As most of you will have heard by now, STC International (based in the US) is having serious financial difficulties. A full explanation and more discussion of the response to this situation is available at the STC main site, and on a number of chat rooms, etc. (If you have a link to a discussion that you think helps explain this, please post that link here for the convenience of our members who are just discovering this issue.)

At the recent Chapter Executive meeting, we discussed a range of possible responses to this situation, documented in the minutes which are available on our chapter’s wiki: http://www.stcwestcoast.ca/wiki/Executive_meeting_minutes_Sept_2009.doc.

In brief, we sincerely hope that STC International is able to recover and continue to provide the umbrella that our various chapters gather under, and we are willing to contribute towards making that happen. Having said that, we also feel a certain amount of frustration with the limited value available to us “international” STC members, and we are shocked at the sloppy fiscal management that led them to where they are today.

If that sounds a little conflicted… well, it is. :-)

Your executive members are interested in hearing from everyone in the Canada West Coast chapter on this issue as it develops. Please take the time to inform yourself on this critical issue, and then if you have an opinion or a question, this forum is a good place to weigh in.

STC’s official description of this situation appears in the News & Notes for June, July and August 2009. Members can access the back issues here: http://www.stc.org/stcmembers/newsNotes01.asp

Several commentators have also blogged about this issue.
- Tom Johnson wrote about Lifelines to the STC
- Sarah O’Keefe asks Whither STC
- M. K. Anderson writes In Which I Comment on the STC Issue
- David Farbey writes Does STC deserve to survive?

Frankly it’s sad, because nobody really cares about the STC. With the plethora of options available to both the technical and the communicator, the STC has really done a number on themselves.

First, they don’t need a head office. Project teams for other (mostly) volunteer organizations manage just fine, virtually.

Second, the cost of membership is not matched by the society’s value. Access to a couple of SIG discussion groups and affiliation with a chapter does not a membership make. At least our chapter was able to eliminate the cost to attend program meetings as a value-add for being a member. Win one for the locals!

Third, the international activities I worked on, which helped consolidate the expertise demonstrated within our community were shut down, and immediately a dozen or so separate silos erupted in their place. In this generation of “Managing Enterprise Content” and “Content Strategy” (which one of our STC.org re-valuation committee members likened to the Software Development Life Cycle, among other well-known processes) I find it fascinating that a supposedly unified STC would unanimously vote to destroy the connection between the diverse content.

Fourth, even the international STC.org re-valuation committee switched from one online project collaboration system to another. Franky, the problem was how we USED the application, not the application itself. The new system has an equal share of problems.

Fifth, the Technology Committee I joined when I assumed responsibilities for http://stcforum.org (which you can still read, even though it’s supposed to have been shut down) was continually left out of the loop with regards to strategic technology direction. Now what’s the purpose of installing a committee if you don’t value their opinions?

Sixth, the STC put out an Online Buyer’s Guide intended to promote us as technical communication professional contractors. Rather than developing a nice online database that can be searched by keywords in our skill set or profile write up, they went with a PDF directory that publicly posted everyone’s name and email address for all the email harvesting spam bots to see. Not only is that a backwards technology decision (so 1990s), but now I’m the target of every nigerian scam, pharmaceutical solicitation, and genital growth hormone on the market because of my month-old listing. How do I know? That’s the ONLY place I’ve posted that email address.

I commend our executive for offering to LOAN our money to the IO. I hope we stick ‘em with lots of interest. Had I been at the meeting I would have voted to break free and let them fry in Arkansas, or wherever they are right now. But the votes would have been 11 to 3.

We are doing so much greater good as THE CANADA WEST COAST CHAPTER. Darren Barefoot was right.

Rock on, Canada.

The STC has had some problems communicating with technology, for sure. It’d be funny, if it wasn’t kind of sad.

On the plus side, I have attended a couple of the STC Conferences (Seattle, Las Vegas) and I’ve always enjoyed meeting and talking with other tech writers. It’s nice to feel there is something big that I belong to.

But the true value of my membership is VERY local, in my STC Canada West Coast chapter connections. The good news is, our chapter this year is going strong! Enthusiasm and support are way up, the executive meetings are packed to the rafters, and Eagranie and Liessi both have great ideas about expanding our influence locally and reaching out to similar groups. I’m really excited about what we’ll be doing this year in CWC.

Eagranie has been in touch with the Presidents of other strong Canadian chapters to discuss this situation. One obvious solution would be to separate ourselves from the STC main body, and create a Canadian equivalent of the STC. But this is a HUGE effort, and there is nobody willing to lead this charge at the moment.

I think the STC International needs to stop worrying about their own aggrandizement, and focus on ways to support the membership (including internationally). No need to get all fancy-pants with the solutions, just start pulling in people who actually USE the technologies in their day jobs and let them direct things. We’ll see if recent events and the aftermath provide some schooling in that philosophy.

If the STC main body fails despite the support of its chapters, then perhaps the Canadian contingent can look at finding Canadian national leadership to move us forward into a new organization. I would be willing to work towards such an outcome, IF we had clear goals for the new org.

So my vote for the loan was to give them a year of our continued support and see if they can recover from this. We can always reassess for 2011.