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STC chapter question -- what should an employer expect? (take III)
Subject:STC chapter question -- what should an employer expect? (take III) From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Sun, 06 Mar 2005 08:42:06 -0500
Three strikes and I'm out. Here's the pitch! <g> T.W. Smith wondered:
<<In pushing this back to a discussion of local chapters, what can the
local chapter do to reel in the apathetic, motivate the masses, and
energize the general chapter population so that things of real value
happen...?>>
An excellent question, and alas, not one I can answer. Members of any
organization must be the ones who take responsibility for curing their
own apathy. (You can lead the hordes to water, but you cannot make them
think. <g>) I'm not interesting in playing the anesthetizing role of a
TV set; I expect people to take some responsibility for their own
motivation.
We do market our meetings agressively without being offensive about it,
and have a reputation for presenting relevant talks by good speakers,
but it's still rare for us to get more than 10% of our membership
turning out at any given meeting (ca. 20 people). I'm told that's
actually a good rate by comparison with many chapters, but it's still
disappointing. Our social events usually exceed a 20% turnout, which
suggests to me that perhaps we should be doing more social events.
<<IOW, if the employer is willing to pay, but the pubs manager is
uncertain that they can justify 6 memberships to the point that he does
not try, what can the local chapter do to turn this around?>>
One thing we're trying to do here in Montreal is work with the local
human resources professionals to explain the value we bring to a
company. I've written up a short, punchy article for their monthly
newsletter, but haven't been able to get it published yet because they
only accept articles from members and I'm not interested in joining;
I've finally found a member who may be willing to submit it under his
own name. I'm also hoping to convince them to invite me to a monthly
meeting so I can establish direct contacts and provide ongoing
feedback.
To demonstrate the value of the membership, members must show that
they've learned something that makes them better at their jobs. For
example, a manager can see the ad for my talk on onscreen editing, and
say "I want all six of you to attend, and at least one of you to come
back from that talk ready to try implementing this new approach". Or
the manager can say "we're thinking about single-sourcing -- I want you
all to go to France Baril's talk on March 15th* and learn about XML and
DITA, then tell me by the end of the week how we could try that."
* That's an actual example from STC Montreal, by the way.
As manager I'd turn the problem around: "We have three killer problems
at work: managing SMEs, demonstrating value, and getting donuts before
the engineers see them. Go to the STC meeting and find out how everyone
else deals with these problems." In my experience, STC members are more
than willing to share their solutions, and there's nothing like a focus
on your own specific problems to motivate you to work to solve them.
<<At the very least, an employer should think of the following as
important for employee retention>>
All good, but you left out why I left my most recent employer--formerly
the best boss and best job (pre-freelancing) I'd ever had. At my
performance appraisal a few years ago, my boss said to me "you're full
of all this wonderful theory and great suggestions, but you never do
anything with it". I pointed out half a dozen things I'd proposed in
the past year alone that had been turned down cold, reminded him that
I'd been doing this for nearly 10 years with few successes, and
mentioned a few of the big-payoff things I had done (several without
permission). He admitted that I had a point and apologized for the
organizational inertia.
If you have intelligent, motivated employees who go to a conference or
meeting or who join a professional society and come back supercharged
with energy and great ideas, let them try out a few of those ideas.
Sure, they may fail. But if they succeed, you've repaid your investment
in the membership costs and given them a reason to stay on and try
again.
Bill Swallow added a few thoughts: <<Plan events around common areas of
interest to start, and don't make them simple "meet and greets". I hate
simple meet and greets...>>
See the problem we face? You don't like meet and greets, which is fair
enough, but as noted above, roughly twice as many of our local members
attend meet and greets as attend technical meetings. The point here is
not to pick on Bill, but to emphasize that in an organization like STC
Montreal (ca. 200 members), there's a wide and often nonoverlapping
range of interests. No one idea motivates everyone to attend. We do
have a core of regulars at our meetings, but the audience tends to vary
with the topics, and some people never come to any meeting: too many
other commitments, too far to travel, whatever.
<<how likely will an employer shell out for a conference that features
several job hunting and positioning sessions?>>
Let's play devil's advocate here: Does the employer send their software
developers, engineers, middle managers, and even senior managers to
conferences that feature job hunting and positioning sessions? Do these
people belong to organizations that make them vulnerable to
headhunting? You bet they do. Why should we be any different?
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