Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Orange County STC Newsletter
www.stc.org April 2009 Vol. 48, No. 4
Smart VolunteeringBy Guy Ball, OCSTC Senior Member
What if I told you that you could learn new skills on someone else’s dime, try out new ideas with a “client” who is just appreciative that
you’re helping, and maybe even network yourself into a new job or a new direction in the process?
I won’t use the “dirty ‘V’ word” to taint this conversa-tion. Let’s just call it helping out, paying it forward, may-be even good karma. Works for me. I’ve been loaning my technical writing skills for free to a few nonprofit organizations over the last couple of years and, besides helping them with needed skills, I’ve received more benefits than I ever expected. I’ve learned how to adapt to new situations better, “do more with less,” and to think like a guerilla fighter in the war on providing maximum content on a minimum budget.
And I’m not alone. Look a little closer at our OCSTC organization and you’ll see people who maintain dynamic web sites, produce award-winning newsletters, coordinate educational programs, and organize some pretty
Continued on Page 6 >
This Issue:
Smart Volunteering 1
President’s Message 2
Next Meeting 3
2009 Spotlight Awards: Lower Fees and Earlier Deadline! 3
Editor’s Desk 4
EduNotes 5
February Meeting Review 8
March Meeting Review 8
Society Pages 9
Orange Juice— Membership News 9
OCSTC Employment Information 10
Congratulations to the 2009 OCSTC Scholarship Winner! 11
Orange Slice— Calendar of Events 12
April Meeting Topic 12
Don’t forget—Voting ends this month for the chapter and society elections! Vote now!
http://www.ocstc.org/election/candslate.asphttp://www.stc.org/candidatesfaq/
Pictured here is a sample of literature ad documentation created for nonprofit organizations in Orange County. These publications were created pro bono. You, too, can volunteer your services to learn new skills, network, and fill in gaps between employment on your résumé.
2 • April 2009
President’s MessageBy Betsy Malone, OCSTC Chapter President
STC and OCSTC Offer Summit Scholarships
Recognizing the impact the economic downturn has
had on technical communica-tors, STC announced that it will grant 250 scholarships to members who have been laid off, let go, downsized, or have been forced to take a pay cut of 10 percent or more.
STC is awarding up to 250 scholarships of $400 to members who wish to attend the STC Technical Com-munication Summit May 3ñ6 in Atlanta, Georgia. To be eligible for the scholarships, an individual must be a current member of STC (classic, e-member, Super-Sig, or an individual in the Corporate Value Program) in good standing, be currently unemployed, or have been forced to take at least a 10 percent cut in salary. Members who are consultants or own their own busi-ness may apply if they have experienced a downturn in business revenue of at least 10 percent. Applicants must also stay at the official conference hotel (Hyatt Regency Atlanta) in order to take advantage of this benefit.
Scholarships will be awarded on a first-come, first-awarded basis. To apply for the scholarships, mem-bers should download the PDF of the Scholarship Registration Form from http://conference.stc.org/register/scholarships.asp. Scholarship recipients will be notified within 48 hours. The scholarships will be offered until all are awarded or until April 21.
The Orange County chapter is pleased to offer an additional stimulus package for those who want to attend the Summit but may be struggling financially. Any OCSTC member who applies for the STC Summit Scholarship should send a copy of his or her applica-tion to [email protected] to be entered to win an ad-ditional $400 scholarship to help offset the cost of the conference.
Scholarships will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, and you will be notified within two days of your submission. OCSTC scholarship winners will be awarded a $400 check payable to STC to help cover your conference registration costs.
So, what are you waiting for? Apply for the STC and OCSTC Summit Scholarships and you might just get the chance to have your conference registration paid in full!
Chapter Contacts
OCSTC P.O. Box 28751 Santa Ana, CA 92799-8751
Chapter Fax: 949.830.7585
Web site: http://www.ocstc.org
Administrative CouncilPresident, Betsy Malone, [email protected]
Past President, Bruce Giddens, [email protected]
1st Vice Presidents, Programs, Suzanne Madison and Sima Staav, [email protected]
2nd Vice Presidents, Membership, Jane Baker and Pat Olsen [email protected]
Treasurer, Linda Phillips, [email protected]
Secretary, Jim Marchant, [email protected]
AppointeesTechniScribe Managing Editor, Michael Opsteegh, [email protected]
Public Relations, Open
Education, Bill Darnall, [email protected]
Education, Brian McCaleb, [email protected]
Scholarship Chair, Carrie Damschroder, [email protected]
Webmaster, Jeff Randolph, [email protected]
Employment Manager, Betsy Malone, [email protected]
Committees Nominating Committee:
Bill Darnall, [email protected]
Adrienne Escoe, [email protected]
Larry Lockie, [email protected]
Bruce Giddens, [email protected]
April 2009 • 3
Next MeetingTopic: Turning Your Rants into Raves: Putting
Your Best Self Forward in a Challenging Marketplace
Speaker: Barbara Giammona
When: Tuesday, April 21, 6–9 p.m.
