I’d Rather Be Writing – Tom Johnson

Last week I wrote a post about avoiding extinction as a technical communicator. The basic idea was that you have to keep up with the learning styles, preferences, and behaviors of your users to survive. That often means avoiding the long manual and incorporating more interactive, collaborative, or audiovisual means of instruction.

Almost the exact same argument could be made about the STC and its financial trouble. In case you haven’t heard, the STC’s finances are facing crisis proportions. Unless membership stabilizes, it could go out of business in a couple of years. Read the rest of this entry »

In What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, the authors explain that the same behaviors that lead to our success are paradoxically the same that can hold us back. This paradox leads to a predicament when it comes to opportunity. We live in a sea of opportunity, especially with technical communication. We can serve in our local STC chapter, serve on a SIG, write articles for newsletters, submit presentations for conferences, start our own training or consulting service, record podcasts — opportunities abound. We’re often invited to serve, to participate and contribute in a variety of activities around us. But should we? Read the rest of this entry »

The next STC Summit will be entirely recorded and made available for free to all conference registrants.

At the next STC Summit, May 3-6 in Atlanta, Georgia, the STC will record and distribute every one of the 120+ sessions, making them available to all conference registrants for free and to others at a cost. Because this is the first time the STC has attempted to record the Summit, I asked Lloyd Tucker, STC’s Director of Education and Membership, if he could share some details about the upcoming recording.

Why did the STC decide to record all the sessions this year?

STC has been considering some type of conference recording for the last two years. We have been watching several associations and companies to see how their programs unfolded. We knew that the technology (remember those old cassette tapes?) had improved considerably, but needed to find a company that could provide more than just recording capabilities. The company we are working with has been “capturing” sessions for large conferences and companies like Microsoft for several years. Read the rest of this entry »

After a summer hiatus, the Intermountain STC is gathering tonight (Thursday, Sept 18) for another meeting. The topic is on repurposing content for multi-channel publishing. See more details.