Have any BIG ideas? STC-SWO needs them BIG time.

The Old State of STC-SWO

The chapter is at a crossroads. Here are a few facts:

• Chapter membership numbers are down.
• Chapter leadership positions are becoming and remaining vacant. (The Vice-President’s slot has been unoccupied for more than two years.)
• Current chapter volunteers are getting burned out. (The positions of Treasurer and Program Committee–typically filled by at least three people) are being performed by one hard-working volunteer.)
• The chapter currently has no one in line to become President for 2010-2011. (Our current president has served for two years already.)

Now, to live up to our publication name, let’s read between the lines of that list and articulate what is implied but not expressed on the surface.

Technical communicators in Cincinnati and Dayton are about to lose one of the potentially most powerful and seriously underused resources available to them in the Tristate area.

Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. (Seth Godin)

A New State of Synergy

So here’s the deal.

• You’re an active technical communicator in a recovering economy. You need a vibrant network of local contacts, resources, and mentors to maintain your employment status and advance your career. You need a growing and doing professional society.
• STC-SWO is an active chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. SWO needs brilliant, innovative thinkers, channeled energy, and effective management. SWO needs you and your ideas.

So let us have them. What would you like to see happen in your professional society? What projects, what programs, what training, what perks would benefit you and your career? Send your ideas to us…and remember the story of the little red hen. The only sure way to implement any good idea is to do it yourself.

Can you say “I will?” Will you volunteer to help lead SWO into the new decade?

The 2010 Society election will begin 9 March and end 8 April 2010 at noon EDT. The current election slate  reflects the following changes to the composition of the Society Board of Directors:

• The Second Vice President position and one Director position have  been eliminated.
• The Director term is now two years.
• Directors may now serve two consecutive terms.

Please remember that all STC members must have paid their dues by 28 February 2010 to vote in the election!

• For President: Mike Hughes will automatically succeed from First Vice President.
• For First Vice President: Hillary Hart will automatically succeed from Second Vice President.

Candidates on the slate for the 2010 STC election are:

• For Secretary:
  • Rachel Houghton
  • Steven Jong
• For Director (three positions are to be elected; Lisa Pappas resigned from the STC Board effective 23 November 2009, which creates an additional position for someone to serve the one year remaining in her term. For the 2010 election, STC members will elect three directors-at-large, with the top two winners serving the two-year terms and the third winner serving the remaining year of Lisa’s term.):
  • Nicky Bleiel
  • Al Hood
  • Tricia Spayer
  • Makarand (Mak) Pandit
  • W.C. Wiese
• For Nominating Committee (two positions to be elected):
  • Lory Hawkes
  • Nathaniel Lim
  • Linda Mikkelsen
  • Preeti Mathur

On Saturday, March 13, 2010, STC-SWO will present Planning and Implementing Minimalist Documentation for Maximum Return-on-Investment, led by Alan Houser, Group Wellesley, Inc.  The all-day (8:30 am – 4:00 pm) workshop will be held at Cincinnati State Community and Technical College.

Creating minimalist documentation is more than just reducing the word count. Minimalist documentation focuses on developing and writing content that meets users’ needs. Other benefits of minimalist documentation include:

• Effectively addresses different learning styles
• Improves the usability of the documentation
• Reduces production and translation costs
• Maximizes content reusability

If you are a technical communicator, an IT professional, a communication manager—or anyone else interested in maximizing the benefits and the competitive advantage of documentation materials—this full-day workshop will provide information you need to design the most effective explanations and instructions for your customers, so they can use your products.

This workshop introduces you to minimalism and offers information on best practices and technologies, such as:

• User personas
• Task analysis
• Information typing
• DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) as an example of minimalist documentation

Here’s what you will learn:

• The motivation for minimalism: Why do it, based on how users use documentation
• How to design technical documentation with users in mind
• How to determine appropriate documentation coverage for your product or service
• How to perform a user and task analysis: your roadmap for documentation coverage
• How to define documentation structure and organization
• How to write minimalist content
• Strategies for adopting a minimalist documentation approach in your organization

Alan Houser, president of Group Wellesley, Inc., of Pittsburgh, PA, is a distinguished consultant and trainer in the fields of XML, XML technologies, publishing workflows, and authoring and publishing tools. He holds an M.A. in Professional Writing and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Alan is an Associate Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee, and a popular presenter at technical communication conferences.

