By Saul Carliner, Fellow, Montreal Chapter

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the November 2003 issue of Leadership Tips, an e-mail bulletin formerly sent to STC leaders by the STC Leadership Tips Committee. The author has updated it for Tieline. These tips ­were originally published in the STC Chapter Handbook.

Successful meetings are the end result of a­ careful planning process. To successfully organize an educational meeting for a community or professional organization, you need to:­­

• Plan the meeting agenda­­­
• Invite and coach the speaker(s)­
• Re­serve t­he meeting location and catering­
• Prepare promotional materials for the meeting
• Confirm meeting arrangements
• Host the meeting­
• Evaluate the meeting­
• Write thank-you letters­­

The following sections provide ins­ights into each of these steps.­

1. Plan the Meeting Ag­enda

A typical meeting should include the following elements, as shown in Figure 1:

Networking. The networking part of the meeting should give people an opportunity to meet and speak with one another. Longtime members often find one another and spend their time catching up. New members and guests generally feel left out of such moments. Some ways to facilitate networking are to:

• Begin with a brief discussion of chapter business and a Tip of the Month. A formal beginning gives leaders an opportunity to facilitate introductions instead of leaving people to make the lonelier (and ­often unsuccessful) effort to do so on their own. The Tip of the Month is presented by a chapter member and lasts no more than five minutes. It should be a how-to, with an example, and may also include a brief (one-page) handout. Before the meeting, ask a few members to serve as hosts. They should introduce themselves to new people, strike up a conversation, and introduce new people to others.
• Hold an icebreaker during the formal introduction to get people to network.
• Designate a networking person.

Some organizations include a meal as part of the networking session.

Chapter business. Limit chapter business to the most important topics and try to limit announcements to five minutes. Topics appropriate for chapter business include:

• Upcoming meetings

• Upcoming competition deadlines

• Upcoming special events, such as conferences and workshops

• Upcoming elections

• References to annou­ncements in the newsletter

• Informational content

Informational content is the heart of the meeting and may include:

• Introduction of the speaker. The presenter should be the person on the program committee who planned the meeting.

• Presentation and questions. In most chapters, these last for about an hour.

• Wrap-up, which includes: (1) a meeting evaluation (ask participants to complete the evaluation forms), (2) a formal thank-you to the speaker (which might also include a gift), and (3) a reminder of the next meeting.

Figure 1. Key components of a monthly educational meeting. Sample Meeting Agenda: 6:00 Open meeting with chapter business 6:05 Tip of the month 6:10 Icebreaker and dinner 7:00 Introduce speaker 7:02 Speaker begins 8:00 Hand out evaluations 8:03 Thank speaker 8:05 Announce next meeting and adjourn

­

2. Invite and Coach the Speaker(s)

After choosing a meeting topic and format, invite a speaker who can address the topic competently. When you invite a speaker, remember to:

1. Identify the topic (and specific aspect of the topic) that you would like the speaker to address. (Although some program planners are sheepish about this, most speakers actually appreciate receiving such direction.)

2. State the date, tim­e, and location of the meeting (if the location is already known).

3. State your expectations. Make sure that the speaker is aware that:

• The session should be interactive, with a limited lecture component (after a day of work, lecturing puts people to sleep).

• The presentation should cover information from a wide variety of sources, rather than just one company or project.

• The presentation should be tailored to the audience’s needs. The best way to ensure this is by providing speakers with information on the background of the audience.

• STC does not permit selling from the podium.

4. Ask for a session description, bio, and brief outline. Ask speakers if they mind your feedback on these materials so that they might better tailor their presentation to the needs of members. Make sure you tell them when you need these materials.

5. Ask the speaker about audiovisual needs.

Afterwards, send a letter confirming the presentation and providing tips and techniques for success.

3. Reserve the Meeting Location and Catering

If your chapter does not have a regular meeting location, you need to find one. To find a meeting room, ask members if they can host meetings at their workplace. If not, find a restaurant with a private meeting room. Usually, a restaurant will expect you to have a meal in conjunction with a meeting. To defray the cost of meals, you will probably need to charge for meetings. Find out the payment policy of the restaurant—whether the restaurant will provide separate checks for each person or if you will be responsible for collecting and paying for each meal in full.

Your meeting location should have:

• Sufficient chairs to seat everyone who attends. Seating should not have obstructed views.

• Adequate audiovisual equipment (verify specific needs with the speaker). At a minimum, the location should have (1) a podium, (2) a microphone, and (3) a screen. Ideally, the location would also provide an LCD projector. Corporate facilities usually do but public facilities either do not have one or charge for rental.

(Note: some chapters have access to their own audiovisual equipment and you need to make sure that someone is definitely going to bring the equipment to each meeting.)

If your chapter provides meals or snacks with its meetings, you will also need to arrange for catering. Make sure that catering is provided within the budget you have established. (Believe it or not, the local grocery store often provides food at extremely reasonable rates.)

4. Prepare Promotional Materials for the Meeting

Meetings must be publicized a minimum of sixty days in advance. Use a standard format to announce meetings and send these announcements to your chapter’s newsletter editor, webmaster, and public relations manager. The newsletter editor and webmaster publish the information for STC members. The public relations manager sends the information to local newspapers and magazines (important for drawing nonmembers).

A meeting announcement should provide the following information:

• Title

• Speaker

• Date

• Location

• Meeting fees

• Name and number to contact for more information

Mail the announcement to:

• Chapter newsletters (your own and of chapters within easy driving distance)

• Local business papers

• Newsletters of related societies (such as the Association for Computing Machinery, ACM; American Society for Training and Development, ASTD; Council of Biology Editors, CBE; Canadian Society for Training and Development, CSTD; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IEEE; International Society for Performance Improvement, ISPI; and Usability Professionals’ Association, UPA).

Figure 2 shows an example of a meeting announcement.

­

Figure 2. Example of a meeting announcement. Society for Technical Communication Schedules a Contractors and Consultants Roundtable What? The issues abound: Techniques for marketing independent practices How tax laws affect independents Ethical issues independents face Business trends affecting independents in the years ahead Business planning for independents Explore the answers to these and related sessions in a special Progression on contracting and consulting. Each table is facilitated by an experienced independent consultant, including some from outside our field. When? April 9, 2007 6:00–9:00 PM Where? Hilton Inn and Towers 2334 Smith Avenue Take I-8855 to the Smith Avenue exit (exit 10). At the end of the exit ramp, go west approximately 1/2 mile to Smith Avenue. The Hilton will be immediately to your left. For More Information Call Lyndsey Chin, Program Manager, at +1 404-555-9987.

