Mobile & Agile: The Floating Writer’s Survival Kit

by Jessica Dickerson, Vice President of Education & Programs

Agile development is a popular methodology used by software companies. This presentation describes how technical writers can transition to agile development smoothly when they float among several cross-functional project teams. Main topics addressed are as follows:

• How to transition from waterfall to agile development
• How to gain clout and presence on cross-functional teams
• Release planning in agile development from a writer’s point of view
• Iteration planning in agile development from a writer’s point of view

The program meeting will be at the Holiday Inn Select at Greenway Plaza, 2712 Southwest Freeway (on the southbound feeder of SH 59). Self-parking at the Holiday Inn Select is included in the cost of each program meeting. You will receive a validation sticker when you arrive at the registration table. Valet parking is not included in this service.

Date: May 13, 2008
Time:
5:30 – 6:25 PM Networking
6:30 – 7:45 PM Program

Members: $10
Unemployed members: $5
Students: $5
Nonmembers: $15

For additional information about all STC Houston events, visit http://www.stc-houston.org/events-houston.htm.

Speakers: Alyssa Fox and Meredith Kramer

Mahalo!

by Jessica Dickerson, Vice President of Education & Programs

The June program meeting honors our volunteers! We will have an Aloha-themed party with door prizes, games, and recognition for the volunteers that did so much over this past year.

There is no charge for this meeting, but we would like you to RSVP if possible. Come and bring a friend or two!

When: June 10, 2008
Where: Holiday Inn Select

Greenway Plaza, 2712 Southwest Freeway
(on the southbound feeder of SH 59).
Self-parking at the Holiday Inn Select is provided. You will receive a validation sticker when you arrive at the registration table. Valet parking is not included in this service.

For additional information about all STC Houston events, visit http://www.stc-houston.org/events-houston.htm.

Serving as President

by Linda King, STC Houston President

It has been my great pleasure serving as STC Houston president this year. For those who have any doubts, serving in any leadership position in STC is a great learning and growth opportunity. As I near the end of my tenure as president, I want to acknowledge some personal benefits gained thus far through my volunteer roles in STC:

• First and foremost, volunteering has been the avenue for getting to know so many talented people and developing friendships that otherwise probably would not have developed. I have a much broader network of people, locally and internationally, whom I respect and can call on for advice, resources, or help. I have learned that many fellow STC members will respond instantly when asked―even at the last possible moment―to take on a task or provide assistance.
• Volunteering has also been the means for becoming acquainted with a pool of skilled technical communicators to consider and recommend when staffing opportunities arise.
• Active involvement in STC activities has significantly increased my awareness of the changing nature of the workplace, of new tools and technology, and of our evolving profession.
• STC activities have provided opportunities for practicing and demonstrating skills that are underused in my full-time, professional role and for building new skills.
• Serving on committees, and especially on the Administrative Council, has significantly increased my comfort level in delegating important responsibilities and trusting that the jobs will be done well by others. 
• Chairing meetings in a “safe” environment has increased my ease in speaking before a professional audience.
• Sharing decision making with a diverse group of talented, intelligent people has highlighted the many different reactions that can occur to any situation or issue and has broadened my perspective for making sound decisions. 
• Serving as chapter president this year has brought me requests and invitations to participate in many unexpected, interesting, and rewarding activities.
• Serving as an Administrative Council member and chapter president has enabled me to become “plugged in” to chapter- and Society-level developments and issues. As a result, I now understand many things about Society operation for which I previously had no insight. I understand that many tough decisions must be made to ensure the health and growth of our Society. I have gained insight into dealing effectively and fairly with belligerence, and I have had opportunities to help shape STC policy and practice at a critical time for the organization.
• Finally, taking an active role has made me an integral part of the primary organization for our profession and brings the satisfaction of helping to strengthen that profession―for current technical communicators and for newcomers as they enter the workforce.

In truth, serving as chapter president has also been a humbling experience. I began with great enthusiasm and a long laundry list of goals and improvements that I thought this year’s Administrative Council and committees could make to better meet the diverse needs of our members. I am very proud of our many accomplishments, such as

• developing and maintaining a conservative budget
• reactivating the Dateline Houston newsletter
• sponsoring a very successful competition and a lovely, well attended awards banquet
• completing and publishing a salary survey
• providing regular program meetings and providing an STK at the University of Houston-Downtown
• conducting multiple community service projects
• participating in the STC Academic-Industry Summit held in Houston in September 2007
• maintaining an active Lone Writer SIG
• developing a formal scholarship program
• providing judges and awards for the 2008 Science and Engineering Fair of Houston writing competition
• recruiting new members
• publishing a chapter calendar
• maintaining an active employment service

The humbling part is that despite the dedication and major contributions of Council members, our webmaster, and committees, we simply lacked enough volunteers and time to implement many of our plans. I hope that in the coming year more of you will offer whatever time you can as a chapter volunteer and gain many of the same benefits that I have. As immediate past president for the coming year, I will work with our incoming president and newly elected Council members to continue improving our chapter and increasing the value of STC for all our members.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve our chapter and to gain so many valuable experiences.

