DocQment

STC’s 54th Annual Conference is in Minneapolis. Details at http://www.stc.org/54thConf/index.asp

by Sharon Lynn, Manager QPI SIG 

Does anyone have an opinion or an interest in discussing or solving this problem?

What if my company built a power plant 20 years ago for X Company and now they come to us and say they want up to update the facility?

We don’t know where to find the plans for that 20-year-old plant. In addition, X Company was bought out by another company and now goes by another name.

What can we do today to prevent this from happening 20 years from now? How do we store information today (CADD and Word and other files) so that we can retrieve it 20 years from now?

Also, are there other questions like this that we might discuss this year?

Our resources for CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) include work by QPI SIG member Don Butterfield and two basic references. This has been reposted from a May, 2006 entry. To add information please leave a comment. Read the rest of this entry »

by Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, Inc., http://www.thecontentwrangler.com

Note: Scott posted this information on the Single Sourcing SIG email list in September, 2006 in response to a question about content management systems appropriate for pharmaceutical and medical device companies. It appears here by permission.

Content management requirements in life sciences are not anything like requirements for the average technical communication project. The life sciences company’s risk tolerance, current content life cycle processes, and much more determine the appropriate approach and control. Read the rest of this entry »

Please welcome the 45 new members who are listed as joining the QPI SIG in November. We wish the 46 members shown as departing well. The QPI SIG now has 1023 members.

WritersUA has published its 2006 Skills and Technologies Survey results. For the first time, quality assurance is in the top ten skills.

The November, 2006 issue of the STC UK Chapter newsletter has an article by Andrew Marlow, “Quality Assessment,” on several levels of measurement of quality in technical documentation.

June 5-7, 2007. Training within Industry Summit. Orlando, Florida. http://www.twisummit.com/default.asp

 by Sharon Lynn, incoming 2007 QPI SIG manager

To all in the Quality and Process Improvement SIG, let me introduce myself. I have always been a writer. 

For the past 15 years I have found a niche in technical writing and editing, first with Martin Marietta/Lockheed Martin in Houston, editing and publishing acoustic, thermal, avionics, and structural analysis reports for NASA’s international Spacelab/Life Sciences missions, including Spacelab Mir, Neurolab, and Spacelab Life Sciences 2. Since 1998, I have been technical editor with The Shaw Group in Houston, Texas, where I edit technical reports and plans that document environmental remediation work performed for government and commercial clients. 

At Lockheed Martin we used to say jokingly that the engineer-author and I were the only ones to read each report in its entirety. But I saw how critical the reports were when I got to work as a ”go for”  on the night shift at Johnson Space Center during the Neurolab mission. When a piece of equipment was in trouble during the mission, the mostly mathematical reports held the key to solving the problem.  

At Shaw I have been able to contribute to the technical life of the company, co-chairing a national monthly teleconference on Technical Publications since 2002 that promotes professional development of document production, editorial, and publications staff throughout the company. I serve as author, peer reviewer, and editor of local and corporate scientific, geologic, and editorial SOPs, and contribute to the corporate style guide. I’m also author of a local style guide for the Houston office that incorporates the company guide.

I joined the Quality and Process Improvement SIG (and the Policy and Procedures SIG) because I have always been able to rely on a good process to produce a quality product. And when something goes wrong I can revisit the process and discover how to improve it, thus, continuing to assure the quality of the product. 

Please welcome the 37 new members who joined the Quality and Process Improvement SIG in October. The QPI SIG has 1026 members; STC has 15,451 members. By recollection, this is the first time in the 15-year history of the Quality SIG that it has had more than 1000 members. For the second year, the Quality and Process Improvement SIG is the fastest growing SIG in STC.

Please renew your membership in STC. The renewal form is posted at https://www.stc.org/duesrenewal/ Dues for SIGs have doubled to $10.00. As always, please choose your options carefully to obtain the best value for you. Read the rest of this entry »

This site has the Survey Fly plugin. A site administrator can use the plugin to create a survey and then post it by including the text [ s u r v e y _ f l y ] without the spaces in the post or page.

The following is the current (November 1, 2006) survey, replacing a sample one posted in October. You are welcome to respond, but there is no one assigned to analyzing the responses at this time.

The QPI SIG experimented with the other survey plugins available in October, 2006, and found they do not work with this version of WordPress. Read the rest of this entry »

October 24-26, 2006. ASQ’s 2nd Annual Sarbanes-Oxley Conference: Integrated Management Systems in Support of SOX Compliance. Virtual (web-based) event. http://www.asq.org/conferences/sarbanes-oxley/index.html
 

Please welcome the 30 new members who joined the Quality and Process Improvement SIG in September. We regret three members departed. The QPI SIG now has 987 members; the STC membership count will be reported when available.

The new members of the STC Board want to hear from you. They have sent introductions to us, posted in a PDF document on Hyperviews Online.

On August 18, 2006, Kaye Adkins, Associate Professor of English/Technical Communication at Missouri Western State University, asked the Policies and Procedures SIG email list of STC for advice about what skills the students in the senior-level course titled “Technical Documentation and Editing” should learn to prepare them for writing policies and procedures, and what she could do in the course that would prepare students for the job market. What workplace and writing issues should students be introduced to?

Chris Whalley, member of the Puget Sound chapter and the Policies and Procedures and Single Sourcing SIGs replied. Read the rest of this entry »