5. Confirm Meeting Arrangements

About four to six weeks before the scheduled meeting and, again, two weeks before the meeting, confirm the following arrangements by telephone:

• Speaker

• Room

• Catering arrangements

6. Host the Meeting

As the host of the meeting, you are responsible for:

• Providing signs directing visitors from the entrance of the building to the meeting room, especially if the meeting room is not visible when people enter.

• Making sure someone is at the entrance to the meeting room to greet people, sign in members, and collect money (if needed). Make sure you have a sign-in sheet. This not only lets you know which members attended, but can provide a means of keeping in touch with nonmembers. Provide a space for nonmembers (that is—potential new members) to record their address and telephone numbers so that the chapter membership manager can follow up with them (often, this manager is also responsible for greeting people).

If someone is collecting money, you need to provide him or her with a money-box and receipt forms (often, the chapter treasurer assumes this responsibility).

• Meeting the speaker and introducing him or her to the audience.

• Arranging for and presenting a gift to the speaker (usually an item that shows the community’s appreciation for the presentation, such as a coffee mug, T-shirt, or gift certificate to a bookstore).

• Collecting meeting evaluations.

7. Evaluate the Meeting

After the presentation and before people leave, ask participants to complete a meeting evaluation. Meeting evaluations explore the following issues:

• Relevance of the topic

• Quality of the speaker

• Value of the meeting

• Effectiveness of meeting location

• Satisfaction with catering

The evaluation helps you determine the audience reaction to the meeting. Use this information to determine how well you are meeting members’ needs, how you might better meet their needs in the future, and whether to use this speaker and topic again.

Tally the results of the survey and provide them to the chapter administrative council and the speaker. If the responses are negative, you might consider providing any helpful feedback to the speaker.

Also, keep a yearlong tally so that you can see which aspects of your meetings are successful and which ones need work. In the following year, the program committee can work on improving those areas that received poor evaluations from members.

See the sample meeting evaluation form for an example.

Figure 3. Example of a thank-you note. April 12, 2007 Joel Gendelman, Senior Partner Future Technologies 7606 Pomelo Drive, Suite 100 Forest Hills, CA 91304 Dear Joel, ­ "Good session." "Good info." "Do it again." "Practical, real life." "Excellent. Thanks." The participants in the Contractors and Consultants Roundtable at the April 9 Society for Technical Communication meeting say it all! But I thought I'd add my compliments and thanks to theirs. I appreciated your presenting a roundtable on marketing a consulting practice at the session. Observing the interaction among participants and the overall comments, your presentation was outstanding. The best compliment that I heard about the session was word of mouth; the next day at work, someone was asking about some aspect of contracting. Another participant replied, "You should have gone to the Contractors and Consultants Roundtable." Thanks, again, for your hard work on this session and congratulations on a job well done. Best regards, Lyndsey Chin Program Manager

­

8. Write Thank-you Letters

Within ten working days of the meeting, write a thank-you note to the speaker. Do so in addition to providing a speaker gift. The note should be personal, mentioning something unique about the presentation. The thank-you note should also include the evaluations.

In addition, write a thank-you note to the volunteers who contributed to the meeting behind the scenes, such as the committee member who greeted people at the door or a volunteer who helped to organize the room.

Last, if you use a donated facility (such as the meeting room in a company), make sure that you write a thank-you note to the organization that donated the meeting space.

Why should you write these thank-you notes?

Thank you are two of the rarest words volunteers and room donors hear—and among the words they want to hear the most. A thank-you note tells people that their work was appreciated and that they made a difference to the organization—and is the only “pay” volunteers and room donors receive for their efforts. But how often do we let an implied thank you do the job of a formal one? Unfortunately, volunteers and room donors are not mind readers; they don’t always know when we appreciate their work. Without a formal thank you, many speakers feel their work is unappreciated and unnoticed.

A thank-you note should be personal, indicating that you really noticed the speaker’s work. Consider the following points when writing:

• Avoid form letters. While better than no thank you at all, a form letter—especially one created with mail merge—says that you are too busy to notice individual contributions. Those individual contributions are what volunteers want to be noticed for (and in this case, you only have a few people to thank anyway).

• Be specific. Mention something that would only apply to the person, such as a point made in her presentation or something you appreciated about working with her. For example, if you are writing a thank-you letter to a speaker, mention more than just the ratings that members gave on their meeting evaluation forms. You might mention something that you appreciated about working with her or something specific you learned in the presentation.

Figure 3 shows an example of a thank-you note.

By Lisa Pappas, Comanager, AccessAbility Special Interest Group

Collaborating Virtual Style: Hints from STC’s SIG Leaders In each issue of Tieline, a representative of the twenty-one STC special interest groups (SIGs) shares wisdom, hints, and lessons learned. Each is free to focus on a different aspect of facilitating STC communities—whether those communities are based on subject matter or geographic location. Currently, SIG leaders are exploring various collaborative tools and management styles to benefit their members and recruit new volunteers and leaders. As designer, author, and artist Edwin Schlossberg says, "True interactivity is not about clicking on icons or downloading files; it’s about encouraging communication." SIG leaders are working on just that. We hope that some of the information in this series will be applicable and helpful to other STC community leaders as well. Judith M. Herr, STC SIG Advocate

As technical communicators in a global economy, our coworkers may be across the country or around the globe. While time and distance present logistical challenges to effective teamwork, cultural differences may further test our communications skills. As practitioners steeped in the practice of analyzing our audience, clarifying technical requirements, and determining the optimum medium for technical communication, we can help our virtual, remote, and diverse teams negotiate this path. As leaders of virtual and geographic communities, we can apply these skills strategically to promote collaboration and communication among our members.

