www.ocstc.org September 2003 Vol. 42 No. 8

Orange County STC Newsletter

Web Hosting DemystifiedBy Guy Ball, OCSTC Senior Member1 Web Hosting

Demystified

Publication Policies2

President's Message2

Next Meeting3

3

5

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Eggs Over Easy, butPlease Hold theSpam!

6 Chapter Contacts

8 Orange Juice:Membership News

9 August MeetingReview

10 Society Pages

11 OCSTC EmploymentInformation

11 Thank You 2002–2003OCSTC Volunteers!

Calendar of Events12

Many of us first search for product or service information on theWeb. These days, Web sites are important tools to help communicateto the widest possible audience. If not posted out there, even thebest product or service can get overlooked. In technical-communicator terms, this could mean online samples of our work,businesses that we are starting or helping, or organizations wherewe volunteer.

But if you’ve never set up a Web site, you probably could use somehelp getting started. This article is designed to assist with a coupleof the early steps in the creation of a site. (I’m not going to teach youhow to create the HTML pages. There are plenty of books andtutorials to do that.) I’m going to show you how to choose andobtain your domain name and then where to host your site.

I’ve been creating Web sites for about eight years now. I am the firstto admit that I’m a graphically impaired writer. My sites won’tcompete designwise with those from my more visually creativebrethren. However, I’ve been able to leverage my strength as aninformation engineer/designer (a.k.a. technical writer) to create Websites that have strong content and as a result, are widely respected.And you, my fellow professional, can do the same—or better.

Choosing a Domain NameYour first step is the domain name—that’s the URL address peoplewill type in their browser to go to your site. The name you chooseneeds a bit of thought, and you may not get the first name thatstrikes your fancy—a lot of other people have done this before you.The best way to handle this is to find a domain name registry siteand, using the name search tool, start entering names that seem tobe good ideas. My personal favorite registry is www.directnic.com. Ipreviously used one of the bigger companies that charged me $35 ayear with a two-year minimum. But Directnic is fully authorizedand only charges $15 a year with no minimum. While there are acouple of companies that claim to be even cheaper, Directnic alsogives you a few other benefits for no extra charge—and that keepsme a loyal customer. More on those benefits in a minute.

Editor's Desk

Contents

Course Review:Writing SuccessfulProposals

6

2 TechniScribe September 2003

The TechniScribe is published 11 times a year as abenefit to the members of the Orange CountyChapter of the Society for Technical Communica-tion. The goal of the publication is to reflect theinterests, needs, and objectives of OCSTC mem-bers. The TechniScribe strives to be an advocatefor, and an inspiration to, technical communica-tors by keeping them connected to each other andto opportunities for professional growth.

Articles published in this newsletter may bereprinted in other STC publications if credit isproperly given and one copy of the reprint is sentto the TechniScribe Editor.

Submission InformationThe editorial team retains and exercises the rightto edit submitted and requested material forclarity, length, and appropriateness.

When submitting material please remember to

Include a 25-word biography aboutyourselfSend articles in Word format, RTF (Rich-TextFormat), ASCII, or in the body of an e-mailmessageSend material to the editor five weeks priorto the date it will be publishedcarried@hotmail.com

Editoral StaffManaging Editor Carrie DamschroderCopy Editor Barbara YoungCopy Editor Anne StratfordCopy Editor & Proofreader Rosemary HulceProofreader Steve BlossomWeb Version Jeff Randolph

Monthly Advertising Rates¼ page $401/3 page $45

½ page $60

Full page $80

Subscriptions $10/year to members of other STC chapters

PrinterUnisys Corporation, MissionViejo, CA

President's MessageBy Jeff Randolph, OCSTC Chapter President

Publication Policies

to page 6 >

Our Septemberspeaker, De Murr,Associate Fellow fromthe San FernandoValley Chapter, will betelling us aboutmetrics—usingnumbers to convey ourmeaning. In college, Iwas so in love withnumbers that I tookStatistics twice, once in

the Mathematics Department and once in thePsychology Department. From Calculus, I alwaysremember the proof of “two equals one.” But that’sanother story.

