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In this Issue: |
Welcome: In This Issue... News and STC Events: January Meeting, February Wine & Cheese, STC Annual Conference Trip, The Morgan White Award Meeting Report: December 2003: Patrick McCormack on Networking From the President's Desk: Welcome to 2004! The Wandering Eye: A Guide to Online Styles Career Corner: Interviewing Questions - Part I Special Feature: Market Changes Afoot: What Does this Mean for Technical Communicators? |
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STC Events: |
January General Meeting: Visual Communication Presented by Patrick Hofmann Out of the picture: New opportunities and challenges facing visual instruction Digital products reach people in different countries and cultures. The language needed to communicate with them is more global and far more visually dependent. As technical communicators, how do we visualize for different cultures, languages and ages? How do we visualize for new technologies? Join us to find out how. Tuesday January 13, 2003 at 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. February General Meeting: Annual Wine & Cheese at the King Eddie! Want to Attend the Next Annual STC Conference? STC's next annual conference is May 9 - 12 in Baltimore, Maryland (conference details). To help members to attend, the chapter would like to charter a bus and arrange discount hotel rates. The drive is nine hours (plus lunch and border crossings. We have reserved rooms at a hotel near the conference site. The bus would cost C$200 and the hotel about C$140 a night. As the Canadian dollar rises, it becomes cheaper. If you travel with us and take a single room, you'll save $600; sharing a room would save about $1000, compared to the cost of flying to Baltimore and staying in the conference hotel. If interested, please e-mail us at baltimore@stctoronto.org. In Remembrance of Morgan White
At the November general meeting, the Toronto chapter presented five students of technical communication with a one year membership to the STC. This award was established in 1998 to honour the memory of Morgan White, the former owner of Dial A-1 Resources and a valued friend and mentor to many in the Toronto chapter. Again this year, we were pleased to welcome Morgan's daughter Laurie Dubrovac to help draw the names of this year's winning entries. The Morgan White Award for 2003-2004 goes to the following:
Congratulations to all recipients, and many thanks to everyone who participated in this year's Morgan White Award. |
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Welcome: |
In This Issue - January 2004 By Editor Philip Kahn - newsletter@stctoronto.org The holidays are over and I'm sure everyone is thrilled to be back at work. Those of us not fortunate enough to be working may be enouraged by Rahel Anne Bailie's report, which we reprint courtesy of STC Region 7 (BC). We are also very pleased to introduce another newsletter contributor this month: Susan Webb reports on Patrick McCormack's superb presentation at the December meeting. Keith Soltys' Wandering Eye column has an excellent guide to 'Online Style Guides' and Andrew Brooke has some useful tips for handling tricky interview questions. Finally, STC Toronto President Robert Milkovich looks ahead to our plans for 2004. Thank you to all of our contributors this month and if you have an article idea percolating, don't be shy! One of the year's big events is happening soon... the Annual Wine & Cheese on Tuesday, Feb 10th. 2004 is the 50th anniversary of the STC and to mark the occasion in a big way we are holding the Wine & Cheese at the King Edward Hotel. This will be a special evening in an elegant setting and we hope all of you will be a part of it. As always you can send your comments to newsletter@stctoronto.org. Our privacy policy and subscription options are at the bottom of the page. |
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Meeting Report |
December 2003: Patrick McCormack on Networking Susan Webb - susan_e_webb@yahoo.ca Imagine yourself at an STC meeting or other professional gathering, chatting with a new acquaintance…wait a moment! Where is your nametag - prominently displayed on your upper right side, or missing entirely? Do you have a handy supply of easy-to-write-on matte business cards? Is your website ready to explore on personal, dedicated webspace? Is one hand free, or are both loaded with light refreshment? Are you gobbling down your luscious Second Cup treat, or nibbling it daintily? These subtle networking considerations - and more - may be causes for concern if you fail to follow the suggestions outlined by the nattily attired Patrick McCormack at the December meeting. Under the banner "Empowering your Professional Self: Does a Professional's Network Equal a Professional's Net Worth?", Patrick took us on a lively journey through the most current networking techniques. Often brazen, sometimes personal, frequently pointed, and always dynamic, he covered the gamut of do's and don’ts to ensure successful networking. Why do you need to network?
