by Judith Harper

It's that time of year again! Late-winter crocus opened for early-spring masses of brilliant daffodils. The stage is set for glorious tulips and majestic irises to make their appearance. Who wants to sit in front of a LCD screen and crank out page after page (or even screen after screen) of documentation? Such an indoor, pale and sickly 98-pound weakling kind of word…

We, however, are technical communicators. Talented. Disciplined. Creative. Focused. Whether we are writers, editors, information architects, usability experts, user interface designers, artists, or instructional designers, we are responsible for better living through communication.

• We create instructions that sparkle with clarity.
• We turn complex and confusing process descriptions into model paragraphs of lucid, easy-to-understand and even interesting explanation.
• We make customers happier with their products, employees more productive with their tools, and technical marketers more persuasive, period.

Let's make this last month of spring the time of year when we think about why we do what we do and focus on ways to do it better.

Question of the Month

• What have you done recently that made life better for your employer, for a client, or for yourself? (The focus is on activities and accomplishments related to technical communication, but if you have an inspiring life story to tell, we'll take it!)

Share your answers via the comments section of this article.

What's In This Issue?

• The May meeting
  This month we're recognizing the SWO community's volunteers and taking a look at one of the area's largest employers of technical writers - O'Neil and Associates. Join us at their state-of-the-art facility for free pizza and lots of good networking.
• Calling All Verbivores
  For a quick look into the mind of an experienced technical communicator, check out this column written by Harold Fox. It's a treasure trove for word lovers.
• Past Meeting Topics
  For those of you who missed the last two meetings, find out what went on in March and April.
• Chapter and Society News
  Keep up-to-date with what's happening in Southwestern Ohio and at the international level:
  • SWO Member Profile
  • Society Election Results
  • High School Competition Winner
  • Don't Miss the Technical Summit

See you at the May meeting!

On Thursday, May 22^nd, please join us for our final meeting of the year (and some free pizza!) just off I-75 in south Dayton.

O’Neil and Associates has graciously offered to host our May meeting AND provide pizza and beverage at no cost to attendees. Following pizza and our member recognition for the 2007-2008 year, O’Neil will conduct a guided tour of their facility.

About Our Hosts

O’Neil and Associates is a Miamisburg-based company that employs more than 100 technical writers. The company develops, delivers, integrates, and analyzes product support information for a variety of DoD, aerospace, and commercial manufacturers. In recent years, this has included interactive electronic manuals, Web-based environments, diagnostic systems, e-learning, and content management systems, as well as traditional paper-based manuals. 

O'Neil technical writers and analysts often do complete disassembly, reassembly, and testing of equipment to ensure all procedures are correct, clearly written, and well illustrated. In the last 20 years, the company has doubled about every 5 to 6 years. The company has grown 50% in the last 15 months from 200 employees to now over 300.

O'Neil is located on 16 acres at the SW corner of Lions and Byers roads. You can enter the parking lot from either road. Please park on the Lions road (north) side of the building, and enter through the ramp to the lower level. This map shows the area and gives driving instructions. (Mapquest is also correct, but other online mapping sites erroneously show O'Neil about 1/4 mile north of the correct location.)

The Details

Date: Thursday, May 22^nd

Cost:  No charge

Time: Networking - 5:30
           Meal - 6:00
           Member Recognition - 6:45 to 7:15
           Tour - 7:15 to 8:15

Deadline: Please register for this meeting by Friday, May 16^th. O’Neil and Associates wants to be sure they order enough pizza and beverage for everyone.

by Judith Harper

If knowledge is a company asset, it's about time we learned to manage it using more effective tools than Official Binders queued up in rows on Official Bookcase shelves. In our April 16 meeting at Indiana Wesleyan University, STC Director Nicky Bleiel led meeting attendees into the land of wikis, sharepoints, blogs, and intranets in a presentation about "Wikis and Knowledge Management." 

Nicky, who is currently a Senior Information Developer at ComponentOne in Pittsburgh. described her experiences implementing wikis as a knowledge management tool. Here are some highlights of her discussion.

