by Bryce A. Walat

Bryce, President of the Pittsburgh Chapter, reminds us of the very real value of STC membership.

Recently, I’ve heard other STC members talking about the economy, especially the rising cost of fuel, food, health care, and other necessities, and the falling value of their homes and investments. For some STC members, their membership in STC is a prime candidate for an “extra” item to cut from their personal or professional budgets. You may be thinking about not renewing your membership in STC when it expires, or if you aren’t a current member, you may be having second thoughts about joining STC. If you still plan to renew or join STC, you may also be thinking about cutting back on meetings or events.

Before you decide not to renew or join STC, or skip a meeting you’d like to attend, I’d like to ask you this question: over your lifetime, what is your most valuable and biggest asset?

1. Your home
2. Your education
3. Your career
4. Your retirement plan

Answer: Your career is your biggest and most important asset. Your career gives you the income to get the necessities of life, such as food, clothing, and shelter, and also to get an education, real estate, a retirement plan, and other investments and assets. When you think about how much of your time every day you spend working and how much of your lifetime is spent working, you can see why your career is so important. That’s why it’s important to manage your career well.

How STC helps

STC helps you manage your career by helping you to:

• Launch your technical communication career or transition into a technical communication career
• Learn new skills and enhance existing ones
• Find opportunities to network with fellow technical communication professionals
• Find a new job or a better job
• Launch an independent technical communication career
• Find help when you need it
• Improve your “soft” skills, such as public speaking or team-building skills

The cost of STC membership is “chump change” compared to the value it adds to your career. For example, STC’s free or low-cost articles, seminars, and conferences give you knowledge and skills to not only keep up with changes in the fast-paced technical communication field, but also get ready for the technical communication jobs of the future.

On a personal note, I’ve now been through four “career transitions” in my eight years as a technical communicator. In some cases, they occurred because of circumstances beyond my control, such as economic conditions; in others, there were things that I could have done or not done that might have led to a different outcome. In every case, I found STC to be a helpful resource to manage these transitions. STC proved valuable as a go-to for technical communication job leads, ways to improve my technical and interpersonal skills, and just to know that I wasn’t alone in my career transition. STC Pittsburgh’s WorkQuest was, as the MasterCard slogan goes, priceless. Also, in every case, employers and potential employers noticed my membership in STC on my resume, and some even knew of me from STC.

I wrote this article to explain how STC helped me and why I joined the organization. As President of STC Pittsburgh, part of my job is promoting the chapter and the Society. I hope that I have made a case that STC is more important to your career in times like these.

Special note to prospective new members

If you join in November, you will receive two months free, because membership will begin immediately and will not expire until the end of 2009.

Need a local perspective?

If you would like to hear from a local member, read Shelly Duncan’s review of the October Workshop – Five Stars!

Questions?

If you have questions, contact your chapter officers or ask the members. Or, feel free to send me an email.

Join/renew now!

Visit stc.org to join or renew.

In addition to renewing your own registration, consider encouraging others to join STC. From now through December 31, you are eligible for terrific prizes from the Society if you recruit one or more new members:

• For every ten members you recruit, your name will be entered to win an Apple iPhone!
• For every five members you recruit, your name will be entered to win one of three free, full conference registrations to the STC 2009 Technical Communication Summit. (A $795 value!)
• For every three members you recruit, your name will be entered to win five free web seminars in 2009.
• For every member you recruit, your name will be entered to win a free, twelve month membership for the 2009 membership year.

See Member-Get-a-Member on the Society website for details.

by Gloria McConnell

Welcome to the “Back Page,” a column presenting the editor’s thoughts on all things tech. comm.

It seems like I have been in a time crunch forever. I’m sure it is true for you, too. Whether it is at home or at work, the time to do all of the things I want to do, or to do them the way that I want to, just does not exist. I have long given up any perfectionist tendencies (that very phrase makes me laugh with an on-the-edge tinge of hysteria), and settled for “it is good enough,” well, it is better than it was,” “it will just have to do,” or “too bad, it will have to wait.”

