communication department

Volume XX Number 2

Events

Register by February 28 for Conference Early Bird Rates

Online registration for STC’s 54th Annual Conference is now open at the conference Web site. Registration is also available by fax and by mail. Make sure you take advantage of the Early Bird rates, which offer the best value. Register by February 28 for significant savings:

• Member early bird rate: $645—a savings of $250 off the on-site rate
• Nonmember early bird rate: $875—a savings of $245 off the on-site rate
• Student early bird rate: $175—a savings of $75 off the on-site rate

Also, for the first time, STC is offering a group rate for professors and students. Groups of four students and one professor can register at a special rate of $895. For other rates, please see the conference Web site.

Attend Leadership Day!

All community and Society leaders are encouraged to attend STC’s Leadership Day on Sunday, May 13, immediately preceding STC’s 54th Annual Conference. Leadership Day is a free event and features a host of networking activities, workshop sessions, and presentations designed to help chapter and SIG leaders execute their duties more effectively. This year, Leadership Day begins at 7:30 AM with a continental breakfast. Several sessions will be held on issues related to STC, such as community leadership, public relations best practices, and the Leadership Community Resource (LCR). More information on Leadership Day can be found on the STC Web site and in upcoming issues of Tieline. The full schedule will be distributed at the continental breakfast.

Attend STC Leadership Day and take away a wealth of resources and practical solutions for the year ahead. Please send the names of chapter leaders who will attend to the STC office. You can e-mail them to Elaine Gilliam or fax them to +1 (703) 522-2075.

Promote Your Conference in Intercom

Intercom is eager to promote STC conferences and seminars. If your chapter or SIG is organizing an STC event, please send as much information about the conference as possible to the editors. Include the conference date and site; the name, phone, and e-mail address of a contact person; a related URL; and a sentence or two about the conference theme or content. This information will be listed in Intercom’s “F.Y.I.” section, which promotes events of interest to technical communicators.

To ensure timely publication in Intercom, submit conference information three months prior to the issue in which you want the information to appear. For example, if your regional conference is scheduled for December, you’ll probably want details to appear in Intercom no later than November, which means that you must submit information by August 1. The Intercom editors look forward to hearing from you.

Society Events

February 7, 2007 LIVE WEB SEMINAR

Heather Hedden will host an STC live Web seminar, “Creating Indexes on Web Sites and Intranets,” from 1 to 2:30 PM Eastern Time. The seminar will focus on manually created A-Z site indexes as a solution for managers of Web or HTML content. The structure of HTML indexes and a review of how such indexes compare with site maps, taxonomies, and search engines—as well as an overview of Web indexing tools—will be presented. For more information or to register for the seminar, please visit the STC Web site.

February 10, 2007 CONFERENCE DEADLINE

The deadline for submitting presentations for the fourth annual technical communication conference of the Manitoba Chapter STC and Red River College is February 10. The conference will be held April 12–13, 2007, at Red River College in Winnipeg, Manitoba. More information and a call for presentations can be found on the chapter Web site.

February 21, 2007 LIVE WEB SEMINAR

Makarand Pandit will present an STC live Web seminar, “Working in Global Teams,” from 1 to 2:30 PM Eastern Time. The seminar is designed for both those just getting started in a virtual team environment and those who want to optimize their virtual relationships. It is especially beneficial for participants working with teams in India. Pandit will discuss the state of technical communication in India and share the experiences of Indian technical writers working in virtual teams. For more information or to register for the seminar, please visit the STC Web site.

March 9–10, 2007 CONFERENCE

The Atlanta Chapter STC will host its annual conference, Currents 2007, at the Mercer University Atlanta campus. Conference session topics include management, online content, tools and technology, writing and editing, usability, consulting and independent contracting, and marketing. Susan Burton, STC's Executive Director, will deliver the conference keynote address. For more information, please contact Dirk Bender or visit the chapter Web site.

March 14, 2007 LIVE WEB SEMINAR

Rahel Bailie will present an STC live Web seminar, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Content Management, But Were Afraid to Ask,” from 1 to 2:30 PM Eastern Time. This seminar provides the groundwork for understanding what a content management system (CMS) is and what it does, the differences between various types of CMSs, circumstances in which content management can be beneficial, and techniques for determining system suitability. The seminar will also demystify the industry vocabulary, thereby eliminating some of the barriers that can slow down the investigative process. For more information or to register for the seminar, please visit the STC Web site.

March 16–17, 2007 CONFERENCE

The Philadelphia Metro Chapter STC will host its annual conference in the conference center at Penn State Great Valley, located in the Philadelphia suburbs near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Featured speakers include Cheryl Lockett Zuback, Neil Perlin, Ed Marshall, Stephanie Morgan, and keynoter Robert Glushko.

For more information, please e-mail conference@stcpmc.org, or visit the chapter Web site.

March 28, 2007 LIVE WEB SEMINAR

Austin Skaggs and Christine Granger will present an STC live Web seminar, “Visible: The New Valuable,” from 1 to 2:30 PM Eastern Time. The seminar will focus on how documentation departments can show their value by becoming more visible within their organizations. For more information or to register for the seminar, please visit the STC Web site.

April 11, 2007 LIVE WEB SEMINAR

Kevin A. Siegel will present an STC live Web seminar, “Creating Interactive CBTs with Captivate®—in Half the Time,” from 1 to 2:30 PM Eastern Time. Participants will learn how to maximize the potential of Macromedia Captivate®, a powerful tool for creating software simulations, and how to create hybrid computer-based training systems (CBTs) that will cut development time by 50 percent. For more information or to register for the seminar, please visit the STC Web site.

April 12–13, 2007 CONFERENCE

The Manitoba Chapter STC and Red River College will hold their fourth annual technical communication conference, “Technology and Teamwork,” at the Red River College Princess Street campus. For more information, please contact Leslie McKendry-Smith or visit the chapter Web site.

April 18–20, 2007 CONFERENCE

The TransAlpine Chapter STC will host its spring 2007 conference at the corporate center of Zurich Financial Services in Zurich, Switzerland. For more information, please contact Daniel Jones. To register, please contact Nancy Gelman.

May 2, 2007 LIVE WEB SEMINAR

Whitney Quesenbery will host an STC live Web seminar, “Choosing the Right Usability Technique (To Answer the Right Question),” from 1 to 2:30 PM Eastern Time. This seminar will review options for usability evaluations and examine how they can be used most effectively. For more information or to register for the seminar, please visit the STC Web site.

May 12–16, 2007 CONFERENCE

The Technical Communication Summit—STC’s 54th Annual Conference will be held at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Preconference workshops will begin on May 12. For more information, please visit the STC Web site.

June 4, 2007 CONFERENCE

The Israel Chapter STC, which will celebrate forty years as a chapter and is the oldest STC chapter outside of North America, will hold its semi-annual convention, “The Proactive Technical Communicator: Multiple Disciplines, Multiple Perspectives,” at the Daniel Hotel, Herzliya, Israel. For more information, please e-mail convention@stc-israel.org.il or visit the chapter Web site.

Send announcements of your community or regional events to the Tieline editor.