Technically Speaking

I’m flattered that I was listed by Mindtouch as one of the Most Influential Technical Communication Bloggers. I think it is really cool to see social media used by people in our profession. I’m also gratified to see two of my work colleagues on the list: Tom Johnson and Ben Minson. It is awesome to work each day with such great people, and I’m glad to be on their team.

If you are looking for some great technical communication blogs, you should start with Mindtouch’s list. There are some great, great people on that list. I’m proud to be included among such illustrious company!

It’s Friday, and you want to give your brain a break for the week, right? Before you put your brain away for the weekend, try this brain teaser. I grant you, this has little to do with technical communication, however you might argue that it is an exercise in looking at things from multiple perspectives. Anyway, give your answer in the comments. First correct answer wins. I don’t know what you win. Respect, maybe. Or something non-tangible like that. Anyway, have a go and see what you come up with.

(Googling is cheating, just so you know. Remember the honor code?)

How many triangles can you find in the following diagram?

Hint: Drawing and using a highlighter to mark each triangle is helpful so you can be sure you don’t double-count or miss one.

Read the rest of this entry »

A relative send me an e-mail forward today, and while I don’t generally read or respond to forwards, this one was quite disturbing.

The CBS Evening News recently reported on the dangers posed by digital photo copy machines. Essentially, every new copy machine made since 2002 has a built-in hard drive that keeps a copy of every document that is copied, scanned, or faxed by that machine.

Here is the story: (You can see the same story on CBS’s own site.)

Watch CBS News Videos Online

I think back on the copies I’ve made in the last year, which include:

• Copies of the listing form for our condo
• Copies of each offer we made on houses (there were 3)
• Copies of all the documents related to the purchase of our new house, including detailed financial statements and bank statements
• Copies of my tax returns including W2 and other documentation with private information

…And that is what I can think of off the top of my head.

I made some of those copies or scanned the documents at places like Kinkos, using my work copier/scanner and copies were done at my mortgage company, my title company, as well as the buyer and seller’s mortgage and title companies.

I had no idea that copiers were storing that kind of information. Did you?

However, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it. I can’t control how the hospital copies my medical charts. I can’t control how the mortgage or title companies make copies of documents.

We live in a world where HIPPA and other privacy laws require paper copies of these documents to be securely disposed of, yet what about the digital versions of those same documents? How are we to protect our private information?

Here is a cute phone mail message I got from my three-year-old kid today:

I know, this is normally a tech comm related blog. But I just loved this message.

Okay. Back to work.

Ed. Note: I am cross-posting this from it’s original location, the Society for Technical Communication Intermountain Chapter Web site. I’m the chapter’s president-elect, and I’m posting some of my thoughts from the global STC Summit conference in Dallas Texas

Hey Intermountain STC! This is Paul Pehrson, your chapter president-elect. I’m coming to you tonight from the Global STC Conference in Dallas Texas. I wanted to give you a brief overview of what I’ve seen hear at STC 2010, and give you some of my thoughts on our chapter for the coming year.

I am fortunate enough to have an employer that sets aside funds for each of us to attend a professional development conference, which is why I’m able to be here at STC Summit. I came with Ben Minson (our outgoing chapter president) and Tom Johnson (our chapter webmaster). At the conference I also ran into Greg Barrus, our vice-president-elect.

Ben and I attended Leadership Day, which occurs the day before the main conference. I loved leadership day! The atmosphere was very casual and inviting, and I gained a lot of great insight into running our chapter.

I want our chapter to work towards getting a chapter recognition next year at Summit, so I’m going to be working with our chapter board to prepare a program that will help us meet that goal. I believe that as we work towards getting a chapter recognition we will be providing more value to our chapter members, so I hope you will join me in working towards that goal.

Another goal that I have that is an outgrowth from Leadership Day is for our chapter to sponsor one or more web conferences. We will pay our presenter, and we will charge a nominal fee for members (slightly more for non-members), but we’ll charge enough to make a small profit for the chapter. (I’m thinking $15 for a member and $25 for a non-member with a $100 speaker fee — but those are just some initial thoughts; your input is more than welcome!) I’d like to market the webinar outside our chapter, so we can get members from all reaches of the globe who are invited to attend the session. If you are interested in this type of event, please let me know. And if you would like to be involved in planning something like this, make sure you get a hold of me so that we can work together to make this happen.

I think more than anything I learned two things from leadership day: (1) The society is alive and doing very well; and (2) the society-level board is made up of some awesome people.

First, I want to reassure our chapter members that the global STC organization is doing very well. I offer my sincere thanks and congratulations to our outgoing global board for their hard work in weathering the financial crisis of the last year. The organization as a whole is doing very well, and I think that with the changes that they have implemented and are implementing, we are going to see a stronger global organization that will be more capable of meeting the needs of our global membership.

Second, I want you to know that we have some great people on the society-level board. As members, we had the opportunity to elect these leaders, and frankly, I think we’ve done a great job. These board members are high-class people who are exceptionally friendly and are willing to bend over backwards to find out what we, the general membership, want. Remember, these society-level board members are just regular members themselves who are volunteering to serve the society as a whole, and after rubbing shoulders with them for the last couple of days, I can assure you that I believe they are doing the best job they can. They are working hard, and they solicit your feedback. As members, I encourage you to contact the Society board and express your concerns and propose solutions that you would like to see. You can find contact information for the entire board at: http://www.stc.org/about/board-of-directors.asp .

Well, I didn’t intend to write a novel, but I want you to know that I have confidence in our organization. I’m excited to be a member of STC right now, and I’m thrilled to be our next chapter president. I hope we can work together to make this an amazing year. It will be as we come together as a team that we are able to make this organization stronger and help shape it into the organization that we want it to become.