A Community Affair is a new series here on STC’s Notebook of postings from the Community Affairs Committee. Today’s post is by Ray Gallon, CAC communications lead.
During the past year, it's been my privilege and pleasure to work on the CAC communications policies and strategy. Much of what we have done so far has been to build the structure behind the scenes, and you'll be seeing the results of that activity very shortly in more public forums.
But you may not know that the CAC has already been reaching out to community leaders in a variety of ways.
If you are a community leader, you'll have seen the messages from CAC chair Tricia Spayer about Leadership Resource webinars, free webinars open to all that help us in our day-to-day chapter and SIG leadership roles. Tricia has been reaching out to leaders via the traditional mailman listservs, and using the My STC All Community Leaders group.
You've also seen the enhanced Leadership Program organized for the Technical Communications Summit under the leadership of Anna Parker Richards. Part of that program includes distribution of some very handy tools and guides for community leaders. They represent the work of a lot of people, and you'll be hearing more about them at the Summit. Check out the full program.
Of course, the heart of our communications is our outreach efforts, and both our CAC outreach team and the student outreach taskforce have been contacting leaders directly and working with them.
I would also like to cite an example of innovative, community-based communication that shows just how creative we can be. After STC Carolina webmaster Rick Sapir created a smartphone app for his chapter, our new @stccac persona tweeted out, wondering if this could be adapted for STC as a whole. Without further prodding, Rick went out and did it. The STC (unofficial) mobile app takes existing website content (including this Notebook blog) and syndicates it to your mobile device, in a native app. There are versions for:
- Android phones and tablets
- Apple iPad an iPhone
- Windows mobile devices
- Blackberry
- Web browsers
Kudos to Rick and to Carolina Chapter for this effort. It's a great example of how the power of social networking enabled us to know about a chapter's innovation and create synergy for the larger community.
We in the CAC think we have a compelling story to tell, after our first two years of operation, and we want all of STC to be able to share in it. So I'm really happy to announce some new CAC social networking initiatives.
- Following the dictum, “I tweet, therefore I am,” we have a Twitter ID! Many of you are already following @stccac and I invite all STC members to do likewise.
- We have a new Facebook page. This page is just getting started, and we hope you'll come to it, share your ideas and help build it.
- We've also started some new CAC oriented discussions in STC's LinkedIn group. Check these out:
We'd love for all of you to join in our social networks—they're made for you. Our communities are our strength in STC, and with your participation, our social networks will extend and reflect that strength.