Berkeley Chapter Meetings

This page contains information on Berkeley Chapter meetings from 2005 through December 2017. Information on meetings of the Berkeley Chapter from 2018 and 2019 is on the Events feed for the San Francisco Bay Chapter.

December 2017 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, December 13, 2017, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Evaluating (and Improving) Your Technical Documentation: Save Money and Reduce Risk

“Is this documentation effective?” That can be an important question. Technical documentation that is poorly designed or poorly written, or that is not addressed to the right audience, can cause problems: dissatisfied customers, lost customers, wasted effort, and in the worst-case scenario, lawsuits or regulatory penalties. How can you determine if your documentation is adequate or where it can be improved? This presentation will show you how to evaluate the quality of your documentation and identify ways to improve it. I will discuss visual design, choosing content, working with standards, and more.

Joseph Devney, M.A. has worked as a technical writer for more than 20 years. His volunteer work with STC includes judging technical communication competitions, including serving as a judge for the International Technical Art Competition four years in a row. Joe has taught both document design and linguistics at the college level, and has been a guest speaker at several STC chapters. He holds the honorary rank of STC Fellow.

November 2017 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 8, 2017, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Intercultural Communication and Business

Speaker: Madeleine Adkins

In today’s global economy, what are common issues and challenges that occur in intercultural work environments? Why do intercultural communication misunderstandings and conflicts occur, and what strategies help to avoid and resolve them? This talk will explore the impact of intercultural communication issues on business situations, the roots of intercultural miscommunication, and some strategies for overcoming issues that can arise in international work environments. Topics will include practical cultural analysis, adapting communication and business strategies for success, and building cohesive international teams.

Madeleine Adkins has worked in a number of fields, including technical communication, instructional design, teaching, linguistics, leadership planning, and intercultural communication. Over the course of her career, she has worked both in and with traditional corporations, high tech firms, NPOs, universities, and small businesses in the US and Japan. A speaker of multiple languages, Madeleine has undergraduate and graduate degrees in linguistics. Her academic studies, as well as much of her work, have focused on the interplay of language and culture.

October 2017 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 11, 2017, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: How much code is enough to be dangerous?

Join us for an informal round-table discussion about technical writing and code, with Jon Pugh, a long-time developer for Silicon Valley companies who has also created documentation.
Here are some of the topics we’ll ask Jon — and you — to think about:

What kinds of code are technical writers expected to know, and how much?
What skills can code-literate technical writers add that make them even more valuable?
How and where to learn enough code to become dangerous.
How do writers operate in an environment where they are not adept in the programming language used to build the product?
How can developers become better at writing documentation?

If you have other questions on your mind, bring them with you, or email us in advance: programs@stc–berkeley.org

Jon Pugh has been a computer scientist for more than three decades — during which he has also created documentation and worked alongside many technical writers. Before working as an engineer on security software, Jon worked at Apple, where his work included creating the AppleEvent Registry, part of the AppleScript developer documentation. He also helped develop Adobe InCopy, the writer’s version of InDesign. In the 1980s, he helped create online documentation for the CTSS operating system which ran on Cray supercomputers.

Mini Job Fair

Date: Wednesday, September 13, 2017, 5:30 PM

Location: Ed Roberts Campus at Ashby BART

Looking for a job? Want to brush up your resume? Just want to stay aware of trends in the field?

Please join the Berkeley chapter for a mini job fair in place of our regular chapter meeting.

This event features tables where you can discuss current positions with local employers and agencies.

It features a progression, in which small groups meet with industry experts to discuss topics about technical communication and job seeking.

We’ll also have resume counseling, lots of networking, and light refreshments.

August 2017 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 9, 2017, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Teaching through Illustration

n this talk, Joanna Bujes will talk about how to to create and use illustrations to reinforce learning, lighten complexity, illustrate multiple relationships, and make the material easier to remember. We will discuss types of illustrations, general principles for creating illustrations, and placing the figure in text. Additional topics include working with artists, localization, and accessibility.

Joanna Bujes is Director of Technical Publications at Arxan Technologies, SF. She has more than twenty-five years experience in software technical documentation and currently teaches Software Technical Writing at U. C. Berkeley Extension. She specialized in writing for a technical audience and on writer training and document architecture. Her work has focused on distributed computing, operating systems, messaging and middleware, development environments and tools, debuggers, networks protocols, programming language reference, and API documentation. She has also worked as developmental editor and writer with subject matter experts in medicine, economics, urban development, natural science, and philosophy of science.

July 2017 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 12, 2017, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Evaluating Technical Writing Candidates: A Hiring Perspective

Adding new writers to an existing team is a complex task, with challenges for both teams and candidates. Writers may see the recruitment process solely from a single candidate’s perspective: their own. In order to create a positive impression, writers must speak to the needs of the people considering them. In this moderated panel discussion, candidates can learn what this process looks like from a manager’s role.

Our panelists will be encouraged to speak candidly about what they really need, why things are the way they are. and what the entire process looks like from their perspective: justifying the budget, creating a position, writing the job description, filtering and evaluating candidates, perhaps working with recruiters, interviews, offers, on-boarding, and outcomes.

JX Bell is a Senior API Technical Writer and CEO of JX Consulting INC. JX Bell is a technical writer with decades of experience in technical communication. He’s written software virtually his entire life — since age 4 — and done consulting since 1999. JX is passionate about learning complex topics, understanding people, and communicating clearly. As a consultant, he’s evaluated many technical writing candidates, specializing in technical interviews for highly technical API/SDK technical writing positions. He’s also written job descriptions and interviewed writers about what made their colleagues succeed or fail after they’re on the job. Learn more about JX at jx@jxconsulting.com.

Neeraj Bhatia is the Director of Technical Publications at Guidewire Software. He has been a Communications professional for 22 years. He worked in Advertising for four years before moving to technical writing. He has written and managed documentation for highly technical enterprise products at Veritas Software and Symantec Corporation. He has built and managed global teams at Symantec Corporation and is managing a distributed team at Guidewire Software. He lives in San Jose with his wife and 15-year-old daughter.
bhatianeeraj@hotmail.com

Ari Langer is Director of Documentation and User Assistance at Salesforce.
alanger@salesforce.com

June 2017 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 14, 2017, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks: Staying Current in Tech

Speaker: Mysti Berri

There are things we can’t control, like ageism. And there are things we can control in order to stay relevant and valuable in workplaces whose median age is usually below 40.
Older workers in tech can fall into some career-killing habits, or we can use our hard-won wisdom to stay relevant. Learn about ways you can avoid being made redundant before your time:

Avoiding the “COBOL” trap
Active listening when you can’t hear as well as you used to
Embracing unconscious incompetence
Revising outdated contexts on the fly
Learning from younger coworkers

Bring your good and bad experiences to share.

Mysti Berry has been writing software technical documentation for 27 years. From databases to Identity-as-a-Service, she’s seen a lot, including writers terminated before their time, and 20-something whiz kids who taught her to look at technical writing with fresh eyes.

May 2017 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, May 10, 2017, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Minimalist Writing for Maximum Communication

Speaker: Bruce Poropat

The information age is also the age of the short attention span. We typically write for people who must spend much of each day reading. Many readers would prefer a pill that puts the information in their brain. We can’t give them that—but we can strive to give them the prose equivalent of a pill, rather than the prose equivalent of a meatloaf.

This talk outlines the basics of minimalist writing. Technical writers will find most of the concepts familiar—active voice, short sentences, etc. Minimalist writing stresses these concepts even more than general technical writing. Understanding and practicing minimalist writing benefits any kind of communication, including marketing.

Bruce Poropat has worked on content projects for Bank of the West, William-Sonoma, Charles Schwab, Wells Fargo, PG&E, University of California, Safeway, Gap, and many other organizations. He worked on plain language conversion for Caltrans and the Port of Oakland—converting dense legalese into normal language.

He lived the first part of his childhood in Haiti, and moved to California at age 11. He now lives in Berkeley with his wife, who is a scientist for a biomedical company. Bruce plays guitar, and he, his wife, and two children all play with the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers.

April 2017 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 12, 2017, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Speed, control, and quality: Choosing between open source and closed source content

Speaker: Jared Bhatti

Is your product growing quickly or slowly? Are you working with organizations that want to contribute? How much of it do you actually want to own? How obsessed are you with content quality? How much chaos can you stomach? These are the questions I ask myself whenever I’m debating between creating an open source or closed source project.

In this presentation, I’ll guide you through my decision-making process, tell you some of my mistakes, and open the floor up for questions and conversation.

Jared Bhatti is a docs manager and tech writer at Google. He manages content for Google Cloud (cloud.google.com) and the open source project Kubernetes (Kubernetes.io). In his limited spare time, he enjoys cooking extravagant dishes, reading trashy science fiction, and petting his cats.

March 2017 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Who does literacy outreach really reach?

Speaker: T R Girill

With effective nonfiction communication more important than ever, what impact can a local literacy outreach really have? For several years the East Bay STC chapter and the Edward Teller Education Center have collaborated to bring technical writing and text usability techniques into K-12 science classrooms through outreach to science teachers. This talk reveals how from 2013-2016 that effort has touched school districts throughout northern California (through workshops) and other educators throughout the world (through online resources).

T R Girill (PhD, UC Berkeley) retired in 2007 from a 30-year career in user services and computer documentation at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Since then he has worked in literacy outreach with underperforming students in local schools, with laboratory interns and science fair participants, through innovative workshops for pre-service and in-service K-12 science teachers, and by posting monthly literacy-development notes on the STEM discussions hosted by Google+ and the National Science Teachers Association.

February 2017 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2017, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Get it in Writing: How to Write Contracts for Content Development Projects

Speaker: Jack Molisani

The subtitle of this presentation is How to Make Big Bucks and Not Lose Your Shirt If Something Goes Wrong

The first step in any content development project is defining what your customer wants, no matter if your customer is a department within your organization or an external company for which you consult.

If you are an employee in an organization, a doc plan is often sufficient to document product deliverables. But independent contractors must also define payment terms, who owns copyrights, and more.

Clients often ask you to sign their contracting agreements. Do you ever ask them to sign yours? While Jack is not an attorney and is not qualified to give legal advice, he’s happy to share some lessons learned about what to put in contracts, and why.

In this session, you will learn:

The difference between a contract, a letter of agreement, and other contracting terms
How to document what you are (and are not) going to do in the project
How to manage change requests (aka mission creep)
How to set payment terms that favor you
Other hard-won lessons learned from over 20 years of buying and selling corporate services

Want to avoid conflict, make more money, reduce employment stress? Then this meeting is for you!

But wait, there’s more! Jack is donating a free registration to LavaCon to the chapter, so bring your business card for the drawing!

Jack Molisani is president of ProSpring Technical Staffing, an employment agency specializing in technical writers and other content professionals: http://ProspringStaffing.com.

Jack is the author of Be The Captain of Your Career: A New Approach to Career Planning and Advancement, which hit #5 on Amazon’s Career and Resume Best Seller list.

Jack produces the LavaCon Conference on Content Strategy and Tech Comm Management, which will be in Portland this October: http://lavacon.org

January 2017 Annual Chapter Party and Touchstone Awards

Date: Saturday, January 28, 2017

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Berkeley STC Annual Party and Touchstone Awards

Join us on a Saturday evening to relax with fellow communicators, enjoy a buffet dinner, and celebrate excellence in the profession.

Every year Touchstone, the Northern California Technical Communication Competition, receives many fine entries. We send the best ones to the STC International Summit Awards competitions. We will announce this year’s winners and display their entries throughout the evening.

During the evening we will also recognize and honor competition judges and Berkeley chapter volunteers for their contributions to the chapter and the profession.

Our yearly raffle: Once again, the generosity and support from the wonderful vendors in our professional community allow us to offer some extraordinary raffle items.

(Raffle winners must be present at the time of the drawing.)

Hope to see you there!

December 2016 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, December 14, 2016, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Writing for the Space Program

Speaker: Peter Basch

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is the NASA center that focuses on unmanned robotic space missions. They produced the suite of Mars Rovers: Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity. Their missions investigate the planets and include the first human-made device to leave the solar system, the Voyager 1 probe. In his 5 years there, Peter Basch has worked on proposals for space telescopes, documentation for Martian parachutes, and scientific journal articles. He will discuss the unexpected challenges of the public sector, including the lack of branding identity, responsibility without authority, and the need for charisma and cunning to implement complex documentation workflows. He will explore what it means to belong to one of humanity’s most exciting enterprises — and to be invited to a launch!

Peter Basch has a BA in Physics from Columbia University. He started grad school at Berkeley in astrophysics, but left to act and write in NY. He supported himself as a word processor on Wall Street, where he worked on the IBM Displaywriter, Xerox 6085, Wang, WordPerfect, and Word.

Peter was in several sketch comedy teams before writing a one-act that brought him back to California where he met his wife and family. He rebranded himself as a technical writer and joined STC. He found his position at JPL on the STC job board. He has been in JPL’s technical documentation group for five years.

November 2016 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 9, 2016, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Choosing the Right Tool

Speaker: Liz Fraley

So many tools to choose from! So many messages from so many vendors. Everyone saying they are the right one! One size does not fit all and one solution is not right for everyone! How could it? How do you find the right one for you?

Liz Fraley shares strategies, benchmarks, and questions that she’s used (and seen used) over the years, so you will have something in your back pocket to help you choose the tool that’s best for you, your company, and your situation. There’s no one right answer for everyone. It depends on staff, resources, skills, and even company culture.

Liz doesn’t mention specific products in this presentation. This is the inside scoop about how tool vendors work, how to work with them, and what you need to know to deploy/purchase something that requires more than just you to do it.

Liz Fraley, founder of Single-Sourcing Solutions, has worked in both the high-tech and government sectors, developing and delivering technical designs and strategies for authoring and publishing. She is a single-source/XML architect and programmer specializing in practical development and deployment. She advocates designing architectures that directly improve organizational efficiency, productivity, and interoperability. She’s the founder of TC Camp, the unconference for content creators, consumers, and the people who support them. If you ask her, she’ll say she’s a gardener who’s happiest when those around her are flourishing.

October 2016 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 12, 2016, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: The Language of Cyber Security

Speaker: Tonie Flores

Cybersecurity skills are in high demand, yet in short supply. Professionals from other areas are finding ways to move into the field. We, as technical communicators, can transition our experience into this booming domain. Explaining things simply is complicated. Technical communicators make information easy to access.

One reason that cyber security is challenging is the complexity of the language used to talk about it. Security professionals often find themselves talking at cross purposes, even when talking about the same concept. Language enables communication. A shared vocabulary reduces ambiguities and provides a basis for identifying and understanding issues, contexts, and constraints.

This session presents a case for agreeing on a shared vocabulary for cyber security to provide a starting place for a common understanding. Tonie will present examples that highlight the impact that common word usage has had in the adoption and growth of other disciplines. The lessons learned are especially relevant in global communications. Finally, Tonie will suggest specific ways that technical communicators can apply skills that we already have to reduce gaps and contribute to cyber security.

Tonie Flores is a master systems analyst, an Associate Fellow of STC, and a Northern California Technical Communication Competition award winner.

Tonie is a long-time volunteer for the Berkeley Chapter.

Mini Job Fair

Date: Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 9:00 PM
Location: Ed Roberts Campus, 3075 Adeline Street, Berkeley, CA, Rooms A, B and C
Topic: Mini Job Fair

Looking for a job? Want to brush up your resume? Just want to stay aware of trends in the field?

Please join the Berkeley chapter for a mini job fair in place of our regular chapter meeting.

This event features tables where you can discuss current positions with local employers and agencies.

It features a progression, in which small groups meet with industry experts to discuss topics about technical communication and job seeking.

We’ll also have resume counseling, lots of networking, and light refreshments.

August 2016 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2016, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Adopting Structured Authoring/DITA Best Practices for Any Toolset

Speaker: Monique Semp & Riley VanDyke

Tech Pubs teams have been talking about the benefits of structured authoring for years, such as efficient content reuse, which is important for consistency and localization, effective revision control, and content’s underlying topic-based focus. To deliver these benefits, structured authoring uses systematic labeling, modular topic-based architecture, tightly defined rules for content authoring, and the separation of content and form to create a body of reusable content building blocks.

The good news is that even if you’re not using structured authoring and DITA tools, you can easily adopt their best practices; they’re not an all-or-nothing proposition tied to a specific tool! After all, we can write a great short description without a <shortdesc> XML element, add metadata to documents, and implement content reuse strategies in many modern authoring environments.

This presentation shows how you can realize many of the benefits of structured authoring and DITA while using unstructured authoring tools and workflows, and shows tool-specific approaches for doing so in Microsoft Word, Unstructured FrameMaker, and MadCap Flare.

Monique Semp is a Senior STC member, and has won numerous STC Touchstone and Berkeley competition awards of merit and excellence. Monique began her career as a software engineer writing PL/M and C code for automated train control (the “people movers” in airports) and the accompanying user manuals. Her career evolved and she’s been a technical writer since 2001, documenting a broad range of applications such as early Java-based mobile geo-location applications, consumer product review platforms, and internet security. She has her own company, Write Quick, Inc., and provides many technical writing services, including API references, programming guides, configuration manuals, and technical processes and procedures.

Riley VanDyke has been a contract and consulting technical writer since 1998. Before focusing on technical writing, his experience included computer hardware, software, and telecommunications systems engineering. He enjoys learning how to get the most out of software tools, and how to increase productivity by combining tools in complementary ways.

July 2016 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 13, 2016, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Usability Testing: Why and How

Speaker: Jeff Johnson

This presentation is an introduction to conducting usability tests of software and online services. It explains why development teams benefit from conducting usability testing. It describes the many ways to test software on users, the stages of software development during when testing can be conducted (spoiler: All) and why one might use one form of testing versus another. It enumerates the steps involved in designing and conducting a test. Screen-images and video clips of actual tests illustrate the types and results of usability tests.

Jeff Johnson is President and Principal Consultant at UI Wizards, Inc., a product usability consultancy. He also is a co-founder and principal of Wiser Usability, a consultancy focused on usability and accessibility for adults over 50. After earning B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale and Stanford Universities, Jeff worked as a UI designer and implementer, engineer manager, usability tester, and researcher at Cromemco, Xerox, US West, Hewlett-Packard Labs, and Sun Microsystems. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he was Chair of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. He has taught at Stanford University and Mills College, and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

In 2013 he presented in the prestigious Authors@Google talk series. He is a member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy and in 2016 received SIGCHI’s Lifetime Achievement in Practice Award. He has authored or co-authored many articles and chapters on human-computer interaction, as well as the books GUI Bloopers, Web Bloopers, GUI Bloopers 2.0, Designing with the Mind in Mind, Conceptual Models: Core to Good Design(coauthored with Austin Henderson), and Designing with the Mind in Mind, 2nd edition. His forthcoming book, co-authored with Kate Finn, is on designing for an aging population.

June 2016 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 8, 2016, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Instructional Design and Training 101

Speaker: Madeleine Adkins

As technical communicators, we have many of the skills to succeed at training and instructional design. This presentation describes these fields and what it takes to succeed in each of them: the skills and knowledge base to make yourself marketable as an instructional designer or trainer.

Madeleine Adkins has had a colorful and diverse career so far. Her skills include technical and corporate communication, training, instructional design, curriculum development, change management, ethnographic research, data analysis, translation and localization management, academic writing, video recording and editing, and web development. An anthropological linguist by training, and a copy editor by lineage, Madeleine has given a variety of professional and academic presentations in the US, Japan, Canada, and New Zealand.

Madeleine is a long-time volunteer for the Berkeley Chapter. She is currently our secretary.

May 2016 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, May 11, 2016, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Making the Case for Documentation

Speaker: Paul Scott

Businesses need documentation, but they don’t always realize it. Whether you’re a staff writer, contractor, or freelance writer, you need to spot the documentation pain points and bring them to the attention of customers and potential customers.

This presentation will help you recognize and articulate the needs that your documents address.

Help your customers understand what you can do for them, and learn to target your writing to their needs.

Paul Scott was trained as a chemist, but soon discovered that, unlike most scientists, he enjoys writing. After 12 years at the bench he switched to technical writing, and never looked back.

Since then he has accumulated more than 15 years of experience as a tech writer and business information consultant with clients in the life sciences, biomedical, clean energy, and computer sectors.

He considers it his mission to uncover the information that his clients need and make it useful to them in their businesses.

April 2016 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 13, 2016, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Clarity Above All: Writing to be Understood

Speaker: Joseph Devney

The goal of technical writing is to communicate necessary information quickly, so readers can get on with their jobs. Will the grammar rules you learned in school help reach this goal? Is the conventional wisdom in the field of technical communication valuable?

This presentation will discuss techniques that make it easier for readers to comprehend written language. The advice to be offered is informed by linguistic research on how people understand language.

The primary audience for the presentation is technical writers, but anyone who writes nonfiction should benefit from this information.

Joseph Devney, M.A., has been a technical writer for over 20 years, and has studied in depth how language works. He has taught both linguistics and technical communication at the college level, and given talks about topics in the two fields many times.

Joe is also a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, and former president of the STC Berkeley chapter.

March 2016 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 9, 2016, 6:00 PM

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Networking for Introverts
Speaker: Rebecca Firestone

Technical writers are often introverts, who need alone time to focus and recharge. Are you sick and tired of hearing how schmoozing is the only way to get a job, because nobody cares about experience or skills anymore as long as you’re “part of the team”? Does “going social” sound like hell? Have you tried to fake that perky, happy confidence that you never really feel in order to impress the robot-recruiters? Is everyone telling you to start a blog to be a “thought leader”? Here’s something to take your mind off all of that, and get a fresh perspective on what networking really is and maybe even have some fun with it. A playful approach can help you forget yourself and soon you’ll be Speaking With Other People before you even know it! Rebecca will share her own observations on networking, both as a seeker and as a mentor – what worked, what didn’t, and what might work for you.

Rebecca Firestone is an award-winning technical writer, content developer, and trainer with 20 years of experience in startup and corporate environments, serving in both contract and full-time positions. She started as a technical writer in 1988. Since then, she’s worked in telecom, customer relationship management, architecture, clean energy, and software training. In her current role she expanded her scope from pure writing to include strategic planning and workload scheduling, learning on the job by trial and error. Currently, she works as a senior technical writer at SolarCity Corporation’s product development office in San Rafael, CA.

February 2016 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Times:

6:00: Networking and conversation
7:00: Announcements

7:15: Presentation

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Keeping Up With Content in a Dynamic Environment

Speaker: Scott Prentice

You’ve decided that it makes sense to migrate your unstructured FrameMaker files to an XML-based workflow using DITA. The next thing you’ll need to do is convert some of that content into DITA topic and map files so you can develop a proof of concept workflow for both authoring and publishing. It is very important to confirm that you can successfully author and publish in this new model before making the move. Spending more time up front will ensure a successful migration.

There are many methods for performing the conversion from unstructured FrameMaker to DITA. In this presentation, Scott will discuss the available options, then will walk you through the entire process using FrameMaker conversion tables. This isn’t necessarily the best option for everyone, but the concepts required, especially those related to the pre-conversion process, will likely apply to other methods as well.

Migrating from unstructured FrameMaker to DITA typically requires some rewriting and reorganization of the content before conversion. Once this is done, you’ll set up a mapping from the unstructured paragraph and character styles, and document objects to the corresponding elements. The conversion tables define this mapping. Applying a conversion table creates structured FrameMaker files from your unstructured files. You’ll then need to perform additional cleanup on those files before saving to XML.

