Trends in Technical Communication

This session offers insights about the future of technical communication and STC. The Executive Director of STC will be talking about new developments for our Society. She will then join a panel of local technical communication leaders to share their thoughts about important trends in technical communication. This is a great opportunity to learn about the evolving nature of our profession.

Beginning at 5:45pm, Membership Manager Mike Brazill will be hosting a short meeting about "Getting Started in Technical Communication." These meetings are designed to assist newcomers to the Society and our profession. Everyone is welcome.

A light buffet will be served from 6:00-6:45pm. This is a great time to meet with your colleagues, job recruiters, and our speakers.

After a few announcements we will introduce our first speaker. Susan Burton, the new Executive Director of STC. She is in Seattle to visit with our chapter. Susan will have a short presentation and also contribute to our panel discussion.

Our panel discussion will revolve around trends in technical communication. Susan Burton, Tom Woolums of Microsoft, Odile Morrison, President of STC Canada West Coast chapter, Judy Ramey of the University of Washington, Josh Cohen of Google, and Joe Welinske will all share their thoughts. The panel will also respond to comments and questions from the audience.

Raffle prizes include Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007, a gift certificate for the Pyramid Alehouse, a gift certificate to Border's Books, and a license for Camtasia software.

Susan Burton, CAE, became executive director of STC in August. She brings to the Society a 30-year track record of association management successes. Burton has served as president and CEO of the American College of Health Care Administrators (ACHCA), CEO of the Vision Council of America (VCA), and vice president of marketing for ADAPSO (the computer software and services association).

Josh Cohen graduated from the University of Washington Technical Writing program in 2001 and went on to work as a technical writer for Microsoft and Google. He works on software development kits for developers and other developer tools in Java and C++ in products including Microsoft's HighMAT and DRM technologies, as well as Google's peer to peer open source libraries.

Odile Morrison is a freelance technical communicator. Operating as Vivid Text Communications, she has produced a wide variety of communication products for companies in Canada, Finland, England, and the US. She is proud to call herself a tech. comm. generalist and has a keen interest in usability and new technologies. Prior to her term as Vice President, she led the CWC STC Contractors Group and implemented our very successful Contractors Directory.

Judy Ramey is professor and chair of the Dept. of Technical Communication at the University of Washington and creator and director of the UWTC Laboratory for Usability Testing and Evaluation. She has taught and consulted in the areas of usability research and user-centered design techniques for many years. She and Dennis Wixon co-edited "Field Methods Casebook for Software Design," John Wiley & Sons 1996.

Tom Woolums. As Content Publishing Manager for Microsoft's Consumer Media Technology group, Tom manages a small team that is responsible for a variety of documentation and code samples for help systems, Web sites, SDKs, and print. After earning his bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Idaho, Tom worked as a software developer in the mortgage and escrow industry for over 10 years before becoming a programmer writer for the Wasser Corporation in 1995. Since joining Microsoft in 1997, Tom has worked as a programming writer, writing lead, content publishing manager, and a group manager.

Joe Welinske, moderator, is the president of WritersUA, formerly known as WinWriters. WritersUA is a company devoted to providing training and information for user assistance professionals. Joe has been involved with software documentation development since 1984. He is currently serving as President of the Puget Sound Chapter of STC.