What important trend, change, or challenge have you seen evolve during the past two years in the field of technical communication?

Each candidate's response is shown below. Reponses to all questions can be found on the Society's election page.


Paula Berger
Automatic Candidate for President

Our primary challenge is to explain why our expertise is still necessary. What is our value?

The nature of communication has changed. New technologies make it easy for almost anyone to deliver information, while in the past it was a job for experts (us). Others may not communicate as well as we do, but if information goes out faster or at lower cost, does it matter?

To meet this challenge, STC must help us demonstrate our value so we can keep our jobs! Our skills can be used many ways, and STC can help members find new approaches and directions. STC must offer more formal educational programs (particularly on advanced topics), promote best practices and standards, and work with industry leaders to learn how we can increase our value to them.


Linda Oestreich
Automatic Candidate for First Vice President

The past two years in technical communication have brought significant change to the way we think. Because we all have been affected by outsourcing, lower pay, fewer educational programs, and lost jobs, some of us have begun to think of ourselves as less than we had been. Yet I know that our skills can help us grow into our new roles and find the pace and place at which we excel. As professionals, we facilitate communication. Communication connects the world. To protect the work we do, we must remarket ourselves as strategic thinkers and knowledge masters who are indispensable to global communication. We have the power to redefine ourselves. Let's be sure that definition is global, strategic, and powerful.


Jonathan Baker
Candidate for Second Vice President

Jobs. Outsourcing. Globalization. Today, many of us are out of work. In addition, many companies we work for are questioning our value. Many employers do not understand what they are buying when they hire a technical communicator, and we have trouble providing a cogent answer.

I believe this is an opportunity to step up. As STC leaders, we need to understand where new jobs will come from, what industries these jobs will be in, and how STC is going to professionalize the field of technical communication so we can compete. STC needs to set the standard and then needs to communicate the standard outside of the technical communication environment.


Mark Clifford
Candidate for Second Vice President

One of the major changes is the emergence of offshoring (as opposed to outsourcing) of basic technical communication work. This has had a dramatic effect on technical communicators not only in North America and Western Europe but worldwide. As much as organizations seek to save money by offshoring, so emerging market communicators need training to meet the service levels demanded.

Under its strategic global objectives, I believe STC needs to take the responsibility for developing and providing educational resources to satisfy the needs of members in emerging markets as well as resources to support the work and developmental growth needs of members in more traditional home markets.


Russel Hirst
Candidate for Director

There's a growing attitude among some employers that they must "educate their own employees." Because of technology's explosive growth, the trend is toward education focused on specific technologies and tasks, and away from the traditional humanistic education of communicators. This is fueled by an attitude that one kind of education tends to get in the way of the other, and since the wheels of change in the academy turn so slowly, maybe the academy should be left out of the equation.

This trend gets impetus from both sides. It's something I want to help resist and reverse, on every level. I prefer mutual enrichment and cooperation to isolated effort any day. If elected as a director to serve on the STC board, that will be my M.O.


Mike Murray
Candidate for Director

The most significant evolving trend that affects STC is the dramatic and continuous redefinition of the technical communication profession and the resultant increasing need for collaborative communications. A significant percentage of our members have changed jobs at least once in the past two years. Collaboration allows us to continue and expand our relationships, benefit from our successes and mistakes, come together as individuals and communities, and create new synergies and expand on existing ones. There is nothing more important to a relationship, business or personal, than regular, effective communications. The exciting challenge that we face is how to facilitate virtual, global communications in support of our redefined profession.


Jeff Staples
Candidate for Director

I have a different vision for the Society. As director, I would bring a realistic vision to the Society, which addresses the daily realities of its members.

I have heard (from STC leaders) that, as communicators, we must move away from being commodity writers, who perform basic duties such as formatting and editing. However, in positions I have been in (and/or know of), these basic duties are in demand. Thus, as the Society rightly embraces new trends such as XML, there should be an equal embrace of skill sets that contribute to basic communicator skills. For example, many oil and gas companies only use Word since it is free with Windows. However, fully mastering Word is challenging, and a reality that STC members face.