Where: DoubleTree Club Hotel 7 Hutton Centre Drive Santa Ana, CA 92707 714.751.2400
Cost: Members with reservations . . . . . . . . . . . $24
Students with reservations . . . . . . . . . . . . $18
STC member, speaker-only. . . . . . . . . . . . $10
Nonmembers with reservations . . . . . . . $29
Walk-ins, or those registering after the deadline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $33
No-shows billed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $24
Reservations:
Due by midnight, Friday, April 17
Registration:
Online at http://www.ocstc.org/dinres.asp
Directions to the DoubleTree Club HotelMap of the I-405 and SR-55 area. The star below indi-cates the hotel location. Parking is FREE.
2009 Spotlight Awards: Lower Fees and Earlier Deadline!By Carrie Damschroder, Public Relations Manager
For the sixth year in a row, the eight Southern California STC chapters are sponsoring a Spotlight
Awards technical communication competition that provides you with an opportunity to showcase your talent as a writer and artist. If you are interested in re-ceiving valuable feedback on your recent publications and gaining recognition for your hard work, enter this year’s competition! You can submit publications in any of these categories:
Online Communications•
Technical Publications•
Technical Art •
The due date for all entries is September 30, 2009. Entry fees start at $75 for STC members and $100 for nonmembers. But wait—if you enter before August 31, 2009, we’ll lower your entry fee by 33%! We know that everyone is tightening their purse strings due to the state of the economy, so early STC entrants will only pay $50 and early non-STC member entrants will only pay $75. There is also a price incentive for entering multiple entries at the same time. So, begin to think about which stellar documentation projects you’d like to enter and plan on submitting them early!
Judges and other volunteers for the competition are still needed. As a judge, you’ll see some of the best work in technical communication, help to set the standards for excellence in our profession, and add prestigious experience to your résumé. As a volunteer, you’ll build your professional network, gain leader-ship experience, and make a significant contribution to the Southern California STC community. The areas where we need help include the following:
Managing entries •
Managing online judges•
Planning the banquet•
Awards•
Web site•
Public relations•
Judging•
The competition committee has already begun to meet. Contact Suzy Hosie at [email protected] if you are interested in applying to be a judge or volunteer-ing on the competition committee, or if you have any questions about entering the competition.
DoubleTree Club Hotel7 Hutton Centre DriveSanta Ana, California92707-5794714.751.2400
CorrectionIn the March issue, we printed that Penny Marco, candidate for second vice president of membership, joined STC in 2006. Penny, in fact, joined STC in 2000.
4 • April 2009
Publication PoliciesTechniScribe is published 12 times a year as a benefit to the members of the Orange County Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. The goal of the publication is to reflect the interests, needs, and objectives of OCSTC members. TechniScribe strives to be an advocate for, and an inspiration to, technical communicators by keeping them connected to each other and to opportunities for professional growth.
Articles published in this newsletter may be re-printed in other STC publications if permission is obtained from the author, credit is properly given, and one copy of the reprint is sent to the TechniScribe managing editor.
Submission InformationThe editorial team retains and exercises the right to edit submitted and requested material for clar-ity, length, and appropriateness.
When submitting material, please remember to:
Include a 25-word biography about yourself.•
Send articles in Word (doc, docx), Rich-Text • Format (RTF), ASCII (txt), or in the body of an e-mail message.
Send material to the managing editor • (techni [email protected]) five weeks before the date it will be published.
Editorial StaffManaging Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Opsteegh Copyeditor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teresita del Sol Copyeditor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anne Stratford Copyeditor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barbara Young Proofreader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jennifer Gardelle Proofreader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suzanne Madison Proofreader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sima Staav Web Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jeff Randolph
Monthly Advertising Rates1/4 page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $40 1/3 page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $45 1/2 page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $60 Full page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $80
Subscriptions$10 a year to members of other STC chapters.
