STC Dynamic Web Services Project

by Destry Wion  ::  published 1 December 05    

Overview

Aside from the open, communities one might come to be involved with, there are more formally structured communities as well, such as those based on membership in a particular organization. One such organization I belong to is the Society for Technical Communication (STC), an international society that has been operating for more than 50 years, and which is largely responsible for the establishment of the field and study of technical communication to the level it is today.

I’m a relatively new member in the STC, and as I have mentioned in another article, STC Transformations, I have not always felt situated in the organization. Being that STC was founded by and for technical writers, it has largely remained true to that crowd, and probably for good reason up to this point. The problem for me is I’m not a technical writer, per se, not by the strict sense of the title. I like to write, to be sure, but when it comes down to it, my interests are more integrated in other facets of new media (particularly Web publication) than they are with the printed manual exactly (but that doesn’t mean I might not produce one some day).

There has also been the problem of my geographic location. Though the STC is an international society, it’s only in the U.S. where Chapter density is high. International membership is a bit more sparse, and the distribution of Chapters (usually only one per member country) reflects that. If a person in a given country is not living near Chapter headquarters, it can be quite difficult, or costly, to be more involved in any other way than by remote means.

Despite the problems I faced (as other new members might as well), there are opportunities to be had if one does a little digging to find where services are needed for the skills they can provide. This seems to have been the case for me. I have come to serve as one of the primary members of the STC Dynamic Web Services team. My contributions are fairly wide-spread in both development and writing, but my officially recognized effort is to produce educational materials for the STC community at large about modern practice and tools for Web communication and publishing.

How it Came About for Me

As technology has become more significant in modern culture, opening doors for new communication possibilities, the STC has moved to keep up, but perhaps not moving fast enough; member interest still leans heavily towards traditional technical writing paradigms so new members like myself are faced with a question: Do I pursue interests on my own and save myself the annual dues for society membership, or do I stick with it and find ways to give and take, however hard to come by?

This is a question that should raise the antennae of the STC, and which should be taken seriously. It’s quite possible the STC has become a little too comfortable in its skin and is long past due for a shed. Inward reflectoin is perhaps needed about whether to adhere to old, pulpy principles or to more adamantly embrace newer technology directions and the changing interests of potential new recruits. In other words, the STC needs to starting thinking young, not only in its marketing approaches, but at its very core as well; rewriting the mission statement as needed. Vectors to ripe fruit are there, they just need due attention. There are some fantastic educational programs where this may be recognized, like that of the Department of Technical Communication at the University of Washington, which has a cutting edge curriculum for students stepping into today’s markets. Perhaps STC leadership could look to its ranks for these gems and generate broad publicity channels that highlight such models. The fundamental unit will always be communication, but more hybrid disciplines (outside of just writing itself) need more of the limelight than they’re getting.

Because of the problems I was seemingly faced with, I was beginning to feel like saving my money was the right answer (it’s never a bad answer), but as a last effort, I decided to contact Ann L. Wiley, manager of the Online SIG, to see if I could help out in the Web site department—it certainly needed it. The site was clearly trying to publish articles of various nature, but it was static, not well organized, and lacked any presentational layer. Opportunity existed here if services were wanted.

At first it didn’t look good; there was apparently already focus on the problem further up the STC stove pipe and things were in a stall. The whole thing smelled of sticky, red tape and I was beginning to lose interest. Some time passed and then Ann contacted me again to discuss my offer further—the gears started to turn.

By the end of it, Ann invited me to serve on the Online SIG Web Expert team, as I’ve talked a bit about in my article STC’s Online SIG: A Good Choice, but in short order I was introduced to another chap, Lou Quillio, a man of much knowledge, talent and salt (and no less a TextDrive cohort), and we soon found ourselves elevated as developers in the STC Dynamic Web Services team, with Lou rightfully serving as dev lead. We soon acquired another team member, Courtney Schwartz (a brand new member in the STC), who now serves as our graphics person and has also brought much Subversion experience to the table (how’s that as a model example of new recruits making a difference to STC?).

Since then it’s been the process of distributed communication, coming to know thy neighbor, getting a rough plan put down, and banging things together with an eye towards open-source technology and Web standards. There are lots of interesting things in the works, including a society-wide forum, a document planning wiki, and a group publishing system for any chapter, SIG, or committee to use if they want to. A prototype for the Online SIG is the likely first offering.

More details to come.

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