Society for Technical Communication

From the official STC site: STC is an individual membership organization dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication. It is the largest organization of its type in the world. Its 18,000 members include technical writers and editors, content developers, documentation specialists, technical illustrators, instructional designers, academics, information architects, usability and human factors professionals, visual designers, Web designers and developers, and translators - anyone whose work makes technical information available to those who need it.

Society membership provides opportunities for ongoing learning and professional networking. Through the efforts of a small, full-time staff and a large network of volunteers, STC promotes the public welfare by educating its members and industry about issues concerning technical communication.

Current P-N Designs Projects for STC

Your Voice Matters - an article about ways to evaluate STC candidates and the importance of voting. Feel free to copy and reprint as needed!

Awards and Honors

Brenda has received several awards from the Society for Technical Communcations, including the honor of designation as Fellow in 2005. Other awards include:

• Fellow, 2005
• Distinguished Chapter Service Award, Southern Arizona chapter, 2003/2004
• Associate Fellow, 2003
• Phoenix Chapter Technical Publications Competition - Award of Distinction for "RoboHelp for the Web" (with John Hedtke) 2002/2003
• Distinguished SIG Service Award - for participation in the Management Special Interest Group 2002
• Kachina Chapter Technical Publications Competition - Award of Merit for "RightFax COM Reference Guide" 2001/2002
• International Newsletter Competition - Award of Merit for "Management", the newsletter of the Management SIG 2001

Brenda is also a Past President of the Southern Arizona Chapter, which was awarded the Chapter of Distinction Award in 2002 AND 2005! This is only given to one chapter in each size category, so we are all very proud. In addition, our newsletter, "The Border Line", won an Award of Merit.

Volunteer Leadership

Brenda was the manager of the "Leadership Tips Message", a monthly email available to all STC leaders. Purposely kept short-and-sweet, the LTM contains links to STC and non-STC resources on topics such as recruiting and retaining members, working with volunteer committes, transition planning, and others. This publication is no longer active, but old issues should still be available on the STC site for members. Whether you're a member of STC or not, you're not a member of STC, but are still interested in leadership issues for volunteer organizations, check out some of the Volunteer Management resources.

NEW!! As a community leaders, we're always trying to develop programs that our members find interesting, fun, and informative. We had a big hit with the March program, entitled "A Night at the Round Table: Contracting and Consulting" so I thought I'd post some program guidelines for what we did and how other communities could do something similar. If it's helpful, maybe we'll add more program descriptions later!

Special Interest Groups

STC's Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are composed of STC members with common experiences and interests who share their skills and knowledge with each other and with other STC members. Brenda belongs to and participates in the following groups:

• Content Strategy SIG
• Management SIG
• AccessAbility SIG
• Usability SIG
• Independent Contractors and Consultant's SIG

Links and Resources

The STC Southern Arizona chapter officially folded as of May, 2010, but some of us still gather regularly at non-meetings to catch up and chat about all things tech-comm. Send an email to bphuettner@p-ndesigns.com if you want to find out when the next meeting is!

Want to find out more about STC? Visit the STC home page.