In March of 2015 I was elected President of the Austin STC Chapter. This slide show reflects some of the concepts I used to get an inactive chapter, active again.

1. Christopher Ward
Austin Chapter President
@WebWorksChris
#coffeninja

2. Vision
Probably the most important step to
revitalizing your membership
• The vision for Technical
Communications
• The vision for STC
(http://stc.org/about-stc/the-
society/mission-vision
• The vision for the chapter

3. Goals
This should be a collaborative effort and align
with the vision
• Measurable
• We want to make the world a better place.
• We want to make the world a better place by
educating 3 businesses, a year, on the value
of documentation.
• Visible
• Post them on the website.
• Speak about them at meetings.
• Put them in an email.
• Report
• Progress (Good or Bad) should be reported.
• Changes in any goal need to be announced
and the reason why.
• Failure is an option, deal with it

4. Know your
obstacles
It’s the ones you ignore that will get
you.
• I don’t like …….
• How do you tell if someone is just
venting, or suggesting?
• You don’t have to fix it yesterday
• Look for alternatives/compromises

5. Celebrate
• If you win
• Not every celebration has to be a party or a
meeting.
• Acknowledgement is the biggest prize of all.
• Does not matter how big or small or even if it
was a mistake, a win is a win.
• If you lose
• Celebrate the effort.
• Celebrate what you learned.
• If nothing is happening
• Hey, that is what you are here to fix – let’s
party!
• Something is always happening, so celebrate
the progress.