Notes from 47th International STC Conference
Orlando, Florida, May 21-24, 2000

Twenty-Five New Ideas from the 47th Annual STC Conference

W.C. Wiese
Lockheed Martin Corporation
Missiles and Fire Control, Orlando, FL

Description: W.C. Wiese developed a clever and effective format for sharing professional enrichment gained at the international STC conference with his colleagues at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control -- a "waterfall" of 20 juicy tidbits distributed by e-mail every day or two in the weeks following the conference. Here, with W.C.'s kind permission, are those tidbits.

Overview: The 47th annual conference of the Society for Technical Communication was held May 22-24 here in Orlando. It was of special importance to Missiles and Fire Control attendees because we are part of the host chapter for the conference. Cindy Holloway, Andrea Lawrence, Bill Paskert, Dan Voss, and W.C. Wiese presented an operational overview of our department entitled "Integrated Strategic Communications: More than the Sum of Its Parts." A CD copy of the Proceedings is available from W.C.

STC's current membership exceeds 25,000 and growth is continuing, particularly in Europe, India, and Israel. Tampa resident Mark Hanigan was installed as the Society's President during the meeting. The Executive Director of the Society extended a request for W.C. to run as a candidate for Society Treasurer. Supporting recommendations of the current STC president and current STC treasurer have been secured.

