Introducing Your New Blogger

After a few weeks settling in and getting my feet under me, I thought it was time to introduce myself to the STC’s Notebook audience. Greetings! I’m Kevin Cuddihy, and I replaced Tara Ebrahimi at the STC offices in Fairfax, VA. I actually grew up in the Fairfax area (a suburb of DC) and currently live 2.1 miles from the office. Yes, I love my commute.

You can check out my full bio on the STC website, but here’s a bit about my background. I have twelve years experience in publishing, five with a B2B publisher of manuals and newsletters, and seven with a small nonfiction book publisher. I also do some freelance writing and editing on the side. And, as my co-workers here at the home office will attest, I make the World’s Greatest Brownies.

 “Help me help you”

Yes, I just quoted Jerry McGuire. Here’s the part where I ask you what will make this a blog you come back to over and over again. As you well know, this blog is brand spankin’ new. There’s not much of an identity yet. So what do you want to see here? Lighter-side Q & A’s with Chapter and SIG leaders? Links to industry-related articles? Fun and interesting polls? The recipe for those brownies? Obviously we’ll still have news and information emanating from STC HQ, but tell me what else would make this blog a “must read” for you.

I’m also looking for suggestions on articles, blog posts, and other industry-related news that I can highlight. My goal is to have a regular roundup of links sent to me by readers, but that will ultimately depend on what I receive. If you read something and think, “I bet other STC members would find that interesting,” please send it to me with a URL and a one-sentence description, and I’ll pass it along. And if we end up linking to the same blog repeatedly, we just might add the blog to our forthcoming page of links to official and unofficial STC-related blogs.

So feel free to send me an email with your thoughts and ideas, or post your thoughts as a comment. If I start seeing some common requests, that’s definitely a direction we’ll go. With enough involvement from everyone, STC’s Notebook can continue to grow and improve.

12 Replies to “Introducing Your New Blogger”

  1. Nice to meet you, Kevin!
    As the SIG Advocate, I’d love spotlights on individual SIGs, like “what’s the latest news from the MarComm SIG”. SIGs are doing great work, but they are invisible to many members.
    As a co-manager in the AccessAbility SIG, I’d love to put together a post about our SIG for your blog. 🙂
    As a member, I am glad to get information in this format. I encourage all STC members to spread the word about notebook.stc.org.
    Cheers!

  3. Welcome, Kevin!

    Well, I don’t know what you are going to write about, but for sure if you keep the same original and fun style of this post I’ll always come back.

  4. Definitely keep the tone relaxed in the posts. I think you’ll get and keep more readers that way. Frequent updates are good, and if you see or hear of something cool published by another chapter or SIG, a short paragraph with a link would be a great blog entry! Drive traffic to communities, who then will drive traffic back. Excellent!

    Sarah can have my brownies. I’m here for the beer. 🙂

  6. Welcome aboard, Kevin. I agree with the dood above, no more Beta. And please, no more press releases! Like the dood says, keep the tone light and personal and you’ll keep your readers. A direct nav link back from this blog to STC.org would be very nice.

  7. Welcome Kevin. Glad to hear that you’re following on the green initiative by working where you live. LOL! Just a couple of thoughts for you.

    You should post an article about all the affiliate programs used to support the STC. Once it’s up, I’d like to syndicate it for our Coast Lines newsletter. I was going to write one, or assign it to a writer, but I figure the source would be able to provide a more extensive list.

    One program mentioned in STC Ideas is that the STC already signed up for Good Search, that accrues revenue through general searching. You should add the Good Search banner to your blog template.

    STC affiliate link for Good Search: http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=894878
    Track the status of generated revenue: http://www.goodsearch.com/nonprofit/society-for-technical-communication.aspx

    Cheers!

    -Tony

    PS: Does anyone else find it strange that in the stc’s notebook logo, that an opening single quote is used in place of an apostrophe?

  9. Thanks for all the well-wishes here and by email. I’ve got what I think are some fun ideas in store, both regular features (and not in the “it’s a bug, but we’ll call it a feature” sense) and here-and-there postings. As I wrote in my official STC bio, I believe writing is meant to inform, educate, and entertain. I’m going to try the best I can to do all three here in the blog.

    As for that Beta thing, it’s apparently part of the header. As soon as our in-house guy has a spare minute to update the header, we’ll get that changed.

  11. I would love to see some updates on what our non-US members and SIG’s are up to.

    I’d also like to hear more about resources for student members and newbies to the industry.

    Maybe there’s an exchange program out there to combine them both!

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