East Bay Chapter Monthly Meeting

Thursday, October 3, 2002

Preparing for the Road Ahead....a progressive forum with several speakers and topics:

Resumes: Sue Phelan - Bring your resume!
Sue is our resume counselor and has served in this role for over five years. She currently manages all technical documentation in ChevronTexaco's Information Technology Company (ITC).

Portfolios: Gwaltney Mountford - Bring your portfolio!
Gwaltney has worked for 20 years as a technical writer, trainer, manager, and consultant. She also teaches Technical Communication at an extension of UC Berkeley. Gwaltney is an Associate Fellow of STC.

Interviewing: Tim Carl and Diane Daly from The Carl Group
Tim Carl, president and owner of The Carl Group, www.thecarlgroup.com, has been involved with technical communications for over 17 years, providing staff and contract technical communicators to major companies in the Silicon Valley.

Enlarging Your Niche: Judy Herr, Well Chosen Words
Judy applies her editorial and technical writing skills in the information technology, scientific, environmental and health-related fields through her company. Judy is active in STC and was Director of Touchstone 2000.

Networking: Ron Rothbart
Ron is Sr. Technical Writer at Financial Engineering Associates in Berkeley. He has the distinction of finding three jobs this year through networking, two of them short-term.

What is a Progressive Forum?

The presentation format allows attendees to choose topics they are really interested in and want to dialogue about during the session. Progressions give participants the opportunity to focus, test assumptions, and gain from interchange with experienced and new communicators involved in job searching.

Participants literally move from table to table, reforming a new group for each discussion. In contrast to passively sitting in a large darkened room, taking notes, and absorbing information from slides, progressions are designed to facilitate exchanges, serendipitous discovery, and personal “progress.” Each table session will last 20 minutes. With four tables, the participants will select 3 out of 4 topics in which to participate.