Category Archives: STC

Society for Technical Communication

Quick Guide to Navigating STC Summit 2013

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I thought I would re-share my quick guide from last year and update it for the STC 2013 Summit. After attending five STC Conferences, I provide here some hints to maximize your conference experience. Enjoy!

Technology

Sessions

STC Summit Keynote

STC 2012 Summit Keynote

  • Spend 20-30 minutes planning which sessions you will attend. Use the Lanyrd Conference Website to help you decide!
  • Select primary and secondary sessions for each hour, some session material may be available for preview on SlideShare.
  • Determine within the first 5-10 minutes if a session excites you; if not, go to your secondary session.
  • Ask questions at the end of the session.
  • Complete post-session speaker evaluation(s). This year, there are QR codes to scan with your smart phone  to complete your surveys. If you don’t have a phone with QR code reading capabilities, visit the STC 2013 Survey Monkey Survey site.
  • Look for presentation slides after the sessions from presenters on SlideShare.

Networking

  • Spend about $30 for business cards from VistaPrint if you have none. Remember to pack them.
  • Hand out business cards to anyone you meet.
  • Write a note on the back of each person’s business card to remind you how you met them.
  • Bring paper and electronic copies of your résumé. This may result in a job opportunity after the conference.

Break Times

  • Offer and/or accept invitations to dine with attendees. We don’t bite.
  • Visit the vendor floor, STC Central, and the bookstore
  • Attend evening events with attendees.
  • Share your professional experiences.

After the Conference

  • Continue networking via Twitter, LinkedIn, and e-mail.
  • Look for an e-mail during the summer announcing when Conference@Click is available.
  • Read the conference proceedings.
  • Plan for next year, and convince your company to pay for it!
  • Look for a for Call for Speakers via e-mail; maybe you can present next year.
  • Keep up with current trends—check STC Notebook, Intercom, TechWhirl, and TechComm.

 

It’s your conference experience; make the most of it!

If you want to hang out during the conference, find me by sending me a message via Twitter: @RogerRenteria. I also will be co-presenting at Leadership Day and presenting during the Professional Development Progressions.

STC Tryout 2012 and Member Get a Member Programs

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In August of this year, the Society for Technical Communication introduced their STC Tryout Program to recruit non-members to join STC for the remainder of 2012 and use their dues forward for a 2013 membership.

STC - Society for Technical Communication

STC – Society for Technical Communication

The program was an effort for current STC members to recruit new members to sign up for a STC membership for the remainder of 2012. In return, members can use their paid dues for 2013 membership renewal. Members who referred their colleagues to sign up for the tryout program were entered in a drawing to win a complimentary STC Membership for 2013.

I was happy to hear that Samantha Miranda, a technical communication student from New Mexico Tech, signed up for the STC Tryout Program and added my name for the drawing. Last week, the STC Office randomly selected me for the 2013 membership. As part of STC’s ongoing marketing and outreach strategy, they interviewed Samantha and me about our thoughts on the STC Tryout Program. Read our interview on STC’s Notebook Blog.

Member Get a Member Program

If you were unable to recruit members this year for the STC Tryout Program, current members can receive a $25 credit for each new member they recruit from now until January 15, 2013. Visit the Member Get a Member Program site for details.

STC - Member Get A Member

STC – Member Get A Member

I highly encourage current members to find a new member to sign up–it only takes a few minutes and you might save on 2013 membership dues.

Evolution of a website – Part 4 of 4

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Note: this is a four-part series which I discuss the first two versions of the website pre-WordPress, the third and fourth versions of the site using WordPress, implementation of the fourth version using WordPress and its intricacies, and lastly how to keep the site alive.

Part 4

Maintaining the site and keeping content fresh

While we moved houses and unpacked, the tricky part was to keep the content relevant and fresh. The problem with static websites and why they suffer is because content updated infrequently. It can be a time-consuming task being webmaster, but with WordPress, the task of updating the site can be delegated to a team. Instead of having a webmaster as a bottleneck for updating information, contributors can use the self-service interface and update the website themselves.

I love being a webmaster of website that will take little effort to update or add content. WordPress offers that convenience for a small price: the time to learn and familiarize oneself with the software and associated plug-ins.

I am truly satisfied how the final product came out. While the website is one step closer to having a fully functional chapter, it is definitely a start to communicate with members and represent the community. Many thanks go out to the previous webmasters who contributed their efforts on the website. I also want to thank my colleagues who helped with site content with their suggestions and advice–without their availability, this site would be stuck in a black hole.

Is the Future in Social Media?

The next step in moving forward is to promote the Kachina Chapter through our social media channels. What is great about the latest design is that there are social media links at the top of the website which direct visitors and members to view our site on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. I hope that we can use these tools to communicate with current members and recruit new individuals who may be interested in the field of technical communication. So far, this is only the beginning!

Conclusion

Websites take some interesting paths to get to where they are now. In this case, I believe the STC New Mexico Kachina website is at its best since it was originally created. While I understand that different technologies are working together to display the site in its current state, to most people this implementation may seem complicated on the back-end, but it was meant to make updates easier and have greater accessibility on the internet. The point I want to make is, while the current site took a tremendous amount of effort to implement, it is the best version that utilizes previous design cues, color schemes, and content. Now it should be easier to maintain and faster to update and change without having to use a WYSIWYG editor. All that future web masters can do is log into a web interface and update the site with ease.