In our lives, we face numbers every day. Numberscan provide clarity, and they can provide a basis foraccountability and responsibility. When numbersderived from two different sources are compared,they can also show a paradox.

We recently conducted a chapter meeting surveyasking you what you wanted to hear. We can measurethe results of our efforts. So far meeting attendance isup, and the overall energy level is up. Employers arecoming to meetings with job offers.

Given the number of messages I receive indicating“There are no jobs out there,” and the trouble peoplehave getting in the door of an employingorganization, I was surprised to see one of the topicsthat you definitely do not want to hear is “How toAce the Interview” (90 percent indicated no interest).However, based on the numbers in a recent article inthe Orange County Register, 95 percent of therespondents to a Society of Human ResourcesManagers survey determined that “interviewperformance” was the single-most important factor ina positive hiring decision, followed closely byprofessionalism in the interview process. How do wesolve the paradox? We err on the side of serving youanyway, and schedule an interviewing presentation.There was only a slightly greater interest in creatingeffective résumés (75 percent no interest).

After a recent weekend posting 13 job openings, Ireceived more than one message indicating, “thereare no jobs out there.” Flashbacks to the old proof of“two equals one”—13 equals zero? Just as the proofof “two equals one” is ultimately incomplete,according to Lance Gelein in an interview and

2003 SeptemberTechniScribe 3

When: Tuesday, September 16, 2003, from 6:00 to 9:00 P.M.

Where: Wyndham Hotel 3350 Avenue of the Arts Costa Mesa, CA 92626 (714) 751.5100

Cost: Members with reservations $21 Students with reservations $16 Nonmembers with reservations $23 Walk-ins or those registering after deadline $31 No-shows billed $11

Directions to the Wyndham HotelComing from north and central Orange CountySouthbound on I-405, exit at Bristol Blvd. Turn leftonto Bristol Blvd. Turn right onto Anton, left ontoAvenue of the Arts. Turn right into the Wyndhamparking lot.

Please park in the Wyndham Hotel parking structure.

Coming from southern Orange CountyNorthbound on I-405, exit at Bristol. Turn right ontoBristol. Turn right onto Anton, left onto Avenue of theArts. Turn right into the Wyndham parking lot.

Please park in the Wyndham Hotel parking structure.

Next Meeting Editor’s Desk

ReservationsReservations are due by 9:00 P.M., Monday,September 15, 2003.

Registration OptionsRegister at www.ocstc.org/dinres.asp, orCall Carolyn Romano at (714) 894.9221 and leaveyour name, membership status, and phonenumber.

Using Metrics to Tell Your StorySpeaker: Deirdre Murr

By Carrie Damschroder, Managing Editor

Whew! The summerflew by, and now weare gearing up for theback-to-school andautumn season. I hopeyou all were able totake time this summerto enjoy a vacation, aday at the beach, or afew weekendbarbecues.

Even if you don’t have children returning to school,and even if you don’t live in a climate where treeslose their leaves, you are still reminded in Septemberof school, apples, and harvests. Take time this monthto think about your education, the sweet things inyour life, and the fruits of your labor this year.

September is a good time to remember yourprofessional goals and to evaluate your progress in2003. Even if you are not a student, you can startanew and refresh your resolutions—you still havefour months left! Perhaps you’ve wanted to researchnew job opportunities, start your own business, goback to school, accept new responsibilities, orvolunteer for the OCSTC. Now is the time toremember what it is you wanted to accomplish thisyear, evaluate your progress, and take steps toaccomplish your goals.

If you haven’t already, you may also want to considergoing back to school this autumn. Check out the localcommunity and state college programs and coursesto see if one sounds interesting. Enrolling in a classone night a week might cure your summertime bluesand help you accomplish some of those goals you setfor yourself. Buy yourself a new backpack and getexcited again about learning!