Virtual and off-site teams are not new; STC literature is rife with pertinent guidance (see Suggested Readings). As noted by M. Katherine Brown and others, the literature on managing virtual teams and projects across cultures and locations is primarily theoretical and not integrated with information about collaborative tools such as wikis, blogs, and project dashboards. The authors advocate choosing the best situational tool, based on team and team members’ needs.

Potential Challenges of Webcasts

When the notion of culture broadens to include functional ability (blind and deaf culture, individuals with age-related disabilities), our sensitivity to diverse needs and our awareness of assistive technologies can facilitate effective team communication. Consider the prevalence of Webcasts as a means of reaching across borders and time zones to communicate with team members. Through this efficient use of technology, valuable information can be distributed in real-time. This channel may, however, be challenging for some users:

• Small video images, taking up a portion of a monitor, may be too small for lip-reading individuals to understand the speaker.

• If audio is of poor quality, or if there are multiple speakers, hearing-impaired individuals may have difficulty filtering the voices.

• Nonnative speakers may have difficulty understanding the message, particularly if the speaker is not sensitive to vocabulary and colloquialisms.

• Individuals with cognitive impairments may struggle with the rate of information delivery.

• If slides are integrated in the view, low-vision individuals may be unable to resize the fonts or colors in the slides.

• Slides embedded as images may be unreadable for screen-reading technologies used by the blind.

So how can technical communicators advocate for appropriate collaboration tools to meet the needs of virtual, remote, and diverse team members? Just ask. While employees may be reticent to complain about a communication channel that does not meet their needs, when asked about fitness for purpose, they may volunteer insights. Even the most brilliant information becomes devalued when provided through an underused channel.

A Case Study

Consider the case of SAS Institute, Inc., the largest privately held software company. With its world headquarters in Cary, North Carolina, SAS research and development (R&D) has virtual teams spread across continents and time zones. Noting the increased dependence on Webcasts and podcasts to convey strategic, time-critical business information internally, the SAS R&D communication team anonymously surveyed global team members to assess the effectiveness of the medium. In particular, it asked nonnative English speakers whether they were able to follow and understand the speakers in a given Webcast. Respondents were also asked how helpful they would find subtitles in English or their local language, a voice-over in their local language, or written transcripts in either English or their local language.

As with most surveys, the R&D communication team got some surprising responses:

• Some team locations, including in India, were content with the English-only audio and transcript.

• Some European teams—previously thought to be satisfied with English-only audio—confessed to never listening to the Webcast but rather waiting for their managers’ distillations.

• Respondents who very much wanted an English transcript of Webcasts included hard-of hearing employees, not identified by human resources as people with disabilities, and employees who wanted the freedom to download and read the transcript from a mobile device while traveling (there is no need to be online for archival playback).

The responses have helped SAS R&D justify the time and cost of creating transcripts and judiciously translating key communications. Moreover, Web- and podcast transcripts will be posted to blogs to prompt interactive discussion of contents. Transcript content becomes searchable text from the intranet, crucial communications are recorded for on-demand playback, and the necessary slides made available for download. This measure enables:

• Hearing or cognitively impaired individuals to pause and play back portions of the audio or video as needed

• Low-vision individuals to adjust the font and size of slides and attachments for optimal viewing

Meeting the Needs of Diverse Participants

In STC members’ efforts to tell our powerful story, we must also tell how technical communicators add value to the business. As in the case of SAS R&D, the technical communication team guided internal corporate communication strategy in its choice of delivery technology and ensuring that internal customers’ information needs were being met. In like fashion, technical communicators participating in virtual and remote teams can bring to their groups’ communications awareness of logistical and cultural challenges and sensitivity to the information needs of diverse participants. If your STC community includes members in different time zones or locations (as most SIGs do), then consider what combination of communication methods and tools best fits your community members’ needs. For Webcasts, plan to archive the video, provide slides for download ahead of time, and deliver a transcript promptly. If you are the speaker in a pod- or Webcast, practice speaking clearly and enunciating and be mindful of colloquialisms and other language that may not be readily understood by nonnative speakers.

Suggested Readings

Ames, Andrea. “A California Yankee in Raj Jahan’s Country.” Intercom (May 2006): 26–29.

Archee, Raymond K. “Computer-Mediated Communication: Online Intercultural Communication.” Intercom (September/October 2003): 40–41.

Bailey, Elizabeth. “Communication Tools and Techniques for Virtual Teams.” Presentation at the Technical Communication Summit (STC’s 54th Annual Conference), 2007.

Barnum, Carol M., and Huilin Li. “Chinese and American Technical Communication: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Differences.” Technical Communication 53, no. 2 (May 2006): 143–166.

Brown, M. Katherine, Brenda Huettner, and Char James-Tanny. Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and Other Collaborative Tools. Wordware Publishing: Plano, TX, 2007.

De Warren, Marie-Anne, and John Mulligan. “Managing Large Localization Projects with Virtual Teams around the Globe.” Society for Technical Communication 46th Annual Conference Proceedings, Cincinnati, OH, 1999.

Doulton, Melanie. “Working in Global Teams.” Intercom (May 2007): 20–22.

Fisher, Kimball, and Mareen Duncan Fisher. The Distance Manager: A Hands-On Guide to Managing Off-Site Employees and Virtual Teams. McGraw-Hill: New York, NY, 2001.

Flammia, Madelyn, Yvonne Cleary, and Darina Slattery. “Bibliography on Virtual Teams.” Presentation at the Technical Communication Summit (STC’s 54th Annual Conference), 2007.

Hart, Geoffrey J. S. “Is Intercultural Communication a Moot Point?” Intercom (May 2007): 26–27.

———. “Sensitivity to Other Cultures.” Intercom (May 2006): 6–8.

Hoefling, Trina. Working Virtually: Managing People for Successful Virtual Teams and Organizations. Stylus Publishing: Sterling, VA, 2001.

Kratts, Aimee. “Running a Successful International Teleconference.” Intercom (May 2001): 18–19.

Legg, Kathy A. “Long-Distance Teams: Facing the Challenges.” Intercom (May 2004): 14–15.

Martin, Brian. “Business Lessons, Italian Style.” Intercom (May 2006): 33–35.

Pejovic, Jan, and Marie-Louise Desfray Beaujouan. “Trans-Atlantic Roundtable: Observations from Europe and the U.S. on International Communication.” Intercom (May 2006): 10–13.

