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June 24th, 2009 | Posted in Uncategorized 2 Comments »
Core Dump: STC floundering? Keith Soltys reflects on the STC issue as well. His last paragraph sums up his point: “I would hate to lose the STC. It was really important in my development as a technical writer, and I still find it worthwhile. However, it’s not essential – the rise of the Internet, with the World Wide Web and social media, has provided many alternatives for finding information and networking with other writers. At one time, the STC was pretty much the only game in town – it’s not now, and if the people running the organization don’t realize this and start doing something about it now, it will die away.” Is it me, or does the trend seem pretty clear: not a lot of people are rooting for STC to survive without a major overhaul of value.
Tags: What I'm Reading
I think the view presented is a little simplistic. At one time, STC was the only national, then international, game in town. It’s not now, and they know it. The ED that came a few years ago is extremely good. The people running the organization DO realize the precarious position, and they ARE trying to be responsive, but are having a hard time keeping up. They are being pulled in multiple directions (do change this, don’t change this), and having to go from 0 to 100 in a very short period of time, because during the reign of the previous STC EDs, things were allowed to stagnate terribly. (I was on the board at the time of great upheaval, and know all too well the good, bad, and uglies of STC-ville.)
STC also has a scattered membership, and many of the more vocal members are extremely thin-skinned. Response and change is met with incredible resistance. And reasoning with members in business terms on STC listserv becomes fruitless – it ends up in an attack by people who get offended instead of listening to the message. So what happens is that the group who could be mentors and leaders have backed away because it’s too much work trying to drag recalcitrant members along the path to progress.
The nature of a membership that resents its own association and is wants to see its demise so they can say “I told you so” is dysfunctional at a very basic level. (I’d love to get a psychologist to weigh in on this!) One has to ask why they’re members of an association they don’t support? If slagging it, that’s an odd way of showing support. Or, maybe whining became part of the STC member culture?
The whole “the borg is bad and I’m powerless to change it so I’ll just complain about it” is so 1990s, and getting tiresome, quite frankly. STC is by no means the borg, and is a member-driven organization. Want change? Get involved. There is a great group of people in the office trying their best to turn a very large ship, despite some pretty hefty anchors slowing them down.
OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now.
I’ve been a technical writer for 20 years and on and off STC member (currently off). I will echo the comment (made by Keith and others, elsewhere) that the professional association with STC was useful early on in my career.
They need to become a web portal offering the BEST training in topics of interest to technical communicators (WordPress, WebHelp, DITA)…if they can manage to do that, they will gain more respect and membership. People learn and interact online these days, rather than going to the meeting at the hotel conference room after work on the second Tuesday of every month.