A New Year, A Renewed STC Experience

By Jim Romano

If technical communication were a medical condition, its symptoms would be something like this:

Numbness to budget cuts;

Vertigo from the rate of change in the profession;

Occasional anxiety attacks brought on by management’s latest reorganization;

Coughing spells caused by hysterical laughter at deadlines imposed on us;

General physical deterioration from the “3 Cs” of tech comm: carbs, chocolate, and caffeine;

and… well, you get the picture.

At the same time, there are many “cures” at our fingertips that are making tech comm a more critical function than ever before in a company’s enterprise:

Content management is growing and becoming more affordable and accessible;

Style guides, glossaries, and translation memory tools are bringing higher levels of consistency to our documentation across many languages;

Media are becoming easier to cross, and to manage across;

Management seems to be gradually understanding the role of communication products in projecting their brand.

So as we enter 2006, we must ask ourselves: is the glass half-empty or half-full? Is our profession’s medical condition “business as usual,” or, as some might say, terminal? While the answer depends on where you sit, which could be in a corporate cube, a home office, or an employment line, there are several basic truths that seem to characterize our field as we begin 2006. Let’s look at three of them and see how STC is helping you prepare for the challenge of meeting them:

Education and learning is more critical than ever. The rule of thumb used to be that every 18 months technology would turn over. In our field, it seems that the learning curve is compressing to about half that. After all, who would dare think they know enough to go on auto-pilot for a year, without building a continuous learning component into their schedule?

STC is a great way to keep in touch with professional trends, tools, processes, and best practices. Whether at the local level, society level, or virtually, STC offers a wide range of techniques to keep abreast of the many elements that shape the way we do business in technical communication.

It’s still all about networking. In this age of web-based everything, monster.com job hunting, and virtual commuting, there is still no substitute for face-to-face networking and communication. This is true as much for colleague-to-colleague interaction as it is for vendor-client interaction, as much for professional development as it is for drumming up business.

STC is pushing the virtual envelope with webinars, online learning, telephone seminars, and virtual communities (SIGs). At the same time, our local chapter/community meetings are irreplaceable opportunities for networking, information sharing, learning, and occasionally commiserating about a common client issue. If you haven’t been to a local STC meeting recently, your batteries probably need recharging, and that’s a great place to plug in.

Want to think outside the box? Try: There is no box! The role of innovative thinking in technical communication is more critical than ever. Our clients, internal and external, look to us for solutions, not just documentation. We are quickly becoming aware of the need to go beyond our traditional roles to come up with genuine solutions for the communication products and services we support.

While STC cannot force its members to become outside-the-box thinkers, we can provide a fertile place in which innovative thinking is welcomed, nurtured, and shared. Many long-time STC members keep returning and renewing their membership for that je ne sais quois that characterizes the STC experience. It is a combination of solution-oriented thinking, doing more with less, and thriving in the face of what for many is corporate adversity in these days of “leaning the enterprise” (translation: budget cuts).

So, is our professional medical condition a healthy, lean diet, or is it corporate starvation? Whatever your perspective, STC provides the professional sustenance to help you deal with it, and to thrive in this Age of Lean. As you consider renewing your STC membership for another year, think about how you can really use the value STC offers you in order to make the most of your work as a healthy technical communicator.

In the meantime, there are many STC volunteers and staff members who are working tirelessly to ensure that you see the STC glass is half full, not half empty, and we are working hard to fill it up even more for our valued members.

James V. Romano is a senior member of STC, and President and CEO of Prisma International. He is currently the Director-Sponsor of STC Region-6, which includes the India chapter.

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