Cultural Considerations in Technical Communication Training: Navigating a Globalized World

By Megan Khotko

Editor’s note: This article is the winner of the 2023 IDL SIG Student Outreach Article-writing Competition. Megan Khotko  is a graduate student at Minnesota’s  Metropolitan State University, where she is working towards earning her master’s degree in Technical Communication and a graduate certificate in Learner Design. Congratulations, Megan!

In an age of unprecedented globalization, the interconnectedness of people and organizations across borders has become a defining feature of our world. This remarkable shift highlights the immediate need for technical writing that is not only effective but also culturally sensitive. The traditional one-size-fits-all approach to teaching technical communication is now woefully insufficient in meeting the demands of our diverse and interconnected society. The intricate web of cultural nuances and preferences in written publications emerges as a striking challenge for educators. It becomes ever more apparent that a more adaptable and culturally sensitive approach to technical writing is now imperative. Here are three fundamental pillars for instilling effective cross-cultural technical communication practices.

Continue reading “Cultural Considerations in Technical Communication Training: Navigating a Globalized World”

MiniConference schedule, presentations and presenters

STC IDL SIG & WDCB Fall Frightfest MiniConference: What scares you and how you faced it down

Register on Eventbrite, if you dare!

Come and talk about what scares you and how you faced it down.

When? October 21, 2023

  • 10:30 am – 16:00 ET
  • 09:30 am – 15:00 CT
  • 08:30 am – 14:00 MT
  • 07:30 am – 13:00 PT

Where? Zoom (of course)

Registration prices:

  • Free to Students, academics, retirees, volunteers and presenters (to volunteer, email programs@stcidlsig.org)
  • STC IDL SIG Members $5.00
  • STC Members $20.00
  • NonMembers $40.00

The all-day virtual MiniConference provides a variety of educational sessions related to technical communication, instructional design, and learning.

We are excited to announce that our keynote speaker will be Phylise Banner, a recognized superhero and pioneer in the LX design space. Read more about Banner on her website and share in our excitement.

Our day will be both educational and fun. Grab your Zoom-friendly Halloween costume, play a few warmup games, and maybe even win a prize. See the schedule and read more about the presentations and presenters below.


Schedule of Eerie educational sessions with nightmarish networking breaks

All times Eastern

  • 10:30 am – Grisly games and intimidating intros with Villainous Viqui Dill
  • 11:00 am – Killer Keynote with Phrightful Phylise Banner
  • 11:45 am – “Caldron Bubble: Incorporating Cookbook Design Elements into Technical Documentation” with Jittery Jamye Sagan
  • 12:30 pm – Buzzworthy BioBreak #1
  • 12:45 pm – “Somebody’s Watching Me: Make Presenting on Zoom Not-So-Scary” with Rogue Rachel Eichen
  • 1:30 pm – “Are your presentations frightfully ineffective? Let’s do better.” with Terrifying Traci Nathans-Kelly, Ph.D
  • 2:15 pm – Bewildering Break #2
  • 2:30 pm – “We Need New Blood: Creating Video Content” with Murderous Maralee Sautter
  • 3:15 pm – “Supercharge your Documentation through Storytelling Superpowers” with Alex Hale
  • 4:00 pm – Beastly BioBreak #3 to get in costume
  • 4:20 pm – Wicked Wrapup and Chilling costume prizes: Villainous Viqui Dill
  • 5:00 pm – Go home happy!

Presentations and presenters

Killer Keynote with Phrightful Phylise Banner

We are excited to announce that our keynote speaker will be Phylise Banner, a recognized superhero and pioneer in the LX design space. Read more about Banner on her website and share in our excitement.


Caldron Bubble: Incorporating Cookbook Design Elements into Technical Documentation with Jittery Jamye Sagan

Cookbooks not only contain a treasure trove of not only delicious recipes and anecdotes, but also serve as prime examples of solid technical communication. After all, recipes use words and images to help explain how to prepare a specific dish.

In this presentation, we will examine several examples of effective recipe design elements from various cookbook recipes. These examples will focus on the following elements of cookbook recipes:

  • Overall layout, including columns and use of space
  • Images, including photographs and drawings
  • Text, including font styles and the wording itself.

As we examine each design element, we will also learn how they help make instructions – the recipe –easy to understand. We will then show how to apply them in our own technical communication deliverables, including job aids and quick reference guides.

Thus, cleanly-formatted and well-worded recipes from cookbooks can serve as the recipe for success in creating clear and concise technical communication.

About the Speaker

As the Pharmacy Communication Advisor for H-E-B, Jamye helps design training programs and materials for various projects and initiatives within the pharmacy department. She also manages communications between the corporate office and the store pharmacies.

