A Busy Summer: Your Council’s Plans for 2006-2007

The LSC Administrative Council met on July 8, 2006 to determine strategic and tactical goals for 2006-2007. We also worked on a three-year plan, which you can find at http://stc-dfw.org/pages/about_main.htm.

Strategic Goals

The LSC Administrative Council set the following strategic goals:

• Goal 1: Increase the perceived value of the community to our members
• Goal 2: Develop the members of our community
• Goal 3: Promote the profession and the organization
• Goal 4: Develop the community and our leadership

Tactical Goals

To achieve our strategic goals, we have decided to accomplish the following this year.

Goal One

To increase the perceived value of the community to our members, we will

• Implement a full program year focused on topics that are relevant to our members.
• Re-design our mentoring program, increase participation, and work more closely with local colleges and universities.
• Increase job opportunities in our area by
  • Increasing networking opportunities (more networking luncheons, happy hours, and an informal program during the summer).
  • Promoting our online job bank with an HTML e-mail to our recruiters once a quarter.
  • Increasing recruiter meeting attendance by sending meeting invitations to recruiters and members of other organizations.
• Provide a Web site that offers our members current information about the community and the profession.
• Publish materials, such as Technically Write and press releases, which promote the value of the community.
• Provide a local forum, the LSC Help Desk, where students and professionals can ask questions about tools and resources. This forum will be the available in September and will be available only for members (after you sign in). This will be a value add for people who cannot attend meetings.

Goal Two

To help develop the members of our community, we will

• Increase the activity and value of the SIN SIG.
• Support professional and continuing education opportunities in technical communication by
  • Developing our relationship with area colleges, universities, and educational institutions.
  • Providing technical communication students and LSC members who are taking continuing education classes with scholarships for educational opportunities.
  • Participating in the Texas BEST high school competition.
  • Attending area job fairs when possible.
• Provide educational opportunities in technical communication by
  • Holding the Region 5 Conference in November.
  • Providing links on our Web site to educational institutions.
• Promote Regional and National conference attendance.

Goal Three

To promote the profession and the organization, we plan to

• Raise awareness of the technical communication field through our competitions and mentoring programs.
• Increase the number of members of our community by surveying our lapsed members and improving public relations initiatives to communicate our events.
• Increase attendance at community events by reaching out to other organizations to plan joint meetings and technical communicators who are not STC members.
• Increase PR efforts and try to get coverage in local business journals and newsletters, mainly in connection with the upcoming Region 5 Conference.

Goal Four

And finally, to develop the community and our leadership, we plan to

• Increase the number of volunteers participating in community activities by implementing the rewards point system created by the Orlando Community. More details in LSC is Keeping Score!
• Develop a succession plan for community leaders. We'll engage four classes from the University of North Texas to create documentation for the community.
• Provide infrastructure for leadership support.
• Track metrics so we can quantify our successes. Keep tracking membership numbers, meeting attendance, job bank postings, and Web site hits.
• Develop a three-year strategic plan to help future community leaders.

After the work... a little bit of fun

Once we finalized our plans for the year, Louellen and the rest of the attendees started cooking up a storm! We had a lot of fun after the strategic session. It was nice to leave the work behind, open up a beer, and just relax!

We need you!

As you can see, we have our work cut out for us. If you want to learn something new, network, and help us achieve our goals, please e-mail volunteers@stc-dfw.org. We can't wait for you to join the team!