Orange County STC Newsletter
www.stc.org
This Issue:
Vol. 51, No. 6
How to Convert the Toughest SME
How to Convert the
Toughest SME
1
President’s Message
2
Next Meeting
3
June Meeting Information
3
Editor’s Desk
4
Beginning Adobe
Illustrator for Technical
Communicators5
May Meeting Review
6
Orange Juice
7
Orange Slice: Calendar
of Events
8
Sponsor Corner
9
Society Pages
June 2012
10
OCSTC Employment
Information10
By Cathy Moore
Y
ou want to create an action-packed online experience that revolutionizes a learner’s behavior. Your subject matter expert wants you
to faithfully reproduce every lovingly polished bullet of their 217-slide
PowerPoint presentation. Is there any hope for your relationship?
Everyone knows that in any relationship, it’s the other person who needs
to change. So let’s change your SMEs.
Read What They Gave You
Before you do anything else, read all 217 slides. Respect
the effort that the SMEs have put into their work and try to
understand what they wrote. And make a note for future
projects: Don’t let SMEs create PowerPoints. Ask them for
an informal brain dump instead, or an interview, or any
other format that they won’t put so much work into.
Involve Them from the Beginning
If you use action mapping, include the SMEs in the very first discussions with your client, when you identify the goal. Ask the SMEs to help
answer these questions:
• Why does this course (or project) need to exist?
• What would happen if we didn’t create the course? How much
could that cost the company?
• What is the one clear change we want to see happen as a result of
our course?
• How can we tell if the change has occurred? How can we measure it?
Ask Them to Help Identify What People Need To Do and
Ask Why They Aren’t Doing It
Once the SMEs agree with the business goal of the course, ask them to
help you identify what people need to do on their jobs to reach that goal.
Often, the SMEs are too close to the process to see it from the bird’s-eye
view that you need. Some questions that might help:
• Which people are involved in the process or action?
• How would you describe each person’s role to a 10-year-old?
• Could you walk me through the basic process from beginning to
end?
• What would happen if Person X didn’t do his or her part?
Continued on Page 7 >
Chapter Contacts
President’s Message
By Betsy Malone, OCSTC President
OCSTC
P.O. Box 28751
Santa Ana, CA 92799-8751
Web site: http://www.ocstc.org
Administrative Council
President, Betsy Malone,
[email protected]
Past President, Michael Opsteegh,
[email protected]
1st Vice President, Programs,
Roger Hunnicutt,
[email protected]
2nd Vice President, Membership,
Jennifer Lares and Jennifer Myers,
[email protected]
Treasurer, Miriam Whitman,
[email protected]
Secretary, Rebecca Feinstein,
[email protected]
Appointees
TechniScribe Managing Editor, Sima Staav,
[email protected]
Public Relations Chair, Betsy Malone,
[email protected]
Scholarship Chair, Carrie Chambers,
[email protected]
Employment Manager, Betsy Malone,
[email protected]
Committees
Nominating Committee:
Carrie Chambers, Bruce Giddens, and Jim
Marchant
[email protected]
I
’d like to kick off the new
OCSTC 2012–2013 council
term with a big shout out
to the outgoing council:
Michael Opsteegh (president), Roger Hunnicutt and
Jolynn Atkins (co-first VPs
of programs), Jim Marchant
(treasurer), Miriam Whitman
(assistant treasurer), Len
Poché (2nd VP of membership), Judy Jones (secretary),
Jennifer Gardelle (TechniScribe managing editor), Pat
Olsen and Suzanne Madison (nominating committee,
public relations committee, and sponsorship committee). Thank you for your tireless efforts in delivering
quality programs and communications for OCSTC
members!
Building on the former council’s successful foundation, the new OCSTC council members will be working diligently to add some new content, ideas, and
synergy to the meetings, programs, newsletter, web
site, and discussions.
