FWD: About Training Opportunities Summary (long)

[anonfwd -at- raycomm -dot- com]

First off, many thanks to these fine people for their responses:

Kat Nagel
Geoff Hart
Eric J. Ray
Susan W. Gallagher
Dan Hall
salatas
Tracy Boyington
Donn Le Vie
Tom Murrell

I compiled the survey responses where possible and included the pertinent
comments for the rest. I also had a few people who sent mail "directly to
me" who asked that their comments not be posted publicly. I felt that they
agreed with the essence of those who responded publicly.

Many of you made wonderful suggestions about approaches. When I found out
about the policy, my first approach was actually to pitch the business
benefits of training, PR, advertising, internal resource competency, and
so on, rather than my benefits. The response I received was "Why would
technical writers be able to buy [Insert Product Name} here." Duh! (I did
come up with a better response, though!) The sad thing is that our
documentation is of very high quality and is used as an active selling
point for our products. Luckily Development, Sales & Marketing, and Technical
Support value documentation, but management, in my group at least,
doesn't. By the time the policy decision was made, the deadline for training
requests had passed. I most likely will not receive any training in 2001. 

Thanks again to all of you for your help. It was nice to know that for
once I wasn't just being whiney! :)


*****Survey Results*****
(One person sent results from both the consultant and FTE perspectives)

Q: 1. How many of you get paid training at all?

A: I get unlimited internal training classes, $6,000 per year in education
assistance, and an occasional conference.

A: Yep.

A: Yes, I was guaranteed a minimum of 40 hours/year of training (I
averaged around 80).

A: (Contractor/Consultant) The only paid training I get is that which I
pay for myself, though my current client has offered to send me through some
of their training programs (if I cover other expenses).


Q: 2. How many of you have either a limit on number of times or money?

A: Money for graduate classes is limited to $6,000 per year. Conferences
are budgeted at two per year for our entire group of 7 full-time captives. I
went to one, so it probably won't be my turn again for a long time, if
ever.

A: Yep. We have a training budget for our division. First-come
first-served, and when the money's gone, it's gone.

A: I got to go to 2 external conferences per year (and spoke at several
internal ones) and went to as much training as possible until my manager
said "enough."

A: (Contractor/Consultant) I look now to self-training with books and CDs;
online training and tutorials.

A: It is a fixed $ amount per year, and can be used for anything related
to the training:  conference or course fees, travel, lodging, other expenses,
and TIME OFF FROM WORK (calculated as #days at my usual pay rate).


Q: 3. How many of you could get paid time off to speak?

A: I'm pretty sure I could get it if I asked.

A: Yep, as long as it's related to my position here.

A: I had no problem getting time off so long as the project load did not
suffer.

A: (Contractor/Consultant) I get unpaid time off to present and speak at
conferences (If I'm speaking somewhere, I'm not billable).

A: Unless I want to use my vacation time, I have to 'buy' the extra days
at my usual rate or make up the time by working extra hours before or after
the training opportunity.  This policy applies whether I'm getting trained
myself or training others by teaching a course or presenting a paper,
unless I can convince the prez that delivering a paper is marketing the company
to potential customers.


Q: 4. Have you ever tried to negotiate the policy either at hiring or
review time?

A: No.

A: Not an option -- government employee.

A: Yes, I negotiated the policy as part of my hire.

A: (Contractor/Consultant) Didn't negotiate this with my current client,
though it was discussed.


Q: 5. Do you perceive a difference in policy between the technical
communicators and other groups?

A: No.

A: Nope.

A: No, I never perceived any significant difference in policies between
tech comm and other groups.

A: (Contractor/Consultant) No, I never perceived any significant
difference in policies between tech comm and other groups.

A: My company gives me the same training benefit that the developers get.



*****Comments*****
Wow! What a great loss for your company. What "poverty of imagination!"

Tom hit it right on the head when he suggested that you need to explain
the benefits of being a presenter at a conference rather than a mere attendee.

First, there's the PR benefit. Your company's name is inextricably linked
to an excellent presentation by an expert on _insert topic_. Generally,
conferences ask for presenters who are on the cutting edge, or who have
knowledge/expertise in a particular area. What better opportunity will you
have to link your company and _topic_ excellence in the minds of the
attendees? Being present and visible is key here. It's why all those three
person companies with negative revenue go further in debt to have a booth
at Comdex.

Which brings us to the (potential) business benefit. It isn't only (or
even mostly) worker bees who attend conferences. Decision makers are there too.
When a company starts looking for someone to _insert service here_,
they're going to look for someone who can do the job right. Your outstanding
presentation from the conference will be remembered. And it is quite
likely that if your company is seen as a company of experts, you're going to get
the call (other things being equal.) 

Then there are opportunities for recruiting. Passing out business cards as
a presenter can be much more effective than doing the same as an attendee.
Most people want to work at companies that are tops, and one measure of
that (rightly or not) can be your participation as a presenter. Passing out
presentation notes with your company's contact information is another good
idea.