For quite a few years in the world of information development, my first question has been, “How can I serve the user and still meet my deadlines?” One answer I’ve found is to really challenge two notions that many information developers hold dear: the notion that because a tool has a particular functionality, we should use it, and the notion of completeness for completeness’ sake. Here are two outstanding examples:

• A FrameMaker book that included more text inset files within its chapter files than it did chapter files in the book. And text insets within text insets!
• A RoboHelp HTML Help project overburdened with “helpful” hyperlinks.

Text Inset Insanity

This migraine began with an admirable goal in mind? separate text files would be used for information and procedures that were common to the installation and upgrade guides for three separate products. The files would be imported into separate chapters within the different books. Single sourcing is a good thing, and Adobe FrameMaker allows a file to be imported into a chapter file such that it is treated as part of the chapter.

What could be the problem? This is a difficult case to explain, but I will do my best. As the products went through new releases, the understanding of what should be “single sourced” became muddied. Specific needs and conditions arose, and the solution was to create more and more text inset files to deal with them all.

No specific person, such as an information architect, kept tabs on the information to determine whether it should be handled as a text inset or integrated into the main chapter files. No one established basic content guidelines, for that matter (for example, in some cases the heading was included in the main chapter and sometimes in the text inset). Multiple writers worked on these documents, and I’m sure that they each did their best. But without any oversight, or time to re-evaluate and correct the problems, file management issues and the limitations of FrameMaker overtook any benefits that may have initially existed.

The new information developer assigned to the project for the current release found himself mired in a plethora of problems, most significantly, creating and maintaining cross references. It turns out that FrameMaker is very persnickety about cross references to content within a text inset. The information developer spent 90% of his time battling tool problems, and 10% of the time working on actual content. Many overtime hours were required to meet the deadline.

At this point in time, the problems cannot be solved easily, but a dedicated analysis of the content can lead to a proper solution. It will be time consuming. If more thought had been given to how the approach would be managed and maintained, instead of unconditionally embracing the FrameMaker text inset functionality, the team would not find itself burdened with the problems it faces – with each release – today.

Hyperlink Hell

The RoboHelp project included mucho reference information concerning ActiveX control methods, properties, events, and enumerations used in the creation of custom controls for the particular product being documented. Nothing wrong with that; the problem I ran into was the fact that introductory topics existed for each section of content, with hyperlinks to each and every method, property, event, and enumeration in the introductory topics – over 300 in all.

While all those links may seem like a friendly thing to do for the user, the reality is that hyperlink creation and maintenance is very time consuming. As the ActiveX control library is expanded, new links must be added. The alphabetized table of hyperlinks needs to be reorganized. Over time, links can break, so additional testing is required for those hyperlinks.

Now, think about it? do users really need/will they even use all those hyperlinks? In an HTML Help file, the Contents pane sits at the ready, all topics listed and linked. And the Contents listing is maintained automatically by RoboHelp!

A much more efficient approach, equally useful for the user, would have been to introduce each section (methods, properties, events, and enumerations), then point the user to the Contents pane for a complete listing of each section.

In both of these cases, tools capability trumped an analysis of just what was needed by the user and how the solution would be managed in the future. Simpler, less tool-intensive solutions could have served users well, and helped ensure that developers would meet their deadlines.

by Tim Slavin, Webmaster

With our new chapter website comes the option of registering. Several benefits exist for registered members. The three most fundamental include:

• You can apply for jobs posted on our Jobs page.
• You will have a direct link to technical writing jobs from Indeed.com, organized by region.
• You can leave comments on pages (for example, if you’d like to weigh in on what Ms. Grammar has to say).

To register, you must be a member of the Phoenix Chapter. Follow these steps:

1. Click Create a new account in the Member Login section of any page on our site.
2. Enter your user name in the format of FirstnameLastname, such as MarySmith (no spaces). Add a password of your choosing. If privacy is important, your username also could be FirstInitialLastName, such as MSmith.
3. Wait for an email confirmation, and follow the instructions in the email to complete the registration. The confirmation may take a few days.

