10 tips for frequent travelers

I’ve been traveling more in the last three months than I ever have before in my career. The experience has given me a new appreciation for the protagonist in Anne Tyler’s book The Accidental Tourist who was obsessed with conducting painless business travel to the point of re-creating the comforts of his living room and bedroom on the plane trips and in his hotel rooms.

Despite my short time on the road, I’m ready to dispense advice to the “newbies” behind me in line at the security checkpoint

1. Wear shoes with socks—not sandals—to the airport.
   You do not want to walk barefoot at Hartsfield-Jackson (or any other airport) where millions of stinky, germ-infested feet have trod.
2. Stuff a few healthy snacks into your bag.
   You never know when you’ll be one of those wretched victims forced to sit elbow to elbow with other hapless souls on the tarmac for hours. (Why don’t they let people off the plane?) On my way to the Seattle STC conference two years ago, I sat next to a fellow STCer who mistakenly though that the M on her ticket meant “Meal.” It was, after all, a five-hour flight spanning the lunch and supper hours. (It actually meant “Movie.”) Fortunately, I had packed a sandwich and was able to give her half. I made a friend and prevented a seatmate from getting grumpy. Win-win
3. Collect your points.
   Virtually every hotel chain has a points system that rewards you with freebies. “Starwood is the best” I was told. With Delta emerging from bankruptcy, your SkyMiles will still be usable.
4. Consider the Crowne Room or other airline executive club.
   Last summer we were grounded in Atlanta for seven hours on our way to a family reunion in Maine. We paid for a single visit to the Delta Crowne Room where we got snacks, drinks, wireless, and comfortable chairs to curl up in. If you are stuck in an airport, you can buy a one-day pass to the Crowne Room for only $25 and save yourself the noise, stress, and discomfort of “steerage” waiting areas. Your boss might even allow you to expense it if you explain the circumstances.
5. Pack your swimsuit.
   It doesn’t take up much room and a refreshing dip in the hotel pool can be just the ticket at the end of a long day of meetings.
6. Wear black.
   It hides the dirt and looks classy in almost any situation.
7. Check your bag.
   Unless you’ve managed to dump all your toiletries in to 3-oz. containers and can survive without a nail file or scissors on your trip.
8. Pack for contingencies because stuff happens. Here’s a good checklist from David Allen’s Web site.
   • I always bring flipflops or slippers in case the hotel rug is scuzzy.
   • Earplugs take up no room and can mean the difference between no sleep and a restful night.
   • Throw in one dose of standard meds: for stomach upset, congestion, headaches, etc.
   • Bring a small, strong flashlight.
   • A simple closepin will do wonders to keep those pesky hotel curtins closed.
9. Bring a book (or two) to read.
   I’m going through two novels on every trip. They are great company when I have to eat alone at a restaurant. When I can’t sleep, I read until I can’t keep my eyes open. And a good story takes your mind off of delayed flights, bumpy turbulence, or taxicabs stuck in traffic.
10. Adopt healthy on-the-road habits.
    It’s tempting order the comfort foods on the menu after a hectic day of travel and meetings, especially if the company is paying the tab. And if the hotel fitness center isn’t your thing, it can be hard to find ways to exercise.
    Here’s a good video from Spark People with exercises you can do at your desk or in your hotel room.

KeyContent.org: Wiki on

Stumbled upon Keycontent.org. It’s free to join and then you can add your 2 cents to the content. If you to practice working with a wiki, this might be the place to start. It’s a wiki and a blog with a mission similar to this blog:

Our mission is to provide a place where expert content developers, technical communicators, information architects, and web designers can come and express their views about the profession. . . created for and by professionals who want to keep up with the important issues in the transformation of technical communication.

The site includes articles as well, including some “reprints” from the Carolina Communique, the online newsletter of the Carolina STC Chapter, which is also a wiki disguised as a Web site (or vice versa).

T-COMmons Summer Meet and Greet: June 21

Looking to broaden your network of technical communication peers? Want to socialize with Southern Polytechnic State University students? Want to connect with SPSU alumni and other professionals? You need to attend the T-COMmons Summer Meet and Greet!

WHAT: T-COMmons Summer Meet and Greet

WHERE: Delkwood Grill, 2769 Delk Road, SE, Marietta, Georgia

WHEN: Thursday, June 21, 2007, 5 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Come mingle with other technical communication professionals, students, and supporters. Order off Delkwood Grill’s menu of Americana food and learn more about the T-COMmons community.

