Looking Forward — The Communicators of Tomorrow

by Donald Johnstone, Program Manager

At the April General Meeting, Dave Goodwin—Associate Professor and the Director of the Digital Arts Communication (DAC) Specialization at the University of Waterloo—gave a brief presentation about the work being done at the university, which was followed by a question-and-answer period with a panel of students. The student panel was comprised of Ben Zhu, Julie Palmer, Peter Coo, and Majid Mirza.

So what is the DAC all about?

Dave began by giving us an overview of the DAC specialization, in which “students learn how to design with digital images, hypertext, sound, and video. And most importantly, they learn to design, develop, and test media for a wide variety of businesses and professions, ranging from the high-tech sector, to corporate communications, to the creative industries.” (http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts/ugrad/dac.html April 2006).

Dave then moved on to tell us about the University of Waterloo Canadian Centre of Arts and Technology (CCAT), which “combines practical and theoretical analysis of human-digital interaction in an environment that unites artistic, cultural, and technological literacy.” (http://campaign.uwaterloo.ca/project_sheets/ccat.pdf April 2006)

The studios and workshops in which the students and researchers work is funded by grants—a portion of which came from the STC—and contracts with such companies as StatsCan, Torstar, RIM, and Quarry Integrated Communications.

On the horizon

Dave described upcoming trends in the field. He sees people using:

• rich media, such as Ebooks and screen capture animation
• software such as Click to Meet—which allows voice and video telephony, streaming media, and data collaboration—to facilitate testing communication in online environments.
• software that allows the user to interact with, rather than press and display, rich media; for example Machinima, which is filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies.

The debate begins: what's in it for me?

The focus of the meeting then turned to the student panel. While each of the four panelists had interesting and astute questions and observations about what students and the STC have to offer each other, I will try to distill the student input in the following list:

• The students would like to see more focus groups or discussions with the student body concerning the interests of students (and future communicators) and the direction of the field of technical communications.
• There should be more focus on the opportunities for students graduating from school.
• The STC should consider approaching the student body about volunteer work that has a concrete goal; for example, working on the Awards committee, or on The Quill.
• The STC should offer a clearer message of who we are and what we can offer a student.

Hmmm, good questions!

During the course of the panel discussion, there were questions asked of the audience, and audience observations.

• Many people with little knowledge of the STC assume it is an organization for technical writers only, while in fact the STC membership has job descriptions of many hues. The question is, how do we communicate this to the community at large?
• How do we get students to attend our meetings? What are the three constants with a student? They are hungry, busy, and need a job; therefore, events with free food that are career-oriented could draw students out.
• Could the STC sponsor a bulletin board—such as the Math students have—with business cards of members and alumni?
• The student question of “What does the STC offer us?”, was answered by a number of people. Students could avail themselves of general meetings, seminars, WebEx meetings, and our website.

The meeting was truly interactive, in that most of the participants—speaker, panelists, and audience—had their voices heard. It was an interesting perspective and one that our organization should never forget. The voices of the panelists are indeed the voices of the future of technical communications.

The chapter would like to thank Sun Life Financial for donating the door prizes for April. Congratulations to our lucky door prize winners, Ben Zhu and Chris Reardon Smith!

About Donald Johnstone

Donald is our chapter’s Program Manager, and he’s travelled all over the world (even Africa!) to book the talent for the monthly STC meetings. He would like to do some more travelling, but our limited budget, and supporting his teenage son, currently prevents him from touring.

Donald’s background in programming and system analysis have provided him with a solid foundation in his career as technical writer…so far. He loves science fiction, history, photography, and his wife—not necessarily in that order.