Silicon Valley Chapter STC Connection Newsletter · 2011-12-09 · Silicon Valley Chapter STC...

Silicon Valley Chapter STC Connection Newsletter

Newsletter for the STC Silicon Valley Chapter Community August 2005

What's New | Articles | Meeting Reports | Communications | Book Reviews | Calendar | Contacts | Archive

What's NewAugust ambles in like a bear in summer. Hazy, lazy days of summer for some, the rare emergence into fresh air for others.

For those who have emerged to see Thomas L. Friedman's book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century on bookstore bestseller shelves this summer, yet have not been able to spend those lazy summer days reading, click forward to Richard Mateosian's book review of same, the encapsulated version.

On the subject of making short work of things, you can learn about the technical process of machine translation with Sandra Bologna's article on the subject, Babel Not: Machine Translation for the Technical Communicator, the first of three in a series. We will be publishing the complete series.

Continuous learning is the best way to keep up with the profession. A wide range of learning options is available to STC members. For current learning opportunities, read Education Programs Manager Tiffani Crawford's education programs news.

If you have been learning with the Silicon Valley Chapter community for five years, you are a Senior Member. We recognize 21 new senior members of the STC Silicon Valley Chapter community.

And when you are ready to test what you have learned, enter your documentation in one of the area technical communication competitions. See Regional Activities Manager Guy Haas's list of competitions. See also the list of Willamette Valley Chapter award winners from last year's competition. The award winner list includes entries from Silicon Valley.

Attendees of the June Silicon Valley Chapter meeting heard Jack Molisani talk about how to use a portfolio to ace a job interview. Jack additionally presented his talk at the June STC San Francisco Chapter Meeting. Patrick Lufkin contributes a review summary of the San Francisco talk.

Contribute some data for our profession's future understanding in the area of

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communication ROI by participating in STC Fellow Saul Carliner's Concordia University study on communication productivity and effectiveness metrics. This study, collecting its data through an online survey for management-level participants, runs from August 8 through September 8. Details in the Concordia University Study call for participation.

And if you are a bear hibernating in some fashion, do emerge to see what summer has brought.Share what you have learned and become a contributor to excellence in our profession. Drop us a line at [email protected].

Anne Wilson Mehaffey, Managing Editor

We invite you to contribute to all sections of the newsletter. You can submit newsletter content any time for publication in the next available issue. See Connection Newsletter Information.

ArticlesBabel Not: Machine Translation for the Technical Communicator Sandra Bologna of the Alberta Chapter writes about the history of and ongoing development in the area of machine translation.

Concordia University Study Saul Carliner is collecting data for a study on communication productivity and effectiveness metrics.

Meeting ReportsJune 2005 STC San Francisco Chapter Meeting Presentation Summary Jack Molisani tells How to Use a Portfolio to Ace a Job Interview. Review summary by San Francisco Chapter member Patrick Lufkin.

CommunicationsEducation Programs News Tiffani Crawford lists ongoing and upcoming education programs.

Technical Communication Competitions Guy Haas scouts the entry possibilities.

Willamette Valley Chapter Award Winners 2004 - 2005 These entries received awards in the 2004 -2005 Willamette Valley Chapter technical communication competition.

Senior Members The STC Silicon Valley chapter recognizes 21 new senior members.

Book Reviews


mailto:[email protected]


Friedman's Flat World Richard Mateosian discusses Thomas L. Friedman's book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.

To review a book for a future issue, see the book review guidelines.

CalendarAugust / September Meetings Check the Chapter Meetings link on the Silicon Valley STC home page for upcoming meetings in Sunnyvale and Santa Cruz. Please note that the August Sunnyvale meeting is being held at Cadence Design Systems, Building 5, 2655 Seely Avenue, San Jose. Details on the chapter home page.

September 25-28 LavaCon, The International Conference on Technical Project Management Honolulu, Hawaii

October 20-21 STC Professional Training Program Arlington, Virginia

November 3 World Usability Day sponsored by the Usability Professionals' Association worldwide

November 3-5 DUX Conference on Designing for User eXperience Fort Mason, San Francisco, California

November 11-12 STC Region 5 Conference Phoenix, Arizona, hosted by the Phoenix Chapter

May 8-10, 2006 STC 53rd Annual Conference

ContactsSTC Home Page

Touchstone Home Page

STC Region 8 Home Page

STC Silicon Valley Chapter Home Page

Connection Newsletter Information

2005-2006 SVC-STC Administrative Council Photo

Introducing the 2005-2006 SVC-STC Administrative Council

Contacting the 2004-2005 SVC-STC Administrative Council

Connection ArchiveLinks to past editions of Connection


http://stc-siliconvalley.org/

http://www.lavacon.org/

http://www.stc.org/training/

http://www.upassoc.org/worldusabilityday/

http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/

http://www.dux2005.org/

http://www.stc-phoenix.com/Rough%20Draft_Current/Mar05%20files/r5conf_mar05.htm

http://www.stc.org/53rdConf/

http://www.stc.org/

http://www.stc-touchstone.org//

http://www.stcregion.org/region8/

http://www.stc-siliconvalley.org/


Last updated: 16 August 2005


Book Review Guidelines

Connection Newsletter

Connection Newsletter Archive Page

In the interest of conserving chapter funds and saving trees, we provide the Connection newsletter in HTML format. To view the archived PDF versions, download Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.

2005

February 2005 (HTML) January 2005 (HTML)

2004

June 2004 (HTML) July (August) 2004 (HTML) September (October) 2004 (HTML) November (December) 2004 (HTML)

2003

April 2003 (HTML) March 2003 (HTML) February 2003 (HTML) December 2002/January 2003 (HTML)

2002

December 2002/January 2003 (HTML) November 2002 issue (HTML, 158K PDF) October 2002 issue (HTML, 316K PDF) September 2002 issue (HTML, 138K PDF) May/June 2002 issue (1157K PDF) April 2002 flyer (81K PDF) March/April 2002 issue (302K PDF) February 2002 flyer (212K PDF) January/February 2002 issue (329K PDF)

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2001

December 2001 flier (239K PDF) November/December 2001 issue (432K PDF) October 2001 flier (173K PDF) September/October 2001 issue (190K PDF) August 2001 flier (240K PDF) July/August 2001 issue (298K PDF) June 2001 flier (163K PDF) May/June 2001 issue (353K PDF) April 2001 flier (329K PDF) March/April 2001 issue (308K PDF) February 2001 flier (368K PDF) January/February 2001 issue (46K PDF)

2000

December 2000 flier (71K PDF) November/December 2000 issue (101K PDF) October 2000 flier (40K PDF) September/October 2000 issue (101K PDF) July/August 2000 issue (64K PDF)

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STC Silicon Valley Chapter is an official O'Reilly User Group. Read and review any O'Reilly book and keep the book for free. For selections, see (http://www.oreilly.com). Contact newsletter editor Anne Mehaffey at [email protected] and provide the title/author/ISBN of the book and we'll have it shipped to you. Allow about four weeks for book delivery. Additional guidelines for book reviews can be found at the user group site http://ug.oreilly.com/. Being a user group also allows our members a 20% discount on O'Reilly books and conferences, plus offering other benefits.

