What do you think of doing a survey for the STC Canada West Coast chapter?

Thank you,

Randi

STC has, for many years, produced a salary survey. The results are available here: http://www.stc.org/stcmembers/salary-database.asp?SSOToken=XXLA6uFnXAYCabUtnFAB3ghB3cY=. You need to log into your STC.org account in order to access it - one of the many perks of being an STC member!

Alas, the “survey” is U.S.-only. This is because the data are pulled from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment Statistics (OES), which classifies technical writers as a separate profession from other types of writers. A similar distinction is not made in Canada, so it makes an equivalent survey difficult to do. Regardless, the salary surveys are still worth looking at.

The Canadian chapters are working on a Canadian salary survey. We’re fine-tuning the questions and hope to unleash it in a few months. Yes, the survey will be self-reported, but I sincerely hope that it will give us a glimpse into salaries across the country.

The information interview service connects volunteer senior technical writers with people who are requesting information interviews, whether they are tech writing students who are required to do interviews for their programs, or people considering entering the field of tech writing. The service offers a 30- to 60-minute interview (length is at the discretion of the senior writer). It could be in person or on the phone, depending on what the two people decide. This service will raise awareness of our chapter, bring new people to program meetings, and hopefully generate new memberships for the chapter.

As information interview coordinator, I will match up the requesters with senior writers, by going sequentially through a roster of volunteers. This service will be advertised on our STC CWC website starting in September, and I also invite you to advertise it or link to it on your own websites, as I’m sure many of you get requests for info interviews each year.

We are going to ask for a donation of $10 for the service. The donation will be optional, so that money is not a barrier to those seeking an interview. In return for the donation, the requester will receive the interview and possibly admission to the next program meeting after the interview.

Requiring less of a time commitment than mentorship, this is an opportunity for you to share your valuable experience and insights with people who are new to the field of technical writing. It’s also a chance to help raise money for our chapter. I hope you will see the value in this service and be willing to offer your help. At this point I am estimating that each volunteer senior writer might be requested to do one or two information interviews per year.

I’d like to thank the chapter executive and program team for their support in working out the details of this exciting new service. We’re almost there now! And though all the nitty gritty details haven’t been totally ironed out yet, we’ve already got 10 volunteer senior writers and have two interviews completed or in progress. Clearly this service is answering a real need in the community.

Please let me know if I can add your name to the roster of senior technical writers for this service. Either reply here in the forum, or send me an email: info-interview at stcwestcoast dot ca. I am excited about this opportunity to strengthen our chapter’s bonds with the Vancouver community at large, and I welcome you all to be a part of it.

Warmly,

User Error and related phrases such as PEBKAC (“Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair”), PICNIC (“Problem In Chair Not In Computer”), PIBCAK (“Problem Is Between Chair And Keyboard”) or ID-10T error (“Idiot error”) are also used as slang in technical circles with a derogatory meaning.[1][2] This usage implies a lack of computer savvy, asserting that problems arisen when using a device are the fault of the user. Critics of the term argue that the problems are caused instead by a device designed in such a way that it induces errors.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_error

It’s one of the joys of our job to poke fun at our end users, but who among us hasn’t had a PEBKAC moment of our own? I invite you to share a story from either end of the PEBKAC spectrum. To start things off, here’s one of my less stellar moments:

I had just purchased a great new wireless keyboard and mouse, plugged the thingie into the USB port, and was ready to go. Everything seemed to be working fine as I typed some exploratory text. So I dialed in to my client’s site using my regular remote access log-in. So far, so good. Then I started running the client’s software on my remote desktop. The software requires a username and password in ALLCAPS, and both the username and password are masked with asterisks. I tried logging in, and it didn’t work. I tried again, and got the same error message. Since software under development is often buggy, and sometimes the system goes down, I sent out an email to the whole team to find out if anyone else was having trouble logging in. I got back a bunch of messages, and guess what? PEBKAC! It turned out that during the remote log-in, my keyboard was set from ALLCAPS back to non-ALLCAPS, but the Caps Lock indicator was backwards. So I was logging in using lowercase letters. Was my face red! Especially when I had to send an email to the whole group explaining my error. At least a few people got to laugh at my expense that day.

This story kicks off the 2011 program year for STC CWC. Join in the forum fun and share a PEBKAC story of your own! :-)

The people from @LikeMindVan have now started Creative Mornings Vancouver as well:
http://www.facebook.com/CreativeMorningsVancouver - inaugural meeting, Sept. 2

I also recommend looking at the various technically-focused and startup-focused meetup groups on meetup.com . So many great opportunities there.

The point of networking is not to immediately snag a job, although it’s great if that happens, but to make yourself visible and memorable to others.

Do you have any stories to share about whether things are boom or bust right now? Tales of lay-offs, or massive new projects starting? Please tell us about it!

A rising tide floats all boats!
- Wikipedia attributes this Confucian-like saying to John F. Kennedy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_rising_tide_lifts_all_boats

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The undergraduate and graduate students at SFU Beedie School of Business could use your advice.  Literally.

The Career Management Centre has recently launched CareerTalk, a new initiative to connect undergraduate and graduate business students at SFU with working professionals in a variety of fields for career related advice. 

Why is this initiative important?

- Many of SFU’s undergraduate students are first generation university students and do not have family contacts to speak with about different careers that may be available to them

- MBA students at SFU come from non-business backgrounds and are seeking to make significant career changes so the opportunity to speak with individuals actually doing a particular job will give them a better perspective on their coursework, internship opportunities to seek out and career path options

- Even when a student knows what career path they want to take, they benefit from learning more about the culture of a variety of organizations and the on-the-job, real-world advice from seasoned professionals

What is the commitment?

- We’re seeking individuals to spend 1/2 hour each with one or more students on the phone or in-person in an informal discussion over the course of the year

- When you sign up, you can indicate if you’re most interested in speaking with undergraduate or graduate level students and how many you’d be open to connecting with throughout the year

- Students will be referred to you by a career advisor at the CMC - they will not have your direct contact information

How do you get involved?

If you are interested in becoming a Career Talk expert,  you can sign up via this URL link: https://business-sfu-csm.symplicity.com/mentors

Once you’ve registered, a staff member will review your application and contact you with more information.

Questions?

Please contact either myself or Rochelle Diablo, rlmiller at sfu dot ca for additional information.

Thank you for considering becoming a Career Talk volunteer!

Best wishes,

Christine Sjolander
Associate Director, Employer Relations
Simon Fraser University Beedie School of Business csjoland at sfu dot ca

Rahel’s website is at http://www.intentionaldesign.ca .

http://willkelly.typepad.com/will_kelly/2009/06/how-google-wave-can-drown-technical-writers.html

What do you think? How does your company handle technical writing now, and are they likely to use Google Wave? Is this just another doomsday prediction?