I enjoy learning to use new products and getting to know new people. I work as an independent contractor and consultant technical writer because I like the variety of work. I am up-to-date with the technical writing tools of my profession and learn about my clients’ products and processes very quickly. I have a meticulous eye for detail, the skill to explain concepts and processes in simple terms, and the ability to help people see how the parts fit into the whole. I always get the job done on time, while producing top-quality documentation.

Technical writers bridge people and technology

I am a senior professional technical writer with 17 years of experience in the computer software industry, well established as an incorporated consultant. The simplest way to describe the many things I do as a technical writer is that I bridge people and technology to help you do business. I help people use technology to serve their needs and meet their business goals in the simplest, most effective way possible. I was the 2008 – 2009 president of the Canada West Coast chapter of my professional organization, the Society for Technical Communication. I also teach a workshop called Yoga for the Office, in which I teach people how to be close to their technology and take care of their bodies at the same time!

The Portfolio page shows some technical writing samples. I also invite you to visit my consultant listing in the STC directory. See my profile on LinkedIn for recommendations of my work.

Technical writing is one of my passions, and I enjoy the challenges that each new contract brings. Don’t hesitate to contact me, whether your technical writing project is big or small. I am willing to relocate from Vancouver to other parts of Canada for projects of one to six months. I also often work for US companies, via telecommuting.

If you need a technical writer, and you’d like to discuss how I can create great documentation for your next project, please call me at 604.251.6337 or send an email to kyrempel [at] gmail [dot] com.

No recruiters or placement agencies, please. I prefer to contract directly to the clients who will be using my services. I have been an incorporated consultant since 2003 and handle my own contract negotiations, invoicing, and taxes. Thank you!

You might wonder why this is necessary. The reason is that Temenos is not an “out of the box” solution, like Microsoft Word, that is ready to go the minute you buy it.  Though for those of us who have upgraded through various releases of Word, it is not really ready to go, as we have favourite ways of setting up the program to work for us. Come to think of it, the more expert a user is, the more they are likely to customize aspects of a software package before starting to use it. But I digress!

Used by over 600 banks world-wide, the Temenos T24 software is a very robust package that is customizable for each financial institution’s unique needs. The implications of this might not be obvious at first, but the software is actually intended to be developed further once it is purchased by a client. The documentation that comes with the Temenos T24 software is not intended for end users in banks and credit unions, such as front-line staff and people working in the back office to complete the behind-the-scenes aspects of banking. The Temenos T24 documentation is very comprehensive, but its intended audience is the implementation team of software developers, business analysts, and others who need to understand the nuts and bolts of the software’s structure of tables, applications, and modules. Using this knowledge, the implementation team must develop their own databases and screens for use with their company’s existing member structure, products, and processes.

Thus, the implementation team becomes a development team. Once development is involved, it necessitates an entirely different set of skills than implementation. Coding, testing, designing user interfaces, creating business requirements and functional specifications, and creating end user documentation. And that’s where I come in. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only technical writer in Vancouver with experience developing end user documentation for the Temenos T24 software. If your company is undergoing a Temenos implementation, I would be happy to assist you with creating online help and quick reference materials that are suited to your banking processes. The key to a successful implementation is ensuring that everyone knows how to use the new software! I can help you do that.

I have been working in the field of technical writing since 1993, writing and editing many types of technical documentation, including manuals and online help, training materials, web materials, and policies and procedures. I have worked in many capacities, from supervising writers on a project to being the sole technical writer on an international team where all the communication is virtual. I have a diploma in Professional Writing from the highly regarded Print Futures program at Douglas College, as well as an MA degree. I served my professional organization, the Society for Technical Communication Canada West Coast Chapter, in its highest office, president, for the 2008 – 2009 term. I was also honoured to win the STC’s Distinguished Award for technical communications.

I produce top quality documentation quickly and always ahead of production deadlines. I learn about my clients’ products rapidly, and am adept with the latest development tools, such as those used for video and screen capture, print and online document production, content management, illustration, and source control. My experience and skill-level allow me to meet my clients’ goals in a fraction of the time of less experienced technical writers. My rate is commensurate with my experience and skill-level.

Industry standards for technical writing rates

The Professional Writers Association of Canada lists a range of $50 – $125/hour for technical writing (2006).

The US-based Editorial Freelancers Association provides a range of $50 – $100/hour (2009).

The US-based Writing Assistance provides a range of $52 – $80+/hour, with an average of $68/hour (2009).

