Guest post by Peggy Harvey.

In today’s world of technology changing in the blink of an eye, ongoing professional development isn’t an option for technical communicators, it’s a requirement. Over the past decade the field of technical communication has grown and gained more respect as a legitimate profession, and the complexities of the job and skill base required of technical communicators have also increased. Some of what’s new we can learn on the job—if we have a job—but sometimes we need to obtain the skills to stay vital in other ways.

When it comes to professional development in tech comm there are a lot of options. If you’re gainfully employed, enjoying what you do, and just need to brush up on the latest tool, then probably just a training seminar or a short online class is all you need. But if you’re not employed, or employed in a different capacity than you’d like to be, then you might want to consider a bigger educational commitment to make yourself more marketable as a technical communicator in today’s world.

In 2008 I stepped out of the working world to go back to school to earn my master’s degree in technical communication. While I’d started my career as a technical writer in a software development environment, I’d changed roles along the way, and by 2008 I was wondering how I’d gotten on the train I was on and, more importantly, how I could get off of it. I decided earning an advanced degree was the right decision for me, so in January, 2009, I took the plunge and started graduate school as a full-time student.

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Near the end of May, the Intermountain Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication installed the officers for the 2010–11 year. I handed the presidential position off to Paul Pehrson (otherwise known as Doc Guy), who had been my vice president.

The last year wasn’t as amazing as I’d hoped, but we did a few things right.

Filled Leadership Positions

When I ran for president, we had no current president (due to circumstances that I won’t explain here). Our treasurer/programs manager/competitions manager was keeping things going, with help from the immediate past president. I had just taken over a few months previous as the webmaster because the previous one became unable to continue. Our ship was staffed by a skeleton crew and was probably close to being decommissioned by the central office.

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Ben: Welcome to our second installment of Interview with a Gryphon. Today, Gryp and I are discussing a subject that has a lot of technical communicators enthusiastically speaking up.

Gryp: You mean how that Sauron guy forged one HAT to rule them all?

Ben: You’re getting a few universes confused here.

Gryp: Me? You’re the one talking to a mythological creature.

Ben: *Ahem!* We’re going to talk about a discussion about the Society for Technical Communication that was started by Kristi Leach and carried on by Sarah O’Keefe and numerous others in comments on their posts.

Gryp: Wow, links within your dialogue. That’s pretty slick.

Ben: If you’re good, some day I’ll teach you how. So Gryp, the discussion is largely about old ways versus new ways of doing things. For example, big central conferences versus smaller conferences or unconferences with more open formats. Or top-down leadership and formal structure versus online communities and more volunteers. Would you like to comment on what you think about STC’s current state in this area and their efforts to make changes?

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Tom Johnson of I’d Rather Be Writing interviewed me about Don Moyer’s STC 2010 Summit presentation on using drawing in tech comm. (You may want to turn up the sound—I’m a soft-spoken kind of guy.)

Thanks to Paul Pehrson, cameraman.

Tom’s other videocasts from the STC conference are posted on his site. He does a great job coming up with thought-provoking questions and conducting the interviews.

I came away from Leadership Day of STC’s Technical Communication Summit with a much different mood than a year ago.

Last year, I was the incoming Intermountain Chapter president. I missed the beginning of Leadership Day where then-president Mark Clifford took the chapter presidents and SIG managers aside and dropped the bomb labeled “$1.2 million shortfall.” The rest of Leadership Day, most of which I attended, held a tense atmostphere. People were upset and probably panicking to some degree. I felt somewhat overwhelmed as a new chapter president stepping into office and being handed these problems.

I wouldn’t say that I doubted the Society board over the following twelve months, but I tried to voice my concerns where members of the board would hear them. I admit that my dissatisfaction with the board stemmed from a perception that they weren’t open and transparent enough. They solicited ideas from all members, but I didn’t see much communication back that described which ideas the board was discussing. I wasn’t alone on this.

