STC

Wizard of PowerPoint (Southfield, MI, USA)

Featuring: Corinne Stavish, humanities professor at Lawrence Technological University

Description: Corrine Stavish, a professional storyteller and speaker, will discuss how and when to use PowerPoint effectively and when not to use it.

Date: Monday, April 21
Time: Networking and light snacks: 6:30 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Program: 7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Where
Lawrence Technological University
Technology Building
Lear Auditorium (T429)
21000 West Ten Mile Road
Southfield, MI 48075

Price: Program Fees
$5 – STC-SM Chapter Members
$10 – Nonmembers
$5 – Students (members and non-members)

Register and pay by using any of the following methods:

• E-mail—register@stc-sm.org and pay at the door (cash or check)
• Mail—fill out and submit the registration form (http://www.stc-sm.org/register.htm) and send your registration with payment (cash or check) to:Registration for April STC Program
  22951 Thorncliffe
  Southfield, MI 48033

Driving Directions:

• Directions
• Campus Map

Posted in Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Detroit, MI, USA | Local meeting | STC
Tags: Lawrence Tech | LTU | Michigan | Program | Southfield | STC-SM
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The Meter is Running: Setting Consulting Rates for Independence (Cleveland, OH, USA)

Presented by Christopher Juillet, PLC

• Are you a consultant?
• Have you been asked to do a special project for someone [on the side]?
• Have you thought about dabbling in another area of interest outside of your work?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, this meeting is for you! Setting consulting rates is always tricky. How much to charge, and why? There are many ways to establish a consulting rate–most of them neglect basic business principles. In this session, Christopher will show why those rate schemes often yield rates much lower than appropriate and how to establish a consulting rate you and your clients can live with.

Consultants and Independent Contractors SIG meeting

Topic: What value/services do you want from your SIG? Networking and ideas about consulting services. Meet in the Holiday Inn bar. RSVP to Lori Klepfer.

See NEOSTC for directions and registration.

Posted in Calendar | Cleveland, OH, USA | Local meeting | STC
Tags: Consultant | NEOSTC | OH | Rates | USA
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Documenting SDKs and APIs All Day Workshop - NY Metro STC (NYC, NY, US)

“Help wanted: Technical Writer to document SDKs. Must have Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Master’s degree in Technical Communication, plus five year’s experience in a similar position…”

In their dreams! In the real world, there are a lot more SDKs that need documenting than technical writers with the ideal qualifications. Documenting SDKs isn’t easy, and it’s not for everyone. But it is a highly sought skill. It’s work that will earn you respect, both from other writers and from programmers. And it’s one of the best-paying gigs in our industry.

Sure, it’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. Why not you?

What will this workshop give me?
This 1-day workshop focuses on how to organize and produce SDK documentation, no matter what programming language the API is written in. You’ll learn why companies bother with SDKs, what programmers want and why sample programs are so important.

Act fast, space is limited and we expect this workshop to be full.

Location
Arno’s Restaurant
141 W 38th
NYC at Broadway

Cost
$200 STC Members/$240 Nonmembers

More information about the event

Posted in Calendar | New York City, NY, USA | STC | Training
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IUE 2008 (Ann Arbor, MI, USA)

Internet User Experience 2008, sponsored by UXnet, is a conference spotlighting methods for dramatically improving today’s web site user experience. This fourth annual conference brings you top industry speakers, practitioners, and authors to provide you with the most complete package of Internet user experience design training, case studies, and real-world examples ever assembled.

We cover most aspects of web site design and strategy, including user experience design, graphics, branding, marketing message, effective web writing, and enhancements that drive customers to your site.

The program includes half-day and full-day tutorials, student posters, presentations and a full-day workshop (after the main conference).

Posted in ACM SIGCHI | Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Calendar | Conference | Detroit, MI, USA | STC | Toledo, OH, USA | UPA
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Conducting Usability Tests (Waltham, MA, USA)

The February STC Boston Workshop is “Conducting Usability Tests – Practical Tips and Techniques”. Never conducted a usability test? Want to add structure to your informal testing efforts? Need to cost-justify investment in usability?

This hands-on workshop, by Beth Loring and Lena Dmitrieva, will train you to conduct a usability test and lay the foundation for incorporating structured techniques into your work processes. The techniques you will learn here are applicable to whatever you work on: software, documentation, websites.

Learn introductory skills such as how to recruit participants, interact with them, and compensate them for their time, as well as advanced topics such as remote testing, handling difficult participants, and writing useful recommendations once the test is done. Practice test moderation in Bentley’s state-of-the-art usability testing facilities and receive individual feedback from the instructors.