The entire process can be a bit daunting, and if you just have a few books to convert it may be best to just pay someone else to do it. But if you have a large amount of content to convert, it might just be worth taking it on yourself. You’ll learn a new skill and will be able to work the conversion process into your schedule as time allows.

After converting your files to DITA, you can continue to author and publish with FrameMaker, or you can switch authoring and/or publishing to other tools. The great thing about moving to XML is that your content is no longer tied to just one proprietary tool. You do still need to buy/use proprietary tools, but if something better comes along, it’s much easier to switch!

Scott Prentice has been in the technical publication field since 1991 and is the president of Leximation, Inc. He focuses on custom online help and EPUB development, FrameMaker plugin and structure application development, and custom web application development. He is involved with DITA authoring and publishing, and created the DITA-FMx plugin for FrameMaker.

January 2016 Annual Chapter Party and Touchstone Awards

Date: Saturday, January 16, 2015
Times (p.m.): 5:30 to 6:00 Networking & conversation; 6:00 to 7:00 Buffet dinner; 7:00 to 8:00 Awards and Recognition; 8:00 to 9:00 More conversations, see the award-winning entries
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Berkeley STC Annual Party and Touchstone Awards

Join us on a Saturday evening to relax with fellow communicators, enjoy a buffet dinner, and celebrate excellence in the profession.

During the evening we will also recognize and honor competition judges and Berkeley chapter volunteers for their contributions to the chapter and the profession.

Our yearly raffle: Once again, the generosity and support from the wonderful vendors in our professional community allow us to offer some extraordinary raffle items. Some of the prizes include:

To be announced

(Raffle winners must be present at the time of the drawing.)

Hope to see you there!

November 2015 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Times:

6:00: Networking and conversation
7:00: Announcements

7:15: Presentation

Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California

Topic: Keeping Up With Content in a Dynamic Environment

Speaker: Maria Antonieta (Tonie) Flores

This case study starts with a story that illustrates how good content can go stale, presents findings on the impact of “bad information,” as described by Information Mapping, and describes a specific instance, including problem symptoms, causes, and remediation. The remediation includes content management best practices: analysis, topic architecture, metadata, and procedures for sustaining reliable content

Speaker:

Maria Antonieta (Tonie) Flores

Tonie Flores is a master systems analyst, with a focus on information management. Tonie has led implementations of complex digital systems, documented for and taught users of ERP and other complicated software, and now delivers consulting, coaching, and workshops in technical documentation and adult learning strategies for users of enterprise software.

Tonie has a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics from Boston University College of Arts and Sciences and a Master’s Degree in Systems Analysis from the University of Rochester Graduate School of Management. She is an STC Associate Fellow.

October 2015 Mini Job Fair

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 9:00 PM
Location: Ed Roberts Campus, 3075 Adeline Street, Berkeley, CA, Rooms A, B and C
Topic: Mini Job Fair

Looking for a job? Want to brush up your resume? Just want to stay aware of trends in the field?

Please join the Berkeley chapter for a mini job fair in place of our October chapter meeting.

This event features tables where you can discuss current positions with local employers and agencies.

It features a progression, in which small groups meet with industry experts to discuss topics about technical communication and job seeking.

We’ll also have resume counseling, lots of networking, and light refreshments.

Cost is only $8.00.

September 2015 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Technical Writer as Scrum Master: Expand Your Skill Set
Speaker: Gina Blednyh

Technical writers possess valuable skills. However, our colleagues might not be aware of all that we offer to our organizations, which can hinder career options. For example, we identify issues before they can impact customers, we solve problems, we collaborate effectively, and we work efficiently under deadlines. It’s these abilities that can help us succeed in other areas, if that’s what we choose. And serving in different roles can improve our technical communication skills–while highlighting the value that we already add to our teams.

Learn how Gina is using an opportunity to act as a scrum master in an agile programming environment to stretch herself, expand her skills, and add value to the team.

Gina Blednyh has a degree from UC Berkeley. She’s been a technical communicator for more than ten years and has worked at Salesforce for almost five. She enjoys the challenges and learning that a technical writing career provides her, and she loves the constantly changing landscape of technology. She is a former member of and volunteer for the STC Berkeley chapter, and she spoke at the STC Summit in Phoenix in 2014. This is the second time Gina has been a guest speaker for our chapter.

August 2015 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: A Knowledge Engineering Approach to Technical Communication
Speaker: Denny Brown

Many of Denny’s findings that resulted from years of developing commercial expert systems for software companies are directly applicable to technical communication. Denny will present a process model that describes how he and his team developed customized expert systems and show how the same principles apply to technical communication. Denny will also explore aspects of artificial intelligence that enable us to better understand and communicate complex technical information.

Denny Brown co-founded Expert Support with Jan Clayton in 1990. The original vision for the company was to provide support to software companies in all of the services that surround core software development. Denny observed that many software companies, while very good at software development, were not as good with auxiliary services like documentation, training, customer support, and professional services. These services required more attention to the human side of software, focusing on the needs of the customer that are beyond what the software provides.

July 2015 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Making Yourself Marketable in 2015
Speaker: Andrew Davis

Are you doing everything right in your quest to get yourself hired as a technical communicator in the Bay Area? The job market’s frothy for some but frozen for others. If you’re not getting the right kind of attention, how can you improve your odds?

Andrew will cover the realities of today’s Bay Area technical communication job market, discuss the tradeoffs you’ll face as a job seeker, and review how you can optimize your candidacy. He’ll offer advice about job boards, portfolios, resumes, cover letters, reference and background checks, training, and even pricing.

Andrew will discuss the pragmatic job search from all perspectives, including interviewing, negotiation, and even resigning from your current post.

There’ll be time for a wide-ranging Q&A following Andrew’s presentation, and (as always) he’ll be the last person to leave the room.

Speakers:

Andrew Davis

Andrew Davis has recruited technical content developers in the SF Bay Area since 1995. He is a former software industry technical writer and has a reputation for both understanding and championing the role of content development.

Andrew enjoys helping talented technical communicators get ahead by recognizing and refining their value to technology companies. He’s candid, connected, and just as important, he likes to help tech industry workers achieve independence from intermediaries.

Andrew ran Synergistech Communications during the Internet Gold Rush years and has recently returned to solo recruiting mode under the aegis of Tech Comm Talent. He remains focused on recruiting great technical content development talent for discerning local technology companies. Join him on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/synergistech) to learn more.

June 2015 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Remedial Documentation and the Contract Technical Writer
Speaker: Bruce Poropat

Many companies finish a project, have a launch party with cake, ice cream, and back slapping. Then they discover the project isn’t finished at all to end users and other stakeholders who need reasonable documentation to use and maintain the product. These companies typically respond to this situation by bringing in a contract technical writer. Bruce, who calls this kind of project “remedial documentation,” outlines problems common to such work, and ways to solve these problems.

Bruce Poropat has worked as a contract technical writer on projects for many Bay Area organizations—including Wells Fargo, PG&E, Gap Corporation, Caltrans, Safeway, ERG, and two contracts each for Charles Schwab and Williams-Sonoma.

The May 2015 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Jekyll versus DITA: Bridging the Gap between Tech Comm and the Web
Speaker: Tom Johnson

Although the web continues to burst at the seams with innovation after innovation, the technology of tech comm tends to evolve in an independent sphere, changing at its own sluggish pace. Is the divide between web tools and tech comm tools a rift that can be bridged any time soon? Or is tech comm, because of its needs for content re-use, conditional filtering, and multi-channel outputs, destined to maintain its own independent track indefinitely?

The interesting thing about innovation is that, although developing technologies underperform mainstream technologies as they evolve, eventually their trajectory overtakes the mainstream technology. Think of examples with Netflix and Blockbuster, Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica, or even reaching farther back, with the telephone and the telegraph.

The same story may take place with static site generators on the web, such as Jekyll. These platforms, originally designed as blogging tools for hackers, have the potential to let technical writers — particularly those working in developer documentation spaces — leverage them for tech comm publishing. In fact, most of what you can do with DITA, you can also do with Jekyll.

In this presentation, Tom will first provide a context for innovation and describe the divide between web and tech comm tools. Then he’ll then demonstrate how Jekyll, a static site generator, works. Finally, he’ll compare the major features of DITA against Jekyll and evaluate the two models.

Tom Johnson is a senior technical writer based in Silicon Valley, California. His blog, I’d Rather Be Writing (idratherbewriting.com), is a hub for innovation and exploration in the tech comm field. He writes about web publishing, visual communication, information architecture, API documentation, and more.

Tom also has a podcast series in which he interviews tech writing luminaries around the world. He is a frequent presenter at conferences, chapter meetings, and other tech comm groups. Tom is an influencer and thought leader in the field. He has appeared numerous times in MindTouch’s Top 10 influencer lists. You can contact him at tomjohnson1492@gmail.com.

The April 2015 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Surviving Failure in the Workplace: Making the Best of Your Circumstances
Speaker: Mysti Berry

If you work long enough, you’ll encounter a big juicy failure — something that blows up in your face, be it a relationship with your boss, a project that runs off the rails, or some other mess that is at least partly your fault. Even if your first instinct is to cut and run, know that failure can be survived, even in the most assertive corporate environments. Mysti shares some of her own failures from her 25 years as a technical writer and content strategist, and provides a few tools to help you assess failure to decide what your next steps should be. This will be a very interactive session.

Mysti Berry has been a technical writer for enterprise software companies since 1990. She’s learned a lot about information architecture and content strategy along the way, and currently works for Salesforce as an API writer. She lives in the OMI neighborhood of San Francisco.

The March 2015 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: A Quick Introduction to Document Design
Speaker: Joe Devney

There is more to a document than the words it carries. The effectiveness of the message can be helped or hindered by other elements on the page. Good document design helps support the author’s communication goals. This presentation will give tips on how to use design elements as part of the communication: white space, borders, images, design grids, fonts, and more. These concepts are independent of the tools you might use—the presentation is not a class in a particular software application. And the design techniques apply to both paper and online documents.

This presentation will be of value to people new to the field of technical communication, and also to old hands who have never formally studied document design. And to anyone who might one day be faced with the task of designing a document or template from scratch, rather than simply writing the words.

Joe Devney M.A. has worked in the field of technical communication for nearly 20 years. He has had formal training in graphic arts, and has designed documents and document suites for several companies. He judged STC’s International Technical Art Competition for four years. Last year he taught a class in “Visual Rhetoric and Document Design” in the Technical and Professional Writing program at San Francisco State University. (This presentation is partly based on that class.) Joe is an STC Fellow, the Society’s highest honorary rank. He also served as president of STC Berkeley, and has been a guest speaker at several STC chapters.

The February 2015 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Voice Recordings for Technical Communication
Speaker: Robert Hershenow

Would you like to learn how to make better voice recordings in your own office or home? Recorded narration is increasingly in demand for e-learning, podcasts, audiobooks, audio-for-video… and the list goes on. In this newly-updated seminar, Robert Hershenow reveals what you need to know to record high-quality voice tracks for technical communication projects. Join us to find out how sound works (gentle science for regular people), how to get the most out of your voice, and how to select and use microphones and recording/editing software and hardware.

Handout: Recording Tips from Robert Hershenow

The January 2015 Annual Chapter Party and Touchstone Awards

Date: Saturday, January 18, 2014
Times (p.m.): 5:30 to 6:00 Networking & conversation; 6:00 to 7:00 Buffet dinner; 7:00 to 8:00 Awards and Recognition; 8:00 to 9:00 More conversations, see the award-winning entries
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Berkeley STC Annual Party and Touchstone Awards

Join us on Saturday evening, January 17, to relax with fellow communicators, enjoy a buffet dinner, and celebrate excellence in the profession.

During the evening we will also recognize and honor competition judges and Berkeley chapter volunteers for their contributions to the chapter and the profession.

Our yearly raffle: Once again, the generosity and support from the wonderful vendors in our professional community allow us to offer some extraordinary raffle items. Some of the prizes include:

From Adobe: One copy of Technical Communication Suite 5, which includes FrameMaker, RoboHelp, Captivate, Presenter, and Acrobat XI.
From Balsamiq: Three licenses for Mockups wireframing software. Want to create delightful user interfaces? Start by wireframing them in Balsamiq Mockups.
From Madcap Software: Madpak Suite, which includes six fully integrated technical communication and content development tools for authoring & publishing, analysis & reporting, translation management and multimedia creation (Flare, Contributor, Analyzer, Lingo, Mimic, and Capture).
From Techsmith: Snagit software, which helps you capture great looking images and videos with just a few clicks.
From University of Chicago Press: Chicago Manual of Style Online and Scientific Style and Format.

(Raffle winners must be present at the time of the drawing.)

Hope to see you there!

The November 2014 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Making Word 2010 Work for You
Speaker: Hilary Powers

Microsoft Word includes many features and shortcuts that editors (and writers) can use to speed up their work. Hilary Powers explains how to get the most out of track changes, how macros can automate some of your tedious tasks, and more. Learn some useful tricks from a Word expert.

Hilary Powers is an editor who has worked with Microsoft Word for many years. She is the author of Making Word Work for You: An Editor’s Guide to the Tool of the Trade, now in a new edition for Word 2010.

The October 2014 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: When school standards meet literacy outreach
Speaker: T.R. Girill

This talk explains what happens when an on-going, skill-building literacy outreach project for underperforming students (see http://www.ebstc.org/TechLit/handbook/handbooktoc.html ) merges with new K-12 language and science standards. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for “English language arts” now coming into local schools focus for the first time on drafting effective, usable nonfiction text. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), to be implemented soon, make science and career technical-education teachers, not just English teachers, responsible for developing every student’s nonfiction literacy.

This presentation explores three text-design and professional development insights, familiar to most technical communicators but new and exotic for many K-12 science and language arts teachers, that students “across the curriculum” are now expected to understand and practice: mainstream technical writing tools and techniques are moving into almost every California classroom.

T. R. Girill retired in 2007 from a 30-year career in technical communication at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he led the computer documentation project at the National Energy Research Supercomputer Center for over a decade. He has published numerous technical articles and has taught students at the College of Alameda and other professionals at U.C. Santa Cruz Extension. He is an STC Fellow and he served as editor-in-chief of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Journal of Computer Documentation from 1995 to 2000.

Since 1999 he has also managed a technical literacy project for the East Bay chapter of STC, and he has mentored hundreds of student project applications submitted to the Tri-Valley Science and Engineering Fair.

The September 2014 Mini Job Fair

Date: Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 9:00 PM
Location: Ed Roberts Campus, 3075 Adeline Street, Berkeley, CA, Rooms A, B and C
Topic: Mini Job Fair

Looking for a job? Want to brush up your resume? Just want to stay aware of trends in the field?

Please join the Berkeley chapter for a mini job fair in place of our September chapter meeting! This event will feature tables where you can discuss current positions with local employers and agencies. It will also feature a progression discussion, in which small groups will meet with industry experts to discuss special topics about technical communication and job seeking. Light refreshments will be served.

The August 2014 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Highlights from the 2014 STC Summit
Speaker: Tonie Flores, Gwaltney Mountford, and Lori Meyer

This panel discussion will feature three long-time active STC members, who will
review the STC Summit, the annual Society conference that was held in
Phoenix in May. Come learn about the current topics of discussion and new
trends in the field of technical communication from people who attended the
Summit and who also have broad perspectives on the field.

After two decades of various genres of technical communications practice, Tonie Floresnow coaches clients on ways to restore ailing content management systems. Tonie guides organizations with outdated content that causes a measurable financial loss to a reliable, maintainable repository that contributes to productivity and profit. Tonie holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Boston University and an M.S. in Systems Analysis from the University of Rochester Graduate School of Management. She is an Associate Fellow of the STC, an active member and past officer of the Berkeley Chapter, and a long-time competition judge at regional and international levels.

Gwaltney Mountford has 30 years of experience as a technical communicator focusing on solving the communication needs of management and end-users. She and her system-developer husband, Carl, own Mountford Group Inc., a consulting company specializing in developing custom Web-based business and data warehouse applications. An STC Associate Fellow, she is current co-VP of Arrangements and past president of the East Bay chapter, and a former director of Touchstone and the Region 8 Conference. She also served on the Society’s Nominating Committee and Leadership Community Resource committee. She has presented on a number of topics at the STC Summit and at local and regional events.

Lori Meyer is a technical communicator with more than 25 years of experience designing, writing, and editing software documentation and online user assistance. She is currently a senior technical writer in Cupertino, California. Lori is a member of eight STC chapters (including Berkeley) and five SIGs. She is currently serving on the councils of the Rochester and Carolina chapters, as well as co-manager of the STC Technical Editing Special Interest Group. In 2009, Lori received the STC Distinguished Chapter Service Award, and in 2012 was named an STC Associate Fellow.

The July 2014 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: The Value of Partnership During Conversion to DITA
Speaker: Nicki Davis, Ph.D.
Handout: PDF of Slides

The transition from unstructured to structured content can be daunting. A good working relationship with a trusted partner can work wonders to make the process easier for the writing team and save time. On the other hand, choosing an inexperienced but seemingly inexpensive vendor can result in costly rework.

Speakers:

Nicki Davis, Ph.D.

Nicki Davis became interested in user experience and content strategy while studying for her Ph.D. in chemistry. To her dismay, she discovered that it took six months to learn how to use the analytical instrument she needed for her thesis work. To improve the user experience for herself and her fellow graduate students, she wrote a task-oriented user manual — two years before she finished her dissertation. Since then, she has pursued her goal of enhancing the user experience by whatever means are appropriate to the task, whether it’s improving the user interface design, the documentation, or both.

The June 2014 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: How to Get Started With Video and Animation
Speaker: Cynthia Chin-Lee and Ray Angelo

Are you planning a video or animation project to complement your technical publications or as a standalone project? Where do you start?

Assuming you have selected your video or animation environment (hardware, software, writers, videographers, and production site), Cynthia Chin-Lee and Ray Angelo will describe the steps involved in developing and then creating a video/animation project. They’ll explain how they determine what to include in the video or animation, and what additional steps are required in the project beyond a typical documentation project.

Cynthia and Ray will also describe how they integrated the animation or video into the documentation library, corporate web sites, and social media.Speakers:

Cynthia Chin-Lee and Ray Angelo

Cynthia Chin-Lee is Senior Manager, Information Development, at Oracle. Cynthia’s motto is Show, don’t tell. After learning that the CAD data used to design Oracle hardware was available to create animations, Cynthia led a cross-organizational team of media designers, contractors, and writers to produce service animations based on the 3D model data of the products themselves. These animations are published on the web (http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E52420_01/index.html). A senior manager at Oracle, Cynthia is also the author of 7 books (cynthiachinlee.com), one career book for adults as well as six children’s books with themes, including marriage equality and multicultural friendship.
Cynthia will offer her books for sale after the meeting.

Ray Angelo is a Technical Writer and Print Production Coordinator at Oracle.

The May 2014 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Patterns of Organization and a Case Study for Single-Sourced, Multi-Platform Content
Speaker: Robert J. Glushko
Slides: http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~glushko/TDO-Glushko-STC-May2014

The career of a technical communicator can span several industries. You might work for a life sciences client one year and a hardware manufacturer the next, but your goal remains constant: to create clear, direct content that serves the reader. For technical communicators, a wide perspective across many organizational frameworks can provide insight into our current content and make us more marketable. Robert Glushko, editor of the textbook The Discipline of Organizing, will speak to the Berkeley chapter about the organizational similarities and differences among such disparate disciplines as library and information science, business process analysis, and content management. Each of these fields has organizational motivations that are reflected in metadata, relationships, and structures.

In addition, Robert will speak about his experiences working with O’Reilly’s single-sourced XML publishing system, ATLAS. Single sourcing and multi-platform content continue to be crucial concepts in the technical communication field. Robert will discuss how he created a book for web, ebook, and print formats and tailored the content for readers in different disciplines.

Copies of The Discipline of Organizing, signed by the author, will be available for purchase at this event.

Speaker:

Robert J. Glushko

Robert J. Glushko is an Adjunct Full Professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. After receiving his PhD in Cognitive Psychology at UC San Diego in 1979, he spent about ten years working in corporate R&D, about ten years as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and now has worked over ten years as an academic. His interests and expertise include information systems and service design, content management, electronic publishing, Internet commerce, and human factors in computing systems. He founded or co-founded four companies, including Veo Systems in 1997, which pioneered the use of XML for electronic business before its acquisition by Commerce One in 1999. In 2005 he published a book called Document Engineering: Analyzing and Designing Documents for Business Informatics and Web Services with co-author Tim McGrath. His newest book is The Discipline of Organizing, which he will discuss during his talk at STC Berkeley.

April 2014 Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Time: 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm
Location: Cal State East Bay Oakland Conference Center Trans Pacific Center
Topic: Cloud Computing and Big Data: What Technical Writers Need to Know
Speaker: Greg Olson, Senior Director at Black Duck Consulting Group
Handout: PDF of Slides

“Big data” and “cloud computing” are growing parts of the technology industry, affecting more and more companies big and small. What are they? What do technical communicators need to know about these fields in order to contribute?

Greg Olson will speak to us about the key terminology and concepts that define the dynamic Cloud and Big Data segments. We will learn about the paradigm of layers in cloud computing, and other key technologies, architectures, and trends that are prevalent today. Greg will also speak about the leading commercial and community players for both of these areas, as well as synergies among these technologies and commercial ecosystems.

Greg Olson, Senior Director at Black Duck Consulting Group, has over 30 years of software industry experience in engineering, marketing, and business development. An expert on open source governance, compliance, and community, Greg has led engagements for major firms such as Microsoft, Palm and Barclays Global Investors, for commercial software companies initiating open source strategies such as Infobright, Adaptive Planning and Solid Information Systems, and for open source start-ups such as EnterpriseDB, JasperSoft and Lucid Imagination.

The March 2014 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Technology: What’s Happening? What’s Next?
Speakers: DJ Cline

Will your next project be for a phone, a wearable device or an implant? Will your next audience be human or a search engine? Most important of all, how will you get paid? Today’s hottest technology may be irrelevant tomorrow, and the interaction between technology and human behavior can have surprising results. DJ Cline will discuss current trends in emerging technology and their implications for technical communication.

DJ Cline is an award-winning photojournalist who reports on the origin and impact of emerging technology, business, and media around the world. Over the years, he has served as Director of the Silicon Valley Engineering Council, SVForum Fellow, as a charter member of the Long Now Foundation, and an STC Fellow.

The February 2014 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Challenges of dealing with graphics in technical writing
Speakers: Rebecca Firestone

What is a Tech Comm professional to do when documenting a manufactured physical hardware product that has absolutely no computer component whatsoever? The vast majority of technical writing focuses on tools and processes that lend themselves to automated text handling, but this type of documentation does not. Instead, this type of hardware documentation must wordlessly convey specific physical motions and gestural qualities to be successful. This presentation addresses the challenges faced with this type of documentation, as well as the strategies that the writer developed for addressing these challenges.

Rebecca Firestone worked closely with a core team of engineers to develop an effective graphical language and style. After trying several different tools and production methods, a combination method evolved: SolidWorks, 3D PDF renderings, Jing, Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, and unstructured FrameMaker. This approach could make it difficult to migrate to a structured content-management system, and might require sacrificing a considerable amount of graphical leeway for the sake of convenience and speed. Can we afford to lose the qualities that make the documents special? However, considering future growth and best practices in Tech Pubs, can we afford NOT to?

