Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter
June/July 2006
| Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter June/July 2006 |
Editor's Note: Susan Becker, Patrick Lufkin, and Marc Smircich attended the STC's 53rd annual conference, which took place in Las Vegas from May 7-11. They have written articles describing their experiences for this edition of the ActiveVOICE. More articles about the conference are available at: www.stc-sf.org/newsletter/2006-jun/conference.html
While the sessions and parties were exciting, for me the big news was the announcement that STC's inward-looking transition period is officially over. While organizational changes will continue to be made, the Society has vowed to turn much of its attention outward.
Perhaps for the first time, the Society has clear plans to aggressively promote the profession, "to tell our powerful story," and to earn us the respect we deserve. Our story, when told, should make it clear that we are not "geeky scribes" or "tool jockeys," but professionals with a unique discipline and skill set and a great deal to bring to the table.
To help us tell our story, a new executive director, Susan Burton, has been hired to be the "new face" of the STC. Burton, who comes with an impressive background in professional and trade association management, has told the STC that she wants to work with the Board "to transform STC into the preeminent organization for technical communicators seeking professional advancement in the world," and to make it "the professional portal that will serve globally as the 'Technology, Tools, and Service Central' for the profession of technical communication."
In truth, the world desperately needs our knowledge and skills. This was made very clear when closing speaker, Anita Salem, a technical communicator by profession, told of her experiences working as a Red Cross volunteer at the Houston Astrodome when Hurricane Katrina forced thousands of New Orleans refugees to seek shelter there.
Arriving in a scene of total chaos, Anita soon applied her skills in information design to set up a primitive, but very usable, system using paper slips to manage and track the hundreds of requests for service -- food, blankets, translators, medical help -- that were coming in every hour. With little more to work with than a table in an arena, she established a system that matched needs and providers, while remaining simple enough to be used by volunteers with little training and disparate backgrounds.
For comparison, Anita said the public relations people -- the other communication professionals on the scene -- set about creating alphabetical lists of agency contacts, which may have helped some news reporters, but which did little for the people in need.
While Anita's experience was unique, it showed that skills and thinking patterns that are second nature to technical communicators -- audience analysis, user-centered needs assessment, design for immediate understanding and use -- have applications far beyond manuals and web pages. I came away convinced that, as individuals and as a profession, we should be taking every opportunity to show the world what we can do. Our skills are needed everywhere, but people need to be shown.
Copyright © 2006 by the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter (www.stc-sf.org). This article may be reprinted in another STC publication under the provisions of the chapter's copyright policy.