The National Writers Union provides a range of $62 – $106/hour (adjusted from 1999 to 2007). This information was published on their web site earlier in 2009, but has since been moved to their Freelance Writers Guide, which you can order from their web site.

These are four reputable sources that provide guidelines for what to pay a technical writer. Of course there are many factors that influence rate, including experience of the writer, local market, size of the company, level of responsibility (for example, supervising others), and budget.

I recently had the most remarkable experience at an information interview, which has inspired me to write this top ten list of things not to do at an information interview!

1. Show up at the interview location extremely hung-over, wearing your best wild animal t-shirt.
2. When you first meet the professional technical writer (that would be me) you have asked to interview, who is probably in a position to hire you or recommend you for a job, say “I’m sorry I look like this, I’ve had hardly any sleep, I’m hung-over, and I can barely talk.” That will make her glad she took a precious half hour out of her Saturday to come and meet with you.
3. Don’t offer to pay for the writer’s coffee and biscotti. I know you’re probably a starving student and spent all your money on drinks the night before.
4. Ask in a smarmy voice, “Who else do I need to talk to to get into this field, besides you, of course?”
5. When advised to join the technical writers’ professional organization, or at least come to their meetings, which cost $5 for students, say you’ve gone to a meeting and didn’t find it that interesting.
6. When advised to create writing samples for your portfolio, perhaps volunteering for a non-profit organization in order to get some experience, say you don’t want to volunteer because you want to spend all your time playing guitar.
7. Ask if the professional writer knows Bob Rock. (Just kidding, I made that up.)
8. Present a copy of your resume, totally covered with ink from someone else’s hand-written comments, and ask the professional writer to look at it.
9. Remain seated when the professional writer stands to leave. I know, you can barely move.
10. Be sure to put a typo in the thank-you email you send to the writer six days later.

I hope this will help all you aspiring technical writers feel confident to seek out and conduct information interviews, knowing that the bar is not that high!

It seems that no matter how good our technical writing services are, these days we have to rank well in search engines for our clients to find us. I had a recent exchange with fellow technical writer Stephen Arthur about the value of being searchable. While potential clients may be more inclined to look for technical writers on a site such as monster.ca or workopolis.com, and also in the contractors directory of the local chapter of the Society for Technical Communication, I think that it’s also imperative to ensure that clients can find our lovingly crafted web sites through conventional search engines.

For clients

What I say here applies equally well to anyone who has a web site and wants people to find your web site on the internet. You must be searchable! And findable! So this article gives a few tips.

I tend to focus my efforts on Google, but there are many other search engines that people use. So here is a list to consider checking your site on:

• Google
• Yahoo
• Bing
• Ask
• Dogpile - fetch!

For an unbelievable list of search engines, see the Search Engine Guide.

If your site is new, you’ll have to be patient, as it can take up to 3 weeks for the “robots,” “web bots,” or “crawlers” of the search engines to find your site and glean what’s on it. Google offers Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to assist you. These free tools help you track what Google is finding on your site and get statistics about visitors to your site.

Try this simple trick:

In the Google search box, type site:yourwebsitename.com

This will show you whether Google has indexed your site yet. Indexing means it has found your site and made a list of keyword terms. Webmaster Tools will show you what terms it has found.

Another trick:

In the Google search box, type link:yourwebsitename.com

This will show you the links to your site that Google has found on other web sites. This is the number one way to increase your web site ranking in search engines. The more sites that link to your site, the more important Google thinks your site must be.

For a final tip, make sure you frequently use terms on your site that you think your clients will search for. The more times a term is used, the more relevant Google will think your site is and the higher it will rank your site if someone searches for those terms.

Happy searching!

Liessi Häussler, president of Cyberscribe Solutions, said:

“Thanks for the kind mentions, Karen, and for all you’ve done to change this little corner of the world. Your time at the helm has made an enormous difference, all for the positive.”

Rahel Bailie, president of Intentional Design, said:

“I’ve worked with Karen as an STC volunteer for two terms, and both times she has shown a level of dedication and professionalism that is admirable. She revitalized the chapter during a time when, due to recession factors, volunteerism had dipped badly, and chapter operations were compromised. Karen stepped in, created a strategic plan, and socialized her vision throughout the membership. The crowning accolade was the chapter winning an award for creative use of technologies. Karen has shown herself to be a people person. Her leadership style shows how she values human relationships and works hard at ensuring that the volunteers are appreciated for their contributions.”