The OCSTC council is continuously trying to appeal
to all our members, but it is often difficult because
we don’t know you! What are you interested in? Is
it tech comm tool workshops? Is it having meetings
on different days? Would you like to attend a lunch
meeting or a webinar? Would you like to explore new
opportunities in social media? Would you like online
training classes? These questions are just a starting
point for areas that we want to explore with you!
Whether you are a new, former, or existing member,
we’d like to hear your views, ideas, and constructive
criticisms. Please think about what you want from
your OCSTC chapter. In a few weeks, we will send
out a survey link where you can express your ideas
and suggestions. We will use these to help us design
our strategy for the upcoming months.
Did you know that shopping at Amazon.com is not
only a great place to find books and other items,
it’s also a great way to give back to the OCSTC! The
next time you shop at Amazon, please access the
site via OCSTC.org. Amazon donates a percentage
of your purchase to the chapter.
Thank you!
2 • June 2012
Next Meeting
Directions to the DoubleTree Club Hotel
Topic: Making Wikis Part of Your Development
Process
When: Tuesday, June 19, 6-9 p.m.
Map of the I-405 and SR-55 area. The star below indicates the hotel location. Parking is FREE.
Where: DoubleTree Club Hotel
7 Hutton Centre Drive
Santa Ana, CA 92707
714.751.2400
Cost:
Members with reservations
$26
Students with reservations
$20
STC member, speaker-only
$12
Nonmembers with reservations
$31
Nonmember, speaker-only
Walk-ins, or those registering after
the deadline
$35
Walk-ins, or those registering after
the deadline, speaker only
$16
No-shows billed
$26
$15
Reservations:
Due by 9 p.m., Sunday, June 17
Registration:
Online at http://www.ocstc.org/events
If you would like to receive email notifications about
upcoming OCSTC meetings, visit www.ocstc.org and
sign up for our mailing list.
This list broadcasts only meeting notices and STC
announcements
June Meeting Information
About the Presentation
Richard Hamilton of XMLPress.net will discuss why wikis are an important emerging tool for developing and
delivering content, allowing rapid, coordinated development of content, better review, and quick delivery to
customers. XML Press has used wikis to develop, review, and edit content for several books.
Richard will also share the process used to develop those books, lessons learned, and suggestions for how to
use wikis for information development.
As a bonus, Richard will be giving away several copies of recent XML Press publications as door prizes!
Richard will also have some of his excellent books available for sale.
About the Speaker
Richard Hamilton is founder and publisher of XML Press (http://xmlpress.net), which produces high quality,
practical publications for technical communicators, managers, marketers, and the engineers who support their
work. Before that, he worked for Hewlett-Packard managing technical documentation for HP’s Unix, Linux,
and system management software. Richard is the author of Managing Writers: A Real-World Guide to Managing
Technical Documentation. He is a member of both the DocBook and DITA technical committees at OASIS open.
June 2012 • 3
Publication Policies
Editor’s Desk
TechniScribe is published 11 to 12 times a year as
a benefit to the members of the Orange County
Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. The goal of the publication is to reflect
the interests, needs, and objectives of OCSTC
members. TechniScribe strives to be an advocate
for, and an inspiration to, technical communicators
by keeping them connected to each other and to
opportunities for professional growth.
By Sima Staav, TechniScribe Managing Editor
Articles published in this newsletter may be reprinted in other STC publications if permission is
obtained from the author, credit is properly given,
and one copy of the reprint is sent to the Techni
Scribe managing editor.
Submission Information
The editorial team retains and exercises the right
to edit submitted and requested material for clarity, length, and appropriateness.
When submitting material, please remember to:
Include a 25-word biography about yourself.
Send articles in Word (doc, docx), Rich-Text Format (RTF), ASCII (txt), or in the body of an email
message.
Send material to the managing editor
(techni[email protected]) five weeks before the
date it will be published.