PrinterPrintWorks, Irvine, CA
Editor’s DeskBy Michael Opsteegh, TechniScribe Managing Editor
Journalists and Pod-casters as Technical Communicators
It’s hard to not write about the economy, and I am not
going to write directly about the economy here because it doesn’t relate directly to technical communica-tion. The downturn in the economy, however, has
brought a lot of technical financial information out of the shadows and into the light. How is the average American expected to understand such concepts as Keynesian economics, credit default swaps (a form of credit derivative invented by math and physics PhDs), collateralized debt obligations, securitization, mark-to-market accounting, bank balance sheets, capital in-jection, or the velocity of money? Even if you work in the financial industry, all of this jargon can leave your head spinning. But these concepts are vital to under-standing how we got into this mess and for weighing our options to get out of it.
Many of us try diligently to keep up with the news about eco-nomic stimulus, the possible nationalization of banks, and esoteric banking jargon, but it’s difficult if we don’t fully un-derstand what’s going on. A couple of years ago, most of these concepts fell only into the lofty domain of the technocrats. But now, we all need to understand them. Where is the average person supposed to turn? Typical busi-ness news does not cover these issues in depth, and you can forget network television news.
There’s a podcast from NPR, however, that has done an excellent job of explaining the gyrations of the economy to a wide audience. The podcast is called “Planet Money.” Its hosts Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson (and other great contributors) explain high-ly technical economic concepts using such metaphors as dollhouses and cake futures. Normally, this column and this newsletter are not the appropriate place to
Continued on Page 7 >
April 2009 • 5
EduNotesBy Bill Darnall, Cochair OCSTC Education
Last month you learned you have “dual citizen-ship” when you are self-employed. You are both an
employee and an employer. Consequently, you need a personal plan and you need a business plan. These two plans should be complementary. A change to one plan will likely force a change to the other. Effective planning will help you accomplish your personal and busi-ness goals. This article outlines a way to help you start planning.
Planning for Self-EmploymentThere is no single best way to plan. Some people are big-picture strategic thinkers. They start with goals. Some people are short-term tactical thinkers. They start with tasks that are im-mediate. You can start planning top-down or you can start planning bottom-up. Eventually you need to coordinate your strategic and your tactical plans. You need to develop a list of measurable requirements. For example, one can measure elements of time and resources.
You can start planning by creating a list of goals. You can start planning by creating a list of tasks. You can start by creating a written narrative about your typical day. If you do not know your thinking style, now is a good time to find out. As a self-employed profes-sional, you will have many opportunities to identify and solve problems. As a self-employed technical communicator, you will have many opportunities to design and to create content (for documents and/or web pages). Understanding how you think and how you plan is just as important as knowing when you are most productive during the day or night.
If you are a morning person, do your heavy planning early in the day. If you are a night owl, do your plan-ning during the wee hours. Leverage what you know about yourself to your own best advantage. Your customers and co-workers will benefit as well.
Your Personal PlanYour personal plan should address at least two general goals: (1) how you would like to spend your personal time and (2) the income necessary to meet your personal financial obligations. You should have a general idea about how you expect to allocate your time and your money. Suppose you have young children that you must help get ready for school. Sup-
pose you have pets that also need attention. Suppose you have no children, no pets, and you live alone in a maintenance-free condo. Developing a 24-hour schedule may help you visualize how you spend your personal time.
You might write a short story about how you would like to spend time away from work. You can include details about the cash flow nec-essary to support your away-from-work model. Your story may include lists of long-term goals and short-term activi-ties. Perhaps you want to take a six-week vacation in Patagonia. Suppose you want to enroll in a three-times-a-week exercise program.
Suppose you want to go sailing twice a month. You can develop both a short-term daily schedule and a long-range schedule.
Your Business PlanYour business plan should have at least two goals: (1) provide the time you need for personal activities and (2) provide the income necessary to support your personal plan. You will most likely have other goals. These may include professional development, acquisi-tion of business resources, and business-related net-working. How much space will you need to support your business?
You might write a short story about how you would like to spend your time while you are working. You can include details about your office floor plan. You can include details about how you expect to acquire customers and clients. Perhaps you expect to work at home. Perhaps you want to work in rented office space. In any event, you will need to consider your operating expenses. You will be able to identify many of the expenses by talking about your anticipated daily work routine.