This extensive, thorough, and immediately useful full-day workshop, presented by an acknowledged leader in the field, is yours for:

STC Members…………$55.00
Non-members………..$95.00
Students……………….$45.00

A box lunch and beverages are included in the registration fee.

Registrations and payments must be received by March 5, 2010. Make checks payable to STC-SWO Workshop. Send checks to STC-SWO Treasurer, c/o TeichTMC, 8674 Cottonwood Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45231. To pay by PayPal, send funds to treasurer@stc-swo.org

Registrants will receive specific information about the location and directions.

The support of the following sponsors is gratefully acknowledged:
Cincinnati State Community and Technical College

Working in a Use Case or Scenario-based Environment

A Webinar with John Hedtke, STC Fellow

You know topic-based authoring will save you time and effort in your authoring and publishing projects. If you’re working in a use case or scenario development environment, you also know topic-based authoring will make your life easier. But how do you plan these projects? How do you identify what topics are? And how do you plan the other related tasks?

This webinar will show you how to:

• Identify the topics that need documentation from the engineering use cases
• Estimate the authoring time for each topic
• Identify the documentation tasks for each topic
• Plan related graphics
• Create the project schedule
• Deliver results on time and to schedule

Regardless of the tool you use to author and publish, this webinar will help you understand the basics of planning and estimating in this common development environment.

Read more and sign up …

From Journalist to Lone Technical Writer

by Karen Rokich

Q. How did you choose a career in technical communication?

A. I decided to become a writer while I was still in high school in Mason, Ohio. At the time, I knew of only two careers in which people made a living as a writer: novelist and journalist. Being pragmatic and poor, I chose journalism. Then one day, after having worked 13 years as a reporter, editor and columnist for various newspapers in the western United States, I finally heard of the field of technical communications.

Q. That must have been a memorable day. How did you make the discovery?

A. I remember the day very well. I was conferring with a colleague in CompuServe’s Computer-Assisted Journalism Forum. (Yes, it was a long time ago.) A corporate headhunter, who had been following our discussion on how to create political campaign contribution databases for our respective newspapers, sent me an email.

“Have you ever thought about becoming a technical writer?” she asked.

“What’s a technical writer?” I asked.

Thus began the correspondence that launched my second career.

Q. What was your first technical communication job?

A. Thanks to the headhunter, I became the lone technical writer for an industrial equipment manufacturer in Pennsylvania. I quickly learned that my journalistic skills were technical communication skills. I knew how to interview subject matter experts. I knew how to translate their frequently complex and jargon-filled responses into simpler concepts and language. I knew how to present information in a way that the average person could easily understand.
I also learned it didn’t hurt that my hobbies included illustration and photography.

Q. So how has your career evolved since that first techcomm job?

A. Since that day 15 years ago, I have written and illustrated numerous operating and maintenance manuals, technical bulletins, data sheets, white papers, technical articles, parts and equipment catalogs, marketing brochures and web sites. I have developed a technical publications department from scratch, helped oversee the merger of technical publications and marketing departments, and started my own freelance marketing and technical communications business.

Recently, I moved back to Warren County, Ohio, where I continue to produce whatever marketing and technical communications materials my clients need. So far, that has included everything from traditional technical publications and marketing collateral to press releases, trade show plans, technical illustration, animation, photography, web advertising campaigns and entire web sites.

Q. Has STC been part of your career journey?

A. Through it all, STC has helped me keep up with changing technology, add to my skill set, and learn how to set up and operate my own business.

I am still a lone writer. Now, however, I am also a lone illustrator, lone graphic designer, lone animator, lone photographer and lone web designer/content provider. Perhaps that, more than anything, illustrates how the field of technical communications continues to evolve.

This article was originally published in Between the Lines in 2005. However, the rest of the story is still yet to be told. If you can help us eliminate some of the question marks found here or in this article, please send your information to newsletter@stc-swo.org. Thanks!)

STC-SWO is about 55 years old. History has a way of disappearing when it’s not documented, and a good deal of information about the chapter’s founding and early development seems to be unavailable or non-existent. If you know or have access to additional sources of information, please let me know. Unless this becomes a collaborative narrative, it will be woefully incomplete.