If one of your New Year’s resolutions was tovolunteer more often and get more involved in STC(mine was), get in touch with one of our committeemembers—they can use your help! If you haveconsidered writing an article for the TechniScribe, turnon that word processor! And if you have created animpressive print or online document, submit it to thenext local or national publications competition! Nowis the time to fulfill your professional New Year’sresolutions.

4 TechniScribe September 2003

< < < < < Web Hosting Demystified from page 1

to page 9 >

Now, about choosing a name. What’s the site for?Personal use? Then an obvious choice might beJohnDoe.com or JohnDoeDesigner.com. Business? Ifyou have a company name, you’ll probably want tostart with that. If the name is too long, you mayconsider a shorter version or even initials. A uniquecatch phrase is a good idea, but try not to get toocute. Think of how people might remember the siteby name. For a new site for the Santa Ana HistoricalPreservation Society, I chosewww.SantaAnaHistory.com. Using the fullorganization name as our domain might have hadpeople forgetting words or misspelling the URL.Also, I’m not a fan of initials—sahps.com—so thatdidn’t work for me either.www.SantaAnaHistory.com is much morememorable and was available. (Side note: Althoughwe promote the site by capitalizing certain letters, theURL is not case sensitive.)

.Com, .Net, or .OrgYou may ask in the example above, why do I use“.com” when the society is an organization? Youmight remember when commercial Web sites tendedto be .com, organizations were .org, and networkswere .net. In reality, you can pick and choosewhatever domain extension you want (except for.gov and .edu). I usually pick .com because that’swhat most people think of in a URL.

However, I also buy the .net and .org versions of thename, just to protect it from people trying tocapitalize on my creative domain names. (I now pickup the new .us and .info extensions too, for the samereason.) Since the price is only $15 a year per nameand extension, it ends up being a cheap price toprotect your domain name.

URL RedirectionOne nice benefit with Directnic is that they allow youto forward Web visitors who type in one URL thatyou’ve bought to another (they call it URLredirection). For instance, those who clickwww.SantaAnaHistory.org will go to the actual siteat www.SantaAnaHistory.com. While we promotethe .com address, should someone type in the wrongextension, they still end up at the right place.

Now, URL redirection works even better if you havealready set up a Web site at your “home” Internetservice provider (ISP); for example, www.aol.com/users/mommas-boy1234 with AOL being your ISP.The URL doesn’t exactly scream “professional” onyour business card, does it? However, if you now buythe domain name www.SuperProTechWriter.com,your Directnic account can be set to forward the

visitor who types in this URL to your existing site.Using an additional Directnic feature called frames,your pages will all showwww.SuperProTechWriter.com in the browserwindow and your visitors won’t have a clue thatthey’re on your home ISP site.

More on the SideAnother benefit of the Directnic account is that youget a few e-mail addresses to use such asmyname@superprotechwriter.com. E-mail to thisaddress is forwarded to your personal e-mail address(such as mommas-boy1234@aol.com) at no extracharge. However, your reply to that originale-mail would be through your regular e-mail account.So if you have a dorky e-mail name, correspondentswould know it. For an extra fee, Directnic also offersPOP3 e-mail accounts where you can receive andsend e-mail using your domain name.

Of course, there may be other domain registrationcompanies that do all this. I get no financial gain frommy recommendation of Directnic. If you prefer, youcan search around to find other companies. But I’mobviously happy with Directnic and their services. Toactivate the features I’ve mentioned, you do have toclick a couple of buttons in the right places, butcontact me if you can’t figure out the onlinedirections and you need some help.

Hosting your SiteThe next step in setting up your Web site isdetermining where to host it. If you already have apersonal site on your home ISP, then you may notwant to move it, which will save you a bit of money.Have Directnic set your domain name for URLforwarding to this site and you’ll be fine.

