Category Archives: Lessons Learned

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The Secure Communicator–upcoming webinar

Category:Bulletproofing,Information Security,Infosec Communicator,Internet Safety,Lessons Learned,mobile device,password,Privacy,Risk,STC Tags : 

Has the Heartbleed bug made you more aware of the challenges you face trying to protect confidential or private information online? I’ll address the impacts of Heartbleed and other threats to your security in “The Secure Communicator,” an STC Education webinar on Thursday, June 5, at 5 pm EDT (GMT-4). I’ll provide registration details as soon as they’re available.

Here’s a general description of the seminar:

  • Most technical communicators know the importance of securing their work and online presence, but are often concerned only about confidentiality. However, good security is about three areas: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. The presenter will explain the importance of these areas to your work as technical communicators and provide tips for ensuring that both your work and online presence are secure.

Won’t you join me?


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STC President Nicky Bleiel Interview with Marcus Hunt from Owners Manual

Category:Infosec Communicator,Lessons Learned,Review,STC,techcomm Tags : 

Marcus and Ed as BeekeepersGreat interview by STC President Nicky Bleiel of Marcus Hunt from AMC’s Owners Manual. Marcus is quite complimentary of technical communicators and their dedication of producing a well-written manual. Marcus also describes the usefulness of video in conveying a lot of information in a short time. (The picture on the left is from Episode Four. It was incredibly painful to watch them collecting honey.)

Enjoy!

Check out this video (and many other cool techcomm columns) at the STC Notebook Blog.

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Get On Board! Entraining Volunteers

Category:Infosec Communicator,Leadchange,Leadership,Lessons Learned,Presentations,STC,STC Rochester,Summit Tags : 

I’m delivering the presentation below as part of a progression at Summit 2013 Leadership Day in Atlanta. Summit Leadership Day provides STC community leaders with the knowledge and guidance they need to lead successful communities, both geographic chapters and SIGs.

Volunteers are the heart of the community. They enable us to offer meaningful services to our members. However, getting volunteers can be challenging. Issuing a cattle call doesn’t usually lead to good results. Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y all have different priorities that you must consider when recruiting them.

Personally, I’ve found volunteering in leadership in my local chapter (Rochester) to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional career. Volunteering has stretched me and equipped me as a better leader. I don’t have a magic formula. However, STC Rochester fills 8-10 council positions each year. That’s more than 10% of the community engaged in leadership.

This presentation provides strategies and tactics for recruiting and retaining volunteers.

 

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Bridge Building: Establishing Communications Processes

Category:Communications Processes,Infosec Communicator,Leadchange,Lessons Learned,techcomm,Uncategorized Tags : 

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This past fall we had the privilege of visiting Pont du Gard, a Roman bridge and aqueduct in Languedoc in the south of France. Although built primarily without mortar (except for the top course of blocks), Pont du Gard has endured for more than 2000 years, despite frequent spring floods.

The Pont du Gard aqueduct/bridge was built to provide clean water for the town of Nimes. Its builders understood the importance of building a structure that took into account the factors that would affect the bridge. They understood at least some of the pressures that would bear on that structure. They built the bridge accordingly. Its builders designed it to endure.

Geographical map of the aqueduct of the Pont d...

Geographical map of the aqueduct of the Pont du Gard. Map created using data from OpenStreetMap. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, this blog is about communications. What does the Pont du Gard have to do with communications?

Much of my role as a technical communicator has been to build processes that enable the flow of good communication. I’ve had to factor in the context (pressures that will bear on the structure) in which I was building those processes. Those communications processes are the bridges (aqueducts) that I build. In distributed organizations, well built communications bridges are critical to the health of the organizations.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to talk about bridge building.  First, I’ll discuss my initial attempts at architecting communications processes for a Fortune 500 organization that had outsourced key support processes in the midst of a major software/hardware infrastructure transformation. Next, I’ll discuss communications processes I’ve built in my role as an information security practitioner in higher education. Finally, I’ll talk about my current work to build a sustainable communications bridge that enables clear communications between a central organization and its distributed communities, ensures the concerns of those distributed communities are heard, and facilitates best practice sharing among those communities.

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