The Call for Entries for this year’s local competitions has been issued. Entries are being solicited for all three competitions: Publications, Art, and Online.

The entry forms, submittal instructions, and detailed information on this year’s competitions are now available on our website.

These competitions are open to all technical communication professionals; you do not have to be a member of STC to participate. Competitions have two tiers: local (chapter) and international (Society-wide) level. An entry must win an award of Distinguished Technical Communication at the local level to qualify for submission to STC’s international competition. Many, but not all chapters hold professional competitions in the fall.

The managers of this year’s competitions are Roberta Davidson and Debra Duane. For more information, contact pao@stc-phoenix.com. Information on the competitions is also available from the STC International website.

We will have another fixed price menu for this event that provides your dinner and a non-alcoholic beverage. Other beverages are available for additional cost.

Come join us for a lively evening of conversation and networking. We’d love to see you there!

Dinner options (choose at the restaurant):

• Baked lasagna: layers of noodles, marinara sauce, ground beef and pork
  and four kinds of cheeses for $15.00
• Chicken Caesar salad for $15.00
• Spaghetti with marinara sauce (no meat) for $11.00

What’s included:

• Fresh baked bread, soup or a green salad
• Your choice of coffee, hot tea, iced tea or milk
• Spumoni ice cream for desert
• Tax and gratuity

Cash only at the restaurant, please!

Meeting Location

Old Spaghetti Factory
1418 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix
Directions

Meeting Details

Date: Tuesday August 12, 2008.

Time: Networking 5:30, Dinner 6:00 p.m. No program.

Registration Deadline: Saturday, August 9, 2008

Registration

Click here to register.

Dinner: your choice of hamburger, cheeseburger, garden burger or a chicken sandwich with a side dish (fries, coleslaw, kettle chips, cottage cheese, side salad, sauteed veggies or soup ) & a beverage.

Cost: $15 includes your meal, tax and gratuity.

Location:
Half Moon Sports Grill
2121 East Highland Ave, Phoenix [ map and directions ]

Date:
Tuesday, July 8, 2008.

Registration Information
Cost: $15, cash only at the restaurant, please!
Time: Networking and Registration 5:30, Dinner 6:00 p.m. No program.

Deadline: Thursday, July 3, 2008
Register: To register by e-mail, please click here.

NOTE: This is a secured building and requires key-card access. Someone should be at the door to let you in. If not, please call Dana Osborne’s cell at 602-717-1478.

From Cotton Center Blvd, turn south into the parking lot. Building 1 is the first building you’ll see actually facing on to Cotton Center Blvd. Building 2 is behind.
schaller-map

Archived editions of Rough Draft can be found on our Newsletters page.

Join us on June 10, 2008, to enjoy perspectives of this year’s conference from an experienced conference goer and a newbie. Tom Barnett has attended conferences every year for “quite a few” years during his tenure with STC. Karen Zorn has never attended one and is looking forward to the conference and reporting back to the membership her impressions and views. Both are attending this year’s Technical Communication Summit and will return with differing perspectives of the conference proceedings and associated activities.

Following Tom and Karen’s presentation, there will be opportunity to discuss their perspectives and yours, should you also attend the conference, and we’ll host our annual Awards for the Chapter.

Mark your calendar and plan on joining us for the June 10 STC-Phoenix chapter meeting at the Phoenix Airport Hilton.

About the presenters

Tom Barnett
Tom is a long-time chapter member, STC Fellow, and our primary repository of chapter trivia, history and bylaws. Tom attends the conference every year and will put his personal spin on the proceedings.

Karen Zorn
Our incoming President is a Senior STC member and active member of the Phoenix Chapter since she landed in the Valley of the Sun in 2001. Karen is the owner of ZornTech LLC, a documentation and training company.

Dinner

Meat: Chicken Parmesan with egg noodles and vegetable

Vegetarian: Vegetable Stir Fry: a medly of sautéed vegetables served over rice

All entrees include a tossed green salad, warm rolls and butter,
coffee (regular and decaf), tea, and chef’s selection of dessert.

