News
February 2003
Catch up on the latest news from the Chapter, Society, and Industry

Chapter News
Save March 12. 2003 for our Chapter Achievement Award party. It's a special event at the Berkeley Yacht Club.

Society News
Region 8 Conference Rescheduled
The conference will still be held in Las Vegas but the date has been postponed to July 20-22, 2003. Despite the best efforts of an incredible team of volunteers, the conference did not attract a sufficient number of registrants for the original January dates. Stay tuned for more information and opportunities to present and volunteer at the conference.

Volunteers Needed
The planning effort for the STC Region 8 Conference has been infused with new energy and vision with the appointment of Patrick Morrissey from San Diego as Conference Manager. Patrick is recruiting a team and looking for volunteers to create a great program in a fun setting. Sound interesting? This is a great opportunity to get involved with STC members throughout Region 8 and make a contribution to your profession. Volunteers are needed for big and little jobs including:

• Publications and Publicity Committee Managers
• Conference Stem Managers
• Newsletter and Advertising Coordinators
• Webmaster and Web Committee members
• Conference Shopper
• Forms Designer and Database Coordinator
• Room Monitors and Table Hosts

For a complete list and description of each job, please contact Volunteer Committee Chair, Kathryn Munn.

STC Phone Seminar Series
STC's continuing series of phone seminars for 2003 continues through March. Two seminars will be offered each month through. Telephone seminars have been very successful in bringing cost-effective training to STC members and others seeking to improve their skills and knowledge. This year, STC is offering online registration.

For details, including an explanation of how telephone seminars work, please visit the STC site.

Future seminars scheduled are:

February 5, 2003, Creating Persuasive Executive Summaries. The seminar leader will be Stacia D. Kelly.

February 13, 2003, Fast and Easy Time Management. John Hedtke will conduct this seminar.

March 12, 2003, Making the Complex Clear and Pretty. Phylise Banner will lead the presentation.

March 19, 2003, Evaluating an Index (even if you only have five minutes). The seminar leader is Seth Maislin.

The cost for each seminar is $145.00 USD for U.S. sites and $160.00 USD for Canadian sites. Overseas participants should contact the STC office. An additional $10.00 will be charged for registration received less than five days before the seminar.

As cost-effective and time-efficient ways of improving your skills and knowledge, telephone seminars are much like a large conference call, but in a more controlled environment. Simply dial the 800 number from your telephone, enter the provided personal identification number, and you're connected. Then sit back and listen to the presentation and join in the discussions.

For one registration, several employees at a company may benefit from the seminar presentation and develop their own interactive discussions.

Industry News
3rd Annual Worst Manual Contest
Just a reminder for the holiday season, when all else fails, read the manual. Have you ever been so frustrated with a manual or set of instructions that you cursed the author and wished you had never bought the product in the first place?

Does this sound familiar? How about $100 for your frustration? Technical Standards, Inc. (TSI), a Southern California documentation services company, is offering $100 for the winning entry in their third annual 'Worst Manual Contest.' Send a manual or set of instructions that is hard to understand, poorly written, or just plain wrong. Send it if it has bad grammar, too much legalese, is poorly translated, or has missing steps. If it is the worst entry, you will win $100. "We thought we would have fun with this contest. Everyone has had trouble with a manual," says Michelle Wier, Director of Operations of Technical Standards, Inc. "That's why we started our company. People like products they understand how to use, and good technical documentation reduces the need for technical support. That's why good manuals are so important."

You don't have to send the whole manual; excerpts of the worst parts are okay. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2003, so check those holiday gifts for potential entries. Entries must be in English. For complete contest rules, see the TSI Web site. The winner will be announced on the Technical Standards web site on February 28, 2003.

Technical Standards, Inc. specializes in contract technical writing projects, technical writer staffing, and training. Since 1993, TSI has provided writers and editors to the high-tech community who produce printed documents, online Help, and Internet documentation.