Ars Communica

The volunteer committee of the former STC chapter took a major step forward in redefining the identity of the Montreal organization by announcing its new name: Ars Communica.

The name was publicly unveiled on April 24, 2012, at the “Writing for Narration” event held at Allo Inde in Montreal.

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STC-Montreal’s outgoing administrative council wrapped up the last bit of official business for the chapter this week.

President Andy Gural and Secretary/Treasurer Everett Larsen (who make up the administrative council) convened on February 22, 2012, and passed the following motions:

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A handful of the (soon to be former) members of STC-Montreal admin council are meeting up with STC Vice President Alan Houser this evening, Monday Feb 13, at Hotel de la Montagne.

If you’ve been reading the comments on this site and on afterstcmontreal.wordpress.com you’ll know that Alan is in town today, and wanted to touch base with us.

This is an informal get-together. Anyone who wishes to join in the discussion is welcome to come. The meetup is at 6:30.

Twenty people gathered for STC-Montreal’s final business affairs meeting on January 31, 2012. At the end of a 90-minute discussion, the attending members voted unanimously to sever ties with STC, and to allow the chapter to reconstitute itself as an independent organization.

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Actually, that’s not true.

We’re dead — but it’s a comic book death, where the superhero comes back more powerful, and with a shinier costume.

At our annual chapter business meeting, chaired by former chapter president Manny Gordon, a motion was carried that that the chapter dissolve its relationship with the STC mothership in Virginia, USA.

The motion was voted on by paid-up members after lengthy discussion and conversation, and accepted unanimously.

Our charter goal is to improve the practice and arts of technical communication; the STC was merely a vehicle for that. It’s time to change busses. Or, as I’d argue, jump from the horse and buggy and onto the jet aircraft.

Details to follow in the days to come.

- STC-Montreal President Andy Gural

Written by Harold Quesnel.

On the former site of the historic Canadian Pacific Rail Angus Yards in Montreal, the STC hosted a dynamic workshop-seminar entitled “Technical Writing 101- The Basic Skills; Technical Writing for the Real World,” presented by the erudite and veteran STC board member Manuel (“Manny”) Gordon. The nearly twenty attendees ranged in age from the twenties to the sixties, and ranged in profession from software programmers, to translators, to a disgruntled machinist, to educators, to publishers, all eager to get a “Master Class” from Mr. Gordon.

After a delicious breakfast, the workshop began (in the active voice!).

Manny opened by inviting the participants to introduce themselves: Names, backgrounds, IT experience (Wait a minute! What happened to heavy industry? Angus Yards, RIP) as well as goals and expectations from the workshop. He then listed his credentials as an old computer wizard, Programmer, Analyst, Tech Writer, and Professor, having presented workshops at McGill, Ericsson, Bell, etc.

A convenient booklet was handed out, containing the imminent power point projections.

In case readers of this website article wanted some of the referenced material, go get your own copy of “The Elements of Style” (1959) by William Strunk, Jr. and EB White.

The first real power point: What is Technical Writing, from whom to whom, by whom and for whom? Then we were introduced to the extremely USEful acronym, USE: Understand, Simplify, Explain.
And don’t forget to analyze your audience. Are you writing for Managers, or Mechanics? What would be their socio-economic background?

The workshop unfolded in a very pedagogical way, with the participants being given additional handouts, texts over-stuffed with badly punctuated and disorganized information. It was up to us, the participants, to understand what was there, organize it, and put it IN-FORMATION (get it?).
The next exercise was especially fun, as Manny challenged us to compare our own analytical powers to those of super-sleuth Sam Spade, as he was portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in an early, critical scene from the old black and white classic “The Maltese Falcon” (1941). We were shown a clip from the film, where a seemingly distraught and anxious woman by the name of Miss Wanderlie (from NYC) shows up at Mr. Spade’s office (in San Francisco) to hire him for the purposes of locating her allegedly missing sister, who allegedly ran away with a Mr. Floyd Thursday. She then throws Sam a lot of data, when Manny hit the pause button, to allow us to prepare some kind of a report, which Sam would have to present to his secretary and partner. I will not tell you what she said, or what we wrote, or even what Sam Spade (Bogey) presented as HIS version. Go look on You Tube, or at Block Buster Video, OK?

Then we went for comestibles.

After lunch, we had to come back to the table(s).

