By Viqui Dill

Hey everybody! We had a great quarter and fantastic Summit 2017. I want to take a minute to say woo hoo and thank you (rhyme intended!).

We climbed the #STC17 Summit!

We attended the STC Summit (https://summit.stc.org/) at the National Harbor near Washington, DC. There are lots of great photos online. I shared a few of our highlight moments in a post on our website: “We had a blast at #STC17” http://www.stcidlsig.org/we-had-a-blast-at-stc17/ . There are hundreds of photos on the STC Office Flickr site https://www.flickr.com/photos/stc_office/. And, you can read more Summit highlights and reflections in the STC Notebook blog https://www.stc.org/notebook/ .

At the Summit, we had our annual business meeting. You can download our presentation from our website: http://www.stcidlsig.org/slides-from-our-stc17-idl-sig-meeting/ .

We earned two awards at the Summit. We received a 2017 Platinum Community Award. Read the official citation on our website http://www.stcidlsig.org/2017-platinum-community-award/ .  We also received a 2017 Pacesetter Community Award for our innovative student article competition. Read the official citation and see a photo of us accepting the award at http://www.stcidlsig.org/2017-pacesetter-award/ .

Another award to celebrate is the Distinguished SIG Service Award earned by our own Crista Mohammed. Read the official citation and a few glowing words about Crista on our website  http://www.stcidlsig.org/crista-mohammed-receives-stc-distinguished-sig-service-award/ .

Thank You

I want to thank a few special members personally for their continued support and contributions to the SIG. The 2017 awards show just how strong we are and we couldn’t have done it without you.

Dear Mellissa Ruryk and Robert Hershenow,

Thank you so much for your leadership in 2015 and 2016. During your time, we earned the Platinum http://www.stcidlsig.org/2017-platinum-community-award/ and Gold http://www.stcidlsig.org/idl-sig-earns-gold-community-award-2015/ SIG awards! You energized and challenged us into becoming the biggest and most active SIG in STC.

Robert, your webinars about audio and PowerPoint are among our most watched and best loved. We look forward to more great sessions from you in the future.

Mellissa, your webinar about Word™ and your hilarious Speak Easy lightning talk were informative and engaging. And we are so happy that you’ll be continuing to travel along this road with us as our new treasurer!

You both showed us how it’s done and led the SIG to great success.

Dear Jim Bousquet,

Thank you so much for your service as our SIG treasurer. You kept us straight and afloat, and were often the voice of reason in our community decisions. We are so proud of you, as you take up your new role as STC Treasurer https://www.stc.org/about-stc/board-of-directors/ . Please do stick around to continue to advise and guide us in the coming year.

Dear Maralee Sautter,

Thank you so much for stepping up as our new webmaster. We are so glad you’re back on the SIG leadership team. Your combination of technical savvy and institutional knowledge are such a gift to us.

Dear Phil Havlik,

Thank you so much for stepping up as our new content curator. This is a new position for us and one that is very valuable to the Society and to the profession of technical communication. We admire your initiative in joining our group and coming forward to volunteer. We look forward to working together to strengthen the Technical Communication Body of Knowledge http://www.tcbok.org/ This is a test pilot role and you’ve got the right stuff!

Dear Sylvia Miller,

Thank you so much for supporting our student outreach program. You helped develop and organize the program, then went way over the top to star in not just one http://www.stcidlsig.org/october-20-2016-student-outreach-article-competition-qa-sylvia-miller/ but two http://www.cac-stc.org/helping-students-get-published-november-11-2016/ live Q&A webinars. Way to get the word out to our SIG, to the academic community, and to all of STC!

Dear Crista Mohammed,

Thank you so much for shepherding our newsletter http://www.stcidlsig.org/newsletter/ for another year.

We are proud of the work you’ve done and delighted that you earned the Distinguished SIG Service Award http://www.stcidlsig.org/crista-mohammed-receives-stc-distinguished-sig-service-award/ . Having you on the leadership team gives us an international perspective and we appreciate your willingness to put up with the technical challenge of having to speak by text.

Dear Jamye Sagan,

Thank you so much for wearing many hats as you support our SIG. Your continued faithful managing of our social media channels keeps us all connected online by:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/STC_IDL_SIG ;
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/STCIDLSIG , and
• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2298157 .

Your demographic and other surveys http://www.stcidlsig.org/discussion-lists/surveys/ help us stay in touch with the needs of our members. And your webinars http://www.stcidlsig.org/membership/webinars/free-recordings-of-idl-sig-webinars-for-members/ , virtual open houses, and lightning talks are the bomb.

