Here is a list of the winners who were recognized by STC (Society for Technical
Communication) International for producing quality documentation for their
companies or clients.

At the 2009 Atlanta Society for Technical Communication (STC) Awards Banquet, the chapter recognized its volunteers, associate fellows, scholarship winners, and winners of STC International’s annual documentation competition.

Every year STC International hosts a competition to recognize companies that produce quality technical documentation such as manuals, online help, quick reference guides and training materials. The two documentation categories are online and print. Each category has three award levels: merit, excellence, and distinguished - the highest award. Listed are the companies, names of the award winners, and the award levels. Each bullet represents one document submitted as an entry.

Rudi Tan, a technical communication major at Southern Polytechnic State University, received the David C. Leonard Scholarship. The $500 scholarship was created in honor of David C. Leonard, a longtime member of Atlanta STC who served as chapter president twice and is credited with the advancement of technical communication as a profession.

Lori Brown, Scott DeLoach, and Jeff Hass received the rank of Associate Fellow from the International Society. This honor is bestowed upon those who have played an integral role in the advancement and recognition of the technical communication field.

The International Society also honored Jeff Albers, Dr. George Hayhoe, and Linda Vansickle with the annual Distinguished Chapter Service Award. The award is given to chapter members whose continued years of hard work and dedication enable the success of local STC chapter activities.

Finally, the chapter recognized the 2008-2009 officers and volunteers, whose hard work, dedication, and service benefit Atlanta STC members, who in turn learn something new at the monthly educational sessions; are recognized for producing quality documentation; introduced to technical writing jobs in greater Atlanta; and receive support from a network of technical communicator professionals. Among the many volunteers are the following who received awards:

Newcomer of the Year Award
Brian Snead, Atlanta STC Webmaster

Behind the Scenes Award
Robert Armstrong, Document Competitions Manager and 1st VP

Continious Service Award
Kathleen Baine, Secretary and Holly Harkness, Membership Manager

Cornerstone Award
Al Hood, 2007-2008 Atlanta STC President

President’s Award
Roberta Heinlein,
Editor of the “Y’all Fixin to Eat Atlanta STC Cookbook” that was sold at 2009 STC International Conference here in Atlanta  

Member of the Year Award
Jennifer Collier, Program Manager and 2nd VP

Lifetime Achievement Award
Gene Larson, Sponsorship Manager The award was named the Gene Larson Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of the recipient’s 15 years of service as an officer of the Atlanta STC Chapter.

Congratulations to all volunteers and winners who represent the best in the technical communication profession.

For my last session today, I chose the one with the topic above. Bernard Aschwanden, Rob Hanna, and Rob Frankland are presenting. They are talking about the traits, habits, and skills required. When an applicant comes to the table, they bring three things to the table: behaviors, traits, and technical skills.

Seven habits

1.  Confidence: Need to have confidence in yourself even if it’s just using Word. Don’t be cocky. Try new things. Actively seek out needed resources. Stand up for what you believe. Advocate for the user. Have the courage to say, “No one is going to read this stuff; it’s horrible.” This applies no matter what level of technical communicator you are. 
2. Passion: This means take pride in your work. Be a champion of the user. Strive for excellence. Work with virtual communities. See yourself as a professional. Demonstrate that you have a network of other professionals that you can draw upon for assistance, knowledge, etc. 
3. Driven to explore: Natural curiosity and desire to innovate. Interested in all aspects of the profession. Regularly make time to explore. Doesn’t wait for someone else to tell them what the best solutions are. If you are a manager, give your employees time to explore. Your team will be better for that. 
4. Creative problem solving: Able to identify problems and act independently to solve them. Sees the opportunity in adversity. Can identify and effectively explain issues before they become problems. Be persistent and think creatively. 
5. Continuous learning: It’s up to YOU to keep learning new skills, tricks, and technologies. Develop and revise your career goals to stretch beyond what you know.
6. Technical aptitude: Quickly learn new technology. Be able to train others. Understand the domain about which you write. Be able to communicate this knowledge. Rob, who is a manager, looks for fear in the eyes of a candidate when he mentions new technology. If he sees the fear, it tells him perhaps the candidate can’t hack it. 
7. Comfort with chaos: Sees change as opportunity. Capable of moving out of their comfort zone. Adaptable. Able to surf through the chaos. 

Ethical conduct

1. Comply with appropriate laws such as copyrights, patents, etc. 
2. Avoid harm to others through incomplete or inaccurate communication.
3. Honor confidentiality. 
4. Obey the laws and policies concerning tech comm, corporate data.

Technical skills

 Requisite skills are under constant change. Imporant to focuc on applicant’s adaptabiliy and willingness to learn new things.Look at categories of skills.

