December
2006/January 2007 Newsletter from the Chapter President
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In This Issue
Articles
Announcements
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This year, 2006, has gone by so fast my head is spinning. This has
been a year of challenge, leaning, and change for our chapter. Our chapter
has every reason to be proud of our accomplishments:
- Initiation of a professional education certificate to members for
cumulative hours at STC events
- Establishing a position of influence at the international level
- STC has advised they are excited about the Diversity policy our
committee members worked on and will vote on it at the upcoming
STC Board Meeting
- Our chapter has been approached by several groups for advice
and input regarding technical communication and help with publications
- Our own Leah Guren has been nominated to run for the STC Board
in 2007 (see article below)
- Administration of a Professional Survey that will provide valuable
information to members and the community in coming months
- Selection of a venue and issuing of the call for Proposals for the
2007 STC Israel Convention
- Establishment of a new STC Israel Google Group for free discussion
of STC, STC Israel, and technical communication issues (see article
below)
- Seven value-added events offered to our members and others in the
community
None of these accomplishments would have been possible without the
hard work of volunteers who have given of their time and skills to promote
our chapter and our profession.
We are excited about 2007 as we approach our 40th anniversary as the
oldest STC chapter outside of North America and the 2007 Convention
in June. Special events are being planned, and we are hoping to bring
more than one top-class speaker to Israel as part of our celebration.
Yet there is still much to be done. We need people to help us with
locating venues in the North and South of the country, as well as publicity,
public relations, and more. Why should you volunteer? Everyone knows
volunteering is a commitment and hard work. What do you get out of it?
Beyond honing your professional skills, all I can tell you is that nothing
matches the good feeling when someone writes you a note saying "thank
you, your advice was just what I needed to help me at work". Over
the years, the feeling that I have been helping others is what has made
volunteering worthwhile.
As we look ahead to 2007, I hope that some of you will be inspired
to share of your professional skills to help STC and our colleagues
in Israel. Ultimately, STC Israel is about promoting our profession
and professionalism in technical communication in Israel.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a happy
Hanukkah, and a prosperous and rewarding 2007.
Debbie Shapiro
President, STC Israel
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Long-time STC Israel member, Leah Guren, has been nominated as a candidate
for a Director position on the 2007 STC elections. Leah is one of the
few international (that is, non-North American) members ever nominated
for a society-level position, and is a first for STC Israel.
"STC is an international organization, but traditionally, all
society-level leadership positions were filled by Americans, and the
society had a markedly American-centric perspective," said Leah.
"Those of us who have been active in leadership in non-North American
chapters have been working for years to make STC more aware of global
issues and more sensitive to the needs and concerns of international
members. The fact that our 2007 incoming president (Mark Clifford) is
not from the US shows a significant shift in STC perspective."
Leah's training schedule allows her to meet STC members around the
world, which gives her an interesting perspective on the differences
and commonalities between chapters. "STC Israel members tend to
be documenting cutting-edge hi-tech products, while many of their North
American colleagues are working with manufacturing, policies and procedures,
and service industries. Our members also seem to be using more advanced
techniques (tools, single sourcing, etc.). As a group, our members tend
to come into this profession at a more mature age. In addition, the
financial reality of life in Israel is quite different from America.
Our needs are different, and so are the needs of members in India, Poland,
or China. But despite all this, we all want similar goals of professional
growth and success."
When asked about the new tiering policy, Leah responded, "It is
a step in the right direction, and it didn't happen in a vacuum. The
change reflects almost ten years of discussion and debate, and it is
a sign of STC's commitment to be a truly international organization."
Leah's nomination does not guarantee her a position! There are seven
candidates for three Director positions, and your vote counts.
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Towards the end of the last century, our chapter was holding a number
of events of interest to local TCs, which I attended as editor of the
newsletter, i-contact, accompanied by what was then considered state-of-the-art,
cutting edge photographic technology. I digitally snapped accommodating
TCs with fervor but clearly, there was a limit to the number of pictures
that could be published in a hard-copy, 8-page newsletter. Thus was
born the idea of electronically complementing i-contact, together with
Yigal Rahamim, CEO of TDS, who provided the technical know-how and resources
to build and launch the site.
