Lines & LettersNortheast Ohio STC NewsletterOctober 2015 Issue Page 1

President’s ColumnBrian Smith

A few days ago I returned from a short trip to London, England. While there, I toured Westminster Abbey and spent several minutes in an area of the abbey called Poet’s Corner, where many famous writers are either buried or commemorated with plaques on the walls and floor. With such recognition, there is no question that writers are among some of our favorite people!National Day on Writing takes place October 20th. This would be a good time to honor your favorite writer or reflect on what writing means to you. With chilly weather arriving in Ohio, you could curl up with a good book and a hot cup of tea, write a poem, or catch up on a writing project. I recently downloaded the Day One journaling app to record my daily activities in London and I’m exploring WordPress with ideas for a blog. There are plenty of opportunities to celebrate National Day on Writing.If you were not able to attend our September meeting, you will want to read the summary of senior member Tricia Spayer’s presentation in this edition of the newsletter. I hope you join me in welcoming our presenters to the October meeting on emerging technologies and the November workshop on social media. Don’t forget our networking lunches and social events sponsored by NEO STC and be sure to renew your STC membership at stc.org. There is a lot going on this fall!

Membership News

Now is the time to join or renew your STC membership for 2016! Current members with a Classic membership

can take $30 off the price of their renewal. To receive this limited-time discount, use promo code STC2016 on the payment page. This offer expires in early December, so act now.

Members who renew now receive 15 months of membership for the price of 12.

When renewing or joining, remember to add our NEO STC chapter to your membership package. Membership in NEO STC provides discounted pricing on chapter events, as well as volunteer opportunities to build your skillset, resume, and professional network.For more information about membership and to join or renew, go http://stc.org/membership/join-or-renew-now/member-benefits.Special Promotion for NonmembersNEO STC welcomes all nonmembers to attend the October program meeting free of charge, including dinner. Unlike past years, nonmembers are not required to come as a member's guest. Members, please invite nonmembers to join us for this special event to learn about the many benefits of NEO STC. A brief nonmember orientation session will begin prior to the presentation. Also, a raffle drawing will select three nonmembers to win an additional free program meeting.

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In the Spotlight: Jill McCauslin

Jill McCauslinMeet our new Vice President, Jill McCauslin!Jill left in-house employment about one year ago to work full-time at her company, WhitePoint Professionals. Right now, she works as an instructional designer for a few different clients. She says, “I’ve done work for both instructor-led training and elearning courses. I have a small office on the west side of Akron in an incubator-type space called The Circle.”Jill has worked at many companies over the years on a lot of different projects. “I started as a technical writer and then over the years, moved more into the training world. I spent a lot of energy on performance support at my last job. That was an interesting project.”Jill joined STC a long time ago, “… around 1997.” She said, “I went to the annual conference that year, which was held in Toronto, Ontario.”

Jill is currently the Vice President for the NEO chapter and is an Associate Fellow. She says, “I’m also coordinating the book club for this year. I’ve worked on a variety of things for the chapter over the years. It’s a great way to get to know people.” She said she feels that our chapter has done a great job of pulling together people with common interests. So true!“I was an English major so no great technical background there. There was no tech comm programs when I was in school,” she said. “I’ve learned much of what I do from STC, work, seminars, Google, and just figuring things out. It’s why I’ve found STC to be helpful.”Jill says she loves to read and to hike. “I mainly read fiction and hike all over the area. We’re lucky to have a national park close by as well as the Metro Parks.”And, she’s taken up running in the past couple of years. “I’ve run a few 5Ks and one 5-mile race and ran in a relay team for the Akron Marathon at the end of September. I’ve also set a goal of doing a pull-up in my lifetime and I’m working hard on trying to get strong enough to do it. When that happens, I’ll flood social media with photos!”Jill has a son, Nick, who is attending Queens University of Charlotte. She lives in Hudson with her dog Nunu and has a blog she occasionally posts to about life as a widow. Feel free to check it out: www.widowwalking.com.