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Month 2005 Chapter Meeting Presentation Summary

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Society for Technical Communication Willamette Valley Chapter

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Connection Newsletter - August 2005

Willamette Valley Chapter Award Winners 2004 - 2005Technical Publications | Technical Art | Online Communications | About the Awards | Judges | About STC

This is the list of entries receiving awards in the 2004 - 2005 Willamette Valley Chapter Technical Communications Competition. To submit an entry for this year's competition, please see details on the Willamette Chapter web site at http://www.stcwvc.org.

Technical Publications

MeritAccela Wireless 5.2 User Guide for Pocket PC Maurianne Dunn, Merinda Reeder, Beth Myntti

Ajera Getting Started Guide Dennis Camilleri, Axium

Calibre OPCsbar User's Manual Lisa Swallow, Mentor Graphics

Epolicy Orchestrator 3.5 Quick-Reference Card Joe Bailey, Mile 7, Karen Checkoway, McAfee

Expanding Technology with Software: A Network of Intel Resources for the Software Industry Patti Loverink, Mesh Communications Group, Inc., Chryste Sullivan & Monique Torres, Intel Corporation

Graphics Guidelines for MGC Documentation Lisa Swallow, Mentor Graphics

Keynote User's Guide Usha Alexander, Apple, Inc.

on-Q Create Technical User Training David Deyo, Ensequence

Primavera ProjectLink Guide Kristen Kelleher, Primavera Systems

Unified Authentication Service Documentation Set Jill Holdaway, Roy Lagermann, Ralph Ferris, VeriSign

Using SpecPro 21 Participant Guide Connie Betts, Ace Communications

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ExcellenceAirPort Express Setup Guide Clifford Hunt, Apple, Inc.

Getting Started with Logician 5.6 Connie Dyer, Terese Wallace, GE Healthcare

Managing Your Custodial Reconciliation Heather Donnell, Advent Software

McAfee Protection Pilot 1.0 Documentation Set Dee Beck, Karen Checkoway, McAfee

Phaser 5500 Laser Printer Service Manual Gary Kelly, Gordon Ekdahl, Debbie Bowen, Xerox

Single-Source Projects Anne Lieder, Vince Weatherill, Lucy Bitz, Electroscientific Industries

DistinguishediMac G5 User's Guide Vandalia Goode, Apple, Inc.

iPod mini User's Guide Jason Cabassi, Apple, Inc.

MacOS X Server Getting Started Guide Karen Thomas, Apple, Inc.

Ready to succeed in the IAQ market? Sandy Profeta, Kayo Parsons-Korn, Ace Communications

Wheat and Flour Testing Methods: A Guide to Understanding Wheat and Flour Quality Pamela Causgrove, Laurie Causgrove Wheat Marketing Center, Inc.

Technical Art

MeritMcAfee Active VirusScan SMB Edition Getting Started Guide Karen Checkoway, Dee Beck, McAfee

Motorola E398 GSM How-To Deborah Grimstead, Motorola, Inc.

ExcellencePhaser 6100 Quick Reference Guide Joe Yoder, Debbie Bowen, Xerox

Distinguished



Wild on the Willamette: Exploring the Lower Willamette River Laurie Causgrove, Design, Mike Houck, Writing, Marla Baggetta, Illustration

Online Communications

MeritAnalyzing Email Usage with MailMarshal SMTP Susan Binford, Wanda Ketcham, NetIQ

iTunes Help Mac Stephanie Koester, Apple, Inc.

.Mac Online Help John Cavanaugh, Apple, Inc.

McAfee ProtectionPilot 1.0 Online Help Dee Beck, Karen Checkoway, McAfee

Phaser 8400 Quick Start Tutorial Brian Haber, Kathy Kubick, Anna Crowley, Xerox

WealthLine 2.0 Online Help Dahlia Ramierz, Advent Software

ExcellenceAjera Help Dennis Camilleri, Axium

iDVD Help Sandy Korzenny, Apple

iMovie Help Usha Alexander, Julie Finnigan, Apple

iTunes Help Windows Stephanie Koester, Apple

Keynote Help Usha Alexander, Apple

Logician 5.6 Online Help Tonya Varga, Connie Dyer, Terese Wallace

Running Portfolio Queries in Moxy John Biasatti, Advent Software

DistinguishedPhaser 7750 User Documentation CD-ROM Brian Haber, Scott Shaver, Kay Stange, Xerox

Ready to succeed in the IAQ market?



Sandy Profeta, Kayo Parsons-Korn, Antonio Freixas, Ace Communications

About the Awards

DistinguishedThe entry meets or exceeds high standards in all areas. It contains no major flaws and few, if any, minor flaws. It applies the principles of technical communication in a superior way, particularly in how it anticipates and fulfills the needs of its audience.

Excellence The entry consistently meets high standards in all or most areas. It might contain a single major flaw or a few minor flaws. It clearly demonstrates an exceptional understanding of technical communication principles.

Merit The entry consistently meets high standards in most or some areas. It might contain major or minor flaws, but still applies technical communication principles proficiently.

JudgesJean Aalseth Valerie Ball Mark Barnett Dee Beck Connie Betts Deb Chen John Corbett Dr. Tracy Dillon Kate Evans Barry Gorden Patt Heuser Barbara Holmes Rachel Houghton Hermon Joyner Susan Kloster Pat Kusch Debbie Layton Sam Lizak Scott Logan Andrea Meisgeier Erling Nielsen Phil Norman Duane Proefrock Garret Romaine



Maralee Sautter Lori St. John Phyllis Thompson Kathy Toney Dan Zaiss

About STC The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is an international organization dedicated to advancing the arts and sciences of technical communication. It is the largest organization of its type in the world. Its 18,000 members include technical writers, editors, graphic designers, videographers, multimedia artists, Web and Intranet page information designers, translators and others whose work involves making technical information available to those who need it.

The Willamette Valley Chapter serves more than 350 members in the Portland metropolitan area.

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Concordia University Study

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Concordia University StudyCALL FOR PARTICIPANTS FOR A UNIVERSITY STUDY OF PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFECTIVENESS METRICS USED IN TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION, CORPORATE COMMUNICATION, AND TRAINING

ABOUT THIS STUDY: One of the most vexing questions facing managers who produce communication and learning materials for the workplace is: How can I demonstrate that my department does quality work, so our employer continues to invest in this work? This funded study, conducted by a researcher from Concordia University, in Montreal, Quebec, is intended to shed some insights into this.

Specifically, this study is a survey of the way that managers of technical communication, corporate communication, and training departments report the productivity and effectiveness of their groups to management. The survey has four parts. The first asks some demographic questions. The second part asks about the productivity metrics used in your group and how you report them. The third part asks about general effectiveness metrics that used and how you report them. The last part asks about effectiveness metrics in the specific discipline(s) that you manage.

The survey is conducted online and takes between 30 and 40 minutes to complete. All results are kept confidential.

If they provide us with contact information, participants may receive the preliminary report of the study. The final report is intended for publication in a research journal.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE TO PARTICIPATE: Managers of technical communication, corporate communication, and training groups.

WHEN TO PARTICIPATE: The survey is open August 8 through September 8, 2005.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE: Visit the following web address:

http://www.hostedsurvey.com/takesurvey.asp?c=PEM_Jul_05

QUESTIONS: Please contact the primary investigator, Saul Carliner at [email protected] or [email protected].