To network effectively, you must prepare and practise proper networking techniques, remembering that the entire goal is to reduce risk and increase profit for a potential employer. Everything outside this realm is personal, rather than business. Since crucial impressions happen within just 30 seconds of meeting someone, an "elevator pitch", lasting 30 or fewer seconds, is necessary. It includes your name, occupation, contact information and value-add - that unique factor that sets you apart from the crowd. This information also appears on your always-handy business card. (Patrick challenged meeting attendees read their pitches aloud; the brave souls who did were rewarded with critiques and helpful advice from the audience.) Make an effort to be the job you desire. Silence can be powerful in conversations if used properly. Avoid begging, whining at or clinging to those whose assistance you seek. If you are seeking opportunities, it is advisable to create the impression that you are already in demand, and thus able to "spare" a few hours in the upcoming week to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity, rather than to appear desperate or idle, with hours of free time to fill. As your image is your only asset, do not pollute it. Add to your credibility rather than erode it, and avoid becoming personal. Instead, keep to business topics. Networking is possible anywhere that you share a common subject matter with others (as at STC meetings!) but have a unique skill set to offer. Keeping abreast of current issues encourages fruitful discussions. Although you may be tempted to network anywhere and at any time, choose your timing carefully and look for an opportune moment. However, you should be prepared to network anywhere and at any time, since - as Patrick says - anything can be documented! Other highlights of the evening:
Susan Webb joined the STC in September, 2003. A recent honours graduate of the Technical Communications program at Seneca College, she is interested in online learning and editing opportunities in the field. Susan also teaches Adult ESL with the Toronto District School Board. |
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From the President's Desk: |
Welcome to 2004! STC Toronto President Robert Milkovich - robert.milkovich@sympatico.ca Happy New Year to everyone! I hope that the Holidays were as good to you as they were to me. This is the time of year when people take stock of the past year and plan ahead for the coming one. It's a time when the slate seems to have been wiped clean, giving us an opportunity for new beginnings. It's a time for hope, optimism, and dreams. Many people start working on their New Year's Resolutions. Others think about what they would like to accomplish, both professionally and personally. It is an opportunity for us to change direction and explore new paths. And this year, our chapter has some exciting activities planned for you. On February 10th, we will hold our annual Wine and Cheese Party. This is your opportunity to meet old friends and make new ones - network the night away! The theme celebrates the 50th anniversary of the STC, featuring esteemed speaker Ron Blicq, and will be held at the King Edward Hotel. We have also arranged a special travel and accommodation package for those wanting to go to the STC Annual Conference in Baltimore in May. Participants will save $600 to $1000 on travel and accommodation costs by travelling with us, as compared to the cost of flying and staying in the main conference hotel. Details will be announced soon. But that's not all we have planned for you - your Executive Committee are working on other projects - we will let you know about them over the year. Please check our web site regularly to keep up-to-date on the new services and events that we plan to offer. We hope that 2004 will be a very happy and successful New Year for you and yours. |
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The Wandering Eye: |
A Guide to Online Style Guides Keith Soltys - keith@soltys.ca Like many technical writers, I've never taken a formal grammar course, yet I'm expected to be a paragon of grammar, punctuation, and style. So in a tight spot, I use a style guide. The following resources may help you the next time someone questions why you put a comma before the third item in a list, or asks you whether the proper abbreviation for gigabyte is GB or Gb. The Chicago Manual of Style is one of those books that belongs on every technical writer's reference shelf. It's full of exhaustive lists of rules for punctuation, style, and grammar. The CMS is aimed at editors and writers working in the publishing field, not at technical writers, but it's proven invaluable as the court of last resort in resolving problems. But even a book as hefty as the CMS can't cover everything. The CMS web site has an excellent FAQ, which covers many questions that never made it into the book. The FAQ answers are more informal than the manual itself and often exhibit a droll sense of humour. The IEEE Computer Society Style Guide is a good resource for writers who are preparing software documentation. It focuses more on technical terms, abbreviations, and acronyms rather than finer points of grammar and style and is very comprehensive. Unfortunately, it's not searchable, although you can search on the whole IEEE web site. A good