Robey, Daniel, Huoy Min Khoo, and Carolyn Powers. “Situated Learning in Cross-functional Virtual Teams.” Technical Communication 47, no. 1 (February 2000): 51–66.

St. Amant, Kirk R. “Communication in International Virtual Offices.” Intercom (April 2003): 27–28.

———. “Humor, Credibility, and International Exchanges.” Intercom (May 2001): 8–9.

———. “Identity and International Online Communication.” Intercom (April 2001): 16–17.

———. “Presentation for International Audiences.” Intercom (May 2005): 13–15.

———. “Resources and Strategies for Successful International Communication.” Intercom (September/October 2000): 12–14.

Lisa Pappas is an accessibility analyst with SAS Institute, where she authored the institute’s accessibility white paper Universal Design: A Commitment to Accessible Software. She works with software testers to identify and prioritize accessibility issues, with development teams to address issues found, and with sales to complete accessibility checklists used in procurement. She is comanager of the AccessAbility SIG. An associate fellow and senior member of STC, she has received several STC awards including Distinguished Technical Communication in the International Online Communication Competition (1999).

 

Focused Leadership in a Dispersed Environment

By Don White, President, James River Chapter

Society chapters often involve members who live and work in a very wide geographic area. Even members of chapters with smaller physical areas face long commute times from work sites to meeting sites. Often, the time spent commuting is enough to discourage even the most stalwart Society member from participation. Chapter leaders and committee managers are left with the problem of how to offer their members the means to participate in meetings more effectively.

An Inescapable and Problematic Geography

The James River Chapter STC includes members who live and work in almost all regions of the Commonwealth of Virginia, from Fredericksburg south to Henderson, North Carolina, from the Atlantic Ocean west to the Allegheny Mountains and the borders of Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

Thus, our chapter might be better known as the Richmond chapter or the Tidewater chapter. It is simply too far for many of our members to drive to a meeting, regardless of where we hold it. Meetings held in Newport News, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, or Suffolk would exclude members who live in Richmond, Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, and Roanoke. Similarly, meetings held in Richmond—as we know from experience—are difficult to attend for those who don’t live in this metropolitan area. It doesn’t matter what topic is presented or by whom—the distances involved are simply overwhelming.

Since 2004, active participation in our meetings has dwindled from an average of fifteen members to four. Participation in regional conferences, however, remains strong—averaging forty people. The difference, of course, is that we schedule the conferences on weekends at a hotel in Williamsburg that offers us very reasonable rates. Monthly program meetings, on the other hand, have been traditionally held in the middle of the week after normal working hours.

One thing is also inescapably clear: if less than 10 percent of a chapter’s membership is able to participate in its program, then 90 percent of its members derive little (if any) benefit from their membership. No chapter can long survive if this holds true.

Solutions

After identifying our problem of geography, the chapter leadership discussed several possible solutions:

• Subdivide the chapter into regions. We could petition the Society to break up the James River Chapter into more distinctly regional units, such as Tidewater, Richmond, Piedmont, and Shenandoah Valley.

• Move program meetings to weekend conclaves. We could also move away from the model of holding monthly meetings on a weeknight, and hold Saturday miniconferences instead. These could be held in different cities or towns.

• Switch to a teleconference mode. We could make use of technology to offer members the ability to participate remotely in our monthly meetings.

• Give up. We could petition the Society to dissolve the chapter due to lack of active participation, and the difficulties inherent in fostering increased, active membership.

And the Winner Is . . .

After more than a little thought, our chapter leaders decided to try the remote meeting concept. First, we found a company in Tidewater and another in Richmond that possessed video teleconferencing facilities, and advertised our programs accordingly. Members in the Tidewater and Richmond areas could now go to the teleconferencing site in their locale and participate in real time. This worked better than the old format (holding meetings only in Richmond), but participation among members in the Tidewater area was not as strong as we’d hoped. And, members who lived and worked outside of these two regions were left out completely!

Moving Along

In 2007, the new chapter administrative council decided to plunge into the world of remote teleconferencing. We established subscriptions with a Web-conferencing provider, GoToMeeting, and AccuConference, an audio teleconferencing provider, to get the best value for our limited budget. Toll-free teleconferencing costs us $0.49 per minute per line used; Web conferencing costs us $468.00 per year for fifteen participants per conference (the number of conferences is unlimited).

No Web camera is involved, so participants don’t see each other or the program presenter. The participants, however, can see the desktop of the presenters, hear each other, and also ask questions or make comments during the online meeting.

Meetings can be held from anywhere: the organizer can be at his or her home and start the conference from there, and guests don’t have to travel long distances to make their presentations. All who participate must download a utility that allows them to log on to the Web conference and have the presentation displayed on their monitor. Individuals call the toll-free phone line provided and use the participant code to join the audio presentation.

This format is equally usable for meetings of the chapter administrative council members—not all of whom live in the same region—and for online seminars or phone-Web seminars. The chief limitation is with the Web-conferencing program: our current subscription is limited to fifteen participants per session, but as participation grows, we will move to a more expensive subscription level.

There’s More. . .

The fact is, chapter services and communication are not limited to meetings and

meeting formats. If we want to encourage greater participation and ownership of the chapter and its programs, we needed to reconsider the entirety of our communication infrastructure.

Taking this into consideration, we rebuilt our Web site using Joomla, an open-source content management system, and incorporated these components:

• Community Builder, for user management

• JEvents, providing a calendar and mini-calendar as well as event scheduling

• Attend Sessions, an event-scheduling and reservation extension

Anyone who visits our Web site can register to participate in our meetings. The meetings are announced in the calendar; participants click the title of the session to display its particulars. The event description is given along with the location, or venue, for those who wish to attend (a link to a Google Map is also provided for event sites or venues).

If the visitor wishes to register for a meeting, he or she completes the reservation form and clicks the Register button. Since, in this case, there’s no charge to participate, the site takes the visitor directly to a page confirming his or her reservation, and provides the log-in details needed to participate online if the person wishes to do so. A copy of this information is also automatically sent to the registrant by e-mail.