If you’re doing this for an organization or business—or you need more space than your home ISP allows—you will want to pay for a hosting service. Theservice gives you a certain amount of space for a setfee. Right now, I’m the volunteer webmaster for a fewsites, two of them for nonprofit organizations. Both ofthese groups have small budgets to host the sites.When we first started, we were paying $25 a month. Isoon found less expensive hosting services for whatwe needed (including www.omnis.com for $7 amonth and www.fatcow.com for $99 a year). Bothservices have FrontPage extensions in case you useFrontPage for HTML creation. While the $25-a-monthhosting service had 24-hour customer support, I’vealways been able to get through to the less expensivecompanies or use their effectivee-mail support. Both Omnis and FatCow offer plenty

2003 SeptemberTechniScribe 5

Eggs Over Easy, butPlease Hold the Spam!By Andreas Haberstroh

Filters and black lists provide some relief, but Spam isstill in the eye of the beholder.Today an amazing e-mail offer arrived: “Andreas,Enhance Your Breasts Now!” Being a man, I wasn’tsure whether to be amazed or insulted by this offer—click, Delete! Spam knows no bounds. Everyone getsit. The question is, what do we do about it? My initialreaction, “first, we kill all the spammers,” breaks acommandment, not to mention a few penal codes. So,what about the American way—legislate!

Spam and the LawCurrently, our governments—local, state, andfederal—are trying to come up with legislation tobring some relief to our overstuffed inboxes. InCalifornia, we have two laws on the books: 17538.4and 17538.45. These laws basically require anyonewho sends unsolicited e-mail (spam) to include ADVor ADV:ADLT (for adult-only content) in the subjectline so that e-mail users (and mail server programs)know it is spam. Failure to include these tags couldresult in having to pay punitive damages.

This is great in California, but what about thespammers in other states or countries? Federallaws—dating from the 106th Congress through the108th Congress—are too numerous to list. And canyou trust Congress to make an anti-spam law thatactually works? Take the do-not-call list law as anexample. Political parties and charities are exempt. Inthe weeks leading up to Election Day, I don’tparticularly want to get up from dinner and have JoeCouncilman try to get my vote. (In our high-tech agethis will likely be a computer doing a fine impressionof Joe Councilman.) But the law exempts politicians.Nice loophole, eh?

Battling it OutSo, the next battleground on which we fight spam isthe mail server. This battle has been raging for quitesome time. Large organizations own their own mailservers and combat spam with various filteringtechniques. Most major ISPs filter spam now as well.

Various real-time black lists or blocking lists (RBLs)available involve servers on the Internet that have alist of “known spammers,” or mail servers that passalong spam. The receiving mail server checks for themessage sender on the RBL. If the sending server islisted, the receiving server blocks the message. Thisisn’t a perfect solution, but it’s effective.Unfortunately, a few RBL services have been sued forinfringing on spammers’ First Amendment rights.Many major RBL services now charge big fees tocover potential liability.

Another popular technique is rules-based filtering.The receiving mail server reads the message contentand scores the message according to certainattributes. For instance, “free” in the subject lineearns the message a point. A string like “click here formore information” in the message body earns itanother point. Once the message exceeds a thresholdof unwanted attributes, the server marks the messageas spam. Yahoo! uses this method to sort mail into itsbulk folder.

Unfortunately, rules-based filtering is not foolproof.Legitimate, even user-requested, e-mail can fail aspam filter’s threshold test. For example, most rules-based filters will block USA Today’s daily financiale-mails. So, that brings us to the last battleground, theuser’s mailbox.

Computers can automate many processes but theyenounter limitations when we try to substitute themfor human decision making, as when we ask them todistinguish spam from non-spam. On iBusy’s mailservers, a mail filter identifies about 85 percent of thespam messages as being spam, and about one percentof legitimate mail as being spam. If you wereanxiously awaiting a message in that one percent,you could be sifting through a spam folder.