Saul Carliner, Ph.D., CTDP STC Fellow Assistant Professor Graduate Program in Educational Technology Concordia University 1455 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8

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Concordia University Study

Canada 514-848-2424 x 2038

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Silicon Valley Chapter STC 'Connection' newsletter

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Current Contributors

Anne MehaffeyAnne Mehaffey is a senior technical writer who likes to cook.

Linda O'MaleyLinda O'Maley, senior technical writer at Intel, was intrigued with the ease with which Cisco enables its customers to give feedback. Linda, who likes karaoke and the opera, hasn't cooked in five years.

Dave StromDave Strom is a technical writer with a programming background. His hobby is writing, and he maintains a web page: Table of Contents

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Who's Our Council?Check out the photo so you will know us when you see us again!

From Left to Right: Regional Activities, Guy Haas; President, Joanne Grey; Membership & Volunteers, Arpana Tiwari; Treasurer, Patrick Harvey; Newsletter Managing Editor, Anne Mehaffey; Secretary, Joseph Malin; Nominations, Paul Highby; Vice President, Wendy Tung; Reservations, Colleen Doherty; Immediate Past President, Marie Highby. Not pictured: Education Programs, Tiffani Crawford; Public Relations, Diane Huffman; Employment Information, Bruce Roberts; Programs & Events, Revathi Sampath. Photo by DJ Cline.

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STC Silicon Valley Education Programs News

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STC Silicon Valley Education Programs NewsTiffani Crawford, Education Programs Manager

STC Silicon Valley supports and connects with many education activities and resources, including academic programs, professional development offerings, and ongoing research efforts. Technical communicators can update existing skills, learn new skills, earn certificates and degrees, and pursue a variety of academic and professional interests through accredited programs and non-accredited, short-term, practical seminars and workshops.

Technical communicators are available to provide real-world experience through classroom and conference presentations. We can also participate in research and offer expertise in business and technology interests.

Through STC Silicon Valley, education institutions and professional groups can advertise their offerings and assess interest levels through surveys and focus groups. They can also benefit from our expertise in research design, program evaluation, curriculum development, training delivery, and return on investment.

STC National News for Education Programs Academic Programs and the Academic Community Contact: Tommy Barker, [email protected]

The STC Academic Community (www.stc-ac.org) chartering effort is in progress. To participate, contact Tommy Barker at the email above.

Professional Development and Teaching Communication in Business Contact: Ann Wiley, [email protected]

The STC Professional Development SIG is concerned with continuing education for technical communicators, employment issues, teaching communication in business, and research that includes practitioners. To participate, contact Ann Wiley at the email above.

Upcoming Training Contact: www.stc.org/seminars.asp. Register 1 computer/connection: http://stc.webex.com ($150/additional seat)

STC's 53rd Annual Conference May 7-10, 2006, in Las Vegas, Nevada

Education Programs on the STC National Website

Seminars, research grants, academic programs, scholarships, honor societies, student

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http://www.stc-ac.org/


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http://stc.webex.com/

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STC Silicon Valley Education Programs News

competitions and more!

Seminars: http://www.stc.org/seminars.asp

Research Grants: http://www.stc.org/grantsResearch.asp

Academic Programs: http://www.stc.org/academic.asp

Scholarships: http://www.stc.org/scholarshipInfo.asp

Honor Societies: http://www.stc.org/awards_STX-AS.asp

Student Competitions: http://www.stc.org/studentCompetitions.asp (For competitions, see also the current list of competitions.

For communications about education, academic programs, professional development offerings, and research, you can contact Tiffani Crawford at [email protected].

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http://www.stc.org/grantsResearch.asp

http://www.stc.org/academic.asp

http://www.stc.org/scholarshipInfo.asp

http://www.stc.org/awards_STX-AS.asp

http://www.stc.org/studentCompetitions.asp



Meeting Presentation Summary

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June 2005 STC San Francisco Chapter Meeting Presentation Summary

Jack Molisani Speaks on "How to Use a Portfolio to Ace a Job Interview"By Patrick Lufkin Many technical communicators treat portfolios simply as collections of their work. If they have produced it, they include it. Such an approach fattens a portfolio, and may alleviate anxieties about not having something on hand when needed, but it does little to make you stand out from the crowd. This June, Jack Molisani visited the San Francisco chapter to discuss another approach.

Molisani is the founder and president of ProSpring, Inc., a technical placement agency, and LavaCon, Inc., an international conference for technical project management. He is a very active member of STC, and was chair of the 2000 STC Pan-Pacific Conference in Hawaii.

Rather than using the portfolio as a sample collection to be scanned by the client or dipped into at opportune moments, Molisani suggests using the portfolio to control the interview.

Because people respond to stories, and tend to believe what they are shown even more than what they are told, he carefully arranges his portfolio to tell the story that sells the idea that he is right for the job.

Molisani arranges his portfolio to:

● Establish that he is an expert

● Show that he has really done what he claims to have done

● Make the interviewers see that he has already solved the kind of problems they are having and can do the same for them.

Molisani carefully selects material for his portfolio to support each of these points. Specifically he suggests using the following arrangement:

● Project plan

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● The results of the plan

● Samples tailored to the client

● Awards and Recognitions (PR stuff)

● Statistics

● A radical before-and-after sample

A good plan gives you a chance to show that you have "been there," and that you understand the development or documentation process.

If you have done a plan for a project you have worked on, use it. If you haven't, Molisani suggests that, for portfolio purposes, you can do a plan in reverse: think of a project you have worked on and record how it should have been planned. You can even mention what you have done in the interview -- while pointing out how much better the project would have gone if it had been so planned from the beginning. The important thing is that, as a portfolio piece, the project plan gives you a chance to discuss what you know about managing a project, which goes a long way toward establishing your expertise.

Next, Molisani suggests, show the results of the plan. This can be the manual you produced, but it can also be advertisements for the product, data sheets, product reviews, or anything else that shows that the project was a success.

As an example, Molisani showed a review that was published in PC Magazine that stated that a product he had worked on was easy to install because of the excellent documentation. A review like that, Molisani suggested, may go a lot farther than showing the documentation itself. Speaking of samples, Molisani made a number of points:

● Tailor the samples to the client.

● Be proactive. Get permission to show work while you are still working on a project, and get it in writing. If there are confidentially issues, see if there are parts of the work that you can show.

● You don't have to wait to have a job to create samples. He suggests creating as many samples as you can with as many authoring tools as possible.



● Find something that is really bad and rewrite it; then use it as a before-and-after sample.

If you have awards and recognitions, include them. They serve to bolster your standing as an expert. If you have statistics, include them; they are useful in demonstrating that hiring you would give the client a good return on their investment. An example would be a testimonial saying that calls to the support center had decreased as a result of the Getting Started guide you produced.

Finally, Molisani suggests ending off with a radical before-and-after sample. Molisani showed a chart that had been scribbled on a napkin, followed by a neat, well organized chart that had been made using a graphics program. A radical sample drives home the idea that you can bring order out of the usual workplace chaos, and reinforces the idea that you are an expert who can produce.

