Notes from 48th International STC Conference
Chicago, Illinois, May 13-16, 2001

The Bucket Brigade: Mobilizing Communications Resources to Extinguish Company or Client Fires

Dan Voss and W.C. Wiese
Communications Department
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control - Orlando (LMMFC-O)

The presenters are both managers in the Communications Department at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control-Orlando (LMMFC-O), where they are responsible for overseeing a wide range of communication activities, from proposals to interactive marketing presentations.

Dan Voss has 23 years' experience in aerospace, including editing, proposal writing, marketing presentations, and management/supervision. He is a Fellow in the Society for Technical Communication and manages the Education Committee for the Orlando Chapter, where he has received the Chapter's Distinguished Service Award. He has also served on STC's Ethics, Certification, Strategic Planning and Vision, and Special Needs committees, and was recently named manager of the latter. He has presented at 11 international and 9 regional STC conferences. He co-authored the textbook, "Ethics in Technical Communication: Shades of Gray", for which he was named Author of the Year at LMMFC-O in 1998.

W.C. Wiese is president-elect of the Orlando Chapter, after having served several years as treasurer, guiding the chapter to a robust fiscal posture. He was recently named to the Society's Nominating Committee -- an important responsibility that helps determine who will occupy key international leadership positions in the coming years. He has 29 years' experience in product marketing and proposal support activities, including responsibilities for preparing major proposals involving military simulation systems, millimeter wave radar, electro-optics, strategic defense, automated target recognition systems, and several precision-guided munitions systems proposed by multi-national teams. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Business and Technical Communication. W.C. has presented at STC Annual Conferences on 6 previous occasions.

Session Description: This workshop focused on how to mobilize multimedia resources to solve urgent communication challenges. Participants learned how to design integrated strategic communication plans and then worked in teams to do so to solve communication challenges in different scenarios. The imbroglios included public relations damage control, producing winning proposals, a promotional campaign for a mall opening, and a career day exhibit for inner-city secondary school students.

Note: Since we were conducting this workshop, I obviously couldn't take notes. However, here are links to visuals and handouts from the session. The workshop appeared to be very successful; participation was enthusiastic, and the teams came up and presented excellent communication plans for their chosen scenarios.

• "The Bucket Brigade: Mobilizing Communications Resources to Extinguish Company or Client Fires": Workshop description.
• "The Bucket Brigade: Mobilizing Communications Resources to Extinguish Company or Client Fires": Visual aids on integrated strategic communication.
• "Integrated Strategic Communication: More than the Sum of Its Parts": Tech paper on integrated strategic communication.