The future of the STC 4 Lakes Chapter

Fellow Four Lakes chapter members:

On Nov. 20, we will meet for what may be the last time. As of this writing, no members have stepped forward to serve on the board for this chapter in 2010-11. All chapters are required to have a President, Treasurer and Secretary.

As you may already know, STC International is facing a financial crisis due to poor conference attendance and stock portfolio losses. In order to remain solvent, STC made many hard decisions, which include:

• raising dues (Renewal will be $215, plus $25 per chapter and $10 per SIG.)
• suspending pass-through funding to chapters (e.g. none of your dues will go to the chapter–no more “lunch money”)
• taking back all chapter savings (legally, all funds of U.S. chapters belong to the parent organization).

STC leaders estimate that these decisions will result in a renewal rate of 60%–in other words, a loss of 40% of members. This loss is simply devastating to small chapters like ours. If we lose 40% of our members, we will have just 36 members next year. Approximately 40% of members attend at least one chapter event per year, so we estimate just 14 “active” members in 2010-11.  Our best guess is that any given meeting would be unlikely to draw more than about 5 people.

Given this “renewal math,” none of us currently serving on the Board has chosen to renew as an STC member. We each feel that the value of the membership is simply not there without a viable local chapter. This is of course a personal decision each STC member must make. If three members choose to serve on the board, we will be happy to assist them transition to this role. However, if this does not occur, we are prepared to dissolve the chapter per STC bylaws. If this occurs, the closest STC chapter will be the Wisconsin Chapter, based in Milwaukee.

Our speaker on Nov. 20, Prof. Dave Clark, is an active member of the Wisconsin Chapter and will discuss its offerings following his presentation on Digital Literacy for Technical Communicators. (By the way, their next chapter meeting is in West Allis on Nov. 11 – http://www.stc-wi.org/newsandevents/eventdisplay.php?id=185.)

We would like to end the meeting with a brainstorming session on ways that we could all keep in touch to share ideas, job leads, and otherwise assist each other in our careers in the Madison area. Please bring your ideas for starting or joining an existing group or online presence.

Whatever happens, this is certain to be a memorable STC meeting!  RVSP by clicking “comments” below the meeting description found on this blog entry.

Sincerely,

Your STC 4 Lakes Chapter Board

Chad Beery
Mary Bertun
Amanda Byers
Amy Janczy
Mary Ellen Schutz

Another New Technical Communication Job Posting – UW Engineering Professional Development

See all the details here:

http://www.ohr.wisc.edu/pvl/pv_063046.html

New Technical Communication Job – WI Department of Corrections

You can see all the details here:

http://wisc.jobs/public/job_view.asp?annoid=39263&jobid=38778&index=true

STC 4 Lakes Chapter Meeting – November 2009

Join us on Friday, November 20th for another STC 4 Lakes chapter meeting.

In this presentation, Dave will discuss contemporary research by technical communication practitioners and academics. His focus will be primarily on the social, cultural, and empirical studies and findings related to the new kinds of “digital literacy” that are increasingly expected of all technical communicators. Topics will include but not be limited to content management, social networking, and theoretical and methodological approaches.

About our speaker

Dave Clark is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Professional Writing Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Dave’s research and teaching focus is on the rhetoric of science, technology, and management; knowledge management, information design, and single sourcing; the ethics of qualitative research; and community engagement. He is working now on a book project that aims to bridge activity theory and the practice of information design in small organizations. Dave has worked in industry for six years as a technical writer, web consultant and developer, and writer/researcher; some web sites he has designed and maintained have been for the Society for Technical Communication (STC), ATTW, and nonprofits in the Milwaukee area.

Meeting Details:

When? November 20th, 2009: 11:00am to Noon, networking; Noon to 1pm, presentation.
Where? We will be meeting once again at the Great Dane in Fitchburg. Click here for directions.
Cost? Free to STC 4 Lakes Chapter members; $10 for non-members (please pay via paypal using the button on the stc4lakes.org site)

How do I RSVP? Simply post a comment to this very blog entry (click the “Comments” text in the lower, right-hand corner of this blog entry) by Wednesday, November 18th. When you RSVP, please indicate the following:

• Your first name
• One of the following meal selections:

• Salad (Mandarin Chicken Salad – Mixed greens tossed with Tangy Ginger dressing then topped with hoisin BBQ chicken, mandarin wedges, peanuts, carrots, snow peas, roma tomatoes and crisp wonton strips.)
• Vegetarian (Paoli Portobello Sandwich – Grilled mushroom caps filled with spinach, artichole, roasted red peppers and fresh mozzarella. Served on fresh Ciabatta bread brushed with garlic oil and a side of basil aioli.)
• Burger (Dane Burger – One-third pound of choice beef broiled to perfection. Topped with lettuce, tomato, pickles, Bermuda onions and our famous artichoke dip.)
• Fish (New London Bridge Fish Fry – Three-ounce haddock fillets hand-dipped in our Pilsner batter then crisp-fried and served with homemade tarter sauce, lemon, Kohl slaw and pub fries.)
• Catfish (Blackened Catfish Po’boy) – A six-ounce farm-raised catfish fillet dipped in our Cajun spice and iron-skillet
  blackened. Served on a French roll with lettuce, tomato, Bermuda onion and our remoulade sauce.

