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Open Mic Night Features Useful Devices

May 7th, 2012 by Kim Rosenlof

STC-Phoenix hosted an open microphone night on April 19 at Duck and Decanter in central Phoenix. The BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) theme encouraged attendees to talk about favorite electronic devices and applications of interest to technical communicators.

Attendees showcased a wide range of devices, including an economical Brother laser printer with duplexing capability for just over $100 from Amazon and the amazingly thin (and light) MacAir notebook. The Kindle Fire also received a glowing review for its versatility and rich user experience at a fraction of the cost of other tablets. One STC member also showcased her rugged Tank iPhone case, which features a sliding door to protect the glass front when not being used.

Smartphone/tablet applications included scanning to a PDF from the smartphone, applications with legal and copyright guidelines for writers, and other technical writing apps. One attendee discussed the options for syncing data across devices, mentioning Apple’s iCloud and GoogleDocs as options. Google become even more connected to technical communication at this open mic session as one attendee suggested that its new search engine algorithms, which now factor in the date of website content, may provide job opportunities as companies must now keep website content current to remain at the top of Google search engine listings.

Our next chapter meeting will be held on Saturday, June 23. Look for details to be posted soon!

Congrats to Phoenix Chapter Members!

May 1st, 2012 by Jan Kruse

Congratulations to the two chapter membership initiative winners, Theresa Petross and Christopher Stiff who each won Amazon gift cards for renewing their chapter memberships. (Winners were selected randomly at a CMAC meeting.)

Thanks for renewing!

Phoenix Chapter Wins Pacesetter Award!

April 18th, 2012 by Jan Kruse

For the first time in chapter history, STC-Phoenix won the Pacesetter award! The award was given for our participation in the Arizona Science and Engineering Fair (AzSEF) in 2011.

What is the Pacesetter award?

STC’s Community Pacesetter Award recognizes the successful implementation of innovative community operations. STC offers the Pacesetter Award because the Society values the improvement of community operationS, and especially when beneficial innovation can be shared with other communities so that they can enjoy similar benefits.

What did we do to win it? 

For well over 10 years, our chapter has had the unique distinction of participating in a day-long event judging research papers that accompany student’s science and engineering projects at AZSEF.  In 2011, we took advantage of current technology to improve the chapter’s judging process and to encourage higher-quality student entries for the STC award.

We improved the judging process by putting the initial screening online instead of having to judge a large number of papers in a limited timeframe.

Miachelle Depiano, our AzSEF chairperson, recruited a Drupal programmer Russell Keppner, to duplicate the judging process online so that it could be easily accessed and implemented virtually.  Miachelle tested the process, provided guidelines to judges, and monitored the process, keeping in contact with online judges continuously throughout the process.

Being able to do the initial screening online allowed more chapter members to participate in the judging process and also improved the quality of judging. Judges now had more time to do the initial screening, had fewer papers to judge the day of the event, and could interact more with the students during the final round of judging.

We encouraged higher quality entries by giving students a more appealing way to learn how to write a research paper.

Robbie Proulx, one of our chapter members, created a 30-minute tutorial (using Captivate) on how to write a strong research paper. This was a valuable addition that not only gave students tips on how to better compete for the award but also was a subtle introduction to the research paper as a form of technical communication. A side benefit of having the tutorial link on the AZSEF website is that it is a concrete example of technical communication at its best that will be available for years to come.

If you are interested in more details, contact Miachelle at vice_president@stc-phoenix.com or Jan at president@stc-phoenix.com for a copy of the award application.

Our thanks to Miachelle, Robbie, and Russell for taking this event to the next level!

STC Presents Awards at AzSEF

April 15th, 2012 by Jan Kruse

by AzSEF manager, Miachelle DePiano

STC-Phoenix continued its tradition of judging project reports at this year’s Arizona Science and Engineering Fair (AzSEF). We reviewed and judged nearly 500 reports by almost 600 students.

This year’s AzSEF participants were different in that students must have placed first in a lower-level
science fair in order to be eligible for AzSEF.

This year’s winners in the junior and senior divisions were:

• Junior, 2nd Place:  Jacob Gansalves, “Worldwide Crisis Due to Shortage of Resources”
• Junior, 1st Place:  Benjamin Lee, “Use of Soil Bacteriophages to Prevent Bacterial Contamination in Meat”
• Senior, 2nd Place:  Saisanjana Kalagra, “Effects of Social, Economic and Environmental Factors on Food Security”
• Senior, 1st Place:  Jessica Liu and Joyce Yang, “Investigating New Polymers for a Chlorine Tolerant RO Membrane”

Jan Kruse and Miachelle DePiano attended the awards ceremony on April 4th at the Phoenix Convention Center South Hall, and presented the winners with certificates and cash prizes.

A special thank you goes out to all of our volunteers who helped judge the event, and to Russell Kepner for working with AzSEF to get our online voting application rebuilt for next year’s AzSEF completion.

Open Mic Night April 19: BYOD

April 8th, 2012 by Jan Kruse

Due to the success of our last Open Mic night, we decided to do it again! Theme: BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).

Are you addicted to your IPAD, your Blackberry, your Kindle Fire? Have a favorite App? Got a tool you love?  How about a funny story about your experiences with a particular tool or device?  Come share it, or just come to listen, learn, and laugh! It’s a great opportunity to get to know your fellow technical communicators.  Bring a friend or colleague!

Date: Thursday, April 19, 2012

Place: Duck & Decanter (www.duckanddecanter.com), a great deli, located to the east of the Sports Authority, behind Copenhagen Imports on the south side of Camelback Road, just east of 16th St.  Enter from Highland, 16th St. or Camelback.

Address:  1651 E. Camelback Rd. , Phoenix, AZ  85018

Time: Check in around 5:30 and sign up for your time slot. 

Order from the standard menu downstairs. Pay your own tab. Join the rest of the group upstairs. Open Mic activities will begin around 6:30.

Send an email to Jan at programs@stc-phoenix.com to confirm your attendance.

Hope to see you there!

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