Beyond this, (and I would argue that this is the main point) there is the
benefit your employer receives from your research into your topic. This
actual expertise can become a valuable internal resource. At Cooper, we
often take presentations from public speaking engagements that explain our
company goals and methods and use them as training tools for new
employees.
In fact, if you can swing it, giving an excellent internal presentation on
a topic in which you are well versed can be a springboard to selling the
idea of external presentations.

Dan Cooper

***************

Motorola had a program called the "Silver Quill" program, whereby authors
of technical papers, industry journal articles, books, book chapters in
compilation volumes, got cash awards (and very nice plaques) for their
efforts. The cash awards varied from about $250 per paper up to around
$1500 for the more engineering focused. They also paid $100 per presentation, so
if you gave 2 presentations at a conference and had the presentation/paper
published in the Proceedings, you could earn about $400 for each paper
(the average for tech comm subjects) and $100 each for the
presentations,netting you $1,000 for your efforts. 

Once you reached a certain level of awards ($5,000 I think), you became a
Gold Quill Author and received another very nice plaque and a bonus of
$2,500. I was the first technical communications professional to reach the
Gold Quill status (that category was dominated by engineers, many of whom
were in competition with each other to see who could earn the most $$$
awards and bonus money).

Motorola claims that a well-placed white paper or industry journal article
was the equivalent of spending $35,000 in advertising, so paying the
author $1,500 was indeed a bargain for them.

Donn Le Vie

***************

It's not that I don't think the questions are good one, but reading
this note sparked a question of my own. Have you tried explaining the
benefits that would accrue to your employer from their letting you
attend a conference or training seminar as a speaker rather than as a
trainee?

I think it's easier to see the benefits you can obtain by sending
people to be trained than it is to see the benefits you can obtain by
allowing your people to attend for the purpose of sharing expertise
that your company may have helped them obtain. It may be, of course,
that you have gone through the exercise of giving your management an
analysis of the benefits to them of letting you be a presenter at a
conference on their dime, or on a shared dime. But on the off chance
that you hadn't considered that, you might try it.

Some possible benefits that come to mind are helping to get your
company's name in front of people in a 'non-commercial' way (semi-free
advertising), perhaps getting a product in front of professionals, also
helping with recruiting, if you're having some problems attracting good
people both from what I mentioned previously and from letting possibles
see that your company has at least one sharp person (you, I presume).

Tom Murrell

***************

My previous company used MBO (management by objectives). When I
established my personal and professional goals for each year,
I included speaking at professional conferences. They never 
balked at sending me to two conferences a year (all I asked for)
and paid travel, hotel, and conference fees (yes, STC, of course).
A couple of times, they paid to copy my handouts and FedEx them
to my hotel for me.

When I was interviewing for a new job last summer, I informed
my interviewers that I had plans to speak at a conference in
October and  that I'd already submitted proposals for a 
conference in May. One company was initially hesitant, but
then relented. One company said, "Conference? Let's see...
You grow professionally, come back to work all enthusiastic
about what you've done at the conference, and put our name
out in the public eye. Of course, conferences are a no-
brainer. Sure you can go."

That was only one of the reasons I accepted my current position.
And yes, I started here in August and got paid time off to go
to a conference in October. I did not ask them to pay for my
conference fees because I made money on that trip.

Sue Gallagher

***************

If I've been approved to attend the conference for its own sake, then
speaking at the conference is not an issue. (For example, my big training
opportunity this year will be attending STC in Chicago, and I plan to
participate in one "progression" and some of the special-interest
luncheons while I'm there.) If I haven't been approved for the conference, then
approval requires that I make a strong sales pitch to persuade them. For
example, I'm currently trying to negotiate a deal with my boss that would
let me attend an upcoming WinWriters conference where I've been invited to
speak. Because WinWriters pays its speakers, FERIC obviously won't want to
pay me to go somewhere else to earn a living. <g> That being the case, the
logic I'm using is that my speaker's fee will cover most of my expenses,
and in exchange for a minor amount of money, FERIC will get ca. US$1000 worth
of free training for me since the conference also waives the attendance fee
for speakers. We'll be discussing this in the new year, but if the scheduling
works out, the prospects are good that they'll accept.

To succeed, you should modify the approach I've proposed above, and
convince the company that your attendance is both good for you and won't harm them.
That is, persuade them that they'll get enough value from the training you
receive at the conference to justify the lost time while you're
away. Start by listing the specific requirements of your current job that
you don't know how to do or need to learn to do better (e.g., you're a
WinHelp ace, but know nothing about HTMLHelp), and specify how the
conference will address those needs. Conclude your sales pitch by listing
the reasons why the company thinks you can't attend the conference, and
what you propose to do to remove these obstacles (e.g., if there's a
deadline the same week as the conference, you'll work overtime in the
weeks beforehand to ensure the deadline is met).

Geoff Hart



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