Society for Technical Communications : Phoenix Chapter

A Technical Communicator’s Guide to Project Management

Join us on September 9, 2008, to hear Brenda Huettner, STC-Southern Arizona’s Communications chair and principal and owner of her own company, P-N Designs, Inc. in Tucson Arizona, speak about project management.

Whether we have the title or not, we all manage projects - from just getting our own work accomplished to overseeing the work of others. This presentation will discuss the basics of project management and survey a few of the available tools that can help manage both large and small projects.

Brenda’s topics will include:

• Project management terminology

• Creating a plan

• Setting a schedule

• Managing change

• Post-project follow-up

Plan to join us and hone your project management skills. Mark your calendar for the September 9, 2008, STC-Phoenix chapter meeting at the Phoenix Airport Hilton.
About the Presenter

Brenda Huettner is an independent technical communication consultant who specializes in increasing her client’s awareness of the benefits of quality documentation. For the past 20+ years, she has worked as a writer, editor, trainer and manager for both software and hardware companies. She is a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, a Senior Member of IEEE, active in the IEEE Professional Communication Society, and belongs to the Usability Professionals Association. In addition to supporting the documentation needs of her clients, Brenda has published several books and articles, and presented half-day, full-day, and multi-day courses on writing, project management, usability, and career management. Her most recent book is Captivate 3.0: the Definitive Guide available from Wordware Press. She’s also the co-author, with Kit Brown and Char James-Tanny, of Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and Other Collaborative Tools.

Dinner Options

Meat entree: Chicken Palo Verde with jalapeno/cilantro cream sauce
Vegetarian entree: Vegetable Wellington - fresh vegetables wrapped in a crispy pastry shell
All entrees include a tossed green salad, warm rolls and butter, coffee (regular and decaf), tea, and chef’s selection of dessert.

Location

Phoenix Airport Hilton, 2435 South 47th Street, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 85034-6410

Registration Information

Cost: $25 for Members, $30 for Non-members, $15 for students,
$10 for program only (includes beverage and dessert)
Time: Networking and Registration 5:30, Dinner 6:00 p.m.
The program starts at 7 p.m.
Registration Deadline: Thursday, September 4, 2008
Register Online: To register online using PayPal, please click here.
Register by E-mail: To register by e-mail, please click here.

The 2008 Southwest Regional PAO Competitions are underway!

The Call for Entries for this year’s local competitions has been issued. Entries are being solicited for all three competitions: Publications, Art, and Online.

The entry forms, submittal instructions, and detailed information on this year’s competitions are now available on our website.

These competitions are open to all technical communication professionals; you do not have to be a member of STC to participate. Competitions have two tiers: local (chapter) and international (Society-wide) level. An entry must win an award of Distinguished Technical Communication at the local level to qualify for submission to STC’s international competition. Many, but not all chapters hold professional competitions in the fall.

The managers of this year’s competitions are Roberta Davidson and Debra Duane. For more information, contact pao@stc-phoenix.com. Information on the competitions is also available from the STC International website.

We had such a grand time at the July networking dinner, we decided to do it again! Join us for more fun on Tuesday, August 12, 2008. Our second summer dinner and networking meeting will take place at the Old Spaghetti Factory in central Phoenix.

We will have another fixed price menu for this event that provides your dinner and a non-alcoholic beverage. Other beverages are available foradditional cost.

Come join us for a lively evening of conversation and networking. We’d love to see you there!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008, dinner and networking at the Half Moon Sports Grill. Join us for a relaxing evening of old friends and new acquaintances. Find out who is doing what this summer and share a few stories of your own. We’d love to see you there!

Schaller Anderson - Learning & Development Office
4645 E Cotton Center Blvd.
Building 2, Suite 155
Phoenix AZ 85040

NOTE: This is a secured building and requires key-card access. Someone should be at the door to let you in. If not, please call Dana Osborne’s cell at 602-717-1478.

From Cotton Center Blvd, turn south into the parking lot. Building 1 is the first building you’ll see actually facing on to Cotton Center Blvd. Building 2 is behind.
schaller-map

June 2008 Rough Draft (PDF) is now available.

Archived editions of Rough Draft can be found on our Newsletters page.

A Humorous Look at the 2008 Conference

Join us on June 10, 2008, to enjoy perspectives of this year’s conference from an experienced conference goer and a newbie. Tom Barnett has attended conferences every year for “quite a few” years during his tenure with STC. Karen Zorn has never attended one and is looking forward to the conference and reporting back to the membership her impressions and views. Both are attending this year’s Technical Communication Summit and will return with differing perspectives of the conference proceedings and associated activities.

Following Tom and Karen’s presentation, there will be opportunity to discuss their perspectives and yours, should you also attend the conference, and we’ll host our annual Awards for the Chapter.

