Our Corner

It has been an honor to serve as president of the East Bay Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication for the 2001–2002 term. I have enjoyed working with our Administrative Council and the many volunteers who stepped forward to serve during the year. I believe the results of our efforts have enabled us to reach the objectives I outlined last June when I assumed office. Some of the objectives were to:

In addition to meeting those objectives, we were able establish a program to support our job-seeking members. Linda Shaltz (our Jobs Manager or "the jobs lady" as she is often called) invited recruiters to the meetings and set up the jobs page on our web site; Susan Harlan, our Education Manager, provided skill upgrade and job search information; and Scott Wallace contributed his newsletter "The Unemployment Line."

Diana Wilcoxson (who received our Chapter Service Award) and Melody Brumis produced outstanding programs this year. Marsha Workman, always reliable, served as membership manager. Janet Bran was willing to "pull double duty" and also served as our treasurer. Meticulous in capturing details, Brodie Hilp did an excellent job as our secretary. Orlando Turrietta graciously assumed the responsibilities of Arrangements Manager. And finally, Gwaltney Mountford (my mentor) served as our advisor and provided information the Administrative Council needed for continuity.

I am also grateful for the support received from Kaiser Permanente. Joseph Ortega, director of Testing and Integration Services, allowed the Administrative Council to meet in the conference rooms there, to set up teleconferencing for the members unable to attend in person, and to use the copier.

And now Melody Brumis will become EBSTC president in June. I have had an opportunity to work closely with Melody over the past year and I am confident she will do an exceptional job. The Administrative Council must agree with me—most of us have chosen to remain on the council to support Melody and the majority will continue to serve in the same capacity.

As I place our chapter in Melody's capable hands, I will leave with fond memories. What will surely resonate in my mind forever is the warmth and kindness the membership extended to me. I thank all of you for that and I wish you all success and prosperity.

In today's global economy, we are no longer restricted by boundaries of language and culture. Especially after the events of 9/11, we have become more aware that we are living in one world where we are all connected. In this issue, we discuss international communication with a look at the opportunities it presents and the gaffes it creates.

Don Huntington, our layout guy, takes a look at localization and the many localization resources available on the Net. His localization humbugs prove that effective translation can take place only when you translate the content and not just the words! There is more conversational humor in an article all the way from Taiwan. Guest writer John Gallagher relates the linguistic misunderstandings and confusions which are part of his everyday work life.

In "Home Away from Home," two guest writers present their views on working in a foreign culture and tell us how they adapted to the new ways. Elaine Winters recounts her presentation on "Cultural Issues in Communication," given at the EBSTC meeting in March. Scott Wallace concludes his series on Online Writing with a very potent article on how to write effective copy for the Web.

The Touchstone 2001 awards celebration, held in March, was a great success. Becky Rude, co-editor, met the winners of the Best of Show awards and talked with them about their prize-winning projects. We conclude our journey through past newsletters with a look at old mastheads and how they have changed over the years. As part of our 40th anniversary celebration, we interviewed Wallace Clements, one of the founding members of our chapter who was an EBSTC member for over 30 years!

We hope you enjoy reading this issue. We've really had fun creating this newsletter over the past months, and look forward to making it even better in the future. We are taking a break for the summer and will be back in September. Keep sending us those e-mail messages—your feedback and suggestions help us improve.

Hello, readers. Thank you for all your emails. Keep sending us your feedback, it helps us improve the newsletter.

I just took a half hour to read the newsletter. I like it! I liked the mix of articles and found a couple to be especially useful (Accessibility = Usability and Online Writing).

I'm a very online-oriented person, but when I heard that you were going to a Web version, I questioned whether I would read the newsletter. I always read the printed version during commercials. But now that I've seen that it's worth reading, I probably will make time for it.

Marilyn also suggested that the humor articles should be on a page of their own. Thank you for the input Marilyn, we plan to do some changes in our summer break and come back better and more improved!

The Weiss quoted by Russ Kahn [in Blast from the Past] would have been Edmond Weiss, I think, not "Lee." Russ is now president of the nearby Central New York Chapter. I enjoyed the excerpts from the East Bay Log.

Thanks for your comments, Ann. We went back and read the original article by Russ and discovered you are right. Good eye! Russ had written about two speakers, one of which was Lee Ridgeway, and we transposed the first names. Luckily, since we publish on the Web, we can easily fix this error.

Alane L. Alchorn, Technical Editor at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, writes

Wonderful job! My thanks to you both for all the effort and planning you did to revamp and revitalize this web site. It is easy to navigate, and VERY useful. Hooray!

Thank you, Alane. As you saw from the previous letters, we get a lot of help from our discerning readers.