Bob is also in the STC discussion group and notices John’s intelligent posts. His company is hiring a technical writer, and he thinks John might have the qualifications for the job. He visits John’s LinkedIn profile and, impressed with his qualifications, sends him a tweet with a link, encouraging him to apply for the job. John researches the company and finds that the hiring manager is a friend-of-a-friend on Facebook.

John sends in his resume and asks his colleague to put in a good word for him to the hiring manager, Mary. She reviews John’s resume, checks his thorough Facebook profile and LinkedIn pages, and (following a link) reads John’s tweets. All become background information telling Mary that John would be perfect for the job.

Sound far-fetched? Not anymore; not in today’s social-media world. But only if you put in the effort. Join Rich Maggiani for an STC webinar, “Promoting Your Career through Social Media,” on Wednesday 23 June from 1:00-2:00 PM EDT (GMT-4), to see how you can make social media work for you. LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook all can be valuable social media tools to promote yourself and connect to an audience of prospects and employers. Let Rich Maggiani show you how.

Wednesday, 23 June
1:00-2:00 PM EDT (GMT-4)
Promoting Your Career through Social Media
Presented by Rich Maggiani
Members $79; Nonmembers $149; Student Member $29

Rich Maggiani, a communication consultant, is the president and founder of Solari Communication, a full-service corporate communication agency; an STC Fellow; and a director on STC’s Board. Rich views the world as metaphor. Through the solitude of mountaineering excursions, he gains the clarity that metaphors bring to an otherwise noisy world. Rich applies these insights to attain the simple, clear communication necessary to enlighten and bring people together toward a common goal. Read his related blog, Toward Humanity.

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And with that simple decision, I embarked on an incredible journey that has enhanced both my personal and professional life far beyond any heights that I could have imagined. To that, I am indebted to STC and its members.

Renewing my membership. I gain so much as an STC member, learning and applying an abundance of skills over these past fifteen years. My career has been enhanced, and my clients have benefited. Membership has opened new venues for me, some that I couldn’t possibly have envisioned. I simply cannot imagine being a professional technical communicator and not belonging to the one organization that supports and promotes that profession – STC.

This is a simple decision for me. I simply rejoin.

The cost of membership. There has been much debate about the dues for membership including belonging to a chapter and a special interest group (SIG). Is STC really worth the price of admission?

I look at this issue two ways. STC dues are about $5.00 a week, the same as a venti espresso drink. Isn’t membership in your chosen professional organization worth that? Not being a member also has its costs: lost benefits, lost access, lost opportunities, lost revenue. And those losses represent a far greater cost than dues.

Giving and receiving. I have given a lot to STC, volunteering for one position or another for every year I’ve been a member. While that might seem a lot, I have received in return far more. Let me enumerate.

Members. STC members are nothing if not passionate. This tells me a lot about the people who join, get involved, practice their profession, and commiserate with other members. STC members are the real deal. They—we—know our profession benefits others. There isn’t puffery or pound-ing chests. Just pure competence, integrity, genuineness. Case in point: my three newest clients were all garnered through my association with STC and its members. Billings this year alone will exceed many tens of thousands of dollars, with more next year.

My continued membership keeps me in touch with other members, many of whom are my friends. I continually meet other members. I almost always come away from encounters with members with a profound appreciation for that person.

My local chapter. Don’t ever let it be said that a few dozen people cannot impact the world. They can, and we did. At Giving and receiving. I have given a lot to STC, volunteering for one position or another for every year I’ve been a member. While that might seem a lot, I have received in return far more. Let me enumerate. Members. STC members are nothing if not passionate. This tells me a lot about the people who join, get involved, practice their profession, and commiserate with other members. STC members are the real deal. They—we—know our profession benefits others. There isn’t puffery or pounding chests. Just pure competence, integrity, genuineness.

Case in point: my three new- est clients were all garnered through my association with STC and its members. Bill- ings this year alone will exceed many tens of thousands of dollars, with more next year. My continued membership keeps me in touch with other members, many of whom are my friends. I continually meet other members. I almost always come away from encounters with members with a profound appreciation for that person.

My local chapter. Don’t ever let it be said that a few dozen people cannot impact the world. They can, and we did. At our meetings, we learn from each other. Our local chapter raised the bar for our profession. Employers and prospects look for and prefer STC credentials. Over the years, my company has received a number of contracts because of our STC membership, totaling well over one million dollars ($1,000,000+) in billable services.

Special Interest Groups (SIGs). Early on, I joined the Consultants and Independent Contractors (CIC) SIG. Later, I also joined the Marketing and Instructional Design SIGs. All three are ready platforms for ideas, assistance, perspective, and simple camaraderie. Through the listservs sustained by STC, I have met and discussed much with members from all over the world. Always a helping hand, from people I respect and trust.

Intercom and Technical Communication. Recently, I was instructing a client on how to create meaningful slides (incorporating graphics and text) for their presentations. They balked. “What’s wrong with bullet lists?” They wanted to know. I pointed to six articles from Technical Communication to support my position with valid research, as well as a number of articles from Intercom. That is the value of STC’s publications.

Friends. So, why aren’t you playing music anymore? – This question, from a close STC friend, spurred another one of those life-changing moments. I didn’t have a good answer. So I bought a new drum kit and began playing again. That led to the genesis of The Open Jam, which led to the formation of The Rough Drafts, and a number of gigs at STC annual conferences. This is just one anecdote in a procession of joyous encounters with my many STC friends.

