Random thoughts about publishing

Site Feed

Labels

Palimpsest has moved. Please visit our blog in its new location for the most recent posts from Scriptorium.

Palimpsest

 

Manifest(o) destiny

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 — posted by Sarah O'Keefe

When I hear these discussions, it blows me away because I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. I admit, the look and feel of paper can provide a comfortable reading experience if you’re immersed in a 200 page novel lying on your bed on a rainy day. But the Intercom and other professional magazines or journals are not novels. With professional publications like these, the online format better matches the reading behavior of the audience. In fact, online formats provide more than a dozen advantages that print formats lack, including everything from interactivity to portability, feeds, metrics, multimedia, and more.

Labels: STC

11:26 PM Permalink | |

 

Some thoughts on "free"

Tuesday, July 07, 2009 — posted by Sarah O'Keefe

Chris Anderson (author of The Long Tail and editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine) has just published Free: The Future of a Radical Price. The book is available (not free) in all the usual outlets, but you can also read it on scribd. For free.

Reviews, so far, are mixed. Malcolm Gladwell, writing in the New Yorker, didn't like it. The New York Times, not so much a fan. And there was an ugly little kerfluffle about attribution (or lack thereof) of content sourced from Wikipedia. Emma Duncan, writing for the Guardian, liked it.

This book is important because Anderson is attempting to define a taxonomy of different types of "free." Business and organizations face the difficult challenge of figuring out what should and should not be free. To give you a tiny, itty-bitty example, Scriptorium offers a series of white papers, technical references, and books. What's the difference between a white paper and a technical reference? The white papers are free, the tech references are not. Costs range from $10 to $200. But how do we decide whether a document should be free or not? We are still trying to figure out the right answer. As Anderson points out, the incremental cost of producing additional e-books (after the first one) is zero. Should all digital content be free? We have chosen, for the most part, to charge for books and for the more technical documents. White papers, which typically provide an overview of a technology or methodology, are generally free. We feel that this is a fair representation of our actual development costs.

Meanwhile, our friendly neighborhood technical communication organization is trying to figure out some similar issues. Currently, the STC web site has public content (free) and members-only content (not free).

The major argument I'm hearing from STC leadership for locking down content is basically that otherwise, people will be able to use the content without paying for it. In other words, the value of the STC membership is that it gives you access to members-only content. This logic would make some amount of sense if STC held a monopoly on content related to technical communication. It does not.

So, what happens when you lock down content and hide it from non-members? You lose the opportunity to participate in the community. You lose the opportunity to have non-members read your content, decide you are useful, and join the Society. You lose the opportunity for inbound links.

Similar logic applies to forums, wikis, and online communities. Members and non-members should be able to participate. Perhaps members get special badges in their profiles to indicate membership, but communities derive value from participation, and open access means more participation.

If stc.org can be transformed into a vital hub for the technical communication community, the organization itself will do fine. In a moment of apparent insanity, I have offered to help with this effort. If you'd like to join me, contact me in the comments below, via Twitter (@sarahokeefe), on the STC Ideas forum (stcideas.ning.com), or via whatever avenue makes the most sense to you. (Email and phone contact information are in the main part of our web site.)

Labels: STC

2:21 AM Permalink | |

 

Whither STC?

Friday, June 19, 2009 — posted by Sarah O'Keefe

As you may have heard, STC is in a financial crisis. According to the board of directors meeting minutes from May 5, 2009 (PDF, page 2), STC must retain membership "for the next year or STC will be out of business in two years." There's a lively discussion on Twitter under the #stcorg hashtag.

For example, Bill Swallow (@techcommdood) wrote: "From STC I want innovation, education, and communication. Right now I get advertising, magazines, and frustration. #stcorg"

STC itself has requested feedback via private email, on Twitter with the #stcorg tag, and on a "private online forum." I appreciate the idea, but I prefer to share my thoughts here, where anyone can read and comment on them.

According to the June 18 email message from Cindy Currie (STC president), the "unprecedented financial shortfall" is being caused by "the recession's negative impact on our traditional sources of revenue." Although it's certainly true that the recession has caused a decline in membership along with a decline in conference attendance (the biggest two sources of income for STC), the recession is not the root cause of the problem.

The root cause is that STC is not perceived as sufficiently important by its membership. After all, a member could pay $200 for a membership by dropping cable television for a couple of months. Getting rid of cable for a year would come close to paying for conference attendance. It is true, of course, that a few members are in serious financial trouble due to layoffs or reduced income. In most cases, however, I think the member (or the sponsoring employer) has simply decided that STC (or the conference) does not offer enough value to justify the cost.

I have been an STC member for many years, and am an associate fellow. I participate in the annual conference both as a speaker and as an exhibitor. My company is a member of the Corporate Value Program. I have served on a couple of society-level committees and initiatives. This doesn't make me a typical member, but I think it does give me a fairly broad perspective on the organization as a whole.