Editorial Staff
Managing Editor
Copyeditor
Copyeditor
Proofreader
Proofreader
Sima Staav
Anne Stratford
Jennifer Gardelle
Michael Opsteegh
Suzanne Madison
F
irst, I would like to extend
my most sincere gratitude to
Jennifer Gardelle for her kind
and encouraging words in her
farewell article in the May 2012
issue, and for her tireless support in mentoring me into my
new role. It is very exciting for
me to publish my very first column as the new managing editor
(in training) of the TechniScribe.
But, as I am standing on the launching pad ready to
begin my term, I pause and reflect on the years I spent
as a member of this chapter, going back to 2002, when
I first joined. I must admit that the true sense of belonging truly began once I was invited to share the 1st
Co-VP of programs with Jeff Randolph for one term,
then with Suzanne Madison for another, and serving
on the TechniScribe’s editorial staff as proofreader over
the years.
Many rewarding and gratifying moments added
a special dimension to my journey as an actively
participating chapter member. The 2008 STC Summit
in Philadelphia is still vividly carved in my memory.
There, with great pride and anticipation, our attending members—Jennifer Gardelle, Suzanne Madison,
and yours truly—were invited on stage to receive the
Best of Show award by the president of our organization at that time, Linda Oestreich. It is beyond words
to express the rush I felt standing in front of a sea of
Monthly Advertising Rates
1/4 page$40
1/3 page$45
1/2 page$60
Full page$80
2008 STC Summit in Philadelphia. Former STC
President, Linda Oestreich (left), presents the Best of
Show/Distinguished newsletter competition award
to TechniScribe editorial staff members—Jennifer
Gardelle, Suzanne Madison, and Sima Staav.
about 1,200 fellow STC members from around the
world, honored by our peers for attaining the highest
standard of publishing excellence worthy of a distinContinued on Page 8 >
4 • June 2012
Beginning Adobe Illustrator for Technical Communicators
By Len Poché, OCSTC Senior Member
I
f you’re fairly new to Illustrator or untrained on its features, you may not be aware of
all the things the layers panel
can do for you. Here are a
couple of tips that can help you
get more out of this handy tool.
You can find the layers panel
on the right side of your Illustrator screen (see Figure 1).
If you don’t see that icon on the right
side among the panels, you can go to
Window > Layers from the drop-down
menu at the top of the screen, or just
press F7.
Chances are that if you’ve done anything
in Illustrator without using the layers
panel, all of your artwork was placed
in a single layer, with each separate
Figure 1.
element existing on its own individual
sublayer. It’s a good habit to start placing Layers tool.
different items into their own layer, so that you have
much more control over what Illustrator can do with
them later on. (You can always flatten your artwork to
save file space at the end of your project.)
Figure 2 shows what a layers panel in a brand new
Illustrator page will look like.
There are quite a few customizations you can make just by
double-clicking on the layer
name. Doing this will bring
up the layers option dialog
box (see Figure 3).
From here, you can change
the name of each layer (perfect for keeping track of each element as you create
them and assign them to their own layer). The color
option lets you change the unique outline Illustrator gives each layer. When you have a lot of different
elements on the art
board, the color
outlines are an
immense help in
keeping track of
which layer each
drawing is assigned to. Another
useful feature here Figure 3. Layers option dialog box.
is the template,
which lets you take a scanned piece of art or some
other source material and lock it down so that you can
recreate it using Illustrator vectors.
Figure 2. Layers panel.
Back in the layers panel, the layer visibility and layer
lock toggles are great helps in letting you see or, alternately, freeze certain elements of your design when
you’re working on something else in the artwork. But
if you’re working with multiple layers, you don’t have
to click on each visibility or lock icon to apply those
changes. Just click on the top- or bottom-most layer
and drag up or down. Each layer is affected.
When you’re creating anything with several elements, Illustrator puts them into sublayers within a
layer, each on top of the next one in the order you
create them, bottom to top. This is called the stacking order. Now, you can change the stacking order
of your artwork very easily by right-clicking on the
object and going to “Arrange” and selecting from the
“Bring to Front,” “Bring Forward,” “Send Backward,”
and “Send to Back” options. There are also hot keys
available for those very same functions (Shift+Ctrl+],
Ctrl+], Ctrl+[, Shift+Ctrl+[ respectively).