Annual conferences. For a professional technical communicator, there is no other venue for collaboration, commiseration, education, repartee, consideration, reflection, growth, interaction, wonderment, and just plain excitement than STC’s annual conferences.

Professionalism. In 2008, I became an STC Fellow. I had been striving for that goal since first becoming a member.

While I am quite proud of my accomplishment, it’s more than just an award. What is most important is the professional that I have become because of that quest, how I am able to apply my expertise, how I have been remunerated, and the contacts I have made along the way.

Over the years, STC has provided the framework for my professional growth. My current level of expertise and professionalism is due in large part to the value of being an STC member. – Rich Maggiani

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Recent project, this person’s self-described best work, is a poster with umpteen different fonts, every box has a gradient, with a different color, no borders between text boxes. No style guide rules for grammer or design were followed. So, I tried to offer some suggestions. It was not received well, so I assembled a number of reference sites and sent them over. The strategy was that this would take the “personal” out of the dialogue.

It was like gas on the fire. I started a war, even though I did not actually throw my Chicago Manual of Style. The question is, how bad do we let something that is representing our company get before we speak up. I probably butted in where I did not belong since I am the web developer but holy-cow, we are charging for this stuff.

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The Pre-writing phase allows you to identify who you are writing for (your audience) and what you want to say to them; to identify the purpose of your writing, to determine the points you want to make and enumerate them; to begin drafting your ideas based on these points to get your thoughts on paper without restriction. This is where the bulk of your writing can take place.

The Reviewing phase enables you to clarify your draft: to embellish your words, to add more details, to tighten up your text, to clear up any ambiguities, to sequence thoughts better, to ensure your text speaks to your purpose, to delete anything that runs astray, to cut off tangents, to sharpen.

The Finishing phase is where you edit: to employ better words, to fix grammatical infractions, to correct mechanical errors, to change punctuation, to format for clarity and understanding.

Imagine my consternation, then—with a bit of a smile—when I received the following analysis of the process my son em- ploys for writing papers (including email and IM) at university.

In his own words…
This is how I really write papers: I wait until the last possible minute and the words just flow from my hands like simi-

Process Analysis, by Tyler Maggiani Let’s just start with the thesis and maybe I will come up with a clever opening line later. This analysis is about how I procrastinate, spell poorly, and desecrate punctuation; or five paragraph essays, three lines of garbage, and fast-as-I-can- type talking; or Word, Gmail, and iChat.

Let’s start with papers as the process is ongoing as I write this. The first planning stage is receiving the assignment which I promptly write down in an assignment book or on whatever is available, promising to myself that later in the quiet of my room I will transfer it onto a wall-sized planning calendar—which I don’t have. Then I usually try to come up with some sort of plan to get started on it early because, dammit, I’m not going to wait until the last minute again. Time check. It’s 2:30, time to hurry up.

This is how I really write papers: I wait until the last possible minute and the words just flow from my hands like simi-les flow from wherever they pool. I select a topic, usually having to do with something weird or vague so I have more leeway, and google for any sort of info on it. I write whatever it happens to be the night before the paper is due, on my computer, and with little to no attention paid to the specific format the professor dictated. I prefer a sans-serif font, mostly Helvetica, but for your sake I write with a more readable text. More from the prompting list: I don’t write for an audience, I don’t revise or do drafts, and if I have writer’s block, well, you can imagine how that works. The paper is ready to print when it is time for class or time to sleep.

Anyway, moving on, the exception to this really happens when I have a research paper, then the research starts very early. I have outlines, quotes ready, bibliographies waiting, but I still write the night before. My papers get no rough draft; they only get a few moments of fresh air after being printed before they are handed in. I don’t peer review, I don’t go to a writing help center, and I don’t ask the professor if I’m headed in the right direction. Awful system to most, works well for me. I think it allows my voice to come through and gives the work a more natural feel when I’m not trying to wring every last bit of amateurism from each sentence.

On to email… I don’t write professional email as that description would look a whole lot more important than this one. I send links, one word replies, and requests for money to my parents. That’s about it. The time it takes me to prepare for writing an email is the time it takes me to move my mouse to reply after reading one. Or the time it takes to hit compose.

There is no more preparing than that; I put less thought into email than I do into instant messages. I suppose there is the exception of when I email professors as those start with a greeting, well-formed sentences, and nice wording. Then a signature and it’s off. If this paragraph were an email, it would be far too long.

iChat is my program of choice for instant messages mostly because it is free and already installed. These are a little different for me than I suspect they are for most people. I try to write eloquently and capitalize while I make use of punctuation so it sound more like I am talking than typing. My IMs are perforated with e…llip… ses… and sem;colons and some very clever drawings using a plethora of punctuation, numbers, and weird cha®a©te®s. My IMs do tend to be short though.

There you are: a comprehensive guide on how to write if you are Tyler Maggiani. Now for a little restatement of the thesis: As you can see, I have covered how I prepare for and write papers, emails, and instant messages. All done!

Solari enables you to talk with your employees, customers, and advocates simply and clearly, because effective communication is vital to your success. We make the complicated simple. © 2009 Solari Communication. All Rights Reserved. www.solari.net Toll Free: 877-879-9330

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