Pam Drucker, STC senior member and blogger at Shorter Documents, said:

“Your leadership pulled us through the 2008 – 2009 year. The outcome was an event to celebrate. It’s an understatement to say you oversaw many activities. This recap gives breadth to the year’s challenges and successes in thoughtful and meaningful terms. I hope you will repost your final message on the wiki to serve as a guide for future executives. I simply want to say thank you for accepting the challenge, giving your extraordinary energy, and for fulfilling a vision that by all measures has allowed our chapter to thrive again. Great job!”

Here is my end-of-term letter to the membership, in which I reported on the 2008 – 2009 program year. This highlights the accomplishments of the chapter under my leadership, thanks to the contributions of 40 great people who contributed time and energy to the chapter.

Letter to the membership

Dear members of the STC Canada West Coast chapter,

This is my final message to you as your president for the 2008 – 2009 program year. I’d like to take a snapshot of where the chapter is at right now, as well as reflect on the year that’s passed.

Survey Results
Lois Patterson, our new programs team lead, surveyed the chapter recently to check on the popularity of the third Tuesday, our current program evening. While of course this night doesn’t work for everyone, the majority who responded to the survey prefer this night. Respondents also requested that some meetings be held further east from the downtown core, and the programs team is considering holding an event in a location that’s further east to see how this goes. We also received encouragement to persist in our efforts to make programs available to remote participants.

Remote Participation
We will be continuing our efforts to bring programs to remote participants by recording the meetings and posting them on our web site. If all goes well, the May program, Susan Patch’s fascinating presentation on the principles of Agile Development, will be up soon, in the innovative format of audio plus SlideShare presentation. For the coming year we have a team of volunteers, headed up by James Lee, who will be working to bring live audio combined with laptop visuals to remote participants, hopefully with phone-in capabilities so that remote participants can ask questions during the Q&A period. Bruce Sharpe will continue to do fine work with the audio recording.

Awards Night
The May program was also Academy Awards night for the chapter, with awards going to the full gamut of chapter members, from the newest to the most senior:

• Rahel Bailie was honoured for achieving the distinction of STC Fellow; our chapter’s other Fellow and co-founder, Sheila Jones of International Wordsmiths, welcomed Rahel into this elite echelon with an entertaining talk about Rahel’s accomplishments and contributions to the chapter and the profession.
• Heather Sommerville won the award for Volunteer of the Year, for her dual role as programs team lead and volunteer coordinator.
• Two Print Futures graduates shared the prize for the Julia Broderick Scholarship; one student, Amanda Lee, who received honourable mention, was at the program meeting to graciously accept the award in memory of Julia. The other student, Crystal Auffray, showed great enthusiasm for technology and technical writing and currently works in Victoria.
• The chapter won the Chapter Pacesetter award for our use of technology to enhance all functions of the chapter.
• I received a beautiful gift, presented by our vice president, Eagranie Yuh, in appreciation for my contributions as president of the chapter! It will warm my house for years to come and remind me of my tenure as prez.

Woohoo! Congratulations to all award winners, and to the entire volunteer team, whose combined work contributed to winning the Pacesetter award.

A Year of Great Programs
In looking back over the year, I am thrilled at the variety and quality of program events we had:

• September’s kick-off meeting began with an introduction to the volunteers and the year’s theme of making a difference, followed by RJ Jacquez’s remote presentation from San Diego, CA about the new Adobe Suite; the presentation was broadcast to remote participants.
• November’s program by Jack Molisani taught us all how to earn six figures as technical writers, and was also our AGM.
• January’s Yoga for the Office presentation, by yours truly, brought some flexibility into our daily work lives.
• February’s program with Joe Welinski gave us ideas for finding and creating work in technical communications by providing leading-edge user assistance.
• March’s Pecha Kucha presentation, with slide shows by eight of our chapter’s members, on a variety of technical and non-technical topics, was entertaining and helped us get to know our members better.
• April’s program on Ideation Design, with Jerome Ryckborst, gave us another method for promoting ourselves and contributing in the work place.
• May’s program, with Susan Patch describing Agile Development, encouraged us to get involved early and often in the product development process; we also had a chapter Awards ceremony, and Susan’s presentation was recorded for remote members.

All of the programs were well attended, with about 30 members on average, and close to 100 people came to the presentation on earning six figures! This year the executive decided to make the programs free for members, which seemed to encourage more people to come to meetings. We also had the enticement of wonderful refreshments, generously provided by Liessi Haussler and Cyberscribe Solutions! But these events would not have been possible without the hard work of Heather Sommerville, Pam Drucker, and various other elves who worked behind the scenes throughout the year, including Lois Patterson, James Lee, Bruce Sharpe, Tracey Heyworth, and Tony Chung.