An Associate Fellow of STC, Jamye serves as the current President of the South Central Texas chapter. She also volunteers with the Instructional Design and Learning SIG as its Treasurer and Survey Manager and belongs to various SIGs. Jamye has also volunteered at the Society level in various roles, including the Community Affairs Committee, the Community Achievement Award and Pacesetter Award committees, and the Associate Fellow committee. Over the past several years, she has reviewed several publications for the Technical Communication journal.

When not making “sense out of the seemingly senseless” in the tech comm world, Jamye enjoys transforming yarn into pretty and useful objects. She lives in San Antonio, TX.


Somebody’s Watching Me: Make Presenting on Zoom Not-So-Scary with Rogue Rachel Eichen

Rachel Eichen has a varied career history across multiple fields of communication, technology, and training. She has over 10 years of in-person and remote teaching experience in a variety of industries including: casinos, financial institutions, restaurants, hospitals, libraries. She even taught computer classes on a cruise ship! She has experience training all sorts of software applications including Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop, and web applications such as Google Apps and Facebook. In a former life, she was a technical writer where she learned about the software lifecycle and documented instructions. She also has a variety of technical skills, including a mix of programming, networking, and web-design. Rachel holds a Master’s degree in Library & Information Science and a bachelor’s degree in Technical Writing.


Are your presentations frightfully ineffective? Let’s do better with Terrifying Traci Nathans-Kelly, Ph.D.

Currently serving as the Robert N. Noyce Director of the Engineering Communication Program in the College of Engineering, Cornell University. Nathans-Kelly has a special interest in social justice and techquity issues, along with online teaching modalities. She interacts daily to help engineers and pre-professional engineers to hone their technical messaging, whether it be via presentations, on paper, in meetings and teams, or online channels. Read more and connect with her on LinkedIn.


We need new blood: Creating video content with Murderous Maralee Sautter

IDL’s own co-manager will talk us through her latest challenge: making a recruiting video for volunteers. Sautter has been a technical writer and instructional designer in the industries of high-tech/software, health, science, transportation, education, and government (Intel, Xerox, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Cambia, Regency/Blue Cross, City of Vancouver (WA), and more). Her favorite title is educator since she was an adjunct instructor at Portland State University for over 12 years. Currently, she is the manager of the Instructional Design & Learning SIG. Connect with her on LinkedIn.


Supercharge your Documentation through Storytelling Superpowers with Alarming Alex Hales

Alex Michael Hales will take us on a wild ride, using Marvel and DC characters (and their powers) as metaphors for different writing techniques and tools practitioners can use day to day. Hales is a Technical Writer based in Mesa, Arizona. He loves researching, brainstorming, conceptualizing, and drafting content.

Find out more and connect with Hales on his website.


Horrifying Hosting by Villainous Viqui  Dill

Viqui Dill is an STC Associate Fellow who loves connecting people to communities and giving everyone a voice. Dill loves a good story. She can’t remember a time when she did not want to grab a guitar and start a sing along. As worship arts pastor for the exchange church in Winchester, VA, she gets to live the dream every other week. The Dills have a family band, the Dill Pickers, and Dill sometimes plays in a mostly girl band of mammas, Hot Flash. She describes herself as “Technical writer, wife and mom, bass player, worship leader, I’m happiest when folks sing along with me.” Connect on LinkedIn or just google her unusually spelled name to connect.


 

Student Outreach Article Competition returns for 2023

By Marcia ShannonStudent Outreach Coordinator

We are redesigning some parts of our Student Outreach Article Competition for 2023. The major change is that articles from students about instructional design will be accepted from February 1 through November 1, 2023. We hope this will allow us to publish at least one student essay in each quarterly issue of IDeaL

The prize for each published essay will continue to be a one-year paid student membership in STC and the IDL SIG, to be awarded for the year after the essay is published. If you will not be a student in that year, you will be awarded that amount toward your STC membership

If you are an undergraduate or graduate student, or if you are enrolled in a certificate program for instructional design, you are eligible to submit an essay. 

What should you write about? Tell us about a concept or practice that caught your interest, or surprised you, or confused you about some aspect of instructional design. Did you complete a group project that concentrated on a particular idea in ID? Have you submitted classwork that could be shared with the wider audience of ID professionals? 

If you are changing careers, which previous job skills are transferable to instructional design? How did you figure that out? Can you compare and contrast business training practices with ID concepts?

Use our First Fridays @ Five social hour to float essay ideas, to ask for help, or to offer some to other students. 

Essays should be 500 to 1000 words.

The Student Outreach Essay competition can be the first step to building your published portfolio. We have seen webinars grow out of articles, giving you another opportunity to expand your professional presence. The website information will be updated soon and more information will be included in email announcements. 

Email any questions to the Membership Manager.