Based on interviews with Tom Milligan and archived information from Tom, Mindy Hoffbauer and the late Dart Peterson, here’s what I’ve been able to ferret out so far about the chapter’s earliest days.

• The Soviet Union launched a three-stage rocket carrying a basketball-sized, 183-lb piece of hardware they called Sputnik into low-Earth orbit.
• Bobby Fischer (does anybody remember him?) became a chess champion at the age of 13.
• Dr. Seuss published a strange little book called The Cat in the Hat.
• And two organizations dedicated to improving the practice of technical communication merged to form a group called the Society of Technical Writers and Editors (STWE).

Go Ohio

Ohio must have been a hotbed of techcomm in the mid-1950s; Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton all formed local STWE chapters. According to Dart Peterson, the Dayton “chapter came together among the employees of three tech writing companies in Dayton: Crane and Zimmerman, Dayton Tech Art, and L. E. O’Neil. Some people in Cincinnati were also getting together, as were some in Columbus and some from WPAFB. The gatherings were informal, usually at lunch time in a convenient restaurant.”

One of the Dayton chapter’s “notable achievements,” according to Dart, was the First (and only) All-Ohio Conference on Technical Communications. The Conference, sponsored by the Dayton-Miami Valley Chapter of STWE and cosponsored by the Central Ohio STWE, Cincinnati STWE, and the University of Dayton, was held on September 11-12, 1959. The conference was a great success, with almost 100 registrants (fewer than 20 women!) and about a dozen prominent speakers.

Then and Now

A look at the program shows some of the ways that techcomm conferences have changed since 1959:

Concerns about use of language, management expectations, and the perennial staff vs contractor issues have apparently changed little over the years. But there is no mention of the computer-based tools that 21st century tech writers have grown to love–and hate. No multiple-output discussions, no usability panels. And, of course, the all (even the banquet)-inclusive registration fee in 1959 was $15.

What’s In a Name?

• ? In 1960, the national STWE merged with the Technical Publishing Society to become the Society of Technical Writers and Publishers.
• ? In 1971, the organization’s name was changed to the Society for Technical Communication (STC), and so it remains.

Coming Together

Sometime between 1960 and 1969, the Dayton-Miami Valley chapter and the Cincinnati chapters merged to become Southwestern Ohio.

What Do You Know?

Readers, if you have (or know someone who has) additional information about the chapter’s earliest days, please let us know. For example:

• Who was the first president of the Dayton chapter? Of the Cincinnati chapter?
• Exactly when did the merger occur?
• Are copies of newsletters, Admin Council meeting minutes, program schedules, etc. available for the 50s and 60s?

Next in the Series (hopefully): STC-SWO: The Teen Years (1970-1980)

by Ben Kauffman (reprinted with permission)

In this wired, impatient world, our careers may depend on the ability to deliver minimalist documentation. The benefits are threefold: better readability, lower translation and printing costs, and easier reuse.

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
—William Strunk, Jr.

In the Beginning

Perhaps the first bit of technical documentation on record was a short life manual called the “Ten Commandments.” It was so simple and easy to read that many folks still follow it today. “You shall not commit adultery.” Nothing flowery. Second person imperative, active voice—good solid writing.

Over two thousand years later, we need to remember those simple lessons of straightforward language, and return to minimalist documentation. In this wired, impatient world, our careers may depend on it. The benefits are threefold: better readability, lower translation and printing costs, and easier reuse.

As consumers, we despise instructions. With little time and less patience, we ignore directions and warnings as we size up and unpack and attempt to install our new home improvement purchases. “It’s not rocket science,” we say, ever hopefully. And perhaps this is true—if your new product is a toaster. But much of what you and I document is rocket science. It is difficult to understand, and that is why we are paid well to do it.

Unfortunately, our customers are no more excited to read our documentation than you and I are to read up on how to plug in a toaster. And our customers are sometimes right not to be excited.

What good, for instance, is a 500-page field service manual that is too ungainly for a service technician to carry in the field? As much as novels and films must be edited, so too must documentation. Part of our problem lies with the fact that, as William Strunk, Jr. writes, “A common way to fall into wordiness is to present a single complex idea, step by step . . . ” (Strunk 24). Of course, that’s exactly what we do every day—so we have to be extra vigilant.