Best regards,

Linda

What a Great Year

by Yvonne Wade Sanchez, Managing Editor of Dateline Houston

Another program year is coming to a close. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term program year, it refers to the time in which the admin council manages the day-to-day business of our local chapter.  For example, in April, the STC Houston chapter holds elections to fill seven admin council positions. The newly elected admin council members attend a transition meeting in August to take over for the previous admin council members. The admin council members don’t offically take office until September, which is the beginning of the program year. The council members officially hold their elected office from September - September, but because of the summer break (June - August), the program year unofficially ends in May.  Don’t get this confused with the membership year, which corresponds to STC membership. You purchase STC membership on an annual basis, and membership lasts from January - December. Now you know the difference between the membership year and the program year.   

Since this is our last newsletter for the 2007-2008 program year, I want to thank some individuals and groups for their continued support.

Admin Council 

First, I would like to thank the STC Houston admin council. Without their support and encouragement, the newsletter in its current format as a Web blog wouldn’t exist.  If you would have told me a year ago that I would be the managing editor of a newsletter, I would have laughed hysterically.  I don’t have a journalism degree, and I had no prior experience with Web blogs, podcasts, or newsletters. However, the admin council had faith, and I made it with the support of the newsletter team. Furthermore, I not only made it, I enjoyed every minute of it. That’s one of the fantastic things about the STC. If you are willing to dedicate some time and enthusiasm, the opportunities are endless.  You can learn new skills, meet new people, and expand your knowledge.

Here’s my favorite picture of the admin council in action. They are enjoying dinner, but don’t be fooled, they are always working for you.

Starting from the left, we have Meredith Kramer, Cathy Bettoney and her husband, Rick Sanchez and his wife (that’s me). Unfortunately, Crystal Johnson is hidden behind my enormous head, but her husband is visible. If we cross the table, we have Debra Page and her husband, Linda King and her husband, and finally Alyssa Fox.

Article Contributors

I would like to thank all the article contributors. Without authors willing to share their experience and expertise, we wouldn’t have information to share with the community. 

Newsletter Committee

Of course, I need to send a GIGANTIC thank you to everyone on the newsletter team. Without their dedication and hard work, the production of the newsletter would not be possible.  The team is comprised of associate editors: Jan Brantley, Jamie Diamandopoulos, and Melanie Boston. In addition, Melanie Walker recently joined the team as our podcast reporter. I’m providing photos of the team members, so that the next time you see them at a program meeting, you’ll be sure to stop them and tell them that they are doing a great job.

Melanie Walker Podcast Reporter	Jan Brantley Associate Editor	Jamie Diamandopoulos Associate Editor	Melanie Boston Associate Editor

Readers

I’d also like to thank our readers. If you exclude December and January, we’ve actually had a pretty steady number of visitors to our Web blog (newsletter).  Here are the visitation stats for the Web blog since its inception in August of 2007.

I hope you found the information we provided this year informative and entertaining.  I look forward to serving you again in September after our summer break. 

Program Year Summary

by Rick Sanchez, Vice President, Communications

Accomplished, rewarding, and exciting are a few words that come to mind when I describe this year’s events held by the Houston STC chapter. Truly, I can say that the STC Houston committee managers and volunteers have broadened the depth and breath of the organization. These volunteers have such a wide range of experience that their perspective and problem-solving initiative are, ostensibly, inexhaustible. Together, the communication managers and their respective committees have, in my opinion, exceeded all expectations.

Newsletter Committee

Take, for instance, the editors of Dateline Houston—wow, I could get creative and make that into an acronym, but I am a technical writer, so I won’t try it. However, the effort that the team (Rebecca Taylor, Yvonne Wade Sanchez, Jan Brantley, Melanie Boston, and Jamie Diamandopoulos) put forth this year is nothing short of exceptional. It was a pleasure to have seen all their efforts come to fruition. I sincerely hope that the torch remains lit for years to come.

Website Committee

Let us not forget our other modes of communication; our Website has been the hub of the chapter’s communication for many years now. We owe a debt of gratitude to our tireless and dedicated group of volunteers. Robert Delwood has seen his group grow in the last year. Robert and Paul Mueller worked to revamp the appearance, usability, and interactivity of the site. The webmaster spent many development hours keeping up with the demands of the chapter; his efforts were matched only by the amount of new and rewarding opportunities that continue to unfold for the webmaster and his team of volunteers. Indecently, the webmaster’s team grew with the return of Erika Frensley. Her re-entry to the team was pivotal during the STC banquet registration process. She brought a degree of historical and technical expertise that eased the management of what is possibly one of the site’s busiest endeavors.

