by techcommdood on March 10, 2010
The 2010 STC Election is now open. If you’re a STC member, VOTE!
There are many strong candidates for all positions this year, making this year’s voting decisions difficult. After much thought, I have made my selections.
Director:
Secretary:
Nominating Committee:
A note of caution: I found my ballot in my Gmail spam folder. I don’t know if there is a trip word in the ballot email or whatnot, but I wanted to make this known in case others are wondering where their ballots are. Check your spam folders!
by techcommdood on February 26, 2010
I ran into this error just now and laughed out loud. I’ll let you study it and then learn how I ran into it.
Are you ready for this? I pressed the left cursor button on my keyboard when at the insertion point of a table.
Rather than going up to the previous line like other authoring applications do, or just throwing the ever-familiar Windows “donk” sound, it threw an actual error. Yes, someone went out of their way to actually code this!
True, it’s likely due to being in between elements or something a bit more geeky, but honestly to the end-user this is just silly and overkill for the operation performed. Anyhow, I got a chuckle out of it and thought I’d share.
by techcommdood on February 24, 2010
Earlier this week I asked the Twitterverse a very basic question: What do you want to get out of membership in a professional organization? I asked this of both the technical writing community and again generally to anyone/everyone. The responses were strikingly similar.
- People join professional organizations to network and engage with others in their profession.
- They join to continuously learn within the scope of their profession.
- They join to share what they know with others in their profession.
- They join because they support their profession and are genuinely interested in the subject matter surrounding it.
- They join to keep an eye on where their profession is going and to ensure they remain viable in the workforce.
- They join to have a support group for their profession bigger than their immediate circle of co-workers (if they have any).
If I were to summarize what a professional organization needs to be from the feedback above, it would be:
- social
- supportive
- educational
- progressive
Do you agree? Does your organization measure up?
by techcommdood on February 11, 2010
One thing’s for certain, there’s a lot of buzz about Buzz right now. I find it amusing that most of it is on Twitter. There are many strong opinions on both sides of the Buzz… Some love it and are telling people to hold tight, and others very obviously hate it for a variety of reasons.
What’s your opinion of Buzz? Why do you feel this way?
by techcommdood on February 11, 2010
Undoubtedly like many of you, Buzz was enabled in my Gmail account yesterday. At first I thought nothing about turning it on, thinking it’d be cool to check out the latest offering from Google. I started seeing things people were posting, and it was okay.
As I commented on others’ posts and had more of my content pulled in from blogs and Twitter, I soon saw more and more inbox notifications. No problem, I can turn off notifications. I went into Buzz and saw tons of posts, stacked atop each other, and wondered who has time to sift through all of this? Yes, Twitter is a noise bucket, but it’s real-time. The noise doesn’t pile up and wait for you to look at it!
I also started seeing weird new follow requests from people I’d never heard of. This was a bit creepy given it was all coming into a very familiar yet private place – my Gmail UI. I started to ignore requests to follow but more kept coming. How annoying!
The deal killer was an article reTweeted by @CharJTF about Buzz privacy. Now I saw the bigger picture, and I didn’t like it one bit. So I decided to turn Buzz off, only I couldn’t find it in Gmail settings, or any kind of settings for Buzz itself. I looked on my Google profile and couldn’t find it there, either. Finally, I searched the web for it… “How do I turn off Google Buzz?” First hit brought me here. How simple yet so hidden. Bad Google! BAD!!!
In short, Buzz left me unimpressed, annoyed, and wondering if people can still see what I’m sharing via my profile. I’m wondering if people are still able to “follow” me despite having turned Buzz off. Time will tell, but I’m not running back to Buzz any time soon.
by techcommdood on February 10, 2010
Lately I’ve been hearing from quite a few technical communicators (technical writers, editors, illustrators, etc.) that they are either intimidated by or otherwise uninterested in social media tools and online collaboration tools. Rather than use a dynamic scratch pad like Wave to brainstorm they’d prefer a phone conference. Rather than use threaded forums they’d prefer email.
Personally, I find this baffling. I cannot fathom not being interested in or being intimidated by communication tools if my career involves communication.
If you work in any form of communication-related field, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Are you intimidated by online communication and collaboration tools?
by techcommdood on February 2, 2010
I got to thinking last night–as dangerous as that sounds–and asked myself, “Why is Q&A only available for new candinates?” I know STC uses a railroad promotion model for Society leadership, but I think it would be a nice gesture to the Membership if the “incoming” President, VPs and other roles either not changing or changing sans voting this year also entertained questions from members. I think it would be great to see how the candidates might align with the established leadership from the replies, particularly where “one voice” is concerned (established leaders may be bound by it bit candidates still can freely speak on issues).
So, I humbly ask that the to-be-promoted leaders of STC also entertain some of the questions being asked of the candidates. I think it would help the membership both understand where the Society presently sits on these issues, compare it against the candidates, and then make an informed choice if who to vote for based on that knowledge.
What do you think?
by techcommdood on February 2, 2010
The election season for the open 2010 STC Director, Secretary, and Nominating Committee seats has officially begun! The candidate pages are up, and within that subset of STC Notebook you can ask the candidates the hard-hitting questions about their take on STC issues that are on your mind. Take advantage of this, as it will ensure you vote for the people who most resonate with how you feel the STC should be functioning!
If you do ask questions, please post what you asked to STC Ideas so we can all see the questions being posed to the candidates!
I’ve asked the following questions of all candidates. I think no matter the position, they all should be in a position to answer these from their point of view and sphere of involvement.
- Question: From many discussions in many different channels, it sounds like 2010-11 is going to be a period of winning back members’ trust, faith, and in some cases, their actual membership. What improvements, changes, or plans do you have for your role that will positively affect members?
- Question: One big concern of mine is that of transparency into member-facing Society-level initiatives. It was this lack of transparency that caused me to create STCIdeas. What steps will you take to further bring transparency to Society initiatives and matters that involve members?
- Question: What is your position regarding STC’s use of social media, and how do you see it being used going forward both within the Society and publicly on the web?
- Question: What changes would you advocate making to improve Society/Member communication?
- Question: One concern we’ve been hearing from many is that STC isn’t relevent to younger technical communicators… that STC isn’t progressive or innovative enough to suit their needs. How do you respond to this and what–if anything–would you change about how STC recruits and retains members in order to address this concern?
- Question: What is your position regarding technical communicator certification? What–if any–types of certification do you see appropriate for STC to endorse or provide?
And the following question went to Director and Secretary candidates:
- Question: Susan Burton, in her Nov 10 blog post (http://notebook.stc.org/exec-direct-blogging-with-susan-burton), said that “the board always speaks with one voice”. What does this mean to you? Do you think “speaking with one voice” will affect the decisions you make? Do you feel comfortable carrying the board’s voice even if you disagree with the message?
by techcommdood on January 26, 2010
Hi everyone. I don’t know about you, but I hate it when I visit a blog on my iPhone and I have to zoom in, resize, and pan around because the site isn’t mobile-friendly. Well, wasn’t I red in the face when I saw that my blog was guilty of that as well! Not anymore!
Now if you view my blog from a mobile device, you should see a more stripped down, easier to read and navigate mobile interface. Here’s a screen shot from my phone:
Mobile UI as seen from an iPhone
Please let me know if you have any problems viewing it on your mobile device, or of course if you like it.
Thanks, and happy viewing!