Develop a 24-hour schedule to help identify when you expect to devote time to your business. Include time for travel and meals.
ConclusionReconcile your personal and business goals and you will be ready to begin detailed planning.
6 • April 2009
great events—all on their own time and with no ex-pectation of financial return.
But let’s talk about sharing communication skills that are, at times, in short supply in the outside world. How many nonprofit groups could benefit from a few hours of your help in rewriting mission statements, program brochures, or event instruction materials for their staff?
Do you want to grow your skill set or offer yourself some variation from the same types of material you do day in/day out? How about creating a newsletter for your local community foundation or an informative web site for a new cancer patient support group? Are you interested in history or science? Small museums are always in need of informa-tive little brochures to help their visitors. They don’t need to be fancy; just well written.
How about doing something that impacts not just one or two, but hundreds or thou-sands of people?
A few years ago, tech writer Sam Poppas was simply helping out when the teacher at his son’s school asked him to speak at career day. Sam puts in his 40-plus hours a week and was con-tent coming home and just dealing with family stuff, but he liked the idea of shar-ing his career with students. After his presentation, the principal asked if he could help out by writing a brief summary of a program the school was trying to get a grant for. Sam saw how disorganized they were and eventually took over the whole grant applica-tion, and the school won the funds. Sam commented that the feeling of elation over the success was unlike anything he’s felt at work for a long time. And with-out Sam’s help, they probably would not have gotten the grant.
“Writers have a unique and valuable talent that can advance the missions of local nonprofits. Your service is needed now more than ever to help address critical community issues,” noted Dan McQuaid, CEO and president of Volunteer Center Orange County, the
county’s leading group connecting skilled volunteers with organizations that need assistance. “Volunteer Center can connect you to make a meaningful contri-bution that utilizes and expands your skills.”
What sort of projects might you be able to do? I’ve mentioned a few. Others I’ve personally helped with include editing, formatting, and publishing minibooks
for a local historical society; collaborating with graphic designers on a downtown walking tour guide; devel-oping a video-based oral history program; and, my favorite, writing a book on local history for a main-stream publisher.
Did I get paid for any of this? Outside of the min-iscule book royalty, nope, nada, nothing. Did I learn new tools, have amazing control over projects, and feel like I impacted a whole bunch of people? You bet!
Sam said it well. “I picked up new skills that I was able to bring to my work environ-ment, and it’s made me a bit more valuable. And should something unfortunate hap-pen to my job, I can move into grant writing to bring in some extra income.” (He’s already written a few more.)
Let’s talk about the caveats, though. If you’ve volun-teered for anything, you know there are too few people doing it, and you will
be called on for other unplanned roles. This is a great way to get burnt out on a relationship with a particu-lar group as your workload increases. Try very hard to limit the extra work you find yourself taking on to the tasks you really want to do. Try to suggest better ways to do existing things so that you’re creating a value (and interest) to your work—not just filling in a gap. This philosophy has kept me interested in con-tinuing what I do (15 years with one group alone!).
Try hard not to impact your family time or the open time that’s very important for you. I tend to do a lot of my work late at night once my family has gone to bed. Learn about the group and their operation before you
Smart Volunteering< Continued from Page 1
Continued on Page 7 >
I’ve received more benefits than I ever expected. I’ve learned how to adapt to new situations better, “do more with less,” and to think like a guerilla fighter in the war on providing maximum content on a minimum budget.
April 2009 • 7
promote a podcast on economics, but these folks, who are journalists by trade, are models of technical com-municators. Journalists simply state what happened, but these folks, like technical communicators, actually explain what is happening and what may happen depending on the choices we make.
This got me thinking about how many other journal-ists or podcasters could rightfully be called techni-cal communicators. Actually, there are a lot of them. Another one of my favorite podcasts, “Radiolab,” explains, in an entertaining and engaging way, such complex scientific and theoretical concepts as mem-
overwhelm them with your great new ideas. Often, an organization operates a certain way because of deeper reasons—or personalities. Your new idea might be wonderful, but it could also hurt them as everyone scrambles to accommodate something you’re trying to change. (On the other hand, you could also be that breath of fresh air they’ve needed for years!)
Don’t start a project you can’t finish. I’ve helped out several groups with web sites that the previous volun-teer never completed. The group was left hanging to dry when the well-meaning webmaster got busy with something else in life. Don’t enter into a project if you can’t finish or gracefully complete it in a short time. (Remember, these people will talk—and they will ei-ther relate how you “walk on water” or left a big mess that no one could fix.)