But an easier, more visual way of performing the
same function is by clicking on the sublayer in the
layers panel and dragging it up or down to the exact
level at which you need it. This gives you a simpler,
more intuitive way of arranging what you’ve created.
And, of course, this trick also works with layers as
well, so groups of objects can be restacked very easily
with a mouse drag.
Here’s a great resource for you to try out on your
own. Tutvid.com has a great selection of tutorials for
all kinds of graphics and publishing software, especially Illustrator. What’s best about this site is that
most of their tutorials are videos, making these lessons very easy to follow. For Tutvid’s Illustrator page,
go to http://tutvid.com/category/tutorials/illustrator.
That’s all for now. As usual, I encourage you to experiment and use Illustrator as much as possible. You
can write to me at [email protected] if you’d like me to
answer any question you have.
June 2012 • 5
May Meeting Review
By Carrie Chambers and Bianca Szczesniak, OCSTC Members
M
you can use them
both to create polls
and quizzes. For
example, you can
create a software
simulation in Captivate, and then use
Presenter to import
that project into
PowerPoint to add
to a presentation
slide.
att Sullivan’s presentation at the May OCSTC
meeting, “eLearning Development: A Comparison of Adobe Captivate and Adobe Presenter,” was
definitely captivating! Because eLearning can be
expensive (especially if it’s boring your audience!),
Matt focused his presentation not on the features and
functions of Adobe Captivate and Presenter, but on
how we can all become better eInstructors.
eLearning can be a myriad of things—PDFs, PPTs,
webinars, YouTube videos, and virtual instructor led
training (VILT)—but Matt’s definition for the purpose
of the meeting included any content that is recorded
or delivered live.
To produce high quality and well-received eLearning,
Matt told us that although we need to learn the tools,
we must first study inspiring speakers, such as Nancy
Duarte, Steve Jobs, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Study
their cadence, their process, and their delivery methods. First learn how to be a great speaker, then use
tools such as Captivate and Presenter to deliver your
message.
Some of the tips that Matt shared on creating and
delivering top notch eLearning are listed below:
• Set up a “drop-in session” before your eLearning session to ensure that all students
can properly connect to and participate in the
training environment.
• Consider using Adobe Connect for your live
training sessions. Right now, with an annual
contract, it’s only $45/month.
• Use cameras, screen sharing, polls, and troubleshooting to increase student interaction.
• Ask students to complete course evaluations
prior to the last part of the lecture so that
evaluations are more accurate and complete.
• Practice, practice, practice! Know that you
will make mistakes. As with everything else
in life, be open to learning from your mistakes.
• Do not rely on hotel and wireless Internet
connections to deliver your eLearning.
• Do not speak monotonously, let your students
hide from you, or refrain from discussions.
The second half of Matt’s presentation highlighted
the differences between Captivate and Presenter.
Presenter is a plug-in to Microsoft PowerPoint used
to publish recorded, interactive eLearning. It is a
great tool for teaching concepts. Adobe Captivate is
best for teaching software skills. Both tools can be
used together to create one eLearning module and
6 • June 2012
Since Presenter
integrates with
PowerPoint, you
can leverage your
PowerPoint skills
Matt Sullivan explains eLearning.
to enrich existing
presentations. You can access the Presenter tools directly from the PowerPoint ribbon, so you don’t need
to learn a completely new program to create interactive learning material. Also, you can customize the
skin of your presentation viewer so that each of your
presentations has a distinct appearance.
Captivate is a great tool for recording software
simulations. When creating a simulation in Captivate,
Matt recommends carefully planning the presentation
before you record it. That way, you can avoid rerecording the presentation every time something goes
wrong. Also, make purposeful and precise mouseclicks to promote good behavior. For example, if you
consistently click the lower left-hand corners of buttons or other UI elements, eLearners will assume that
you’re supposed to always click the left-hand corner.