What more could the client want? About the Author

Patrick Lufkin is a Senior STC member of both the East Bay and San Francisco chapters. He is currently co-chair of the Kenneth M. Gordon Scholarship. Patrick can be reached at [email protected].

Copyright © 2005 by the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter (http://www.stc-sf.org). Reprinted by permission.

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http://www.stc-sf.org/


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STC Silicon Valley Chapter LeadershipPresidentJoanne Grey Joanne has over fifteen years' experience as a technical writer in all of its various forms. She has been a lone writer, part of a large team, and for the past ten years she has owned, run, and been the principal writer for Write Angles Technical Writing, LLC. Joanne is always interested in hearing new ideas and welcomes open communication. Last year, Joanne served as the chapter Administrative Council's Secretary. She is also a member of the chapter's Mentoring program.

Vice PresidentWendy Tung Wendy Tung has served on the council previously as chapter vice-president and secretary. Additionally, she continues to volunteer with the chapter's web committee as manager of the Calendar, Online Resources, and SIGs pages. Wendy is a senior member of the STC and brings to the office several years of experience in writing online documentation.

SecretaryJoe Malin Joe has many years' experience as a software engineer, product manager, and support specialist, but for the past four years he has specialized in technical writing for other software developers. After three years working on online help for Oracle JDeveloper, Joe now works as the lone technical writer for TuVox, Inc. His professional interests include single-sourcing with XML, and content development and management with web-based systems.

TreasurerPatrick Harvey Patrick Harvey has been a technical writer for over 15 years. With a degree in engineering, he specializes in highly technical documentation for highly technical audiences, mainly in the semiconductor and electronic design automation (EDA) industries. He has also published five papers on technical documentation. In addition to being Treasurer, Pat has also served the chapter as Reservations Manager.

Education Programs ManagerTiffani A. Crawford, M.P.W., Ph.D. With extensive experience in technical communication and high technology, Tiffani has previously served as University Liaison, managing grants, exchanging information with collegiate programs, and presenting in classrooms and at conferences. Her achievements include the development and extension of products and programs in multimedia and geographic information systems (GIS), networking and

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telecommunications, voice quality and broadband IPTV.

Employment Information ManagerBruce Roberts

Immediate Past PresidentMarie Highby Marie Highby previously served as President and Nominations Manager for the chapter and is a senior member of the STC. Marie began teaching technical writing in 1988, and, after years of working with both undergraduates as well as adult learners, is now offering her services directly as a corporate trainer and creativity coach.

Membership & Volunteers ManagerArpana Tiwari Arpana Tiwari is a technical writer with strong experience in marketing communications and program development. An MBA from Santa Clara University, she has designed and developed product-training modules, coaching programs and search engine advertising programs. Arpana has also served as V.P. community services for the Women In Business Organization at Santa Clara University.

Newsletter Managing EditorAnne Wilson Mehaffey Anne Mehaffey is a senior lead writer specializing in process documentation for the telecommunications industry. Anne likes to offset her usual work of creating play-by-play instructions for processes with some color in her editing of the newsletter by allowing the occasional metaphor or two to sneak into the text. An STC member since 1986, Anne previously served as Regional Activities Manager.

Nominations ManagerPaul Highby

Programs & Events ManagerRevathi Sampath

Public Relations ManagerDiane Huffman

Regional Activities ManagerGuy Haas Guy Haas has served the Silicon Valley Chapter in a variety of ways since joining STC in January 1993: Secretary, Web Team, Membership & Volunteers Manager, Nominations Manager, and President. He is a "reformed programmer," having switched to technical writing after some 17 years of programming and participating in two programming language standards committees of the American National Standards Institute (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology). Local firms that have put up with him include Tandem, Informix, Netscape, Symantec and Selectica.

Reservations ManagerColleen Doherty Colleen Doherty has been a member of STC since 1999, the same year she began the certificate program for Technical Communications at UCSC Extension. Colleen is an ardent supporter of STC: she got her first technical writing job from a contact she made



at her very first STC meeting. She also got her current job at an STC meeting, except this time, the meeting was held in Santa Cruz.

SIGs Manageropen

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Silicon Valley Chapter Leadership Contact DirectoryThis page contains the 2004-2005 contact information for the STC Silicon Valley Chapter: Administrative Council, Committee Managers, and Regional Leadership

Administrative CouncilPresidentJoanne Grey [email protected]

Vice PresidentWendy Tung [email protected]

SecretaryJoe Malin [email protected]

TreasurerPatrick Harvey [email protected]

Membership & Volunteers ManagerArpana Tiwari [email protected]

Nominations ManagerPaul Highby [email protected]

Programs & Events ManagerRevathi Sampath [email protected]

SIGs Manageropen [email protected]

Regional Activities ManagerGuy Haas [email protected]

Public Relations Manager

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Diane Huffman [email protected]

Employment Information ManagerBruce Roberts [email protected]

Education Programs ManagerTiffani Crawford [email protected]

Immediate Past PresidentMarie Highby [email protected] Committee ManagersNewsletter Managing EditorAnne Wilson Mehaffey [email protected]

Reservations ManagerColleen Doherty [email protected]

WebmasterVirginia Beecher [email protected] Regional LeadershipRegion 8 DirectorBeau Cain [email protected]

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May 2005 API SIG Meeting Presentation

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Connection Newsletter - July 2005


Creating a "Techie" Portfolio that SellsBy Nandini Garud

May meeting of the Silicon Valley STC Technical/API Docs SIG Held Wednesday, May 18, 2005, 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. San José State Extension Professional Development Center 2160 Lundy Avenue, San José, CA 95131

"Show your résumé to 10 people, and you will have 10 suggestions. Your portfolio is much the same. Your portfolio is a visual presentation of your unique skills and knowledge. You know best what those are, and you need to be the final judge of how to present yourself," said Viki Maki, co-owner of Bitzone LLC and co-author of an upcoming book, Documenting APIs: Writing Developer Documentation for Java™ APIs and SDKs, at the monthly meeting of the Technical/API Docs SIG. Maki first started out by discussing a "techie" portfolio in the context of a typical job search.

"Techie" Portfolio and a Typical Job Search In a typical job search, you learn of an opening via networking or posted job leads, you submit a résumé, you then go through a screening process that may involve submitting portfolio samples and phone and on-site interviews, and you finally either get the job or you don't.

A good "techie" portfolio can support you in a number of ways. For example, to support your knowledge of programming languages, you may have code samples available online. These samples can be available to all on a public web site or password-protected on your web site. By making available to a potential hiring manager "techie" technical writing samples, such as a reference guide or programmer's guide, you substantiate that you have the necessary experience and knowledge. Doing this can quickly move you along in the screening process to potential employment.

The Nuances of a "Techie" Portfolio Technical writers, of course, come in all flavors: software, hardware, networking, biotech, medical, PR, marcomm, and developer documentation are some of the major genres of technical writing. While a developer documentation writer's samples must substantiate her claim to programming prowess with excerpts of code or sample API documentation, a marketing writer's clippings must showcase his ability to produce visually appealing and effective marketing collateral. Hiring managers reviewing a "techie" portfolio are typically less concerned with page layout and design and more

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concerned with accuracy, completeness, and domain knowledge. "Only you can judge whether the résumé and portfolio is right for you," Maki continued, "Is it working for you? Getting job leads? Interviews?" Since you will probably get conflicting advice, a good judge of whether you're on the mark is whether you are effectively and successfully moving through the job search process for either contracts or staff jobs. If you're not getting work, you need to be doing something differently."