In this presentation and demo, Rebecca will walk the audience through the creation of a composited document in both Frame and InDesign, and also touch upon the initial challenges from the perspective of potential conversion to topic-based authoring approaches.

Rebecca Firestone is a writer and business content developer with 20 years of experience, focused mainly on product and user documentation for enterprise software products. Currently employed as a Senior Technical Writer at Zep Solar in San Rafael, CA, she focuses on product documentation–including installation manuals, tutorials, white papers, slide shows, technical notes, and component-level instruction sheets. Rebecca has worked with several Bay Area architectural design firms, writing articles and features on design and energy compliance. Other experience includes complex enterprise software applications, such as telecom convergence billing systems, messaging presence servers, and customer relationship management software. As a trainer, she worked with account managers, professional services, channel partners, new hires, and customers to deliver industry-specific, hands-on courses in the convergence billing industry space. In addition to her work in the software industry, she also worked with a leading electronics manufacturer to write business articles and white papers on the use of expert systems for supply-chain optimization.

The February 22, 2014 Saturday Workshop

Date: Saturday, February 22, 2014
Time: 9:30 am to 5:00 pm
Location: Ed Roberts Center, Berkeley, California
Topic: Topic-based Authoring: Getting Your Feet Wet
Speaker: Linda Urban

Unfortunately, we have had to cancel the February 22 delivery of this workshop. If you previously registered, your fee will be refunded.

We hope to reschedule this for a future date. If you would like to be notified when that happens, please send an email to programs@stc-berkeley.org.

If you have additional questions about this workshop, contact Linda Urban directly.

Topic-based authoring is a technique for writing content as discrete, stand-alone pieces (“topics”) that can be combined and reused in different ways.

The topic-based approach has been getting a lot of attention recently because it is an integral part of DITA (the Darwin Information Typing Architecture) and other XML-based solutions. However, topic-based authoring has actually been around for quite some time, and does not require DITA or XML.

Using a topic-based approach can improve consistency and usability of information, and can make it easier to reuse topics in different contexts. It can also simplify maintenance, speed up the review process, and facilitate shared authoring.

This hands-on workshop provides an overview of topic-based writing concepts and principles, and then lets you try your hand at using a topic-based approach. We will define key concepts (such as topic, information type, component, and element), look at examples of different types of topics, and discuss pros and cons of a topic-based writing approach.

You will get a chance to work with actual content, as you

Identify and define information types and topic types
Chunk linear information into topics
Assess what kinds of changes are required to make individual topics work effectively for users
Consider how to connect and cluster topics, to provide a cohesive collection of information for users, even when content is complex

Along the way, we will touch on related questions such as:

How long should a topic be?
What’s the difference between topic-based writing and structured writing?
Do you need to use DITA to benefit from topic-based authoring? Do you need a content management system?
Just how hard is the shift to a topic-based approach?

IMPORTANT: Please bring a sample of your own content to consider during the workshop (10 to 15 pages, printed single-sided).

A laptop computer is NOT required.

For more details, see: Topic-Based Authoring Workshop [pdf]

The January 2013 Annual Chapter Party and Touchstone Awards

Join us on Saturday evening, January 18, to relax with fellow communicators, enjoy a buffet dinner, and celebrate excellence in the profession.

During the evening we will also recognize and honor competition judges and Berkeley chapter volunteers for their contributions to the chapter and the profession.

Our yearly raffle: Once again, the generosity and support from the wonderful vendors in our professional community allow us to offer some extraordinary raffle items. Among the prizes from generous donors are these:

Doc-to-Help: “Create online help from MS Word!”
Madcap Flare Suite: “MadCap Flare allows you to create, manage and publish content to a variety of formats, including print, online, desktop and mobile.”
Adobe Technical Communication Suite: “A powerful, integrated toolkit with single-source authoring, rich multimedia integration, and multichannel, multiscreen HTML5 publishing capabilities.”
oXygen XML Author: “XML authoring for everyone!”
Entry to Intelligent Content Conference (entire week pass): “The event will equip attendees with the knowledge theyneed to break down the barriers preventing them from connecting content with those who need it.”
Entry to Intelligent Content Conference: (One day workshop only)

(Raffle winners must be present at the time of the drawing.)

Hope to see you there!

The November 2013 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Why Users Can’t Find Answers to Their Questions in Help Content
Speakers: Tom Johnson

One of the main goals of help material is to help users find answers to their questions. However, this often doesn’t happen. Users dig into the help, muttering under their breath, only to give up on it in frustration, either because the help didn’t answer their question, or because the user couldn’t find the answer. Why not? Why is it so difficult to guide users to the right information when they need it?

I recently conducted a poll on my site– http://idratherbewriting.com–asking tech writers to rank the top reasons (from 20 listed) that users can’t find the information they’re looking for. The following 7 reasons trended to the top of the list:

1. The answer isn’t in the help because the help only sticks with obvious information.

3. The answer is an isolated task, but the user needs a more connected beginning-to-end workflow.

4. The user searches for the answer, but the help’s poor SEO prevents the answer from surfacing.

7. The help uses terms unfamiliar to the user (e.g., “gizmo” instead of “widget”).

8. The help has been fragmented and dispersed over many small topics so the help is a maze.

14. The help doesn’t provide concrete examples that make the concepts understandable.

20. The answer is buried in a long page, but the user only spends 2 minutes max on a page scanning.

In this presentation, I’ll analyze these reasons, explain why they pose the challenges they do, present potential solutions, and more. In so doing, I hope to address the root of why so many users feel disdain and antipathy towards help material.

Tom Johnson is a technical writer at Badgeville, a gamification company in Redwood City, California. He has a well-known blog, idratherbewriting.com, where he writes about important issues in technical communication. He has been named by MindTouch as the most influential person in #techcomm 3 years in a row. Frequent topics he writes and speaks about include findability, visual communication, organization, search, screencasting, and more. He loves basketball, bikes to work, and has four daughters.

The October 2013 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Information Architecture Challenges and Solutions: A Case Study
Speakers: Eric Hughes

How do you approach a web project that has failed twice already, is full of political and organizational obstacles, has almost thirty distinct audiences, and thousands of current and not-so-current pieces of content? And oh yeah, some of the content is missing. And by the way, we need a new creative direction. Can you work with designers???

Using a major IA project that he worked on as an example, Eric Hughes will describe the many types of challenges inherent in IA work, as well as the creative thinking and tactics necessary to make such a project a success.

Eric Hughes began his career in technology as an instructional designer and technical trainer at Lockheed Missiles & Space in Sunnyvale, where he designed classes in computer networking and operational support. He then spent six years designing voice and data computer networks for Charles Schwab, where he learned about product design and usability. In 1991, he was recruited by Wells Fargo Bank to help create what was to become the largest internal TCP/IP network in the U.S., heading up an effort to use the “internal internet” for bank-wide business and communications — and voilà…the intranet was born! Working on that project, Eric was lucky enough to learn about organizing information from some of the best librarians in the business. In 1998, he (and his entire Wells Fargo team) started a web development firm called Simplexity, which 15 years later is still developing usable software products for the financial services and transportation industries. Eric provides information architecture, usability analysis, and documentation for Simplexity and its clients.

Eric is launching a new business called Matriculus in the Fall of 2013. It will specialize in the architecture, coding, deployment, and support of large graduate school online applications. UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz are current clients.

The September 2013 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: The Dynamic Role of Technical Editors in a DITA Environment
Speakers: Louise Galindo, Staff Technical Editor, VMware

How do technical editors work in a fast-moving, topic-based environment? What is changing for the profession? What is disruptive technical editing? We’ll discuss how the role of the technical editor grows more relevant as content is delivered in multiple output formats, faster, and to the international audience.

Louise Galindo is a Staff Technical Editor in the VMware Technical Communication department. Louise works in DITA using XMetal and the SDL LiveContent Architect (formerly SDL Trisoft CMS). She also works in FrameMaker and Acrobat Pro. Louise has produced and presented training for Developing Quality Technical Information (based on the IBM book), minimalist writing, topic-based writing, scenario-based content, and indexing. She is also the chair of the Tech Pubs Editorial Advisory Group (EAG). Louise teaches Technical Communications I and II at University of California Berkeley Extension. Her interests include controlled vocabularies, simplified technical English, glossaries, and terminology management. Louise is a Senior Member of STC and Co-Manager of the Technical Editing SIG.

August 2013 Webinar

Date: Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Online webinar
Topic: Touch, Voice, and Gestures: How to craft your user assistance to accommodate a variety of interaction types
Speaker: Joe Welinske

Join us on Wednesday evening, August 28, at 7 PM (Pacific Daylight Time) for this webinar presented by Joe Welinske.

New ways of interacting with software, like touch and voice, mean a rethinking of how we develop our associated user assistance. This session is a guide for making appropriate language choices for emerging interaction types like touch, voice, and hand gestures. Topics include device-specific instructions using conditional text, micro-concise instructions for small screens, writing for first user experience, flat navigation, and options for voice support. This session applies to both mobile platforms and the emerging use with desktop systems.

This session will only be available as a live streaming event through GotoMeeting. It will not be recorded. There are a limited number of connections available.

We will email the connection instructions to registered attendees as the date approaches.

If you have a large enough monitor and want to organize your own group, multiple people can take advantage of a single connection.

Joe Welinske specializes in helping software development teams via crafted communication. He helps companies to design state-of-the-art user experiences, featuring comprehensive user assistance and quality words and images that enhance the user experience. He also specializes in Help, wizards, FAQs, videos, and much more. For over twenty-five years, Joe has been providing training, contracting, and consulting services for the software industry. He teaches courses for Bellevue College, the University of California, and the University of Washington, and recently published the book Developing User Assistance for Mobile Apps.

Joe also runs the WritersUA conference, which will be visiting the East Coast this Fall. A great roster of speakers and topics is scheduled for Oct 27-29 in Newport, Rhode Island. This should be an informative and fun experience for all who attend. Registration is open. WritersUA.com.

The August 2013 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Panel: The World According to Tech Pubs Hiring Managers
Speakers: Paul Battaglia (Cloudera), Joanne Tenenbaum (Bio-Rad Laboratories) and Leif Brown (Perforce)

What do hiring managers look for in potential staff or contract workers? What do hiring managers really do with your resume once they get it? What makes someone a great staff member once they’ve been hired? For the answer to these—and other—questions, come listen to our panel, all experienced tech pubs hiring managers. Paul Battaglia (Cloudera), Joanne Tenenbaum (Bio-Rad Laboratories), and Leif Brown (Perforce) will share insights, examples, and no doubt a few horror stories, based on their years in the trenches. Expect a lively Q & A

Our panel: Paul Battaglia (Cloudera), Joanne Tenenbaum (Bio-Rad Laboratories), and Leif Brown (Perforce)

Paul Battaglia started his 30+ year career in early 1983 as a technical writer intern at Apple. In late 1983, he worked at his first start-up, a company a bit ahead of its time called Sydis, which sold integrated voice/data systems for offices before LANs were common. In 1986, he worked at Software Publishing Corporation (SPC, maker of Harvard Graphics and PFS) as a senior writer and later as a Tech Pubs Manager. He managed the documentation for InfoAlliance, which won an STC Award of Excellence. In 1990, he went to work as tech pubs manager at Frame Technology, the maker of FrameMaker. The FrameMaker 5 Pocket Guide also won an STC Award of Excellence. In 1995, he launched a successful independent technical writing consulting business, and worked for many large and small company clients for over 12 years—including Adobe, Oracle, FileMaker, Juniper Networks, and Tesla Motors. To try something completely different, he worked for a couple years as a solar design consultant, selling residential solar systems, while also working on a novel. He currently works as a tech pubs manager at Cloudera, a fast growing start-up in the Big Data Hadoop market segment.

Leif Brown manages technical publications, multimedia, and eLearning curriculum development at Perforce Software, in Alameda, where he has worked since 2011. Perforce designs version control software, primarily for software developers. From 2004 to 2008, he managed technical publications at Plumtree Software, which later became the Business Interactive Division at BEA. After BEA was acquired by Oracle in 2008, Leif managed the Oracle SOA (service-oriented architecture) documentation team. His first technical writing job was at PeopleSoft, where he wrote documentation for financial applications and developer tools. Leif has also taught history to high school and college students. His current pet project as a tech pubs manager is implementing a content delivery model that gives users consolidated access to all kinds of content – written, video, interactive, formal, informal – and lets them pick how they prefer to learn.

Joanne Tenenbaum is a publications manager and technical writer who developed and currently manages a software/hardware writing group at Bio-Rad Laboratories. Less than three years old, this group’s work has become the gold standard for customer-facing documentation at Bio-Rad. Tenenbaum has produced documentation for major Silicon Valley companies, including (among others) HP, Xerox/XSoft, Cisco, and Palm. She has also worked as a newspaper editor, news photographer, and manuscript editor. Lessons learned in these fields inform her management and writing styles. Tenenbaum holds a B.A. with distinction in English from the Ohio State University and completed several semesters in the M.A. program in English at The Catholic University of America. She also is a former vice president of the Monterey Bay STC chapter.

The July 2013 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Game On! Creating User Experience for Gamified Products
Speaker:Marta Rauch

Gamifiation is coming soon to a product near you. Are you prepared? Market research predicts that 70% of enterprises will have at least one gamified product by 2015. Attend this presentation to understand gamification’s impact, and gain strategies and best pratices for creating gamified user experience.

An STC Associate Fellow, Marta Rauch is currently a principal information developer and ID lead at Oracle, where she participates in corporate gamification initiatives. She completed the 2012 Gamification course via Kevin Werbach of the Wharton School and Coursera, has worked at two game companies, and is a Certified Gamification Designer.

Marta is a frequent presenter for conferences and webinars, and has published articles for STC Intercom, IEEE, and the Center for Information Development Management Best Practices. She has received 15 STC awards for individual and team projects at the regional and international level. Marta holds a BA from Stanford University, a teaching credential, and a certificate from UC Extension in Managing the Development of Technical Communication.

The June 2013 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Key Learnings and Trends: Highlights from the STC 2012 Summit
Speakers: Gwaltney Mountford, Cheryl Hunt, and Romy Sinha, with Nicki Davis as moderator

Recently returned from this year’s STC Summit national conference, our panelists will present highlights from their favorite workshops and presentations and share their insights and greatist learnings. Come find out about the latest trends and the hottest topics amont tech comm professionals across the country.

Our panel: Gwaltney Mountford, Romy Sinha, and Cheryl Hunt, with Moderator Nicki Davis

Gwaltney Mountford has over 30 years of experience as a technical communicator who focuses on solving the communication needs of end-use customers. She and her husband own Mountford Group Inc., a consulting company specializing in developing custom web-based business and data warehouse applications for major corporations and government entities in Northern California. An STC Associate Fellow, she has presented at chapter meetings and at the regional and international STC conferences.

Romy Sinha works as an Information Architect with eMeter, a Siemens Business. With degrees in Computer Science and English, Romy is convinced that Technical Communication is the perfect field for her. She also has a Technical Communication Certificate with Distinction from UC Berkeley Extension. She enjoys translating complex technical topics into easy to understand information. Before becoming a Technical Communicator, Romy was a Software Developer. She still likes to write her own macros sometimes. Her love for the profession has brought her to STC and she is currently the President of the East Bay chapter.

Cheryl Hunt is a writer and editor who works in the “technical” side of technical communication, writing for developers and system administrators.

Nicki Davis is a Senior Technical Writer at OSIsoft, LLC in San Leandro. With over 20 years of experience as a technical communicator, she has a passion for making software products easy to use—whether by improving usability or by writing better user assistance. Nicki currently serves as the Secretary of the Berkeley Chapter, and served as Treasurer from 2009 through 2012.

The April 2013 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Present Yourself More effectively: Tools or Improving Your Networking and Self-Promotion.
Speakers: Laura Paradise

How do you come across to others when you meet them in settings important to your career? This presentation will prepare you for making strong introductions and connections when networking and interviewing. Attendees will be introduced to strategies for working with the the whole self to help energize and focus before interviews and networking events. They will also learn techniques for relaxation and for using body language to your advantage. In addition, Laura will provide insights for developing effective verbal and written introductions.

The goal is to energize and inspire participants, provide them with effective self-presentation strategies, and prepare them to think quickly on their feet so that people will sit up and listen!

Laura Paradise is a certified life coach with an extensive background in nonprofit fundraising and advocacy. Her coaching specialty is helping people build successful businesses and secure work that they love by focusing on promotion and presentation skills.

The March 2013 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: How salesforce.com Uses Twitter to Enhance Documentation
Speakers: Gina Blednyh and Michelle Chapman-Thurber

Michelle Chapman-Thurber and Gina Blednyh will discuss how the salesforce.com technical writing team has leveraged Twitter, the micro-blogging tool, to:

Promote documentation and videos
Listen to customers
Improve deliverables
Build customer trust

This is not a tutorial on how to use Twitter, but an explanation of how they have used Twitter in business, as an effective way to make and strengthen connections with their customers.

Gina Blednyh has been an active member of STC Berkeley in the past, including serving as editor of the Ragged Left, the chapter’s newsletter. She joined salesforce.com over two years ago and has been using Twitter for approximately three years. (@ginaOnTwtr)

Michelle Chapman-Thurber joined salesforce.com in June of 2009 and never looked back. She’s been using Twitter nearly four years. (@mct_sfdc) Her manual Cloud Flow Designer Workbook won an award in the Touchstone technical communications competition.

Both Gina and Michelle are Senior Technical Writers at salesforce.com.

The February 2013 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Leveraging LinkedIn to get yourself noticed
Speakers: Andrew Davis of Content Rules
Handout: Andrew’s PowerPoint slides

LinkedIn opens up a universe of professional opportunities, but it’s seldom used to best effect. With over 185 million members in 200 countries, and two new members joining each second, it’s the social network no one seeking work – or workers – can afford to ignore.

Technical Communicators can quickly find out who needs their services, and which skills they’ll need tomorrow, by following companies, participating in groups, and watching job postings. Unlike its rival services and the job boards, LinkedIn connects you with those who are accountable.

Attendees will learn how to optimize their LinkedIn profiles, get timely answers and insider opinions, network with peers worldwide, hunt for work efficiently, and never be invisible again.

Expand your sphere of influence and network of potential collaborators
Cull potential employers/clients and employees/contractors, focusing only on the promising ones
Direct queries only to well-informed, accountable resources
Learn quickly who knows what, then learn who they know who can help you
Focus on results, not promises

At least a hundred new members have joined LinkedIn since you started reading this. Are you sure none of them are worth knowing?

Andrew Davis has recruited technical communicators in Silicon Valley since 1995, first for Synergistech Communications and now as Director of Talent Development for Content Rules (formerly Oak Hill Corporation). He is a former software industry Tech Writer and is well-known for both understanding and championing the role of content development. At Content Rules he recruits all kinds of technical and marketing communicators as well as training and globalization professionals. Andrew enjoys helping those who communicate complex information get ahead by recognizing and refining their value to technology companies. He’s candid and connected and, more importantly, he’s committed to helping content developers achieve their professional goals.

Learn more about Andrew at www.linkedin.com/in/synergistech.

The January 2013 Webinar

Date: Thursday, January 31, 2013
Times (p.m.): 7:00 PM PDT
Location: Online through GoToMeeting
Topic: Usabilty Testing for Print Documentation: A case study of how usability testing results transformed a print publication for the ACT
Presenter: Joe Welinske, president of WritersUA

SORRY – THIS WEBINAR IS NOW FULL.

Join us on Thursday evening, January 31, at 7 PM (Pacific Daylight Time) for this free webinar presented by Joe Welinske.

Joe describes the webinar: Most of my work over the past twenty years has been spent designing and creating communication components which are delivered digitally – Help files, wizards, UI text, knowledge-bases, etc. A recent project got me back in touch with the print medium and allowed me to apply usability testing techniques that weren’t on the radar for technical writers a few years ago. Blink Interactive asked me to lead a project for one of their clients – ACT. This is the ACT that develops and administers the test that is so familiar to hundreds of thousands of high school students. The ACT had suspicions that several of their printed publications were not well suited to their student customers. The content used in these printed publications was also used on their web site and they wanted to make sure the students were getting important information related to the test.The session describes the usability testing that led to significant changes in the design of the documentation.

This session will only be available as a live streaming event through GotoMeeting. It will not be recorded.

Registration: The webinar is free, but there is a limited number of connections available.

To register, send an e-mail to programs@stc-berkeley.org with “STC webinar” in the subject line. In the body of the message, include your name, and whether you are a member of Berkeley STC. We will e-mail you the connection instructions as the date approaches. [SORRY – THIS WEBINAR IS NOW FULL.]

If you have a large enough monitor and want to organize your own group, multiple people can take advantage of a single connection.

If the event is over-booked, priority will go to STC Berkeley members.

Joe Welinske specializes in helping your software development effort through crafted communication. The best user experience features quality words and images in the user interface. The UX of a robust product is also enhanced through comprehensive user assistance. This includes Help, wizards, FAQs, videos and much more. For over twenty-five years, Joe has been providing training, contracting, and consulting services for the software industry. Joe recently published the book, Developing User Assistance for Mobile Apps. He also teaches courses for Bellevue College, the University of California, and the University of Washington.

Joe also puts on The Conference for Software User Assistance
http://writersua.com/conference/

This year, the conference will be March 7-8 in Seattle * 20+ speakers, 30+ sessions, Fast-paced, two-day format
Use the discount code “berkeley” to reduce your price by $50.

Also, please consider contributing to the 2013 WritersUA Skills and Technologies Survey: http://welinske.com/skills-technologies-survey/

The January 2013 Annual Chapter Party and Touchstone Awards

Date: Saturday, January 19, 2013
Times (p.m.): 5:30 to 6:00 Networking & conversation; 6:00 to 7:00 Buffet dinner; 7:00 to 8:00 Awards and Recognition; 8:00 to 9:00 More conversations, see the award-winning entries
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Berkeley STC Annual Party and Touchstone Awards

Join us on Saturday evening, January 19, to relax with fellow communicators, enjoy a buffet dinner, and celebrate excellence in the profession.

During the evening we will also recognize and honor competition judges and Berkeley chapter volunteers for their contributions to the chapter and the profession.

Adobe
MadCap
TechSmith (Camtasia and Snagit)
ComponentOne (Doc-to-Help)

And new this year: the Chicago Manual of Style has donated a year’s subscription to the online version of the manual.

(Raffle winners must be present at the time of the drawing.)

Hope to see you there!

The November 2012 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Topic-based Authoring: Why Bother?
Speakers: Linda Urban and Joan Lasselle

Using a topic-based approach can improve consistency and usability of information and make it easier to reuse topics in different contexts. It can also simplify maintenance, speed up the review process, and facilitate shared authoring.

All of those benefits sound great. But which ones really matter to you, your business, and your customers? It’s important to know why you want to change your content strategy, and how you’ll evaluate whether you’ve been successful.

Topic-based authoring implementations often focus on learning writing patterns, techniques, and technologies like DITA and CCMS. Those are important and useful, but topic-based authoring doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Decisions you make about your content need to be tied to business goals and user needs. Too often, the activity of thinking through the business goals and user needs gets neglected.

This presentation will define topic-based authoring and help you understand not only the benefits of this approach but also walk you through the critical steps to defining and implementing a successful program.