Matt also pointed out that it’s usually easier to delete
content rather than create new content. If you are
recording a simulation of a program but have not
yet deployed all the screens, you can take a screen
capture of a mock-up of a missing screen and add it to
your simulation during the recording process. If you
choose to not include the screen in your recording session, you may have to rerecord the entire simulation!
For additional information on the content presented
at this meeting, check out the slides from the presentation at www.slideshare.net/mattrsullivan. If you’re
bummed that you missed Matt at the May meeting,
be sure to mark your calendars now for the July 17
meeting, as he will be speaking again, this time, about
Adobe Illustrator.
“A good orator is pointed and impassioned.”
Marcus T. Cicero
Orange Juice
By Jennifer M. Myers, OCSTC 2nd VP, Membership
I
t’s the time of year for OCSTC’s
new officers to feel out their new
positions. Jennifer Lares and I are
no exception. The highly qualified
Jennifer Lares is our new 2nd VP of
membership, and I am her assistant
and backup VP. Please allow me to
provide a little information about
our hopes for the coming year.
We already have a wonderful group of active members, and we are thrilled to be part of such an enlightening and entertaining group. One thing we hope
our group will improve is outreach. Whether we are
getting in contact with members who are seldom
able to attend meetings or reaching out to students
who are planning to enter our field, we would like to
do all we can to connect them with our more active
technical communicators in Orange County.
With that in mind, we will be actively looking for
chances to speak to and work with local colleges and
universities. We also hope to spend more time finding out what our first-time visitors want and need in
a professional society. Better data and more communication should be right up the OCSTC’s alley,
and we are optimistic. With two VPs, we should have
more opportunities to make these vital connections.
The thing we cannot do, even with two Jennifers
working together, is pick up on many of the many
threads of contact in Orange County. We are hoping
that OCSTC members will alert us to opportunities
for outreach and provide feedback on our efforts
and ideas for enhancing our membership. We would
like to hear from members who are willing to share
ideas for membership outreach. The more members
who give us ideas, the greater opportunity of finding
ideas that click for OCSTC.
Last but certainly not least, we will be doing our best
to ensure that all of our first-time guests are welcomed and listened to. If you see us pass by or fail to
notice a new visitor, please do not hesitate to mention it to one or both of us. While we hope to put in a
good effort ourselves, we still will do a much better
job when our fellow technical communicators step
up and make sure we communicate!
“Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.”
Oscar Wilde
How to Convert the Toughest SME
< Continued from Page 1
• Is this step optional, or is it required to reach
our goal?
• What’s a common mistake at this point?
• What information or support do people
have? Do they use it? If not, why not?
• What pressures are people under?
• Are people rewarded if they achieve the performance we need? How?
Ask Them to Help Brainstorm Activities
and Limit Information
For each on-the-job action that you want your materials to teach, ask the SMEs to help you think of an
online activity that gives learners a chance to practice
the action (not recognize facts).
Often, it’s easier for SMEs to respond to your ideas
first, before coming up with their own. So sketch a
sacrificial prototype activity that you know won’t be
quite right, and show it to the SME. They’ll be happy
to correct you, and that might be all the momentum
they need to begin offering their own ideas.
If your SMEs keep suggesting fact checks instead of
more realistic decision-making activities, you might
try the following questions:
• If a person doesn’t know that fact, what do
they do wrong on the job? How would that
affect our goal?
• How could you tell by watching me do my
job that I know that bit of information?
• What mistakes do new people make?
• What mistakes do people make when they
get over-confident?
These questions help remind the SMEs that the only
information that should go into the material is the
info that’s required to perform the activities. If the
SMEs want to add more information, ask them to
identify the activity for which it’s vital.
This last phase can be challenging for the SMEs
because you’ll be chopping information that they
cherish. If the chopping gets too painful for them,
consider creating an optional place for the “nice to
know” information and linking to it in the course.