We ask for the specific username format to ensure members can recognize each other’s content online.

If you have questions, contact Tim Slavin.

by Karen L. Zorn, President, STC Phoenix

First virtual meeting a success

It’s November, and what changes it brings: the eternal Presidential campaign was finally decided on November 4th, leaves are bringing fall color to the high country, and the air conditioning is permanently off until mid-May. (I hope!) This month included our first virtual meeting of the program year, a great presentation and a real bargain at only $10 per connection (not person). Matt Moran presented the fundamentals of podcasting and showed participants just how easy it can be to create a podcast.

If you missed November’s virtual meeting, plan on attending the February 2009 virtual meeting, when Adobe will be presenting their Technical Communication Suite. Definitely not to be missed!

Murder mystery!

In December, Murder Ink Productions will be presenting a Murder Mystery Dinner. This local production company has excellent reviews and they promise to be a lot of fun. We are extending the Bring a Guest pricing to any member who would like to bring a spouse or guest. Keep an eye on our website and in your email for further information.

Bringing value to you

In these trying economic times, the leadership of STC Phoenix has decided to invest in its membership. We encourage you to participate in meetings, the Member Benefit program, and the exciting workshops we have scheduled for January and April. Geoff Hart’s October workshop, “Designing Documents People Want to Read”, was excellent. Those who didn’t take advantage of the low price really missed out on good information, excellent discussion, and a great lunch. Read one member’s review for a thorough evaluation of the day.

This program year STC Phoenix is investing in its membership by:

• Providing networking opportunities at program meetings.
• Bringing in nationally known speakers with interesting and exciting presentations.
• Scheduling low-cost professional growth workshops.
• Keeping costs down for program meetings, virtual meetings, and workshops.
• Facilitating membership growth through the Membership Incentive Program.
• Asking the membership what they need and trying to provide it.

Kudos to PAO volunteers

A big THANKS to those who participated in the Publications, Art, and Online Competition. Although the number of entries was considerably lower than previous years (a nationwide effect of the economy), we are pleased to offer the opportunity to STC members and non-members to put their work up for peer review.

Please think about it…

A final thought: five CMAC positions will be open at the end of this program year: Vice President, Membership, Secretary, Programs, and Public Relations. I’m not asking for commitments right now, but please think about how you can contribute to your chapter.

In the mean time, see you in December at the Murder Mystery Dinner!

by Bryce A. Walat

Bryce, President of the Pittsburgh Chapter, reminds us of the very real value of STC membership.

Recently, I’ve heard other STC members talking about the economy, especially the rising cost of fuel, food, health care, and other necessities, and the falling value of their homes and investments. For some STC members, their membership in STC is a prime candidate for an “extra” item to cut from their personal or professional budgets. You may be thinking about not renewing your membership in STC when it expires, or if you aren’t a current member, you may be having second thoughts about joining STC. If you still plan to renew or join STC, you may also be thinking about cutting back on meetings or events.

Before you decide not to renew or join STC, or skip a meeting you’d like to attend, I’d like to ask you this question: Over your lifetime, what is your most valuable and biggest asset?

• Your home
• Your education
• Your career
• Your retirement plan

Answer: Your career is your biggest and most important asset. Your career gives you the income to get the necessities of life, such as food, clothing, and shelter, and also to get an education, real estate, a retirement plan, and other investments and assets. When you think about how much of your time every day you spend working and how much of your lifetime is spent working, you can see why your career is so important. That’s why it’s important to manage your career well.

How STC helps

STC helps you manage your career by helping you to:

• Launch your technical communication career or transition into a technical communication career
• Learn new skills and enhance existing ones
• Find opportunities to network with fellow technical communication professionals
• Find a new job or a better job
• Launch an independent technical communication career
• Find help when you need it
• Improve your “soft” skills, such as public speaking or team-building skills

The cost of STC membership is “chump change” compared to the value it adds to your career. For example, STC’s free or low-cost articles, seminars, and conferences give you knowledge and skills to not only keep up with changes in the fast-paced technical communication field, but also get ready for the technical communication jobs of the future.