What does all this mean? Only the user candistinguish spam from legitimate mail. If, afterfiltering by your company server or your ISP, you stillhave an inbox full of incredible offers for Viagra andbreast enhancements, you may have to take mattersinto your own hands. Don’t reach for the Smith &Wesson—there is software out there to help you.

McAfee’s SpamKiller and Symantec’s Norton SpamAlert are two products that protect individual mailclients with rules-based and list-based filters.SpamKiller includes as well as excludes filtering, sopersonal mail can get through. Mail Frontier’sMatador sorts mail into three piles: known good mail,known spam, and suspect mail that the user mustjudge.

If spam is making it hard for you to find e-mail fromfriends and family—or from clients—there are toolsthat can provide you with some relief. Ultimately,however, you are the most important part of thesolution. And a note to businesses who use e-mail foradvertising: do it wisely. Your clients and potentialclients will thank you.

Andreas Haberstroh fights a neverending battle fortruth, justice, and a spam-free inbox, disguised as amild-mannered Web designer and CEO of iBusy Inc.

6 TechniScribe September 2003

Administrative Council

OCSTCP.O. Box 28751Santa Ana, CA 92799-8751Chapter Fax: (949) 830.7585Web site: http://www.ocstc.org

Jeff Randolph, Presidenterandolp@ix.netcom.com

Don Pierstorff, Immediate Past PresidentEnglish@juno.com

Jack Molisani, 1st VP Programsjackm@prospring.net

Adrienne Escoe, 2nd VP Membershipaescoe@escoebliss.com

Julie Dotson, Treasurerj.dotson@wanderingworker.com

Suzanne Madison, Secretarysmadison@madisonarts.com

Carrie Damschroder, TechniScribe Editorcarried@hotmail.com

Elaine Randolph, Public Relationswritetrack@compuserve.com

Bill Darnall, Educationdarnall@sbcglobal.net

Brian McCaleb, Educationbem@atdial.net

Mary Ann Howell, Nominating Committeemaryann@hikaripub.com

Kathey Schuster, Nominating Committeewwwords@mindspring.com

Jean Gabriel, Nominating Committeejean@gabe.org

Mark Bloom, Nominating Committeemhbloom@aol.com

Bruce Alexander, Nominating Committeebalexander@monauto.com

Carolyn Romano, Facilitieslmr15551@aol.com

Ann Shogren, Scholarships

Bonni Graham, Region 8 Director-Sponsorbgraham@manuallabour.com

Mary Ann Howell, Employment Managermaryann@hikaripub.com

< < < < < President's Message from page 2Chapter Contacts

portfolio seminar a few years ago, the phrase “There areno jobs out there” is an incomplete sentence. It is missingthe dependent clause establishing accountability andresponsibility, which then requires action.

OCSTC provides a number of different opportunities foryou to “bloom where you are planted.” You canparticipate in the peer-review process at a local ornational publications competition. You can participate asan entrant or as a judge. Show off your excellent workand be recognized for it. Recently at chapter meetings wehad some of the award-winning items written by ourcolleagues on display. Participating as a submitter orjudge will lead to some kudos for your résumé andportfolio. But ultimately, you will be showing leadershipin taking on this responsibility.

Additional ReadingThe Power of Six Sigma, by Subir Chowdhury (Chicago:Dearborn Trade, 2001). ISBN: 0-79314434-5

This course, taught by Eldon C. Baber at the University ofCalifornia, Riverside Extension, provides key informationon writing proposals and offers excellent references inresearching proposals, including Web search agencies andcorporations that supply funding for projects. Severalcomponents necessary to write a good proposal includethe following:

Know your resources.Do your research.Read RFPs (Requests for Proposals) very carefullyand follow them.Expect to write follow-up reports on the effects of theproposal and how the funding was used.

Course Review:Writing Successful ProposalsBy Rebecca Feinstein

And remember, just because one agency or corporationwill fund or partially fund a project this year does notmean that they will the following year. Always look fornew sources.

