STC blackmail? (Was: Humor... sort of)

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Andrew Plato reports: <<I learned long ago that fighting STC was a fruitless
and unrewarding endeavor. STC doesn't want to change and it will go to great
lengths to stop any change.>>

While there's some justice to that statement (any large organisation tends
towards the conservative), your overall statement is exaggerated to a
ridiculous extent. First, STC has made some major changes over the past
several years in response to requests from members. Second, your point about
actively suppressing change is wholly unsubstantiated and should be formally
withdrawn--one techwhirler who is also an STC member and who was present at
your meeting formally contradicted your claims.

<<This was never more blatant to me than last year when a few of us at my
firm tried to put together a technical study group for writers... One of the
guys in my office (who is an STC member) suggested we put out an invite via
an STC mailing list. We did and a ton of people showed up - including a few
longtime STC members.  On the second meeting, one of these STC people
announced to the group that she thought this type of technical training was
"useless" and that she had spoken with "a number of technical publications
managers" who told her that such technical training would not encourage them
to hire a candidate. Then, over the next few weeks the STC folks went to
work on the attendees. They would email attendees and tell them that this
was a waste of time and that they shouldn't go. Attendance plummeted and
eventually, we just did the study group among ourselves.>>

If you've got evidence that this sort of thing happens, you've got grounds
for a court case. This kind of behavior at the organizational level strikes
me as highly unlikely. I'd certainly accept the hypothesis that you
alienated some individuals (you're hardly the soul of tact when it comes to
STC as any scan of the archives will reveal) and they told some friends to
stay away, but suggesting that this was any kind of organized conspiracy is
questionable. It's also probably libelous, and you should know better than
to make such statements in a public forum.

<<STC outright discourages writers from obtaining technical training. STC
and it wants to make sure writers remain non-technical, so they will
continue to see value in the parade on one-off issues they champion.>>

I've been a member for more than 10 years now, and have yet to see any
active attempt to discourage training. Yes, it's very true that STC makes no
effort whatsoever to provide technical training, but that represents passive
neglect of a training area that members have not clamored to receive. It
also represents an arguably prudent decision not to compete with other
organisations such as WinWriters. STC regularly publishes ads from technical
trainers for the benefit of members: consider, for example, the ads for a
"Framemaker to Acrobat Advanced Techniques" seminar in the March Intercom
and for WinWriters in the January issue. Then there's the monthly listing of
non-STC conferences in Intercom, some sponsored by competing organizations
such as IEEE. STC wouldn't do that if they were actively trying to suppress
such training.

Of course, as a non-member, you're obviously not absorbing the same
subliminal brainwashing I've absorbed while reading their publications, and
thus, you're clearly seeing things without rose-tinted spectacles. Or
perhaps you're just so completely out of touch with STC that you really have
no clear idea what you're talking about. Pick the theory that suits you.

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada 

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