In the year to come, Heather and Pam are stepping into the background, taking a well-deserved break after years of bringing programs to the chapter, and Lois is coming forward as programs team lead, assisted by James, Takuro Ishikawa, Laura Misko, and Bruce.

Photo Gallery
Marika Piehler is our chapter photographer, and she has created a photo gallery of some of the programs from the past year, as well as providing photos for articles about chapter events. Check out the gallery, accessible from the new Photo Gallery menu item on the Coast Lines menu of our chapter web site: http://www.stcwestcoast.ca/index.php/gallery. Thanks also to Stephen Arthur for taking photographs at the January meeting.

Volunteer Meetings and Coordination
We had volunteer meetings about once every two months, which were well attended (with 7 to 13 volunteers at each meeting) and a source of fresh ideas and inspiration for the chapter. I’d like to thank the many people who took minutes at these meetings:

• Karl Meinert, secretary*
• Christine Grimard, secretary*
• Michelle Fredette
• Tracey Martinsen

And I’d like to thank Liessi Haussler of Cyberscribe Solutions for providing us with a meeting space, and Panago for the pizza! The volunteers were very gracious about all the pizza choices being vegetarian!

* The position of secretary was akin to being the drummer from Spinal Tap (see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/synopsis); you didn’t even hear about the first person who held this position. Hang onto your drumsticks, Christine!

Our volunteer coordinator, Heather Sommerville, was present at every volunteer meeting and performed vital work throughout the year, recruiting volunteers, matching them to jobs, and helping give them the support they needed to do their work. Volunteer numbers rise and fall throughout the year, with volunteers coming and going as their life circumstances change. But to give you an idea of Heather’s recruitment skill, we had 12 volunteers who continued on from the 2007 – 2008 program year in June 2008, and now, in June 2009, we have 27 volunteers lined up for the coming year. Well done, Heather!

Volunteer Appreciation
It has become something of a tradition in the chapter to show appreciation to the volunteers with a small gift and a volunteer lunch. I’d like to thank Mike Parviainen for getting the volunteers gift certificates for their choice of Amazon, Chapters, or movie tickets. Thanks again to all those volunteers who waived their gifts and donated the money to the Vancouver Food Bank at Christmas time.

I’d also like to thank Catherine Kerr for making the arrangements for the volunteer appreciation lunch at La Rocca. The coloured name cards were a great touch, and the restaurant was very accommodating about providing vegetarian options. Eagranie had the brilliant idea of getting us to switch chairs between courses, so that we got to talk to more people and get to know each other better. And Pam Drucker gave a funny and moving speech honouring Heather’s contributions and “gentle nudges” over the year. The lunch was so much fun that some of us lingered for three hours! Now that’s a classic Italian feast!

Membership
Membership in the chapter has remained pretty steady throughout the year. We had 217 members in June 2008, and in June 2009 our membership is at 195. This is an exceptional retention rate, given the economic difficulties we are facing in Vancouver and in our field of technical communication. I’d like to thank our membership coordinator, Dawn Stewart, for her year-long work in orienting new members to the chapter’s services, including helping members post their listings in the Directory of Contractors and Independent Consultants (not always an intuitive process). We currently have 34 listings in the directory. Nine are new listings since July 2008, and there were three new listings before that in January 2008.

Forum
I encourage members to make use of the forum as a means of communicating your needs to the volunteer team, and for continuing to build the sense of community we share as a chapter. Many thanks to Tracey Martinsen for being the forum gardener, planting seeds of topics for us all to ponder, explore, and contribute to if we felt called to do so. I was just thinking over the topics I remember, and concluding that Bumper Sticker Wisdom was my favourite. It looks like I’m not the only one; with 1,885 views, this was the favourite topic of the year!

Legalities
Our long-time treasurer, Susan Patch, kept track of the financial affairs of the chapter, and prepared two sets of financial statements this year, owing to the changing of the year end by STC International. She filed all the necessary paper work to meet our legal obligations as a chapter, and made sure everyone got reimbursed promptly for expenditures incurred to run the chapter. Thanks very much, Susan! The chapter has full transparency about our financial affairs, and the budgets, strategic plans, and financial reports dating back to 2005 are available to members via the member Wiki, accessible from the home page of our chapter web site.