Rebecca Feinstein recently completed the Technical WritingCertificate Program at the UC Riverside Extension and hasworked contract assignments for the past three years.

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8 TechniScribe September 2003

By Adrienne Escoe, OCSTC 2nd VP Membership

ColophonThe TechniScribe was produced using AdobePageMaker 7.0 for PC. Modern and Palatinowere used for text and heading fonts.

All original art work was created using AdobeIllustrator 9.0. The PDF on the OCSTC Web sitewas distilled from an EPS using AcrobatDistiller 5.0.5.

Orange Juice:Membership News

OCSTC Members: 345STC Members: 19,015Meeting Money—What Becomes of ItFew things in life are free, including OCSTC monthlydinner meetings—which attract interesting guestsfrom many diverse organizations, present stimulatingdiscussions, offer inside information about technicalcommunication, and serve delicious cuisine. But whatdo you actually get for our meeting fee?

Are you surprised that $20 of the $21 fee (member,reserved ahead) goes directly to the hotel?

Meeting fees cover a full-course dinner. But the feealso includes use of the meeting room and coveredparking.

Rental fees for audiovisual equipment, such as themicrophone, speakers, projector, and screen, use upthe remaining $1. That is, if 50 or more guestsparticipate. OCSTC pays the hotel a guaranteed feefor 50 guests, even if fewer show up. OCSTC does notand never has made money from monthly dinnermeetings. Because declining participation hassqueezed the already slim margin, OCSTC recentlybegan charging fees to guests who place reservationsbut fail to show up.

What can we do to ensure that OCSTC continues tooffer such a rich resource for our profession?

Let’s come as often as we can to OCSTC monthlydinner meetings and nourish our minds and bodies.Invite a friend, relative, or colleague to come, too,and share their experiences and skills. Ourprofessional health depends on it.

Senior Member, Renaissance ManOCSTC senior member Guy Ball was named to theadvisory committee for the Rancho Santiago College(Santa Ana) Digital Media Incubator. Opening nextyear, the incubator will house digital mediaproduction and post-production technology forstudents and small businesses. Guy also recentlyreceived the Conference of California HistoricSocieties’ President’s Award of Excellence for hisvolunteer work designing and creating thewww.CaliforniaHistorian.com Web site.

Guy first became involved with OCSTC thanks toDon Pierstorff, the instructor of his first technicalwriting class, who helped Guy move fromengineering to technical writing. Because Guy is on

the board of the Santa Ana Historical PreservationSociety, which usually convenes on the same night asthe OCSTC dinner meeting, we rarely get to see him.Visit the beautiful Victorian house museum atwww.SantaAnaHistory.com.

Yellow RibbonsDo you like to mingle? Send an e-mail message toaescoe@escoebliss.com to schedule your one-timeturn as an official OCSTC greeter. All you need to dois come about 10 minutes early on your scheduledmeeting night, wear a yellow welcome ribbon, andmeet and greet our guests. We need two greetersevery month. Together, we’ll make sure that everyonewho comes to an OCSTC dinner meeting feelswelcome.

2003 SeptemberTechniScribe 9

< < < < < Web Hosting Demystified from page 4 August Meeting ReviewBy Jane Baker

OCSTC Meeting Raffles!!LavaCon, The International Conference onTechnical Communication Management, will begiving away a free admittance to their nextconference in Mekena, Hawaii, on the island ofMaui! This year's conference will be heldOctober 13–17 and will help you learn "How toFlourish Despite Challenging Times." Be sure tocome to the September OCSTC meeting toregister for the raffle. Non-winning Augustraffle tickets will also be valid in the Septemberdrawing. The winner will be chosen at theSeptember meeting. Members must be presentto win.

Various other door prizes such as STCparaphenalia, mugs, candy, and other goodieswill also be raffled at the meetings. Come foryour chance to win!

of space (50 MB) to feature our files, and they handleall the traffic we get.

