RE: The STC and me

[John Wilcox <JWilcox -at- zetron -dot- com>]

My input is from having been a member for just 3 of my 18 years in the field
-- the 3 (nonconsecutive) years in which I had an employer who would pay the
membership fee. Unfortunately, those employers did not receive a good
ROI...and I think my first year the dues were "only" $60.

Lee Hunter <lee -dot- hunter -at- hum -dot- com> wrote:

> The three main reasons to belong to the STC:
> 
> 1) Networking -- 

I'd say this is the biggie. Of course, you have to be near a chapter HQ to
benefit. And you still have to pay to attend monthly meetings. You do get a
discount, but you'd have to attend quite a few to break even on dues. But
then, one can also network via e-mail discussion lists such as this, and
they're free. (Don't get any ideas, Eric. :)

> 2) Professional Development -- 

I've seen very little offered through STC that wasn't available elsewhere.
There is an annual national conference and sometimes a regional conference,
and you get a discount on those, but obviously it's a small percentage of
the membership who can and do attend. I found almost nothing in the
magazines to be of practical use. E-mail groups are far more informative and
useful. I did like the SIGs I was in, but again, you can do those through
groups like techwr-l or a Yahoo Group, which are free.

> 3) Status -- Probably not much value to you unless you're looking for 
> work.

Uh, probably not much value then either. If you happen upon an employer
who's anal enough to require STC membership, you could join and then apply,
I suppose. Either that or look for a more reasonable employer.

Here are some other discussion points:

The STC HQ web site says there are over 25,000 members. My local chapter
(Puget Sound) web site says there are over 20,000. According to the annual
report for 2003, however, there were just 19,015 as of a year ago. I doubt
there are that many members of all the relevant e-mail groups combined
(about 9,000 between techwr-l and HATT, an many are no doubt members of
both). Why would someone pay $140 do join STC and yet not take advantage of
a much more practical, useful, and free group?!

There are plenty of organizations that you can join and benefit from for
like 35 bucks a year. STC charges 4 times that much. I always wondered what
they did with the money, so I just checked their annual report. The largest
expense -- 40% of the budget -- goes to "Headquarters Operation." We're
talking 117 grand per month!

So maybe it's like paying taxes. Some will recoup as much as or more than
they put it in, but most won't, and a large portion just goes to support the
infrastructure.

_____________________________
Regards,
John Wilcox, Technical Writer
Zetron, Redmond


  


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