Building Your Portfolio Throughout the presentation, Maki peppered her advice with examples from the portfolios of three of the attendees, a recently graduated technical communications student, a contract technical writer, and an experienced developer documentation writer. As general advice, she said that for a student, you typically want to show strong potential in your résumé and portfolio; for a senior technical writer, you want to show mastery. Here is a summary of her other advice:

Your portfolio is your unique value proposition. Differentiate yourself as a "techie" tech writer and articulate your transferable skills, core competencies, and talents. Instead of a functional résumé, list your achievements in the problem - assessment - solution format.

Your portfolio makes the listings on your résumé come alive. In addition, your portfolio is the place where you show related documents that substantiate your managerial, editing, and other skills by including project plans, style sheets, etc. The techie portfolio typically demonstrates domain knowledge: languages such as Java and C++, tools such as Javadoc and FrameMaker, and technologies such as SOAP. Use the résumé and portfolio as closely aligned evidence of how your skills, knowledge, and previous experience can solve the employer's pain points.

Collect and categorize examples of your best work that represents the kinds of writing you do, such as software or hardware manuals, data sheets, figures, Visio charts, and white papers. Ensure that these are free of typos and errors. Make labels for different categories and move what shows best (the colorful, professionally printed pieces) to the front. Having an attractive, leather portfolio with samples in removable plastic page protectors allows you to reorganize your samples for every job so that you put what is most relevant and shows best in the front following a copy of your résumé.

What to do with heavy manuals? Maki suggested that you include the title page, the TOC, a sample representative chapter with attractive graphics, formatting, and simply elegant prose, and the index.

In addressing the problem of proprietary writing samples, Maki suggested a number of workarounds, including blacking out product names or other sensitive material, only including the table of contents in the sample, or rewriting the sample.

For every sample in the portfolio, prepare a summary page that contains:

● Purpose of the document



● Audience

● My contribution

● Comments (For example, the guide won the Best of the Year award in the STC's Touchstone competition in 2003.)

Online Portfolios In a typical job search, you send your résumé to an employer hoping that it doesn't get lost in piles of paper. Not so with an electronic résumé and portfolio presented on a business card with a URL pointing to your web site. You can change your site as often as you like and include several samples with hyperlinks that guide the employer from one sample to the other. Several people in the organization can easily review your portfolio even before you are called for an interview and also review it later if they can not attend the interview.

Maki reviewed the online portfolio of the experienced API docs writer and discussed how it effectively hit the mark of showing technical mastery and domain knowledge. While she had some suggestions for improving the look and feel of the web site, the overall impression of the web site would probably not be as important as the technical competency evidenced in the writing samples. In other words, the API docs writer is not claiming any outstanding skills in web design or usability but rather using his web site as a medium to make available the "techie" writing samples.

Portfolio Examples Discussed in the Presentation Maki provided some examples of online portfolios.

Here is a list of the portfolios that were discussed in the presentation:

The Learning, Design & Tech Program at Stanford http://www.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/ldt/people.htm http://ldt.stanford.edu/%7Emuki/ http://ldt.stanford.edu/~aalmario/index.htm http://ldt.stanford.edu/~amystone/index.htm

Additional Sites http://home.comcast.net/~avery_consulting/index.htm http://www.devney.com http://www.jmalin.com/techwriter/techwriter.html

About the author

Nandini Garud is a technical writer who specializes in security and telecommunications documentation. In addition to writing marketing collateral, she enjoys gardening and camping.


http://www.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/ldt/people.htm

http://ldt.stanford.edu/%7Emuki/

http://ldt.stanford.edu/~aalmario/index.htm

http://ldt.stanford.edu/~amystone/index.htm

http://home.comcast.net/~avery_consulting/index.htm

http://www.devney.com/

http://www.jmalin.com/techwriter/techwriter.html


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Connection Newsletter Information

SubmissionsWe solicit articles on topics relating to technical communication. We welcome information about events that may be of interest to our community members, summaries of chapter and SIG speaker presentations, and articles that discuss the role of technical writers in the workplace and the technical world.

Submit your contributions any time to:

Connection Editor P.O. Box 1224 Mountain View, CA 94042-1224

Or you can e-mail your submissions to Managing Editor Anne Wilson Mehaffey at [email protected].

Please submit contributions in ASCII text for best conversion to HTML, in the body of an e-mail, or as a Microsoft Word document. Include the title for your article, your name, and a few biographical sentences describing your technical writing background, your specific interest in the topic, and an optional sentence about any advocations. Articles are edited for space and content when necessary.

Reprint PolicyMaterial appearing in Connection may be reprinted if credit is given and a copy is sent to the Newsletter Managing Editor.

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STC Silicon Valley Regional Activities News

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Next Touchstone Will Be 2006Guy K. Haas, Regional Activities Manager

I regret to report that, because the Touchstone executive committee was unable to recruit the required people to ensure a successful event, the Northern California Regional Technical Communications Competition (Touchstone) will NOT be taking place in 2005. Plans are moving forward for a 2006 competition.

Other Competitions on the West Coast in 2005Competitions, in order of due dates, are:

Southern California Regional Contact Name: Karen Bergen Contact Phone: 562-290-4038 Contact E-mail: [email protected] Chapter Web site: http://www.ocstc.org/competition.asp Due Date: 9/1/05

Puget Sound Contact Name: Mary Dulin Contact Phone: 206-926-1219 Contact E-mail: [email protected] Chapter Web site: http://www.stc-psc.org/ Due Date: 10/'7/05 [sic]

Willamette Valley Contact Name: Toni Mantych Contact Phone: 503-520-8727 Contact E-mail: [email protected] Chapter Web site: http://www.stcwvc.org Due Date: 10/15/05

There are several other competitions afoot, and the most-nearly-complete list is at http://www.stc.org/competitionOnline.asp. But it fails to list the Australia competition:Australia Contact Name: Michelle Hallett Contact Phone: 0404 892 369 (Country code 61) Contact E-mail: [email protected] Chapter Web site: http://www.stc-aus.org.au Dates: Entries accepted between September 1 and October 15, 2005

Just Announced: The Berkeley STC Chapter is sponsoring a technical

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http://www.ocstc.org/competition.asp


http://www.stc-psc.org/


http://www.stcwvc.org/

http://www.stc.org/competitionOnline.asp


http://www.stc-aus.org.au/

STC Silicon Valley Regional Activities News

communication competition to benefit the STC Kenneth Gordon Scholarship fund. The competition will accept entries in all categories from throughout the Bay area and any other nearby area that does not have its own local competition. Details to follow.

For communications about regional activities, you can contact Guy Haas at [email protected].

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Book Review

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Friedman's Flat World

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York NY, 2005, 496pp, ISBN 0-374-29288-4, www.fsgbooks.com, $27.50)

Review by Richard Mateosian

Tom Friedman is a New York Times columnist who has won the Pulitzer Prize three times. He often appears on in-depth interview programs like Charlie Rose or C-SPAN's Book TV. He has an optimistic and enthusiastic manner, which is built on the confidence that comes from doing the underlying journalistic work.