Then and now

Our profession is under constant change.Some people believe we are on the precipice of a major tech change in the way we all communicate. see Gollner, Joe; Stilo 2008 Then: tech writers wrote about technology.Now: technology is embedded in what we write about techWe write less and manipulate text.

Trends

New study by Clinton Lanier on ads requiring 2 years or less in tech comm. They required some experience, subject area knowledge, tech writing skills, technology skills, project management skills. 34% of the ads wanted tech writing, subject matter or subject matter writing (38%).They also wanted technical writing degrees or specialized writers. Tech writing skills were not called out in the ads. Only 16% called for help authoring skills. 20% wanted specialized software tools. Project management skills were called for, but not project management.

Professional development

Rob looks for STC involvement. This gives them the tools they need. Considered a badge of a professional. QuestionsWith women employees: how do you distinguish between passion and emotions? Upper (male) management sometimes doesn’t see the difference. Answer: Passion is based on facts.Comment: It’s important for new employees to have some business sense.�

Disclaimer: Typed this as I was listening so portions may be unintelligible.

Good morning! Today’s opening session features David Pogue the New York Times technology columnist and publisher of the Missing Manual series.His topic is “The Power of Simplicity.”Before the talk, all Atlanta chapter members at the conference were asked to stand and be recognized.

Also, the competition awards for the Best in Show are being given out. The winner of the pubs award wrote a book on how to do your taxes. I love it! Talk about a complex subject crying for clear instructions.STC is giving two president’s awards this year. The first is to David Pogue. The second is to Jackie Damrau for her work on the Leadership Community Resource (LCR). Our own Al Hood is taking over leadership of the LCR this year.

The Honorary Fellow award is given to Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. He has videoed a short acceptance speech. Wikipedia is now in 150 languages. English makes up only 20% of the content on it. One of the fastest growing areas is the Swahili version of Wikipedia.He’s very jazzed to speak to us because he is one of us.Used to be a Broadway conducter. Who knew?The NY Times as a newspaper gets 400 printed letters per day. Pogue gets a ton of e-mail and more and more it’s from people who are getting overwhelmed by technology and can’t keep up. An example is how quickly formats are coming and going.He’s talking about the evolution of personal computers to the point where people said, “Anyone can use a computer.” He once visited Apple’s tech support center and was able to listen in on the phone calls they were receiving. Interesting that some of these are totally understandable given the message they received.Gadgets are getting smaller and our fingers are not.We’re stuck in the software upgrade paradox where you are being hit up for upgrades with more features you haven’t even asked for. The paradox is that if you improve the software enough, you make it unusable. For example, now he is showing us 2003 Word with all the toolbars open.Where do you put all the features? Menus, submenus, check boxes, buttons, toolbars, etc. While he acknowledges that it’s hard to make usable software, but still.Problems: how do you know when to use what? But then they invented Wizards at Mircrosoft Word and it’s overload.What are the answers: Consistency, real-word equivalents (like the trashcan icon), labels, but mostly . . . use intelligence.For example, the Microsoft Print dialog box is like the control panel of the Space Shuttle. Most of the time you just have to print one copy, yet you have to look at ALL the options.At Palm, they had 160 sq pixels to work with, which led to endless arguments on how to use that space wisely. Engineers said, “put X feature in the menu. it’s only one step.” Rob Haitani, at Palm said, “think about your real desk top. Why are some things in the drawer and others on top of your desk? Try putting your mouse in a drawer and taking it out every time you need it. It’s only one step, but it will drive you crazy.”Pogue says things like defaults in date fields, autocapitalizing first letter of first word in sentence.” Bad example is Word. Just opening a new document is a major deal.He’s championing the iPod as the beginning of a trend back to simplicity. They didn’t even put a radio in it. When the user is an instant master of the technology, you are suddenly in love with the product. Another example is the iPhone. Not a great phone, true, but the design is beautiful. One button. The bigger significance is the way it came about. Previously the carriers (Verizon, tMobile, etc.) controlled the design.Steve Jobs went to Verizon and said, we’ll let you use our phone, but you can’t see the design. Verizon laughed him out of the building. Jobs shopped it around and finally Cingular went for it. The phone came out and today 30 million have been sold. That changed the cell phone industry. Google even has a cell phone technology called Android.

Speaking of Google, isn’t that a SIMPLE design. Another simple design is TIVO where they ask you if you want to delete the show when the closing credits roll after you’ve watched it. That is probably when you’d want to delete it.Another example is the Flip camcorder that has ONE BUTTON and uses AA batteries. People love it. It’s taken over 30% of the market and it has no Zoom.Another example is WII. Very unsophisticated graphics and only a few buttons on the control. They’ve blown away their competitors.Disclaimer: Typed this as I was listening so portions may be unintelligible.Good morning! Today’s opening session features David Pogue the New York Times technology columnist and publisher of the Missing Manual series.His topic is “The Power of Simplicity.”Before the talk, all Atlanta chapter members at the conference were asked to stand and be recognized.