Visitors and chapter members can register accounts on our Web site and with our forum. Upon registration they can:

• Participate in online discussions of relevant topics

• Create and edit personal blogs

• Create and edit articles of interest to the online community

• Send messages to each other using the private messaging utility or through their e-mail client

• Review and download documents relevant to the chapter and to the Society

• Send e-mail to all members through the chapter’s Mailman list

• Manage their own profile information

• All articles and blog entries submitted to our site are monitored and must be published by an authorized administrator.

Provide Increased Benefits

It is not an easy task to rebuild trust and commitment among members who have felt no connection with the chapter and its program over the years. That this situation was caused not by personal bias or unconcern but by geography is of no matter. Despite the moves made to bring the chapter and its program closer to those who can use it and benefit from it, acceptance and participation have not yet evidenced unqualified success. This is something we continue to work on.

But, if we had not taken these programmatic steps, we would be in no position to offer increased benefits to our members. And, let’s not forget—we’re also benefiting ourselves as members of the chapter and Society.

Leadership is hard to define, and the steps necessary to lead are often difficult to undertake. Mistakes will be made and lessons must be learned. I strongly believe, though, that leaders lead. Chapter leadership must focus on members and their needs, even when those needs are not, at first, clearly identified. Ultimately, members will see that their comments and participation are valued, and they will respond.

 

By Brenda P. Huettner, Fellow, Southern Arizona Chapter

 

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the December 2003 issue of Leadership Tips, an e-mail bulletin formerly sent to STC leaders by the STC Leadership Tips Committee. The author has updated it for Tieline.

Communities put a lot of time and energy into setting up meetings that provide value to members. Finding the right speaker is essential to keeping your meetings interesting and lively. Here are some tips for those who are responsible for finding speakers.

1. Start by choosing topics that interest your membership. Easy to say, but how do you know what interests your membership? You can do any or all of the following: 

• Conduct a survey by mail, phone, or online
• Read about trends in publications such as Intercom
• Monitor mailing lists that your members read—your own chapter lists, Society SIG lists, or even non-STC lists such as TECHWR-L
• Add a question to the bottom of your program evaluation forms asking attendees about other topics they’d like to see

2. Identify speakers who are knowledgeable on the chosen topics. Get a couple of people together with your list of topic ideas, and brainstorm. For additional ideas, you could:

• Check with your local universities or colleges
• Contact authors of relevant articles published in Intercom or Technical Communication
• Search the STC conference proceedings database
• Look at the calendars of other chapters or organizations in your area—you may be able to share a speaker (and associated expenses)

3. Contact potential speakers two to four months before the date you want them to speak. This communicates respect for their schedules and gives them enough time to prepare. Be ready with this information:

• Date (and alternatives, if any)
• Start and end times
• Location
• Topic (or a selection the speaker can choose from)
• Type of presentation you expect
• Audience information (profile of membership, expected attendance)
• Facility information (such as projector availability, room size, and so on)

Start with a phone call or e-mail. Introduce yourself by giving your name, your community, and your role in the community. If the speaker is not an STC member, be prepared with a brief explanation of what STC is and who we represent.

Then simply ask if the person would be willing to speak at your meeting. Expect a lot of questions, but if you’ve done the preparation, you should have the answers handy. You may need to negotiate the date, topic, or type of presentation. Be sure to give your name and phone number so the speaker can contact you with any questions. This would also be a good time to mention whether you’re able to pay travel expenses, and to discuss any other financial expectations.

If the speaker agrees to present at your meeting, terrific! You’re almost done. Before you hang up, be sure to get a current address and other contact information, and request whatever your team will need for publicity (a paragraph describing the topic, a bio, and a photo of the speaker are common requests).

If the speaker decides to say no, thank him or her for taking the time to consider the matter. Ask for recommendations of other experts in the field; this person may have some great contacts.

4. Confirm everything twice. Immediately after your speaker accepts the invitation, send a confirmation letter including the date, topic, amount of time for the presentation, meeting time and location, and a preferred arrival time. You may also want to include details such as where to park and where to meet you or another leader. Include a map if necessary, and reiterate other special agreements you may have made on the phone. Be sure to include your own contact information—at the very least a phone number and e-mail address.

About a week before the actual meeting, call your speaker to confirm the date and time, provide directions if needed, and answer any last-minute questions. You’ll also want to make sure that you arrange for any A/V equipment the speaker needs.

5. Show your appreciation. Thank the speaker at the meeting, and again privately after the meeting. Make sure to send a thank-you letter. Include some specifics about the speaker’s presentation, perhaps including audience comments. If you normally include a program review in your newsletter or on your Web site, send a copy (or link) to the speaker.

If you enjoyed the presentation, consider scheduling a date with the same speaker for next year. Having been treated so well, he or she will probably want to visit your community again!

Brenda Huettner is an STC fellow, a member of the Southern Arizona Chapter STC, and a member of the Management, Consulting & Independent Contracting, Usability & User Experience, and AccessAbility SIGs. Through her company, P-N Designs, Inc., she writes manuals, conducts training, and authors Help systems. She also writes books and articles on management and communication topics. Brenda’s latest book is Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and other Collaborative Tools with co-authors Kit Brown and Char James-Tanny.

By Jane Smith, Associate Fellow, and Immediate Past Manager, Instructional Design and Learning Special Interest Group

Collaborating Virtual Style: Hints from STC’s SIG Leaders In each issue of Tieline, a representative of the twenty STC special interest groups (SIGs) shares wisdom, hints, and lessons learned. Each is free to focus on a different aspect of facilitating STC communities—whether those communities are based on subject matter or geographic location. Currently, SIG leaders are exploring various collaborative tools and management styles to benefit their members and recruit new volunteers and leaders. As designer, author, and artist Edwin Schlossberg says, "True interactivity is not about clicking on icons or downloading files; it’s about encouraging communication." SIG leaders are working on just that. We hope that some of the information in this series will be applicable and helpful to other STC community leaders as well. Judith M. Herr, STC SIG Advocate

The Instructional Design and Learning special interest group (IDL SIG) was the first SIG to sponsor and put on a Web seminar (in March 2006). Since then, we’ve put on two more. Through the planning and management of those Web seminars, we’ve learned many lessons. To provide tips for others, I’ll divide the process of producing a Web seminar into several stages:

• Planning
• Registration
• Production
• Presentation/Execution
• Evaluation

 

Planning

Begin planning your first Web seminar six to eight months in advance of the date. For subsequent seminars, you can compress the timeline. Key decisions you’ll make during the planning stage include:

• Selecting the speaker and topic through an RFP process or by invitation. We’ve found the invitation route takes less time and allows you to control the topic more effectively to meet the needs of your members—as gauged, perhaps, by a member survey.