On a personal note, I’ve now been through four “career transitions” in my eight years as a technical communicator. In some cases, they occurred because of circumstances beyond my control, such as economic conditions; in others, there were things that I could have done or not done that might have led to a different outcome. In every case, I found STC to be a helpful resource to manage these transitions. STC proved valuable as a go-to for technical communication job leads, ways to improve my technical and interpersonal skills, and just to know that I wasn’t alone in my career transition. STC Pittsburgh’s WorkQuest was, as the MasterCard slogan goes, priceless. Also, in every case, employers and potential employers noticed my membership in STC on my resume, and some even knew of me from STC.

I wrote this article to explain how STC helped me and why I joined the organization. As President of STC Pittsburgh, part of my job is promoting the chapter and the Society. I hope that I have made a case that STC is more important to your career in times like these.

Special note to prospective new members

If you join in November, you will receive two months free, because membership will begin immediately and will not expire until the end of 2009.

Need a local perspective?

If you would like to hear from a local member, read Shelly Duncan’s review of the October Workshop – Five Stars!

Questions?

If you have questions, contact your chapter officers or ask the members. Or, feel free to send me an email.

Join/renew now!

Visit stc.org to join or renew.

by Gloria McConnell, Managing Editor

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 has brought an almost ridiculous explosion of online tools for producing and sharing content on the Web – with one or as many people as you like. This should not come as a surprise, because that’s what Web 2.0 is about, after all – users creating web content and sharing it. For a more thorough discussion, refer to the Web 2.0 article on Wikipedia.

Among the latest tools/sites available are Twitter and Jing. Not familiar with them? Following is a brief introduction.

Twittering

Twitter is for microblogging. That’s right – micro = tiny, blogging = sharing your thoughts. It’s a free service that allows users to send small text-based messages (up to 140 characters) using any of several means:

• the Twitter website,
• cell phone text messaging (or any device that uses the SMS – Short Message Service – communications protocol),
• instant messaging (such as Yahoo Messenger or Google Talk), or
• a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.

Twitter says that its purpose is to allow “friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: ‘What are you doing?’” Think of it as an intermediate stop between email and instant messaging. For a good introduction, see the Twitter video – click Watch a video! on www.twitter.com.

Who uses Twitter? By some accounts there are a million Twitter users around the world. One Twitter user is National Public Radio’s Planet Money. See their Twitter “conversations” at twitter.com/planetmoney.

Does it seem like Twitter is a total waste of time? You be the judge. But, beyond finding out what’s going on with your friends, following are some more reasons Twitter might be useful:

• Follow “thought leaders” in your field
• Follow groups, events and conferences
• Get the news – in a very condensed fashion (BBC, NYT)
• Monitor trends
• Drive followers to your content
• Let people know you’ve been arrested in a foreign country – really! CNN reports that a U.S. college student used Twitter to alert friends and relatives about his plight.

Jing – simple, quick, free screencasting

Screencasting? It’s the process of creating a digital video of screen captures and your actions on the screen. TechSmith (the producers of Camtasia and SnagIt) brings us Jing, and the special part of Jing is that it is incredibly easy to use. You can create a screencast with or without audio, or capture individual screens. When you have finished your screencast, you can upload it to the Jing, Flickr, or FTP site or save it as a file, and share it. The Jing application is installed from the site, www.jingproject.com. It also requires and installs .NET 3.0, if needed. This installation can take a few minutes.

Jing is incredibly easy to use. I installed it and was able to use it almost instantly. The biggest challenge you will find with Jing is in planning. If the final video is for any professional purpose, a good needs analysis, storyboards, and script will help ensure that you have a good result. You may have an informal need, however. Perhaps you just want to demonstrate a particular usability issue to the software developers with whom you are working. Jing makes it simple to do.

