A message from STC President Michael Hughes
This is the year we reinvent STC! We do so to better serve the increasingly diverse community of technical communicators. We are shifting our focus from STC the organization to
STC as a collection of services and delivery channels that meet the professional needs of our members. To make this shift, we are becoming more market centered, understanding whom we serve and what they want and need. Today, I am extremely pleased to announce the start of Project Phoenix. This is the major program to bring about the shift to a market-focused STC. The project has the following goals:
- Transform the Society’s web presence to increase the value for current and future members
- Improve the relationship between the Society and its current and former members
- Increase the Society’s registered member base
- Grow the Society’s revenue while decreasing its reliance on dues-based revenue
- Establish the Society as the center of the online universe for technical communicators globally
- Dramatically overhaul the Society’s brand identity
- Increase the digital distribution of the Society’s publications
To help us meet these goals, we have engaged a team of specialists who have a proven track record helping organizations like STC. We are funding this engagement by not filling certain staff positions at this time. We are using that money to augment our staff with these specialists instead. We have created a special web page to keep you informed about Project Phoenix. We will be creating a community on our community network platform to encourage and support member input, feedback, and discussion about Project Phoenix. And we will be using our social media channels throughout the year to engage interested members and non-members alike.
I ask for everyone to look for some way to get constructively engaged in this project during this year. Together, we can build the new STC.
I applaud the new member-value oriented position and look forward to seeing what develops. I dropped my membership last year when the dues went up and value to me dropped (mostly the journals). If the Society is reborn with better value than before, then I will certainly rejoin and contribute as I have in the past.
Thanks Mike for keeping us expats posted via LinkedIn!
This year’s ex-pat can be next year’s re-pat 🙂
This is a great initiative. We probably need to think of new business models while thinking of offering value for the members and remaining useful to the non-members.
I’m not sure if it helps, but I would like to share a couple of posts on “What I Expect from STC” in response to fellow tech writers:
Part 1 – About the need to address core learning experience and research activities, at http://network.stc-india.org/sridhar/2009/10/29/what-i-expect-from-stc/
Part 2 – About the need to create a single network and remove fragmented communities in our profession, at http://network.stc-india.org/sridhar/2010/02/02/communities-part-2-what-i-expect-from-stc/.
I would be glad to offer help in any which way I can for this project. Best wishes, Mike.
Thanks, Sridhar. It will be especially useful to have the perspective of someone in one of the emerging markets in our profession.
Mike, this is a very important step. Simultaneously, as this is happening at international level, we in STC France are examining the question of what it means to be a geographical community in the virtual era, and I am sure that we will be reinventing ourselves at the community level in parallel with the international effort.
One important point. I think most of us are happy to hear that we need to find non-dues revenue sources and be more market oriented in the sense of having a stronger value proposition to our members (and former and potential members). A word of caution, however, that we don’t fall into the trap of creating cash cows without that value proposition. As you know, this question has been raised by some with respect to the certification programme, and is a valid concern over a pitfall we need to avoid.
Personally, as our chapter moves forward with our own process, I hope to be able to keep that term, “value proposition” in front of us. If we create a society with a real value proposition for this day and age, members will be a lot easier to find and they will stay with us.
Thanks, Ray.
Your point is well taken that it is easy to lose sight of value to the profession versus just cash cow when you are managing an association during tough economic times. We’ll be doubly vigilant as we go forward.
Mike