Agile Development slides are available

Thanks you Linda and Kathy for the excellent presentation on agile development. The slides from the meeting are located here: http://stc.ims.net/uploads/media/Agile_Technical_Writing.ppt

Friends of STC 4 Lakes email list

We’d like to start building a “Friends of STC 4 Lakes” email list for people that are not members of STC 4 Lakes, but would still like notification on chapter meetings, local job postings, and so on. If you’d like to join, please send the STC 4 Lakes board an email: board@stc4lakes.org. Thanks!

Next Chapter Meeting: September 18, 2009 – Agile Development

Agile has been touted as a set of engineering best practices that allow for rapid delivery of high-quality software and support a business approach that aligns development with customer needs and company goals. It encourages collaboration among self-organizing, cross-functional teams.

Kathy Schulting and Linda Blair, software and technical publications managers at Thermo Fisher Scientific, will introduce us to the basics of Agile software development and the ways that Agile can be used to produce better documentation in less time, while allowing writers and developers to work in tandem.

About our speakers:
Linda Blair is the Technical Publications Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Madison, Wisconsin. Prior to relocating to Madison, Linda was the proprietor of PRN Transcription, based in Rochester, New York. She brought with her over 15 years of experience in writing, editing, and legal and medical transcription.

Kathy Schulting is a Software Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific where she has been an employee for more than 18 years. During her time at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Kathy has been involved as a software developer, lead developer, and project manager. She has been working with Agile software development for 4 years. She holds degrees in chemistry and computer science.

Meeting Details:

When? September 18th, 2009: 11:00am to Noon, networking; Noon to 1pm, presentation.
Where? We will be meeting once again at the Great Dane in Fitchburg. Click here for directions.
Cost? Free to STC 4 Lakes Chapter members; $10 for non-members (please pay via paypal using the button on the stc4lakes.org site)

 How do I RSVP? Simply post a comment to this very blog entry (click the “Comments” text in the lower, right-hand corner of this blog entry) by Wednesday, September 16th. When you RSVP, please indicate the following:

• Your first name
• One of the following meal selections:

• Salad (Mandarin Chicken Salad – Mixed greens tossed with Tangy Ginger dressing then topped with hoisin BBQ chicken, mandarin wedges, peanuts, carrots, snow peas, roma tomatoes and crisp wonton strips.)
• Vegetarian (Paoli Portobello Sandwich – Grilled mushroom caps filled with spinach, artichole, roasted red peppers and fresh mozzarella. Served on fresh Ciabatta bread brushed with garlic oil and a side of basil aioli.)
• Burger (Dane Burger – One-third pound of choice beef broiled to perfection. Topped with lettuce, tomato, pickles, Bermuda onions and our famous artichoke dip.)
• Fish (New London Bridge Fish Fry – Three-ounce haddock fillets hand-dipped in our Pilsner batter then crisp-fried and served with homemade tarter sauce, lemon, Kohl slaw and pub fries.)

National STC Board Seeks Your Opinion on Cost Reductions

This is a repost of an e-mail message from National STC that went out to all STC members this morning. If you didn’t get the message but would like to provide feedback, see the survey link below.

STC MEMBERS:

As you are aware, the current economic downturn that has affected all organizations has sparked a movement for STC to cut expenses in every area. Our 2010 budget will be much more than simple belt-tightening.

One area for consideration is the cost of governance—what it costs the Society to support volunteer leadership in providing the strategic direction and goals of the organization. The following survey takes less than five minutes to complete and will help the Board in its discussion of reducing or eliminating the number of some elected positions.

Please complete the survey prior to 1 August.

Need Help with Conditional Text!

My team currently uses Word as our primary app for technical documentation. We have documents that are unique to specific audiences, but because Word does not have conditional text options, we have had to create separate documents for each audience. Internet forums discuss using font/color and searching for/hiding this text to create a conditional text effect, but this does not seem ideal, and users have reporting problems with pagination. I’ve found a few plug ins that supposedly create conditional text in Word, but I’m not convinced we want to spend the money on one (it’s close to $200/license).

Does anyone have suggestions for creating conditional text in Word, or has anyone used one of these plug ins?

New Job Posting: TeamSoft, Federal grant proposal writer

 

A client or TeamSoft is searching for someone with previous experience writing Federal grant proposals. Specifically, this client is looking for someone to help complete Federal grant requests to the Department of Energy.

This will be an on-site position in Madison. Ideally, the client would like a writer to start next week, if at all possible. This project should run through the end of August.

Please contact Matt Weidenfeller at TeamSoft for further details.

techrecruiter@teamsoftinc.com

608-827-7772