Lastly, and possibly just as important. Remember, someday, you will not be there to help. For recurring projects, try to make your work as simple to follow as possible. Try not to work in complex tools if you can. I’ve created newsletters in Word and web sites in FrontPage—all because I knew that whoever was going to take it on would not be using InDesign or Dreamweaver. I purposely designed things that can be easily updated by a novice. (I made sure they had lots of copy/paste solutions.)
At the start of this article, I spoke of the new skills you would learn, the new ideas you could bring to an
Smart Volunteering< Continued from Page 6
Editor’s Desk< Continued from Page 4
appreciative client, and the new career direction you might stumble upon. The more you do, the more you will gain back. It’s worked for so many of us willing to give it a try. It’s really not rocket science. It’s smartly using your talents to help others.
Payback? Well, how about smiling faces, a very grate-ful organization, a successful event or project where you had serious input, and a wonderful feeling deep in your gut. All without worrying about how it was going to look on your yearly review?
And maybe, just maybe, a payback of a better, smarter you as you head off into the crazy job market.
The Volunteer Center Orange County can be con-tacted at 714.953.5757, extension 218, or by e-mail at [email protected]. Or you can directly contact any of the local groups and organizations in your community.
Guy Ball is a senior technical writer for EADS North America Defense Test and Services in Irvine, California. He’s volunteered his technical writing skills for over 20 years and swears it gave him skills that let him grow his ca-reer and discover new opportunities. He’s written a couple of books, created a few organizational web sites, developed an award-winning history coloring book for kids, and works on “too many” unpaid writing projects that keep him up, happily, late at night. His web site is guyball.com.
ory, morality, and love. Again, by trade, the hosts are journalists, but they are tackling issues that technical communicators might explain, yet journalists typically gloss over.
There are probably thousands of podcasters and jour-nalists who, by all rights, can be classified as technical communicators. So if you have a favorite podcast that sounds a lot like technical communication to you, tell me about it. E-mail me at [email protected].
8 • April 2009
March Meeting ReviewBy Jennifer Gardelle, OCSTC Member
Shelby Gordon’s presentation on über-networking was both fun and informative. What exactly
is über-networking you might ask? It’s a sensible networking strategy that lies halfway between low-impact, mindless schmoozing and the sometimes-too-
high-impact guerrilla networking, and, best of all, über-networking is something that any of us can do.
What sets über-networking apart from other forms is that it’s a targeted, connected, and reciprocal approach to networking. Target-ing forces us to figure out where we want to work, which helps us to know who we should contact, and then we connect with colleagues (past and present) to find out how to connect with our target contacts. In fact, connecting helped Shelby find a way to get tickets to the presidential inauguration in January, when tickets had long been sold out. Wow!
Face-to-face networking works best—when possible—but online social networking is great, too, and sometimes more feasible.
LinkedIn, Facebook, and other sites are great tools to help us with this part of über-networking. Shelby said it’s important to be reciprocal when connecting and that we should give first, give more, and give big. This sets a friendly and cooperative tone to networking and gives it a win-win feel.
How much time do we need to spend working on our über-networks? She suggested choosing a time that works best for you. For her, Sunday morning is her time to connect. But maybe an hour a day works best for you. The point is, you need to be proactive, but you don’t have to spend all of your time doing this. You have other things that you need to do, too, such as refining your résumé and engaging your references (connecting with your past and present contacts).
She said that, in spite of the current job market, she remains an “Amazon of Optimism,” and she encour-ages us to do the same. After all, as Paul Romer—a Stanford economist— said, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” So, when faced with a crisis, get out there and über-network. Check out Shelby’s blog at http://amazonofoptimism.wordpress.com to participate in a continuing discussion of über-networking.
Also at the meeting were four students from Cal. State Fullerton. Their teacher had to miss a class, so she paid for them to attend the OCSTC meeting! It was great to have them there, and hopefully they’ll decide to join the STC and OCSTC and come back with their friends.
February Meeting ReviewBy Pamela Coca
OCSTC members not yet familiar with Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite (TCS) should
definitely have attended the February meeting. Matt Sullivan, from roundpeg, Inc. was guest speaker and TCS evangelist personified!