Mailing List (STC Houston ListServ) Committee

Let us not forget also (not redundant, just parallel construction) that we have additional peer-to-peer modes of communication. Anne Smith has successfully managed our listserv for many years now and is quietly working on providing us with a more robust peer-to-peer and bulk communication model. She is working with members of the technical support team at the society level to help standardize our chapter’s email communication tool. You will learn more about that in the coming months. Both traditional and nontraditional methods are being explored and like the STC-Houston forums, established technologies are easing the role of today’s communicators.

Forums Committee

The STC-Houston forums continue to experience increased use; our employment manager and other great volunteers have used this tool to inform the community of hundreds of job openings. Along with that benefit, the STC-Houston forum provides updates to current events and is used by the STC administrative council as a public presentation tool to render their decisions and keep track of their action items. The STC-Houston forum is technically maintained by our webmaster team and is actively monitored by yours truly (someone has to take out the trash). Seriously, though, the communication team has room for more dedicated professionals, so if you would like to exhibit your communication acumen or polish your more technical skills, please send me a line.

For a truly accomplished year, I congratulate all the members of the communication team!

Program Year Summary

By Jowell Lydon, Vice President of Competitions

They say everything is bigger in Texas. When it comes to our chapter’s participation in the annual technical publications, technical art, and online communications competitions, everything is better. Chapter participation was very good, with a total of 91 entries for all three competitions. But the real story is in the results, which get better every year. Entrants to the technical publications competition won 38 awards out of 62 entries. In technical art, entrants won awards for 7 of 14 total entries. Not to be outdone, our artistic colleagues were spectacular this year, winning awards for 14 out of 15 entries, and 10 of these received top honors with Distinguished awards. The winning entries came from a variety of industries in both public and private sectors, providing clear evidence of the breadth of talent the chapter has in written and visual technical communication.

Of course, a successful competition is about more than winning entries. Thirty members stepped up as judges to evaluate the entries of our trading partner, the Atlanta STC chapter, providing them with valuable information to improve their technical communications skills. The small but dedicated team of Jeremy Hart, Julie Garrison, and Brian Galloway kept the many moving parts of the competition running smoothly. Gracious corporate sponsorship from Jump2 Group and BMC Software gave us one of the best looking competitions in years. Meredith Kramer and Deborah Long pooled their substantial talents to provide us with an innovative, visually appealing, and fun banquet, not to mention a souvenir lava lamp or two. And last but far from least, others too numerous to mention here pitched in and did their part to ensure the success of the competition.

There is much for us to be proud of as a chapter this year. And if the chapter continues on its current trajectory, there will be even more for us to look forward to next year. Congratulations to our winners; I hope that all of you will join the tradition and take part in next year’s competition!

Program Year Summary

by Doug Brown, Vice President of Volunteers & Recognition

Hard to believe, but another STC program year is again drawing to a close. It seems like yesterday we were attending the leadership transition meeting and working on those oh-so-fun budgets! But here we are and it’s time to look back and reflect on some of the great volunteer efforts that took place in 2007-08.

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who participated in the areas about to be mentioned. You are the cogs that keep the machine running! STC is one big volunteer opportunity, and you just kept on coming this year, so thank YOU! In particular, the publications competition, newsletter, community outreach opportunities, and salary survey were areas where volunteers made the difference.

Competition Committee

The STC Houston Publications Competition was a huge success, not only in that the Houston chapter achieved crazy good scores for our own work, but that we gave Atlanta a fair shake on their submissions and provided invaluable constructive feedback. The Atlanta technical writing community is far better off for our efforts!

Newsletter Committee

This very newsletter was revived to give us all a fun, informative feel on the pulse of our local chapter. Many contributing writers and  steady stable of editors kept that effort going all year long.

Community Outreach Committee

The Outreach committee really reached out, but STC’s representation at the Girl Scouts Career Fair at the University of Houston really brought technical writing to the minds of the next generation. A dozen or so girls attended our breakout session, in which several professionals in the technical writing community shared their career perspectives. The parents definitely perked up when the girls were told, “Here’s a writing career in which you can actually make a living!”

Employment Committee

Finally, the Houston Salary Survey provided valuable feedback to all of us for estimating the value of our work and knowing how to price ourselves in the job market.

Plenty of opportunity is still available as we prepare to transition into 2008-09. Email me any time at volunteer@stc-houston.org and we’ll help you find the area that provides your particular brand of warm fuzzy. And for all the volunteers who already stepped up, be sure to plan to attend the June meeting for a fun night of volunteer appreciation, games and good times!

