From the President

February 2016

Thoughts, how they wander! I was thinking about our last TechCommNZ conference, which reminded me of past speakers, which in turn led me to think of Mike Dickison, whom Kim Hill interviewed recently on the fascinating subject of Wikipedia. I recommend this interview if you've not yet heard it.

These musings led me to the internet, where I discovered that Mike is also a ukulele expert, a moa expert (we knew that), and a prolific and witty blogger and poet. He spoke at the 2014 conference on how to make infographics that don't suck.

It never ceases to amaze me how many personas and skill sets individuals can have – privately and professionally. Beyond the working day, our members are mountain bikers, roller derby skaters, railway enthusiasts, musicians, holistic healers, burlesque dancers, dragon boaters, amateur physicists, and so much more besides.

So, how do we help provide such talented people with professional development? Our brief is to help you expand and share your technical communication skills and knowledge. We do this by organising branch events, conferences, workshops, and webinars.

The scope of required knowledge in our diverse field is very broad. Over the last month we've been putting together a survey to find out which areas of learning are of most interest to you.

There's a chance for survey participants to win a $100 Prezzy Card, and to have input into the location of our next conference. It'll take less than 10 minutes:

>> Complete the survey <<

Annual General Meeting 2015

Thanks to the members and non-members who came along to our AGM on 6 December 2015. The minutes and other reports are available for members - you'll need to log in to our website to access them.

Salary Survey

Congratulations to Tyson Barnett, who won the $100 Prezzy Card in the Salary Survey draw. Tim Gray interviewed Tyson for this month's technical communicator feature, and you can read about his work and his need for coffee in this issue.

Denise Grealish is generously analysing the survey data and we will present a summary in next month's newsletter, with a link to the full report for members.

Until March, keep preparing those pithy paragraphs,