Further, we default toward over-writing due to the amount of time we have invested in each manual, painstakingly translating engineer-speak. Perhaps we’re proud of our work, and want to give the reader more bang for their buck. But remember, customers spend their bucks on the product, not the documentation, and any time spent reading documentation is time spent not using the product.

Writers and editors alike must do more than simply proofread, and check grammar and readability (i.e. Does this make sense?), we have to answer the reader’s questions as quickly as possible.

We understand, in the world of fiction writing for instance, that it may require writing three pages to whittle down one good one. It’s silly to think tech writing is so different from “regular” writing to the point where every word is necessary. Writers must be more judicious, and edit themselves. If they are unable to do so, then editors must.

Faulkner v. Hemingway

Let’s take the argument out of the realm of technical documentation for a moment, and grossly oversimplify. There are two types of writers. The first type of writer is William Faulkner.

Faulkner writes beautiful flowing lovely lilting prose. Adores words. The more the better, and the more flowery the better. Sentences become paragraphs become pages. If Faulkner had been paid by the word, he might have written only one book.

Consider the following passage from the beginning of Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom:

From a little after two o’clock until almost sundown of the long still hot weary dead September afternoon they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father had called it that—a dim hot airless room with the blinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers because when she was a girl someone had believed that light and moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler, and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side of the house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes which Quentin thought of as being flecks of the dead old dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blinds as wind might have blown them. There was a wisteria vine blooming for the second time that summer on a wooden trellis before one window, into which sparrows came now and then in random gusts, making a dry vivid dusty sound before going away: and opposite Quentin, Miss Coldfield in the eternal black which she had worn for forty-three years now, whether for sister, father or nothusband none knew, sitting so bolt upright in the straight hard chair that was so tall for her that her legs hung straight and rigid as if she had iron shinbones and ankles, clear of the floor with that air of impotent and static rage like children’s feet, and talking in that grim
haggard amazed voice until at last listening would renege and hearing-sense self-confound and the longdead object of her impotent yet ndomitable frustration would appear, as though by outraged recapitulation evoked, quiet inattentive and harmless, out of the biding and dreamy and victorious dust (Faulkner 1).

This is epic southern fiction, yes; unfortunately, no one gets paid by the word to read it. You may even have seen the block quote coming, and skipped right over it. I don’t blame you. In fact, if you did skip it, you’ve proven my point—readers don’t like to read.

We have more patience when hearing someone tell a story than when reading it. Cut to the chase, we say. That leads us to the next type of writer—Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway gives us just the facts. The man was tired. The boy was excited. The tuna was enormous. Beautiful documentation.

That said, let’s take another look at Faulkner’s passage, above. But let’s give Hemingway’s ghost the power to edit Faulkner. No more adjectives; Hemingway, like a good movie director, would focus on the action, and shred the section to its absolute core: “They sat in the office. Opposite Quentin, Miss Coldfield sat, talking.” We lose the back-story, yes, and some development of themes, but in terms of technical writing, the edited version is obviously much better.

Hemingway was nothing if not discerning. He knew what to leave out. Or as George Orwell wrote in his essay “Politics of the English Language,” “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out” (Orwell 383). To which I would respond, “If it is possible to cut a word, cut it.”

The Benefits

Minimalist documentation is certainly more user-friendly,  but there are more tangible benefits as well, like cutting printing costs. On-demand techniques such as docutech and direct-to-plate printing can help lower costs, and being able to deliver PDF or HTML files can save you bundles, but the bottom line if you have to ship hard copy is that you pay for pages. Fewer pages equals lower costs.

The most palpable savings, though, are in translation costs, which can run anywhere from thirty to forty cents per word. Cutting words, phrases, sentences,  sections can add up to big money. I used to work for a company that was required to translate user manuals to all eleven European Union languages, plus  Japanese. Because of this, I often performed what our translators then called a “volume reduction edit,” in which I strived to cut the text by 15 to 25%. In terms of  a 350-page user manual, our savings on translations for one volume reduction edit alone could equal a dollar figure close to my yearly salary—an argument that can easily justify a raise, come performance review time.