I believe that STC needs to make some significant changes in the following areas.

Velocity
Industry developments are fast and furious, and STC has not kept pace. For the STC conference, generally held in May, proposals are due the preceding summer. I turned in an article for Intercom on June 16, which will appear in the September issue. Chris Hester (@chris_oh) said it best on twitter: "Why pay for a pub when it uses content that was on blogs months earlier?"

STC needs to increase what the military calls operational tempo. Intercom, as many others have said, probably needs to evolve into an online publication to cut down the publication time. This has some significant advantages:

• Faster publishing
• Cheaper publishing by eliminating print production, paper, and distribution costs
• Ability to publish more often

There is concern that putting Intercom online (and, by the way, I do not mean in PDF format) would put a dent in advertising revenue. It will. However, my company does not currently advertise in Intercom because we think the rates are too high and the value is not there. I would greatly prefer advertising in an online Intercom. I would also expect those rates to be significantly lower than the equivalent print ad. Providing Intercom online would open up advertising to many smaller companies. Would it be more profitable? I don't know, but it would be a better, more relevant, publication, so that's a start.

Similarly, the proposal process for the annual conference needs to be compressed significantly. With nine months of lead time, it's impossible to provide relevant content. And please don't tell me "it can't be done." Joe Welinske of WritersUA usually evaluates proposals in September/October for a March conference. Germany's tekom, which is significantly larger than the STC conference, generally requires proposals in May for a November event. Six months is still a long time, but it's one-third shorter than STC's process.

Community
STC's main value is in providing a sense of community for technical writers/communicators. In the past, the organization delivered community through printed magazines mailed to the membership, through local chapter meetings, and through regional and national conferences. As email lists became popular, STC has provided discussion lists for various SIGs, local chapters, and other groups (for example, there is a chapter presidents' list. Or so I hear).

Today, however, communities of interest are meeting through various social media, and STC has not kept pace. STC should be providing a platform that encourages discussion and collaboration. The obvious template for this is what Scott Abel has done with the Content Wrangler network. STC serves writers; give the writers a place to write blogs, collaborate on a wiki, and the like.

Incidentally, STC Body of Knowledge effort is an excellent example of open collaboration. However, it's quite difficult to find it from the main STC web site. These and other initiatives should all be under the stc.org umbrella. It's not particularly difficult to set up subdomains so that, for example bok.stc.org points to the Body of Knowledge and forum.stc.org points to the forums. And so on.


Openness
Finally, STC needs to embrace a culture of openness. That means:

• Provide open access to Intercom and other publications online. Increase the readership, make the publications more relevant, and therefore increase their appeal to advertisers.
• Provide open access to forums and other collaboration areas. Do not limit them to members only. The STC Single Sourcing SIG recently launched a Ning network (here), but access is restricted not just to STC members but actually to SIG members only. This balkanization reduces the value of the community. Instead, open up participation and build a valuable, must-have resource.
• Improve member communications and especially focus on giving people a way of letting their voices be heard. The virtual town halls now in progress are a good idea, but the process of getting access is too difficult. I finally resorted to begging for help on twitter and got the information I needed in less than five minutes. Unless there is a compelling reason to lock up information, it should be publicly available.
  

Change is hard. Transformational change is painful.
I have worked with many of the people in the STC office and in STC leadership, and it's important to recognize that they are hard-working, smart people. I like them. (One of them is particularly entertaining in a hotel bar at 1 a.m. You Know Who You Are.)

They see the icebergs ahead and are trying hard to navigate through them. The problem is that turning a cruise ship takes time and effort. And, if you'll pardon the tortured analogy, the larger problem is navigating through the ice field is impossible with a huge cruise ship. The correct answer is to step outside today's constraints and rethink the problem. Perhaps we should morph into a submarine and go under the icebergs. At this point, we are still discussing whether to make a 5-degree or a 10-degree turn.

The financial problem that STC faces is a symptom, not the disease. Let's treat the symptom and get through this crisis, but please do not forget about the underlying disease. STC needs more velocity, more community, and more openness.

Update (6/23/2009): Since I published this post, several other bloggers have added their perspectives. Here they are, in no particular order. If I missed your post, please add it in the comments so that readers of this article can find you.

• Lifelines to the STC, Tom Johnson, I'd Rather Be Writing
  
• In Which I Comment on the STC Issue, Keith Anderson, mkanderson.com
• Does the STC Deserve to Survive?, David Farbey, The Blockhead Blog
• It's STC Not STW, Alan Porter, 4J's Group
• The STC Crisis: The take of a "young" writer, Paul Pehrson, Technically Speaking
  
• Bye bye STC, Gordon McLean, one man writes
• STC Floundering?, Keith Soltys, Core Dump
  

Labels: STC

4:11 PM Permalink | |

 

What's happened to my local FrameMaker user's group?

