By Alyssa Fox | STC President
We’re a few months into the 2017-2018 board year and into working with our new CEO, Liz Pohland, and I couldn’t be more thrilled at the progress STC is making.
Membership Year Now Open!
STC’s 2018 membership season is now open! To celebrate STC’s 65th anniversary, we’re bringing you reduced rates on the Professional & Academic (formerly known as Classic) and Student memberships. Go to https://www.stc.org/membership/ to join or renew today.
New Initiatives
We have created a few new groups this year to support the STC mission of demonstrating technical communicators’ economic value, fostering opportunities for success in today’s workforce, and offering continuous education.
Women in Tech Comm SIG
Just in time for membership opening, we’ve created a new Special Interest Group to identify opportunities for, advocate for, and discuss current issues for women in technology. All genders are welcome.
Business Value of Tech Comm Task Force
As I mentioned in my address to the membership when I was installed as STC President, business innovation is happening at a rapid pace today. In the midst of that change, businesses must think differently about information and how people consume that content. Our role in solving our customers’ problems is essential to business success. To that end, we have formed a Business Value of Tech Comm task force that will do the following:
- research how technical communicators are used in different industries
- build a model for assessing the value of content in those industries
- identify opportunities to link tech comm to current issues
We’re looking forward to hearing more about the strategic plan the task force develops for STC to continue to promote the business value of tech comm. In the meantime, check out the forthcoming September issue of Intercom on this very topic, guest edited by Andrea Ames.
Academic Outreach Task Force
In an effort to develop new and renewed relationships with leaders of tech comm programs at our colleges and universities, we’ve created an Academic Outreach Task Force. We hope to leverage the relationships we have with our current academic champions to see what’s working and what’s not, then formalize and publicize programs that support heads of academic programs in sponsoring STC student chapters.
STC’s 65th Anniversary
As mentioned above, this year is STC’s 65th anniversary! I’m looking forward to celebrating the achievements of both STC and its members all year long and right into the 2018 Summit in Orlando. Keep an eye out for more information on this.
2018 Summit Call for Proposals Now Open
The theme for the 2018 STC Summit in Orlando is Communicate the Future. While there, we’ll learn, network, and share information about how technical communicators have always communicated the future to their audiences. The call for proposals is now open: https://summit.stc.org/call-for-proposals/. If you have knowledge to share about how we work, where we work, or you at work in the future, consider submitting a proposal to speak and share your ideas.
The road ahead looks promising, but we simply couldn’t have gotten to this point without all of you. What you are doing for STC and for technical communication is valuable – thank you. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the journey brings us this year – so let’s work hard, change lives, and have fun!