September Program Meeting Follow-up: Tips for Technical Illustration

Carrie CianciolaOn September 10th, Tricia Spayer of Pressco Technology kicked off the new program year with an engaging talk about using effective visuals in technical communication. Drawing on her 20 years of experience in technical illustration, Tricia provided guidance in these areas: Making illustrations more useful How to not scream amateur Following ISO standards for icons Drawing from scratch Enhancing imported illustrations and photos

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Enhancing screen shots

Tricia supported each of her guiding points with excellent visual examples, including before-and-after pictures. In conclusion, she left us with these words of wisdom: Keep it simple Get rid of details that do not matter Use fills and line weights for emphasis Use symbols and drawings that already existThank you, Tricia, for inspiring us to go beyond expert writing, editing, and organization skills and sharpen our skills in visual communication.

Tricia Spayer

Yammer Helps Those with Social Difficulties Become Social

Lynn NickelsFresh off the Content Marketing World (CMW) Conference in Cleveland, full of new ideas and ways to connect our NEO Chapter’s social media theme for the year, pay homage to the National Day on Writing and include human interest stories—killing several birds with one stone—my mind turned to writing about a special person I am privileged to know and work with. Someone who has used social media to give him the confidence to have a voice in a world that he might normally not have the courage to speak in.

One of the ideas presented at the CMW conference was the importance of being authentic in what you say when writing about your subject matter—it is paramount to gaining credibility. I cannot be any more authentic in what I write about Eric Ahnell, because Eric does not have an unauthentic or dishonest bone in his body.

Eric Ahnell

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But let me take a step back for a moment.Eric and I work at Rockwell Automation in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. Rockwell Automation is an industrial automation company that produces programmable logic and automation controllers, drives, motors and components for the manufacturing industry. On the surface, it appears very technical, and maybe a little hard around the edges—steeped in the industrial manufacturing world and very engineering-focused. And it is.But what it also is, is very people-centric; very concentrated on cultural diversity and diversity in another way—in the development of people who have special challenges and talents.It is also a company that attempts, and very well, I might add, to stay ahead in the world of technology and social media.About two years ago, the company decided to implement a new social media platform called Yammer, a Microsoft application. Formerly, Rockwell used an internal, online newsletter, and we still do have internal communications channels, but Yammer replaced one of those channels. Yammer has been likened to the Facebook of business, but it’s more than that. It is a private social network that helps employees collaborate across departments, locations and business applications. To join, employees simply have to have a company email address. Yammer sort of looks like Facebook and a little like a Twitter feed. It has a Ticker and users can use hashtags at the end of posts to enable quick searches of information. Yammer also allows file and information sharing among users. It allows users to get answers to problems from SMEs and employees in other areas of the company pretty quickly.

Particular teams within a company can use Yammer to collaboratively create privately secured group pages. It also offers apps for iOS,

Android, BlackBerry and Windows phones. Yammer claims that companies have been able to cut down emails by 40%. The company is also looking at integrating Office 365, SharePoint, Dynamics and Skype. To find out more, go to: https://products.office.com/en-US/yammer.Yammer is also valuable in that it has given people a way to communicate outside of the norm. Like other forms of social media, it can feel safer than face-to-face communication. For those with social challenges, it can open up new ways of communication that can build confidence and relationships that can lead, eventually, to face-to-face communication being more in the realm of their comfort zones.Let me emphasize the word “challenges,” here. Many of my co-workers have particular challenges and special needs and are literally light years ahead of me when it comes to intelligence. I am not an engineer, nor am I a software programmer. Eric is not an engineer, but he is definitely a software genius! He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer and Information Science from Cleveland State University. He has a unique problem-solving perspective that is unlike the typical brain and a remarkable ability to intensely concentrate, remember, and focus on areas such as computers, software and programming. He also has Asperger’s Syndrome.Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) is an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and comes with particular social challenges. It is one of a distinct group of “complex neurodevelopment disorders characterized by social impairment, communication difficulties, and restrictive, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior,” according to www.ninds.nih.gov. As with Eric, who is extremely high functioning, one of the main symptoms of AS is learning how to act in challenging social situations and communicating with the expected social cues.Use of the Internet and virtual socializing has helped change the lives of those with this syndrome. It has enabled people with social anxiety or AS-types of disorders to make and maintain friendships, express themselves and share their knowledge in a non-threatening environment, eventually enabling them to better-handle real-world social situations and understand social cues.