Information available on www.tcommons.org/events.htm or email events@tcommons.org for more details.

Rob Houser on Vista help

At last Tuesday night’s STC meeting, Rob Houser discussed “How will Vista’s online help affect the future of documentation?” Look for the podcast on Michelle’s site and go to Rob’s site for the slides.

In recent years the listserves have been buzzing with speculations, revelations, and exclamations about Longhorn, then Vista help and its impact on our work. To be honest, I tuned out the discussion because I didn’t see an immediate impact on my own work. So I was happy to have Rob pull it all together and present an overview. Here are some things I learned.

1. Vista help has no index.
   The assumption was that users would search rather than use an index. An unfortunate decision because—as Rob pointed out—many people do not know how to conduct an effective search. An index is a useful backup to help you pinpoint what you are looking for.
2. With Vista, you are offered several ways to get assistance:
   • Traditional help
   • “Ask someone” (a friend, the Windows communities forum, or Microsoft support)
   • Embedded help in a dialog box or window
   • Guided Help
3. Guided Help is the coolest innovation in Vista.
   You can choose to have it automatically complete the steps for you while you watch, or you can be guided through the procedure.
4. Microsoft is not sharing their code for Vista help (called AML – Assistance Markup Language) so authoring tools cannot be built to create it in other applications.
5. RoboHelp won’t run on Vista. There are also problems opening PDFs in Vista.

I also found this presentation on Windows Vista Help by Derek Torres and Stuart Mudie at last November’s UK STC Conference. They have written a book on Windows Vista that you may want to check out as well.

Atlanta to host STC Conference in 2009

At an informal reception in my hotel room at the Hyatt last week, Atlanta chapter members began to discuss preparations for the 2009 STC conference in Atlanta. We decided that it’s not too early to begin planning. At next year’s conference in Philadelphia, we’ll need to staff a table promoting the Atlanta event. We’ll want to have some trinkets and a symbolic icon on a pin or sticker that says, “See you in Atlanta” or something like that.

The American Society for Training and Development is holding their conference here next week. We might look at what they did to get some ideas. For example, they have a page called “About Atlanta” on the conference Web.

Here are some initial ideas based on our brainstorming and my further investigation:

1. Add a welcome letter from the mayor to the conference packets.
2. Sell squeeze/anti-stress balls shaped like peaches as a conference promotion and chapter fundraiser.
3. Promote tours of the new acquarium, trips to the Cyclorama, outings to Stone Mountain, visits to the King Center, etc.
4. Serve traditional Southern cuisine at the opening reception.
   • collard greens
   • fried green tomatoes
   • catfish
   • cornbread
   • black-eyed peas
   • peach cobbler and pecan pie
   Getting hungry?
5. Write articles in Intercom about Atlanta leading up to the conference.
   • History of the city
   • Technical communications in Atlanta (an overview of the major employers
   • Fun things to do in the city
6. Visit major Atlanta corporations leading up to the conference to let them know it’s coming. Invite them to have a table or be a sponsor.

What are your ideas?

Jared Spool on tech writers’ demise

Jared Spool of User Interface Engineering was interviewed by Carolyn Snyder at one of the STC Summit conference sessions. Spool recently had some interesting things to say on his blog about technical writers including, “the art of writing manuals is going the way of blacksmiths and radio operators.”

While I agree our profession is changing, I don’t see paper manuals going away any time soon. Every time a new technology is unleashed, the demand for manuals increases. The term Ajax (for asynchronous javaScript and XML) was first publicly used in February 2005. A mere two years later, O’Reilly lists 158 books on the subject. Who is writing these?

O’Reilly is actually soliciting writers on their site.

We’re always looking for new authors and new book ideas. Our ideal author has real technical competence and a passion for explaining things clearly. We’re happy to work with first time authors, and encourage inquiries about virtually any topic. However, it helps if you know that we tend to publish “high end” books rather than books for dummies, and generally don’t want yet another book on a topic that’s already well covered.

At the same time as you might say that our books are written “by and for smart people,” they also have a down to earth quality. We like straight talk that goes right to the heart of what people need to know.

And that’s just one publisher of computer books. A search for paperback computer books on Barnes&Noble.com retrieved 72,929 items. (That’s compared to only about 56,000 books on dieting.) Hardly a dying art.