So, how to start? With an eye toward efficient, minimalist documentation, edit from large scale to small:

• Cut unnecessary introductory sections, and sections that review self-evident features. Often, just a glance through the table of contents can help you quickly identify some of these problem spots.
• Use simple, concise wording. Don’t write two sentences to explain something you should be able to explain in one.
• Cut empty words and phrases like “there are.” Instead of “There are three steps to installing the system,” use “Install the system as follows.” And change “Install the diskette that is labeled Disc 1” to “Install the diskette labeled Disc 1,” or better yet, “Install Disc 1.”

One caveat: never sacrifice clarity for brevity. Generally, you can achieve both, but just as the writer’s first thought is not always the best, nor is the editor’s, and so it takes time.

Back in 1946, Orwell could see that writing “consists less and less of words chosen for . . . their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house” (Orwell 375). Documentation is all about meaning, and so we must force ourselves not to settle on the first, often prefab, words that pop into our heads, but to uncover the best words.

In addition to saving on translation, the benefits of minimalism extend to reuse. As our documentation becomes “content,” and technology reduces that content to the size of one’s palm, we need to choose our words more carefully. We shouldn’t burn our Faulkner, and documentation should not become Gregg shorthand, but clearly, shorter is better.

So keep it simple. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes, and do the front-end work necessary to save everyone time and money. Remember the- um- eleventh  commandment: You shall not commit verbosity.

(Ben Kauffman is Technical Publications Manager at Cadence Design Systems.)

Lory Hawkes

This is the candidate’s answer to the following question (reprinted from Lory Hawkes: Questions & Answers) :
Provide an example of a time when you had to keep from speaking or making a decision because you did not have enough information.

I use more deliberation than speedy calculation when determining a fair grade for good students who suddenly miss classes. By listening to why the students have missed class rather than rushing to record a poor grade, I gain a better understanding of why they are not performing to their full potential. In cases of extenuating circumstances, I can allow them to make up the work.

Nathaniel Lim

This is the candidate’s answer to the following question (reprinted from Nathaniel Lim: Questions & Answers) :
Provide an example of a time when you had to keep from speaking or making a decision because you did not have enough information.

I live in a townhouse with three other units. One homeowner found evidence of termites. After a few meetings and a few bids from exterminators, we decided to fumigate the building, but could not decide on an exterminator. The bids all seemed about the same. I suggested we hold off until we got references, so the other homeowners left it to me to get them. When I contacted them, only one responded with strong references. Thus, we accepted that bid. The other homeowners “patted me on the back” for waiting and getting more information.

Read Nathaniel’s BTL article…

Preeti Mathur

This is the candidate’s answer to the following question (reprinted from Preeti Mathur:  Questions & Answers:
Provide an example of a time when you had to keep from speaking or making a decision because you did not have enough information.

When I was a board member of another association, there was an instance when an organization with religious affiliation tried to have my association sponsor a talk that they were organizing. We learned rather late from another board member that the speaker was known to create controversy, and it was not in the best interest of a secular organization like ours to be associated with him or the event. As the event was on the following day and I had not checked out the facts for myself, I abstained from casting my vote.

Although this is not easy for me to do because I trust too easily, this incident taught me not to expect anything on face value—some people have hidden agendas.

Linda Mikkelson

This is the candidate’s answer to the following question (reprinted from Linda Mikkelsen: Questions & Answers:
Provide an example of a time when you had to keep from speaking or making a decision because you did not have enough information.

Throughout my tenure as president of STC Twin Cities, I chose to defer decisions or not speak whenever I felt that I did not have complete information. I created a “next meeting issues” list that required research prior to our next council meeting. Each meeting, we chose to address those issues first and then move to other business. This strategy serves me well even now, especially when answering member questions about Society direction and recent decisions. If I don’t know the specific answer to a question, I feel free to say, “Let me gather some more information and get back to you about that.” People respect that and know they will get an answer that is correct and reasoned.

Read more about all of the Nominating Committee candidates…

Help Me Enhance the Technical Communication Profession

by Nathaniel Lim
When you tell your friends and family that you are a technical writer, what is their reaction? To me, they say that it sounds like an important job and probably isn’t easy. When I tell them I write online help as part of my job, they often tell me that Help does not help. Unfortunately, this is sad but true. People get frustrated when they read poorly written documents and cannot find the information they need.
This is why I am running for STC Nominating Committee. I want to make a difference. From here, I could tell you my interesting biography, awards I’ve received, impressive accomplishments, extensive work history, decision-making process, and reasons for running. But, that is all in my candidate statement on the STC website. Here is the stuff I could not include:

• Reliable: I strongly believe in accountability and follow through. If I say I will do something, I make sure it gets done (or tell people early enough in the process if I cannot do it, so we can go to plan B). I also believe in following directions and meeting deadlines. At the same time, if I don’t understand the process or don’t believe that the rule applies, I will ask questions until I am satisfied that this is the best way to go about it.