Friedman addressed globalization with his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (FSG, 1999). In that book he noted that half the world was trying to make excellent products that they could sell worldwide, while the other half was fighting over who owns which olive tree. After the terrible attacks of September 11, 2001, however, Friedman focused almost entirely on the Middle East (the olive tree side of that book) until early in 2004, when he looked around and noticed that a great deal had happened on the Lexus side. He set about to understand and explain the new developments, and this book is the result.

Friedman's melodramatic title is beautifully matched by a dust jacket featuring Ed Miracle's lithograph I Told You So www.miraclesart.com. Unfortunately, the paperback edition has a different cover because the publisher's right to use the art work is in dispute. Friedman's title represents his discovery that the "playing field" is much larger and more level than he had realized. That playing field does not, however, encompass the whole world. Friedman acknowledges this late in the book and admits that his rosy picture of globalization has a dark side. He has suggestions for addressing the dark side, but they depend on understanding his flat world.

Triple ConvergenceFriedman equates the flat world with a rising spiral of horizontal collaboration. This comes from a convergence of the following factors:

● Synergistic interaction of what Friedman calls the ten flatteners

● Widespread adjustment of business practices to accommodate the flatteners

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http://www.fsgbooks.com/

http://www.fsgbooks.com/

http://www.miraclesart.com/

Book Review

● Three billion new players on the field

FlattenersFriedman's flatteners are a little arbitrary, but I think they cover the ground pretty well. They are the following, roughly in chronological order.

1 Walls Down, Windows OpenThe fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 marked a big step toward worldwide unity. One of the world's two main economic systems had collapsed, leaving just one viable model. This was tremendously liberating for both India and China, as well as the 600 million inhabitants of the former Soviet empire. By an odd coincidence, roughly the same date marked the emergence of Windows 3.0 — not a very good operating system by today's standards, but good enough to become the worldwide standard.

2 Everyone Can BrowseThe Netscape initial public offering on August 9, 1995, is the signpost for Friedman's second flattener. The browser made huge numbers of public sites available to anyone with a modem and a PC, practically anywhere in the world. Just as important, the Netscape offering kicked off the dotcom bubble, resulting in vast amounts of fiberoptic cable providing high speed communication between the United States and much of the rest of the world, including India. When the bubble burst, companies were able to use this cable for very little money.

3 Applications Can CollaborateThe third flattener is the development of what Friedman calls workflow software. By this he means the XML-based protocols that allow software packages to communicate. The loose coupling that this architecture provides has allowed many ad hoc collaborations between software packages that were never designed to collaborate.

4 Open SourceThe fourth flattener is the open source movement. Friedman tells the story of Apache, which has enabled companies to use a worldwide free standard as the basis for their application servers, then add (and charge for) their own bells and whistles. He distinguishes this from the Gnu/Linux model in which it is much harder for companies to charge for their add-ons. Both of these models make world class software available free to anyone in the world, and they also serve to keep the prices of competing commercial products low.

The next four flatteners describe business practices that exemplify horizontal collaboration.

5, 6 Outsourcing and Offshoring


Book Review

Outsourcing and offshoring are practices that many people confuse. Outsourcing describes the identification of discrete business modules that can be done elsewhere and the delegation of those modules to other companies. Offshoring entails moving an entire operation to another country, but keeping control of it.

Outsourcing to Indian firms, according to Friedman got a big head start during the Y2K scare. Many United States companies outsourced their Y2K repairs to Indian firms because they simply couldn't find enough workers and enough money to do the work in the US. This built the reputations of many Indian firms for high quality work at low cost. Then, when the dotcom bubble burst and US firms had a lot less cash, they turned to India out of need, but with confidence, for many of their software development needs. And the abundance of fiberoptic cable made the collaboration much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Friedman's discussion of offshoring focuses on China. That country, with its authoritarian structure, was able to impose a change in its economic system from the top down. All it took was for Deng Xiaoping to say "Black cat, white cat, all that matters is that it catches mice. To get rich is glorious." As we all know, however, top down changes don't always percolate smoothly to the bottom. Many firms got burned before they learned the best strategies for offshoring to China, but many US firms now have highly successful and profitable operations in China.

7 Supply ChainingThe seventh flattener is supply chaining. Friedman describes the far-flung Dell supply chain that produced the notebook computer on which he wrote the book. He also describes the intimate relationship between Wal-Mart and its suppliers. Not only does Wal-Mart integrate its suppliers' workflows into its own, but it feeds information about sales back to its suppliers to help them improve their offerings. Of course, this relationship gives Wal-Mart extraordinary leverage over its suppliers, and Wal-Mart uses this leverage to full advantage.

8 InsourcingFriedman calls the eighth flattener insourcing. You could call it outsourcing as seen from the vendor's point of view, but it is qualitatively different. If you call Toshiba to report a problem with your laptop, they tell you to take it to UPS. UPS, however, does not deliver the laptop to Toshiba. Instead, UPS repairs the laptop at its own hub and delivers it back to you. This is just one of many examples of how UPS encourages its package delivery customers to outsource functions that happen just before or after package delivery to UPS.

UPS and similar firms have logistics as a core competency, and they engage in intimate collaborations with other firms to insource the logistical aspects of those firms' businesses.

9 InformingThe ninth flattener is Google and related services. Anybody can find out practically


Book Review

anything from anywhere at any time. This automates and expands the vanilla aspects of what assistants or librarians used to do. As Friedman points out, when Colin Powell wanted to look at UN Resolution 242, he didn't need to call an aide. He just Googled it. Powell's aides had to find other ways to add value.

The availability of powerful search capabilities has many implications for ordinary citizens. A great deal of personal history and information is readily available to potential employers, lenders, or even acquaintances. And your mistakes will follow you forever.

10 SteroidsFriedman rounds off his ten flatteners with one he calls the steroids. By this he means that each new generation of computers provides greater MIPS, more memory, and faster I/O. File sharing, multipurpose devices, voice over IP, and wireless communication all work to supercharge the other flatteners.

Flattened WorkersFor Friedman's triple convergence, the ten flatteners reinforce and amplify each other. Businesses change their practices to accommodate the new reality. Business, technical, and even liberal arts schools start turning out graduates who are comfortable with the flat world.

At the same time, the entire populations of China, India, and the former Soviet Union — areas of the world with well established traditions of education and rewards for excellence — enter the worldwide job market. Of course, not all of these three billion people are prepared to compete in the global marketplace, but Friedman estimates that at least 150 million technically qualified workers who couldn't do so before are now competing directly with US workers. That number is about the size of the entire US workforce.

The Dark Side Having laid out a picture of the flat world in highly optimistic terms, Friedman tries to address the troublesome points. To do so, he begins with an amazingly prescient excerpt from a work written in 1848, more that 150 years ago. Karl Marx in his Das Kapital predicts that capitalism will dissolve national and religious identities to produce a universal civilization governed by market imperatives. Fortunately, this has not happened, but the forces of globalization do provide just that sort of pressure. Friedman contends that we need to distinguish between different categories of obstacles to globalization. Some obstacles are sources of waste and inefficiency. Others are sources of identity and belonging.