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Eric says, “Yammer keeps me informed of the latest news. Also, I enjoy helping others with their issues posted there. I can stay in touch with people around Rockwell Automation, regardless of where they are located.”Eric has made great strides in casual social interaction. Yammer and other social media has helped him to branch out with regard to his communication skills within the company, allowing him to express his unique perspective and knowledge, which has helped him on both professional and personal levels. On any given day, you will see Eric’s name with comments and problem-solving advice on both of Rockwell Automation Yammer sites—we actually have two sites, one called CLammer for our Cleveland-based employees and our main all-company Yammer site. Eric also says that he uses Twitter and LinkedIn.

Automation Fair DemonstrationEric has worked at Rockwell Automation for 11 years and was originally part of the Cuyahoga East Vocational Education Consortium (CEVEC) program. This program specializes in vocational training and job placement for high school students with moderate to severe disabilities. During Eric’s training, his strong computer science knowledge was recognized as an asset and he was later hired permanently.

“My job title is Marketing Database Administrator. This role doesn’t involve traditional database work with Structured Query Language (SQL), but rather SharePoint site administration of the Available for Customer (AFC) Database, a tool that the product managers populate and the sales field uses to find out what’s coming, so they can train to sell it.” His job is integral to marketing communications and product marketing, and the database he administers is used on a constant basis.Eric’s hobbies and passions include baseball and video game design. Did I mention B A S E B A L L??? Eric is quite a statistic expert. But again, let me highlight his favorite passion. Eric explains, “I develop open-source games as a hobby. Both the game source code and periodic releases are published to GitHub, which is both a place to publish source code and a way for me to collaborate with like-minded developers, should I do so in the future. I currently develop the games by myself.”I wasn’t kidding when I said he was a software genius!Eric continues making advances in his communication techniques. Last November, he joined our Integrated Architecture team at our annual tradeshow, Automation Fair, in Anaheim, CA. “I staffed the digital What’s New wall, and assisted at the Security wall,” he said. This job requires a lot of courage. For two days, Eric spoke to customers from around the world about Rockwell Automation’s new products. Eric even had the chance to meet Rockwell Automation Chairman and CEO Keith Nosbusch.

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Eric and Pam Friedauer - Autism PresentationEric has further surpassed communicating via social media to even giving a presentation about Asperger’s Syndrome this past June, which was attended by more than 80 fellow employees.

More than 80 employees attended

If you would like to learn more about Eric’s personal journey, you can contact him at eahnell@ra.rockwell.com.If you have an inspiring human interest story that you would like to share, Lines & Letters would love to hear from you. Please contact us at: newsletter@neostc.org.Sources: www.yammer.com, www.ninds.nih.gov, http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/tc/aspergers-syndrome-symptoms, CEVEC, Pam Friedauer and Carol Michal

Nerds Putting Words in Our MouthsBrigid Brockway

DRB SYstemsAdapted from

http://technicallyawriter.blogspot.com/From Jules Verne's moon landing in From Earth to the Moon, to the water beds that Robert Heinlein predicted in Beyond This Horizon, sci-fi writers have predicted the future in some eerily accurate ways. So when our tech caught up with their imaginations, many sci-fi authors had conveniently already come up with the words for our devices.

Here are a few, from Vivian Cook's In a Word as well as this article on Whizzpast.com: Android: Ephraim Chambers (1728) Atomic Bomb: HG Wells first used this word in

The World Set Free (1914) Blast off: Doc Smith (1937) Computer virus: Gregory Benford 1970 Cyberspace: William Gibson (1982) Robot: Karel Čapek (1920) - it's interesting to

note that this comes from a Czech term for

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slave and was once pronounced more like robit.