• Selecting the date and time. After trying hard to plan our Web seminars on the same day of the week and time as those offered by the national STC office—but overlapping once—we strongly recommend that you select a day of the week other than Wednesday. Keeping the time at 1 PM Eastern Time works pretty well for people, except if you have a large international audience. We have made our seminars available to our international audience on a recorded basis.

• Deciding the duration. We have provided a one-hour presentation followed by a twenty-minute question-and-answer period, and that has worked well. Since our Web seminars are very interactive, the hour goes quickly. We often intersperse question periods in the hour as well.

• Determining the price. We have viewed our Web seminars as a service to our members and have kept the price affordable: $50 for SIG members, $65 for nonmembers. With this pricing, we have always made some money even after paying our speaker.

• Evaluating the seminar. It’s important to plan your evaluation process at the beginning. If you plan to have an online survey, you’ll need to involve your Web committee or someone else to set up the evaluation and gather and analyze the data.

Selecting the Tool

While selecting the tool is part of planning, it deserves its own topic because of its importance. Several factors are critical in choosing the tool:

• The functionality you require
• The experience of the people who will be using it
• The price
• Ease of use

 

With regards to functionality, typical options include:

• Ability to upload a PowerPoint presentation
• Web interface for production and presentation
• Teleconferencing capabilities
• Combined phone and presentation tool, especially for the Web interface
• Ability to mute and unmute all phone lines at any point during the presentation
• Ability to enable participants to “raise hands” to respond to the presenter’s questions or to ask their own—with a Web interface that makes it easy for production personnel
• Chat capability, preferably with the ability to turn the entire group chat off and on during the presentation
• Subgroup chat capability, which allows smaller groups of participants to engage in chats, role plays, or other activities
• Ability to present polling questions along with the answer distribution
• Ability to share an application with another participant; this functionality is only useful for small groups, but, for tool training, it’s ideal for creating interactivity and enabling participants to try out procedures

 

The IDL SIG has always insisted on a high level of interactivity between participants and the presenter, so many of the above functions are critical. There are a number of good tools available. We have used AccuConference, and it works well. I can provide a referral to any community so that it can benefit from our SIG’s good introductory rate. The national STC office uses Genesys and will be looking into providing accounts to communities at a very affordable rate as well.

Publicity

Critical to the success of your Web seminar is timely publicity. This includes getting the word out to your community members, all STC members, and members of related communities outside STC. We generally open registration six to seven weeks prior to the seminar and plan to have our first round of publicity go out at that time. We send a second reminder three weeks later, with a final reminder about the cutoff date one week prior to the event.

Registration

Our webmaster had coded our registration process on the Web, which interfaces to a database that both he and the treasurer can access. This functionality allows us to track payments and issue login and call-in information to registrants. We take checks and PayPal payments, with a check registration cutoff date of ten days prior to the event.

Production

The first stage in production is preproduction. At this point, we work with our presenter to ensure interactivity in the seminar. Using sound instructional design principles, we review his or her presentation and provide recommendations on where and how to build in interaction with polling questions, chats, phone conversations, and other activities, based on the functionality of the tool.

A week or ten days before the event, we upload the presentation to the tool, create the polling questions, and prepare the presentation for the rehearsal. Two to three days before the event, the production team meets with the presenter for a rehearsal. At this time, we assign responsibilities and do a full walk-through to ensure that everyone understands his or her role, including when to open chats, phone lines, and other interactive elements. The rehearsal is critical to the success and smooth operation of the event.

Presentation/Execution

At the time of the presentation, start the Web and phone interfaces for the team at least fifteen minutes before the official start time. Start with an introduction. The SIG manager can introduce the Web seminar presenter and topic. Then get into the presentation as quickly as possible. At the end, thank the presenter and all the team members by name and responsibility. Then ask the participants to complete the evaluation. Some tools enable you to send participants to a Web site upon closing the Web seminar, which ensures greater participation in the evaluation.

Evaluation

Plan to keep your evaluation short, with most of the questions based on a rating scale. But do include a few open-ended questions to capture more detailed feedback as well as ideas for future seminars.

Immediately following the Web seminar, we have the production crew and presenter call back into a different conference line—for a few minutes—in order to get some immediate feedback and to once again thank everyone. A full debrief should take place at a later time, preferably within a week. Through these team evaluations, we fine-tune our process for the next time. After several iterations, the process is well oiled and should go smoothly.

Stay Tuned for a Related STC Web Seminar

In summary, planning a Web seminar takes some work for the first one; however, once you’ve done a few, it becomes much easier. Having a strong team of several volunteers helps spread the work around so that no one is overwhelmed by the number of details involved.

Later this month, I’ll be putting on a Web seminar on how to put on a Web seminar with Lloyd Tucker, STC Director of Membership and Education, and we’ll go into more details, especially with regards to timing and “gotchas.” We look forward to seeing you then.

Jane Smith, a Certified Performance Technologist, has developed training for classroom, multimedia, and e-learning for more than twenty years. As owner of JEM Communications, LLC, she provides course design as well as workshops on instructional design and e-learning. Jane is the immediate past manager of the Instructional Design and Learning (IDL) SIG, an associate fellow, and a popular presenter at STC events. She lives in Sedona, Arizona. You can e-mail her at jane@jemcommunications.com.

Don't Miss Leadership Day!

Leadership Day will be held at the annual conference on Sunday, May 13, in Ballroom B of the Minneapolis Convention Center. Coffee and muffins will be available at 7:30 AM, and the day's events will begin at 8:30 AM and end at 2:00 PM. A full agenda is available on the STC conference Web site. The Leadership Community Resource (LCR) will also be officially launched on Leadership Day. Community leaders won’t want to miss out on learning more about the LCR and how it can help communities.

Also, be sure to take advantage of the essential tools and information made available on Leadership Day. The new community handbook, articles, helpful tips for leaders, and details about how the LCR works with communities are just some of the materials that will be available to attendees.