• What is knowledge management (KM)?
  KM is "the way organizations gather, manage, and use the knowledge that they acquire." But it is an issue of business practices, not information technology. The technology tool you use to implement KM is just a tool; the tool is not knowledge management. 
• What is a wiki?
  According to Wikipedia.org (a free online encyclopedia), a wiki is "a type of website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring." 
• Are there many examples of wikis in use? Here are a few:
  • wikihow.com
  • Mozilla Wiki
  • Windows Mobile Developer Wiki
    
• How are wikis used?
  Wikis are useful for internal company knowledge sharing, for knowledge sharing with/among customers, and for general knowledge sharing on specific subjects (or almost anything). 
• What makes wikis powerful?
  They allow instant collaboration. You can add something as soon as you think of it, even it is not fully formed. Because of this, people are willing to generate relevant content and to become fully involved as content creators. 
• What contributes to wiki ease of use?
  Wikis are flexible, allowing users to add pages, hyperlinks, formatting, and (most importantly) information, on the fly. Information is easily searchable, and change alerts are easy to generate. 
• Do wikis have any drawbacks?
  The formatting rules are unusual and must be learned. Also, it is important to maintain a navigation system and organization that matches site growth, as the site grows. There is also the potential for malicious entries.

Nicky's List of Wiki Software

by Louise Tincher

Writing for the web has become a fundamental task in today's world of technical communication. At our March 19^th meeting, STC Associate Fellow Pam Ecker spoke on the latest trends and standard principles in writing for the web. Pam is director of the Technical and Professional Writing program, and chair of the Multimedia Design department at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.  Pam teaches courses in informational and persuasive writing for print, Web, broadcast and other media, as well as technical editing and usability assessment.

The publishing industry is in turmoil. Pam quoted from authorities, including Thad McIlroy, Nader Dareshori and Lee Wilson, on the current state of publishing. The picture they paint is confusing. More written material is being produced, but profits from traditional print publications are down. Digital publishing and the internet are making old business models obsolete. The future of publishing lies in disseminating ideas, rather than printing.

What does this mean for technical communicators? Industry experts project continued high demand for workers in technical communications and related fields. U.S. News & World Report’s Best Careers for a Changing Job Landscape (2008) lists curriculum/training specialist, editor, ghostwriter, librarian, systems analyst and usability/user experience specialist as high-potential careers for the present and near future.

However, writing for digital media, requires a different approach than writing for printed media. Readers of digital media use a “satisficing” strategy, scanning pages quickly for cues to the content they seek. Herbert Simon coined the term “satisfice”—a combination of the words “satisfy” and “suffice”—to describe solutions that are not perfect, but good enough. These are frequently the solutions that we use in the real world.

Usability experts Steve Krug, Lance Loveday, Sandra Niehaus, Jakob Nielsen and Janice Redish offer tips on how to write for digital media. First, use fewer words; readers typically do not linger over a web page as they would over a novel or poem. Tone is critical, use a more conversational tone than you would in print. Provide structure to guide the reader; digital media do not have the assumed (linear) structure of print media. Use design to reinforce information and enhance the user experience. Finally, think about how readers will use technology (e.g. search engines, bots, PDAs, cell phones) to access the information.

Change is inevitable and technical communication will continue to evolve. In our lifetimes we (well some of us, anyway) have seen the migration from typewriters to word processors to desktop publishers. The growth of the Internet brought us e-mail, web sites, blogs and wikis. While technology changes, the basic principals of technical communication remain the same. Content is king. The media and the technical communicator are only the means to deliver content to the user. To that end, technical communicators must know their audience. In the end, we are still delivering factual information to human beings.

Looking for more information? Try these links:

• Cincinnati State Technical and Community College:  www.cincinnatistate.edu
• Thad McIlroy, The Future of Publishing: http://www.thefutureofpublishing.com/
• Lee Wilson, The Education Business Blog: http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/
• U.S. News & World Report, Best Careers 2008:  http://www.usnews.com/features/business/best-careers/best-careers-2008.html
• Jakob Nielsen on Usability and Web Design: http://www.useit.com/
• Steve Krug, Advanced Common Sense: http://www.sensible.com/
• Pew Internet and American Life Project: http://www.pewinternet.org/
• EEI Communications, The Elements of Internet Style: http://www.eeicom.com/press/eis/index.html
• Lance Loveday & Sandra Niehaus: Web Design for ROI: http://www.wd4roi.com/home.html
• Janice Redish, Letting Go of the Words: http://www.redish.net/writingfortheweb/
• Herb Simeon, Satisfice: http://web.uvic.ca/akeller/pw408/r_satisfice.html

by Harold Fox

The puzzler posed to you in the preceding number of "Calling All Verbivores" (CAV) is this, from Will Shortz,

What familiar phrase meaning “is realistic” consists of two words that are exactly the same except for their fourth letters?  The length of these two words is for you to determine.

The solution is “faces facts.”  (Number 140 in The Puzzlemaster Presents, Volume 2, Random House, 2003.)