Spaceship: Pall Mall Gazette (from an 1880 review of Percy Greg's novel Across the Zodiac)

Terraform: Jack Williamson (1942)

Photo credit: Brigid Brockway

3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting a Newsletter

Jim TabaczynskiJPT Group

jptab@jptgrouppr.comA newsletter is a great communications tool. At The JPT Group, they’re one of our specialties. And, with the advent of the electronic newsletter, they’ve never been easier or more cost effective.

But, they’re not for everyone. Before you start down that road, there are (at least) three questions that you need to ask yourself.ONE: Do we have enough content, and do we have the right kind of content?

While you may think you have an abundance of content, you need to pass this simple test. Try planning out the next six issues. It doesn’t matter if it’s on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly schedule. Identifying topics for the next six issues should be relatively easy – not lasting more than 10-15 minutes. And if you can’t accomplish that, maybe you don’t have enough to say. Or – and this is very important – if your thought was to produce a monthly newsletter and you can’t fill out the first six issues, maybe it should be quarterly. Or, maybe you should consider some other vehicle.The good news is that if you can identify subject matter for six issues, you’re not locked in to that schedule.  If something more timely breaks, fine. Push everything else back one issue. It’s always a good idea to keep several “evergreen” topics on the shelf that you can draw upon at a moment’s notice.Again, there is good news. Examine your topics more carefully. Are there topics that could be broken down into more than one article? It’s not unusual to be able to divide a topic into two, three or even four separate articles.Keep in mind also that you don’t want your newsletter to be too long. If there is too much there, no one will read it. And, if that’s the case, you’ve accomplished nothing.Just as important, is your content appropriate? Even though you think that you have gobs of things to say, does anyone really want to hear it? Don’t ever lose sight of the fact that your newsletter is for THEM – them the audience, whoever your audience is. No matter how important it may seem to you, if it doesn’t resonate with your audience, you got nuthin’!TWO: Are you adequately staffed to complete it?Too often when organizations decide that “we” need a newsletter, the task is assigned to the royal “we”; or worse, to someone who has absolutely no time whatsoever to devote to it. Hunting down stories and researching them can be more time consuming than actually producing the finished product.  If accommodations are not put in place, very soon – possibly as early as the second edition – your newsletter may be postponed because someone “didn’t have the time.”

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And, soliciting articles from staff can sound like an attractive approach – except that the staff – if they’re like most staffs these days – are already over worked and have no time to devote to it – simply blasting one email seeking submissions will not generate sufficient content for the first six issues.THREE: Are you committed?The most important concept of all – are you really committed to doing it? Do you have the time, the people and the funds to pull this off? If you’re planning a monthly publication, do you realize that once you’ve finished with one, it’s probably time to start the next one?A newsletter is a commitment – plain and simple. What’s more, for a newsletter to be effective, it has to be regular. If it’s monthly, make it monthly. Publishing in January, February, July and November is not monthly. If it’s going to be published the first week of every month, putting it out on the 20th of the month doesn’t cut it either. The worst part, is that you’re doing a disservice to your audience(s), all the while damaging your own reputation and credibility.Newsletters can be enormously effective, but only if you have something interesting to say and if you are sufficiently committed to it so that it gets done, and that it gets done in a timely fashion. If not, you’re only hurting yourself and wasting a lot of people’s time and effort… and your money.

To me, writing means...Our chapter president, Brian Smith, recently asked us to think about the National Day on Writing. Here are some thoughts about what writing means to some of us in NEO STC. Please let us know your thoughts on how you would complete the phrase. Contact us as newsletter@neostc.org.

To me writing means...empowering people - Angie Dianettibread and butter and sometimes fun - Jeanette Evansan outlet for my creativity - Lynn Nickels

Talk of the TownOctober 20 of this year (and every year) is the National Day on Writing. "Lines & Letters" is looking for articles about this topic. Please contact us at newsletter@neostc.org with your ideas or drafts. Let's honor this year's social media theme, and combine that with writing to extend the National Day on Writing to a year of writing! Articles need only be a couple of paragraphs long.