Over time, the site filled the vacuum left by the phase-out of i-contact,
as it provided a means for all TCs, and not only STC members, to access
information on events, articles, TC resources and courses, and to learn
about developments in the profession. It also provided a symbiotic connection
with STC international, in effect, bringing Israeli TCs into the family
of chapters within the STC organization. Our website fully adhered to
society standards, as we were obliged to do.
Although the design of the website has changed over the years, it's
sunny logo, created by Yigal's talented graphic artist, Tami Guetta,
has remained a constant.
During the period that I had the privilege of working with Yigal on
the website, one incident remains distinct in my memory. Through Yigal's
contacts in the Ministry of Defense, I interviewed Mustafa
Askari, a TC - I think the sole TC - from Jordan. Somehow, I reached
his mother, with whom he was on vacation in London, and left a message
for him saying, "This is Patricia from Israel." Five words
whose simplicity belies their significance. One of Mustafa's projects
had been to localize into Arabic an Israeli product called Quicktionary.
Yigal also put me in touch with a TC from Russia, Mikhail
Ostrogorskij, the executive director of a Russian tech-writing company
called Philosoft, who had visited Israel in early August 1999. (Click
the links on their names to read these articles - which are still on
our website!)
At some point, Debbie Shapiro joined Yigal and myself, later assuming
sole responsibility for the site. Debbie was instrumental in evolving
the website into the serious resource it is today, adding the forums
and a host of other features, as well as a new interface. Today, the
website is ably managed by Moshe Chertoff and Debbie Pulver.
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Our Own Chani Sacharen Published in Intercom!
If you are a member of STC Israel, don't miss December's issue of Intercom.
Chani Sacharen has had an article published on the topic of her experience
in using plasma screens to promote dynamic internal company communication.
Don't
miss reading this timely article!
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In recent days, some of you may have received invitations or notifications
that you have been added to a Google Group. As part of our effort to enable
as broad communication as possible between our members and others interested
in STC Israel activities, and because we have been limited in how we can
disseminate that information, we have started several Google Groups. Please
note the following:
- We have started special groups that are only sending out information
to our members and colleagues. This was necessary since our own tool
for handling mailing lists was "buggy" and we have received
complaints from several people that they are not receiving announcements
about our events.
- We have also opened a discussion group to enable easy communication
between one and all on all STC related topics, including events, car
pools, and of course, our own profession.
- Apologies if you receive this message more than once. Hope you will
excuse a few teething troubles with the group. If you do have a problem,
please write to webmaster@stc-israel.org.il
or to members@stc-israel.org.il
if you are an STC member.
Please advise as many colleagues as you can about this new way of accessing
information about our services to the community.
Special thanks to Jo Levitt and Moshe Chertoff for their hard work in
setting up the groups. Click
HERE for details.
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Next AC Meeting: 28 January 2007
The next AC meeting is planned for Sunday, 28 January, at 17:30.
Venue: Office-4-U in Tel Aviv.
Preliminary Agenda
- Prepare new slate for elections
- Convention Update
- 2007 Events
- Planning for survey presentation and award ceremony
We look forward to seeing you there and welcome all of your comments,
suggestions, and ideas.
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A total of 230 technical communicators
participated in our professional survey. We are currently analyzing
the data and plan to have some very interesting data to present to you
sometime in February. However, in the meantime, we thought you would
be interested to know a little bit more about the results. We have been
able to get a very interesting picture of our community and the way
we work.
- 42% of participants work 46 to 50 hours a week (why are we NOT surprised?)