For more ideas on working with SMEs, check these
out:
• Julie Dirksen’s first ID Webcomic: the SME
just wants to help!
• Tips on handling SMEs by Jon Aleckson
Continued on Page 8 >
June 2012 • 7
Editor’s Desk
How to Convert the Toughest SME
< Continued from Page 4
< Continued from Page 7
guished newsletter recognition—what an exhilarating
experience!
On working with subject matter experts, here’s a
great point: “Your challenge is to honor their passion
without compromising the instructional effectiveness
of your program.” Normal Lamont’s fun slide show,
The SME Test (brace yourself for some brain surgery)
Looking at the photo that captured that memorable
event, I wonder, was it divine intervention or sheer
coincidence that brought Jennifer and I to share in
that monumental moment—together. Now here we
are, four years later, passing the figurative fountain
pen from one editor to the other. Though life teaches
us that practice makes perfect, it is also true that life’s
journeys lead us to incredible destinations—but only
if we dare to take them. This, for me, is one of those
journeys.
As I look forward to a term full of interesting, informative, and engaging TechniScribe issues, I would
like to thank my predecessor and friend, Jennifer
Gardelle. Her three-year term served as a great testimonial to her hard work and dedication ensuring
that our newsletter continues to maintain that level
of excellence for which it was awarded back in 2008.
With that being said, I must thank Michael Opsteegh,
the managing editor at the time, for elevating our
newsletter to a level meriting the honor it received,
and a special thanks to Betsy Malone, our reigning
chapter president in 2008, who made it possible for
me to attend the STC Summit.
In closing, I would like to thank each and every one
of you - our valuable chapter members - for setting
time aside from your busy schedules to read this
newsletter. I encourage you to contribute to the newsletter with relevant articles of your own. Remember,
it is a wonderful (free) way to get your work published and your name recognized within our chapter,
and throughout the publication community at large.
Cheers to all of us for yet another new journey!
Have you created good partnerships with SMEs?
What questions do you ask to get the kind of information and ideas that you need?
Cathy is an international thought leader dedicated to saving the world from boring instruction. She’s a passionate advocate for improving
business performance by respecting and deeply
challenging learners. Contact her at http://blog.
cathy-moore.com.
OCSTC is seeking raffle items!
Do you have a book, a piece of software, or promotional items that can be raffled at our meetings? Please donate those items to OCSTC.
Contact a council member for more information
(see page 2 for names and addresses).
Orange Slice: Calendar of Events
Date
Event
Location
Time
June 5
OCSTC Council Meeting
Eyefinity, 38 Discovery, Suite 250, Irvine, CA 92618
6 p.m.–7 p.m.
June
OCSTC Chapter Meeting
Richard Hamilton, Making Wikis Part of
Your Development Process
DoubleTree Club Hotel, 7 Hutton
Centre Dr., Santa Ana, CA, 92707,
714.751.2400
6 p.m.–9 p.m.
July 3
OCSTC Council Meeting
TBD
6 p.m.–7 p.m.
July 17
OCSTC Chapter Meeting
Matt Sullivan, Creating Reusable and Editable Content in Illustrator
DoubleTree Club Hotel, 7 Hutton
Centre Dr., Santa Ana, CA, 92707,
714.751.2400
6 p.m.–9 p.m.
8 • June 2012
Sponsor Corner
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user-friendly software solution providing everything you need to author, manage, publish, and deliver documentation. ASC has offices in San Jose and Newport Beach, California; Dubai, UAE; Sydney, Australia; and
Auckland, New Zealand. Learn more at http://www.author-it.com.
Lightext is a provider of exceptional consulting to its clients in
the area of policy and procedure
documentation and training
development and delivery. Our
professional staff is able to apply
a wide range of learning solutions to any organization. Our
proven strategy of exhibiting
values and depth of knowledge
while employing the right tools
allows us to deliver the appropriate solutions to our customers.
