July Meeting Review

by Deb Lockwood

On July 12, 2007, the STC Rocky Mountain Chapter had the honor of hosting a meeting at which our speaker was none other than Susan Burton, STC’s national Executive Director. Susan joined the STC last August and has presented this program to several chapters.

Susan has over 30 years’ experience in managing non-profit organizations and has worked for eight different associations, for three of those as Chief Executive Officer. She has consulted with over 150 other associations.

Susan clarified that the STC is a charitable, educational foundation and has a 501(c)3 status under the U.S. tax code. This means we are a not-for-profit organization, but not that we can’t make money—we certainly can. The restriction is that the funds must be used for the benefit of the organization’s members.

Susan began the presentation with an overview of basic facts about the STC:

• The STC was founded in 1953 and incorporated in New York State.
• The organization is headquartered in Virginia.
• The office has 14 full-time staff members and contractors and three part-time staff members.
• We employ outside legal counsel.

The STC is governed by a 14-member board of directors that includes five officers, the immediate past president, and eight directors. These are volunteer positions. The organization sponsors over 130 geographic chapters and 20 special interest groups (SIGs), which are virtual communities.

One of Susan’s recent initiatives has been to create a new Community Relations Manager, who will help communities as they strive to provide value to their membership. Evelyn McCarney has been hired to perform these duties.

The Leadership Community Resource (LCR) is a way that we can benefit from the experience of others. This initiative, run by volunteers, has gathered resources that help leaders more effectively run their communities.

Susan talked about the vision for STC’s future. This vision includes some exciting initiatives and will help us bring STC internal systems into the 21st century, including updating the home-grown accounting system and the membership database, and creating a new website for the STC office. The new accounting system is already in place and the membership database is almost ready to go. While it will take time to develop the website, the analysis process has already begun.

Another initiative is to help technical communicators tell our powerful story to the community by raising the image of what we do and changing the perception of our profession. In pursuit of this goal, the STC is championing an initiative to redefine our profession with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Currently the BLS classification for technical writers says that we “write technical materials, such as equipment manuals, appendices, or operating and maintenance instructions [and] may assist in layout work.” Few of us today actually meet that description.

To replace this outmoded definition, the STC has proposed that the title be changed from technical writer to technical communicator and that the definition be changed to the following: “Develop and design instructional and informational tools needed to assure safe, easy, proper, and complete use of technical goods and services. Combine multi-media knowledge and strong communication skills with technical expertise to educate across the entire spectrum of users’ abilities, technical experience, and visual and auditory capabilities.”

Susan encouraged all STC members to tell our powerful story by doing the following:

• Submit articles to Intercom.
• Participate in SIG and chapter discussions.
• Respond to requests on surveys.
• Go to STC-sponsored conferences.

You can see Susan’s PowerPoint presentation on the STC RMC website at stcrmc.org/news_events/meetings/2006-2007/july07.pp