complement to the IEEE guide that focuses more on language usage, is Grammar Punctuation, and Capitalization, a guide for scientists and engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center. It's a good for technical writers, because the examples are given are for technical fields like aerospace. The guide is available in HTML and PDF versions. The York University Style Guide is a good reference for Canadian usage, as well as topics relevant to academic writing. It also has a long section on "preferred language", discussing disabilities, gender, ethnicity, race, and religion. The Guardian Unlimited Style Guide, produced by the British newspaper, is a good reference for current terms and is downloadable in both PDF and Word formats. Canadian technical writers often have trouble distinguishing between Canadian, American, and British spelling and usage. The best site I've found for Canadian spelling and usage is Dave VE7CNV's Truly Canadian Dictionary of Canadian Spelling, which has the added benefit of showing French and Spanish equivalents. British Canadian and American Vocabulary is a similar site, but the word order is by the British spelling rather than Canadian. The Wikipedia collaborative encyclopedia has a more general discussion of Canadian English. (The Wikepdia link may be unreliable due to recent server problems.) One of the most useful sites I've come across, and one I use almost daily, is the Clear Language and Design (CLAD) Online Thesaurus. This is a large list of commonly used (and misused) words and alternatives, for example, for "originate" it gives "create", "invent", "set in motion" and "start". There's also a very handy list of phrases, and you can also search the thesaurus. CLAD is a local company, and they've done a real service by putting this site together. Finally, if you want more online style guides, look at the Google Directory and Yahoo for lengthy lists of resources. Keith Soltys has been working as a technical writer for 16 years, and is currently at the Toronto Stock Exchange. He maintains the Internet Resources for Technical Communicators web site and has recently started a weblog. He lives in Pickering with his wife, two children, a cat, and an ever growing collection of Grateful Dead CDs. |
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Career Corner: |
Happy New Year! This year, we’ll start looking at specific interview questions and some good strategies for responding to them. Many of these are actual questions that I have been asked. Although there is never only one right answer to a question, there are effective methods that can help guide you in your response. Some general principles to keep in mind when answering questions are:
Now – on to the questions: "Tell me about yourself." You need a solid response to this question that nearly sums up your history and abilities, for example:
You should also mention the specific tools that you have used, especially if they are the ones required in the job. "Name three things you like about technical writing."
This response shows that:
"Why are you interested in this position?"
In otherwords, you must state how there is a harmony between:
The more you can show how similar these things are, the greater your chances of success. You must show how you were “born” to do this job, at this place, at this time, and that it represents a great opportunity for both you and the company. Here’s a sample response to this question:
The point you want to make in your response is that you are a professional communicator who brings a unique outside perspective, and who is genuinely enthusiastic about this position because it matches your skills and desires. We’ll look at more questions over the next few issues. Andrew Brooke is the STC Toronto Job Bank Manager and Membership Manager, and is a full-time technical writer at InSystems in Markham. |
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Special Report: |
One of my activities as a self-employed consultant is to monitor various job boards. The job boards I monitor include those that list positions and contracts for technical communicators, but more importantly, they include for boards for the industries we support: software development, engineering, and manufacturing. This gives me a daily temperature reading on the industry where I'm most likely to find clients and contracts. This past week, the activity on the job boards has shot up. Between Nov 21 and 28, 2003, one Vancouver job board had 163 jobs posted, with almost a dozen of them being communication-related jobs: technical writer, instructional designer, marketing communications manager. This encouraging news was confirmed by a consultant from Boston, whose business suddenly got very busy; all consultants in his firm are fully booked. Does this that the economy is bouncing back, and what does this mean for technical communication professionals? How can we reconcile this apparent economic recovery with the opposing trend of jobs moving from North America to Asian countries? Certainly, the increase in North American development jobs is encouraging for North American technical communicators, just as the surge of product development in countries such Singapore, India, and China is encouraging for technical communicators there. Generally speaking, product development generally indicates a corollary need