September 10 saw the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the NEO Ohio Chapter of PMI, which took place on the Goodtime III with more than 100 people participating. Jeanette Evans was lucky enough to attend the event and to work on "The story of PMINEO through the eyes of

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great leaders: a 25 year anniversary" with co-author Sandy Moses (Sandy and Jeanette collaborated before on an article in Intercom - "What We Can Learn from Project Managers").

Digital Marketing and Technical Writers: A Great Combination

Jeanette EvansTechnical writers can bring their skills of communicating clearly about technical topics to today's world of digital marketing. This can apply to communication about important current topics in the field including programmatic ads, B2B digital marketing, mobile applications, and skills digital marketers need today to be successful.

Going along with this idea of communicating clearly is also the idea that technical writers can serve as a bridge when working with various groups. In Technical Content and Marketing Belong Together, the author gives an example of such a bridge and proposes that  "writers are used to being go-betweens; it’s a natural role for them. The engineers consider them an engineering rep to the marketing team, and the marketing team will feel like they have a voice that gets listened to on the engineering team."Let's look some more at bridges with digital marketing groups, as these groups and their efforts grow.Comfortable with changeMarketers today must be comfortable with change as groups transform themselves from traditional to digital marketing or add digital marketing to the mix. Being comfortable with change can sound like a cliché. But, it is true nonetheless, and technical writers can play an important role in supporting digital marketing efforts if they are comfortable with change and

curious about new technologies, helping to provide those bridges to change.Being comfortable with change can include how iteration and agile are part of many current life cycle processes today.  And more and more, often the change from these and other processes comes at a fast pace.An example of the fast pace today, is that in the past, marketers could wait weeks or months to see how effective their marketing campaigns are. Today, marketers can count clicks in real time. Marketers can look at results right away and respond. Marketers who support these processes, and the writers who communicate about them, must be comfortable with this fast pace.A fast pace in many waysMarketers and writers must also often learn new things at a fast pace. As we learn, we can find that a new approach or technology works better than the current approach. Such is the world of digital and social, today, with change coming often and constantly. Here are some areas where marketers and writers could explore to keep pace with today's practices: mobile analytics web analytics social analytics working with data customer experience mobile web experienceIn the article, Skills Every Modern Marketer Needs, the author argues that important skills include knowing: what to test how to break down silos what tools are available how to work with dataThis is also good list for writers who support these efforts and provide bridges to help facilitate related processes. Writers should also keep in mind that digital marketing causes marketers to think of the entire customer experience. Writers who support these marketing efforts should also keep in mind this customer experience.

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What Is the National Day on Writing... and Should We Care?

Jeanette EvansThe site at http://www.ncte.org/dayonwriting explains that the National Day on Writing recognizes "the significance of writing in our national life, draws attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in, and helps writers from all walks of life recognize how important writing is to their lives."

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) established the day and celebrated the first National Day on Writing in 2009. In 2011, the US Senate - at the request of the NCTE - declared October 20 the National Day on Writing.Writing, of course, is important to a technical writer or anyone involved in technical communication. Several years ago, NEO STC initiated a local recognition of the National Day on Writing with a Writing Canvas workshop at John Carroll University.How would you like to celebrate writing and/or the National Day on Writing (adapted from http://www.ncte.org/dayonwriting) this year? Write on my own Submit an article to "Lines & Letters"

Newsletter Promotion: Submit Articles to be EligibleSubmit an article to this newsletter via newsletter@neostc.org to be eligible for our drawing for a $50 gift card.

Angie Dianetti and Janean Voss were the winners of our 2014-2015 drawing.

Barb Philbrick won for the 2013-2014 drawing.Book reviews, article reviews, event and meeting reviews, and articles on any topic of interest to our readers are welcome. We are always looking for coverage of NEO STC events and would be happy to work with you on an In the Spotlight feature.Please stay tuned for details on when this promotion ends. This promotion applies to members of NEO STC only.