Location

Airport Hilton, 2435 South 47th Street, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 85034-6410

Registration Information

Cost: $25 for Members, $30 for Non-members, $15 for students,
$10 for program only (includes beverage and dessert)

Time: Networking and Registration 5:30, Dinner 6:00 p.m.
The program starts at 7 p.m.

Deadline: Thursday, June 5, 2008

Register Online
To register online using PayPal, please click here.

Register by E-mail
To register by e-mail, please click here.

For more information, contact Dana Osborne, current chapter president, at president@stc-phoenix.com.

Candidate Bios

President

Karen Zorn - Since joining the STC Phoenix chapter in 2001, Karen has been an active volunteer. Her roles have included mentoring manager, community outreach and food drive coordinator, PAO competition co-manager, Region 5 Conference co-manager, managing editor of the Rough Draft newsletter and, most recently, vice president. Karen has also received the Distinguished Chapter Service Award for her exemplary service and dedication.

Karen is the president of Zorn Technologis, Inc. Her experience includes a broad background in training, instructional design, technical writing, business analysis, and project management.

Secretary

Karen Pasley - Karen has been a member of STC for more than 15 years, having begun her technical communication career in writing for the educational technology industry. Karen has also worked in Phoenix’s semiconductor products, telecommunications, and financial industries. Her ability to connect with end users naturally drew her professional focus to technical training and instructional design.

Karen’s participation in STC has grown over the last 5 years. By networking with active members and officers of the Phoenix Chapter, she has successfully moved from the corporate environment to independent consulting. Because she recognizes the valuable opportunities for learning and networking that the chapter provides, Karen continues to volunteer at the chapter level. Karen is currently chapter secretary and is running for another term.

Membership Manager

Norm Haskett - Norm has lived in Chandler since 1985, when he, his wife, and their two children moved from Orange County, California, where he was an active member in the local STC chapter. For the past year, Norm served as Membership Manager and prior to that served two years as Phoenix Chapter Hospitality Manager. Norm is running for a second term as Memberhip Manager.

Norm has worked as a technical writer at Honeywell, Lucent, and all the major semiconductor companies in the Valley. He currently is a technical writer at Microchip Technology in Chandler.

Program Manager

Maggie Haenel - Maggie is a consultant in project management, instructional design and performance improvement. She has held a variety of development and management positions in training and instructional design during the past 13 years. Employed by Michaels & Associates, Maggie began her career as a public school teacher working with severely language impaired learning disabled children. Her background in education combined with her Master’s studies in instructional design and media provide an invaluable knowledge base and skill set for clients in a broad range of industries.

Maggie is in her fifth year of STC membership and has served her local chapter as education manager for four years and program manager for two years.

The Web landscape has changed considerably in the last several years. Users are no longer passive consumers of information (Web 1.0), but instead are active contributors of content (Web 2.0). They expect to interact and share information, not only with other users, but with project teams and companies.

Although interactive technologies have flourished on the Web, much of the help authoring community remains in the one-way communication model. We treat our users as if they have little or nothing to contribute back.

In this virtual meeting, Tom will discuss six of the most compelling technologies that enable users to become contributors: blogs, wikis, social networks, forums, podcasts/videocasts, and interactive online help. We’ll discuss the pros and cons of each medium and how technical writers can use these technologies to better connect with users.

About Tom Johnson

Tom works as a senior technical writer for a User Education team at an organization in Salt Lake City. He is a versatile writer who, like most tech writers, stumbled into technical writing after working in other fields. Tom previously taught composition at the university level, and then worked as a copywriter. Tom finds that technical writing combines his love for writing, his drive to create, and his fascination with technology. On his Web site, Tom produces podcasts titled “Tech Writer Voices” about the latest trends and practices in the field of technical communication. For the podcasts, he interviews tech writing luminaries or posts recorded STC chapter presentations of interest.

For more about Tom, check out his Web site at http://www.idratherbewriting.com/about/

Registration Information

Cost: $10 (Pay Pal only, please) per person

Time: 6:15 p.m. Arizona time

Deadline: Noon, Monday May 12, 2008

Register Online
To register online using PayPal, please click here.