This year, the proceedings of Leadership Day left me with a feeling of greater confidence in STC and its board. I believe that STC is moving forward with more strength and a clearer vision. We still have problems to solve and obstacles to remove, but I believe the board has made huge strides. I’ll tell you about four things that are reassuring for me.

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Elections for officers and board of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) are open. Today on Twitter, Peggy Harvey (@paharvey) said she wishes students could vote. I retweeted and replied, “Taxation without representation? If a student cares enough to vote, shouldn’t he/she be able to?” This allusion to the American Revolution was branded later as absurd. I admit that I was using some hyperbole here by making that comparison. I was not in any way suggesting that I think STC is run by tyrants who don’t care about the common man and are interested only in getting money out of us. (No offense to any readers from the United Kingdom.)

What I was highlighting was that student members of STC are paying members and therefore have invested in STC. They are interested in the future of STC, which is directly affected by which officers and board members are elected. I think that if a student member cares enough to vote, he or she should have the ability to do so.

Benefit Number One

I admit that when I was a student member five years ago, I didn’t care enough about happenings at the Society level to vote even if I had had the ability to. But just as in national politics, at least in the United States, many people who have the ability to vote in STC elections don’t take the opportunity to. If STC wants as much participation in the international elections as possible, permitting student members to vote is a way to accomplish that.

Benefit Number Two

Giving student members the ability to vote has another benefit: These members will likely feel more loyalty for STC because they haven’t just paid money into the Society; they’ve also helped select its leadership. STC giving student members a vote shows that they care what the students think. They will be more likely to renew next year, possibly as full members. I think STC could be making a big mistake by continuing to not allow student members to vote. As a chapter president, I’d like for student members within my chapter to vote in chapter elections.

Ignorance Alert

Now, I say all of this without knowing why STC leaders have made the decision to exclude student members from elections. Part of the rationale may be that 1) if students get a significant discount, their benefits should be limited somehow, and 2) by limiting the benefits student members receive, we prevent use of this membership level by people who aren’t actually students. (I don’t mean to doubt the ethics of any STC members or would-be members, but you never know what some people will do to save a few bucks.) STC could verify the enrollment of student members at the educational establishments they name when joining, but that’s extra overhead that we don’t need, particularly right now when STC is trying to reduce overhead.

If you have any insight as to why student members can’t vote or would like to otherwise voice your opinion on the matter, please comment.

And if you’re a member of the STC Ideas Ning network, you can see Bill Swallow’s proposal regarding student member voting.

Yesterday, I gave an STC Web seminar on using quick reference guides as part of a documentation set. (I’ve included a picture of how I used my wife’s earwarmer to work around the fact that the speakerphone feature on my new phones is less than desirable.) I answered a number of questions that participants typed into the meeting’s chat box and would like to pass them on. However, I ran into some technical difficulty when I tried to save the chat transcript, so I’m going from memory when writing these questions. These aren’t in any particular order other than the order in which I remembered them. I’ll also do my best to answer, especially now that I’m not on the spot.

What’s your favorite typeface for quick reference guides?

Given the audiences I write for, I anticipate that most of my guides are going to be printed, so I use a serif typeface for body text. I’ve gotten somewhat weary of Times New Roman—so little personality to go along with its readability—so I’ve gone to Cambria. (I know that Word 2007 has heading styles pre-programmed using Cambria, but I usually use sans serif typefaces for headings.) I think Cambria makes a good body typeface.

For headings, I may use Arial, Lucida Sans Unicode, or something similar. I don’t really care for Verdana because it’s so wide. And when you bold Verdana text, it blows up like a balloon.

How do you estimate how long it takes to create a quick reference guide?

That’s a tough question because it varies. How long a guide will take depends on how much of the content is text or images, how much of the content you can use from an existing help system, and so on. If you’re just starting to create quick reference guides, they may take you longer, but as you do more, you’ll probably get faster at them. But each one can take its own tender loving care, so it’s hard to say for sure.

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