Speakers:

The October 2012 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Tech Comm Value: Potential Costs of Poor or Missing Documentation
Speaker: Joe Devney
Handout: Tech Comm Value Handout (Devney)

A perennial question in the technical communications community is how to justify our work in financial terms that management will understand. One partial answer is to consider potential consequences of putting insufficient resources into technical documentation—what happens if the material is poorly written, or not written at all? Consequences can range from unhappy customers all the way to loss of life and debilitating lawsuits. Joe Devney will use real-life examples to illustrate some of the dangers of inadequate documentation, and give tips on avoiding them.

Handout: Tech Comm Value Handout

Joseph Devney, STC Associate Fellow, has been a technical writer and STC member since the mid-1990s, and now also works as a forensic linguist. He has seen his share of bad documentation. Joe has been a guest speaker at several STC chapters, including Berkeley.

The September 2012 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Introduction to Documenting APIs
Speaker: Richard Smith

Most of us interact with software through a graphical user interface. For example, when you look for directions on Google Maps, you enter text, click buttons, drag icons, and so on. When two software programs interact with each other, they can’t use a GUI but must speak to each other programmatically, through code. This programmatic conversation is done through an application programming interface or API.

Come hear Richard Smith from Netflix demystify APIs. Learn which companies are offering them and why; watch a demo of an API in action; and learn what it takes to document an API. Richard will cover:

What is an API? (the basics)
–A hands-on API Demo–
The range of APIs you’ll encounter
The business of APIs
Learning and Preparation for API Writers

PS: If you bring along a laptop, you will be able to make API calls to the live demo (most phones and tablets won’t work).

The August 2012 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Lessons Learned from the 2012 STC Summit
Panel: Gwendolynne Barr, Lori Meyer, Gwaltney Mountford, Bruce Poropat, and Romy Sinha

For our August presentation, the Berkeley chapter is bringing together a panel of STC members from Bay Area chapters who attended the STC conference in Chicago. The panel will discuss their favorite sessions and important themes affecting our industry. The presentation will be a combination of mini lighting talks and lively discussion.

Please join us for a fun and informative evening with Bobbie Dowling, Bruce Poropat, Gwaltney Mountford, Lori Meyer, and Romy Sinha. Gwendolynne Barr will moderate. And by the way, ice cream will be served at dinner. Don’t miss it!

Our Panel:

Bobbie Dowling, Lori Meyer, Gwaltney Mountford, Bruce Poropat, and Romy Sinha, with Moderator Gwendolynne Barr

Bobbie Ohs Dowling has been turning out great technical communications for decades, but only in the past five years has she been able to proudly don the title of Technical Writer. A Senior Technical Writer for Navis, LLC, she creates how-to content and application-based help for managing container shipping terminals, and is on constant lookout for smart processes. Prior to that, she managed web-based CRM and consumer application projects for companies such as Autodesk, Toshiba, Standard & Poor’s, and E*Trade. From the days of selling her college class notes to the present, she relishes clarity, novelty, and empathy for the audience.

Gwaltney Mountford has 30 years of experience as a technical communicator focusing on solving the communication needs of end-users. She and her husband, Carl, own Mountford Group Inc., a consulting company specializing in developing custom web-based business and data warehouse applications. An STC Associate Fellow, she is a past president of the East Bay chapter, a former director of Touchstone and the Region 8 Conference, and was on the Society’s Nominating Committee. She has presented at the STC Annual Conference and at regional events, and taught technical writing for 6 years UC Berkeley Extension.

Bruce Poropat, a Bay Area-based contract technical writer, has authored online and print documentation for the University of California, Wells Fargo, Charles Schwab, Williams-Sonoma, ERG, ZipRealty.com, and many others. He has worked on plain language conversion projects for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and the Port of Oakland.

Romy Sinha has 12+ years of combined experience as a technical writer and software developer in the computer software industry. Her deep understanding of technical material informs her work as a technical communicator and information developer. She specializes in the documentation of enterprise software, APIs and SDKs. Presently, she works as an Information Developer with eMeter, a Siemens Business.

Gwendolynne Barr is a technical writer and former software tester. She currently works at Thomson Reuters in San Francisco where she documents complex equity analytics delivery systems for developers, system administrators, and QA engineers.

The July 2012 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Emerging Roles and Hot Markets for Tomorrow’s Tech Writers
Speaker: Andrew Davis

Do you wonder where your skills have most value? Have you overlooked entire markets based on misperceptions? Can you really upsell yourself and live at peace in a globalized economy? Are you still looking for professional stability? What’s the upside to all this change?

Come hear Andrew’s insights on which niches and roles pay best, and why. Get his help mapping your cultural and location preferences to today’s demand and tomorrow’s prospects. And listen to his provocative suggestions for achieving success (aka resilient demand) in your content development career.

Andrew hears from a broad cross-section of Bay Area technical communicators and hiring managers. His role as a recruiter specifically for our niche lets him aggregate anecdotes, and his input can help you more consciously steer your career – or at least bypass expensive dead ends.

Andrew will highlight myriad new variants on your core skills, discuss who’s securing these roles, and speculate about where it all will lead. This won’t be a talk about the job search, but rather about what to expect from the new opportunities that already abound. And yes, it really is possible to transition, upgrade, or even just coexist in this increasingly ‘exciting’ marketplace.

There’ll be a lively Q&A after the presentation; Andrew promises to be the last person to leave the room.

Andrew Davis has recruited technical communicators in Silicon Valley since 1995, first for Synergistech Communications and now for Content Rules (formerly Oak Hill Corporation). He is a former software industry Tech Writer and is well-known for both understanding and championing the role of content development. At Content Rules he recruits all kinds of technical and marketing communicators as well as training and globalization professionals. Andrew enjoys helping those who communicate complex information get ahead by recognizing and refining their value to technology companies. He’s candid and connected and, more importantly, he cares.

The June 2012 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Painting with Numbers: Presenting Numbers as a Communication Skill, Not a Math Skill
Speaker: Randall Bolten

Numbers are a critical component of many presentations of technical information. Presenting numbers is a communication skill, and not a black art practiced only by the “numbers guys.” There’s more to presenting numbers than just making sure they’re right. The information also needs to be clear and meaningful to the audience.

Practicing this skill effectively is subject to rules and best practices much like the grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and sentence structure we spend years learning. Randall Bolten’s new book, Painting with Numbers: Presenting Financials and Other Numbers So People Will Understand You, is the first book to look at the art of presenting numbers from this perspective.

Join us for an informative and entertaining discussion, where Randall will discuss:

How numbers are organized and laid out on the page can make a huge difference in comprehensibility
How to use key indicators to add meaning and context to the raw numbers
Three levels of mastery critical to being an effective communicator of numbers

Randall Bolten runs Lucidity, a consulting practice in Menlo Park, California focused on short engagements with specific deliverables, including business models, reporting packages, and incentive compensation packages. His 30-year career as a financial executive in Silicon Valley includes nearly 20 years as chief financial officer for both public companies (BroadVision and Phoenix Technologies) and startups. He has also held senior financial management positions at Oracle and Tandem Computers. He received his AB degree from Princeton University and his MBA from Stanford University.

The May 2012 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: The Content Strategy Trap
Speaker: Scott Abel

Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, will explore The Content Strategy Trap and how failing to avoid it often leads well-intentioned strategists down the wrong path. Attendees will learn how avoiding the trap led one retailer to become a publisher of online repair manuals designed to teach “do-it-yourselfers” how to fix things, while selling them the goods they need to do the job. Sales are driven completely by visually engaging, standardized instructional content delivered to the web, to smartphones and to mobile devices. Return on investment is no longer a wild guess. It’s directly tied to individual pieces of content. By thinking outside The Content Strategy Trap, the retailer has become the leader in their market. Their strategy is so successful that other retailers of products that require assembly, sometimes break, or need occasional maintenance are clamoring to replicate it.

Attendees will learn:

What content strategy is (and what it’s not)
Why silos can negatively impact strategic decisions
How thinking differently about technical communication can open numerous possibilities for improvement

Scott Abel aka The Content Wrangler, is an internationally-recognized content strategist and social networking choreographer whose strengths lie in helping global organizations improve the way they author, maintain, and deliver information.

In addition to his popular business blog, TheContentWrangler.com, an online resource for content professionals with an interest in content management, content marketing, content standards and content technologies, Scott maintains several online communities on Facebook and Linkedin, and is a popular and influential technology micro-blogger on Twitter. He writes regularly for trade and industry publications, blogs, and newsletters and is a popular presenter at publishing and other content-focused events.

In his free time, Scott is a dance music mashup artist, dj, and music producer who has been spinning tunes since 1982.

The April 2012 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Ethnographic Field Research: Find out what users really need
Speaker: Nicki Davis

Whether you call it ethnographic research, contextual inquiry, or field studies, there’s no better way to find out who your users are and what they need. By observing users in action in their normal working environment, you’ll learn about needs that can’t be expressed verbally. Best of all, this kind of information doesn’t just benefit technical communicators; it can help software companies provide better products.

Nicki Davis will present a case study in which ethnographic research helped to reduce the scope of a new product by 50%, while providing functionality that was missing in the existing legacy product.

Nicki Davis is a user interface writer with a strong technical background and experience in user experience design. She works at OSIsoft, LLC in San Leandro and is the treasurer of the Berkeley Chapter of STC.

The March 2012 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Plain Language for Technical Writers
Speaker: Bruce Poropat

Plain language conversion (PLC) is a growing field as government agencies, companies, and other institutions respond to legal and policy requirements to convert dense jargon into clear, straight-forward language. Plain language simply means language that conforms to a set of principles that conveys information in the clearest, most efficient way. It stands in contrast to legalese or jargon-laden institutional prose.

In this presentation, you will discover that plain language and good technical writing essentially share the same goal: inform the reader as succinctly and clearly as possible.

What you’ll learn:

What plain language really means
What plain language means to today’s governments, industries, and institutions
How to write clear, concise prose that meets plain language objectives
About career opportunities in plain language

The February 2012 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Bringing the Editor’s Perspective to Our Work
Speakers: Louise Galindo (VMWare), Jeff Gardiner (VMWare), Deirdre Greene (Independent Editor), and Daniel Milne (Oracle)

This month we are pleased to host a panel of editors who work in technical publication and technical education at companies around the Bay Area.

We’ve asked them to think about questions like these:

What’s it like to be an editor in documentation and training groups these days?
- Where you work, what’s the ratio of writers to editor?
- What type of edits are you asked to provide? (copy edits? developmental? substantive?)
- How do you work with writers?
It seems like some companies are reducing the number of editors in technical publication and education groups.
- Is that your experience?
- What advice do you have for writing teams and individual writers who have limited access to editors, to bring an editorial perspective to their work?
What writing issues do you see on a regular basis, as you work with writers?
- What weakness do you see, that could be strengthened? (Do people need “grammar refreshers”? Help with structure? Help simplifying sentences?)
- Where should writers put their time and attention, to improving their writing?
Are there differences in writing issues for writers in “tech pubs” groups compared to “training and education” groups?

Join us to learn from these editors. This will be an interactive panel discussion, with time for questions and answers.

Our Panel of Editors: Louise Galindo (VMWare), Jeff Gardiner (VMWare), Deirdre Greene (Independent Editor), and Daniel Milne (Oracle)

Louise Galindo is a senior technical editor in the VMware Technical Publications department. VMware is a software company that specializes in virtualization and cloud computing. For the majority of her editing, Louise works in the files, using DITA in XMetal, and works in the content management system. She also works in FrameMaker and edits PDFs using Acrobat Pro. Louise has produced and presented training for Developing Quality Technical Information(based on the IBM book), minimalist writing, topic-based writing, and indexing. She is also the chair of the Tech Pubs Editorial Advisory Group (EAG). Her interests include controlled vocabularies, glossaries, and terminology management. She teaches Technical Communications I and II at UC Berkeley Extension.

Jeff Gardiner is a senior editor in the Content Development group at VMware. Previously, he managed the editorial group at Sun Microsystems. While at Sun, he supervised and contributed to the publication of Read Me First!: A Style Guide for the Computer Industry. Following his work at Sun, he converted eMeter’s product documentation from Word to the Confluence wiki and then edited and maintained the content. He also teaches English composition classes at City College of San Francisco.

Deirdre Greene has been in publishing for almost 30 years, starting out by staffing the front desk for a start-up political magazine while in college. She went on to work at Little, Brown, but has eschewed big publishers for smaller companies and the freelance life ever since. She is a founder and the president of Roaring Forties Press, a publishing company that specializes in travel books with a unique perspective, and freelances as a copyeditor, developmental editor, and project manager for clients ranging from the United Nations and Sage Publications to Cisco and Adobe.

Daniel Milne has worked as a technical editor since 2000, first at Siebel University and now at Oracle University (OU). Most of his time these days is devoted to editing training materials in PowerPoint and Word, but he finds time for other supporting work within Oracle University. He maintains and publishes the OU Style Guide, and he created and maintains several internal wikis, online forums, and workspaces related to editing, OU style, and templates. He participates in training for new curriculum developers, and in committees for templates and authoring tools. Daniel has a BA from SF State University in Technical and Professional Writing, with a minor in Economics. The most important lesson he learned in the (very wonderful) TPW program is to always keep your audience in mind in everything you write or edit.

Facilitator: Linda Urban will facilitate the panel. She has more than 25 years of experience in designing and developing technical information and instruction. A consultant, she is available to work on projects (needs assessment, user and workplace research, and design and development of content and instruction), deliver workshops, and consult with and coach writers and teams to clarify their content strategy and improve the quality of their documentation. Linda also teaches in the Technical Communication program at UC Berkeley Extension. She can be found on twitter @lindaurban.

The January 2012 Annual Chapter Party and Touchstone Awards

Date: Saturday, January 21, 2012
Times (p.m.): 5:30 to 6:00 Networking & conversation; 6:00 to 7:00 Buffet dinner; 7:00 to 8:00 Awards and Recognition; 8:00 to 9:00 More conversations, see the award-winning entries
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Berkeley STC Annual Party and Touchstone Awards

Join us on Saturday evening, January 21, to relax with fellow communicators, enjoy a buffet dinner, and celebrate excellence in the profession.

During the evening we will also recognize and honor competition judges and Berkeley chapter volunteers for their contributions to the chapter and the profession.

Our yearly raffle: Once again, the generosity and support from the wonderful vendors in our professional community allow us to offer some extraordinary raffle items.

Adobe is providing a copy of Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.5
Author-it is providing a 1 year subscription for the Author-it Cloud
[1 Professional subscription (Author User) with 2 Reviewers, plus one-time setup of the Cloud library]
Corel is providing a copy of Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X5
ComponentOne is providing a license for Doc-To_Help
iG5 AuthoringTools is providing a copy of DITAToo
MadCap Software is providing a copy of MadPak Suite
Microsoft is providing a copy of Microsoft Office Home an Student 2010 and Microsoft Visio Standard 2010
TechSmith is providing copies of Camtasia Studio and Snagit

And who knows? – There could be a few more added, between now and the party!

(Raffle winners must be present at the time of the drawing.)

Hope to see you there!

The November 2011 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Working with FrameMaker, RoboHelp, and Captivate in Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.5
Speaker: Dustin Vaughn of Adobe Systems

n this session, Dustin Vaughn will focus on leveraging the seamless integration amongst FrameMaker 10, RoboHelp 9, and Captivate 5.5 to easily and rapidly develop rich, interactive, and standards-compliant content.

Dustin will also demonstrate what is new in Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.5, and how it can help you become more creative and productive. For example, he will demonstrate how to publish an ePub file from FrameMaker using RoboHelp to create a file suitable for viewing on a tablet device. And he will be available to answer other questions about Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3.5, which also includes Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Adobe Acrobat X Pro.

Dustin Vaughn is a Business Development Manager with Adobe Systems Inc. in the Technical Communications group. Prior to joining Adobe, he played an integral part in implementing a structured FrameMaker solution for a large government agency. Dustin is an Adobe Certified Expert in FrameMaker. He has consulting experience, and has served as a presenter for Adobe, discussing conversion from Microsoft Word to FrameMaker.

The October 2011 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2011
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: The Management Perspective
Speakers: Van Shackelford (EFI), Valerie Steele (NetSuite), and Katherine Wenc (Apple)

This month we are pleased to host a panel of managers of technical communication groups from around the Bay Area. They will tell us about the challenges they face, what types of changes face them in today’s market, and what skills and abilities they value most in the people they manage.

We’ve asked them to think about questions like these:

What are the biggest challenges you face? (What keeps you up at night?)
What is the biggest change you see coming over the next 12 to 24 months?
If you could add one skillset to your team, what would it be?
What do you value most, from people on your team?
What changes can technical writers, editors, and other team members make, to help technical publications groups be successful today?
What question have we forgotten to ask, that we should be asking you?

Join us to learn from these managers. Find out what issues they face in managing technical publications groups today, and learn what qualities and expertise they need from their teams, to be successful. There will be time for questions, answers, and discussion.

Van Shackelford worked his way up from Novice Technical Writer out of San Jose State University, to Director of Publications at both Visa International and later at Aircraft Technical Publications. He was the President and sole proprietor of Vash Consulting, a Technical Writing company, for 7 years and is currently Manager of English Technical Communications at EFI, Inc. in Foster City. Van holds a B.S. degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco.

Valerie Steele has been a manager of small Technical Publications teams for over 15 years. She has extensive experience managing remote technical writers and enjoys the different perspectives and cultural diversity each writer brings to the job. She has worked with localization of technical documentation but still has a lot to learn. Valerie has been a Senior Member of STC since 2000.

Katherine Wenc has been Developer Publications Manager at Apple since 2001. Shemanages writers who produce reference documentation and conceptual guides for the iOS, Mac OS X, Safari, and iAd JS Developer Libraries. This work includes coordinating with cross-functional teams to devise documentation strategies and interacting with editors and art directors to ensure adherence to departmental standards and guidelines.

Prior to Apple, Katherine was Technical Writing Manager at Avaya/Lucent and worked as a technical writer at ViewStar, cc:Mail, and other technology companies. Her first job in California was Press Research Assistant for California Governor Jerry Brown, in the second term of his first administration.

Katherine studied Science Communications at Boston University School of Public Communication and received her Bachelor of Science, in Biology, from Simmons College. She currently lives in Berkeley with her pampered pets Glinda and Teresa and travels to the East Coast frequently to visit family and catch the latest Broadway plays.

The September 2011 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Proposal and Grant Writing 101
Speaker: Judy Herr

Technical communicators have the right mix of talent and skills to manage or provide support for proposals and grants. However, marketing our value to clients who are seeking to win contracts or grant funding requires that we understand proposal processes and “speak the language.”

In this session for both new and seasoned proposal specialists, Judy Herr will cover some of the essentials you need to know to work as a proposal team manager or contributor. She also plans on sharing hints for winning contracts, as she presents:

How to talk the talk and gain credibility as valuable contributors
- Know common proposal expressions
- Understand key differences between proposals and grants
Some of the challenges and obstacles you may face, and how to
- Build alliances and partnerships
- Set up a good proposal team organization
- Manage & communicate as virtual teams
Judy’s “top 10 lessons learned” that help create winning proposals and grants

There will be time for questions, answers, and discussion.

Judith (Judy) Herr has thirty years of experience in technical communication. She has done extensive work managing teams as they prepared highly complex proposals and oral presentations that have won government contracts. She has worked in a broad range of disciplines, including information technology, public health, environmental services, occupational safety, manufacturing, and scientific research.

Judith holds a BA in Sociology and Communication from the University of Texas and a Masters in Public Health from Tulane University. After working in a number of different jobs in both non-profit and for-profit arenas, Judy started her own consulting business, Well Chosen Words.

Having raising her hand to volunteer at her first STC meeting 20 years ago, Judith Herr became an STC Fellow in 2006 and received the STC President’s Award in 2011. She has served in every chapter leadership position, directed the STC technical communication competition Touchstone, and was STC’s SIG Advocate, helping the STC SIGs gain recognition as viable virtual communities. Judith served from 2008-2011 on the STC the Board of Directors for the Society.

The August 2011 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Rules of thumb for using color in your content
Speaker: Greg Urban

Have you ever tried to pick colors for a document, website, or blog and found that what you thought would be fairly straightforward is somehow much harder than you expected? Or discovered that the colors you saw in one context and loved somehow just doesn’t look right, when you use them on your page? If so, you are not alone! There’s a knack to getting the right color combination, and sometimes it can seem to be an elusive one. You don’t need to know color theory and have a graphics degree. But it’s also not enough to say “I know what I like when I see it.” You need a method. This talk will provide practical advice and guidelines for selecting colors to use in your documents and online content.

In a previous professional life, Greg Urban was a color consultant for house colors. He is also an artist, specializing in water color portraits. He has found that the same strategies he uses for selecting colors for houses and portraits can be used to select color in documents and on the web.

Greg Urban is presently working as a technical writer at Life Technologies, where he writes documentation for DNA sequencers. He is also a partner in Linda Urban Communications, LLC, where he has worked as both a writer and editor over the years. He has contributed to print documentation, online help, and single-sourced solutions for print and online. He recently taught a course in visual design for technical communicators at the University of California Berkeley Extension.

The July 2011 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Managing Multiple Information Channels: Strategies for Effective Presentations
Speaker: Joe Devney

What is the best way to get information across to your audience when you give a presentation? Slides, handouts, speech? It depends on the kinds of information you need to impart. Learn the strengths and weaknesses of these and other information channels available to you when you speak to a group, and how to use each to best advantage. Joe Devney will give you both theory and examples to help you design more effective presentations, so that your audiences will better understand and remember what you have to say.

The target audience includes anyone who expects to give a presentation at work, through STC or other volunteer or professional organizations, or in an academic setting.

Besides delivering a number of presentations himself through STC and other organizations, Joe Devney has sat through over a hundred presentations by others, analyzing what works and what doesn’t. He also has a Master’s degree in Language and Communication, as well as formal training in public speaking and fifteen years’ experience in technical communication.

Devney is Immediate Past President of STC Berkeley and an STC Associate Fellow.

The June 11, 2011 Saturday Workshop

Date: Saturday, June 11, 2011
Topic: XMetaL/DITA Fundamentals
Speaker: David Trousdale, of Lasselle-Ramsay, Inc

This workshop provides six hours of instruction, emphasizing practical, hands-on activities that illustrate XMetaL/DITA fundamentals. Along the way, the instructor will share his own experience in adopting DITA, demonstrate best practices, and point out how to avoid common pitfalls. The course will introduce you to the types of DITA topics and the basics of XMetaL. Through hands on exercises you will:

Write and edit concept, task, and reference topics
Create and update a DITA map
Reuse and link content using XMetaL

Just Systems will provide trial versions of XMetaL for all course participants.

Bring a Windows laptop! In order to participate in the hands-on exercises, each participant must bring a Windows-based laptop computer. More exact system specifications are provided in the software download instructions.

You will be asked to download and install xMetaL prior to the workshop. A link and directions will be provided after you register. If you are registering on or after Wednesday, June 8, please contact Linda Urban (programs@stc-berkeley.org) to make sure you receive the download instructions.

If you have questions about system requirements or setup, please contact Linda Urban (programs@stc-berkeley.org).

This workship is limited to 22 participants.

David Trousdale is currently a Senior Content and Learning Consultant with Lasselle-Ramsay. Prior to this, he worked for 10 years at Cisco Systems as a manager of technical publications. At Cisco Systems, he initiated and led two major XML projects: one that resulted in the first complete documentation set to be published using Cisco’s propriety DTD, and the other that is currently migrating Cisco’s carrier-class network operating system documentation to DITA. He received his B.A. from San Francisco State University and Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. After several years of college teaching, he shifted to technical writing and training in Silicon Valley at various data communications and telecommunications startups and eventually was hired by Cisco Systems.

