June/July 2004

Volume 44, Number 6

March chapter meeting review

Senior awards celebration: Strategic planning for your life

by Martha Sippel and Frank Tagader

Drawing on her life experiences and the demands (and sometimes the lack of demand) in the marketplace, Judy Glick-Smith, principal in The GlickSmith Group, Inc. (www.glicksmithgroup.com) in Dallas, rallied STCRMC members to embrace change by taking responsibility for their own lives.

Glick-Smith, a past president of STC as well as past president of the STC Lone Star Chapter, addressed a large group of RMC senior members at a special meeting held in March. Glick-Smith described facing her own personal crises while seeing her traditional technical writing consulting business dwindle, forcing her to make some hard economic choices. Her new consulting firm now includes traditional technical writing, but she put a new "spin" on the message so that her firm now "assists organizations in making their enterprise architecture explicit."

Her talk originated from practical experience, but also looked at the state of our business and economy. She suggested viewing our lives from a metaphysical perspective. Glick-Smith recommended setting goals, meeting them, and adapting them when they don't work out.

Even visionaries are blind-sided

Glick-Smith candidly stated that even visionaries were sometimes taken by surprise. How can you avoid letting catastrophic changes in your industry affect your personal well-being? First, take responsibility for your life plan, make changes accordingly, and find your balance. In other words, be prepared.

Is there a secret to happiness? Saying that "attitude is everything" implies that we can change the future by the way we act, react, and perceive the universe around us. To achieve happiness, you must find what works for you. Glick-Smith's secrets to happiness include the following:

• Know who you are
• Know what you want to accomplish
• Maintain a positive focus
• Be flexible
• Meditate
• Learn to forgive
• Do what you love!!!!!
• Practice continuous reinvention
• Get busy

You might ask, "What does she mean by saying get busy? I am busy!" We all sometimes feel overwhelmed with everyday demands. The solution is to find balance by taking responsibility, following a reinvention process, and reinventing your career and how you adapt to change. Create a plan with measurable goals and objectives so you can review your progress at specific stages along the way. Keep focused on your plan and modify it when necessary to meet the changing times.

Reinventing Your Career

How does one reinvent a career to not only survive but flourish? Glick-Smith suggested many options. One is determining your mission and what is really important to you. To do this, you must take some time for yourself and concentrate on what gives you pleasure in your life. What things make you say, "I feel good about myself and would like to do more of this"?

Define what has to happen and what you need to do to achieve a positive outcome. Spend the time to delineate your goals and objectives and make sure they are measurable so you can assess your progress.

Analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each option. Determine what you love about your job and which careers might use the same skill set. Perform a weighted analysis and choose your best options. Build an action plan based on the decisions, and adjust your life plan accordingly. This is often easier said than done, but if you persevere, you too can enjoy success at creating and living your life plan.

How does your reinvention relate to STC? STC is transforming itself to meet current and future needs of technical communicators, information designers, information architects, and everyone who communicates technical information. It is a difficult and painful process, but one that should benefit STC members and keep the organization healthy and financially sound.

Personal Renewal Parallels

Technical communication has always been a diverse, resilient profession. Today it is more apparent than ever that we need many skills to succeed in our profession. It is even more obvious that the number of specialties we can focus on is increasing so rapidly that it is hard to keep up.

STC's transformation started because our changing economy and industry affected the number of members participating in conferences, seminars, chapters, and SIGs. Declining membership renewals indicated a change in our industry. Major modifications are coming that STC hopes will serve our members better and provide them with a choice of how they want to be served. Recognizing successes and failures indicates that a new organizational model might better serve members.

Glick-Smith thinks that this transformation has come at the right time. Take some time to review Glick-Smith's presentation. Be willing to take responsibility for your professional growth. Be involved in making our profession something in which we can all be proud to participate.

Glick-Smith's presentation is available on the RMC website: http://www.stcrmc.org/news_events/meetings.htm. Scroll down to Past Presentations, and click on "Strategic Planning for your Life."