Twenty-Five Tidbits from the Renaissance of Communication in Orlando

1. Missiles and Fire Control - Orlando stood out in the International Technical Video Competition. Of 14 top entries shown continuously during the conference, no fewer than six came from LMMFC-O. Jacinto Araya's "National Engineering Week" earned a Distinguished Communication Award. He received Excellence Awards for "AC-130H LLLTV R&M Upgrade WSMR Ground Test," "Two Missiles, One Great Team," and "Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control Theme Video." Lusinda Recor earned Excellence Awards for "1st Gen and 2nd Gen FLIR Comparison Comanche" and "Comanche for AUSA'99."
2. Keynote Speaker Thomas Koulopoulos, President of the Delphi Group, credits World War II for the growth of American technology and today's economy. After the war, GI bill college benefits created knowledge workers, who then invented computers to manage the knowledge. But growth is astounding. It took only 5 years for the World Wide Web to gain 50 million users. But pain reliever sales have quadrupled in the last 10 years. We're moving faster.
3. We must adapt to continuous change. Koulopoulos says the crew of the Titanic did everything right--for a lighter vessel. We must learn to forget, he said, to be successful in today's business environment.
4. Success includes quickly communicating in your Knowledge Chain. We must link in 4 quadrants: awareness and responsiveness, with both internal and external audiences. Today's business only has 3 months to bring a product to market--just 3 months to communicate internally to build a team and encourage innovation, then move the product to a market that is informed and ready to buy. Koulopoulos says that Sony is an excellent example. They believed in a market for pocket-portable transistor radios, then struck gold again with the Walkman. Just as unbelievably, Gillette held 72 percent of the safety razor market with Sensor Excel, but replaced it with Mach 3 anyway to preempt competitors.
5. Imagine navigating through time. Hewlett Packard can go back to any of its Web sites for any past second and interact with it. This perfect Web memory enables them to monitor responses and behaviors to information.
6. Success requires communicating with complexity and velocity. Today's business must instantaneously create a supply chain to respond to new demand chains. It is possible to go into business overnight by acquiring loans, transferring money, and outsourcing manufacturing around the world
7. Performance support campaigns develop loyal users. Past STC President Saul Carliner studies effective campaigns that support customers achieve your business goals. These campaigns ensure that users have resources and motivation to reinforce positive behavior toward your company. Messages involve layers of complexity for novices through advanced users, but are redundant to remind and reinforce. The best examples include exceptional consistency--the type of consistency that immediately makes you comfortable at MacDonalds anywhere in the world.
8. Use of cigarettes is decreasing. The effectiveness of anti-smoking performance campaigns leaves smokers feeling unsupported by their peers and uniformly inconvenienced when they continue to smoke.
9. Carliner's advice: master the Ah-Ha Factor. In general, our customers don't care about the precepts of technical communication, but they will hear us when we ask how we can help them achieve their objectives. Use fortune cookie techniques--combine the expected and unexpected to make users want to use your product. Quicken rewards users by teaching, providing a familiar interface, avoiding the burden of too much information, and providing dynamic information via Web site.
10. Trends among Software Developers. Employers are growing very demanding in their expectations of technical communicators--several wags noted that you have to be a cyborg to actually meet job descriptions that require competence in several programming languages and help applications. Single sourcing is now common practice, with information design placing new stress on the production staff. Responsibilities are being split between content developers and content designers.
11. Framemaker is no longer the only answer. Many companies are embracing XML for product documentation, and Dreamweaver is emerging as a tool of choice. Few are printing, most are updating online documentation. Documentation products are again cross-platform and cross-browser. Instead of Word and Authorware, companies are using Dreamweaver and Authorware. PDF is the preferred format at Oracle.
12. Rapid Pace of Change. Alan Greenspan recently reported that more people are insecure about their jobs now than at the bottom of the recession. Today's technology pace is placing great demands of employees to keep learning. So where should communicators invest? Oracle wants information designers, not just tool users. Employers are looking for continuing education in Java and XML (technologically eager people). Other recommendations: Dale Carnegie, Web-based training, and instructional design (applied cognitive psychology). Much of what we do today didn't exist 5 years ago.
13. Technical Communication Salaries are Increasing! Openings are requiring higher salaries, and companies that don't value technical communicators are beginning to find that they can't hire.
14. Master Language. English is becoming a global technology language, except in France. (The trends panel gives them 5 years to convert.)
15. More Technology Impact Drives Change. There will be a mobile impact on web design--phones, PDAs, and even beepers will require more granular information. Metadata will be required for new display formats, yet more bandwidth will increase appetites for multimedia. Expect the keyboard to become antique in 5 years as voice interface becomes prevalent.
16. STC Has Adopted a Major Initiative in Branding. Branding provides tools and guidelines for an organization's public image and defines priorities for employees. Branding is more than a logo--the tools form a compass for workers and lead toward positive, enduring customer relationships as employees act consistently toward them. Ben and Jerry's ice cream has been exceptional at communicating company values and goals, with resulting customer trust.
17. Your Brand Already Exists. It's how customers and employees perceive your company now. Are you a puppy dog or a cougar? K-Mart or Nieman-Marcus? What do your employees and customers value? What are your organizational strengths? Your brand is the sweet spot at which they all merge. It must be expressed in an inspirational and memorable way. It expresses the things you must never give up, no matter what.
18. Designing the Future of Technical Communication -- STC's Brand. For STC, this statement expresses timelessness, the members' expectation of leadership, and its role in defining standards. It also captures STC's values: member-focused, effective, ethical, open-minded. A goal: intuitive products that need no manuals and can be placed in service immediately.
19. Not for Everyone. It's possible that not all employees share organizational goals--they may no longer fit. But branding does solidify relationships with those who embrace the stated values of the company. For Volvo, it's safety and consistent actions to improve it: safe assembly line awards, the Volvo Saved My Life Club, and high product standards. Microsoft is perceived as arrogant, so the use of a butterfly image softens the company's hard edges. They want to embody access to knowledge and information.
20. You Can't Say No. An organization that creates opportunities must act on its brand. It can never say, "I can't help you" when people call.
21. Higher Standards for ISO 9000. An international committee is reviewing the ISO standard this year and recommending changes. It identified 20 key characteristics of quality. In future audits, a company must prove that it has a process for customer feedback and satisfaction. It must demonstrate continuous improvement processes. It must also demonstrate how ISO responsibilities are communicated in the organization. How do you identify your customers' requirements and expectations? The American Society for Quality (http://www.asq.org/) is monitoring changes.
22. Twenty-one down, four to go!