For over 20 years, Lasselle-Ramsay has helped clients connect with their customers, employees, and partners through content and learning. Over the past 10 years, a growing practice area has been use of structured content, XML, and DITA to help meet faster release cycles, lower the cost of translation, and support the delivery of content in multiple formats. One of the key elements in the successful adoption of this new approach to developing content is the role of authors. Lasselle-Ramsay offers workshops and training to help authors develop the knowledge and skills they need to effectively incorporate using DITA into their daily work life.

Our thanks to Lasselle-Ramsay, who is underwriting part of the cost of this workshop so that we can keep the costs low.

The June 2011 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Optimizing your Portfolio: Are you ready for a bidding war for your services?
Speaker: Andrew Davis, of Content Rules

Your portfolio is the proof behind your resume’s claims. Discerning hiring organizations pay as much attention to what you’ve delivered as they do to what you promise. For today’s job-seekers, being passive, reactive, or even resistant regarding providing relevant portfolio samples can be fatal.

Andrew will discuss the role of a software industry content-development professional’s portfolio, how to assemble it, and how best to share it. Creating and optimizing your portfolio is a crucial skill in getting the results you deserve. This is particularly true if you are an experienced candidate, but also true if you are a newcomer. Andrew will address techniques for sharing confidential content, providing context, and generating the right kind of attention.

Are you ready for a bidding war for your services? With the right portfolio it’s not only possible, it’s likely.

The May 2011 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Turning Content Into Gold: A Presentation and Work Session
Speaker: Paula Toth, of TechProse

In today’s competitive marketplace, the extent to which an organization can leverage its assets determines how well it can sustain a thriving business. As technical communicators, our skill in developing content directly contributes to an organization’s assets if we wisely manage how we apply our knowledge and talents.

In this presentation Paula Toth, Best Practices Leader and “Single Sorceress” at TechProse, will show attendees how to use five key strategies to reduce content development costs, while simultaneously enhancing content quality. She will discuss the five strategies in detail, the strategy implementation phases, what can be done with or without changing tools, what tools to consider, and how to collect metrics to make the business case to apply the strategies. The five strategies are:

Optimize content
Separate authoring & publishing
Streamline processes
Manage team resources
Socialize content

The work session following the presentation guides attendees to explore how they are using the five strategies in their work today, and how they would like to deepen their use of these strategies in their future work.

Paula Toth is the TechProse team’s in-house subject matter expert on DITA and single-source solutions. With nearly 20 years of experience in technical communications, she is passionate about helping organizations streamline and reuse their content. She has worked with TechProse since 1990 and has managed single sourcing projects for small firms and large corporations. For the last nine years, her focus has been single-source analysis, development, and information architecture.

In addition to her work with these solutions, Paula has years of experience in information design, instructional design, content development, help system development, marketing writing, and process and procedure development.

The April 2011 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Mental Models: Identifying the Right Content Starts with Really Knowing Your Audience
Speaker: Indi Young

In this presentation, Indi Young will teach you how to deeply understand customer reasoning before making communication and design decisions through the use of mental models. Mental models provide a clear roadmap of where your department (and your organization) should invest its energies, and also where it shouldn’t, allowing you to stretch your limited resources and maximize your precious time. Mental models will also allow you to derive an information architecture from users’ tasks that will last 10 years, and get everyone from discordant team members to busy executives on the same page with respect to design and planning.

Indi Young got her start as a software engineer designing interactive models and compilers on supercomputers. When she switched to personal hand-held devices (the PenPoint & Newton age), it became overwhelmingly evident that engineers were creating apps for fellow engineers. Someone needed to be able to understand the everyday person who was trying to make their day more effective. This is when she learned how to listen deeply to what people were saying and how they were thinking. Indi consulted for many dot-com start-ups during the boom. During the bust, Indi founded Adaptive Path with six other interaction designer擁nformation architect謡riter耀peaker葉eaching pioneers. After five years of intensive projects, Indi stepped aside to write her book, Mental Models. She currently consults, writes a blog at Rosenfeld Media, and searches for rich chocolate cookies in every town she visits.

The March 2011 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Creating Custom Search for Your Content
Speaker: Kevin G. Lim of Google

Many users prefer to find information with search, not through the navigation, but you don’t have the developer resources to create a search engine for your website. Well, what if you can have Google in a box? What if you can harness the power of Google to search only your website or a collection of websites that you define?

Google actually offers such a tool – for free. Google Custom Search lets you create a customized search engine, control its look and feel, and fine-tune the results.

In this presentation, you will learn

to create a basic search engine
to create site search
to curate a specialized topic with a vertical search engine (for example, a search engine that specializes in technical communication, restaurants, or wine)
to customize the search engine with bells and whistles (such as suggested queries, refinement options, and custom results) to improve the user experience

Kevin G. Lim is a technical writer at Google. Her documentation projects include Search, Android, Enterprise, Chrome, and HTML5. She also created and runs a popular workshop program for technical writers and trainers at Google.

Prior to Google, she wrote documentation on mathematical models and enterprise systems. She also briefly experimented with project management as a system engineer.

In her free time, she likes exploring new places and engaging in something athletic (badminton, capoeira, white-water rafting, and kayaking are on top of the list).

The February 2011 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: How Microsoft SharePoint Gives You a Realistic Approach to Content Management
Speaker: Dan Beall of ComponentOne
Slides from Dan’s talk: Handout PDF

Microsoft SharePoint has become a platform for basic content management practices. You will find technology for collaboration, source control, versioning, and even translation support. For those who want the essential pieces of content management, but do not have the resources to implement a complex system, SharePoint just might be the answer. This session will show you how you can get started with SharePoint, promote it in your organization, and use the features available in your documentation workflow. The presentation will include a live demo of key features and open Q&A. We will also compare a SharePoint-based approach to a full component content management process so you can decide what is best for you.

If time permits, Dan may also show how Doc-To-Help and SharePoint work together.

For the past seven years, Dan Beall has acted as Product Manager at ComponentOne and is an esteemed practitioner in information, publishing and software design. Dan brings over 10 years of experience in both technical writing and software delivery to the Doc-To-Help, DemoWorks, and SharePoint Web Parts product lines. As an evangelist and educator, Dan writes whitepapers, presents at events, and conducts webcasts.

The January 2011 Annual Chapter Party and Touchstone Awards

Date: Saturday, January 22, 2011
Times (p.m.): 5:30 to 6:00 Networking & conversation; 6:00 to 7:00 Buffet dinner; 7:00 to 8:00 Awards and Recognition; 8:00 to 9:00 More conversations, see the award-winning entries
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Berkeley STC Annual Party and Touchstone Awards

Join us to relax with fellow communicators, enjoy a buffet dinner, and celebrate excellence in the profession.

During the evening we will also recognize and honor competition judges and Berkeley chapter volunteers for their contributions to the chapter and the profession.

Our yearly raffle: Wow, do we have some great items for our raffle this year! Thanks to the generosity and support from these wonderful vendors in our professional community:

Adobe is providing a copy of Technical Communication Suite 3
Author-it is providing a full user license to Author-it
ComponentOne is providing a license for Doc-To-Help Enterprise
MadCap Software is providing a copy of Flare V6

(Raffle winners must be present at the time of the drawing.)

Dinner menu:

Baby arugula with cranberries, almonds, and apples (vegan)
Hearty minnestrone soup (vegan)
Quinoa suffed squash with roasted garlic oil (vegan)
Grilled Salmon topped with dill cream
Roasted vegetable melody (vegan)
Brown rice pilaf with almonds and caramelized onions (vegan)
Sweet potato cheesecake

Hope to see you there!

The December 2010 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Designing with the Mind in Mind: The Psychological Basis for UI Design Rules
Speaker: Jeff Johnson of UIwizards.com

UI design rules are not simple recipes to be applied mindlessly. Applying them effectively requires determining their applicability (and precedence) in specific situations. It also requires balancing the trade-offs that inevitably arise in situations when design rules appear to contradict each other. By understanding the underlying psychology for the design rules, designers and evaluators enhance their ability to interpret and apply them. Explaining that psychology is the focus of this talk. It is based on Johnson’s new book: Designing With the Mind in Mind.

Jeff Johnson is Principal Consultant at UI Wizards, Inc., a product usability consultancy (uiwizards.com). After earning B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale and Stanford Universities, he worked as a UI designer and implementer, engineer manager, usability tester, and researcher at Cromemco, Xerox, US West, Hewlett-Packard Labs, and Sun Microsystems. He has taught at Stanford University, Mills College, and the University of Canterbury. He has authored articles and chapters on a variety of topics in Human-Computer Interaction, as well as the books GUI Bloopers, Web Bloopers, GUI Bloopers 2.0, and Designing with the Mind in Mind.

The November 2010 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Surviving a Behavioral Interview
Speaker: Mysti Berry of Salesforce.com

Many software companies use behavioral interview techniques instead of the traditional interview.

If you are a hiring manager, come find out why behavioral interviews reveal things that straightforward interviewing techniques don’t.

If you are a job seeker, come find out what these kinds of interviews are really looking for—and leave with some ideas about how to ace your next interview. This talk will also briefly review the top 5 candidate Dos and Don’ts—some of which may surprise you. If time permits, we’ll even do a little role-playing.

Mysti Berry is a lead technical writer for Salesforce.com. She has been a software technical writer for 20 years and worked in the enterprise cloud for five years. She teaches classes in the Technical Communication program at UC Berkeley Extension, and has given presentations at numerous STC chapter meetings. She has been trained in behavioral interview techniques and applied them rigorously in all her interviews for the last three years.

The October 2010 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: The Power of ePubs: Easily Creating Cross-device Online and Offline Content without Programming
Speaker: Silke Fleischer and Eric Converse, both of ATIV Software.

The September 2010 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Technical Communicators and Their Role in Stopping Brain Drain
Speaker: Gina Gotsill and Ken Ball, both of Techprose.

Interviewing is a big part of what technical communications do on the job. Technical communicators interview SMEs, users, and others, and then package what they learn to help people work more effectively. While interviewing skills are important to documentation, training, and project management, they can also play a major role in helping organizations capture and transfer knowledge as Baby Boomers move toward retirement.

During this talk, Ken Ball and Gina Gotsill will explore how technical communicators can use their interviewing skills to draw out valuable knowledge as longtime workers begin to step away. The content technical communicators create from these interviews can benefit organizations in the following ways:

Maintain business continuity
Create documentation of processes and procedures that reside in people’s heads
Promote knowledge sharing and collaboration

Ball and Gotsill will also provide an overview of the three primary generations in the workplace: Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y, and their learning preferences. Their research has shown that understanding the audience is an important first step to creating a knowledge retention program that makes sense. They will also touch on several different kinds of knowledge—explicit, implicit, and tacit, and the best ways to capture this knowledge for the organization.

At the end of this session, attendees will have a better understanding of:

The three primary generations in the workforce and their learning preferences
Explicit, implicit, and tacit knowledge
Methods for gaining buy-in from staff
The benefits of documenting knowledge
Methods for capturing knowledge, including documentation, communities of practice, mentoring, and storytelling

Gina Gotsill is a Gen X writer with degrees in journalism from San Francisco State University and University of California, Berkeley. She is also a fellow of the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Ms. Gotsill has covered a wide range of business topics that include keeping Boomer skills in the workplace, teaching finance to non-finance professionals, and growth and change in urban and suburban business districts.

Ken Ball is a Boomer and has been closely following aging in the workplace with curiosity for years. At TechProse, the consulting firm where he does business development, Ken tracks knowledge and content management, including training and documentation, for major U.S. clients. He has more than 30 years of experience in corporate sales and marketing, including years in the book publishing business, working for IDG Books, publishers of the …For Dummies computer and general reference books. He has a B.S. in Marketing-Speech Communications from Bradley University.

The August 2010 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: In the Trenches with DITA
Speakers: Mysti Berry of Salesforce, Ben Colborn of Citrix, and Tom Idleman of FICO.
Mysti’s handout: Handout for DITA panel

We hear a lot about structured authoring and DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) these days, and there are plenty of webinars and conference presentations that talk about the benefits that can come from shifting content into DITA–opportunities for content reuse, lower costs for translation, conditional processing, automatic linking, improved consistency and usability, and more.

But what’s it like for writers who actually works with DITA on a day-to-day basis? Is it much different from the way they worked before? Is it hard to make the shift? Are they glad they did? Have their jobs changed?

This month at Berkeley STC we will hear from a panel of writers who work with DITA on a regular basis to author documentation and training content. They will tell us what that’s like from the writer’s perspective, when DITA is fully integrated into the workflow.

Bring your questions and join us for this insider look at DITA.

Mysti Berry has been a technical writer for 20 years and is presently a Lead Technical Writer at Salesforce.com. She has been working with the DITA OpenToolkit for the last five years, including having survived a FrameMaker-to-DITA conversion, and the tardy adoption of a content/information model. Salesforce.com creates context-sensitive help, developer guides, implementation and tip guides, quick reference guides, and release notes using DITA. Their deliverable types include HTML, PDF, and eBooks. They also create videos, guided tours, and now comic books with non-DITA tools. Mysti has taught at UC Berkeley Extension, and holds a B.A. in Linguistics from UCSC and an MFA from University of San Francisco. She has won multiple awards for her technical writing and screenplay and fiction, and served as STC Touchstone judge.

Ben Colborn is a Courseware Development Lead for Citrix Education. At Citrix, courseware developers use DITA to create instructor-led training (PDF and PPT) and eLearning (HTML and Flash interactions in SCORM). In addition to developing training material for Citrix virtualization technologies, Ben works to improve course quality and simplify internal development processes. Before joining Citrix Education, he taught academic and professional writing at the college level and worked as a Unix system administrator at Sun Microsystems. He holds a B.A. in English from the University of Idaho and an M.A. in TESOL from San José State University.

Tom Idleman has been working with DITA for 7 years, both as a technical writer and a course developer. As a senior technical writer at IBM and FICO, he has written a wide range of documentation in DITA using mainly Epic Editor and XMetaL. As a course developer for Lasselle-Ramsay, he delivered a 4-hour training session on XMetaL and DITA at DocTrain East 2008, a full-day training session on XMetaL and DITA for Intel Corporation, and developed the XMART DITA CMS training program for Cisco Systems. .

The July 2010 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Focus On the User and the Rest Follows: Developing Personas to Improve Your Content
Speaker: Joan Lasselle and Jana Humphreys, both of Lasselle-Ramsay, Inc.

Content about your company, products, and services is a critical resource for communicating with your customers. But in today’s market your customers have never been more diverse or demanding. How do you meet their individual user needs? Such tools as structured content, XML, DITA, Component Content Management, and Dynamic Publishing provide the capability to manage and target your content. Technology gives you efficiency, but it doesn’t tell you who needs what. Understanding the content needs of your customers gives you the capability to create added value through your content.

This interactive presentation with hands on exercises introduces you to the steps for developing personas and how using those personas can improve your product information and learning content.

This session will help you understand:

The elements of detailed persona development, including task analysis and scenarios
The link between personas and the content model
How understanding customer needs extends the value of your investment in structured content
Why persona development is essential in a global market

Joan Lasselle is the founder and President of Lasselle-Ramsay, Inc. Since 1982 Lasselle-Ramsay has helped global 1000 companies to get control of their new product or service content and deliver superior customer experience through content infrastructures. Lasselle-Ramsay has worked with industry leading companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Boston Scientific, and Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company. Joan is a senior member of STC, ISPI, a past board member of CMPros, and a regular contributor at industry conferences.

Jana Humphreys works with clients to design targeted learning and content solutions. Since 1992 she has worked on hundreds of curriculum design, custom training development, and technical documentation projects for a variety of organizations in the banking, finance, insurance, biotech, medical device, high-tech, and retail industries. Jana earned a Master’s degree in Education/Instructional Technology from San Jose State University and is a past board member for the Silicon Valley Chapter of ISPI.

The June 2010 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: The Management Perspective: A Panel of Tech Pubs Managers from Around the Bay Area
Speaker: Stewart Florsheim, Advent Software, Kim Shain from Adobe, and Pat oshihiro from EFI.

This month we are pleased to host a panel of managers and directors of technical communication groups from around the Bay Area. They will tell us about the challenges they face, and what skills and abilities they value most in the people they manage.

We’ve asked them to think about questions like these:

What are the biggest challenges you face? (What keeps you up at night?)
What is the biggest change you see coming over the next 12 to 24 months?
If you could add one skillset to your team, what would it be?
What do you value most, from people on your team?
What changes can technical writers, editors, and other team members make, to help technical publications groups be successful today?
What question have we forgotten to ask, that we should be asking you?

Panelists:

Stewart Florsheim, Kim Shain, and Pat Yoshihiro

Stewart Florsheim is the Director of Learning Products at Advent Software, a company in San Francisco that makes software products for money managers. Stewart and his team are responsible for all the documentation and training materials, and Stewart also manages the content on the company’s client Web site. Stewart has over 20 years experience in tech pubs management.

Kim Shain is a Content and Community Manager at Adobe in San Francisco. Her team has produced developer documentation for Flash Player, Flash Lite, and other Adobe mobile products. They have also become much more actively involved with their developer community, exploring ways to incorporate valuable third-party content and to engage in the conversations happening in various social media.

Pat Yoshihiro is Director of Technical Communications at EFI in Foster City. With a staff of 17 in 4 locations, she is responsible for developing the documentation and embedded help for the company’s flagship product “Fiery.” Her group also handles localization of documentation and help for up to 7 languages. Pat has seen the technical publications field evolve, having been in the field since well before the PC and WordStar—she is even listed on one of the artifacts in the Computer History Museum (http://tinyurl.com/2fjeth8).

Linda Urban, Berkeley STC’s VP for Programs, will moderate. Linda is a technical communications consultant and instructor based in Berkeley.

The May 2010 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Writing for People and Situations When Reading Is Not Easy (a report from a CHI 2010 workshop)
Speaker: Kath Straub, Usability.Org
Slides: Writing Effectively when Reading Isn’t Easy (pdf)

Many different factors and situations can make it difficult for people to read, for example, cognitive impairment, reading in a second language, high stress situations, vision problems, and dyslexia. This year at CHI 2010, Kath Straub participated in the workshop Design to Read: Designing for People Who Do Not Read Easily. The workshop brought together expert practioners in the usability and accessibility fields to consider issues related to writing for audiences and situations when reading is not easy. Participants in the workshop first explored strategies that can enhance readability in different “hard to read” contexts, and then discussed how to leverage strategies from one context for use in other contexts.

In this interactive session, Kath will review these strategies with us and help us consider how we can apply them in our own work as technical writers.

If you are not familiar with CHI workshops, they provide a venue where professionals with common interests can discuss and explore a particular area of interest. Workshops often move an area of study forward, and can result in additional research or writings. For more about CHI workshops, see http://www.chi2010.org/authors/cfp-workshop-participants.html.

Kath Straub works with organizations and agencies to create, integrate, and evaluate interactions and content. Usability and Content strategy are both key elements of this effort. To ensure that sites are both usable and useful, Kath also focuses on how to create meaningful small talk that engages users via readable and persuasive content to drive behavioral change.

Kath is an energetic and entertaining speaker who presents frequently at conferences and workshops around the world. Recently, she has presented in Atlanta (CHI), Berlin (UPA), London (TecCom), and Austin, TX (GTC). She’s currently the Principal of Usability.org. Prior to that, she spent 9 years as the Chief Scientist at Human Factors International. Kath holds a Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Science from the University of Rochester.

The April 2010 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Developing and Delivering Documentation in a Wiki
Speaker: Dee Elling, Embarcadero Systems
Slides: Developing and Delivering Documentation in a Wiki (ppt)

Over the last 2 years, Embarcadero Technologies went through the transition from authoring their developer documentation in XML/DITA and publishing to Microsoft Help2, to writing and publishing their content using MediaWiki. Dee Elling will talk with us about what led to that decision, and what their experience has been. She will talk with us about:

Why traditional pubs tools don’t “scale down” well
Why Execs think wikis are the best thing since tax writeoffs
What works and doesn’t work out-of-the-box
What skillsets you need
Why they dropped XML/DITA

Dee Elling is perpetually curious. She is always looking for new ways to meet the changing needs of web-centric customers. She is interested in lean development, rapid iteration, customer engagement and collaboration, and in growing self-motivated and technically-savvy teams.

Dee led the pioneering team at BEA WebLogic in bringing high-quality and highly relevant technical documentation to the internet. WebLogic writers applied an automated continuous-improvement update cycle to what used to be static information.

Dee raised quite a few eyebrows by insisting that a writer’s first duty was to the customer who just found an issue in a “released” document, and that the writer should and could update that documentation right away.

She also pushed the writers to prioritize examples as their most-effective deliverable.

As a result of this focus on quality, the WebLogic documentation website became a go-to site for Java developers, and was copied and emulated by other companies.

Dedicated to bringing the customer even closer to the content, Dee is now deploying wiki solutions throughout the technical information development cycle at Embarcadero Technologies.

The March 2010 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: What Medical Writers Do
Speaker: Nancy Katz, Ph.D.
Slides: What Medical Writers Do (PDF)

Nancy Katz, Ph.D., will describe what medical writers do and what it takes to break into the medical writing field.

Nancy will draw on her 14-year experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, which includes heading up the Medical Writing group at PDL and the Developmental Editing group at Genentech, as well as her current work as President and Principal Medical Writing Consultant of Illyria.

Nancy will talk with us about:

Medical Writing Projects: What medical writers do.
Medical Writing Competencies: What medical writers need to know in order to do what they have to do.
Medical Writing Jobs: How to get started, and ultimately hired, as a medical writer

Speaker:

Nancy Katz, Ph. D.Nancy Katz, Ph.D., is President and Principal Medical Writing Consultant of Illyria Consulting Group, Inc. (www.illyriaconsulting.com). Illyria provides writing services for the biopharmaceutical industry, specializing in documents for eCTD-based submissions.

The February 2010 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 10, 2008
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Beyond the Practitioners’ Lore: Reading the Research
Speaker: Susan Becker
Handout: Reading the Research: Sources Cited

You don’t need to be an academic to read a research article. Even if you don’t read every word, you can find support–and new directions–for your thinking.

As technical communicators at work (aka practitioners), we make countless decisions about document design, sentence structure, vocabulary, typology. Many of these choices we base on our education, training, corporate guides, or department policies. But many we just make up based on what feels right to us–on our “practitioners’ lore.”

Basing our work on research has always been vital to technical communication. It can ground our decisions in reality, introduce new possibilities, and enliven our style committee meetings.

This presentation explores how we can improve our work by reading research articles. Susan Becker uses as examples several guidelines from the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Style Guide for Voting System Documentation and shows how they were developed through a process of reading the research, reviewing the current accepted guidelines, and critiquing sample documents.

You will learn to:

Find sources to explore a question in technical communication
Read a research article
Apply what you learn from a research article to what you do on the job

Speaker:

Susan BeckerSusan Becker is a technical communicator and online user assistance developer with extensive experience in writing, editing, document design, and information architecture. She is currently an Information Developer at IBM, providing user assistance for IBM Informix Dynamic Server. Prior to her work at IBM, Susan co-authored the Style Guide for Voting System Documentation for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with Dana Chisnell. Susan has taught at San Francisco State University in the Technical & Professional Writing program and the English department. She is an STC Associate Fellow, past president of the San Francisco chapter, and a member of the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA). Her online and print documentation have received local STC awards

The January 2010 Annual Chapter Party and Touchstone Awards

Date: Saturday, January 16, 2009
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Berkeley STC Annual Party and Touchstone Awards

Join us to relax with fellow communicators, enjoy a buffet dinner, and celebrate excellence in the profession.