We were given more exercises, which were designed to draw upon the lessons supposedly learned from the earlier exercises of analyzing our audiences, and making sure the Maltese Falcons fly in-formation. Also, how to use tables (not the type used for eating, drinking, drafting or dealing cards, but the type used with charts and diagrams).

The workshop seemed to be very successful, as all the participants participated. Not only doing the exercises, but asking questions and engaging discussions, which continued even after the workshop formally ended.

Even for those already familiar with Manny of the concepts, it was still a very exciting experience to have had!

When may we next participate in Technical Writing 201?

Written by Manuel Gordon

From where I stood at the front of the room, the Technical Writing 101 workshop went very well last Saturday (November 26, 2011). We had 14 participants who listened attentively, took notes, spoke up, worked diligently on the exercises, and provided excellent solutions. Some were technical writers, and many others were programmers. Two worked in sales and customer support. We also had a business writer, a translator, an editor, and a specialist in online learning. Tout le gang.

The day’s success was due in large part to Radka Losert: from 8:00 in the morning to almost 6:00 in the evening, Radka made sure that everything went smoothly.

Jim Royal could sleep soundly that morning, because he had done all he could to promote the workshop on the chapter’s website, through email—and by talking up the workshop to his own employer!

Andy Gural looked after the heavy lifting (of the projector, mainly), and supported the endeavour in every other way he could.

But it was Marta Cepek, the Wizard of Ottawa, who was the organizer-in-chief of this workshop. Marta pulled it all together: the budget, the room, the caterer, the publicity, the forms, the printer, the payments, and more. When necessary, she even prodded the presenter to stick to the deadlines. She pulled off all this magic from behind her Ottawa curtain. She makes it look easy. But she doesn’t fool me.

Thank you Marta, Radka, Jim, Andy, and everyone else who worked on this project. Thanks to Cedric Migliorani took all the pictures, and to Harold Quesnel, will write an article about the workshop.

If you know Marta Cepek, you know how very outgoing she is. Unfortunately, Marta is now the outgoing Workshop Coordinator for STC-Montreal. Marta will be a tough act to follow, but I know that you are up to it.

Yes, I’m talking to you. Sit up straight. Pay attention. Wipe that smile off your face.

You may think that you don’t have the time to volunteer for STC-Montreal, but I say that you need to make time. You need to start showing your peers – and your future employers, clients, and co-workers – that you complete your tasks with minimal supervision and assistance, yet are flexible and ready to work with other team members. That you have the ability to work to tight deadlines, deliver on time, and ensure high quality, and are willing to acquire knowledge and learn new skills. That you have excellent organizational skills.

And that you are fun to work with.

So even if someone grabs the Workshop Coordinator position before you do, just send me an email: I know just the job for you.

Manny is responsible for recruiting volunteers and elected officials for STC-Montreal. You can reach him at election [at] stc-montreal [dot] org.

Money Matters for Freelancers

Dinner seminar on when and how to take the leap from employee to freelancer

Presented by Robert MacIsaac, Nov. 29, 2011, at Star of India Restaurant in Montreal.

Review by Lynne Wright

Download the podcast and presentation slides.

If you’ve ever found yourself spending day after day breathing lugubrious sighs against the walls of a cubicle wondering why the clock refuses to move faster, the giddy prospect of working from home on your own schedule can make freelancing seem like the holy grail of professional freedom.

But as Robert MacIsaac illustrated with a sobering barrage of practical advice, there’s a lot to consider before you throw off the shackles of the ol’ 9-to-5 and strike out on your own.

Is freelancing right for you?

Being the type of person who thrives on flexibility, autonomy and variety isn’t enough. To be self-employed entails:

• Being able to live with uncertainty – can you handle not knowing when the next job or cheque is coming in without being consumed with stress?
• Being disciplined and motivated – aside from pushing out the jobs you’ve got, you need to spend some time each day developing contacts and lining up work. Depending on factors such as how long you’ve been freelancing, how many regular clients you have, and how much existing work you have lined up, be prepared to spend anywhere from 30-50% of your time each day marketing yourself (contacting new or repeat clients; networking; maintaining a website).
• Running a small business. This means that in addition to writing, you need to negotiate and liaise with clients; while managing promotion, accounting, and possibly sub-contractors/employees.
• A potential, paradoxical lack of freedom. Especially when starting out, you may not be able to afford the luxury of turning down jobs that come at a bad time, or that aren’t terribly appealing or satisfying. Be prepared for having to scrape through lean periods and having to put your personal plans on hold so you can work like an absolute dog when business is booming.
• Considering the demands of family. If you have small children, that’s going to affect your ability to work long hours when required, or to get any work done at all on days when they are home; this will impact your ability to meet deadlines that you’ve committed to. If you have a spouse, they need to be supportive about the probability that you will occasionally need to work through evenings or weekends.

