Re: STC - academia or real-world?

[Marjorie Hermansen-Eldard <meldard -at- ZZSOFT -dot- COM>]

 . . a short response to both John Gilger and Garret Romaine:

Having spent several years as industry liaison to a student chapter as well as nearly 11 years in various leadership and committee positions within STC, I must concur with Garret.

John, student chapters of the STC (at least in the Intermountain area), rely a great deal on "real world" support from our mainstream chapter, but the organization at large is certainly not focused on publishing the work of graduate students. I wish we could get more of our students to publish, actually!

One thing you must remember, John,  these students are the technical communicators of the future. As I tell many of the audiences I present to: the students are our (us veteran technical communicators) competition. Their learning processes, classroom experiences, and perhaps publishing opportunities are far superior to what we had when we were in school. Please don't be critical of these young folks. . . they may very well be in line to compete for your job one day. My preference is to get to know them; learn from them; tap into their enthusiasm and ride the wave of technological advancement WITH them, rather than against them!

. . . just some reflections from a "committed" technical communication junkie and teacher!

Marj Hermansen-Eldard
Senior Technical Writer
ZZSoft, Inc.

>>> Garret Romaine <garret -dot- h -dot- romaine -at- EXGATE -dot- TEK -dot- COM> 01/08 9:19 AM >>>
John Gilger writes:
>         How many of these 17,000 actually work in the technical writing
> community  OUTSIDE of academia?
>
>         I think that that the STC would become more useful and better
> known if their publications were more oriented to real world, working
> tech communicators rather than a publishing forum for grad students.
>
>    [Romaine, Garret H]  I never got the impression that STC catered to the
> ivory towers of the campus. Rather, the opposite. My experience is that
> most student chapters are very low-budget affairs, and constantly in a
> near-death condition. The majority of members connected to campus are the
> teachers, not students. Your mileage may vary, but I certainly disagree
> with your statement, John. The real excitement is coming from the regular
> chapters.
>
Not to blow our horn too much, but the Willamette Valley chapter based in
Portland, Oregon is incredibly diverse and thriving, adding 10-12 members
per month. We have active Special Interest Groups for Entry Level,
Contractors, Online Help, and Managers, and our program meetings have
attracted up to 80 attendees at times. Life is good here.

Also, any good professional organization sponsors research, in order to
drill down into the details. Where would we be without a solid,
research-based understanding of human factors, interface design, and adult
education? I'm constantly accused of seeing the glass as more than half
full, but having served as a volunteer, an officer, and as president of a
local chapter, I take exception to any inference that STC doesn't serve it's
members well. If you don't think it does, I would challenge you to get
involved, run for office, and make initiate some changes that you feel make
sense. Your network may be giving you different signals, but I've found the
issues of the day to be well-understood by STC. The last annual conventions
I've attended -- Washington, D.C., Seattle, Toronto and Anaheim -- were
topical, current, and exciting. And heavily geared toward solving problems.

Garret Romaine
Willamette Valley Chapter
garret -dot- h -dot- romaine -at- tek -dot- com
>

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=