With the 2010 Summit, Michael Hughes rose from First Vice President to President of STC. With that comes his very own monthly blog here on STC’s Notebook, called “Open Mike.” I know, what a perk! Today we give you his first of many blog posts, with a bonus comic strip to boot! Today’s blog is on transparency and trust, two issues Mike spoke about at the Summit. He closes with an invitation for comments. Enjoy!
Transparency and Trust
First off, I’d like to make the disclaimer that any resemblance between the guy in the middle frame of the comic and my brother-in-law is purely coincidental. But there is nothing coincidental about the theme of my first presidential blog and the resounding message that came out of meetings with STC leaders and members during the Dallas Summit. Rebuilding transparency and trust was high on everyone’s list. What I found most encouraging, however, was the tone—positive and enthusiastic—a lot of members and volunteers eager to roll up their sleeves and get to work.
But as the comic portrays, trust is not earned by just asking for it. And as our Dallas keynote speaker, Erin McKean, pointed out, a man in a tux can be James Bond, international man of mystery—or a waiter.
Trust must be earned, and the first step toward earning that trust needs to be transparency. In the first meeting of the new STC board, we talked about transparency, and we listed the following attributes:
- Decisions are publicly announced
- Financial reports are accessible
- Process itself is transparent
- The discussions for and against an issue are visible before the decision is made
The first two items are fairly easy to meet; in fact we have been doing that. We post board minutes and financial documents, but not in a way that makes them easy to find. We are in the process of improving navigation on our website to our Board of Director meeting minutes and to monthly financial summaries that the board reviews every month.
The last two items, making our processes more transparent and airing the discussions before a decision is made, strike more to the heart of what I consider to be transparency. I think this is what our community leaders and members are looking for. Here are some things we will start to do:
- I’ll let you know what the board is working on in these presidential blogs.
- We will post reports, proposals, and working documents that can inform the members about what we are considering. We will post these to the same area where we post meeting minutes.
- We will communicate the options we are considering and comment on their pros and cons as we see them.
- We will invite member comments and feedback.
So for starters, in our first board meeting on 4 May, at the Summit, the board approved my nominations of committee chairs. You can see my document where I list the committees, their objectives, and their chairs. This will be a living document as we add members to existing committees and add new committees and task forces.
In the board’s online discussion group, we have been talking about a suggestion that has come up from a number of sources, namely that we allow student members to vote in Society elections. We are trying a new online discussion protocol that has three phases:
- Phase 1: Define the issue and collect relevant data to inform the discussion.
- Phase 2: Identify options and list pros and cons for each option
- Phase 3: Have an open discussion where board members can advocate for or against specific options.
The important aspect of this protocol is that we defer advocating for or against something until we have collected the supporting data and identified what our viable options are. Part of identifying options is listing both the pros and cons. A con is not necessarily an argument against; it is an issue or cost that would have to be mitigated or managed. You can see a summary of Phase 1 and Phase 2 for our Student Voting discussion here. If you would like to weigh in and be heard, add a comment to this blog.
So, everyone have their sleeves rolled up and ready to go to work?
This is going to be fun, trust me.
Mike
Hey Mike, I think this is an excellent plan for transparency and is precisely what members have been asking for over these past few years. A very solid step in the right direction!
It’s nice to see the document with all committee chairs posted 🙂 It’s so much easier to find out who the chairs are now!
You make transparency sound pretty easy; are there no challenges?
There are two inter-related challenges that I am keenly aware of. The first is to become willing to share ideas and documents that are essentially still “half-baked.” I think this is a particularly hard thing for technical communicators to do—we want to add that last bit of polish before letting others see it.
The second, and related challenge, is for the audience to accept works in their formative stages and not get into hissy-fits over imperfections. Expect to see typos and ideas that have not been thought all the way through. We need to make our feedback appropriate and constructive.
@ Michael – I’ve used the term Preliminary in bold red to mark up both text documents and engineering drawings that are in a pre-draft state for going on 25 years, it may prove useful in this instance as well.
I also applaud the initiative to increase the level of transparency.
My mama always said, “Never trust a man who says ‘Trust me,'” but in this case I’ll make an exception! 😉
Bwaa-ha-ha. Step one of my scheme successfully completed!
Haha. I think I’m starting to like you, Mike. 😉
Mike, thanks for transparency, urgency, and humor. We need all three! I am one of your eager supporters and enthusiastic members. Keep sharing, keep doing, and keep having fun.
I appreciate the attempt at transparency. Now if I can just get my employer to unblock Google Docs…
Hi, Mike!
Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to be a Society member for a couple of years now, so I wasn’t even aware that you were up for the presidency–until I happened upon a link this post. Congratulations! (Incidentally, I think you may be the first STC President that I actually sort of know. 😉 )
Do you (or do you plan to) tweet about tech. comm./Society stuff? If so, what’s your ID? ☺
Mike, the committee list and pros-&-cons on student voting are exactly the kind of thing we’ve been needing to see. Thanks very much for this progress, and please keep it up!
On the student voting issue, it’s illuminating to see the pros and cons. You’ve pointed out costs I might not have thought of, for example. My opinion on this issue is that student members should have the same voting rights as other members. Imo, we should provide discounted dues to students and retirees because (1) they are generally on limited incomes and (2) we want them as members. I do _not_ in any way resent their having lower dues and still getting full member benefits. One main reasonfor having student members is to grow the society. We should encourage them to be fully involved in it.
I’m concerned that so few students stay members when they graduate and (presumably) get jobs in the field. We need to find out why.
Again, thanks for the transparency.
I like it. I think it’s a great way to let members know what ideas are being considered and what some of the pros and cons are. Would it be possible for you to post links to this discussion on the President’s listserv?
I would add a “pro” to the discussion on boosting representation of student members, whether that be by adding a student board member or allowing students to vote: a younger demographic will be represented. I think this is one way to naturally bring in ideas from both the digital native crowd and the new member crowd.