What about hardware? Imagine selling a computer, router, printer, scanner, MP3 player, or cell phone without a printed manual or at least a quick reference. Not to mention swingsets, workout equipment, bird feeders, garage door openers, track lighting systems, Ikea furniture, bike racks for cars, garbage disposals, gas grills, and thousands of other consumer goods with “some assembly required.”

So why is Jared Spool, who is otherwise a pretty clever and with-it guy, making these statements?

I think that when you look at the most progressive software development teams today, it is probably true that the technical writer has been jettisoned, is hanging on with his or her claws, or has morphed into a user experience professional or information architect. The entire team would scoff at the idea of writing a manual because they are focused on making a product than won’t need a manual or even online help.

User experience work, information architecture and information design are growing professions that many of today’s technical communicators can easily transition into. But I think a “manual-less existence” is a long way off.

Al Hood’s blog

Incoming Atlanta chapter president Al Hood is now blogging at http://stcatlprez.blogspot.com/

The formal passing of the baton will occur on Tuesday, May 22 at our monthly chapter meeting.

Our program that night is How Will Vista’s Online Help Affect the Future of Documentation?
with speaker Rob Houser.

See you there!

STC Summit: Deconstructed

The conference this year was organized differently from others. Saul Carliner, Phylise Banner Klein, and the whole crew did a great job.

The focus was on education and maximizing attendees’ experience for the price they paid.

The cost went up, but attendance was not affected. Over 1400 was the count on the first day, but many walk-ins were reported throughout the 4 days.

Favorite session:
“If You’re So Smart, Why Does Your Writing Suck?” by Karen Schriver

Positives

1. Good lineup of speakers.
   Ann Rockley, Jared Spool, Ginny Redish, Karen Schriver, JoAnn Hackos, George Hayhoe, Scott Abel, Barabara Giamonna
2. Certificate program.
   People who attended the preconference workshops were eligible to receive a certification in the subject area. They also had to attend a defined set of sessions and receive signoff from the presenter to prove attendance. They got reserved seats at these sessions.
3. Opening session.
   Unlike recent years, there was an opening session at 6 p.m. on Sunday. This should have been promoted and advertised so that people would have arranged to get there in time for it. If you aren’t attending Leadership Day or the internal STC meetings, the only real even for you is the reception. Maybe that’s not worth giving up a Sunday afternoon to fly in early for.
   This year’s session was a panel discussion led by Saul Carliner who “interviewed” Ann Rockley, Michael Hughes, and Nancy Locke spoke about trends in the profession, their recommendations for career growth, and got a chance to plug the sessions they had organized or planned to attend.Others I spoke to were not impressed with this event, but I found it interesting.
4. Opening reception.
   This year the reception was held in the Exhibition Hall. It was well-lit with lot of stuff to look at even if you didn’t have anyone to talk to (or didn’t want to). A record number of vendors exhibited. The SIG tables were there as well.All the conferences I’ve attended have held the opening reception in a dark, cavernous room echoing with the noisy music of some local band. There wasn’t much to do except eat and drink. Conversation was difficult. For a new person attending alone, it was rather intimidating. SIGs set up information tables around the room, but those seemed more like gathering places for old friends rather than an opportunity to get integrated into the conference.
5. Closing session.
   Ze Frank was funny.

Negatives

1. Sessions masquerading as “workshops.”
   You can’t do a workshop with 100 or 200 people in the room. Workshops should have limited attendance. I came to hear top speakers, not the audience. For my 90 minutes, I want to hear mostly George Hayhoe or Barbara Giamonna, not the people in the audience. Call me a snob. After my first “workshop” experience, I avoided the rest even if the topic was fascinating.
2. Miscalculation of session popularity.
   This is a tough one. Who knew that Michelle Corbin’s presentation “Words, Words, Words: Controlling the Unnecessary Sprawl of Terminology” would be a standing room only event? My bones are still aching from sitting on the floor. Wildly popular sessions like Scott Abel’s “Web 2.0 101″ should have been repeated for those of us straining to hear in the hallway from the first time around.
3. Too much walking.
   I got a lot of exercise, but that’s not what I came to the conference for.
4. Very loud networking lunches.
   Not sure how to solve this one, but they pack too many people in the room for those lunches and you can’t really network except if you want to yell for an hour.
   
   
5. Repurposed material.
   Some very good speakers were using the same material that they used at previous conferences. That was lame.