Check the STC Web site after the conference for links to additional leadership-related materials.

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Society Events

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 as 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.

October 12, 2007 CONFERENCE

STC’s Region 4 Conference, “The Crucial Communicator,” will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn and Gateway Conference Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Sessions will feature presentations and discussions on how technical communicators can more effectively demonstrate their indispensability in the workplace. The ISO JTC 1 SC7/WG2 group—comprising international experts in standards and user documentation from the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States—will be in attendance. For more information, please visit the Northeast Ohio­ chapter Web site.

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

Chapter leaders shared their plans for holiday events in recent posts to the STC presidents' mailing list. (If you are a chapter president and not already a mailing list member, details on how to subscribe appear on the Web.) Below are several of their ideas, which you might consider using for your own chapter's holiday event—especially if you're concerned that your event may be seen as "just one more holiday party."

From Larry Kunz, Carolina Chapter STC:
"We'd been holding a holiday social for years, with modest success. Last year we invited a rep from the Salvation Army. She made a ten-minute presentation and collected a backseat-load of donated coats from our members.

"This year we've invited the Salvation Army rep back. We're also planning a presentation about StoryBlogging, a historical-preservation project in which volunteers interview senior citizens and preserve the audio files as podcasts.

"People seem to like mixing a social event with the chance to give something to the community."

From Carrie Cooper, Southern Arizona Chapter STC:
"We changed our holiday party model in 2003 and now include a meeting on a light topic. This has been a good change for us. We have a speaker who talks for an hour (shorter than a normal meeting) and a silent auction to raise money for our chapter scholarship fund.

"This year's topic is ‘Stress Reduction Desk Exercises.' Past topics include
‘Self-Promotion a Go-Go,' ‘Happy Holidays—or Stressful Holidays: You Choose' (review at www.stc-saz.org/borderline/05-01_BorderLine.pdf), and a writer sharing her personal experiences for tackling new and challenging writing jobs."

From Deanne Levander, Twin Cities Chapter STC:
"Our chapter holds its December meeting as a luncheon meeting, and plans a lighter-than-usual interactive presentation (this year it's a well-known stand-up comedian who also runs a corporate training company; one of his topics is ‘Think on Your Feet'). Members always like the interactivity, as it breaks up the tedium of sitting all day.

"We have the awards banquet in January as our annual gala event."

From Trish Spayer, Northeast Ohio Chapter STC:
"We have a holiday meeting that involves a charity. We hold it at a local restaurant, and have hors d'oeuvres. The meeting price is a few cans of food or some money, which we give to the local food bank. It's basically a networking meeting/social gathering. Although the turnout usually isn't as large as our regular monthly meetings, we do get quite a few people there."

From Tom Barnett, Phoenix Chapter STC:
"Phoenix has done a variety of things over the years. One year we had a comedian who pulled a number of people from the audience to participate (we found a really good Elvis impersonator in a former chapter president).

"Several years ago we did a jam with members who could perform—similar to the jam session at the annual conference—and it was very popular. This year we have a speaker who is a former director-sponsor but has a talent for cooking (been on TV) and will talk about culinary writing. We've also tied in a variety of charity organizations in the past—always popular."

From Richard Mateosian, Berkeley Chapter STC:
"For the last few years we've held ours in January. We usually have some sort of recognition ceremony, and we use a nicer location than our usual meeting place. Attendance has been good, so people must like it."

From an e-mail to Tieline editor from Richard Truscott, U.K. Chapter STC:
"Each holiday season (Christmas) the STC's U.K. chapter holds a dinner to which we invite members and their families or friends. The venue is usually a restaurant in central London, because it's easy for a lot of our people to get there and many live or work in the London area. We choose a day in advance of the main holiday (this year it's December 1) so that there is less chance of clashes with family and work commitments.

"The idea is to have a good social event; we don't intend to make money from it. The dinner is informal with no speeches or ‘business,' which does mean that members can talk and network together. We are holding the dinner so that members and their partners can come to London to shop or make a weekend stay for theater or other cultural events. There is no problem finding a midprice restaurant in central London if you book a few months before the date for the dinner. This year we're dining at a French restaurant called Chez Gerard in Covent Garden, which is run by a restaurant company that has several in London. We used another restaurant from the chain for the Region 2 conference dinner."

“Software Saturdays” Provide Quality, Affordable Training

By Nicky Bleiel, Immediate Past President, Pittsburgh Chapter

Everyone agrees continuing education is important—but how do you keep up with the latest technical writing tools and technologies if you have a small budget and no time? The Pittsburgh Chapter STC decided to tackle that problem last year with the kick-off of a new program called "Software Saturdays."

Software Saturdays are one-day, low-cost (we charged $40 for members), hands-on training opportunities. The classes are a great way for members to get an introduction to a software tool they’ve never used, or to get a refresher on something familiar. Each class is taught by a certified trainer.

Training sessions last six to eight hours and effectively bridge the gap between a regular one-hour monthly meeting and a standard two- to three-day training class. Enough information is provided to either pursue further study of the tool with the intent of adopting it, provide “jump start” information for a tool already purchased, or to decide the tool isn’t right for your needs.

During the 2005–2006 programming year, our chapter offered three Software Saturdays:

❖ Adobe FrameMaker/WebWorks ePublisher Pro (Instructor: Alan Houser, Group Wellesley, Inc.)
❖ Doc-To-Help 101: Getting Started for RoboHelp Users (Instructor: Lynn Phillips, ComponentOne)
❖ Introduction to AuthorIT (Instructor: John Hawkins, Systems Documentation, Inc.)

All were held at a centrally located training facility in downtown Pittsburgh.

For our efforts, the Pittsburgh chapter was named a “Chapter of Excellence” at the STC annual conference in May 2006 for “sponsoring Software Saturdays to meet your members’ specific professional development needs.”

Getting Started

Planning the Software Saturday program began in the summer of 2005, when we were working on the monthly meeting programming for 2005–2006. We wanted to make sure there was no overlap in content and that classes were spaced logically throughout the year.

In order to get the program off the ground, we needed three things: trainers, a venue, and a publicity program.

