STC Kerfuffle!

I’m a member of a Special Interest Group (SIG) for the Society for Technical Communications. As professional societies go, it’s a good one for technical writers - it provides resources for learning, needed services and their job board attracts higher-end clients.

It’s an active group; daily posts might be from newbies wanting career advice, other posts ask for references about the best tools to use, sometimes we have those trivial “how do I say it?” conversations, dotting i’s and crossing t’s, which can be fun, too. And the members are great – they mentor very well and collaborate to answer any question, solve problems or recommend resources.

And yet…all hell broke loose this week, when the listserv admin suggested that, to improve communications and possibly save money for the funding-challenged STC, we move the listserv to a social networking site, like Ning. The flurry of opposing messages was astounding – the change-averse gnomes spoke out, saying that such a move could not be successful, because:

• It’s not email
• Access is restricted from work
• Social networking is not professional
• Takes too much time and effort
• It’s yet another account to manage, another thing to learn
• Too trendy, no privacy

I'm speechless.

Why do we need tech writers?

If you work with a technical writer who's always asking questions and wanting to write stuff down, read this to better understand why we're needed. (Excerpted from Good Morning Silicon Valley blog:

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2009/03/odds-are-shell-have-a-full-dance-card-at-the-laureates-ball.html

Elsewhere in the wide world of science:
* This is almost as embarrassing as KFC misplacing the specs for its 11 secret herbs and spices. The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration needs to refurbish the aging warheads on Trident missiles to make sure they remain safe and reliable, but the program has been set back a year, at an additional cost of $69 million, because http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2494129.0.0.php the agency has lost track of the recipe for a key ingredient, a mysterious but very hazardous material codenamed Fogbank. The secret sauce is thought to be a foamy, explosive solvent cleaning agent (hey, I could use one of those sometimes) that plays a key role between the fission and fusion stages of a thermonuclear bomb. Unfortunately, the last batch was made some 20 years ago, and in the interim, not only was the sole production facility torn down, but, according to a GAO report, “NNSA had lost knowledge of how to manufacture the material because it had kept few records of the process when the material was made in the 1980s, and almost all staff with expertise on production had retired or left the agency.”
Doh! A new production facility has been built but work on recreating the recipe continues.