Mark your calendar and plan on joining us for the June 10 STC-Phoenix chapter meeting at the Phoenix Airport Hilton.

About the presenters

Tom Barnett
Tom is a long-time chapter member, STC Fellow, and our primary repository of chapter trivia, history and bylaws. Tom attends the conference every year and will put his personal spin on the proceedings.

Karen Zorn
Our incoming President is a Senior STC member and active member of the Phoenix Chapter since she landed in the Valley of the Sun in 2001. Karen is the owner of ZornTech LLC, a documentation and training company.

Dinner

Meat: Chicken Parmesan with egg noodles and vegetable

Vegetarian: Vegetable Stir Fry: a medly of sautéed vegetables served over rice

All entrees include a tossed green salad, warm rolls and butter,
coffee (regular and decaf), tea, and chef’s selection of dessert.

Location

Airport Hilton, 2435 South 47th Street, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 85034-6410

Registration Information

Cost: $25 for Members, $30 for Non-members, $15 for students,
$10 for program only (includes beverage and dessert)

Time: Networking and Registration 5:30, Dinner 6:00 p.m.
The program starts at 7 p.m.

Deadline: Thursday, June 5, 2008

Register Online
To register online using PayPal, please click here.

Register by E-mail
To register by e-mail, please click here.

STC Phoenix will conduct electronic voting for the 2008-2009 Administrative Council from May 1-7, 2008. All member of record as of April 29, 2008 will receive an electronic ballot via e-mail.

For more information, contact Dana Osborne, current chapter president, at president@stc-phoenix.com.

Join us for an interesting and educational evening on May 13th, 2008 at 6:15 p.m. Pacific Time as Tom Johnson presents Combining Social Media with Help Authoring.

The Web landscape has changed considerably in the last several years. Users are no longer passive consumers of information (Web 1.0), but instead are active contributors of content (Web 2.0). They expect to interact and share information, not only with other users, but with project teams and companies.

Although interactive technologies have flourished on the Web, much of the help authoring community remains in the one-way communication model. We treat our users as if they have little or nothing to contribute back.

In this virtual meeting, Tom will discuss six of the most compelling technologies that enable users to become contributors: blogs, wikis, social networks, forums, podcasts/videocasts, and interactive online help. We’ll discuss the pros and cons of each medium and how technical writers can use these technologies to better connect with users.

Our March 2008 issue of Rough Draft is available!

Scott will discuss the weaknesses in our current approaches to managing content and content creators and make the case for:

1. The adoption of software tools that can drastically outperform human counterparts.
2. The adoption of controlled vocabularies to help make content less ambiguous and to improve content quality and translation accuracy (and make translation less expensive).
3. Documentation managers to use metrics to make informed, professional business decisions.

Scott will also demonstrate a content quality management tool so you can “see” how these ideas work in practice instead of simply imagining how they might work.

It will be a very valuable evening!

Our chapter survey helps us understand the needs of our members so that we can provide useful programming. Please take a moment to take our survey:

Click Here to take survey

Membership News

The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is a professional association that advances the arts and sciences of technical communication. Its 14,000+ members include technical writers, editors, graphic designers, multimedia artists, Web and intranet page information designers, translators and others whose work involves making technical information understandable and available to those who need it.

The Phoenix chapter of the STC is recognized as the hub of technical communication in the Valley of the Sun. At chapter meetings members and non-members alike enhance their technical communication skills, learn about the latest trends and technology in our field, while building professional relationships. Currently our membership stands at 187, a number that compares with last year’s membership.

If you are interested in the benefits that accrue from membership in the Phoenix chapter of the STC but have not yet joined or renewed your membership, please visit www.stc.org/membership.

Norm Haskett,
Phoenix Chapter Membership Manager

From mid-November 2007 to mid-January 2008, our chapter sponsored a campaign to encourage potential members to join and continuing members to renew their memberships. Those who did so had their names entered into a drawing for $50 dollar gift certificates. Out of 187 chapter members, 80 met the January deadline. Their names will be tossed into a hat (or a facsimile thereof) and six names will be drawn at the chapter meeting at the Airport Hilton on March 11th. Winners not present at the meeting will be contacted and their gift certificates mailed to their home address. Thanks to all who participated.

Norm Haskett
Phoenix STC Chapter Membership Manager

Next year’s science fair will be quite different from years past. It will be the Arizona Science Fair (AzSEF), and it will combine the Central Arizona Science Fair, Northern Arizona Science Fair, and the Arizona-American Indian Science and Engineering Fair into one large event – up to 1,000 entries are expected!

We have several volunteers (thank you all), but we need more! This is just a one-day commitment, won’t you please join us on Mar. 20th?

The December 2007 of the Rough Draft is available for download. Click here to download the PDF or visit the Newsletter page to download the current and previous editions.