Winning entries in the 2009-2010 Northern California Technical Communication Competition will be announced and winning entrants will receive their awards. This year produced a large number of impressive entries, and best of which will be sent on to the International Technical Communication Competition.

The winning entries will be on display throughout the evening.

During the evening we will also recognize and honor competition judges and Berkeley chapter volunteers for their contributions to the chapter and the profession.

The December 2009 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, December 9, 2008
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: How Technical Communication Supports High School Literacy
Speaker: T. R. Girill

This talk explains how a decade-long East Bay STC literacy outreach project has helped underperforming high-school students (and their teachers) improve basic nonfiction writing skills by applying a cognitive apprenticeship approach, adapting real-world instruction and description cases into age-appropriate practice activities, and introducing participants to professional usability techniques.

T. R. Girill has recently retired from a 30-year career in technical communication at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he led the computer documentation project at the National Energy Research Supercomputer Center for over a decade. He has published numerous technical articles, and has taught students at the College of Alameda and other professionals at U.C. Santa Cruz Extension. He is an STC Fellow and he served as editor in chief of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Journal of Computer Documentation from 1995 to 2000. Since 1999 he has also managed a technical literacy project for the East Bay chapter of STC. It is this project he will talk about tonight.

The November 2009 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2008
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Planning for Success
Speaker: Ted Marsh

Join us as Ted Marsh, a master coach to leaders at all levels, leads us through an exploration of strategies for reinventing ourselves. We will distinguish short-term demands, long term considerations, lifework, and life meaning.

We can all benefit from winning strategies for surviving and thriving through these tough economic times by identifying what is important and keeping life in perspective.

Ted Marsh is a master coach to leaders at all levels faced with the challenge of manifesting change. A skilled facilitator, he is able to link critical strategic issues facing institutional organizations including cultural diversity, performance enhancement, and creative learning.

Having served in a wide variety of executive management positions, including CEO, he has been able to merge an extensive technical marketing background with strategic planning and designing effective work cultures. He has broad experience in marketing, technical sales, and quality assurance programs.

The October 2009 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2008
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Ten Legal Tips for Current and Would-be Independent Contractors
Speaker: Dana H. Shultz

Working as an independent contractor can be exciting, challenging, and gratifying, all at the same time. Yet, before proceeding down that path, technical communicators should make sure that they are not exposing themselves to legal risks unnecessarily.

This program will help you identify and avoid those risks. Examples of what you will learn include:

How to choose the right type of legal entity (sole proprietorship, corporation or limited liability company)
How to identify and protect your intellectual property
How to collaborate with other service providers
How to distinguish independent contractors from employees

Dana Shultz is a business-savvy licensing and intellectual property attorney with in-depth knowledge of law, business and technology. Dana provides legal services to startup and early-stage companies and, on occasion, to individuals who provide their professional services as independent contractors. He publishes the High-touch Legal Services Blog at http://danashultz.com/blog/.

The October 10, 2009 Saturday Workshop

Date: Saturday, October 10, 2009
Location: Global 360 Offices, Alameda, California
Topic: Topic-based Authoring: Getting Your Feet Wet
Speaker: Linda Urban

Topic-based authoring is a technique for writing content as discrete, stand-alone pieces (“topics”) that can be combined and reused in different ways.

This hands-on workshop provides an overview of topic-based writing concepts and principles, and then lets you try your hand at using a topic-based approach. We will define key concepts (such as topic, information type, and element), look at examples of different types of topics, and discuss pros and cons of a topic-based writing approach.

You will get a chance to work with actual content, as you

Identify and define information and topic types
Chunk linear information into topics
Assess what kinds of changes are required to make individual topics work effectively for users
Consider how to connect and cluster topics, to provide a cohesive collection of information for users, even when content is complex

Along the way, we will touch on related questions such as:

How long should a topic be?
What’s the difference between topic-based writing and structured writing?
Do you need to use DITA to benefit from topic-based authoring? Do you need a content management system?
Just how hard is the shift to a topic-based approach?

Recommended: Please bring a sample of your own content to consider during the workshop (10 to 15 pages, printed single-sided).

A laptop computer is NOT required.

Linda Urban has over 20 years experience in technical communication. As a consultant, Linda designs and develops documentation, training, and online user assistance. She focuses on providing solutions that meet user needs and company goals, and her work has received local and international STC awards. Linda also works with writers and teams to improve the quality of their documentation, focusing on both usefulness and usability.

Linda is an instructor at the UC Berkeley Extension. She teaches classes in technical writing, developing online help, usability, and information architecture. Her company is Linda Urban Communications, LLC, and her website is www.urbancreations.com.

The September 2009 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, September 9, 2008
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Forensic Linguistics: Real-Life “CSI” with Word People
Speaker: Joseph J. Devney, M.A.

Ransom notes, terrorist threats, stalker letters…the language used in these documents can give clues about their authors. Forensic linguists apply linguistic analysis to legal documents of all types, and work both with lawyers and law enforcement. This presentation will focus specifically on analysis of written evidence—criminal or potentially criminal communications—using real-life examples. Learn about what the language used in the document can tell us about its author, and the techniques used to find those clues.

Joe Devney is a “word person” himself. He has been a Bay Area technical writer (and STC member) for many years, but his lifelong interest in language is now taking him in a new direction. He took a sabbatical to earn a Master’s degree in Linguistics, and found out about the fascinating field of Forensic Linguistics.

You may know Joe from his STC activities. He was president of Berkeley STC for three one-year terms, and has served as a judge for technical communication competitions at both the local and international levels.

The August 23, 2009 Workshop

Date: Sunday, August 23, 2009
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Strategic Planning for Your Life
Speaker: Judy Glick-Smith
Handouts: PDF of worksheets

For details of the workshop and available supplementary materials, visit the following website: http://www.mentorfactorinc.com/Strategic_Planning_for_Your.html.

Judy Glick-Smith is an STC Fellow and a past president of the Society. She is a speaker, writer, executive and life coach, and conflict resolution specialist. She loves helping people discover their life’s purpose through her workshops and presentations on conflict management, leadership, and living an authentic life .

The August 2009 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Acting Lessons for Interviewees
Speaker: Stan Stansbury

Job interviews are among the most stressful situations anyone ever faces. The stress can be managed and put to good use.

This presentation offers a new paradigm for interviews that can help you stay relaxed and in control of the process. It demonstrates techniques borrowed from method acting and presents a little experimental psychology. With increased awareness of non-verbal communication and a modicum of practice, these techniques can make the challenging process of interviewing more enjoyable and more effective for technical communicators.

Stan Stansbury has a checkered past covering acting, teaching, training, and technical writing. He’s survived literally thousands of interviews, and is now passing along techniques that have worked for him.

The July 2009 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 8, 2008
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Resume Secrets that Might Surprise You
Speaker: Jack Molisani

Says Jack Molisani:

“For years, I resisted speaking about effective resumes, thinking that everything that could possibly be said about the subject has already been covered. But after seeing candidate after candidate rejected based on what they had (and didn’t have) in their resumes, I realized it’s time for me to step up and share what I’ve observed over the years—resume secrets that might surprise you.”

Have you ever submitted a resume for a job but were never called for an interview? Don’t miss our July meeting!

Jack Molisani started his career as project officer in the Space Division of the US Air Force and is currently the president of ProSpring Technical Staffing, an employment agency specializing in engineers and technical writers: www.ProspringStaffing.com.

Jack also produces The LavaCon Conference on Professional Development. The seventh annual LavaCon will be held October 25–27, 2009 in New Orleans: www.lavacon.org Jack will be raffling a free entrance to LavaCon at the meeting, so be sure to bring your business card for the drawing!

The June 2009 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2008
Times (p.m.): 6:00 to 7:00 Networking, conversation, & dinner; 7:00 Announcements; 7:15 Presentation
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Software Localization Practices and Issues
Speaker: Bing Hong and Dan Claessens

Software companies that grow to a moderate size typically have to address localization to sell to multinational enterprise and international markets. Large companies that have offices all over the word require that their software be localized. This talk describes issues that surround localization and their impact on the companies in general and particularly technical writers.

Bing Hong is the manager of Localization and Technical Writing Services at OSIsoft. She started to build this department in 2006 when she joined OSIsoft. Bing has managed this group for software internationalization, localization, and documentation. Before that, she was the Sr. Engineering Manager of Asian Localization Center at Sun Microsystems. Bing has worked in the software internationalization and localization for more than ten years. Her roles and responsibilities extended from software engineer, technical lead, project manager to engineer manager

Dan Claessens is the localization project manager at OSIsoft. Prior to that he was the international product manager at Brio Technology, in charge of localizing and supporting foreign language products. He also worked as an independent consultant for several years and started his software career as a technical writer.

The May 2009 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2008
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: MythBusters: I’m Working So Hard It Hurts!
Speaker: Erik Anderson of Remedy Interactive, Tim Brent, Ergonomic Consultant, and Tonie Flores of OSIsoft

Tim Brent & Erik Andersen will discuss computing health.

Bring your questions about office workstations and accessories.

Erik Anderson, Vice President of Customer & Partner Relations at Remedy Interactive, focuses on maintaining strong relationships with Remedy Interactive customers and partners. He is also responsible for the RSIGuard software product line, including relationships with ergonomics consultants and therapists who use RSIGuard to prevent and manage injuries.

Erik is in his sixth year at Remedy Interactive, and prior to that he spent 13 years at in business development and supply chain management at PeopleSoft, HP, and FedEx. Erik earned his Bachelor of Science from UC Davis and his MBA from Vanderbilt University.

Tim Brent is an ergonomic consultant. For the past 20 years Tim has devoted himself to graduate education, specialized training, and professional practice in the field of ergonomics. He is especially noted for the personalized and innovative solutions he brings to the ergonomic process.

Tim is a Certified Ergonomic Evaluation Specialist, has completed advanced training in movement education from both the Feldenkrais and Egoscue methods of corrective exercise, and holds an M.Ed. in Rehabilitation Counseling from Ohio University. He has worked with book publishers, writers, and a wide array of other office-based occupational groups. Tim is comfortable addressing issues of injury prevention, as well as intervening when an injury has occurred and ergonomic solutions are needed.

Tonie Flores, Senior Technical Writer at OSIsoft, recently developed a repetitive stress injury while working on a project with an aggressive timeline. Tonie will share what she learned from her painful experience about how to prevent future injuries.

The April 2009 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2008
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Hard Times, Smart Choices
Speaker: Meryl Natchez, TechProse

Times are tough; jobs are scare; rates are decreasing. The economic crisis touches every aspect of business and every person who works. What can you do to survive and thrive in this environment? Meryl Natchez, an international speaker and founder of Bay Area-based consulting company TechProse, has survived three previous recessions and will discuss strategies for consultants, employees, managers, and business owners to navigate this downturn. Don’t miss this rare local appearance by Natchez, a longtime technical communicator and entrepreneur who has endured recessions and emerged stronger each time.

Meryl Natches has been CEO of TechProse since 1982. Natchez developed TechProse from a single person operation to a corporation with over 75 employees. TechProse places technical writers, instructional designers, communications professionals, and project managers on a contract basis. TechProse also provides turnkey solutions to clients for entire projects.

Natchez has received numerous awards for business development and community service. She is a co-founder of OPTIC, now Opportunity Junction, a nonprofit organization that provides low-income Contra Costa, Calif. residents with technology, literacy, and life skills to become economically self-sufficient. She has spoken to business audiences across the US, Europe, and Japan.

The March 2009 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2008
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Using Word Templates Effectively and in the Shared Environment
Speaker: Steven Zegas

While a single author who knows how to use Word styles and templates can easily manage documents, when multiple “non-writer” authors are involved, Word files often take on a life of their own. This presentation demonstrates several custom templates and teaches how to create and use templates for single or multiple-user environments, where consistent and clean formatting is desired.

Come see the mysteries of Word styles revealed, learn innovative techniques, see how to quickly conquer massive formatting mess-ups, and how to standardize templates for many documents (without attaching a template file such as “normal.dot”.) (Presented in Word 2003, applicable to Word 2007; does not cover XML or ODF.)

Steven Zegas is a technical communications consultant who has worked for 15 years with leading Bay Area companies in telecommunications, medical devices, health care, security, networking and other verticals. He frequently develops custom Word templates for both technical publications teams and general business use. Using novel approaches and common sense, he combines recorded macros, custom toolbars, and best practices to address design and usability, with the goal of de-mystifying Word and drawing on its strengths. He has been active with the Berkeley and Silicon Valley STC since 1995, and has been a judge in five Touchstone competitions

The February 2009 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 11, 2008
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Learning Game Design
Speaker: Clark Quinn of Quinnovation

Simulations, properly supported, are powerful learning environments.
Games help add an emotional component that makes learning more effective by bringing in motivation—but is developing these types of interactions an art, or is there a systematic design process that lets us reliably design learning experiences that deliver the outcomes we need?

In this session, the author of Engaging Learning: Designing e-Learning Simulation Games shows us why simulation games are effective practice environments and demonstrates a process for designing compelling scenarios. The process is grounded in theory and honed in practice to create meaningful learning experiences.

Clark Quinn, Ph.D., is an internationally known consultant, author, and speaker. He delivers eLearning solutions including games, mobile learning, performance support, and organizational strategy through Quinnovation, and blogs at learnlets.com.

The January 2009 Annual Chapter Party and Touchstone Awards

Date: Saturday, January 17, 2009
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Berkeley STC Annual Party and Touchstone Awards

Berkeley STC Annual Party and Touchstone AwardsJoin us to relax with fellow communicators, enjoy a buffet dinner, and view winning competition entries from the 2008-2009 Northern California Technical Communication Competition.

We will also recognize chapter volunteers, competition judges, and winning entrants.

The December 2008 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: Write More, Write Less: Embracing the value of crafted words and images
Speaker: Joe Welinske of WritersUA

While the word “content” is a good shorthand for words, audio, and images, it unfortunately can move us farther away from the core competency of developing good information. The theme of this presentation is that documentation teams are often spending too little time writing well; and at the same time spending too much time writing little-used information.

Research and professional observation suggest that not enough time is being put into crafting text to be exactly the right text for a particular context. And writing resources for doing “agile” user assistance would be more readily available if writers would prioritize topic writing based on user need. “Writing More” while “Writing Less” can result in better utility for users and can reduce the need and load on the overall documentation development process and content management. Technical Communicators of all backgrounds will benefit from this thought-provoking presentation.

Joe Welinske is the president of WritersUA, formerly known as WinWriters. WritersUA is a company devoted to providing training and information for user assistance professionals. The WritersUA/WinWriters Conference draws hundreds of attendees each year from around the world to share the latest in user assistance design and implementation. The free content on the WritersUA web site attracts over 20,000 visitors each month. Joe has been involved with software documentation development since 1984. Together with Scott Boggan and David Farkas, Joe authored two editions of the popular and pioneering book Developing Online Help for Windows. He has also taught online Help courses at the University of Washington, UC Santa Cruz, and Bellevue Community College. Joe received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1981, and a M.S. in Adult Instructional Management from Loyola University in 1987. Joe is currently serving his second term as President of the STC Puget Sound Chapter.

The November 2008 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Location: Highlands Country Club, Oakland, California
Topic: A Glimpse of Microsoft SharePoint: What is it, and how does it relate to tech writing?
Speaker: Jennie Abbingsole of Global 360, Inc

What is SharePoint? What is it good for? What does it look like? If you’ve only heard of SharePoint, or maybe used it for document management, come for an introduction to some of the things it can do, and find out whether it’s a wiki or a website or a development platform (hint: any or all of the above). SharePoint can be used many ways, and, like most highly extensible technologies, it can be hard to understand without seeing and playing with it. Jenny will show you pieces of her company’s intranet, what a custom application can look like, and share what she’s learned so far about the benefits and drawbacks of a SharePoint intranet. Time permitting, she will touch briefly on how to get context-sensitive help into a custom SharePoint application.

Jennie Abbingsole has been working as a staff technical writer in Alameda, CA, since 1997 with an Engineering team working for ViewStar, which became Mosaix, then Lucent, Avaya, eiStream and now, since 2005, called Global 360, Inc. Currently one of a small documentation team, Jennie develops and maintains HTML Help projects of various sizes for system-administrators, API help for developers, and custom help for SharePoint applications and web parts. She was also on the pilot team that launched a SharePoint intranet for the company and remains active as a site manager for her team sites.

The October 2008 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Topic: Content Page Design Best Practices
Speaker: Luke Wroblewski of Yahoo! Inc. and LukeW Interface Design

In today’s social, distributed, search-driven Web, customers are finding their way to Web content through an increasing number of distinct experiences. Yet when people arrive at most Web pages, the experience they get isn’t optimized for this context. Instead, the vast majority of content pages online remain more concerned with their own context than the context of their users: where did a user arrive from and where are they likely to go next? These pages remain designed as if they were primarily accessed from a Web site’s home page or a carefully thought-out selection from the site’s information architecture.

To address these issues and more, this talk outlines a set of best practices for Web content page design that focuses on appropriate presentations of content, context, and calls to action. Specifically: how can content be optimized to meet user expectations as they arrive from a diverse number of access points; what is the minimum amount of context required to frame content appropriately; how can the most relevant calls to action be presented to maximize user engagement? Applying these considerations enables information architects to deliver content experiences that take full advantage of emerging opportunities online and the existing assets within their Web sites.

Luke Wroblewski is an internationally recognized Web thought leader who has designed or contributed to software used by more than 500 million people. He is currently Senior Principal of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc. and Founder of LukeW Interface Designs, a product strategy and design consultancy. Luke applies design methodologies, skills, and principles to create and refine the strategy and user experience of new or existing products.

Luke also publishes “Functioning Form,” the leading online publication for interaction designers. He authored a book on Web interface design principles titled “Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability”. Luke is consistently a top-rated speaker at various conferences and companies around the world, and is a co-founder and former Board member of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA).

Previously, Luke was the Lead User Interface Designer of eBay Inc.’s platform team, where he led the strategic design of new consumer products and internal tools and processes. Luke also taught interface design courses at the University of Illinois and worked as a Senior Interface Designer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), the birthplace of the first popular graphical Web browser, NCSA Mosaic.

The September 2008 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Topic: Using DITA with Adobe FrameMaker
Speaker: Scott Prentice of Leximation

DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is a new XML format that is getting lots of attention these days. It was specifically designed for topic-oriented authoring and supports efficient reuse of content. Aside from its sensible and easy-to-understand data model, a big reason for its high adoption rate is the availability of the DITA Open Toolkit (DITA-OT). The DITA-OT (free and open source) provides samples and documentation, as well as XSL transformations that generate numerous types of online output, including HTML, CHM, JavaHelp, PDF, and others. Adopting an existing and well thought out data model that comes with the tools for getting output, can save you months (if not years) of development time.

Because DITA is an XML format, it can be authored in any XML editor. However, due to DITA’s special reuse constructs, it works best to use an editor that is specially designed for DITA authoring. There are a number of editors that support DITA authoring, the popular ones being XMetaL, Arbortext, and FrameMaker. An advantage that FrameMaker has is its built-in support for high quality PDF output. The only alternative to Frame’s PDF output is through XSL-FO, which for reasonably complex output is very expensive to develop and maintain, and XSL-FO can’t match the quality of Frame-generated PDF.

In order to author DITA content in FrameMaker, you’ll need version 8 or 7.2 (with limited support in 7.1). FrameMaker 8 provides basic support for DITA authoring, and the DITA-FMx plugin offers extended authoring features.

In this presentation you’ll see the whole process of authoring and publishing DITA using FrameMaker 8. You’ll see how to efficiently use DITA maps to generate different deliverables (books or online Help) that share common topics, in addition to using conrefs to reuse content within topics. You’ll also see how quick and easy it is to generate various types of output using the DITA Open Toolkit as well as building a traditional “Frame” book and generating a PDF through FrameMaker.

For more information about DITA, please visit the DITA Knowledgebase at dita.xml.org .

Scott Prentice is the President of Leximation, Inc. providing tools and solutions for print and online publishing. He has been working in the technical publications field since 1991, some of that time as a technical writer but most as a tools developer focusing on custom online help and FrameMaker development.

Scott has been involved in DITA development for a number of years, and is the coordinator of the Silicon Valley DITA Interest Group. He developed the core plugin that became the DITA App Pack for FrameMaker 7.2 and was involved with the development of DITA-FMx, an enhanced DITA plugin for FrameMaker. For more information, see www.leximation.com.

The September 2008 Chapter Workshop

Date: Saturday, September 6, 2008
Topic: Sharing Your Expertise: Putting Together a Presentation or Workshop
Speaker: Linda Urban

One of the best ways to gain visibility for yourself and contribute to your profession is by giving a presentation or workshop. There are lots of opportunities, from local meetings of professional associations like STC, ASTD, and BAYCHI, to international conferences such as the STC Summit, WritersUA, eLearning Guild, IA Summit, and DocTrain. And at work, presenting to your colleagues and management can be a great way to showcase what you are working on, and raise your profile within your company.

Presenting is a “win-win” situation: Your audience gets the benefit of your knowledge and experience, and you get exposure and appreciation for your work. In addition, because you must clearly articulate your ideas in order to present them, you are forced to clarify your own thinking and refine your skills.

Still, it can seem daunting to propose a session. And the idea of presenting can be especially intimidating if you do not have much experience.

Whether you are new to presenting, or simply want a “jump start” on putting together a new proposal, this workshop provides a good opportunity to get started in actually developing a session.

Through presentation, discussion, and practice, we will look first at what makes for a good session and then work through the steps to:

Define your topic and clarify what you want to cover
Consider your audience
Define objectives and outline content that supports them
Integrate activities to make the session interactive and help insure that the participants get the most from it

Bring your ideas for presentations and workshops. This is a hands-on workshop, focused on clarifying and developing a specific idea.

Linda Urban has been a technical communicator for over 25 years. In 1995, a friend convinced her to collaborate on teaching a class in Technical Communication, and she discovered she loved it! She’s been teaching and presenting ever since, and finds that it provides a good balance with day-to-day project-focused work.

As a consultant, Linda works on training solutions, software and hardware documentation, online help systems, and product usability. She focuses on developing solutions that meet user needs and company goals, and her work has received local and international Society for Technical Communication (STC) awards. She also teaches courses in technical communication at the UC Berkeley Extension and UC Santa Cruz Extension. Her website is http://www.urbancreations.com

The August 2008 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Topic: What makes it possible to develop excellent Help Systems? Autodesk’s answer: A passion to serve your customers
Speaker: Melanie Allen of Autodesk

Slides:Presentation slides in PPT format

Writing good help requires a knowledge of your customers—their needs, workflows, and learning styles—and the industry awareness to know how to best serve those needs. It also helps to work in an environment that supports you in discovering and serving those needs.

In this presentation, Melanie will give you tips on how to gather customer information, good places to research current best-practices in online help, and some suggestions for improving your work environment.