I have to admit I went into the meeting prepared to hear a rehash of everything RJ Jacquez said at last April’s OCSTC meeting on the same subject. RJ gave a great talk. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I bought the program three days later. I just wasn’t sure I was up for a repeat perfor-mance. I wanted to hear new stuff about TCS. It turns out that I had no reason to fear; Matt was energetic and en-gaging for over an hour, and we all hated to see it end.
Matt addressed the small crowd with both levity and professionalism. The mixed audience was comprised of Frame and RoboHelp users, TCS 1.3 users, and individuals who didn’t even know what the acronym represented. You could actually spot the latter ones most easily—they had that deer-in-the-headlights look every time Matt compiled the online help. Adobe has finally discovered the meaning of continuity, so the serious Frame users were awed by FrameMaker 9’s Photoshop-based GUI with palettes and configu-rability. The TCS users were more interested in the improvements and whether some of the bugs (like frequent crashing) had been addressed.
An important point, brought up by Sullivan, is that ordinary versions of FrameMaker and RoboHelp do not communicate with each other. Conversion and integration only occur with the enhanced software incorporated into the Technical Communication Suite.
The biggest oohs and ahs of the night probably came from Matt’s fast-paced demonstration of the power of conditional text. I’m not sure any of us were swift enough to be able to repeat what he did, but we cer-tainly enjoyed watching it. Matt also reminded us that Ctrl + L refreshes the screen in FrameMaker and that the equivalent in RoboHelp is to close and reopen a tab to refresh the screen.
Due to time constraints, Matt’s talk was limited to FrameMaker–RoboHelp connectivity. He didn’t even have a chance to mention the other goodies that are part of the new TCS 2.0.
Matt Sullivan gives a stellar presentation on Adobe’s Techni-cal Communication Suite 2 at the February meeting.
April 2009 • 9
Orange Juice: Membership NewsBy Pat Olsen, OCSTC 2nd Vice President, Membership
Number of OCSTC Members: 231
Make the most of your membership in these
rough-and-tumble times. OCSTC offers many re-sources to help you network, find a new job, and invest in yourself.
Attend a chapter meeting. Even at the $10, speaker-only level, you can still squeeze in a few minutes of valuable networking.
Post your résumé. You can post your résumé on the OCSTC web site. Your résumé will be available for potential employers and recruiters.
Browse for jobs. Okay, so open positions are rare, but the positions posted on the OCSTC web site can only be viewed by members during the first two weeks. The national and international positions posted on the STC web site can only be viewed by STC members. Sometimes, the most important aspect of landing a new job is being the first person in line with an ap-plication or inquiry.
Invest in yourself. Maintaining your skills and ac-quiring new ones is the most important action you can take in a recession. Investing in yourself means you are ready to be hired when the economy turns around. Attend chapter meetings and absorb the knowledge our speakers impart. Borrow books from the OCSTC library. Attend the free webinars STC of-fers.
Make the most of your membership by networking, being in the right place at the right time, and investing in yourself.
Now we continue our member spotlight series by introducing Roger Hunnicutt.
Meet Roger HunnicuttRoger Hunnicutt has been a computer programmer, software design engineer, and test engineer. While training a new employee at CBR, a small nonprofit media company in Lake Forest, Roger decided to ex-plore various career options. He decided that he want-ed to write professionally full time and not just as an incidental part of his job. This year, he began working part time at CBR to free up time to take classes in technical communication at CSU Dominguez Hills and UCSD Extension. He is also studying tools like FrameMaker and RoboHelp. Roger would like to earn a certificate in technical communication by summer and then pursue full-time technical writing.
Society Pages
While planning what classes to take, Roger realized he had to plug into a profes-sional network. After lots of research on the Web, he determined that STC was the best organization of its kind and joined the Orange County chapter last Novem-ber.
When Roger was a child in Cypress, a friend of his dad took him to see the IBM mainframe in his bank. After punching a few cards, feed-ing them into the computer, and seeing them print, Roger knew he wanted to program that big metal beastie someday. Computers became his favorite subject in school, especially after his community col-lege let him program an educational games system for students.
A computer programmer since the 1970s, Roger start-ed his first full-time job at ROLM Corporation. It was at ROLM that he got his first taste of technical writ-ing. As a programmer, he wrote software engineering manuals. Later, as a web site developer for various companies, he also produced web content.