Dear Sara Buchanan,

Thank you so much for your faithful service as our membership manager. Your superpowers of attention to detail and warm heart for greeting and welcoming new members are such a blessing to our SIG. And thank you for connecting us to the NEO STC chapter and bringing the “Spotlight” series to our newsletter http://www.stcidlsig.org/member-spotlight-meet-kim-lindsey/ .

Dear Marcia Shannon,

Thank you so much for being our secretary and keeping this crazy group organized. You do so much more than just take our meeting minutes. I really appreciate how you take initiative to document and archive the random comings and goings of our SIG.

Dear Beth Bailey,

Thank you so much for working behind the scenes to keep our discussion lists http://www.stcidlsig.org/discussion-lists/list-policies-etiquette/ alive. We don’t say thank you often enough for managing this valuable service and helping us all to stay connected.

Dear Scott McCoy,

Thank you so much for another year of leading our mentoring program https://www.stc.org/mentor-board/ . Your support helps us ensure the future of technical communication.

Dear Preeti Mathur,

Thank you so much for championing our training material evaluations program http://www.stcidlsig.org/news-and-events/training-evaluation/ . We appreciate this free benefit to members and we appreciate you for managing the program.

Dear Summit meeting attendees,

Thank you so much for supporting the SIG by coming to our meeting at the Summit http://www.stcidlsig.org/we-had-a-blast-at-stc17/ . We were thrilled to see face to face Maralee Sautter, Jessica Surdin, Kelly Schrank, Patty Viajar, Phil Havlik, Chuck Campbell, Mandy Wright, Mary Ollinger, Cindy Pao, Jamye Sagan, Jim Bousquet, Lori Meyer, Marcia Shannon, Mellissa Ruryk, Sylvia Miller, and Li-At Rathbun. We look forward to sharing this journey so that we can all grow and support each other in the field of instructional design and learning.

And finally,

Dearest Lori Meyer,

Thank you so much for being our co-manager. I am thrilled to be connected with you and learning from you about nurturing and growing our community. Your strong leadership, patient mentoring, and organization amaze and inspire me. Thank you for taking up the mantle by chairing and running our annual meeting at the Summit http://www.stcidlsig.org/slides-from-our-stc17-idl-sig-meeting/ so that I could rush off to sound check the Rough Drafts. I look forward to our journey together and to learning from your superpowers for many years to come. Love you!

More great stuff to come

More great stuff is coming up. Stick with us in 2017 as we live out our SIG mission http://www.stcidlsig.org/about-idl-sig/ .

by Marcia Shannon, Secretary

 

THE (emphasis intended) event of the year, of course, was the Summit, with the theme Gain the Edge to Get Results. Our IDL Sig was well represented by attendees and speakers at a conference packed with education, information, networking, and fun.

I am very glad that I participated in this year’s Summit. I am in the process of taking my career in a new direction and this was an opportunity for exposure to a wide and deep pool of technical communication expertise and experience.

I had several goals for my Summit adventure: to put faces to the voices of the people I have met through online SIG meetings, webinars, and online classes; to freshen my perspective on my career in technical communication; to socialize with fellow tech commers; and to learn about techniques, trends, and theories in technical communication.

Did I gain the edge to generate improvements in my career and in my writing? Yes. I was engaged, energized, and found at least one take away idea in each session. I attended the opening and closing talks and ten education sessions. Two of my favorites were Leveraging Cognitive Science to Improve Structured Authoring, presented by Rob Hanna and A Tech Writer, a Map, and an App, presented by Sarah Maddox.

In Leveraging…, Rob described how to increase the effectiveness of documents by structuring them the same way people think and learn. A Tech Writer… was something of an adventure: Sarah decided that she wanted to write an app that would display a map of technical communication-related events. She described stepping way out of her writer’s comfort zone to learn how to develop the app, how she engaged developers to participate in a group revision of the app, and how we can participate in keeping the app up to date.

Use these links to see and use what Sarah built:

• Web app: http://sarahmaddox.github.io/techcomm-map/
• Android app: https://goo.gl/twfOKO (This takes you to the Google Play Store; the app is free.)

Another engaging (and interactive) session, Gamification of Instructional Design by Phylise Banner, was an introduction to Learning Battle Cards, an instructional design technique new to me. I am still chewing on what I learned and am researching for additional information about this topic. I will have more with details about this in the next newsletter.

Did I meet, interact with, and engage with other people, both known and unknown? Yes, I definitely did all of those. There were plenty of opportunities to network or just chat between sessions, at receptions, breakfast, and lunch. I enjoyed conversing with other techn comm professionals because we shared common experiences and language. Learning one-to-one from someone else and sharing my own expertise made every minute interesting. All of my Summit goals were well met.

If you did not attend the Summit, look for regional conferences, online meetings, and webinars where you can dust off your ideas, learning and teaching with other tech commers. Our SIG will keep bringing opportunities to you, so check the web site regularly.