For a very nice explanation of Jing’s value, see Tom Johnson’s article, How Jing Can Benefit Technical Writers.

Have you considered starting your own technical communication (or any) business, but stopped short because the prospect seemed daunting? Never fear, for a webinar is now available from the STC Consulting & Independent Contracting Special Interest Group (CIC SIG) that will answer many common questions, such as:

• How do I choose a business entity?
• What about employment contracts?
• Do I register my trademark?
• How do I protect my intellectual property on the Internet?

This very informative and entertaining webinar was hosted by attorney and STC Fellow Christopher Juillet last April. Chris has written numerous publications and articles on a variety of communication, computer, and legal topics. He has also presented on a wide variety of subjects, including cyberlaw, estate planning, small business law and independent consulting.

You can purchase the PowerPoint and audio files from the CIC SIG Webinar page. The cost for both files is $35.00 for CIC SIG members and $50 for non-members.

Also available on the SIG’s webinar page is a webinar on five winning strategies to build a thriving business.

by Shelly Duncan, Chapter Treasurer

Shelly attended the October workshop sponsored by the Phoenix Chapter, held at the Phoenix Hilton, and conducted by STC Fellow Geoff Hart. Following is her review of the day.

Getting started

Her name is Thelma, and she is a 65-year-old woman eager to use her new cell phone to communicate with friends and family, but slightly uncomfortable with new technology. She uses her phone to get directions from her daughter, to call the AAA (American Automobile Association) when she has a flat tire, and to let everyone know about the great sale on asparagus. Thelma is a persona created for a cell phone user guide as part of a group exercise in Geoff Hart’s “Designing documents that people really read and use” workshop.

This excellent workshop was described as a “whirlwind tour of information design.” In keeping with that description, Hart whisked from task and audience analysis to the writing and organization of content and on to the effective use of layout and graphics. With each topic worthy of its own workshop, Hart highlighted the key concepts, punctuating the discussion with specific examples from his own experience. Then, to reinforce the lessons and translate theory into practice, each workshop topic was followed by a brainstorming session and a group breakout exercise.

Creating personas

In Part 1 of the workshop, Hart stressed the importance of avoiding stereotypes when creating personas. He also recommended persistent reevaluation of your target audience because a document’s users and their goals change over time. For example, the class discussed older people as a viable target audience for more ergonomic cell phones and how those users might differ from other users and the impact to a user guide.

Reader behavior

After learning about users and their goals, we moved on to Part 2 of the workshop, which covered how readers read. Hart discussed research findings about typical reader behavior, including information from Karen Schriver’s Dynamics in Document Design. Generalizing knowledge is a common reader behavior in which a reader, after learning to perform a specific task, generalizes that knowledge and uses it to perform other tasks. In our breakout session, we discussed how learning to add contacts to a cell phone would help a user with the task of sending a text message and how that could impact the document design. Hart also described some easy and efficient ways to perform document usability testing, which could be as informal as showing co-workers different versions of a document and getting their reactions.

Visual design

Part 3, “Understanding how viewers view,” provided an overview of the effective use of graphics and white space in documents. Hart showed us an image of a user interface and asked us to define functional groups (white space, color, pattern, lines, etc.) to illustrate how users interpret visual cues to gain information. Hart went on to explain the idea of “degrees of abstraction” in which different levels of detail or abstraction can be used to convey the appropriate information. In the breakout session each group created a graphic image of a cell phone to emphasize specific cell phone features.

Conclusion – An A+ event

Hart concluded the workshop by tying all the parts together and leaving us with the final message that understanding how readers read, why readers read and even where readers read should drive the document design.

Like many of you, I’m an experienced technical communicator, so none of the topics were entirely new to me. I still, however, gained knowledge, insight and a lot of inspiration from the workshop. For example, I was familiar with general reader behavior, but not specifically with the idea of “generalizing knowledge.” I also learned practical and specific tips for creating graphics, which I’ve since used to simplify a complex network diagram.

