are no technical writing jobs available outside North America (including Canada) and India.
So, what do members want–besides an international jobs database ?
Well, how about an intelligent search engine for Intercom articles so that you can find the information that you need. A search engine that would allow you to enter keywords to find information regardless of the title of the article or the year of publication. Intercom provides some exceptional articles on estimation and project management.
How about a list of employment agencies that specialise in technical writing?
How about survival articles for technical writers who need to work in foreign countries? Such articles should provide information on how to set up a bank account, how to find a place to live and so on.
Here’s one other idea, which is purely self-serving, give STC members who do not qualify for relief because they have recently been made redundant, three months grace before you cancel their membership. When they renew, you can backdate the membership so STC does not incur any financial loss.
We need to focus on providing technical writers with the information that they need to get work and to do the work that they get.
Patrick: The Technical Editing SIG lists many jobs outside of the US (including Ireland). Please see the SIG’s employment page http://www.stc-techedit.org/Employment for details.