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President's Corner
by Deb Lockwood
 As members of the STC RMC, you have many resources from which to glean information about our profession including websites (www.stc.org and www.stcrmc.org), the annual conference, and publications (Intercom and Technical Communication). In this month’s column I’d like to point out some of the STC resources available to you.
Your local chapter supplies the following features through the chapter website:
- Salary survey: Every two years the chapter publishes a salary survey that contains information about the “going rate” technical communicators receive for their services in the Colorado area. The latest survey, conducted in December 2005, is located at http://www.stcrmc.org/salary/2005/salary_2005.htm.
- Jobs: We support an active job line for employers and job seekers. This free service is available at http://stcrmc.org/jobs_freelance/jobline.htm.
- Jobs list: The email jobs list gives STC RMC members a jump on other folks who might view the jobs on our chapter website. To sign up for this list send an email to jobs@stcrmc.org. The jobs manager will verify your status as an STC RMC member and add you to the list.
- Discussion list: The discussion list is a valued benefit of membership. This list allows STC RMC members to query their peers about issues from tools to tasks, from advice to opinions. To join the list, see http://www.stcrmc.org/chapter/mailing_list.htm.
- Newsletter: We publish our award-winning online newsletter, Technicalities, six times a year. This newsletter is full of articles relevant to our profession. Also, the newsletter gives our members a vehicle through which to submit articles for publication. The latest issue is available at http://stcrmc.org/technicalities/current.htm. Back issues are also available through this page.
- Other resources: Many other resources are available at http://www.stcrmc.org/resources/resources.htm.
- Meetings: One of the major benefits of STC membership is attending meetings. We have had a full slate of excellent speakers whose topics have been widely varied. To see what topics are upcoming, go to http://stcrmc.org/news_events/program_calendar.htm.
The www.stc.org website also contains some great resources. Among them are:
- STC member forum: Do you have opinions that you would like to express? If so, consider going to the STC member forum at http://stcforum.org/. Your fellow professionals are discussing a wide variety of topics at this forum. There are discussions occurring about STC and its communities as well as the technical communication profession, including the following topics:
- Careers, training, education
- Business, science, technology, engineering
- Content development and management
- Design, architecture, retrieval
- Online help
- Standards
- Web development and web media
- Writing and editing
- Insurance: Have you ever needed to know about private health insurance? Go to http://www.stc.org/stcmembers/insuranceProgram01.asp for information about the STC program available through Marsh Affinity Group Services.
- Research: Do you want to research a technical communication topic? Try searching the annual conference proceedings at http://www.stc.org/pubs/proceedings01.asp. Or search through the articles from Intercom (http://www.stc.org/intercom/) or Technical Communication (http://www.stc.org/pubs/techcommGeneral01.asp).
- Competitions: Would you like to submit an entry to the STC competition? The STC RMC is not sponsoring a local competition, but you can submit to another chapter’s competition. These competitions usually occur in the fall and cover online communication, technical art, and technical publications. Go to http://www.stc.org/comp/internationalCompetitions01.asp for details.
- Jobs: Would you like to see what kinds of jobs employers are posting? Go to the STC Career Center (http://jobs.stc.org/home/index.cfm?site_id=360). STC members have free access to the job-seeker portion of the website.
- STC: Do you want to know more about how the STC is structured or how it runs? See the society’s administrative documents at http://www.stc.org/stcmembers/adminDocs01.asp.
- Technical communicators: Do you need to find another technical communicator—perhaps someone you met at a conference—but you cannot remember his last name? Use the member directory at http://www.stc.org/stcmembers/directory01.asp to locate him by first name.
- Salary survey: Do you need to prove your worth to your employer? See the salary survey at http://www.stc.org/stcmembers/salarySurvey01.asp. The STC conducts this survey once a year, and the results cover technical communicators in the US and Canada.
No matter the issue, if it’s related to technical communication, you’ll likely find information about it on the STC websites, either at the chapter level or the society level. And remember to try the search capabilities on either site. Good luck and happy hunting!
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