Also like many of you, I have to pay for my own training. In the past, STC has presented several workshops on topics I was very interested in, but chose not to attend because of cost. I instead bought books on the subject — most of which I still haven’t read. Actually, I own Shriver’s Dynamics in Document Design — I’ve read it more in the past five days than in the past five years. So for less than a $100, I received a full day of hands-on training from a well-respected professional, continental breakfast, an amazing buffet lunch, camaraderie and interaction with other colleagues AND a giant dose of professional motivation. That’s not a value — that’s a steal.

About Geoff Hart

Geoff Hart is an STC Fellow with more than 20 years of experience as a writer, editor, information designer, and French translator. He has published more than 300 articles, most available via his Web site (www.geoff-hart.com), as well as the book Effective Onscreen Editing.

Although some may say that the Latin language is dead, Latin is still used in certain types of writing, particularly in the scholarly, legal, and medical fields. And American business documents are peppered with Latin abbreviations and terms that just won’t die — i.e., e.g., via, and etc. are some of the most common.

This seemingly innocuous shorthand should not be used in technical documentation, however. It is particularly bad for machine translations, as discussed in Babel Not: Machine Translation for the Technical Communicator by Sandra Bologna. She explains that these abbreviations do not always have equivalents in different languages, and machine translations do not always recognize abbreviations, in which case they are left untranslated.

What to do? Avoid these terms altogether. Common Latin terms/abbreviations include:

• e.g – exempli gratia: “for example,” “for instance,” or “such as”
• et. al. – et alii, et alia: “and others”
• etc. – et cetera: “and so on,” “and so forth”
• i.e. – id est: “that is” or “in other words”
• via — “by way of”
• viz. — videlicet: “namely”
• vs. or v. — versus: “against”

Test yourself

Rewrite each of the following sentences to eliminate the Latin term or abbreviation. The best solution may be to use something other than the definitions given above, particularly because the terms may not have been used correctly (these examples were taken from published documents). You may find the same to be true.

1. This approach leads to a system in which each functional application (e.g., Microsoft Word) is not contained in a single software component.
2. The report can include downtime by machine, shift, part, operator, etc.
3. Complete the following steps to change a running configuration (i.e., perform online edits).
4. The configuration database is accessed via the main console.
5. The main point of this exercise, viz. that there is a better way to configure the data, will be demonstrated next.
6. The PROD_INFO string provides information about the functional level of the product (Standard vs. Professional, for example).

Possible solutions

1. This approach leads to a system in which each functional application (for example, Microsoft Word) is not contained in a single software component.
2. The report can include downtime resulting from a variety of problems such as machine, shift, part, or operator failures.
3. Complete the following steps to change a running configuration (that is, perform online edits).
4. Use the main console to access the configuration database.
5. The main point of this exercise, namely that there is a better way to configure the data, will be demonstrated next.
6. The PROD_INFO string provides information about the functional level of the product (for example, whether it is Standard or Professional).

Our new chapter website has several features reserved for members. You will have access to these features when you register (create a user name and password).

Registration guidelines

• For your user name, use your own name, first and last, without a space. For example, MarySmith. This naming convention allows membership status to be verified.
• Use any password you like. A strong password is recommended; see Microsoft’s discussion of strong passwords if needed.

The Rough Draft wishes everyone a wonderful holiday this week. Please enjoy Thanksgiving and remember the reason for the celebration. Despite all of the woes in the world today, we all have something to be thankful for. Take a cue from Gladys, and focus on the many positives in your life.

“Who is Gladys?” you ask. The late Gladys Kennedy lived to be over 105 years old. She lived life to the fullest and was a kind, generous soul. When Gladys was “only” in her 90′s, she wrote a Thanksgiving letter to her friends and family, thanking them all for being part of her life and recounting her many blessings. For this and many other reasons, she will always be my hero. I encourage you to be like Gladys this Thanksgiving Day. Tell those in your life just how important they are to you.

We hope that you enjoy this issue of the Rough Draft. The articles are listed below and also in the menu in the right corner of each page.