Well, I hope that takes a bit of the mystery out ofsetting up your domain and hosting your Web site.Let me know if you still have any questions on sitesetup (not on HTML, please).

Guy Ball is a technical writer with Unisys Corporationand lives in Tustin, CA. He’s currently working on hisfourth book, Images of America: Santa Ana, to bepublished by Arcadia Publishing in Spring 2004. Guyrecently received the President’s OutstandingAchievement Award from the Conference of CaliforniaHistorical Societies for developing and maintaining theirwww.CaliforniaHistorian.com Web site. You cancontact him at guyball@pacbell.net.

Do you know how to get good portable documentformat (PDF) files? Most of us create or downloadPDF files, without always getting the best results. Ifyou attended last month’s OCSTC meeting, you wereable to learn, appreciate, and better understand howto improve the quality of your PDFs.

Sharon Burton-Hardin, college professor, business-owner, and Adobe Acrobat expert, delivered aninformative speech on how to create better PDFs.Based on her own successful and not-so-successfulPDF experiences, Sharon shared her efforts andshowed how it is possible to refine and improve thispopular format for clients and projects.

No matter which version of Acrobat you use, you canbe more successful if you

Print to the correct printer driver. Check andmake sure you are using Adobe Distiller and theAdobe PPD.Use postscript fonts, unless you are usingWindows 2000 or NT 5. If you don’t have theAdobe Type Manager (ATM) fonts, you canpurchase a family of fonts for about $100. Embedthe fonts in each document.Learn which graphic formats are best for yourprojects and customers. Choose from bitmapformats (PNGS, JPEG, BMP, or GIF) or vector-based formats (EPS, TIFF, WMF, or CGM). Theformat you choose depends on color and lineclarity requirements.Set the Distiller options to create the best-lookingPDF before distilling. You may want to changethe settings based on the document requirements.Create the postscript file on your hard drive.Optimize the PDF to save file space.

As you begin to create better PDF files, test, test, andtest! You cannot test on your own machine. You needto see the results on another machine—even if itmeans taking a disk to Kinko’s to see your results asthe rest of the world will see them. If you arepublishing for a global audience, keep in mind thatmany people in the world still use Acrobat Reader 3.

For more information, including some step-by-stepinstructions on getting the best settings, go towww.anthrobytes.com/portfolio.html, and click onthe article Getting Good PDF.

10 TechniScribe September 2003

Society Pages

STC Mission StatementCreating and supporting a forum for communitiesof practice in the profession of technical communi-cation.

Positioning StatementSTC helps you design effective communication for atechnical world through information sharing andindustry leadership.

The Society for Technical Communication (STC) isthe world’s largest organization for technicalcommunicators. Its more than 20,000 membersinclude writers, editors, illustrators, printers,publishers, photographers, educators, and students.

Dues are $115 per year, plus a one-time enrollmentfee. Membership is open to anyone engaged insome phase of technical communication, interestedin the arts and sciences of technical communication,and in allied arts and sciences.

STC headquarters contact information:Society for Technical Communication901 N. Stuart Street, Suite 904Arlington, VA 22203-1854

TechniScribe Copyright and TrademarkStatement

OCSTC invites writers to submit articles that theywish to be considered for publication. By submittingan article, you implicitly grant a license to print thearticle in this newsletter, and for other STC publica-tions to reprint the article without expresspermission. Copyright is held by the writer. In yourcover letter, please let the editor know if this articlehas been published elsewhere and if it has beensubmitted for consideration to other publications.

Unless otherwise noted, copyrights for all newsletterarticles belong to the author. The design and layout ofthis newsletter are copyrighted as © STC, 2003.

Some articles might refer to companies or productswhose names are covered by a trademark or regis-tered trademark. All trademarks are the property oftheir respective owners. Reference to a specificproduct does not constitute an endorsement of theproduct by OCSTC or by STC.

