Next Meeting: Wednesday November 8, 2003
This month Talia Erlich discusses core communication skills.

What are the core skills of a Technical Communicator?

A great deal of the job of a Technical Communicator is to listen to and solicit feedback from subject matter experts. Technical Communicators must often interview engineers (or read their design documents or specifications), who often provide a detailed technical perspective.

Technical Communicators need to translate engineer-ese to clear, procedural instructions for end users. When creating content or soliciting feedback from reviewers, Technical Communicators must know how to speak to subject matter experts in order to get the necessary information (and know what to discard as irrelevant to the end user.) To help us learn or refine these skills, Talia Erlich will discuss Active Listening, Blocks to Active Listening, and What Makes Feedback Effective.

Talia Erlich is a training professional and mediator, certified with the Conciliation Forums of Oakland. Talia presents workshops in Listening Skills, Feedback Skills, Conflict Management, and Procrastination/Time Management Skills around the Bay Area. She brings with her a strong business background in marketing in the high-tech industry, where she developed revenue-building promotions and coordinated trade show exhibits. Talia received her Bachelor of Arts in English from UC Berkeley.

No Meeting in December! See you in 2004.

STC-Berkeley Chapter Meeting Details
Caffe Giovanni, 2420 Shattuck Avenue
(between Channing and Haste), Berkeley, CA

Networking and conversation start at 6:00 p.m., and dinner at 6:30 p.m. If you want to eat dinner, reservations are required and must be received no later than 12:00 noon the Monday before the meeting. Reservations are necessary so that we can order the right amount of food. Do not contact the restaurant.

RSVP Online Use your credit card to order meeting reservations via the chapter website. The meeting fee with dinner for those with advance reservations is:

$18 for members with prepaid reservation
$15 for student members with prepaid reservation
$21 for nonmembers with prepaid reservation

If you come for the program only, starting at 7:30 p.m., the fee is $12 for members and nonmembers, and $10 for students. If you are not eating, payments may be made at the door.

RSVP by Mail Send checks to Berkeley STC, P.O. Box 1007, Berkeley, 94701.

All material ©2003 Berkeley STC/Ragged Left. The Ragged Left is published six times a year.
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