• Critical Thinker: When I was a lead judge for the STC international tech pubs competition, a new procedure came into effect that required writing at least 24 comments on the judging form. Thinking that this would be too numerous, I inquired to find that this was not a hard and fast rule. The spirit of the procedure was to ensure that submitters received sufficient written comments and not just numbered ratings. Thus, I wrote critiques to help the submitters, not always conforming to the rule.

• Innovator: My company recently started translating documents into several foreign languages. My manager gave me the task of creating a new procedure for labeling them, putting them through the approval process, and posting them on our website for customers to download. Tracking and classifying over a hundred documents with different versions and languages could potentially fall into disarray. I was careful to think things through before taking action. I asked appropriate personnel for their input and drafted a formal procedure. Management approved. Although the procedure continues to get revised even to this day, I am proud that I was part of the first effort to formalize it.

You can also get to know me at LinkedIn and Facebook (search nathaniel lim impac).
Starting March 9, please take a minute to cast your vote for Nathaniel Lim. I would be grateful for your vote for Nominating Committee.

Read more about Nathniel Lim…

Continuing the Momentum

by Nicky Bleiel

I am currently serving on the Society for Technical Communication Board of Directors and am running for another two-year term as a Director-At-Large.

My past two years on the Board have been interesting, challenging, and important. Interesting because I have learned a great deal, challenging because of the hurdles we faced, and important because the Society is at a critical juncture.

“Change” has been a hallmark of the last year, and STC has been no different. We have made many changes to the way we have always done things. We made difficult decisions and took difficult actions, all with the intent to strengthen the Society. We made no decisions without careful deliberation and research. So far, those choices have had the intended effect. But there is still work to be done.

I would like to continue to serve as a Director so that I can see a number of initiatives through and continue the momentum. Specifically, I want to continue work on creating additional revenue sources for the Society (such as Summit@aClick, new educational opportunities, Amazon and Café Press merchandise sales), helping members in need (for example, Job Seeker Bootcamp and Member Recovery Packages), adding more member value (for example, STC’s Notebook blog, the new Member Logo program), and further enhancing the Recognitions program.

In addition to my Board experience, my STC experience includes five years as a chapter leader (including President of the Pittsburgh Chapter), a competitions judge, a conference and webinar speaker, and a regional conference planner. I have 15 years of experience as a technical communicator in the software industry. I am heavily involved in the profession, and am a frequent speaker at many conferences, including STC, WritersUA, tcworld, LavaCon, and DocTrain. I have written articles for Intercom, tcworld, TechCom Manager, and more.  My areas of expertise include embedded help, tools and technologies, user assistance design, single sourcing, wikis, Web 2.0, and convergence technical communication.

To learn more about me, please see my website: http://www.nickybleiel.com/. It includes my biography; a list of recommendations from members; a list of my presentations, articles, and podcasts; and a rundown of my service to STC over the years.

Here are just a few of the recommendations I’ve received from members:

I wholeheartedly endorse Nicky for a second term as member of the STC Board of Directors. In addition to being an effective technical communicator, Nicky understands the challenges that the profession and the Society need to address. STC membership will benefit greatly from her contributions.”
Sarah O’Keefe
President, Scriptorium Publishing Services
STC Associate Fellow

“Over the past three years, I have witnessed Nicky’s strength and excellence on the STC Board of Directors. She cares about STC, knows when to make the hard decisions, and always looks at problems from as many perspectives as possible to find the “truth” of the matter.  I’m convinced that the STC BoD is stronger and more successful because of Nicky’s presence.”
Linda Oestreich
Manager, SSM Documentation, Hewlett-Packard
STC Fellow and Past President

Please vote for me when you receive your ballot. Polls open March 9. (Reminder: you must renew your membership by Feb. 28th to be eligible to vote.)
Thank you.

Read more about Nicky Bleiel…