In my recent number of CAV that dealt with One-Letter Words: a Dictionary, I wrote that that was only the second time that CAV had been devoted to a single book.  Actually, that was a misstatement.  I forgot the CAV devoted entirely to The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce, the first.  The second CAV to deal with a single book was an extended review of Oxymoronica (HarperCollins, 2004), by Dr. Mardy Grothe.  That, however, was not the first time that Dr. Mardy, as he calls himself, was mentioned in CAV.  I had previously written about chiasmus, referring primarily to his website, www.chiasmus.com, but also mentioning his book, Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You (Penguin Books, 1999), the title of which is an example of chiasmus.  Dr. Mardy gently and graciously corrected a misstatement I made and asked if I would review his forthcoming book, Oxymoronica.

I thought this a good time to tell you something about what Dr. Mardy has been up to since the publication of Oxymoronica.  Let's start with an ongoing project that began before that publication date.  Dr. Mardy has a weekly newsletter, "Dr. Mardy's Quotes Of The Week" (DMQW), dealing with the literary devices that are the subjects of his books.  The sub-title for each week's number of DMQW is the following:  "A Weekly Celebration of Great Quotes in History (And the History Behind the Quotes)."  That newsletter is available by subscription by sending a blank message to drmardy-on@mail-list.com or from his website, about which you will be reading more below.  Also, Dr. Mardy has an additional book in print.  This one is Viva la Repartee (HarperCollins, 2005) in which he quotes the following definition of repartee: 

Repartee is something we think of two hours too late.
- Mark Twain 

He has also written a fourth book, I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like, due for publication in August 2008.

He begins each number of DMQW with a biographical puzzler.  Here is an example from a recent number:
On March17, 1993, this actress died of congestive heart failure at age 92.  At her death, she was described as "The First Lady of the American Theater."  In a career that lasted a full eighty years, she was the first member of her profession to win an Emmy, a Grammy, a Tony, and an Oscar.  In her 1990 autobiography "My Life in Three Acts" she wrote: "If you rest, you rust."  Who is this woman?  (DMQW, March 16–22, 2008)
The answer is "Helen Hayes."

Another regular feature of DMQW is a section titled "This Week's Thoughts for Chief Philosophical Officers."  The following are two examples from a recent number (DMQW, March 2–8, 2008):

Life loves to be taken by the lapel
and told, "I am with you kid.  Let's go!"
Maya Angelou

and

Life is like a play; it's not the length
but the excellence of the acting that matters.
Seneca

Another recurring section is "This Week in History."  In this section, Dr. Mardy gives thumbnail sketches of a few notable persons connected with dates within the week in question.  For each, the sketch is followed by examples of notable remarks from the subject.  For example, in DMQW, March 16–22, 2008 one of the notables' entries is the following:
On March 21, 1905, Phyllis McGinley was born in Ontario Oregon.  In the 1920s, she began writing for "The New Yorker," the "Atlantic," and other magazines, developing a reputation for witty light verse.  In 1961, she won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for "Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades."  She also wrote "Sixpence in Her Shoe," a popular book of  autobiographical essays about being a wife in the suburbs, and a series of juvenile books.  In her essays and verse she used a wide variety of literary devices to explore aspects of human existence:

A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.

A bit of trash now and then is good for the severest reader. It provides the necessary roughage in the literary diet."

Nothing fails like success; nothing is so defeated as yesterday's triumphant Cause.

Sticks and stones are hard on bones.
Aimed with angry art,
Words can sting like anything,
But silence breaks the heart."

Another feature of DMQW is the "Subscriber Quote of the Week" in which Dr. Mardy presents an example of a contribution from one of DMQW's subscribers.  In DMQW, March 9–15, 2008, the offering came from a subscriber named Dan Piette, who submitted the following:

It is better to sleep in a bed and dream of the beach
than sleep on the beach and dream of a bed.

DMQW also includes "Dr. Mardy's Thought of the Week."  The number for March 9–15 has this example:

Great political oratory results when the speeches of famous figures contain famous figures of speech.

If you would like to receive a weekly dose of these sorts of quotations, send a blank message to drmardy-on@mail-list.com, as I wrote above or subscribe from Dr. Mardy's website, www.drmardy.com.  He has subsumed his earlier website on chiasmus into the new one.  In it he has sections devoted to the four main types of linguistic devices covered in his four books (including the one due for publication this August), chiasmus, oxymoronica, repartee, and metaphor.  The section for metaphor will be initiated this summer.  The home page of the site presents two "Quotations of the Day," one from Dr. Mardy and the other from a selected notable figure.  The site also includes links to radio interviews of him and a section titled "Dr. Mardy's Aphorisms."

I recommend Dr. Mardy's books, his website, and his weekly newsletter.  They provide us with a multifarious and nutritional body of material sure to stimulate, entertain, and sustain a wide variety of verbivores.