Program Year Summary

by Cathy Bettoney, Vice President of Outreach & Planning

Reaching Out to Students

STC Houston sponsored the Science Writing Contest in connection with the Science and Engineering Fair of Houston for junior- and senior-high-school students. Judging took place on March 1, 2008, at the University of Houston-Downtown campus, with the help of university faculty and chapter members Aimee Roundtree and Patricia Golemon. The awards ceremony was in the George R. Brown Convention Center on March 15. Chapter President Linda King and VP of Outreach Cathy Bettoney presented the winners with books and gift certificates, as well as a $500 scholarship for the 1st-place winner in the Senior division. The top winners in each grade-level group were entered in the STC international competition.

Reaching Out to Satellites

STC-LA, which includes members from Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lake Charles, and Lafayette, concluded a successful year with the election of next year’s officers, President Rachel Vernon and Vice-president Jen Fanguy. Many thanks to the leadership of President Alise Hagan through 2007–2008. The satellite chapter maintains an active website, http://www.stc-houston.org/stcla/index.html. Program changes are being considered for next year, and the group is beginning to investigate applying for full community status.

Reaching Out with Scholarship

Offering two $1,000 scholarships this year to students engaged in technical communication studies on the college level, STC Houston is looking forward to evaluating the applicants and making the awards at the June program meeting. Many thanks to Jennifer Smith and Martha Dutton for their work in overhauling the scholarship application and requirements, and to Alice Lee for publicizing the scholarships to area colleges.

Reaching Out with Community Service

STC Houston has joined the recycling effort with the year-long magazine drive, donating all kinds of gently used magazines and books to the Houston Seafarer’s Center.

In March, the chapter participated in the Girl Scout Career Fair. Stephanie Weiss, Doug Brown, and Cathy Bettoney worked a booth, handing out STC Houston pens and brochures and explaining just what it is that the chapter does. Cathy gave a PowerPoint presentation on job interview skills and résumé writing. Ann Jennings, Doug Brown, and Cathy Bettoney joined in a panel discussion of technical communication as a career, with Ann handing out information and showing examples of professional portfolios and Doug explaining the process of documenting software.

An initiative still in progress is presenting information on writing as a career to area high schools.

March into the Volunteer Spotlight

By Cindy Pao, Technical Writer

At our community meeting last week (April 8), Linda King asked new members, members who have been away for a while, and visitors to introduce themselves. Linda does this each month, and it’s a really neat exercise.

Each month, I (or someone like me) gets up and thanks the previous month’s volunteers. Usually, I stand at the microphone and say the names. This month, I tried a variation on Linda’s approach. I still read off the names, but I asked all of the volunteers to stand as I read their names. They stayed standing until the list was complete, and then I told the newcomers that these are the folks who run our community.

Thanks to you, March volunteers! You move us; you shake us; you march us right into the halls of STC distinction!

• Cathy Bettoney
• Melanie Boston
• Jan Brantley
• Doug Brown
• Robert Delwood
• Jamie Diamandopoulos
• Gary Foster
• Alyssa Fox
• Erika Frensley
• Alise Hagan
• Shawn Harris
• Ann Jennings
• Crystal Johnson
• Linda King
• Dean Liscum
• Deborah Long
• Ruth Marcom
• Rikki Mitman
• Paul Mueller
• Elizabeth Navarro
• Newsletter team
• Cindy Pao
• Ritu Raju
• Aimee Roundtree
• Yvonne Wade Sanchez
• Evalyn Shea
• Deborah Silvi
• Anne Smith
• Jennifer Smith
• Scott Thibaut
• John Turner
• Rachel Vernon
• Melanie Walker
• Stephanie Weiss
• Ashely Wieringa

Honoring our Volunteers

In June, the program meeting honors STC Houston volunteers and many others. You should receive an email invitation from your Vice President very soon. Think Hawaiian!

If this article has inspired you in any way, you can find out more about volunteer opportunities by contacting Doug Brown.

Results of the 2008-2009 STC Houston Elections

By Cindy Pao, Technical Writer

Elections for the 2008-2009 program year were held on Tuesday, April 8, 2008.
The following candidates were elected to the Administrative Council:

• Paul Mueller, President
• Jowell Lydon, Executive Vice President
• Debra Page, Secretary
• Alyssa Fox, Treasurer
• Cathy Bettoney, Vice President
• Martha Dutton, Vice President
• Crystal Johnson, Vice President
• Meredith Kramer, Vice President
• Elizabeth Navarro, Vice President
• Rick Sanchez, Vice President
• Marlowe Wakeman, Vice President
• Linda King, Immediate Past President

Congratulations to all of the admin council members!