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 — posted by Sheila Loring

The North Carolina FrameMaker User's Network (NCFUN), which became a STC Carolina special interest group, formed over a decade ago to support technical writers in the Raleigh/Durham area. Speakers (local and international) presented on everything from complex autonumbering and FrameMaker plugins to single sourcing and using reference pages. We usually had a topic for beginners and more experienced FrameMaker users.

During the meeting, users had the chance to get advice regarding problems in FrameMaker. We also had the obligatory snacks and refreshments -- not to be underestimated, especially with one sponsor who always served delicious food.

The group also had its own mailing list. Users emailed questions between meetings, and we also sent meeting announcements to the list.

I write in the past tense because the group no longer meets. Over the years, attendance dwindled to a group of 10 and then 5 and then 3 regulars. It became more difficult to get speakers, and toward the end, the few regulars just talked (also not to be underestimated, but still...). I missed having this intimate FrameMaker resource. At every meeting, I learned something and had good geeky fun.

What happened? Did other FrameMaker resources become easier to use? For example, Framers is a very active mailing list with hundreds (maybe over a thousand) subscribers and anywhere from 5 to 20 messages a day. The group has a mailing list, whose archives are a bit difficult to search but are accessible through Google.

Did the time or location make the meeting difficult to get to, were fewer technical writers using FrameMaker, or did the topics no longer have wide appeal?

I suspect the answer is all of the above. Attendance at other STC Carolina special interest groups has also dwindled, and now none of them meet on a regular basis. Perhaps our members had too many groups to choose from each month and just gave up.

Ironically, now that I've been working on some non-FrameMaker projects, I'm less interested in the group, but I'd still like to see what other FrameMaker users are up to. Someone's always using FrameMaker in a creative way.

Have user groups in other parts of the world gone the way of the NCFUN?

Labels: FrameMaker, STC, technical writing, user group

9:59 AM Permalink | |

 

What I've learned as a member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC)

Tuesday, January 06, 2009 — posted by Sheila Loring

I've been a member of the STC Carolina chapter for over 10 years. During that time, I've volunteered in several positions and met a lot of people. Many of them also volunteered for the chapter. One problem we had was finding new volunteers. Many non-profits, in fact, face this problem. Organizations come up with ideas for programs or events that benefit members, but without volunteers, those ideas sit on the table.

In a way, I couldn't understand why a technical writer wouldn't want to volunteer to do SOMETHING. I had fun. It's the best way to get to know other chapter members, plus I learned a lot professionally and personally. Here are a few examples of things I've done and what I've gained:

• FrameMaker SIG manager: Made contacts with FrameMaker users, practiced giving presentations, and picked up lots of tips 'n tricks.
• Competitions committee: Learned how to improve documentation and also discovered what NOT to do. Gained experience managing projects.
• Communications manager: Discovered that sending emails to a 300-member chapter exponentially increases your visibility. People really do read their email.
• Webmaster: Learned how to update web sites in both standard HTML and wiki formats and manage discussion lists. Gained experience juggling tasks, because I was communications manager and webmaster.
• Newsletter production editor: Currently my creative outlet and opportunity to learn how to write and produce publications via a wiki. I also get to do a little editing.
• Vice president: Learned how much work is involved in running a chapter!
• Chapter meeting participant: Learned about all aspects of technical communications -- from career development and writing in Simple English to single sourcing and online help development tools. Also learned how to be more outgoing -- go up and say "hi" to someone and chat. That was really hard at first but has gotten much easier.

In addition to picking up skills, I met dozens of local technical communicators. These tech writers are not introverted, dull people, contrary to the stereotype. Their hobbies are as diverse as riding motorcycles, whittling wood, and participating in triathlons. Some of us meet every few months at a restaurant or theatre. We call it the STC Ladies Night (but it's not an official chapter activity like special interest groups). BTW, if you're a female Carolina chapter member and want to attend, let's talk.

I can't say that every minute has been completely enjoyable. Sometimes the newsletter deadline coincides with a personal crisis, and the last thing I want to do is hunt down graphics for articles. And you can't do everything! You'll WANT to volunteer to do several small things at once, which then amount to one BIG thing, and then life happens. You have a deadline at work or a family member has surgery. This brings me to the next lesson in volunteering -- learning how to say no.

So all in all, my experiences volunteering in the STC Carolina chapter have been very rewarding. I recommend dipping your toes in the water and trying something out. Email or call someone on the administrative council and ask what needs to be done. Start small. You might be surprised at the return on investment.

I'd love to hear about your volunteer experiences. Do share.

Labels: STC, technical writing, volunteering

3:40 PM Permalink | |

© 2009, Scriptorium Publishing Services. Legal Stuff