Melanie Allen has been involved in creating user documentation for over 25 years, both as a writer and as a designer. She has been an innovator in new help design, winning numerous STC Best of Show awards. She has worked on Autodesk Help for over 10 years and is currently the lead writer for AutoCAD Map 3D, where she works with an incredibly creative and collaborative team.

The July 2008 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Topic: Developing an Interactive Tutorial with Adobe Captivate and RoboHelp
Speaker: Laurie Edelman of Altera Corporation

In recent years, many companies have recognized the positive and effective use of simulated and interactive learning tools to systematically teach complex concepts, policy, and tasks associated with proprietary material. The software department at Altera Corporation just completed the fourth release of the Quartus II Interactive Tutorial using Adobe Captivate and RoboHelp development tools. The Quartus II software is an advanced engineering design tool provided to customers for the purpose of creating designs and programming Altera programmable logic devices.

This presentation describes the processes and methods used to develop the Quartus II Interactive Tutorial. The tutorial provides an overview of key concepts and software features and, additionally, interactively guides users on how to use the features correctly and tests their ability to complete tasks on their own.

Laurie Edelman is a Senior Technical Writer with Altera Corporation, where she is responsible for creating web-based training targeting programmable logic devices. Laurie has experience creating user assistance documentation within a variety of industries including Education, Software Quality Assurance, and Software Engineering.

The June 2008 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Topic: Getting Published: How to Write a Successful Technical Book Proposal
Speaker: Tim Cox

Commercial publishing is under strain from corporate consolidation and the influence of the Web. What does this mean for aspiring authors and what opportunities does it present? What kind of proposals stand the best chance of acceptance in this climate? This entertaining and fast-moving talk will consider the situation of technical publishing today and the implications for authors. The keys to a successful book proposal will be discussed along with some of the most anxiety-producing parts of the book contract. Finally, some tips are presented for selecting a publisher, managing the production phase, and estimating financial return. The goal is to learn to think like an editor to achieve a satisfying publishing experience.

Tim Cox is an award-winning editor with over 15 years experience in technical and professional publishing. He has established programs with companies such as Apple and Hewlett-Packard to publish documentation and has also published market-leading college textbooks. Most recently he was a senior acquisitions editor at Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, working in the fields of software engineering, computer graphics, and game development. Currently he is a freelance editor working in the North Bay. He holds a B.A. in literature from the University of Chicago.

The May 2008 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Topic: Avoiding Death by PowerPoint (Why are good presentations so hard to create?)
Speaker: Rick Altman of betterppt.com

Do you quake when you hear the words “Create a PowerPoint for tomorrow’s meeting”? Why? Is it because the software is so difficult? In fact, just the opposite is true. The basics are easy–so easy that most people never take the time to learn PowerPoint properly. Then there is our fear of public speaking. As Jerry Seinfeld put it, people would rather be in the coffin than deliver the eulogy.

This talk will look at the primary factors that make up presentations and offer ideas and practical wisdom on how to break out of the rut in which so many presentation content creators find themselves.

Rick Altman is the creative director at betterppt.com, which provides consulting and coaching services to companies and individual professionals who seek better results with their presentation content and delivery. His expertise covers the full range of presentation needs, from message crafting through slide design and software technique. He is known for his common-sense approach and pragmatic advice.

Rick is the author of Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck, and how you can make them better, published in May 2007.

Rick came to presentations through graphic design, having worked with the Corel products throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and having hosted the CorelWorld User Conference across three decades.

The April 2008 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Topic: Moving from FrameMaker/WebWorks to XML/DITA and Flare at Salesforce.com
Speaker: Mysti Berry of Salesforce.com .

As demands on publications departments to lower costs and provide translated text increases, the push to move from non-structured to structured writing becomes stronger. At Salesforce.com, we moved from FrameMaker source and WebWorks/PDF outputs to XML/DITA source and a combination of Flare and homegrown build scripts to produce PDF and HTML (and for a while, even CHM) outputs, with rich and complex interaction between document sets and complex translation requirements.

This talk will explain how we made that transition, and provide a closer look at the Flare setup required, first as a standalone step and then as an integrated part of the build process. This transition allows us to produce documentation with about five keyboard strokes. I will describe our experience with Flare vs. RoboHelp, and explain how we came to choose Flare as part of our build process.

Mysti Berry, M.F.A., is an award-winning technical writer with a B.A. in linguistics from UC Santa Cruz and an M.F.A. in writing from University of San Francisco. She has more than 17 years of experience designing and developing technical information for companies as diverse as Oracle and 20th Century Fox. Berry currently works for Salesforce.com, a cutting-edge software company in the SaaS (software as a service) space.

The March 2008 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Topic: Management Panel: Putting Together the Right Team
Speakers: David Jackson of Oracle, Lis Fraser of Tesla Motors, Stewart Florsheim of Advent Software, and Judy Burkhart of IBM

This month we are pleased to host a panel of managers and directors of technical communication groups from around the Bay Area. They will provide insight into what it takes to put together (and keep) a strong team.

Join us to learn what these managers value most in their staff and contractors, what qualities and expertise they really look for when hiring, what challenges they face, and more.

Stewart Florsheim is the Director of Learning Products at Advent Software, a company in SF that makes software products for money managers. Stewart and his team are responsible for all the documentation and training materials, and Stewart also manages the company’s client Web site. Stewart has over 20 years experience in tech pubs management.

Lis Fraser has over 20 years experience building and managing documentation teams for both large and small high tech companies. Lis has held long-term management positions at Epic Data and Orbital Sciences in Canada as well as at Hyperion Solutions, Adaptec, and most recently, Tesla Motors in Silicon Valley. She specializes in building highly-productive teams whose skill set and value is recognized throughout an organization.

Judy Burkhart is an Information Development Manager for IBM in San Francisco. Judy has been in the tech writing field for 20 years, and her management experience has included tech support as well as documentation teams. Judy specializes in being acquired — her fourth and most recent acquisition occurred in 2001 when IBM acquired Informix software.

David Jackson is a group manager for Oracle in Pleasanton. David’s group creates product guides and online help for various customer relationship management applications. His group is geographically dispersed, with its members spread across seven cities and three countries.

Special Hands-on Workshop: March 1, 2008

Date: Saturday, March 1, 2008
Topic: The Wiki Way: Knowledge Management for the People
Speaker: Stuart Culshaw of ILOG Paris

Wiki (Hawaian for “quick”) could be considered as more of a philosophy than a tool. What started out as a simple set of scripts to edit, format and link web pages has evolved into a powerful and affordable new approach to knowledge management. An increasing number of organizations are adopting wikis as an alternative to complex and expensive web content management systems.

If you’re looking for an easy-to-learn and simple-to-use content management tool for an upcoming personal or professional project, or if you’re just curious to find out more about the technology behind the success of Wikipedia, this workshop will introduce you to wiki’s basic principles, walk you through the creation of your own wiki site, and give you the confidence and guidance you need to take your first steps on “the wiki way” (and convince others to join you on the journey).

This is a hands-on session. Please bring a laptop computer with wireless connectivity enabled. Two or more participants can share a machine if necessary.

Stuart Culshaw, Web Communications Manager at ILOG, has over 15 years experience as a technical writer and web developer. An Englishman abroad, Stuart has lived and worked in France since graduating in 1993 and is fluent in French, HTML and CSS.

As a freelance web developer and project manager, Stuart has worked with various web content management systems over the years. He discovered wiki on joining ILOG in 2005 and has never looked back. As a member of ILOG’s ONE Web Program team, Stuart is helping to redesign ILOG’s wiki-based corporate intranet and is charged with evangelizing Web 2.0 technologies throughout the company.

Stuart holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in European Business Studies from the European Business Program (Groupe ESC Bordeaux/University of Humberside) and a professional certificate in technical writing from the American University of Paris. Stuart is a Past President and current Vice President and Webmaster of the STC France Chapter.

The February 2008 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Topic: Creating Online Help for Eclipse: A Case Study
Speaker: Kim Rathbun, Leapfrog

Eclipse, as a platform, is widely adopted for building development environments because it offers a universal platform for tools integration. LeapFrog has adopted Eclipse to develop its software development kits and internal applications. Because the Eclipse platform is a plug-in environment, it presents some additional challenges when developing online help.

This presentation focuses on how LeapFrog has adapted its single sourcing environment using FrameMaker and WebWorks ePublisher to produce online help for Eclipse applications. Kim will explain the process involved in taking HTML topics generated from ePublisher–or any other source–and making them work within an Eclipse online help plug-in. This involves creating a table of contents file, a context sensitive help file, and then testing them within the Eclipse environment.

Kim Rathbun is currently a senior technical writer at LeapFrog Inc. She has over 25 years experience working in the computer industry as an engineer, trainer, and technical writer. As a writer, she has designed and written user manuals, online help, training materials, and e-learning modules for a variety of industries. At LeapFrog Inc., her current focus is developing user manuals and online help for their Eclipse-based applications.

The January 2008 Holiday Party

Date: Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Topic: Berkeley Chapter Holiday Party

Join us to relax with fellow communicators, enjoy a Brazilian-style gourmet buffet, and view winning competition entries from the 2007-2008 Northern California Technical Communication Competition. We will also recognize chapter volunteers, competition judges, and winning entrants.

The December 2007 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Topic: Single-sourcing through a CMS for a Small Writing Team, using AuthorIT
Speaker: Chris Muntzer

Chris Muntzer leads a small team of writers who produce both hardcopy and Help from a single source CMS (content management system) using AuthorIT. Chris will share his expertise and discuss how to:

Set up and maintain consistency with multiple writers when single sourcing through a CMS
Analyze a project to break it down into reusable chunks of information
Develop a localization strategy that synchronizes changes in the source and translated projects

Chris Muntzer was born in and raised in the UK where he trained as an electrical engineer. In 1978, he moved to the USA and has since become a US citizen. As an engineer, he became increasingly interested in technical documentation and, seven years ago made a career change to become a full-time technical writer.

As a technical writer, he has explored the practical implementation of single-sourcing and content management systems (CMS). For several years he has led a small team of writers, creating documentation for several products out of an AuthorIT single-source CMS.

The November 2007 Chapter Meeting Date: Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Topic: Using Learning Objects to Manage and Reuse Learning Content
Speakers: Ray Eisenberg and David Sanchez, Autodesk

This presentation focuses on how Autodesk has adopted a strategy to facilitate the efficient development, modification, and reuse of learning materials using a single-source asset-based approach to content development and delivery. Using a learning content management system (LCMS) and a learning object approach based on information mapping principles, the presentation shows how Autodesk has been able to meet the demands of its over 6 million user customer base and deliver content to multiple constituents, in multiple languages, in different modalities from a single source repository.

Ray Eisenberg is currently a Senior Manager in the Autodesk Learning department at Autodesk. He has spent the last 18 years in various capacities in Technical Publications and Training teams at Autodesk. In his current role, he is acting head of the Training Content Development team in the Autodesk Support and Learning Division. He is currently responsible for the development of technical training content for traditional instructor-led end-user customer training, and for e-learning. Prior to Autodesk, Ray was a lead technical writer with Ingres, and a CBT courseware developer with Blue Chip Courseware and Micro Courseware Corporation. Born in Manchester, England, Ray spent his formative years as a city planner for the city of London. He has a BA in Sociology, and a BA City Planning, and is currently close to completing his Masters in Education and Online Learning.

David Sanchez is currently Senior Learning Architect, Strategist, and Evangelist at Autodesk. He has 22 years of experience in training, education, curriculum and channel development in the technology and engineering fields. He has been in Autodesk Learning for over 12 years and is currently responsible for the learning ecosystem at Autodesk. He has led the single-sourcing strategy within Autodesk Learning and implemented the technology (LCMS) to facilitate the development, management, and delivery of learning assets to customers and partners. Prior to Autodesk, David consulted with large engineering firms to manage change during the adoption of technology. He also founded and managed Autodesk Authorized Training Centers (ATCs) in the Sacramento, CA area.

The November 2007 Special Adobe Meeting

Date: Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
Topic: Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite and Adobe RoboHelp 7 (Special Presentation)
Speakers: Michael Hu and others, Adobe, Inc.

Michael Hu and other Adobe personnel will present the Adobe Technical Communication Suite, which Adobe bills as the most comprehensive suite for technical communicators, instructional designers, and eLearning professionals. They will explain what this means for us now and in the future. They will explain how this suite will affect the content we create and how it will affect our customers. They will also tell us about Adobe RoboHelp 7.

Michael Hu is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for the Technical Communication Suite, for Adobe, Inc.

The October 2007 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Topic: Lessons Learned from Web Applications and User Centered Design
Speakers: Sarah B. Nelson and David Verba, Adaptive Path

Recent developments in web applications, commonly referred to as Web 2.0, have taken advantage of existing technologies in new and sometimes surprising ways. This has allowed web developers to take a more sophisticated approach to the usability of their applications. Many lessons have been learned along the way. Sarah B. Nelson and David Verba will discuss the current state of web applications and provide new ways to keep users in the center of your work.

The evening will be divided into two parts: first, a presentation that introduces concepts and design principles associated with Web 2.0; second, a discussion of how these principles can be applied in technical communication.

Sarah and David will cover both general principles and lessons that can be learned from the most recent round of web applications making the news today. You should leave with a language and vocabulary both to discuss and to understand several specific design issues.

After starting with a broad discussion of Ajax, Sarah and David will move on to other Web 2.0 topics. They will present four principles for interaction design, providing examples from current applications and showing why these principles make for better user experience. Digging deeper, they will present the common threads in Web 2.0 applications that can be applied to wider and different contexts, with an emphasis on the display of information.

Next we will turn our attention towards the application of interaction design principles within the world of technical communication. Linda Urban will lead a discussion with David, Sarah, and the audience that will focus on how technical communicators can apply these principles to their work and ways that technical communicators can become more involved in interaction design.

Sarah B. Nelson is a design strategist for Adaptive Path She has ten years of experience in interactive media, designing kiosks, mobile and online experiences for clients in a variety of industries. Sarah has a particular passion for practice development, conducting research into methods for improving collaboration, supporting creativity, and encouraging innovation.

David Verba is Director of Technology for Adaptive Path, a leading user experience company. His many years of technical leadership and architecture experience cover a broad range of projects and strategies.

The September 2007 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Topic: Speakers: Writing for a Developer Audience: User Assistance for an Integrated Development Environment
Speaker: Kathryn Munn, Oracle Corporation

Writing technical documentation for software developers is not unlike writing for any end user. An IDE, integrated development environment, is software that assists developers to author, modify, manage, compile, deploy, and debug software. In this presentation we will explore writing for a developer audience using a graphical, menu driven IDE, Oracle’s JDeveloper, to illustrate user assistance developed by a technical documentation team.

We will examine many familiar aspects of technical documentation applied to developing user assistance for an IDE:

Audience analysis – Who are the users of an IDE? What is their technical expertise? What types of information are needed to support a developer audience?
Documentation planning – How does technical documentation interface with the software development process? What roles can the technical writer serve on the team?
Subject matter experts – What resources and people are available to technical writers in developing user assistance?
Tools – What software is used by technical writers to produce user assistance for an IDE? What skills are useful for the technical writer to have or develop?

Kathryn Munn is a principal technical writer with Oracle Corporation in the software development tools division. She has over 10 years experience in software development and internet services writing help systems, software documentation, and training materials. Kathryn teaches in the technical communication program at UC Santa Cruz Extension.

The August 2007 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Topic: Increasing Visibility and Value: Reframing the Work We Do
Speakers: Linda Urban (Linda Urban Communications, LLC) and Joan Lasselle (Lasselle-Ramsey, Inc.)

It’s time to reframe technical documentation from what we do to how we add value.

To do so, it’s important to consider questions like these:

Do you know the major business objectives for your company, for this year? What are three critical goals or initiatives?

How does the work you do help or hinder those objectives?
If you don’t know your company’s key objectives, how can you find out?

How are documentation and training perceived by upper management at your company?

Is your work a checkbox on the requirements list, or is it a critical success factor?

Does the work you do help to solve customer problems?

Are you focused on documenting features, or on making sure your customers have information that can help them solve problems?
Do you have the support you need to develop the latter? Do stakeholders within your company realize the value you can bring?

Is the glass half empty, or half full?

When you propose changes, do they come across as complaints, or as innovations that will significantly add to your organizations’ competitive advantage?

We know we need to think about these kinds of issues, but it’s hard to do so when our day-to-day work is focused around meeting tight schedules and getting deliverables out the door.

Bring your experiences, ideas, and questions to this interactive session for an opportunity to stop and think about your role in the organization, and identify what you can do to increase your visibility and focus on your value.

Linda Urban is an independent consultant with over 20 years experience in technical communication. She works on product usability, help systems, software and hardware documentation, and training. Linda focuses on developing solutions that meet user needs and company goals, and her work has received local and international STC awards. She also teaches in the technical communication programs at UC Berkeley Extension and UC Santa Cruz Extension. Her company is Linda Urban Communications, LLC.

Joan Lasselle is founder and President of Lasselle-Ramsay, Inc., a professional services company that develops business information and learning solutions that drive superior user experience, productivity, and change. Lasselle-Ramsay focuses on four practice areas: content management, technical documentation, training development, and on-the-job information tools. Since 1982, Lasselle-Ramsay has worked with major high-tech manufacturers to develop technical documentation solutions for commercial products.

The July 2007 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Topic: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Resumes and Portfolios
Speaker: Andrew Davis, Synergistech Communications, Inc.

Andrew Davis will explain how to optimize your resume and make best use of your portfolio, covering in detail what works, why, and how to get the results you want.

This is the age of black-hole electronic job applications, keyword search tools, and anonymous recruiting generalists. Knowing what hiring managers want from you — let alone how to present your credentials and work samples to best effect — has never been more challenging. Andrew will help you parse the job description and accentuate aspects of your resume and portfolio accordingly. He will explain how to make hiring managers eager to speak with you.

If time permits, Andrew will explain how to handle uncomfortable inquiries into your employment history, compensation expectations, telecommuting preferences, and other issues.

Andrew will give a brief formal presentation, to leave time for a lively and candid Q&A. To make the most of this meeting, go to www.synergistech.com/resumes.shtml and www.synergistech.com/portfolios.shtml beforehand to review the resume- and portfolio-related articles there. Bring your specific questions for Andrew to answer.

Andrew Davis runs Synergistech Communications, a local recruiting firm for staff and contract technical communicators. Andrew is a former writer of system administration and software developer documentation for companies such as Oracle (documenting relational databases on minicomputers), IBM (UNIX hypertext authoring tools), Informix (Windows database tools), Network Equipment Technologies (PBXs and routers), and Verity (enterprise text search tools). He is well connected in Silicon Valley’s software and telecommunication documentation communities. He also recruits technical trainers, instructional designers, medical writers, and user experience (UX) professionals on both coasts.

The June 2007 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Topic: Human Factors for Technical Communicators
Speaker: Andrea Ames, IBM

The mind is a mysterious thing, but you can improve your documentation by leveraging what we do know about human cognition and the ways people process information through perception, learning, problem solving, and memory. Join Andrea Ames for a fast-paced, fun trip through the four key human factors affecting human information processing. She will introduce the factors and lead you on an interactive discovery of how knowledge of basic problem solving and memory can change your approach to information architecture, design, and development.

Andrea joined IBM in 2001 as an information architect for the Information Management division of IBM Software Group, where she is currently an information experience strategist and architect, responsible for driving broad initiatives to improve the total information experience.

With nearly 25 years of experience in technical communication, Andrea is a Fellow and past President of STC. She designed, coordinates, and teaches in the University of California Extension, Santa Cruz, certificate program in technical writing and communication. She has published more than 50 papers and articles, as well as the award-winning technical trade book, The VRML Sourcebook. She is a sought-after international speaker for technical communication and information development conferences and professional organization meetings.

The May 2007 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Topic: What does Web 2.0 Mean for Technical Communication?
Speaker: Tim Bombosch, Lasselle-Ramsey

Web 2.0 is a concept without a definition. Think of it as wikis and blogs, collective intelligence, multidirectional communication. Technology often innovates faster than businesses can adapt, and Web 2.0 is no exception. This new webscape’s challenge to technical communicators is profound:

How can technical communicators maintain complete, accurate, and easy to use documentation in an environment that is constantly evolving and invites both participation and customization?
What is the evolving role of technical communicators in this paradigm?
What technology and production issues do technical communicators face?

On a deeper level, the role of technical communicators changes most dramatically because, in a Web 2.0 world, the value and role of information changes.

Instead of an add-on expense to product development, technical communication holds all of the pieces of Web 2.0 technology together. In addition to integrating help files and PDFs into product packages or interfaces, technical communicators become deeply embedded in marketing communication, support, and e-commerce.

Tim Bombosch is a certified project management professional (PMP) and technical communication consultant with Lasselle-Ramsay in Mountain View, California. He is currently a project manager for information development projects. He also implements content management systems and plans strategically for the future of technical communication.

Tim has over 8 years of experience in the technical communication industry. He worked at Mindjet, Sygate Technologies (now Symantec), IBM, Web MD, and Kaiser Permanente. Before beginning his career as a technical communicator, Tim taught media studies at Stanford University, where he completed his PhD in German studies and wrote extensively about German cinema.

The April 2007 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Topic: Automating API Documentation, and a DoxyS Case Study
Speaker: Monique Semp, Write Quick, Inc.

API Documentation is a fast-growing and highly-paid specialty in Technical Writing. As Monique Semp explains, you can write an API Reference in FrameMaker and publish it as a PDF, but such a document is difficult to maintain and unlikely to satisfy your target audience: programmers. Programmers expect online, hyperlinked reference material that’s exactly in sync with the API elements (such as classes and functions).

This presentation shows how to use automated tools to generate an HTML-formatted API Reference. Monique will give us an overview of automating an API reference’s production and tell us the advantages of such an approach over a manual solution such as FrameMaker-to-PDF. She will give us guidelines for choosing the right tool, and discuss concerns such as imposing coding standards and workflow changes on the engineers. She will demonstrate how this all worked when, using DoxyS, she developed an API Reference for a 700+ function ANSI C API.
A Senior STC member, with more than 15 years of documentation and software experience, Monique has won STC Touchstone and Berkeley competition awards of merit and excellence every year since 2001. Monique began her career as a software engineer writing PL/M and C code for automated train control (the “people movers” in airports) and the accompanying user manuals. Her career evolved and she’s been a technical writer since 2001; her first project was producing API documentation for Java-based wireless applications. She has her own company, Write Quick, Inc., and provides many technical writing services, including API references, programming guides, configuration manuals, and technical processes and procedures.

The March 2007 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Topic: Agile Documentation: Help’s Role in the Development Process
Speaker: Jennifer Abbott, Global 360, Inc.

Agile development is an approach to developing products that relies on an iterative process in which each iteration can be as short as a few weeks. The team sets its goals for the iteration, works for the prescribed time, then evaluates where they are, and sets goals for the next iteration. The output of an iteration is a complete piece of the product, including documentation. It’s fast paced and not for everyone!

Jennie Abbott is a technical communicator who has worked on agile development teams. She has developed a way to use online help to coordinate the development process. She will describe how, early in the development process, she used RoboHelp to turn the initial development documentation, written by the project lead, into a help file in the product.The project team used the help file to coordinate their work. It served as an internal reference and central repository of information about the product throughout the development cycle. Conditional build tags allowed the information to be available for internal use, yet remain hidden from customer-facing output. Having a help file before there was an application ensured a solid place for documentation in the consciousness of the developers — and on the team.

Jennie will summarize the best features of this work and show how you can apply the same techniques to your projects.