Roger worked at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus for seven years where he was a software design engineer and then a test engineer. He only met Bill Gates once in early 2000, when Gates visited to look at an MSN TV product. Roger’s team was able to chat with him about various topics. Gates said that the dotcom com-panies were a bubble about to pop, but many didn’t believe him. A few months later, there was a melt-down! Roger thinks Gates is really a smart guy.
At Microsoft, Roger worked in the MSN division on various products, including Web TV, MSN TV, and TV listings (tv.msn.com). As part of his job, he wrote a number of engineering documents (design, reference, and testing) using Word. Roger programmed an on-line help system for the MSN TV product and served as a subject-matter expert on several projects. He founded a Toastmasters club and organized English tutoring by matching dozens of the campus cafeteria workers and janitorial staff with Microsoft volunteers.
So how does a Silicon Valley software engineer end up joining a technical communication group? It is all because of his brother-in-law, who asked him to be the computer guy at his small nonprofit media company (CBR). Wanting a change of pace, Roger agreed. For the last year and a half, he has maintained and admin-
Continued on Page 11 >
Roger Hunnicutt is one of OCSTC’s newest members.
OCSTC Employment InformationOur job listing is entirely online at the OCSTC web site. Pages are updated as jobs are submitted.
Staff Jobshttp://www.ocstc.org/employme.asp
Contract Jobshttp://www.ocstc.org/contractme.asp
Free Job Postinghttp://www.ocstc.org/jobsubmit.asp
InquiriesIf you have an inquiry, e-mail our employment manager, Betsy Malone, at [email protected].
Society-Level Job ListingsSTC maintains job listings on the Internet. You can download the listings from the STC web site at http://jobs.stc.org.
10 • April 2009
Society Pages
STC Mission StatementSTC advances the theory and practice of technical communication across all user abilities and all media.
Positioning StatementSTC helps you design effective communication for a technical world through information sharing and industry leadership.
The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is the world’s largest organization for technical com-municators.
Its more than 14,000 members include writers, edi-tors, illustrators, printers, publishers, photographers, educators, and students.
Dues are $60–175 per year. Membership is open to anyone engaged in some phase of technical communi-cation, interested in the arts and sciences of technical communication, and in allied arts and sciences.
Society for Technical Communication 901 N. Stuart Street, Suite 904 Arlington, VA 22203-1822
703.522.4114 (voice); http://www.stc.org
TechniScribe Copyright and Trademark StatementOCSTC invites writers to submit articles that they wish to be considered for publication. Authors retain copyright to their work and implicitly grant a license to this newsletter to publish the work once in print and to publish it once online for an indefinite period of time. In your cover letter, please let the editor know if this article has appeared elsewhere, and if it has been submitted for consideration to other publications.
The design and layout of this newsletter are copy-righted as © STC, 2009.
Some articles might refer to companies or products whose names are covered by a trademark or regis-tered trademark. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Reference to a specific product does not constitute an endorsement of the product by OCSTC or by STC.
ColophonTechniScribe is written using Microsoft Word, and laid out using Adobe InDesign CS3 for Macintosh. Gill Sans and Palatino Linotype are used for heading and text fonts. PDFs are produced using Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.
TechniScribe relies on the following editorial refer-ences for style: American Heritage Dictionary, Chicago Manual of Style, and Words into Type.
April 2009 • 11
Congratulations to the 2009 OCSTC Scholarship Winner!By Carrie Damschroder, Scholarship Committee Chair
Suzanne Kelchner was awarded the 2009 OCSTC
Scholarship at the February OCSTC meeting. She man-aged to properly complete all of the required scholar-ship entry information and impress the socks off the judges! Way to go, Suzanne!
Suzanne found informa-tion about the 2009 OCSTC Scholarship on the OCSTC web site. Since she really wanted to apply to help pay her tuition bill and to see if her newly acquired com-munication skills were up to par, she worked with one of her professors to enroll early in the technical and professional writing certificate program at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). Her diligence is paying off in more ways than one—she won the scholarship award and in December 2009, she will be graduating from the certificate program.
Accolades for Suzanne abound, as Dr. Danny Paskin stated in his recommendation letter that he “considers [her work in technical writing and layout] to be some of the most professional and best work I’ve ever seen from a student anywhere.” Jillian Kemper, a lecturer for the Technical Communication class at CSULB also praised Suzanne in her recommendation letter and
stated that “she was the most outstanding student in the class.”