 

First Fridays at 5: Student Liaison Report

By Ruth-Anne Klassen

Our IDL Student Liaisons enjoyed working on the First Fridays at 5 program in 2021. First Fridays @ 5 offered students a chance to practise presenting and hosting a meeting. Those who challenged themselves to take on this opportunity met a friendly audience and learned from a supportive community.

At May’s meeting, Megan and Anita talked about the benefits of joining the IDL SIG as student members. Student members have access to career-building resources like free webinars, competitions, and volunteer opportunities. Along with joining the conversation on Slack, students can participate in the IDL community to learn from other technical communicators. 

For the June virtual gathering, Anita shared her experience converting her in-person quilting guild to a digital group. She described how she engaged people who were not previously familiar with online formats, hosted a flipped classroom (in which participants review material before class and work on assignments during class time), and created effective quilting manuals for the class.

July’s First Friday was a time to network, often drawing from Zoom virtual backgrounds to give inspiration for the conversation. We talked about past experiences with science museums and hobbies and looked forward to future STC events.

Anita hosted the August meeting with a presentation about how to use Slack effectively. She addressed topics like how to create or edit a profile, how to manage notifications, how to manage availability status, and how to send a message to a channel or individual.

In September, Ruth-Anne led us in showing parts of our lives in Zoom Virtual Backgrounds. We witnessed travel pictures, admired pets or family members, and got to know both new and familiar attendees better.

Kristie talked in the October meeting about the need for precise communication in technical writing and in life. Based on her experience as a patient in the healthcare system, she spoke about how words like “treatment” can have ambiguous meanings, so it is important to choose words wisely.

Ruth-Anne led November’s meeting with insight and ideas about working in a multi-generational workplace. Diverse age groups contribute to the workforce, and this diversity presents the possibility for conflict, but also for respect and collaboration. In the conversation that followed, we discussed how we respect people, such as by using their preferred name and being aware of our unconscious biases.

At the December get-together we told personal and professional stories, ranging from funny to embarrassing. Some stories involved mistaken 911 calls and the struggle of finding the right winter boot size. Folks also exchanged stories of faulty tech comm translations to other languages and unpleasant clients.

This past year, students have enjoyed improving their skills and learning from other members as they work to become better technical communicators. Next year, we are welcoming anyone interested to present at First Fridays @ 5 meetups. If you would like to get involved in this way, contact studentliaison@stcidlsig.org to discuss further. 

Signed,

Ruth-Anne Klassen

Student Liaison, IDL SIG

Student Outreach Corner

By Mellissa Ruryk

We have welcomed three new volunteers to our ranks since Paul issued the last newsletter, two of whom are students. Students are helping with short-duration tasks or signing up to take responsibility for one social media channel (for a length of time) with mentoring from Jannetta Lamourt, our social media manager.

Priyank Aggarwal, living in New Delhi, India, has stepped up to start and manage conversations and announcements in the #sig-instructional-design channel in the STC Slack Workspace. We use the channel to spark conversations about instructional design and learning among people interested or practicing in the discipline. Priyank is an IT Professional with several years of experience in IT training development, management and quality assurance.

Ruth-Anne Klassen, living in Calgary, Alberta, has a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology from Ambrose University. She has a great article about volunteering at the Summit elsewhere in this issue of the newsletter. Ruth-Anne is going to run the next First Fridays at Five, In November. We’ll be discussing “Diverse Roles, Common Goals: Working With Multiple Generations in the Workplace.” How can we better with different generations in the workplace, without regard to your age? We will learn and share ideas for working in a diverse workforce, and as usual, chat and network and laugh.

Edel Pace, from Tennessee, is studying Professional Writing with a minor in Creative Mass Media at the University of Memphis. Not surprisingly, we will use her social media skills after she helps “refresh” the Student Outreach Article Writing Competition materials. Edel is doing this work in the context of a university assignment where Mellissa Ruryk, Student Outreach manager, will act as her client. In her own words, “I want to participate in the community and be an active volunteer. As a student, this will provide me with valuable real-life experience and help me meet professionals in the field.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. The best way to gain real-life experience and network is to volunteer in your favorite Special Interest Group or a geographic chapter. Join us through this Eventbrite link.

Speaking of the competition…

Student Article-Writing Competition deadline is November 12. 

If you are a student enrolled in any post-secondary program of Instructional Design & Learning, you have exactly enough time to write and submit a 1,000-2,500 word article on almost any aspect of ID before the deadline. Learn everything you need to know about the competition on our website under the Students link. You could be published before you graduate and can link to your article on our website and in our newsletter. It’s a great addition to your portfolio and can help you stand out in a field of applicants. 

If you are a student and an STC member, please reach out to me to see how the IDL SIG can help you now and when you graduate.

Mellissa Ruryk

Student Outreach Manager

studentOutreach@stcidlsig.org