Posted in Boston, MA, USA | Calendar | Local meeting | STC
Tags: stc boston
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Bill Gribbons - “The Total User Experience: The Road Ahead” - STC NYCMetro (NYC, NY, USA)

The January meeting of the STC NY Metro chapter will feature Dr. Bill Gribbons, speaking on “The Total User Experience: The Road Ahead.”

Dr. Gribbons, Director of the Human Factors and Information Design programs at Bentley College, will highlight how the emergence of the experience economy has opened exciting opportunities in new sectors such as healthcare, financial services, e-business, gaming, and consumer electronics.

As an expert on the user experience, Bill is frequently quoted in the media, including The Boston Globe, Boston Business Journal, Cox News Service, Mass High Tech, USA Today, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, Investor Daily, East Bay Business Times, ABC 20-20, Business 2.0, a nationally syndicated radio show (A Touch of Grey), US News and World Report, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Location
Arno’s Restaurant
141 W. 38th St. (at Broadway)
NYC

Registration
Register by Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Online registration or email Donna Timpone at timpone at useredge.com

Cost
STC Member: $10.00, Non-Members: $40.00
Meeting only: Members: free, Non-Members: $5.00

Posted in Calendar | Local meeting | New York City, NY, USA | STC
Tags: stc nyc metro
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Software Saturday: Acrobat 8 and Captivate Program (Pittsburgh, PA, USA)

The Pittsburgh Chapter STC will host a Software Saturday workshop from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM on January 26, 2008 at ProTech Training in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. The workshop will focus on Adobe Acrobat and Captivate.

Date: Saturday, January 26, 2008
Place: ProTech Training, Monroeville
Time: 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Cost: $45 student/unemployed; $60 STC members; $75 non-members
R.S.V.P. by January 21 to Bryce Walat at walat_bryce@msn.com or 412-779-1795. Include your name, phone number and e-mail address
Speaker: Alan Houser Introduction to Adobe Captivate Software simulations are becoming increasingly popular in technical communication. Adobe Captivate is an easy-to-use, yet powerful tool for developing and publishing software demonstrations, interactive software simulations, and scenario-based training. In this interactive, hands-on workshop, you will learn to:

• Record effective software demonstrations.
• Create interactive software simulations.
• Add audio to Captivate projects.
• Choose appropriate Captivate settings.
• Edit and publish Captivate projects.

Introduction to Adobe Acrobat 8 Many technical communicators are not fully aware of the capabilities of Adobe Acrobat Standard and Professional versions. In this interactive, hands-on workshop, we will learn to:

• Optimize PDFs for online viewing. Add navigation buttons and bookmarks.
• Create interactive Acrobat forms — a great way to get feedback from users!
• Use Acrobat’s review and annotation tools for online electronic reviews.
• Use and set Acrobat document security.
• Understand Acrobat settings and properties for publishing.

Alan Houser is president of Group Wellesley, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based firm that provides consulting, training, and application development services to support single-source publishing, electronic publishing, and XML-based publishing. Alan is an Adobe Certified Instructor in FrameMaker and Acrobat, and provides training and consulting for clients across America and Europe.

Posted in Calendar | Pittsburgh, PA, USA | STC | Training
Tags: pittsburgh stc
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Writing for the Web (Cincinnati, OH, USA)

Writing for the web has become a fundamental task in today’s world of technical communication. Hear about the latest trends, along with the standard principles for contributing to the web user experience, from Pam Ecker, chair of the Multimedia Design department of Cincinnati State Technical Community College.

This is the March 2008 meeting of the Southwestern Ohio Chapter of STC.

Posted in Calendar | Cincinnati, OH, USA | Local meeting | STC
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STC 55th Annual Conference (Philadelphia, PA, USA)

Technical Communication Summit, STC’s 55th Annual Conference and EXPO, Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 1-4, 2008.

Posted in Annual association conference | Calendar | Philadelphia, PA, USA | STC
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DUX 2005, a product of professional association collaboration

A great example of the benefits of professional association collaboration is the Designing for User eXperience conference, the second of which (DUX 2005) will be taking place 3-5 November at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, CA USA. AIGA, ACM SIGGRAPH, and ACM SIGCHI have joined forces again to develop what many consider to be the premier conference for user experience practitioners.

Supporting AIGA, SIGGRAPH, SIGCHI, and DUX 2005 are several cooperating societies: IxDG, IIID, UPA, STC, AIS SIGHCI, HFES, IDSA, and IAI. Plus, BayDUX, the local presence of UXnet in the San Francisco Bay Area, is sponsoring the conference’s opening plenary reception, in part in honor of World Usability Day which was scheduled to coincide with the opening day of the conference.

Congratulations to all involved in helping make this event reflect a cross-section of the user experience professional community.

Posted in ACM SIGCHI | ACM SIGGRAPH | AIGA | AIS SIGHCI | Conferences | HFES | IDSA | IIID | IxDA | News | STC | UPA
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