Also, the competition awards for the Best in Show are being given out. The winner of the pubs award wrote a book on how to do your taxes. I love it! Talk about a complex subject crying for clear instructions.

STC is giving two president’s awards this year. The first is to David Pogue. The second is to Jackie Damrau for her work on the Leadership Community Resource (LCR). Our own Al Hood is taking over leadership of the LCR this year.The Honorary Fellow award is given to Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. He has videoed a short acceptance speech. Wikipedia is now in 150 languages. English makes up only 20% of the content on it. One of the fastest growing areas is the Swahili version of Wikipedia.He’s very jazzed to speak to us because he is one of us.Used to be a Broadway conducter. Who knew?The NY Times as a newspaper gets 400 printed letters per day. Pogue gets a ton of e-mail and more and more it’s from people who are getting overwhelmed by technology and can’t keep up. An example is how quickly formats are coming and going.He’s talking about the evolution of personal computers to the point where people said, “Anyone can use a computer.” He once visited Apple’s tech support center and was able to listen in on the phone calls they were receiving. Interesting that some of these are totally understandable given the message they received.Gadgets are getting smaller and our fingers are not.We’re stuck in the software upgrade paradox where you are being hit up for upgrades with more features you haven’t even asked for. The paradox is that if you improve the software enough, you make it unusable. For example, now he is showing us 2003 Word with all the toolbars open.Where do you put all the features? Menus, submenus, check boxes, buttons, toolbars, etc. While he acknowledges that it’s hard to make usable software, but still.Problems: how do you know when to use what? But then they invented Wizards at Mircrosoft Word and it’s overload.What are the answers: Consistency, real-word equivalents (like the trashcan icon), labels, but mostly . . . use intelligence.For example, the Microsoft Print dialog box is like the control panel of the Space Shuttle. Most of the time you just have to print one copy, yet you have to look at ALL the options.At Palm, they had 160 sq pixels to work with, which led to endless arguments on how to use that space wisely. Engineers said, “put X feature in the menu. it’s only one step.” Rob Haitani, at Palm said, “think about your real desk top. Why are some things in the drawer and others on top of your desk? Try putting your mouse in a drawer and taking it out every time you need it. It’s only one step, but it will drive you crazy.”Pogue says things like defaults in date fields, autocapitalizing first letter of first word in sentence.” Bad example is Word. Just opening a new document is a major deal.He’s championing the iPod as the beginning of a trend back to simplicity. They didn’t even put a radio in it. When the user is an instant master of the technology, you are suddenly in love with the product. Another example is the iPhone. Not a great phone, true, but the design is beautiful. One button. The bigger significance is the way it came about. Previously the carriers (Verizon, tMobile, etc.) controlled the design.Steve Jobs went to Verizon and said, we’ll let you use our phone, but you can’t see the design. Verizon laughed him out of the building. Jobs shopped it around and finally Cingular went for it. The phone came out and today 30 million have been sold. That changed the cell phone industry. Google even has a cell phone technology called Android.Speaking of Google, isn’t that a SIMPLE design. Another simple design is TIVO where they ask you if you want to delete the show when the closing credits roll after you’ve watched it. That is probably when you’d want to delete it.

Another example is the Flip camcorder that has ONE BUTTON and uses AA batteries. People love it. It’s taken over 30% of the market and it has no Zoom.

He’s inserting a final diatribe on documentation. “You of all people can do something about this!!” Document the simple steps, the shortcuts.

Final piece of advice. He doesn’t see himself as a technologist. We stand between the people who create technology and the public who uses it. Speak the language of the publish. Some jargon he never uses:

• Content
• Dialog
• Display (as a verb)
• DRM — call it copy protection
• Enable
• Functionality (Hurray, this is my pet peeve!)
• LCD
• PDA
• price point
• URL
• SMS
• Support as a verb: say the Help Desk
• user

 Simplicity sells. If it doesn’t work, it’s not you. Easy is hard.

Great talk! If you have a chance to hear him speak, don’t miss it.

We are now brainstorming ideas on how to raise money for the STC.If you are reading this and have ideas, please use the Comments section to post them here.Several Atlanta chapter members have made good suggestions.By the way, you can also get live blogging from the conference if you go to Scribble Live and search for STC 09.As you may know, virtually all of the conference sessions are being recorded. At the end of the conference, you can buy this content and download it. Someone suggested breaking it up so that people can download a session at a time for a smaller fee. Of course, those attending the conference will get this material for free.�

Sobering report from outgoing president Mark Clifford.  STC is experiencing an unprecedented financial short fall. We aren’t alone. Other associations are experiencing this as well. They are reporting conference registrations are down 50% from previous years. This means we need open discussion, clear communication, and decisive actions to confront this crisis. Every decision at the Society level is critical to membership benefits and value. The STC Board needs our help to overcome a long-term crisis.

