2002/2003 Programs

2003 STCEO election results

President - Rick Lorenz
Vice President - Amberlee O'Connor
Treasurer - Ken Kicksee
Secretary - Jenny Hills

Newsletter Editor - Chris Hallgren
Public Relations Manager - Barbara Hodder
Competition Manager - Harley Rubisch
Education Manager - Peter Martin
Membership Manager/Volunteer Coordinator - Lori Briggs
Web Manager/Employment Manager - Robin Kelsey

Vacant: Program Manager

All positions were filled by acclamation. Peter Sturgeon will serve as Past President.

To volunteer as Program Manager, please contact president@stceo.org.

Thanks to Brian Williamson, for serving as nominations/elections officer.

The STCEO Scholarship for highest standing in the Technical Writer program at Algonquin College was presented to Harley Rubisch.

2003 Annual General Meeting

Wednesday, May 28, 6:30
Dow's Lake Pavilion
Food will be served

Algonquin Scholarship

The STCEO scholarship will be presented to the Algonquin student with the highest GPA in the Technical Writer program.

Yearly elections

The following candidates have declared themselves:

Elected positions

• President - Rick Lorenz
• Vice-President - Amberlee O'Connor
• Treasurer - Ken Kicksee
• Past President - Peter Sturgeon
• Secretary - no nominations

Volunteer Positions:

• Membership Manager, Volunteer Co-ordinator - Lori Briggs
• Newsletter Editor - Chris Hallgren
• Web Manager, Employment Manager - Robin Kelsey
• Algonquin Student Rep TBD, fall 2003
• Program Manager - no volunteers
• Public Relations Manager - no volunteers
• Competition General Manager - no volunteers
• Education Manager - no volunteers

Self-nominations and volunteers will be accepted from the floor for all positions. Elections will be held where there are multiple candidates. If there is only one candidate for any position, that person will be acclaimed.

Dow's Lake Pavilion is near the corner of Carling and Preston/Prince of Wales.
Here is a map showing some bus routes. (The pavilion is marked with a red X.)

April Event

A Case in Single Sourcing

Christel Kurz and Mindy Sichel, two local technical writers, will be presenting a demonstration session at the 50th Annual STC Conference in Dallas in May.

Before they leave for the Lone Star state, they will be premiering the session at an Ottawa STCEO meeting, in order to get some feedback. Come and learn about their experience in producing installation guides for 15 different products in one release. The session provides a working example of information design and a demonstration of how the team implemented single sourcing.

Here's an excerpt from Christel and Mindy's successful proposal:

In this day of more product releases, fewer resources, and streamlined budgets, we face new challenges as technical communicators and sometimes, even tasks that seem absolutely impossible. We had such a task when two writers were asked to produce separate, stand-alone installation guides for a suite of 15 products that could be used individually or in combination, and on either Windows or UNIX. We propose to lead a demonstration session that emphasizes the information design process we followed and the single-sourcing strategy we used. We will talk about the research we did to determine similarities and differences among the products and platforms, show the planning documents we produced, the outlines we developed, and demonstrate how we used the tools to implement our strategy. The session will provide both a working example of information design for a complicated project and a tools and technology demonstration to implement single-sourcing.

You can download Mindy and Christel's slide presentation here.

Date: Thursday, April 24
Time: Food at 6:30 PM, Meeting at 7:00 PM
Venue: Dow's Lake Pavilion

March Event

Employment Seminar

STCEO is presenting an employment seminar. It will be at Dow's Lake Pavilion, on Thursday March 27, starting at 6:30 PM.

Panelists will include:

• Penny Lange, Technical Writer with Penny Lange and Associates. She will represent technical writers.
• Kevin Ireland, Senior Recruiter with Ajilon Consulting. He will represent recruiters for government.
• Antoinette Rodigheiro, Bid Manager with Ajilon Consulting. She will provide information about government bid policies and procedures.
• Shawn Mountain, Technical Recruiting Manager with PROCOM. He will represent recruiters for private industry.

Dow's Lake Pavilion is near the corner of Carling and Preston.
Here is a map showing some bus routes. The pavilion is marked with a red X.
Looks like 6, 85, 99, 3, and the Carling O-Train station would all do the trick.

December Event

Christmas Party

Come Ye! Come Ye! to some holiday cheer. Let's lift our glasses to making it through another year.

Let's muse and discuss this field we're in. And bemoan the use of the language and other more distressing things.

But no, let us laugh and network and get together to share more cheery musings.
-Chris Hallgren

What? Eat! Drink! Network! Schmooze!

When? Thursday, December 12, 6:30 to 10:00 pm

Where? Dow's Lake Pavilion

November Program Event:

Indexing

"By far, the index is considered to be the most important software documentation support feature." - conclusions of a survey by the Dataquest Desktop Software Support group (1993).

STCEO is providing a panel discussion on indexing. The event will be at Dow's Lake Pavilion, on November 28, 2002. Refreshments will be served at 6:30 PM, and the discussion will begin at 7:00. Panelists are Chris Hallgren and Fred Brown. Both panelists will invite comments and discussion during their presentations. This event complements the telephone seminar on
indexing being offered by the STC (see www.stc.org/seminars.asp).

So come hear about the quality and development issues of good indexes from the point of view of authors and editors who have had to perform this work. Different benefits and issues of different ways of tackling indexing will be presented, along with tips that may help your own projects. Stop dreading indexing and learn ways to enjoy it, and produce an index that the users love.

To do:

1. If you have specific questions about indexing, send them to rick_lorenz@hotmail.com for advance consideration by the panelists.
2. If you want to join the panel, notify rick_lorenz@hotmail.com.

Fred Brown has worked as a technical communicator for over 10 years. Fred specialized in indexing and two years ago started Allegro Technical Indexing. He has written indexes for book publishers, computer firms and government agencies; has given indexing workshops to the STC and SIGDOC; and publishes an online newsletter. You may reach him at http://www.allegrotechindexing.com. His presentation is titled "Creating great indexes -- tips, tricks and traps", and will include:

• The Bottom Line - what benefits an index adds to your technical communication investment.
• Criteria - what to look for in an effective index.
• Tips - how to index modern task-oriented documentation.
• Traps - how to solve common indexing problems.
• Future - how indexing relates to single source publishing, XML, search engines and other evolving technologies.

Chris Hallgren has worked as an indexer for all the companies for which he has worked, and has delivered indexing workshops for the STC, Microsoft, and Nortel Networks. At IBM he handled several large indexing efforts and his user id was indexman. He approaches indexing as a special effort during a whole project, and believes in unique and useful entries. His presentation will include:

• Index time line during a project.
• Stages in an index.
• Terminology for different audiences.
• Topics versus instructions.
• Identifying the type of information in the entries.
• Vetting an index as a database.
• Final edits and rationalization.
• Testing an index.

Chris's PowerPoint presentation is available here.

October Program Event

Be a SME!

The next STCEO event will be held on Thursday, October 24, at the Nepean Sailing Club.

Gordon Brown, former STCEO vice president, will present:

Food will be served at 6:00 PM, and the presentation will begin at 6:30.

You do not have to RSVP for this event. Just come!

All are welcome. Admission is free.

The Nepean Sailing Club is on Carling west of Britannia. It's close by Andrew Haydon Park.

Wine & Cheese

Dow's Lake Pavilion
Thursday, Sept.26
6:30 PM

Free for all - All are welcome

Please RSVP if you wish to attend.

View pictures from the event