"As the lone writer at a small company, I researched and purchased AuthorIT as a single-source replacement for RoboHelp. Then, my department expanded and I ended up managing two new writers. The Pittsburgh STC’s AuthorIT Software Saturday was a perfect fit. The session provided great training to the new writers, and even though I had been using the software for a year, I learned some tricks that helped me become more productive. Best of all, it was a great bargain." Jason Butina, Applied Systems Associates, Inc., Software Saturday Attendee

Trainers

It was important that Software Saturday classes be taught by certified trainers, but because we wanted to keep the cost low, we wouldn’t be able to pay them their standard fees. In addition, we sometimes required them to do the extra work of modifying their standard classes to fit our format.

We began our search by checking our membership for locally based, certified trainers. We were also lucky that Pittsburgh is the home of ComponentOne, the developers of Doc-To-Help, which has qualified trainers on staff.

If a certified trainer isn’t in the neighborhood, check for one in nearby towns and states. When attending conferences and meetings, make sure to note on the business cards you collect if a person is a software trainer and if he or she is planning a trip to your town in the future. Often a training session can be tacked on to a client visit.

As for trainers’ fees, there are several offers that you can extend to help keep your costs down. First of all, ask trainers to donate their time. STC members are often willing to do pro bono work to help local chapters. Software companies may provide a trainer free of charge. If you can’t find a company that will provide training at no cost (and it isn’t possible 100 percent of the time), make an offer to pay the trainer’s travel expenses or split the day’s revenues. Get creative, and always be honest about what you can afford.

"We try to do some amount of pro bono training throughout the year. The Software Saturday program has been mutually beneficial to us and to the participants. We have heard of students who landed a new job in part because of their participation in one of our STC classes. We have also received valuable referrals from the program to our regular training classes and consulting services." Alan Houser, Group Wellesley, Inc., and Software Saturday instructor

Venue

Another important aspect of the Software Saturday program is that the training is hands-on. This makes finding a low-cost venue a little more challenging because we needed a facility with a PC for each student.

When scouting training facilities, remember that the room only needs to accommodate the maximum number of students the trainer can comfortably teach. For hands-on training, most instructors will have a limit; make sure to ask what it is. Make sure to let the venue know that your class will be held on a Saturday. This can be a plus because the weekends are usually a slow day for classes. However, if the facility is normally closed on the weekends, they may need to juggle staff to accommodate your needs.

To keep costs down, forge relationships with local training facilities. You can offer them publicity in exchange for discounts. Colleges can be a low- or no-cost venue, especially if they have a technical writing program in place. Ask a professor (perhaps an STC member) if the school would be willing to cosponsor.

Publicity

We publicized our Software Saturdays by:

❖ Sending hard-copy mailings to our members (make sure to get them out at least a month in advance so members can plan and possibly request training budget money from their supervisors). Added bonus: we used these mailings to cross-promote other chapter events.
❖ E-mailing our members. We used Constant Contact (www.constantcontact.com). It’s inexpensive and you can easily design a professional-looking HTML mail template. You can also take advantage of a free Lyris listserv from the STC office. Contact the office for more information or visit www.stc.org/List_Request/listrequest.asp.
❖ Contacting the presidents of nearby STC chapters.
❖ Posting notices on local technology Web sites. In Pittsburgh, we have the Pittsburgh Technology Council Web site, as well as several online calendars.
❖ Submitting information to local newspapers. Many cross-post on their Web sites.
❖ Posting to our Web site.

And don’t forget to add the presidents and webmasters of other local organizations to your mailing and e-mail lists. The local chapters of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), Special Librarians Association (SLA), etc., may have members interested in your classes. Many cities also have organizations that exist only at the local level that you can find out about by reading the local technology press and networking. Pittsburgh has many such organizations, including the Pittsburgh Regional Knowledge Management Consortium and the Pittsburgh eLearning Society.

Make sure your publicity materials include:

❖ The purpose of a Software Saturday
❖ Lesson overview
❖ What students will learn (bullet points)
❖ The target audience—beginners, those with previous experience with software product, etc.
❖ Speaker biography
❖ Housekeeping information: location, schedule, cost, RSVP

For samples of promotional materials created by the Pittsburgh chapter, please e-mail me.

“I like the Software Saturdays concept, as well as the execution. It offers a great opportunity for writers to learn more about new software tools, as well as a chance to get to know each other a bit. As a vendor representative, I appreciate the chance to provide a little more depth than is possible in a demo, and the hands-on experience that helps writers know whether a particular application meets their needs.”John Hawkins, Systems Documentation, Inc., and Software Saturday instructor

Odds and Ends

Food: Since a typical Software Saturday lasts six to eight hours, you need to plan for two meals. Catering for two meals can easily exceed $30 per person, so we avoided it to keep our prices low. For breakfast, we picked up bagels and pastries. The training facility provided the coffee, tea, and other beverages as part of their service. Lunch was “dutch”—which we made clear in our publicity materials. We could do this because our training facility was located in downtown Pittsburgh and there were a wide variety of choices available. Brown-bagging was also an option.

Evaluation Forms: Feedback is very important, so make sure you hand out evaluation forms. Most trainers will have standard evaluation forms. Make sure to let them know they may hand them out. The chapter should create a separate one that focuses on the program itself.

Wrap-Up

Our chapter was pleased with the response to our Software Saturday program and plans to offer at least two more sessions this year: MadCap Flare and—as part of our mission to address technologies—Structured Authoring/DITA.

A neighboring chapter, Northeast Ohio, kicked off its own Software Saturday program in the spring, and plans to continue it this fall. Since Pittsburgh and Cleveland are only two hours apart, our chapters are coordinating with vendors and trainers to ideally set up a “tour” that will result in a class in one city on Friday, then the other on Saturday. This will make it easier for the trainers to work out travel arrangements, and offer members of both chapters another option to suit their schedules.

Nicoletta Bleiel is the lead information developer with Matrix Solutions. Nicky has more than ten years’ experience in technical communication, writing for products in the media, industrial automation, simulation, and pharmaceutical industries. She has presented talks at several STC national and regional conferences and other technical writing conferences. She is immediate past president of the Pittsburgh chapter and can be reached at nbleiel@matrixplus. com. The Pittsburgh chapter Web site address is www.stcpgh.org.