The political discussion of a social contract that distinguishes between bad and good obstacles has to happen at the level of individual countries. Large companies, however, can provide transnational influence. Friedman cites the cases of companies like HP, Dell, and IBM, which negotiate—from a position of great advantage—standards of socially responsible manufacturing practices that all of their suppliers throughout the world must meet. This is one side of the transnational companies. The other side is that being in


Book Review

many countries gives a company the flexibility to avoid the troublesome regulations of any particular country.

Friedman also sets up a contrast between Wal-Mart and Costco, firms that provide approximately the same services. He notes, for example, that Wal-Mart provides much less health care coverage to its employees than Costco does. Wal-Mart thereby provides lower prices to its customers and a better return to its shareholders, but states and communities in which Wal-Mart does business may have to pick up the tab for Wal- Mart's underinsured employees. This raises the question of where the boundaries between companies and their surrounding communities lie.

In the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, the United States adopted many laws to protect workers and to provide a social safety net. In addition to laws, though, companies felt a civic responsibility to provide for their workers. Lifetime employment followed by a good retirement pension was common. Another part of that social contract was that local governments kept property taxes low to protect homes.

This unwritten social contract pertained for many years, but in the 1970s it started to break down. Partly in response to global competition, people saw ways to squeeze the fat out of companies and real estate. Leveraged buyouts led to layoffs, reduced medical benefits, and evaporating pensions. High property taxes and other housing price pressures led to increased homelessness. Without a social contract these trends will continue into the flat world.

What to Do Friedman draws upon his analysis of the flat world to make separate recommendations to the United States, developing countries, individual companies, and individual workers.

Friedman's rules for companies boil down to the following: introspect and collaborate. You should understand all the parts of your business, outsource the parts that you don't really specialize in—especially the vanilla parts where it's hard to maintain a competitive advantage—and develop the others. This requires you to develop the ability to collaborate as a core competency.

Friedman's suggestions for individual workers are similar to his suggestions for companies. In the flat world of collaboration, companies and individuals are on an equal footing in many areas, and those are the areas where individual workers can thrive.

Friedman believes that developing countries must follow a path that proceeds from "reform wholesale" to "reform retail." By this, he means an infrastructure that ensures efficiency, transparency and impartiality in government, law and commerce.

For the United States, Friedman cites Rensselaer president Shirley Ann Jackson's warning of an impending perfect storm. This is a quiet crisis, because the storm isn't imminent, but all the factors are in place to make it inevitable if nothing changes. The factors, in brief, are the following:

● Shrinking numbers of available scientific and technical workers


Book Review

● Higher quality technical and scientific work from other countries

● Failure to invest to a sufficient degree in education and research

Friedman sees similarities to the situation that existed after 1957 when the Soviet Union deployed Sputnik, the first artificial Earth satellite. When President Kennedy spoke to Congress on May 25, 1961, he said:

Let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action, a course that will last for many years and carry very heavy costs. . . . This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, materiel, and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organization, and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts.

Friedman's quiet crisis demands a similarly serious and honest call to action. In the absence of other leadership, Friedman offers his own doctrine of "compassionate flatism." The essential features of this program are portable pension and health care benefits, opportunities for lifelong learning, and more demanding parents.

GeopoliticsFriedman has a lot to say about geopolitics. He talks about the parts of the world that are not flat and explores the reasons why some countries are globalizing while others are not. He presents strategies for developing countries, and he looks at factors that can work against globalization and even set it back. He draws on his deep knowledge of the Middle East to explain why some countries in that area of the world contribute more, aside from oil, to Osama bin Laden's supply chain than to those of global companies.

Finally, Friedman poses his Dell theory of conflict prevention. In essence it says that no country that belongs to a major supply chain wants to risk war. There are other suppliers out there, and if the business goes away, it won't come back soon. He cites the pressure of the Indian information technology industry on India's government to persuade it to back away from a conflict with Pakistan.

Friedman writes colorfully, and there is much to quibble with, but on the whole, this is an incredibly useful book. It contains much more information than I can summarize here. I highly recommend it to everybody. About the Author

Richard Mateosian is a technical writer in Berkeley, an employee of EMC/Documentum, and a senior member of STC. He wrote this article for his column in IEEE Micro, where


Book Review

he has been the review editor since 1987. He decided to read this book after seeing Charlie Rose interview Friedman about it.

A version of this review appeared in the May-June 2005 issue of IEEE Micro. Copyright © 2005 IEEE.

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Babel Not: Machine Translation for the Technical Communicator

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Babel Not: Machine Translation for the Technical CommunicatorBy Sandra Bologna, Translation Project Manager, WTB Language Group, Windsor, Ontario

Long ago the world had one language and few words. One day, a group of architects decided to write a manual containing sensitive information on the design of a tower they were building in their city. The tower was to reach the sky and would ultimately determine their greatness. Their pride and confidence took over and they soon ignored their boss. As punishment, their boss scattered the architects across the entire earth and made them all speak different languages. This created much confusion, and so the city was named Babel. Many years passed and no one could unlock the secrets of the tower, at least until the birth of the great Babel Fish.

What is Babel Fish and why is it so great? Babel Fish belongs to a larger category of translation called Machine Translation (MT). MT will give you a rough translation of that German document that's been sitting on your desk baffling you in less than one minute. How's that for great?

As amazing as that sounds, MT is not perfect, and it does have its drawbacks. So how do you know if MT is right for you? Researching MT software and reading feedback from actual users will help you get the full picture. For starters, I've outlined the major points below.

For those of you new to this term, MT is the automatic translation of text from one language (source language) into another language (target language) without human intervention. In general, MT use is grouped into two categories. Figuring out which of these two categories best suits your needs is a first step in determining if MT is right for you:

● MT-enabled (Unassisted MT): the automatic translation of text with no human post-editing. This can produce a translation that is unpolished, but is extremely useful for material that would be impossible or inconvenient for human translation due to overwhelming volume, time-consuming nature, immediate turn-around requirements, and/or the expense of human translators.

● MT-enhanced (Assisted MT): automatically translating text with the intent of using a human translator for post-editing. Used in the form of Computer-Aided Translation, Assisted MT is useful for creating a base translation for proofreaders, which drastically decreases the amount of time they have to spend translating.

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When is MT Useful?

Controlled EnvironmentMT works well for translations where source documents are controlled, such as technical documents. Controlled authoring avoids ambiguity; clear and concise source text produces clear and concise machine translation. Documents to be machine translated should feature both of these traits.

Weather reports and stock market data use controlled authoring. According to Steve Silberman, "The classic example of MT that works is the Météo system, developed in Montreal, which has been translating Canada's weather bulletins between English and French on a daily basis since 1977. In the world of Météo discourse, 'front' always means a weather system."

Large Repetitious DocumentsLarge volumes of documents, particularly those with much repetition, are ideal for MT use. Machine Translations usually contain terminology dictionaries that can be tailored to fit the subject material and updated and modified as needed. This is a good thing, because constantly updating highly repetitious documents leads to translator attrition. According to Steve Silberman, "The translation of forecasts was so boring that before Météo took over, the Canadian government had a hard time keeping translators on the job for more than a couple of months."