Daniel E. Wise
Candidate for Director

Although offshoring seems to have faded from being a critical issue, this area still bears watching to keep it and globalization in perspective. Attitudes within STC toward globalization seem to run the gamut from total acceptance to total rejection. Clear exposition of the need for and value of globalization appears to be essential to the future of STC.

A lack of respect for STC membership, a lack of employer perception that STC membership, particularly senior member status, has any significance, disturbs me greatly. Ways to counter this attitude are urgently needed.

Vertical communication within the Society is perceived by a significant percentage of STC members to be a growing problem that must be addressed.


Thomas P. Barnett
Candidate for Secretary

Technical communication has long overlapped professions such as training and instructional design. Convergence with other professions is occurring with technical and business fields. As technical communicators broaden their skill sets, we must broaden the STC umbrella to embrace them and their colleagues.

A continuing challenge is to make it easier for members to obtain and share information within STC. I believe I can assist STC to embrace technologies and innovations faster to enhance the perception that STC is the leader in our field among our members and among our members' employers.

Membership issues are still a major challenge for the Society. Many factors influence the perceived value of STC membership. We can market our value better.


Char James-Tanny
Candidate for Secretary

The increase in content management systems (CMS) and collaborative authoring is changing how writers create documentation. More tools include this functionality or are designed specifically for content (not document) management. Even wikis, originally designed for collaborative authoring, are being designed or enhanced to include content management functionality.

This change has led to an increased need for management skills as more technical communicators take charge of their CMS. This shift creates several opportunities for STC, such as providing training and support for new managers through Webinars, new and existing SIGs, and other training events. In addition, conference sessions can increase members' knowledge and help STC provide valuable job training.


Jackie A. Damrau
Candidate for Nominating Committee

The technical communication profession is consistently changing. Many companies are no longer hiring qualified individuals for technical communication positions. This practice continues to affect our profession, yet I'm beginning to see companies hire more technical communicators in the role of project managers, business systems analysts, and instructional or informational designers.

I'm continually impressed by the student enrollments in the technical communication certificate or degree programs at universities. The quality of the education continues improving, giving these new graduates the tools that many of us have had to learn on our own.

We should continue our career growth through self-study or courses at colleges and universities.


Rachel A. Jordan Houghton
Candidate for Nominating Committee

Looking back over the past two years' worth of chapter program meetings and annual conference sessions, I see a definite change in the way technical communicators position themselves in the market. Technical communicators have had to justify their existence, their "value added" to an organization, and prove that their skills are worth staying in-house for.


Allison B. Johnson
Candidate for Nominating Committee

The most important trend I have seen has been the opportunity to participate within the online communities of both the STC and the industry in general. I have experienced opportunities within the online world that never would have been available to me otherwise, such as participating as a peer reviewer, participating as an editor for national conferences, teaching online classes, and participating in multiple chapters. The online community has taken off with more collaborative software, more acceptance of participating from a distance, and more opportunities for online education and conferences.


Constance L. Kiernan
Candidate for Nominating Committee

Technical communicators are being offered opportunities to participate in a broader range of activities than ever before. With strong skills in writing and editing, document design, graphical representation, and process analysis as our base, we are making contributions to (and often taking the lead in) areas like process improvement, business process analysis, knowledge management, and strategic and tactical planning. In many organizations, technical communicators are perceived as key resources in building the organization's process maturity and in developing knowledge and making it accessible throughout the enterprise. STC can (and should) play a vital role in providing exposure to and training in the vast landscape of opportunities.


Betsy M. Maaks
Candidate for Nominating Committee

Our ongoing challenge is promoting the value of our contributions to the customer, to the product, and to the bottom line. The Society needs leaders who understand the commoditization of our industry and who can bring the technical communication field into the global service industry, where communication, and communicators, are essential for doing business. STC leaders must also know how to effect change in a diverse and widespread organization. This is a global effort, to which I bring my international perspective that is generated from many of the roles that I have undertaken.

53rd Annual Conference

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