Transitioning from employee to freelancer

If you feel that you fit the personality and lifestyle criteria, the next step is to think through these financial issues:

• You should have enough cash in the bank to see you through a minimum of three months with little or no incoming cash flow.
• Set up a line of credit before quitting your job. Banks smile more favourably on those with a steady paycheque.
• Find out whether any company health/life insurance plans that you are on can be continued once you are no longer an employee.
• See if you can maintain your existing retirement fund.
• It helps if you have a spouse with a steady job that meets your baseline household expenses; bonus points if you can be covered on their work health insurance plan.

Get your accounting ducks lined up

• Find an accountant experienced in handling the self-employed/small businesses. They will save you the time and hair-pulling aggravation of trying to figure out how to keep your books and deal with taxation issues. The Revenue Canada website (http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca) has information on deductions, GST and the like; but you don’t want to go there. You’ve got better things to do with your time.
• Set yourself up with a GST number and collect sales tax from the outset.
• Keep receipts for business-related expenses, and add notes to receipts to detail what the expenditure was for (for example, specify what client meeting a gas receipt is associated with). Set up a filing system to store receipts by category, and file receipts as they come in to avoid utter chaos when its time to hand them over to your accountant (or auditor!).

Consider incorporation

• If there are possible liability issues associated with what you produce, incorporation protects you from being personally responsible (any potential law suit would be filed against the company; your personal assets are protected).
• It gives you flexibility in how you deal with income. You can pay yourself in regular amounts, with any cash reserves being held by the company, so that your taxable income stays constant.
• Allows you to define partnership roles/who will contribute what; how profits will be split; what happens if a partner leaves the business. Make sure that these issues are decided upon and clearly documented as part of the incorporation papers.
• Enables the business to continue without you (i.e. a partner can buy you out).

Some resources to get you started

www.freelance-work-guide.com Offers comprehensive basic information on getting started, where to look for contracts, how to evaluate the market and develop a business plan, how to avoid scams, outsourcing, time management.

www.pwac.ca Professional Writers Association of Canada. Has information on best practices; standard freelance agreement and copyright kit; guidelines on how to set rates.

www.writers.ca PWAC maintains a searchable database of Canadian freelance writers on this site. Prospective clients can search for writers based on subject matters such as Telecommunications, Science and Technology; Medecine and Health; Engineering; Types of Writing categories include Technical Writing/Editing; training materials.

You may also want to contact companies that offer writing service to feel out what the current climate is for freelancers, and determine how marketable your skills are. A few suggestions:

Information Architecture www.inarc.net

Writing Assistance, Inc. www.writingassist.com

Infographics: Say a Bunny, Show a Bunny

Dinner seminar on the use and effectiveness of infographics

Presented by Andy Gural, Oct 25, 2011 at Star of India Restaurant in Montreal.

Review by Lynne Wright

Download the podcast and presentation slides.

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STC recently issued the 2009-2010 Salary Database, which is available for purchase (the price is $49 for non-members and $10 for STC members). The data is covers only the United States.

The web site Writers UA published some of the salient details. For example, here are average annual salaries for the top ten states in order of overall employment:

More information can be found at Writers UA .

Some pics from our gathering at Le Cabaret on September 27, 2011. Thanks everyone for coming!

Something to liven up your Friday:

Reposted from notebook.stc.org

Now more than ever, technical communicators must find ways to recession-proof jobs and careers, use scarce resources strategically, and find new ways to demonstrate business-critical value-add. At the same time, you must maintain your role as end-user advocates by identifying innovative ways to improve the usability of your products and information. The good news is that the tried and true technique of using scenarios to define an information architecture can solve all these challenges! Join Alyson Riley and Diedre Long for the live Web seminar Scenario-Based Information Architecture on Wednesday, 29 June, from 1:00-2:00 PM EDT (GMT-4) to learn how.

This practical session will teach you about scenarios—what makes an effective scenario, how to create or adapt scenarios for your use, how to employ them to develop an information strategy, and techniques to get extra value from scenarios. Come see how scenarios can empower you to make meaningful change in your work environment!