When Human Translation is Impossible Extremely large volumes of material with impractical turnaround times where translations must be updated frequently make human translation impossible. As one member of webmasterworld.com wrote: "I run a site full time for a company and we use the machine translation service. Ninety percent of our content is dynamically generated each week from a database of about 12,000 new products each week so it would be a huge translation job where we'd need full time staff on doing it. The machine translation works quite well for us and gets customers who have no clue of English. We also use the machine translation type text in box for a translation for all e-mail contact with them "even though the translation is vague!" About the Author

Sandra Bologna is a translation project manager with WTB Language Group, a Canadian based translation company that provides technical manual translation services in over 140 languages. Sandra can be reached by phone at 519 256 8897 ext. 101, or by email sandra (at) wintranslation.com.

Sandra contributed this article to the STC Alberta Superscript newsletter, June 2005 issue. It is the first in a series of three articles on this topic.

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Babel Not: Machine Translation for the Technical CommunicatorBy Sandra Bologna, Translation Project Manager, WTB Language Group, Windsor, Ontario

What is MT used for?

GistingUsing MT to obtain a rough idea of the source text content is called "gisting" (from the phrase "get the gist of it"). Individuals or corporations who must obtain information from documents in a foreign language use MT for gisting purposes when they don’t need an official translation, or to determine if an official translation is necessary. Gisting is the most popular use of MT in use today.

Real-Time TranslationDepending on the language, a translator can translate approximately 250 words per hour. Let’s say that you outsource your weather report indicating a sunny forecast to a French translator. Two hours later you receive the translation, but now it’s raining. You outsource again. Let’s face it: data is constantly changing. MT provides translation of real-time data, such as weather reports and stock prices, quickly. For real-time information, delays are not acceptable, and the cost of human translation would again be enormous due to the high volume of data.

CommunicationThink about the dozens of e-mails you receive and send in one day. Now think about a US company which receives hundreds of e-mails weekly from its international client in Italy who doesn’t know English. This demonstrates only one instance where human translation would be out of the question.

E-mails, instant messaging, and chat all require extremely fast turnaround. Translation needs to be immediate and needs to be available 24/7. Since translators cannot produce immediate translation, do not work for free, and live in different time zones, it is impossible to have these forms of communication translated by human translators. MT is available 24 hours a day regardless of multiple time zones and can produce the high-volume automatic translations necessary for real-time communication. MT for communication purposes also increases privacy of confidential information by eliminating third parties such as translators and editors. It is ideal for companies working with international vendors who receive e-mails and data in foreign languages.

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Assimilation Assimilation refers to translating material from a variety of languages into one target language. Translating foreign text into your language is necessary for intelligence gathering. MT allows you to identify which information is relevant in documents written in a foreign language with little to no delay. MT can automatically translate large volumes of material that would be impossible, time-consuming, or prohibitively expensive for human translators.

Dissemination Dissemination is the need to translate material in one language into several other languages. The traditional process of localization is a prime example. MT for this purpose is used as human-assisted MT. It can speed up the localization process by providing a [source] to edit instead of requiring them to start from scratch. Since MT automatically maintains consistency of terminology, it also saves translators time in having to research and check terminology.

Right now you’re probably wondering why you should still bother using human translators; MT easily replaces them, right?

No. MT will not replace human translators. As I mentioned before, MT works well for technical documents because they use controlled authoring, and the MT dictionary can be tailored to their specific terminology. MT does not work as well for literary works. The machine translation of Romeo and Juliet would produce a trainwreck of text, leaving Shakespeare that much more difficult to understand. It is difficult for MT to properly translate such documents because literary texts are not structured and often use word play, metaphors, or other non-literal phrases. Human translators, on the other hand, have the ability to grasp the message of the text, and can properly translate the material even if it is conveyed imprecisely.

This is not to say that human translators always create perfect translations, for even the best-qualified translator will not know the source text better than the author. Still, using highly qualified, professional translators will produce better translations than MT software. MT systems have a more limited knowledge of grammar and vocabulary than human translators, and MT dictionaries are limited to what developers were able to implement, which is generally much less than what is necessary. It is important to determine what your needs are and what you plan to accomplish with a MT system.

What are the Costs of MT? When you purchase your MT system, the initial costs will be in the licence, customization, annual fees, and maintenance fees. Initially, the cost is high, but using MT regularly for repetitious, large-volume documents pays off quickly.

For five languages, the initial cost and maintenance could be close to $154,000, but let’s look at the longterm cost. Let’s say that in one year you translated a million words. After only the second year of using MT, the total cost for a million words would be



$116,450 ($100,000 for revision, $7,000 for maintenance, $9,450 for the annual fee) and would take about 250 days to complete. The cost to have the same 1,000,000 words translated by human translators into five languages at a rate of $0.10 per word would be $500,000 and would take about 400 days to complete.

MT runs at a fixed cost independent of volume; this means you can end up saving money over time due to reduced translation cost, reduced delivery time, around the clock availability, and consistency in terminology.

Most commercial MT systems are Transfer-based MT systems. This type of MT lets linguists build grammar rules for the system. The system can then analyze the source language text, map grammatical structures to the target language, and then generate the translation.

However, Transfer-based systems are time-consuming and expensive to develop. When the rules have not yet been developed, poor analysis of sentences will result. Also, this approach can take up to two years to develop since it is knowledge-intensive.

E-mails, instant messaging, and chat all require extremely fast turnaround. Translation needs to be immediate and needs to be available 24/7. . . it is impossible to have these forms of communication translated by human translators.

Another type of MT system is Data-driven MT. Only a few commercial MT systems use this method. This method uses statistical methods to calculate which parts of the source and target languages match by gathering large numbers of example translations. The dictionary and translation correspondences are built automatically, since text can range from single words to entire sentences. This method may only take a few weeks to develop, but the output is generally of lesser quality.

It is also important to realize that MT systems cannot handle every language combination. Generally, MT systems can translate common language combinations such as French to German or English to French. But rarer language combinations such as Japanese to Swahili have not been developed. About the Author

Sandra Bologna contributed this article to the STC Alberta Superscript newsletter, July-August 2005 issue. It is the second in a series of three articles on this topic. To follow along with the series, see the main STC Alberta newsletter page.

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STC Silicon Valley Chapter - New Senior Members

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New Senior Members of the STC Silicon Valley ChapterCongratulations to our new senior members from Chapter President Joanne Grey and the Silicon Valley Chapter Administrative Council:

Dennis M. Arellano

Don L. Biasotti, Jr.

Jeri A. Bonilla

Claudia A. Bramkamp

Jennifer K. Chew

Sage M. F. DeRosier

Celine Dion

Katherine H. Dumont

Celia M. Feret

Jennifer J. Foster

Joanne H. Frasca

Jenny Green

Essan Ni Jirman

William G. Kearns

Ada L. Lai

Cheryl A. Lander

Shirley S. Lee

Cindy L. Martin

Steve L. McHenry

Gregory A. Roensch

Sandra J. Stairs

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Month 2005 API SIG Meeting Presentation

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Connection Newsletter - June 2005

Month 2005 API SIG Meeting Presentation

Presentation title Technical/API Docs SIG By author

Further information can be found by visiting these websites: wiki.docbook.org and sagehill.net. About the author

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