Until next time, send me your solutions (or suggestions or complaints or stumpers) at hfox@juno.com or 2005 Burroughs Drive, Dayton, Ohio 45406.

by Karen Rokich

Ron May did not set out to become a technical writer. His position, he says, "essentially fell into his lap."

In 1983, at the nexus of the IBM Personal Computer revolution in corporate America, Ron graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. in Information Systems. His first job was in the newly established field of corporate PC and software training.

The printed courseware used by his employer was initially developed in-house by the training staff. When maintenance and ongoing development requirements for the existing courseware became a burden, the company acted to alleviate the strain by creating a new position in courseware development. Ron moved into this position, spending most of his time as a courseware developer, although he was still used sparingly as a trainer. Courseware development was his first exposure to the technical writing profession.

After several years in this position, Ron accepted a new position with Accu-Med Services, a small software company that needed a technical writer to develop a reference manual for their software product.

About the time he completed the reference manual, which he refers to as a huge project, Accu-Med was acquired by Omnicare, a large corporation based in Covington, KY. Ron soon found himself in a corporate IS Department with the title of Technical Writer. His company is still referred to as Accu-Med Services and is a division of Omnicare.

Since his Accu-Med supervisor introduced him to STC and asked him to become a member, Ron has attended all STC annual conferences, from 1999 through last year's Technical Summit in Minneapolis. Recently, he has begun attending local SWO-STC meetings.

At Accu-Med, Ron maintains documentation for multiple software products like online help and printed reference manuals. Since 2003, he has been developing and maintaining computer-based training and Flash-based software demonstrations to enhance the company's software documentation suite.

In his free time, Ron enjoys motorcycles, Ford Mustang cars, learning to play classical guitar, amateur radio (a.k.a. "ham radio"), and fishing.

Society elections ended on April 14, 2008. The results will become official when they are announced at the next annual business meeting in Philadelphia on Monday, June 2.

Official Certifications

All online ballots were cast during the election period by eligible voters (only) using valid usernames and passwords via Votenet Solution’s SAS70 certified system, eBallot.

The certification and accompanying examination was done in accordance with the standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The eBallot election platform detected zero attempts of third party interference by rogue visitors.

Votenet technical officials have verified the vote collection and data storage algorithms that are a part of the eBallot election platform and have determined that the results are accurate.

Vote Breakdown

Important SWO News Item:
Past president  (at the SWO community and the international level) Thea Teich was elected to the Nominating Committee with a plurality of the votes cast!  And, adding honor to accomplishment, Thea will be named a Society Fellow at the Technical Summit in June. (You'll read more about that in the next issue of BTL.)

Back to the Vote Count:
Out of the 1,134 votes cast, 57 were paper ballots. 12.67% of eligible members voted. A breakdown of the votes cast is listed below. The names of those elected are highlighted.

To fill the vacancies on the Board of Directors caused by the midterm resignations of STC directors Jeff Staples and Mike Murray, members elected five directors. The top three vote-getters among the director candidates will serve full three-year terms (from June 2008 through May 2011). Asterisks indicate those who will serve the remainders of Staples’s and Murray’s terms (until May 2009).

Second Vice President

Secretary

Director

Nominating Committee

But you'll really love the Technical Communication Summit!

Why go to the Summit?

Listen to what Ron May (this month's profiled member) has to say about the benefits of conference attendance:

My main motivation for attending has been the sessions. For example:

• I attended one session that changed the way I use Microsoft Word. The session was titled "Preventing Corruption in Microsoft Word Documents." Among other topics, this session spoke to the issue of how to prevent problems with autonumbering in long documents (a vexing problem).
• It has also been very helpful to speak directly to the Help Authoring Tool vendors that attend the conference. Many times these vendors will offer demo sessions.
• Meeting other technical writers from across the county can be fun. As you may recall from my profile, I enjoy motorcycles. At the Dallas session I talked at length with one of the tech writers at Honda who works on the team that writes the user manual for the Honda Gold Wing motorcycle.
• There is also quite an international presence at the annual conference. I have met writers from Germany, Finland and Israel.

Where in Philadelphia will you stay?

The official conference hotel for the Technical Communication Summit (June 1–4) is the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. STC encourages attendees to reserve rooms at the official hotel, which is connected via skywalk to the convention center where most activities and events will take place (several events are scheduled in the Marriott). The hotel has designated a block of rooms at lower rates during the conference available on a first-come basis. Other hotels are available several blocks away at higher room rates; however, there is no sponsored transportation available.

