STC-Arkansas Notes

Here Melissa Britt's handout from her presentation March 10th.
Doc_Project_Planning_Handouts.pdf

2006-07 STC Arkansas Chapter Calendar (revised 2-10-07)
(All meetings on Saturday unless specified otherwise.)

January 13: Meeting Canceled
February 10: Planning Meeting
March 10: Planning Documentation Projects, Mellissa Britt, Acxiom
April 14: Chapter Elections, STC national representative visit
June 2: Open Source Software, Tommy Trussell, TW Tech. Services
July (no meeting)
August 18: STC Social Activity at LR Zoo
September 8: Technical Writing Career Planning
October TBD
November TBD

The Arkansas chapter of the Society for Technical Communication presents an October workshop, "Making the Most of Adobe Acrobat" Saturday, October 14, from 12:15 to 1:45 p.m. on the UALR campus (SUA 106c).

Multimedia designer Fredie Smith will guide participants through the following hands-on activities:

• Adding metadata to your PDFs.
• Creating professional and portable PDF forms.
• Preparing your PDF for professional printing.

Fredie Smith is the owner of Thoughts to Ink, a multimedia design company that produces business-to-business advertising and marketing materials.

For more details, see the meeting promotional information (28k PDF file).

Dan Charles (who spoke at an Arkansas Chapter meeting in June 2006) maintains a web page of resources for independent technical writers.

Here is the latest Arkansas Chapter Brochure.

Introductions

• There were 11 people in attendance

Election Issues

• Reviewed election regulations (Tommy and Pat)

• Nominations for 2006-2007 election slate

• Plan to close nominations on April 1

• New officers begin July 1

Chapter Activities

• Meeting presentations

• Anna Smith's sister, HP project manager -- topics: progression of the technical writing role into project management or contract work

• May Meeting -- possible speaker, Dan Charles

• Newsletter article ideas

• Social gatherings

• Lunches

• Activities that encourage people to interact with each other

• Additional services for members

• Telephone seminars -- chapter sponsors seminars and pays for part of the fee

• Community service -- Keith Jackson, economic development, career day, job fairs, high school, state fair, resume services

• Technical Communication "Hotline"

Recruiting and Chapter Development

• Publicity and recruiting methods

• Illinois sends letters to employers telling them about the technical writing role, meetings, services

• Announce meetings in local newspapers (business, employment sections)

• Invite college/university classes to attend meetings

• Offer door prizes

• Advertise on NPR

• Get a grant from the national organization for a large publicity project

• Public Service Announcement (PSA)

• Developing an electronic archive for the chapter

• History of how things were done

• Minutes

• Bylaws

• Publicity boilers (brochures, e-mails)

• Services (offered via the website) -- workshops, help finding a job, help with resumes & cover letter

• Broadening the chapter's leadership structure and leadership development

• Set up three committees with small manageable goals

• Committees also provide a way for people to get involved

Action Items

• Work on publicity and recruitment -- April planning meeting, May presentation

• Website research (Freddie & Vanessa)

• May presentation speaker (Mary)

• Chapter Brochure (Keith)

• Publicity Issues -- contact local colleges about Career Days (Anna)

• Schedule another planning meeting (April 1, Aerospace Education Center, 10am)

• Work on election slate

• Progress report on projects

• Web hosting (Mary, Anna)

• Project Committees

• Set up three committees

• Set small manageable goals for the group to accomplish

• Services offered at Career Fairs, State Fair, etc.

Directions to the Library:
1) Take I-40 to exit 125, US 65
2) Go west on Highway 65 (From LR: turn left; From Ft. Smith: turn right)
3) Turn right onto Highway 64, which is just past Fazoli's and Wendy's.
4) Continue west as the road becomes Donaghey Avenue and continue through two stoplights.
5) Turn left at the 3rd stoplight (Tyler St. and railroad crossing).
6) The library is two blocks east on the north (left) side of the street.

Faulkner County Public Library
1900 Tyler St., Conway, AR 72032
(501) 327-7482


Directions from the Library to Ryan's

1) Exit the library by turning left (East) onto Tyler.
2) At the traffic circle, turn onto Washington Ave. to the North (3/4 of the way around from Tyler).
3) Follow Washington Ave. to the traffic light at Donaghey Ave., where you turn right onto US Hwy. 64.
4) Ryan's is on the left side of the highway.

Ryan's Grill Buffet Bakery
1400 Hwy 64 West, Conway, AR 72032
(501) 327-7926

[Directions updated 6/8/2006]

Here is the latest Arkansas Chapter brochure.

Earlier this year, Adobe released the new Adobe Creative Suite (CS), a conglomeration of many of its industry-standard design products like Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and InDesign (as well a few new surprises).

Adobe claims that CS is a fully integrated, end-to-end solution for Web and print publishing, ideal for today's creative professionals. According to one brochure, "A complete solution, the Adobe Creative Suite offers time-saving integration, simplified workflows, and an unprecedented value."

Chad Garrett has been a professional writer and designer for ten years and currently manages the Multimedia Technology Center for UALR's College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. He's also completing his master's degree in Professional and Technical Writing at UALR.

At UALR, at 11:00 am Saturday November 20th, 2004.

Handout for Presentation (Adobe Acrobat format.)

Top Ten Technical Communication Reference Books
By Patrick Moore (epmoore@worldnet.att.net)

Michael J. Albers and Beth Mazur, editors. Content and Complexity. Mahway, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003.
Apple Computer, Inc. Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1992.
Steven Casey. Set Phasers on Stun: And Other True Tales of Design, Technology, and Human Error. 2^nd edition. Santa Barbara, CA: Aegean Publishing, 1998.
The Chicago Manual of Style. 15^th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2003.
Joseph S. Dumas and Janice C. Redish. A Practical Guide to Usability Testing. 2^nd edition. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing, 1999.
JoAnn T. Hackos and Janice C. Redish. User and Task Analysis for Interface Design. New York: John Wiley, 1998.
Jeff Johnson. GUI Bloopers: Don’ts and Do’s for Software Developers and Web Designers. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2000.
Philip Rubens, editor. Science and Technical Writing: A Manual of Style. 2^nd edition. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Edward R. Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. 2^nd edition. Cheshire, Connecticut: Graphics Press, 2001.
Joseph Williams. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. 7^th edition. New York: Longman, 2002.