Lightext also offers courses in
procedural writing, curriculum design, and training
delivery, utilizing our expert knowledge and professional experience. As an Authorized Adobe Training
Center, we merge real world procedure and curriculum writing skills with Adobe RoboHelp and Captivate product training. Learn how combining personal
values and knowledge with some great tools can help
you support your customer or employer as a learning
professional at http://www.lightext.com.
Special thanks to Author-it,
Lightext, MadCap, and roundpeg,
OCSTC’s sponsors!
For information on sponsorship
opportunities, send an email to
[email protected].
MadCap Software is a leading technical communication software firm specializing in integrated applications for end-to-end content development, delivery,
and management. MadCap’s software products
provide state-of-the-art content workflow solutions
for multichannel publishing, including the Web, print,
desktop, and mobile. Through its strategic partner
Microsoft, MadCap delivers solutions optimized for
Microsoft Windows, Visual Studio, and the .NET environment. Headquartered in La Jolla, California, MadCap is home to some of the most experienced software
architects and product experts in the documentation
industry. Learn more at http://www.madcapsoftware.
com.
roundpeg offers consulting, web development, and
training services to both individuals and corporations,
focused primarily on Adobe products. Started in San
Francisco 15 years ago, roundpeg now offers classes
in Newport Beach, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and
Santa Clara.
As Adobe’s largest training partner on the west coast,
roundpeg sees training as not only a separate service,
but strives to support the client through the entire
lifecycle of a project. The firm prides itself on its small
class sizes—often no more than six participants—
in order to provide the kind of one-on-one training
often needed when students are learning high-tech or
complex software applications. In addition to on-site
classes, instruction is available via eLearning. All
instructors are Adobe certified. Learn more at http://
training.roundpeg.com.
June 2012 • 9
Society Pages
TechniScribe Copyright
and Trademark Statement
STC Mission Statement
STC advances the theory and practice of technical
communication across all user abilities and all media.
Positioning Statement
STC helps you design effective communication for
a technical world through information sharing and
industry leadership.
The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is
the world’s largest organization for technical communicators.
Its members include writers, editors, illustrators,
printers, publishers, photographers, educators, and
students.
Dues are $75–395 per year. Membership is open to
anyone engaged in some phase of technical communication, interested in the arts and sciences of technical
communication, and in allied arts and sciences.
Society for Technical Communication
9401 Lee Highway, Suite 300
Fairfax, VA 22031-1803
703.522.4114 (voice); http://www.stc.org
OCSTC invites writers to submit articles that they
wish to be considered for publication. Authors retain
copyright to their work and implicitly grant a license
to this newsletter to publish the work once online
for an indefinite period of time. In your cover letter,
please let the editor know if this article has appeared
elsewhere, and if it has been submitted for consideration to other publications.
The design and layout of this newsletter are copyrighted as © STC, 2012.
Some articles might refer to companies or products
whose names are covered by a trademark or registered trademark. All trademarks are the property
of their respective owners. Reference to a specific
product does not constitute an endorsement of the
product by OCSTC or by STC.
Colophon
TechniScribe is written using Microsoft Word, and laid
out using Adobe InDesign CS3 for Macintosh. Gill
Sans and Palatino Linotype are used for heading and
text fonts. PDFs are produced using Adobe Acrobat
Professional 8.
TechniScribe relies on the following editorial references for style: American Heritage Dictionary, Chicago
Manual of Style, and Words into Type.
OCSTC Employment Information
Michael Opsteegh, OCSTC web master, says that he’s working to bring a fully-functioning job board back to
ocstc.org this summer. The job board will be a valuable resource for chapter members and local employers
alike. Until then, go to http://twitter.com/STCSoCal, where you’ll find employment and general information
about the San Diego and Orange County chapters.
Inquiries
If you have an inquiry, email our employment manager, Betsy Malone, at [email protected].
Society-Level Job Listings
STC maintains job listings on the Internet. You can download the listings from the STC web site at http://jobs.
stc.org.
10 • June 2012