Jennifer Abbott has been working as a staff technical writer in Alameda since 1997 with an Engineering team that has rolled with the waves of corporate changes from ViewStar to Mosaix to Lucent to Avaya to eiStream to Global 360, Inc. Currently one of a small Documentation team, Jennifer develops and maintains HTML Help projects of various sizes for system administrators and API documentation for developers.

The February 2007 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Topic: Where Is STC Going — Six Strategic Objectives
Speaker: Susan Burton, STC Executive Director

Our February meeting presents a rare opportunity. On Valentine’s Day, STC’s executive director, Susan Burton, is coming to Berkeley for her only Northern California chapter visit. She will tell us about the STC Board’s six strategic objectives and about the many STC members who have volunteered to help. Susan has been travelling around the country listening to the concerns of STC members. This is our chance to tell her what we think and to hear what she has to say.

Susan has managed associations for a living for 30 years. She became our executive director in August, and she has been moving fast since then. Under her leadership, STC is evolving into a flexible and responsive association that can continue to meet the needs of our members and our profession for many years to come.

Members of other chapters are always welcome at our meetings, but this time we especially encourage STC members from all over the area to join us in welcoming STC’s executive director, Susan Burton.
Susan has a 30-year track record of association management successes, as president and CEO of the American College of Health Care Administrators (ACHCA), CEO of the Vision Council of America (VCA), and vice president of marketing for ADAPSO (the computer software and services association).

Susan earned her CAE (Certified Association Executive) credential from the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE). She is an ASAE Fellow and Honorary Fellow of the American College of Health Care Administrators and the Italian Opticians Association. She attended the University of Illinois where she studied history, specializing in Chinese history.

The January 2007 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Topic: Speakers:
STC Berkeley’s Holiday Party
Our January meeting is our annual post-holiday party. It is at the Highlands Country Club, 110 Hiller Drive, Oakland (the same location as last year’s party during January 2006).

In addition to good food, nice music (CDs from Jim Dexter’s collection), a great view, and a party atmosphere, we will recognize some of the chapter volunteers who make our activities possible.

As a highlight of the evening, we will announce and display the winners of this year’s technical communication competition. For the second year in a row, the Berkeley Chapter has sponsored a local technical communication competition managed by and benefitting the STC Kenneth Gordon Scholarship. The entries this year are especially interesting and of high quality. Two of them will be advancing to the international competitions, but you can see them first.

The cost of the event is $25.00.

The December 2006 Chapter Meeting

Topic: MadCap Flare and the RoboHelp Saga
Speaker: Mike Hamilton, VP of Product Management, MadCap Software

The Flare authoring tool is widely perceived as the successor to RoboHelp. While it is far from a RoboHelp clone, Flare was developed mostly by developers who worked on RoboHelp. Mike Hamilton has been in the middle of this story from the beginning. He knows who did what when, and he’s going to give us names and dates — to put to rest any rumors we might have heard.

Flare uses XML as its internal format, but help authors don’t need to know about or work directly with XML. Mike will show us how to use Flare to build help systems.
Mike Hamilton is the vice-president of product management at MadCap Software, where he is working on the Flare help authoring tool. Previously, Mike was product manager for RoboHelp from the early days of Blue Sky Software, through the name change to eHelp, and then the takeover by Macromedia. He left before Adobe took over Macromedia and became one of the founders of MadCap.

The November 2006 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 9, 2006
Topic: What Makes Websites Useable?
Speaker: Harris Kravatz, Oracle Corporation

After valuable content, the number one reason why people return to a website is ease of use. People spend more time on a website they find usable; they subscribe to its services, buy its products, and tell their friends about it.

Harris Kravatz will show us what makes a website usable and teach us techniques we can use immediately.

Agenda: What Makes Websites Usable?

What is Usability?

3 Keys to Usability

Top 5 Web Design Mistakes

7 Usability Best Practices

Customer-Focused Design Process

10 Tips for Good Design
Web Usability Exercise

Benefits of Attending this Presentation

Learn techniques for increasing website profits

Learn 3 things you can do differently tomorrow
View websites from a different perspective

Harris Kravatz is a user interface design and usability consultant with 20 years of experience in the field. He works with clients to improve the profits and productivity of their software and websites.

Harris began his career at IBM, where his positions included Software Development Manager and UI Architect, and he was instrumental in the design of IBM’s OS/2 User Interface. He is currently the senior member of Oracle’s User Experience group.

Harris has written articles on web design and usability and has spoken on design and usability at industry conferences, including the Usability Professional’s Association (UPA), Society for Technical Communications (STC), and Association of Internet Professionals.

The October 2006 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Topic: Finding Work Outside of the Technical Documentation Box
Speaker: Judy Herr, Well Chosen Words

Technical communicators sometimes wonder how their skills, talents, and expertise apply to other careers or jobs. Judy will help us identify the qualities we bring to the table as technical communicators. She will help us understand the value that these qualities bring to other career opportunities.

Judy will lead a highly interactive discussion, starting from an inventory of our skills and experience. You can download the inventory survey form before the meeting, or just show up ready to interact. The file is in Microsoft Word format.

Based on the results of the inventory, Judy will show us how we can use our skills in other positions. For example, she will show how our skills enable us to coordinate proposals and grants or provide consultative support to small businesses and non-profit organizations.

Finally, Judy will lead a discussion of opportunities, successful transitions, and lessons learned.
Judy Herr has worked as a technical communicator for 25 years – as a writer/editor, public health worker, trainer, and documentation department manager. She is the principal of Well Chosen Words, a consulting company that provides consultative support and services in technical communication and knowledge management, occupational health, environmental science, and business acquisition. Her projects include preparing proposals to win government and commercial contracts; documenting computer system design; conducting design reviews; documenting scientific, environmental, emergency preparedness, and occupational safety programs; teaching adults, facilitating events and training; and conducting public relations and marketing.

Judy is an STC Fellow and the advocate for SIGs at the Society level. Her many former STC positions include president of the East Bay chapter, director of the Touchstone technical communication competition, and, most recently, leader of the Management SIG.

The September 2006 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Topic: Documenting APIs: Your First Week on the Job
Speaker: Jim Bisso, Bitzone, LLC

For a technical communicator, the task of documenting an API can be overwhelming. By having a defined methodology for documenting APIs, the technical communicator can bring order to chaos.

This presentation illustrates one such methodology for understanding the API documentation process and documentation deliverables. The presentation will provide a high-level overview of:

Defining your audience, including requisite domain knowledge
Understanding the place the API occupies in the company’s marketing strategy
Planning the documentation deliverables
Researching the API
Preparing to interview the engineering SMEs (Subject Matter Experts)
Effective interviewing techniques

James F. Bisso, M.A., has almost 20 years of experience writing API documentation for such companies as Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Inprise, and Taligent. Jim has also taught computer science and documenting APIs at UC Berkeley Extension, Golden Gate University, Mills College, and the University of San Francisco. Currently CTO of Bitzone LLC and a staff software engineer at Sun Microsystems, he has also been a corporate trainer for Oracle University and Bitzone LLC.

Jim is co-author of Documenting APIs: Writing Developer Documentation for Java™ APIs and SDKs, published June, 2006, which is available from http://www.bitzone.com.

The August 2006 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 9, 2006
Topic: Posture and Power: The Dynamic Use of Your Body at the Computer
Speaker: Ann Grassel, Licensed Physical Therapist

Learn how to “find neutral” in sitting and how to use your body in a dynamic and powerful way while at your computer. Integrate stretching, breathing, toning, and strengthening programs into everyday activities and discover whether your environment supports the changes you are making in your body. Ann Grassel is president of The PowerBoard Company(www.thepowerboard.com) and a licensed physical therapist with 27 years of experience. She received degrees in physical therapy from Northwestern University Medical School and in physiology from the University of Illinois.

Ann’s specialty is sports medicine and movement re-education, including work as a trainer/therapist at the 1984 Summer Olympics. She now focuses on computer workstation ergonomics.

When Ann performs evaluations, she sees the body as a whole. She teaches her clients how they can use movement re-education, bodywork, strengthening, and stretching to change the holding and postural patterns that often contribute to pain and injury. She teaches people how to use their bodies in a powerful and supported way and then how to modify the ergonomics of their environment to support and maintain these changes.

Ann wants to educate people to use computers at home and at work without injuring their bodies.

The July 2006 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Topic: Managing documentation under pressure: lessons from Apple Computer
Speaker: Sandy Korzenny, Senior Manager of Apple Product Documentation

At Apple, we face multiple challenges in creating documentation for a wide and varied audience–among them rapid software development cycles, late-breaking changes to software, and highly confidential product development. Yet, in spite of this–or perhaps because of it–we continue to evolve our product documentation solutions. This talk will focus on how we address and handle these challenges through teamwork and innovation. As an example, I’ll talk about our recent re-design of onscreen help for the iWork and iLife applications. In addition, I’ll touch on challenges and solutions in our print documentation products.
Sandy Korzenny is the Senior Manager of Apple Product Documentation. Her group is responsible for all documentation (onscreen help and print) that ships with Mac OS X, iLife, iWork, .Mac products, hardware, iPod, and Server. Sandy has held positions in product documentation in technology for many years, starting out designing computer-based training courses at Control Data Corporation, then designing leader-led courses at Tandem Computers, and finally documenting products and managing product documentation groups at Apple. In an industry of rapid growth, the best part of her job is getting her staff together to find solutions to the tough problem of how to get users to their answers–in the most efficient, effective way possible. Sandy received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Instructional Technology from Michigan State University.

The June 2006 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Topic: One topic at a time: writing books, help, and websites in DITA XML
Speaker: Erik Hennum, Advisory Software Engineer, IBM Corporation

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering readable information as discrete, typed topics. Topics can be used in print, in help systems, and on the Web. DITA has seen primary initial adoption for technical communication. The standard is advanced through an open process by the OASIS DITA Technical Committee, a group that encourages new participation from developers and users.

Erik’s presentation will give a high level overview of the basic principles of DITA and how to produce deliverables from DITA content.

To research the topic before the meeting, there is a ten-page white paper from IBM.
Erik Hennum is a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee and an Information Strategist for IBM Systems and Technologies Group. For IBM and Informix, he has worked on Information Architecture as well as design and processing of XML and SGML documents. For DITA, he helped shape the principles of domain specialization. He has spoken about DITA at the Society for Technical Communication, the Writers UA conference, the Content Management Strategies Conference, the OASIS Symposium, the Extreme XML conference, the Semantic Technologies Conference, and elsewhere.

The May 2006 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Topic: Essential Interaction Design Tools – The Design Blueprint
Speakers: Lane Halley, Principal Consultant, Cooper

Technical writers have a saying, “if it’s hard to explain in the documentation, it’s going to be hard to use.” Did you ever wish it was possible to write the documentation before the product is built? Have you ever felt that you understood the user better than the implementation team who built the product? Come learn about ways to reduce confusion, frustration and lost time in the software development process through Goal-Directed™ Design.

Goal-Directed Design is an interaction design methodology developed by Cooper, a consulting company in San Francisco. Every feature in a Goal-Directed design can be tied to user research through personas and scenarios. Goal-Directed designs are documented in a design blueprint that communicates the intent, architecture and behavior of the interface in text, pictures and storyboards, before the product is built. Implementation teams use the design blueprint to evaluate technical difficulty and create accurate project schedules. Managers use design blueprints to gain consensus on what to build, and to gain funding.

Please join Lane Halley to learn about team roles, useful meeting tools and documentation techniques used at Cooper.
Principal consultant Lane Halley began her Cooper design career in 1997. Ms. Halley is responsible for many of the best practices used by Cooper teams and taught at Cooper U. She was responsible for several of the design projects featured in founder Alan Cooper’s book The Inmates are Running the Asylum.

Over the past 20 years, Lane has gained first-hand experience with the software development process by working with software development teams at Microsoft, The Software Toolworks, Mindscape and SenSage. She has designed and delivered successful desktop, Web, and enterprise products.

Lane was a founder of the Silicon Valley chapter of Women on the Web. She has been a presenter for the Inland Empire chapter of the STC and Jared Spool’s UIE Roadshow.

The April 2006 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Topic: How to Be a Stellar Consultant
Speakers: Val Swisher, Mary Rosberg

Want to be a rock star? We’re talking about you, a sought-after writer who stands out in the technical communications field. You already have the technical and communication skills your clients need. How can you also become the kind of contractor or consultant that your clients are eager to bring back, and recommend to their colleagues?

Val Swisher and Mary Rosberg will give you tips for standing way out from the crowd, becoming a superstar for your clients.

If you are currently a contractor or a consultant, or if this is a direction your career may take, come learn from Val and Mary about the business and customer service end of the consulting life.
Val Swisher started Oak Hill Corporation as a one-woman show in 1994, and has built the corporation based on dedication to developing client and contractor relationships. Today, Oak Hill provides technical documentation, marketing collateral, and training development services to over 50 nationwide clients in a variety of industries, with more than 125 senior contract professionals.

Before she started her own business, she was Manager of the Technical Course Development Program for SynOptics, Inc. (now Nortel Networks). She was also an instructional designer and technical instructor for 3Com Corporation. Val is co-author of “The Comprehensive Guide to Computer Telephone Integration,” published by CT Institute Press, and “Mastering Network Management,” published by Numidia Press. Val is a mentor for the Women’s Technology Cluster, a business incubator in the US dedicated to women leaders building technology-driven businesses.

Mary Rosberg has accrued 15 years of publications and project management experience working for Autodesk, Neoforma, Openwave, Documentum, and others. Mary enjoys learning about companies’ business needs and putting together the right solution for every different situation. She is particularly adept at building “SWAT” teams of the writers, illustrators, editors and production specialists that are optimal for each project.

Mary is president of the board of San Francisco Women on the Web, and a member of the Society for Technical Communication and the National Writer’s Union. She is a relentless networker, and attends numerous professional organizations and gatherings around the Bay Area.

The March 2006 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, March 8, 2006
Topic: What Every Tech Writer Needs to Know about Java
Speaker: David Peyton

If you haven’t had prior experience with Java, but you want to learn how to document Java code, this seminar is exactly what you might be looking for. David Peyton takes you through the basics of the Java language, and how object-oriented code needs to be organized and documented. Mr. Peyton will also introduce you to his company’s first software product, a tool for reducing the time to document Java code from weeks to hours.

David Peyton is Chief Executive Officer of Altadero Systems. Mr. Peyton has served as Chairman of the Altadero Systems Board of Directors since the company’s founding in 2002. Prior to founding Altadero Systems, Mr. Peyton had several years of experience as a technical writer, following 6 years of experience as an engineer in the semiconductor industry. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with an MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and from Harvey Mudd College with a BS in Engineering.

The February 2006 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, Febuary 8, 2006
Topic: When to Move on from a Job that Isn’t Helping Your Career
Speaker: Andrew Davis

Have you been holed up in a job you have outgrown? Do you suspect there may be better ways to spend your time at work? Listen to Andrew Davis explain how to read the signs that you are no longer in the right job, and what you can do to make positive changes in your career. Andrew Davis was a Tech Writer of sysadmin and developer documents for eight years before starting his recruiting firm, Synergistech Communications, in 1995. He has worked with many technical communicators to help them advance in their careers.

The January 2006 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Topic: The 2006 Annual Berkeley STC PARTY!
Speakers: Joe Devney, Richard Mateosian

The January STC Berkeley party is a chance to have an (almost) entirely social occasion. Come to meet your peers, the chapter officers and volunteers, guest speakers from the past year, and members of other writers’ organizations. There will be food, music, great raffle prizes–including some of your favorite tech writers’ software products–and maybe a surprise or two.

Just Added!

Fifteen award-winning documents from the 2005 Berkeley Chapter Technical Publications Competition will be displayed, and the winners of the competition announced at the meeting. Congratulations to all the award winners!

We will meet at the Highlands Country Club in the Oakland Hills. Bring your friends and colleagues!

The December 2005 Chapter Meeting

No Meeting (as usual for December)

The November 2005 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, November 9, 2005
Subject: Salary Negotiation: How to Develop an Underappreciated Asset
Speaker: Wren Withers

Facing a discussion about a raise or promotion? Accepting a new job? Most of us plan more for a trip to the grocery store than for such upcoming salary negotiations. Yet knowing how to discuss our worth can help us come out dollars ahead. In this safe, interactive presentation, participants will learn about salary negotiation facts and myths, gain an understanding of the major components of a salary negotiation, and examine common emotions that arise when we talk about money and worth.

Wren Withers, Principal of Salary Negotiation Consulting, has developed her own unique tools and methods to help clients articulate the value of what they bring to an organization (profit or nonprofit) so that they can be appropriately compensated for their skills and experience.

In addition to her salary negotiation consulting experience, Wren has decades of professional experience as an individual contributor and manager in the fields of technical writing, biotechnology, software, manufacturing, and photography.

The October 2005 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Subject: Design for Non-Designers
Speakers: Barbara Sikora

Are your programs sparsely attended and your services not being used? Are your newsletters, flyers, documents, and web sites being overlooked?

Design can make or break your image and your effectiveness in delivering messages. This presentation will cover the basic principles of design.

Learn to create eye-catching layouts by learning simple design techniques.

Barbara Sikora is an instructor at the Santa Rosa Junior College and teaches the Non-Designer’s Design Workshop around the country. She heads Deltagraphics, a design studio in northern California. Barbara has had the good fortune of learning from and working with Robin Williams since 1992.

The September 2005 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Subject: Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI): Recognizing the Signs, Confronting the Injury, and Compensating with Voice-Recognition Software
Speakers: Barbara Forsberg and David Schorr

Do you ever experience pain, numbness, or tingling in your hands or arms after putting in long hours on the computer? When you do, do you push on and postpone self-care until you’ve met the current deadline (and the next, and the next)? We all know that we should take frequent breaks, stretch and change position often, and set up our workstations ergonomically, but how many of us actually do all this? If you need some incentive to start taking your body’s signals seriously, come hear the lessons learned by one “Type A” technical communicator who learned the hard way.

You’ll also see a demonstration of the Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice-recognition software that shows what the software can do, and what it cannot do. Our Dragon NaturallySpeaking consultant will discuss hardware requirements, third-party software compatibility, training experience and needs, funding issues (workers’ comp, rehab, corporate), and reasonable expectations for use of voice recognition software.

David Schorr , the owner of 1stVoice (www.1stvoice.com), has consulted on Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition software since 1996. He has worked with clients with a broad spectrum of needs, in many professions, throughout the Bay Area and northern California.

Barbara Forsberg has worked for more than 12 years in the field of technical communication, half of that time as a technical writer and half as a manager. Her other computer-intensive jobs in the past two decades have included Japanese pre-press production, Japanese software support, and data processing. She started experiencing symptoms of RSI in early 2003 and was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome in the fall of 2004. Voice recognition software has allowed her to continue using the computer during her recovery and to avoid injuring herself further.

The August 2005 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Topic: A New Level of Edit: Usability Evaluation by Channelling Personas
Speaker: Dana E. Chisnell

The new usability method is a persona-based, task-based, heuristic-based review that simulates usability testing and the think-aloud process that goes with it. Although most usability experts believe strongly that the only way to really know if something works well for a given group of users is to have representative users try out the site through usability testing, there are times when the scope of the project as well as time and budget constraints do not allow for that needed testing. The success of this new method in a study sponsored by AARP suggests that others might want to adopt or adapt it as well.

Dana E. Chisnell is an independent user researcher and usability consultant operating UsabilityWorks in San Francisco, CA. Dana has been doing usability, user interface design, and technical communications consulting and development since 1982. Dana is a senior member of the usability community, an associate fellow of the STC, and a member of the San Francisco STC community as well as the Usability and User Experience and the AccessAbility virtual communities. She is the Assistant to the President for Virtual Communities for 2005-2006.

The July 2005 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Subject: Stalking the Wild SME Bird
Speakers: Susan Becker, Melody Brumis, and Gwaltney Mountford

SME birds (subject matter experts) are the major source of information for technical writers. Most often found in the guise of engineers, they can be elusive, overworked, uncommunicative, or down right difficult. In this interactive session, Susan Becker, Melody Brumis, and Gwaltney Mountford will share with you tips for getting what you need, when you need it, from SME birds in a variety of environments.

Susan Becker has nearly twenty years of experience as a technical communicator and online user assistance developer, working primarily as a contractor in software development for the financial services industry. Susan is currently on a contract at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), developing test procedures for hardware and electronics. She is immediate past president of the San Francisco chapter, a former director of Touchstone, and a past winner in the competition. She has presented at the STC Annual Conference and regional events, and has taught in the Technical and Professional Writing Program at San Francisco State University.

Melody Brumis has been studying wild (and elusive) SME birds as a technical communicator for the past 20 years. Her specialty is in gathering information from the highly technical (all-knowing) SME bird. Melody is on contract with Chevron writing server documents, and maintaining a documentation Web site. She’s an active member of the East Bay STC chapter (near San Francisco). Her awards include Volunteer of the Year. She has presented SME birds and other topics at STC conferences and chapters.

Gwaltney Mountford has about 25 years of experience as a technical communicator focusing on solving the communication needs of end-users. She and her husband, Carl, own Mountford Group Inc., a consulting company specializing in developing custom Web-based business and data warehouse applications. An STC Associate Fellow, she is a past president of the East Bay chapter, a former director of Touchstone and the Region 8 Conference, and was on the Society’s Nominating Committee. She has presented at the STC Annual Conference and at regional events, and teaches at UC Berkeley Extension.

The June 2005 Chapter Meeting

Date: Wednesday, June 8, 2005
Subject: Working as a Writer in Medical and Scientific Fields
Panelists: Martha Silverspring, Susan Becker, Wren Withers, Mark Evans, Sharon Tellyer, Linda Urban (Moderato

Bio Tech. Pharma. Medical devices. Laboratories. Scientific research.

There are lots of companies in the Bay Area with a medical or scientific focus. They’re often in the headlines. Ever wondered what roles technical writers play at them, and whether they might be a good fit for you?

Join us in June to hear from our panel of technical writers who have worked in a number of different medical and scientific companies around the Bay Area. They’ll tell you a bit about their work, how it’s similar and different from writing about computer hardware and software, whether expertise in the domain is required, how to find work in their area, and more. Bring your questions–there will be time for Q&A at the end.

Martha Silverspring works at Varian Medical Systems in Palo Alto, and writes about how to use radiation therapy equipment.

Susan Becker is working by contract at SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), where she writes procedures for testing the hardware and electronics of GLAST, the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2007.

Wren Withers has worked as a writer at a medical device company, at a chemical company that manufactured DNA and peptides for biotech use, and for 7 years at Chiron Corp. (She currently manages a team of 9 writers at Siebel Systems.)

Mark Evans is the documentation manager for Velocity11. He also writes and does all of the print and online help development. Velocity11, located in Menlo Park, designs and manufactures robotics equipment used for automated sample preparation and drug screening by big pharmaceuticals companies.

Sharon Tellyer works at Scios, Inc., a pharmaceutical company in Fremont, that develops treatments for cardiovascular disease, inflammatory disease, and cancer. She writes documents used in clinical trials and FDA submissions and is standardizing writing processes and templates.

Linda Urban (Moderator) is a technical communications consultant at Linda Urban Communications, LLC. She also teaches in the Technical Communication programs at UC Berkeley Extension and UC Santa Cruz Extension, where students frequently ask her about breaking into medical and scientific writing. Her company website is www.urbancreations.com.