This is September’s News and Notes email from the STC President, Paula Berger. 

Dear members,

On August 7, STC welcomed Susan Burton (susan@stc.org) as our Executive Director. Although she is new to STC, she already has a strong grasp of our objectives, issues, and initiatives. I hope you can meet Susan this year during her many planned chapter visits. You can read about her here. Welcome, Susan!

News and Notes is a bit longer this month to give you an update on our progress on the strategic objectives we announced at the Las Vegas conference in May. Please take the time to read about the new directions that STC’s leaders and staff are headed this year. I’ll make it shorter again next month!

Paula Berger
STC President, pres@stc.org

Update from the Board of Directors

I joined Susan Burton, Rob Moran, and 3,200 association leaders at the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) annual conference, held in Boston this month. For three days, we talked about STC, learned how other associations are dealing with issues that STC is addressing, evaluated technology solutions for STC, and much more.

The STC Board of Directors will meet in London on October 13, 2006, in conjunction with the Region 2 conference. The board meeting is open to all members and we invite you to attend. Each face-to-face meeting this year will focus on how we are progressing toward meeting our strategic objectives (see STC’s Strategic Plan). In London, we will focus on marketing and membership. We will post an agenda for the board meeting on stc.org in September.

After the meeting in London, the next face-to-face meeting of the BoD will be in Washington, DC on February 2-3, 2007. The focus of that meeting will be communities. Look for more information as we get closer to the date.

Reminder to community leaders: Please check Tieline each month for important deadlines. Many of you are asking the staff or board members for information that is available each month in Tieline. If you know a better way for us to get this information to you, please send your suggestions to Cecily Farrar, Tieline editor.

Upcoming Events

Registration is open for the Region 5 conference, The 50 Facets of Technical Communication, hosted by the Lone Star Chapter on November 2-4, 2006. Details about the sessions in each conference track — Global Perspectives, Leading & Learning, Standards of Practice, Usable Tools — will be posted soon.

September 5 at 5pm EDT (that’s next week!) is the new, extended deadline for submitting proposals for the new, revamped Technical Communication Summit: STC’s 54th Annual Conference, May 13-16, 2007, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Submit your proposal at http://www.stc.org/cfp.

Registration is open for the Region 2 conference, Making Cents of Making Sense: Technical Communications and Business in London, England, on October 13-14, 2006. See www.stcuk.org/R2conf for details.

Join us for “Coffee, Croissants, and Q&A” on October 14, 2006, in conjunction with the Region 2 Conference. Meet new Executive Director Susan Burton and STC officers for a town-meeting-style event. To reserve your spot, email registration@stcuk.org.

Update on Our Strategic Objectives

Telling Our Powerful Story. STC has a renewed focus on marketing and public relations (PR) this year, based on overwhelming member requests to tell our story to the companies that hire us (and to the world!). To get our new PR program going, the PR committee is developing a much-needed press/media kit. They will be leading a discussion about this work in London.

Telling Our Powerful Story. The Public Relations committee is developing a PR primer for STC’s communities. This will help us align our publicity efforts so we are working consistently at the society and community levels.

Growing Relationships & Choosing Partners. INTECOM (International Council for Technical Communication, www.intecom.org) has accepted our offer to hold their 2007 Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 17-18, in conjunction with the STC Annual Conference. We look forward to welcoming INTECOM’s representatives from around the world in Minneapolis.

Growing Relationships & Choosing Partners. Many organizations — both for-profit and non-profit — have expressed interest in partnerships or relationships with STC. We are evaluating a range of ideas — discounts for members at for-profit industry events, reciprocal association memberships, co-locating events, even merging with other associations. We are proceeding carefully and developing guidelines and procedures to be sure we provide the greatest benefit to our members, the society, and the profession.

Implementing a Strategic Business Model. To implement efficient and effective business processes, STC needs technology to support our staff, our communities, and our members. Right now, we don’t have what we need. Our staff is researching association management systems and we expect to upgrade all our technology over the next year. We will provide details as we move forward.

Implementing a Strategic Business Model. Another change this year is increased interaction with the office staff. In a strategic business model, the Board of Directors establishes the Society’s strategic vision and objective, then the staff, led by the Executive Director, brings it from vision to reality. We are now moving to this more typical association business model, which is also more stable and — we hope — more productive.

Implementing a Strategic Business Model. As we move to a strategic business model, perhaps the biggest change is in our budget process. Treasurer W.C. Wiese and Susan Burton are leading the way as the board and the staff begin to tie budget items to the society’s strategic objectives. This major effort is critical to our future as a stable and fiscally responsible association. We plan to approve a revised budget at the October BoD meeting.

Making Money. After membership dues, STC’s annual conference is our largest source of revenue. Our goal this year is ambitious — we want to make the all-new Technical Communication Summit: STC’s 54th Annual Conference a leading industry event and a “must” for the continuing education of all technical communicators. We’re planning a more exciting program, top-notch speakers, new formats and tracks, and a new certificate program! A stronger conference can bring in more revenue so we can provide more and better services.

Making Money. STC’s new Corporate Value Program (CVP) offers compelling value for organizations to support their technical communication staff by paying for employee membership. Through the CVP, organizations make an investment in their staff and in STC. The CVP also helps STC generate revenue from webinars and conference attendance. Mary Kabza (mary@stc.org), Director of Marketing & Membership, is leading this initiative.

Share Your Skills

The Technology Committee is looking for volunteers to investigate available off-the-shelf solutions that can quickly be implemented by communities to fulfill their technology needs (for example, on-line elections, web surveys). Details are posted at http://www.stc.org/membership/cfv02.asp. To volunteer, email Doug Woestendiek, Committee Chair, and Merrick Bechini, Director of Information Systems.

STC is participating in World Usability Day 2006 to help make the world a better place for product users, and you are invited to participate. The STC initiatives include holding the World’s Largest Online Card Sort and working on a Usability Competition. See www.stc.org/wud for more information.

Coming Soon…

Visiting with the Finnish Technical Communications Society
A look at the STC Forum
Whatever happened to STC’s Transformation?