The President’s Corner

The President’s Corner

Debra JohnsonThe President’s Corner

By Debra Johnson, President
Orlando Central Florida STC Chapter
president@stc-orlando.org

International STC Summit:
Phoenix, AZ   May 18-21 2014
…by Debra Johnson, Chapter PresidentMarch_2014_PresidentsCorner1

Ten years ago in 2004, it was likely that attendees at STC’s 51st Annual Conference in Baltimore, MD attended a session that included one or more expert guest speakers from the Orlando Central Florida Chapter. Orlando was highly represented by a contingent of 17 members, eight of whom presented to the international audience of technical communicators, with a March_2014_PresidentsCorner2dozen taking part in Leadership Day sessions. These numbers were an all-time high for our chapter.

I wish we had the same attendance and commitment as then…
However, It should be an outstanding event in the usual fashion.

This year’s summit takes place 18-21 May in Phoenix and officially begins Sunday evening, 18 May, with a general session and keynote speaker. Check out the 2014 STC Summit Video.

I have attended in 2007, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, I don’t know yet, ifMarch_2014_PresidentsCorner3 I will be able to attend this year due to company finances, but I am still working hard to convince my boss how important this is to me, to our department and to the Company.  Rates have been much the same for a number of years.

Each year I submit a letter to my boss justifying why I should attend the STC Summit in today’s economy.

To my supervisor, I wrote… (Using STC’s template)

Dear Boss…
I understand that we are trying to cut back on costs and we are looking for ways to get the most for the money we spend in every area. As we have discussed previously, there is a cost-effective professional education conference in May that will help me better reduce the expense in documentation costs, collaborative  authoring, best practices, Technical Communication Management, as well as  several other areas.

March_2014_PresidentsCorner4As the WVO IT Technical Communication Group Team Lead and President of the local Orlando Central FL Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication, I would like to attend the 2014 Technical Communication Summit in Phoenix, AZ on May 18-21, presented by the International Society for Technical Communication. The Summit is packed with more than 80 sessions occurring over the four days (3 full workdays) with topics covering all aspects of leadership, technical writing, editing, practice management, and publication production.

With most conferences, the challenge has always been to get to as many of the higher priority sessions as possible. That’s where this Training Summit is different! STC now includes SUMMIT@aClick in the registration fee. This is an online collection of the conference’s content.  I will be able to bring the entire conference back with me to revisit and to share with the rest of the team. This increases the value of my participation tenfold. Not only does it capture the audio and visual presentations of the speakers, its content can be shared and revisited for a year after the conference with others on my team, as well as others in our Company.

In addition, I just found out that our Orlando Central FL STC Chapter has won the International STC’s Top Honor Community of Distinction for the eighth time – I really want to represent our local STC community as President, as well as our company as Technical Communication Lead when accepting the award…

My costs would be…. (Included the costs for me…)

Summary of Benefits for WVO:
With the current economic conditions, we are all being asked to do more and control costs wherever possible. This conference is a small investment in empowering me and others involved in technical communication efforts to do even more. The sessions I attend will provide us with more knowledge of content production, editing, writing, user experience, management concepts, and collaborative authoring. This knowledge will enable me to handle documentation projects with more professionalism and confidence, which will reflect favorably on Technical Communication, IT RCE, Information Technology, and WVO.  ….and with SUMMIT@aClick, I will be able to pass on much of this information to coworkers.

Thank for your consideration…

Debra
I’m an STC member
!

So…cross your fingers for me… I hope I get to go…It’s my first year as President and not being there would be so disappointing!!!

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