I was laid off in July because of budget cutbacks. On the last day of work, I received a call from a recruiter asking if I could meet with a client who was convinced that I was the right candidate for the job. To my surprise, the interviewer was an STC member, had read my writing samples, and liked them. I was hired on the spot. Being an STC member was advantageous, but it wasn’t the only reason I was hired.
Note: This article originally appeared on the Community Affairs Committee website. One of the more challenging aspects of running a community can be running events. To successfully pull off an event, you need a venue, food and drink, a presenter, Read more
The STC CAC invites all leaders past, present and future to join us for a morning of connecting and learning. Please join us for the #STC16 Leadership Program on Sunday May 15, 2016 from 8:00 am – 12:30 pm PDT at the Anaheim Marriott Platinum 3 & 4.
If you are looking to expand the reach of your community’s activities, consider trying Meetup.com. Meetup is a website where members create profiles listing their interests. Based on their listed interests, various meetup groups are suggested. A Meetup Group is an organization that hosts get-together events on a certain topic. Meetup Groups range from backpacking clubs, to knitting circles, to technical communication groups. If your community creates a Meetup Group, you can potentially draw from a wider audience for your events.
In an earlier post, I suggested creating Google accounts for each of the executive roles in your community. One of the base concepts was creating an Admin Google account that would act as the fallback for all the subsequent chapter accounts. Another service that Admin account can have is to own the rights to the community’s Google Drive.
When your community presents a member with an award, you are telling the world about the great contributions of that member. However, the world might not be on your community website or newsletter, and you should be certain the award winner’s employers know about the award. One way to do so is to send a message directly to the awardee’s supervisor. Below we present a template for such purposes, originally written with a Distinguished Chapter Service Award in mind.
You might try to click away only to discover that your browser is locked. You might reboot your PC only to discover that the banner is still there. Out of desperation you call the Help Desk listed on the banner, the customer support technician promises to remove the virus for $300, and promises to run a virus scanner to remove the virus and update your security software—what a bargain, you think. You provide your credit card number, and the customer support technician tells you where on your PC to run a script and after a few minutes the banner is gone. You are so happy that you dance with joy. When it’s over, you contact the Better Business Bureau about this Windows Support company and discover that is it not accredited by Microsoft or Apple to provide Windows or Mac support.
By Stacey O’Donnell I’ve been hard at work for the past few months with many Summit duties. It takes months and months of effort to pull the conference off, and the STC staff is working to create an awesome conference Read more
Keeping track of your community’s finances can be a chore, especially if you’re using a written checkbook or homebrew Excel sheet. When it comes time to do your STC budget or financial report, guessing at the expenses and income for all the budget categories can be tricky. We recommend you use Quicken to track your community expenses. Quicken is a software application for both the PC and Mac.