to communicate product features, through marketing communications, the user interface, user instructions, and internal documentation, and the communication jobs are kept in close proximity of the development jobs. What we must keep in mind, however, is that as markets mature - and the software industry, where so many technical communicators are employed, is maturing along with all other industries - and profit margins are narrowing, companies continue to find ways to be competitive. We consumers like our software to be inexpensive, and we hunt around for the absolute best deals. To provide us with those deals, companies need to find ways to cut costs, then cut costs more, and then cut costs even more. In an industry with few raw materials, where the largest cost is of the brain power of its staff, the way to cut development costs is to cut labour costs. If work can be fit into a formula and done where labour costs are less, that will happen. From my Canadian perspective (keeping in mind that Canada was one of the first countries to which American companies sent their work "off-shore"), I see the current migration of jobs around the globe as inevitable. As much of the hard-goods manufacturing of the world has gone to China, thereby stocking North American dollar stores with inexpensive merchandise, so follows the knowledge industry, to satisfy the market demand for discounted products. What this means for me as a technical communicator based in North America is that I need to make strategic career choices. If I choose to specialize in the type of work that is moving to another part of the world, I can look harder to do that type of work locally, or I can follow the work to wherever it goes, the way that actors migrate to Los Angeles. Or I can look for the type of technical communication work that, by necessity, stays closer to home. I would tap into communities adjacent to technical communication, to encourage cross-pollination of ideas and see what types of work is suited to someone with my abilities, work that doesn't come with the title of "technical writer" but involves a using my skill set and qualifications. I would build my network outside of the technical communication community, getting to know the decision-makers in new areas and getting known there, as well. What it would mean for me as a technical communicator based in a country with an emerging economy is that I would want to build my credibility as a professional who delivers top-quality work that satisfies the demands of a head office that may be overseas. I would tap into the body of knowledge that exists in print and online, to find a way to exceed the documentation standards out there, and deliver work that works for clients and end users. I'd find out what makes the market tick, and figure out where my skills should be going. I would find a colleague or peer as a mentor. I would connect into existing technical communication communities, attend meetings, take courses, and subscribe to listservs. I'd cultivate a "buddy" relationship with a technical communicator in my area of interest, and find ways to share information about the demands of technical communication in various markets around the world. I'd look at trends and determine what's coming, so I can stay current and not lose my work in a year (or two, or five) to another country with even lower labour costs. I'd ensure that my company knows, every step of the way, how much value I add to the product and the company, and make management see that I am a value contributor instead of a cost centre. The next few years will be very interesting times. From new tools, such as software that writes instructions by recording screen actions as you complete tasks on screen and creating content objects for content management systems, to new trends that include moving jobs around the world in a global economy, we are continually made to examine our personal employment situations and our profession to look for interesting opportunities. |
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About the STC: |
The Society for Technical Communication is an individual membership organization dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication. It is the largest organization of its type in the world. Its 25,000 members include technical writers and editors, content developers, documentation specialists, technical illustrators, instructional designers, academics, information architects, usability and human factors professionals, visual designers, Web designers and developers, and translators - anyone whose work makes technical information available to those who need it. The STC Toronto Chapter was founded in 1959 (then the Society of Technical Writers) and is the largest chapter in Canada. |
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About this Newsletter: |
This newsletter is produced monthly by the STC Toronto Chapter and is sent to all registered members just before the General Meeting. We will not share nor sell our address list and will only send e-mails with information we believe to be useful and relevant to our members. Our mailing list comes directly from the STC, so if you want to receive the newsletter at another address you will need to login to their members profile section and update your information. |
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