- 63% of participants work for companies that employ over 200 people
- The majority of respondents have been working in the profession
for 6-15 years
- The primary language in which we communicate at work is Hebrew,
although the primary language in which we write is English
- Quite a few people use both FrameMaker and MS Word in their place
of work, as reflected by this statistic: 86% of the respondents use
Word, and 51% use FrameMaker!
We look forward to having a lot more interesting and useful information
to share with you sometime in February!
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Professional Education Certificates for STC
Israel Members
This year we held seven 2-hour events. Members who attended will be
receiving professional education certificates for up to 14 hours of
training. The certificates will be suitable for framing, and can also
be copied and presented to your supervisors as evidence of your pursuit
of ongoing learning in your profession.
Certificates should be mailed out by the end of January.
NOTE: We are looking for a volunteer to help prepare the certificates.
If you can help, please contact Debbie.
Thank you! (I will be overseas until January 12, but will answer your
email on my return)
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STC Israel Elections: Call for Nominations
to AC
STC Israel is an integral part of STC, the largest international professional
society in the world dedicated to the advancement of the theory and
practice of technical communication. Its membership is divided among
eight regions, with STC Israel assigned to Region 2.
For more information about STC international, see http://www.stc.org/
The Administrative Council (AC) of the Israeli chapter of the Society
for Technical Communication (STC) is looking for enthusiastic and capable
members to fill the following roles:
- President
- Vice President
- Treasurer
- Secretary
According to STC bylaws, the vice president supports the president
throughout his/her tenure in preparation for assuming the role of chapter
president a year later. This year, the Nomination Committee is considering
appointing two vice presidents and expanding the role to include responsibility
for coordinating volunteers. All positions on the AC are voluntary and
are for a 1-year period.
Over the years, STC Israel has expanded its activities and now provides
a regular series of events aimed at keeping local TCs on a par with
our counterparts abroad. In 2003, our chapter, presided over by David
Marcus z'l, launched its first conference, which was a resounding success.
Veteran members continue to advance the interests of local TCs but
it is now time to welcome newer members into the fold of chapter activity.
We are looking for members with a novel approach and stimulating ideas
to join the AC and overwhelm us with their energy and enthusiasm.
In the next few days, members of the nominating committee will be approaching
members whom they consider qualified to fill the open AC positions.
However, if you want to contribute to being a chapter activist, and
instrumental in setting the direction for our professional development
in the coming years, don't wait for an invitation.
Please write
or call our nomination committee:
- Paul Bernstein: 054-4575263
- Patricia Carmel: 054-4922958
The schedule for this year's election is as follows:
- Nominating Committee convenes and begins soliciting nominations
by end of December
Since only members can run, members must renew in December, in time
to be considered for the slate
- Announcement of final slate in January 2007
- Elections (or confirmation of nominees in new position) to be by
the end of February.
- New Administrative Council takes office in March 200
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Upcoming Events
This coming year looks to be an exciting one as we look at the events
already being planned by our Events Committee. As you look at the events
below, please consider offering
a venue.
I want to take this opportunity to thank Lisa Tsabari, Ester Halac,
Marla Marom, and Eliram Braudo for their
hard work over the past year, and all of their efforts in making
2007 events even more exciting!
January 2007
Style Guides, Branding and Content Models
This event will discuss what it takes to write, develop and follow the
guidelines in your company's style guide.
February 2007
40th Anniversary Event: Presenting results
from STC Israel's professional survey, and award ceremony
February 2007
Content Management: Why XML? Which DTD?
This event will help you understand why documentation departments are
moving to XML. We will look at related standards and take a closer look
at "formatted" authoring versus "structured" authoring.
March 2007
Content Management: Do you need a Content Management
System and, if so, which one?
This session builds on the previous event. It will discuss the popular
pain points documentation departments have, and why a CMS can help remove,
or ease, them.
April 2007
Single-sourcing with Word 2007 & RHx6
New opportunities for document reuse and more.
Rolling out the next version of RoboHelp.
4 June 2007
STC Israel Convention. The Proactive Technical
Communicator: Multiple Disciplines, Multiple Perspectives
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