Historically, the bulk of STC’s income comes from membership dues and the conference. Other STC programs lose money. This year we are taking a loss on the conference as well. The Society will potentially be in the red by over $1 million.

Eighteen months ago the majority of STC’s investments were in equities. The Society leadership made an adjustment and reallocated to pull money out of stocks. Compared with other associations, the STC relies more heavily on dues and conference revenue for its operating budget. So a number of steps have been taken to reduce costs. They have two open staff positions, but they have not filled those. In addition, the Society has taken out a loan of $250,000.This year we need to generate $1 million to cover conference losses. Possible solutions were:

• assessment of individual members
• assess chapters
• increase dues

Obviously none of these are attractive solutions. Now Mark is opening the floor to hear our ideas on how to solve the problem. 

Along with several other members of our chapter, I’m attending Leadership Day at the STC Summit. Leadership Day is held the day before the Summit begins. It’s an opportunity for chapter presidents and SIG leaders to hear reports from the Society leadership. It’s also designed to provide ideas for leaders on how to energize their chapters and communities.

I’m “live blogging” so you’ll be getting a blow-by-blow.

We were welcomed by Mark Clifford, the outgoing STC President.

Susan Burton, the Executive Director, of the Society has welcomed us as well. She pointed out that many people who join professional associations do not attend events sponsored by those associations.

Susan is telling us about some research that was recently conducted on associations. There are about 15,000 professional associations in the US. About 10% of the members of those organizations represent the leadership. Another 30% consider themselves “active,” and by that they mean that they only attend one event per year. Fifty percent want the information provided by the association through their Web site, publications, e-mails, etc. The final 10 % are unhappy with the organization. Some of those in that last category are just generally grumpy people who would be unhappy in any organization. But the others DO have valid reasons for being unhappy. It’s important for leaders to listen to those people. Even though their ideas may seem a little crazy or silly, they may have some validity.

Susan explained that the Society covers the chapters with liability insurance and takes care of the complicated taxes. This is invisible to the chapters and communities in many ways, but it’s a good safety net if you happen to need it.

Diana Buttram, the Director of Community Relations, is speaking about the progress that has been made in that area. We were also introduced to Omar Terrie, her assistant.

Conference attendance is down among all associations and the STC Summit is no exception. At the end of February only 120 people had registered compared with 500 or 600 in the past. It was looking like overall attendance was going to be only 300 this year. The Society initiated a scholarship program to boost attendance and we’ll probably have about 700 attendees total.

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Jin Zhao, a graduate student at Georgia State University, is conducting a study on technical communicators’ perception about the value of visual knowledge and skills in the workplace. She would like STC chapter members to participate. Here is a link to the survey.

Here is a consent form for the survey.

Once you finish you may send it back to jzhao@langate.gsu.edu or jzhao2@student.gsu.edu.

Thanks!

Many technical communicators cannot afford to attend a conference every year, not because of the registration fees, but because of the associated travel and hotel costs (which typically exceed the price of the conference). The STC conference will be held in Atlanta in 2009, and for us local good old boys and gals, this is a great opportunity to attend the premiere conference for technical communicators without having to cover the travel expenses.

If you are wondering if you will renew your membership, or if you are looking at ways to convince other Atlanta professional technical communicators to join STC, look at the additional savings you get if you attend the conference as a member:

Non-member Early Bird registration: $1095

BUT:
Classic Membership: $175.
Member Early Bird registration: $795
Total cost: $970

By joining or renewing your membership, you save $125! And you get all the other benefits of STC membership.

I can’t remember any other time when our profession has had so many exciting opportunities and challenges–2009 is the year to ramp up your professional skills and contacts. I hope every technical communicator comes to Atlanta for the conference, but we local professionals should take advantage of having the conference right here. Go to the STC Web site and renew your membership today.

As you prepare for the holidays, remember to send your favorite recipes to STC for inclusion in our Atlanta STC Cookbook. The cookbook will be available at the STC Summit conference in Atlanta May 3-6, 2009 as we serve as host chapter for 2000 technical communicators. Help us show our southern hospitality!

Add a technical communicator spin to your recipe, perhaps with a title or subtitle. If you can’t think of a spin, submit your recipes and we’ll add the spin for you. Mike Hughes has already submitted his recipe for Dita Grits written in dita markup language. Recipes don’t have to be original, just ones that you have used and added to your favorites list. You can enter your recipes online at morriscookbooks.com.

Contact Roberta Heinlein at RecipesforSTC@gmail.com for the logon and password.