Original link: http://notebook.stc.org/upcoming-webinar-on-29-june-scenario-based-information-architecture/

Reposted from notebook.stc.org.

Thanks to technology, many technical communicators can work remotely at least some of the time. Thanks to globalization, technical communicators can work across time zones and international borders. However, remote workers face unfamiliar challenges for which they might not be prepared. Learn how to deal with those challenges with the live Web seminar A Virtual Success: Best Practices for Working Remotely, presented by Barrie Byron and Ann Grove on Wednesday, 8 June, from 1:00-2:00 PM EDT (GMT-4).

Byron and Grove will teach about the tools, the strategies, and the best practices needed to stay productive, enhance your career, and earn trust to succeed as a virtual worker. They’ll explain how to assess the skill set necessary to succeed, present ways to maintain visibility even while working remotely, demonstrate how to build trust with colleagues, and show where to find and how to use a large section of virtual worker resources and tools. Increase your value while working remotely with this STC webinar!

Original link: http://notebook.stc.org/upcoming-webinar-on-8-june-a-virtual-success-best-practices-for-working-remotely/

Reposted from notebook.stc.org.

What do technical communicators need to know about information security? How do they protect their private information and professional assets? How can they leverage and use social media safely and effectively?

To find the answers to these and more questions, join STC and Ben Woelk as he presents the live web seminar Digital Self Defense for Technical Communicators on Wednesday, 1 June, from 1:00-2:00 PM EDT (GMT-4). This webinar discusses key security measures for technical communicators and provides best practices for safer social networking.

Original link: http://notebook.stc.org/upcoming-webinar-on-1-june-digital-self-defense-for-technical-communicators/

We had a packed house for Jim Royal’s presentation “ePub: Creating Docs for Tablet Computers.” The presentation was held at Au Bistro Gourmet in Montreal on April 26, 2011, and about 34 people were in attendance.

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The April issue of Intercom is online, and in a special sneak peek, we’ve opened this issue up to the public. Please feel to share the link with friends, coworkers, and colleagues in the tech comm world. This is a great way to show others the value of STC publications and invite them to join!

The archive material still requires a password, but any article from the April issue is open to all. That includes an interview with the inventor of FrameMaker, a review of MadCap Flare 7, a look at the Help 2.0 revolution, and exploring a documentation strategy. April’s Society Pages include a look at the upcoming 2011 Summit, too, so check it out!

Reposted from notebook.stc.org.

The current flow of content in the Information Age is overwhelming our ability to process it successfully. Join STC and Donn DeBoard on Thursday, 28 April from 4:00-5:00 PM for the webinar Personalization: The Social Architecture for Information to assist in this important ability.

Based on a confluence of evolving technologies (Web, social media, and user-generated content), this session describes how personalization forms the social architecture for information. This architecture identifies key customizable attributes of information. Finally, this session highlights some key skills every communicator needs to thrive in this environment. Learn to personalize with Donn DeBoard and STC!

Original link: http://notebook.stc.org/upcoming-webinar-on-28-april-personalization-the-social-architecture-for-information/

Reposted from notebook.stc.org.

Explore “Life in the Vortex” with Ray Gallon’s webinar Communication, Culture, Technology: Life in the Vortex, taking place Thursday, 14 April, from 4:00-5:00 EDT (GMT-4). In today’s technological environment, culture, communication, and technology are intimately entwined. It is essential to understand them in order to understand our profession, which more and more is becoming the center of a vortex around which whirls a myriad of related activities.

The key word at the center of this vortex, that connects all of the above, is communication. This webinar uses a case study (the presenter’s current work) to illustrate very practically how at least one person’s practice of technical communication laces all of these elements together. This kind of work puts us in the vortex of a whirlwind: it’s exciting, hectic, sometimes frustrating. It’s not only our future, it’s our present.

Original link: http://notebook.stc.org/upcoming-webinar-on-14-april/

Reposted from notebook.stc.org.

An automated workflow can make life easier for everyone. Join Gabriele Schillinger and Joanne Liguori on Wednesday, 13 April from 1:00-2:00 PM as they present the webinar Using Automated Workflows for Documentation Review/Approval. They will demonstrate how to use an automated workflow application, Documentum’s Workflow Manager, for the documentation request, review, and approval process. They’ll also discuss how you can use the audit capabilities to report on cycle time and other production metrics so you can evaluate your workflow as well.

Original link: http://notebook.stc.org/upcoming-webinar-on-13-april-using-automated-workflows-for-documentation-reviewapproval/