More Communication!

by Fei Min Lorente, President

Just what an STC Chapter should do!

You’ve already heard about our blog (http://stc-soc.blogspot.com). We started it to keep you up-to-date on important changes to the STC, the chapter, and our relationship with the Society (per bylaws, registering as a non-profit organization, and the affiliation agreement). Now we’d like to move The Quill over to the blog so that you can get articles more frequently and get news that is more timely. We’re planning to finish the last three editions of The Quill that are planned for the rest of the Chapter year (until June 2010), but after that, you can go to the blog any time and get the latest news and information. And you can comment or even discuss the posts online.

We’ve started a discussion list using Google Groups. Initially, this will just be to announce events, both our own and anything else that might be of interest to you as technical communicators. If you hear about something educational that others might want to know, you can post it, too. It will be moderated, so there will be a delay, but it’ll get there within 24 hours. Furthermore, people can comment on the event, especially if they’ve attended it, and recommend it (or not) to others. If this list is successful, we’ll launch a discussion list for all technical communicators in the area so we can all participate in Q&A on anything related to our careers, from job-hunting to retirement. Thank you to Carol Lawless for setting up this service. Look for an email announcing when it is open for business.

Finally, we experimented with using Genesys to broadcast the December Education Evening as a webinar. The attendees were satisfied, but the host (that’s me) was not. We need a reliable connection to the internet if we’re going to do that again. Well, I’m going to give it another try, this time from the Davis Centre, for the March 2 Education Evening. If you can’t be there in person, you can join us virtually!