2003 SeptemberTechniScribe 11

Society Pages

OCSTC Employment Information

Our job listing is entirely online at the OCSTC Website, and the pages are updated as jobs are submitted.

Staff Jobswww.ocstc.org/employme.asp

Contract Jobswww.ocstc.org/contractme.asp

If you have an inquiry or a job to post, e-mail MaryAnn Howell at maryann@hikaripub.com.

A limited number of printed copies of the OCSTCWeb site listings are available at monthly chaptermeetings.

Society Level Job ListingsSTC maintains job listings on the Internet. You candownload the listings from the STC Web site atwww.stc.org/jobsdatabase.asp

If you do not already receive e-mail announcementsof upcoming meetings, visit http://lists.stc.org/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=stcocc-L and click Join. This list isnot spam and will only send out monthly meetingand other STC-related announcements.

Thank You 2002–2003 OCSTC Volunteers!TechniScribe VolunteersCassandra Hearn, Managing EditorAnne Stratford, EditorBarbara Young, EditorJim Haendiges, EditorRosemary Hulce, Editor, ProofreaderSteve Blossom, ProofreaderBruce Alexander, Ad Accounts Manager, BillingJeff Randolph, Distribution, Online

Publications Competition VolunteersAdrienne EscoeKara DodgeLynn SextonJack MolisaniJeff RandolphJim RohrsKathy BromanMegan DohertySusan WolvertonElaine RandolphCharlene Dewbre

Public Relations Committee VolunteersJulie AtkinsElaine Randolph*Louise Troup(*Elaine coordinated the award-winning entry for thePublic Relations competition.)

SoCal Leadership SummitJack MolisaniKathy BromanCindy Kight

Treasurer VolunteersMark BloomDayna SantiagoCorinne KantorSandi TomlinShirley KondekRichard CarterPaul Lewis

Employment ManagerJeff Randolph*(*Jeff also mailed all chapter bulk mail and helpedout wherever he could.)

OCSTC Mailing AddressP.O. Box 28751Santa Ana, CA 92799-8751

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Calendar of EventsSeptember 10 Paper Prototyping STC Telephone Seminar, 10 A.M.–11:30 A.M.

September 16 OCSTC Chapter Meeting, 6:00 P.M., Wyndham Hotel

September 22–24 5th Annual Best Practices Conference, Innovation: Making It Happen, Seattle, WA.http://www.infomanagementcenter.com/BestPractices/2003/index.html

September 24 Proving Our Worth to Clients and Employers STC Telephone Seminar, 10 A.M.–11:30 A.M.

October 1–4 Association for Women in Communication Professional Conference, Adam's Mark Hotel in Tulsa,OK. www.womcom.org

October 6–7 Documentation & Training 2003 Conference, Boston University. http://www.doctrain.com

October 12–15 ACM/SIGDOC 21st Annual Conference, Holiday Inn Financial, San Franscisco, CA.www.sigdoc2003.cs.uvic.ca

October 21 OCSTC Chapter Meeting, 6:00 P.M., Wyndham Hotel

OCSTC September Meeting Topic: Using Metrics to Tell Your StoryTechnical communication is a garden of change—today more so than ever. We can stagnate andfail to develop new ideas and new products, or we can rise to the challenge and become MasterGardeners. We can learn to incorporate new ideas to develop seeds of communication that canblossom and grow even in today’s economy.

Learn how understanding and using metrics gives a manager valuable information on theperformance of products, projects, and people. Find out how to identify the metrics that can

As manager of the technical publications department for Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI), Deirdre Murrsupervises 17 people working on over 200 projects with an annual operating and project budget of more than$6 million. During her 20 years in the technical communication field, she has spent ten years managingtechnical writing departments and projects. De is a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication and amember of the Association of Computing Machinery and IEEE.

help you tell the right story to your management team, and how supporting your business case with metricswill help you get the resources you need.