Questions that were never answered:

Why no Chapter Pacesetter Award this year?
I thought Tom Johnson and the Sun Coast Chapter were a shoo-in.

Why is the Philadelphia conference next year in June?
The best guess was that it avoided the Mother’s Day conflict.

Paula Berger’s presentation at Leadership Day

These are rough notes. I’m sure you’ll be able to find Paula’s slides on the STC site and these topics will be amplified in News and Notes e-mails as well as articles in Intercom.

Dispelling myths:

Myth #1: The Board doesn’t care about the communities

Reality:

• Two of the 3 face-to-face mtgs of the Board focused on the communities
• More Board members work on communities than any other aspect of STC

Myth #2:   Communities will be fine if the Society just gives us more $

Reality:

• All associations are seeing changes in how communities function
• Many chapters have $ and don’t spend it.
• New funding model gives us more input

Myth #3:  The only reason people join STC is to belong to a chapter

Reality:

• Knowledge-based governance survey ranked community membership at #6
• 5 to 6% members don’t belong to a chapter
• SIG membership is growing fast
• Membership and marketing efforts will encourage chapter membership.
• STC is hiring a director of community relations. Staff turnover and office restructuring are making it doable.

Communities of the future: Characteristics

• Define yourself
• Things change
• Be what you want to be
• Be what you can be
• Serve your members
• Don’t be limited by history
• Define success and go for it.

Flexible groupings will work together

• We’ve dismantled the regions which were meaningless
• We’re encouraging communities to work together
• Form and dissolve partnerships for each project
• Find partners based on whatever works
• Arrangements may be permanent or temp      
• Membership in multiple communities is a good thing: many people are already doing it

Parity btw chapters and SIGs

• They are coming closer in many ways.
• Chapters have a large virtual component
• SIGs are becoming face-to-face
• They will never be the same and we don’t expect that
• STC will strive to support them both with the resources they need.

Be an incubator of ideas

• This will benefit the profession
• Find new ways and share them with other communities and with the Society
• 2-way relationship btw communities and the Society

We are part of a worldwide profession

• Standards and research work
• Revising US govt job descriptions
• Relevant and valid salary surveys
• Joint promotion of the profession (INTECOM)
• Global membership growth
• Partnerships and relationships

Many ways to participate

• 96% of the members said STC should continue to have a peer-reviewed journal, even though many said they would never read it
• STC is more than just communities
• Competitions will be reorganized

Independent or integrated?

• Changes still down the roadUS communities will be encouraged to incorporate independently and sign a service agreement with STC
• Communities can choose to stay legally part of the Society
• Chapters outside the US have different requirements
• Balloting members on bylaws changes later this year

Financial

• New pass-thru modelLikely to start in 6 mos.
• In 2008, STC will collect and pass-thru dues for each member who selects classic membership or an additional chapter
• Chapters should receive all funding in January
• You will benefit from every member you recruit. 

Notes from Leadership Day: Atlanta chapter wins award

Every year the first day of the STC conference is designated as Leadership Day. Chapter presidents, SIG leader, and other officers are encouraged to attend. It’s a good chance to learn about what’s happening with the organization on an international level. Al, Howard, and I all attended this year. Susan Burton spoke and provided some of the same information she presented in her keynote at the March Currents conference in Atlanta. She said she’d made visits to 10 chapters since taking office.

I had a chance to finally meet Tom Johnson from the Suncoast Chapter. He interviewed the three of us from Atlanta for a podcast. You can hear it and many other interviews with conference attendees here. Tom has a well-deserved reputation within STC for Tech Writer Voices. I’ve heard his name mentioned at several meetings and sessions in the last two days. Yet this is only his first STC conference. Just shows how you can do innovative things and quickly win recognition in the organization.

The highlight of the day was winning a Chapter Achievement Award at the Excellence level!! I hadn’t even been planned to enter an application for an award, but Al talked me into it in March. Together we filled out the detailed application and pulled together the documentation necessary to prove our claims of greatness. It paid off. The Excellence level is like a 2nd prize. The Distinguished Awards or 1st prizes will be given at the banquet tomorrow night. This is our second award this year. Gene Larson submitted to the Public Relations Competition and we won an Excellence there as well.

I will blog some more about the sessions I’m attending. Many heavy-hitting speakers here. I heard Jared Spool on usability yesterday, and today it’s Karen Schriver and Ginny Redish.