For each conference planned, STC negotiates a lower room rate and guarantees a set number of rooms will be reserved by attendees within the room block. This ensures an adequate number of rooms at the lower negotiated rate and discourages the host hotel from increasing room rates in response to a surge of reservations. If the room block is not fulfilled, STC must pay for unsold rooms within the block. Attendees who stay at hotels other than the official hotel are not counted toward meeting the room block obligation.

Filling the room block at the official conference hotel helps STC when negotiating room rates for future events. Hotels share room block information, as well as statistics about STC’s purchases of food and beverage, meeting rooms, and other revenue-generating activities.

Book by May 5 to take advantage of the rooms blocked at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. Members who make reservations at the host hotel will automatically be entered to win a selection of prizes, such as: complimentary room nights during the conference, restaurant certificates, or STC merchandise. Reservations may be made by calling +1 800-266-9432 or online on the STC Web site. The cost for a single room is $218 (USD) or double room $228 (USD) per day plus tax. Additional people in the room are U.S. $20 each.

© 2008 STC

During the summer of 2007, Tim Xu was an intern working under a postdoctoral fellow and a principal investigator at the National Institute of Mental Health. The aim of their study was to explore the involvement of a genetic modification in the treatment mechanisms of antidepressant and antimanic agents.

"After my internship," Tim says, "I realized that I had done a great deal of experimentation, so I decided to write it all up, and voilà!" The result was his chapter award-winning entry in SWO's Student Technical Communication (STCC), Phenotyping of GluR1-Knockout Mice: Implications in the Treatment of Mood Disorders.

STCC encourages students to develop and demonstrate the technical communication skills they need to enter scientific, technical, and business careers by recognizing excellence in technical communication at the high school level.

Tim is currently a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Alexandria, VA. He plans to attend Vanderbilt University in the fall, where he says he "will major in neuroscience and perhaps French as well. In college, I plan to engage in more scientific research, so these same writing skills will come in handy during the rest of my education and beyond."

His entry earned an Award of Excellence in the chapter competition, and it has been entered in the International Student Technical Communication Competition (ISTCC). While waiting to receive the ISTCC judges' evaluation, Tim expressed his appreciation for the experience, saying  "Thanks to the Society for Technical Writing (sic) for this opportunity to share my writing and to receive comments!"

by Judith Harper

We're living in what Tom Peters calls

…a new brand world…where we are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc….where everyone has a chance to stand out. Everyone has a chance to learn,  improve, and build up their skills. Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark.

Note that this is not a complete turnaround. It's a "new brand world, " not a "brand new world." After all, we have always been ultimately responsible for creating and shaping our own career lives. We've always had opportunities to learn and grow and fully develop talents and skills. But this "new brand world" is one where advanced digital hardware and software have spawned a growing number of  technology-based tools that make it easier for a lone diver to make a giant splash. We live in a world where you can create a personal "brand worthy of remark."

As CEO of You Inc, you need to manage a few essential corporate functions.

• Strategic planning
  Enumerate and evaluate your assets. Focus on things like:
  • What do you do well?
  • What do you enjoy doing?
  • What accomplishments make you proud?
  • What do you see possible for your future?

  Based on your answers to these questions, develop a mission statement that paints, in broad strokes, your vision for the next five years of your career.
  ->Mind-mapping tools to help you organize your thoughts: PersonalBrain, Freemind (others?)

• Technical training
  Based on the career portrait you've painted, outline the learning experiences you will need to fill in any gaps in your skills and experience. What training do you need and how will you get it? Learning is lifelong; you never know everything.
  ->Local schools offering online classes: University of Cincinnati, University of Dayton (others?)
• Human resources
  Don't forget the people who are a vital part of any career advancement and the people skills that are essential for career success.
  • Whom do you know?
  • How well do you interact with your colleagues, clients, bosses?

  Feed this evaluation back into your training plans. Technical training covers more than bits and bytes; learn the how-tos of successful social interactions.
  ->Social marketing networks for business:  LinkedIn, Content Wrangler Community (others?)

• Marketing
  Learn to sell yourself. Analyze your unique selling proposition.
  • What is your advantage over your competition?
  • Who is your target customer?
  • What makes you more valuable to your customer than other people who provide the same product or service?

  After this analysis, turn your resume, your web site, your blog, and all your career communications into vehicles for conveying your USP. No, everything you write is not a sales document. But…everything with your name on it should be part of your marketing, because it showcases your capabilities.
  -> Online marketing resources: Copyblogger (others?)

Do you have suggestions for adavncing the fortunes of You and Me Inc? If so, share them. We're all looking for ways to make the most of our career and professional lives.