Economic downturn = Time for professional development?

["Latella, Vincent" <VINCENT -dot- LATELLA -at- saic -dot- com>]

Has anyone else decided to weather the current economic storm by placing
more focus on professional development?  If so, what's your plan?  Do
you find yourself in graduate school, pursuing software training, or
attending more conferences?  Are you undertaking more diverse projects
at work in the hopes of enhancing your resume?  How are you prioritizing
your efforts?

 

I figure that there's no time like the present for turning myself into a
more marketable candidate, but I don't know what to shoot for first.
I'm just six credits away from my graduate degree, so I don't see myself
pursuing any additional higher education in the near term, but I'm
wondering if there's anything that I could be doing at work to enhance
my qualifications as a technical writer / trainer in pursuit of a more
general knowledge manager-type role.  At present, I train people and
write user guides for proprietary systems, working closely with a team
of developers.  Should I branch out into other forms of documentation?
Although I work for a very large company, we don't use any of the
software that's regularly mentioned on TECHWR-L.  Are there any
"must-haves?"  I also don't have an STC membership yet; is that
something I should address, or is it a secondary concern?   

 

Thanks in advance for your input! 

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 2009 is your all-in-one authoring and publishing 
solution. Author in Doc-To-Help's XML-based editor,  Microsoft Word or 
HTML and publish to the Web, Help systems or printed manuals. 
http://www.doctohelp.com

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info. 

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat