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3rd Annual Worst Manual Contest Just
a reminder for the holiday season, when all else fails, read the Have you ever
been so frustrated with a manual or set of instructions 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 “We thought
we would have fun with this contest. Everyone has had 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 Technical Standards,
Inc. specializes in contract technical writing Jim Desmond,
STC Sr. Member New Mexico State STC NewsletterInternational Technical Communication Special Interest Group (SIG) Under New ManagementDirector-Sponsor's Campfireby Judy Glick-SmithSometimes, when you are sitting around the campfire, it is nice to hear others tell their stories for a change. This month I would like to introduce you to Ed See, Region 1 Director-Sponsor and Manager, e-Business Solutions User Interface Consulting. Ed is very passionate about the subject of technical communication as a family of professions rather than one definable profession. I think you will enjoy hearing his story. Technical Communications: A profession?A question that continues to haunt the Society is the professional status of technical communications. Is technical communications a profession? Are there such things as technical communications professionals? And, of course, the derivative discussion; should we certify technical communications professionals? There are probably about as many answers to these questions as there are technical communicators. And a lot of the answers will depend on the definition we give to the term profession, the definition and goals we assign to the Society, and our definition of our own jobs. It's important that we think about these items as we consider the role of certification in the Society, the future of the Society, and the benefits the Society can bring to our community. To me, technical communications is not a profession. However, there certainly are technical communications professionals. Technical communications is perhaps well defined as a field, a sort of umbrella "profession", akin in many respects to the health-care field. In many ways, this analogy works well. When we look at the health-care field, we see many professions, each with unique training, requirements, and contributions. We see the core, and easily recognizable, professions, the nurses and physicians. If we expand our scope just a bit, we also quickly recognize the professions focused on physical therapy, psychology, and other forms of recuperative and therapeutic specialties. Broadening slightly more, we can certainly include the administrators who specialize in health care organizations. We also find chiropractic, osteopathic, and even podiatry. Each of these is a recognized profession on its own, requiring specialized training. The medical field is clearly a rich and diverse family of professions, all engaged in health care. And it's very unlikely that anyone would debate that there is such a thing as a health-care professional. Taking this sort of view of technical communications, we can quickly see a similarity: our traditional core professions are technical writers and editors. These folks probably make up the majority of the Society. However, we also can quickly see other professions involved; usability professionals, librarians, programmers, scientists, graphic designers, illustrators, video producers, indexing professionals. Each of these, and the ones I've managed to neglect to mention, contribute to the richness and effectiveness of the Society. All of these people are engaged in technical communication, but come from a broad family of professions. Which brings us to the key issue: is it possible for the Society to attempt to define technical communications tightly enough that it would be possible to certify a person as a technical communicator? I think the answer will depend on the definition of technical communications. If we define the term to mean technical writer and editor, it is absolutely possible to create criteria that can be certified. The skills and underlying education required are clearly understood and can be evaluated. However, if we expand technical communicator to include visual design, usability, information management, or indexing, is it still possible to create something that evaluates these skills? Quite possibly, but would a technical communicator need to be proficient at all of these? Or at some percentage of them? Or do we make the evaluation criteria so general that we perhaps dilute the goal of certification, which is to distinguish those certified from those who are not. Perhaps the Society should explore offering different forms of certification specialties. I'm not sure that there is a single, clear answer to this. In some sense, it reaches to the very basic definition of the Society. If the Society views itself as a professional organization of technical writers and editors, the value of offering certification in those areas is clear. If the Society views itself as a family of professions engaged in field of technical communication, the question becomes much more involved. Right now, this is an issue that is before the board. I would like your thoughts on this topic, and on certification in particular. Please send me your thoughts at edsee@us.ibm.com Ed is serious about getting your ideas on this subject. Take him up on this and remember "It's prudent to spend less time tryin' to figure out who's right and more time tryin' to figure out what's right." A Cowgirl's Guide to Life by Gladiola Montana IEEE Working GroupA working group is forming to revise IEEE-Std. 1063, IEEE Standard for Software User Documentation. The standard will be updated to cover both electronic and paper documentation products. Working group members will be involved during an 18 to 24 month period in determining the scope and organization of the standard, reviewing related standards and guidance, and drafting and revising the standard. (A separate balloting group will be formed later to review the standard). 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