| STC TC Communicator Published by the Twin Cities Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication September 2016, Volume 2, Issue 9 |
| The Art of Personal Branding: How to Tell the “You” Story and Gain New Customers with Liz Fraley
If you want someone to hire you, you need to be able to tell your story. In order to gain customers, there are several key points you need to address:
- Who are you?
- What is your plan?
- What defines you?
- What is your customer profile?
If you're thinking about working for equity, starting a business, or just going out on your own, this session is for you. Read More...
A Call for Volunteers and Leaders!
Interested in joining a committee? Check out our Committee Brochure. We have openings for Vice President, Communications Manager, Operations Manager, and Outreach Manager.
Consider investing one hour a month as a volunteer to help make STC TC strong.
Email stc.twincities.2015@gmail.com.
Updated STC TC Website Coming Soon!
STC Twin Cities is planning to switch to an updated website built with WordPress. This site has a new look but it includes all the same information for both current members and people considering joining the community.
For questions, e-mail: stc.twincities.2015@gmail.com *******************************************************
We launched a new Facebook Page on August 1, 2016
We are sharing useful and interesting information about our community, and we look forward to your comments and feedback.
We're looking for new members of our community - technical communicators of all industries are welcome. We're also hoping for our current members to engage, get involved, network, and share information.
"My advice to a new technical writer is: Join the community. One way to do this is to volunteer with your local STC chapter (whether or not you're a member of STC), but there are other ways as well. Twitter holds a wealth of information for technical communicators. Follow the #techcomm hashtag and you'll be introduced to a world of content that ranges from debates on the use of rhetoric in technical documentation to how to apply DITA tags in a structured authoring environment. Twitter is also a great way to network with other technical communication professionals locally and internationally, which can lead to job leads and career advancement opportunities."
CPTCä Class in December!
Training for the Certified Professional Technical Communicator - Foundation Level is coming! This two-day class is tentatively scheduled for early December 2016 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
The class will cover nine core areas of technical communication and prepare you for the certification exam. An APMG-accredited CPTC trainer, Chris Hester, will lead the class.
Chris is a communications professional who has delivered successful content strategy, training, and knowledge management projects to clients in the advertising, entertainment, financial, pharmaceutical, and technological industries.
If you are interested in attending a public class, scheduling a private class for your organization, or learning more about certification, contact Chris at cptc@reddeskstudio.com.
Technical Writing: Learn Something New Every Day Hi there. I’m Noah Spadgenske. I’m a twenty-year-old college senior at the University of Northwestern – St. Paul. I have a Professional Writing major, and I’m planning on becoming a technical writer in the future. Toward that end, I became an intern for the Society for Technical Communications – Twin Cities. President Barbara Beresford made me the head of the social media department. ...Okay, I’m currently the only person in the social media department, but that makes me the man in charge. I write most of the posts on the Facebook Page and manage our Twitter account. Any research I do for my writing is research about the career I’m going into, so I’m learning some great stuff.
I learned what a Subject Matter Expert (SME) is on practically my first day. I had never heard of SMEs before, but now I know they're super-important to this career I'm going into. That little educational nugget might be worth the price of admission, I think.
I'm getting advice from other writers so I can share it with the Society. Advice like: Never let the publisher write picture captions for you. The more people who read your work before you publish it, the better. If you find the simple act of writing hard for a period, stop making excuses but also maybe stop caring so much.
I learn about the value of informal learning as I am forced to learn informally - some of my work is more secretarial than actual writing. The internship is filled with experiences that should look good on a resume, even if some of them don't match what I was expecting when I took this job.
I learn about working virtually with a team that's geographically scattered; I live in Cold Spring and my supervisors are in the Twin Cities. I learn about market research by using social media to do it. I learn about the top trends in technical communication, like structured documents, so I can help arrange meetings that may discuss these topics. I learn about networking so I can write about that.
That's my story. Now tell us yours!
  |
|
|
| | | Copyright © 2016 by STC TC. All rights reserved. |
| |
|