Archived editions of Rough Draft can be found on our Newsletters page.

Scott will discuss the weaknesses in our current approaches to managing content and content creators and make the case for:

1. The adoption of software tools that can drastically outperform human counterparts.
2. The adoption of controlled vocabularies to help make content less ambiguous and to improve content quality and translation accuracy (and make translation less expensive).
3. Documentation managers to use metrics to make informed, professional business decisions.

Scott will also demonstrate a content quality management tool so you can “see” how these ideas work in practice instead of simply imagining how they might work.

It will be a very valuable evening!

The Content Wrangler will also give away the following free tickets:

• 1 DocTrain West (May 6-9, 2008 in Vancouver - $999)
• 1 DocTrain Life Sciences (June 23-26, 2008 in Indianapolis — $1299)
• 1 DocTrain East (October 28-31, 2008 in Burlington, MA — $999)

You must be present to win, so mark your calendar and plan on joining us for the April 8 STC-Phoenix chapter meeting at the Phoenix Airport Hilton.

About the presenter

Scott Abel is a content management strategist whose strength lies in helping organizations improve the way they author, maintain, and deliver their information assets. Scott’s website, TheContentWrangler.com, is a popular resource for professional communicators who value content as a business asset, worthy of being managed. Contact: scottabel@mac.com or +1 317.466.1840.

Dinner

Meat: Chicken Saltimbocca –prosciutto, mozzarella & port mushroom demi served with garlic mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables.

Vegetarian: Pasta Ojeda — Penne pasta, diced tomatoes, and green onions tossed in a rose vodka and garlic sauce, topped with parmesan cheese.

All entrees include a tossed green salad, warm rolls and butter,
coffee (regular and decaf), tea, and chef’s selection of dessert.

Location

Airport Hilton, 2435 South 47th Street, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 85034-6410

Registration Information

Cost: $25 for Members, $30 for Non-members, $15 for students,
$10 for program only (includes beverage and dessert)

Time: Networking and Registration 5:30, Dinner 6:00 p.m.
The program starts at 7 p.m.

Deadline: Thursday, April 3, 2008

Register Online
To register online using PayPal, please click here.

Register by E-mail
To register by e-mail, please click here.

Click Here to take survey

The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is a professional association that advances the arts and sciences of technical communication. Its 14,000+ members include technical writers, editors, graphic designers, multimedia artists, Web and intranet page information designers, translators and others whose work involves making technical information understandable and available to those who need it.

The Phoenix chapter of the STC is recognized as the hub of technical communication in the Valley of the Sun. At chapter meetings members and non-members alike enhance their technical communication skills, learn about the latest trends and technology in our field, while building professional relationships. Currently our membership stands at 187, a number that compares with last year’s membership.

If you are interested in the benefits that accrue from membership in the Phoenix chapter of the STC but have not yet joined or renewed your membership, please visit www.stc.org/membership.

Norm Haskett,
Phoenix Chapter Membership Manager

Norm Haskett
Phoenix STC Chapter Membership Manager

We have several volunteers (thank you all), but we need more! This is just a one-day commitment, won’t you please join us on Mar. 20th?

2008 AzSEF details

Here is the key information that you need to know to make plans now for AzSEF:

• What: Judging student reports at AzSEF
• When: March 20, 2008
• Time: All day
• Where: Phoenix Convention Center

Activity overview

If this volunteer opportunity is new to you, then the following information should bring you ‘up to speed’:

• The science fair is for students in grades 5-12.
• We judge student reports and award cash prizes for the best reports.
• With so many entries this year, we will select a subset of entries to judge. (We will decide the subset at a later time.)
• Past volunteers describe this activity as fun, rewarding, and just a great way to encourage today’s youth. It’s a wonderful way to volunteer for STC without a large time commitment.

Please email azsef@stc-phoenix.com as soon as possible with a pledge to volunteer for AzSEF! Include your shirt size (S, M, L, XL, XXL, although shirts are not assured if notice is received after 2/10.) Thanks very much.