Suzanne has a strong back-ground in digital layout and design, which led to her interest in technical writing. After she graduates with her certificate, she plans to work as a writer full time while her sons are in college and then eventually work part-time or as a freelancer when her sons graduate. She is not yet sure in what type of documentation she’d like to
specialize, but she’s having fun exploring her options.
The OCSTC members were very friendly to Suzanne at the February meeting, and she was encouraged by everyone’s welcoming attitude. Even though she’d never used FrameMaker, she enjoyed Matt’s presenta-tion and was excited that she understood it. We hope that Suzanne’s face becomes a very familiar one at future OCSTC meetings!
Suzanne is currently looking for an internship, so if you know of any opportunities, please contact her! You can find out more about her background and skills on her web site at http://www.csulb.edu/~skelchne/cecs200/personal_site/index.html. Con-gratulations again Suzanne!
OCSTC president, Betsy Malone (right), presents Suzanne Kelchner (left) with the OCSTC scholarship award at the February meeting.
Membership News< Continued from Page 9
istered the servers and workstations, offered technical support to staff, and written many documents. Most of his documents are for the staff, but Roger also helps his boss with fundraising pieces.
People would be surprised to know that Roger took voiceover classes in Hollywood last year. His dream job is to write and then record technical information for technical CDs, online classes, and many other 21st-century technical media.
For fun, he likes to record books using his voiceover skills. He likes to go camping, hiking, and climbing around Lake Tahoe and Yosemite. He’s hiked up the back of Half Dome. Roger loves sci-fi movies and TV. Roger had a collection of almost every National Geo-graphic ever published, but donated them to a library after his brother got a hernia trying to help him move
the magazines to his new apartment. Now, he takes and collects digital photos, and they weigh next-to nothing. Having an eclectic taste in music, Roger also collects a wide variety of movie soundtracks.
During the past couple of years, Roger has visited China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, sometimes to visit friends and often to look for electronics he could sell in the U.S. It was amazing to see structures thousands of years old sited next to modern ones, like those for the 2008 Olympics.
The next time you meet Roger, feel free to tell him about tools you think he would enjoy learning. He is very interested in recommendations and would like to know how to prioritize his learning time. He looks forward to meeting all OCSTC members.
Society Pages
April Meeting TopicTurning Your Rants into Raves: Putting Your Best Self Forward in a Challenging MarketplaceWe all do it—we all complain about the pitfalls of our profession! But what if we took a good, hard look at our roughest edges and found a way to smooth them over? “We are the bottom of the technology food chain!” “No one reads our work!” “We never get promoted or advance through the company.” And, “We are the first ones to get laid off!” Join your colleagues in this interactive workshop where we will dive into the things we love to rant about, and then find ways to turn them into raves!
About the SpeakerBarbara Giammona has been a manager of technical communicators for more than 20 years. She is currently the manager of technical publications for IPS Wonderware, a company that produces industrial automation products for more than 100,000 global customers. Prior to that, she was the manager of corporate IT communications for McKesson Corporation. She also spent 10 years leading documentation efforts on Wall Street. Barbara’s landmark article on the future of Technical Com-munication, published in Technical Communication in August 2004, was the recipient of the Frank R. Smith Award for Distin-guished Technical Communication. She will update that article with a five-year follow-up this May in Intercom. She has been a frequent presenter on management topics at local and international STC events.
Orange Slice: Calendar of EventsDate Event Location TimeApril 7 OCSTC Council Meeting Airport Executive Suites, Irvine 6 p.m.-7 p.m.
April 21 OCSTC Chapter MeetingBarbara Giammona, “Turning Your Rants into Raves: Putting Your Best Self Forward in a Challenging Mar-ketplace.”
DoubleTree Club Hotel, 7 Hutton Centre Dr., Santa Ana, CA, 92707, 714.751.2400
6 p.m.-9 p.m.
May 3–6 Technical Communication Summit: STC’s 56th Annual Conference
Hyatt Regency Atlanta, 265 Peachtree St., NE, Atlanta, GA, 30303, 404.577.1234
May 12 OCSTC Council Meeting Airport Executive Suites, Irvine 6 p.m.-7 p.m.
May 19 OCSTC Chapter MeetingWalter Hanig and Raymond Urgo, “Strategic Plan-ning for Tomorrow’s Technical Communication Job Market.”
Embassy Suites Hotel, 3100 E. Frontera, Anaheim, CA, 92806. 714.632.1221
6 p.m.-9 p.m.
