Upcoming Chapter Meetings

East Bay Chapter meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month (except for the February meeting) at Crow Canyon Country Club, 711 Silver Lake Dr., Danville, 925-735-5700.

Be sure to take advantage of our advance reservation discount ($22 by reservation, $26 at the door).

  • January 10: Judy Glick-Smith
    "Embracing Change: Designing the Future of Technical Communication"
    www.idoc-inc.com
    Crow Canyon Country Club

  • February 7: Dana Chisnell
    "Usability Methods to Empower Technical Communicators"
    www.usabilityworks.net
    Crow Canyon Country Club

For further information about meetings, see ebstc.org/ChapterMeetings.html

January Meeting

Embracing Change: Designing the Future of Technical Communication

From 1999 through 2001, STC has been going through a process of identifying who we are and how we want to be perceived both internally and externally. We have identified our brand based on extensive research and have begun the effort of looking at how we govern ourselves. The next step is leadership, both within STC and in the industry and the world.

Judy Glick-Smith, president of STC for 2000–2001, will present the vision she had for her year as president of the Society and how she has moved our organization and ultimately our profession to a position of leadership in the 21st century.

Judy will be speaking at the Crow Canyon Country Club on Thursday, January 10, 2002.

Technical Literacy

T. R. Girill taught six sessions of technical writing to 100 tenth-graders at Oakland's Fremont High School (FHS) in November and December. According to the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), FHS serves a multiethnic neighborhood in which about 80% of students have no more than one parent in the home (often none), 45% qualify for AFDC payments, and 25% have had "contact with the criminal justice system."

Following is a summary of the classroom results:

  • Students did indeed learn to write useful, logical instructions for real-life situations, and to revise faulty instructions. For many, this was their first practical experience crafting work-relevant prose.
  • All students gained experience in working with an adult mentor, learning from scaffolded examples, iteratively refining their skills, and trying what teachers like to call "authentic evaluation" (not just making a grade for school, but meeting criteria from the outside world).
  • The Media Academy invited T. R. to join their five-person "design team" to turn the Academy into what OUSD calls a "new autonomous small school," with greater staffing, scheduling, and budgeting flexibility.

Note: A link to the EBSTC Technical Literacy Program is now seen on the California Department of Education web site (www.cde.ca.gov/resources/support.html). It is listed under the "Educational Support Resources" page as Society for Technical Communication with about two dozen other sites that CDE recommends to California educators.

Archive Project

When the EBSTC Board met this summer, they realized that there was no central location for the chapter's historical archives. Through the years, chapter officers and volunteers have handed boxes of "stuff" to their successors, who often had no time to organize the contents.

After 40 years of box shuffling, it was clear the time had come to do some housecleaning. As a result, the Chapter Archive Project was born. June Schaefer, highlighted in this month's Member Spotlight, has graciously volunteered to chair this project. June has already collected and organized several boxes of newsletters and other chapter archives. The chapter plans to rent a secure storage space in which to store the archives once they are catalogued.

If you have items you think the chapter should archive, please contact June at jgsschaefer@earthlink.net.

Chapter Anniversary Celebration

The chapter board plans to meet next month to begin planning our 40th anniversary party. The party will be held in June, and is sure to be a great opportunity to celebrate with your fellow members. Stay tuned for the details!

Society News

The 2001 Technical Communicator Survey results are in. This article provides a summary of the results. The complete survey is available for free on the STC web site at stc.org/salary.html.

The average salary and benefits for technical writers and editors in the United States and Canada continues to increase. The average salary is $55,360 in the United States, up 6.8 percent from $51,850 shown in the 2000 survey. Notably, the survey shows a narrowing gap in salaries between men and women. The average salary for U.S. men is $56,310 while that for women is $54,860.

"The survey results show that female technical writers/editors in the U.S. earn 97 percent of what their male counterparts earn," Judith Glick-Smith, STC President, pointed out. "This smaller 'gender gap' points to financial opportunities for women in the growing field of technical communication."

The U.S. Department of Labor statistics for 2000 show that among full-time employees in all professions, women earn 76 percent of men's salaries (Labor Force Statistics from Current Population Survey, Table 37).

Views from the Mountain

From the top of our mountain, we can see six active Northern California STC chapters. Each chapter meets on a different Wednesday or Thursday so you can attend all the meetings. Contact the respective presidents for more information or visit the chapter web site.

Wednesday
Week 1— Sacramento (President Bill_Robinson)
Week 2— Berkeley (President Kathryn Munn)
Week 3— San Francisco (President Marc Smircich)

Thursday
Week 2— East Bay (President Margie McCutcheon)
Week 3— North Bay (President Kurt Huget)
Week 4— Silicon Valley (President Guy Haas)

Membership Notes

If you receive a special award, promotion, or other professional recognition, please let us know. We would like to start printing this news to keep members informed of our chapter's accomplishments.
Our chapter is growing! We are welcoming the following new, transferring, and reinstated members into our chapter:

  • Janet L. Bran
  • Ana Brazil
  • Maryann Brent
  • Robin F. Brigaerts
  • S. Daniel Day
  • Lindsay A. Gower
  • Fred M. Huppert
  • Judith E. Ingram
  • Grey B. Magauran
  • Sara S. Odom
  • David M. Watson
  • Laura A. Arendal from the Berkeley chapter
  • Shari L. Burnham from the Berkeley chapter
  • John P. Chapin from the Berkeley chapter
  • Mark D. Gates from the Berkeley chapter
  • Christopher K. Guthrie from the Silicon Valley chapter
  • Albert V. Robello from the Silicon Valley chapter
  • Cheryl Ann Voloshin from the Silicon Valley chapter
  • James R. Wagner from the Silicon Valley chapter

The Devil Mountain Views -- Jan/Feb 2002
(ebstc.org/newsletter/front.html)
For  suggestions, complaints, or (especially) compliments, contact dmvashwini@yahoo.com