We were given the option to update the chapter bylaws this year to mirror the bylaws of the STC International. The executive, consisting of past president Theresa Putkey, Eagranie, Susan, me, and Christine, decided to retain our current bylaws, because they are specific to BC legislation and suit the needs of our chapter. Updating the bylaws to mesh with STC International would have been very time consuming because the STC International bylaws reflect the laws of New York State. Our chapter bylaws are available for anyone to view, by going to Chapter bylaws on the About menu of our web site.

Documentation Competition
We didn’t have a documentation competition this year, as originally planned in the strategic plan, but we will be having one next year. Liessi Haussler is the team lead for the competition, with backup from Pam Drucker and assistance from an astonishing team that Liessi has put together. Stay tuned for more details about this!

Contractor’s CIC SIG
The informal monthly meetings of the Contractors and Independent Consultants Special Interest Group, headed by team lead Ben Hechter, have been a fun way of meeting with others in the field to discuss the state of affairs in Vancouver. The group has been meeting at a restaurant-pub on Commercial Drive, but may experiment with a Surrey location for one of the meetings next year. The group is on hiatus over the summer, and will meet again in September.

I went to a few of these meetings over the past year (initially hosted by Paul Tyson), and really enjoyed the chance to exchange news about mass corporate layoffs, job opportunities, and consulting rates. But the best part was getting to know what people are doing in their off hours! We technical communicators are a very creative and diverse group of people.

Job Bank
Without a doubt, the job bank is an important resource for members, and access to the postings is a strong incentive for membership. Tony Yip has been quietly editing, approving, and posting jobs behind the scenes for some years now, and I’d like to thank him for this very helpful service to our membership.

If the job bank can be used as an indicator of the state of the field, things have slowed down over the past year. We had 50 posting in the job bank from July 2008 to June 2009, versus 77 the previous year. Full figures aren’t available for the year before that, but for the six-month period from January to June, postings were as follows:

• 2007 – 53
• 2008 – 45
• 2009 – 25

The chapter plans to do community outreach to employers in the year to come to raise awareness of the role and importance of technical communicators.

Scholarships, Education Liaison, and Outreach
Rob Hughes administered the Julia Broderick Scholarship this year, and will be expanding his role to be our education coordinator next year. Sharon Twiss, Douglas College Advisory, and Tamara Bailey, SFU Advisory, will continue in their roles. Eagranie has some exciting ideas about education liaison, which she will be revealing in her strategic plan for 2009 – 2010.

Theresa Putkey was our liaison with related organizations. She posted announcements about events of interest to our members, and obtained discounts for our members to go to events. In addition, Eagranie has been working with the High Tech Communicators Exchange to put on a joint event. To assist with public outreach, one of our new volunteers, Degan Beley, will be doing public relations for the chapter next year.

Web Site
I’ve already discussed some aspects of the web site, but I’d like to give a special mention to Lisha Li, our webmaster. Lisha has been an incredibly dedicated webmaster, often making updates within minutes of my requests to her. In addition to updating web content, Lisha is responsible for upgrading the Expression Engine used to run the web site, and is also available to help visitors to the site.

Lisha has been working with a small committee, headed up by Theresa Putkey, to redesign the home page. Our innovation strategist, Rahel Bailie, is also on this team, as are Tony Chung, Eagranie Yuh, and I. Theresa surveyed the membership to discover which information is most important to have on the home page, and the team has been collaborating to come up with a leaner design. Theresa and Lisha have both mocked up pages, and the next step is to get a graphic designer involved. Hopefully you will be seeing a new look on the home page in the year to come.

Coast Lines Newsletter
We occasionally post small news articles on the home page, but most of our chapter news is presented through our online newsletter, Coast Lines. Tony Chung continued in his role as newsletter editor for the past year, editing, formatting, and posting more than 20 articles, reports, and program meeting reviews throughout the year. In addition, Tony wrote articles, worked with Lisha behind the scenes to perform web site administration tasks, and helped with the remote broadcasting of our September program. Tony is a font of innovative ideas, limited only by the time he has available for implementation, and his cheerful enthusiasm has been a welcome element on the volunteer team.

Our newsletter has also benefitted by the contributions of many volunteers and members, including Eagranie, Lois, Marika, Clara Johnson, Dawn, Christine, Rahel, and Michelle. It is no surprise to learn that we are a chapter of talented writers! A number of other volunteers have expressed interest in contributing to Coast Lines, so I expect the newsletter will continue to be a lively and timely source of information during the year to come.

Making a Difference
As you know, the theme this year was making a difference in the world, and I feel moved to have worked with this wonderful team of volunteers who are all making a difference in this world in many ways. Their contributions extend well beyond the generous giving of their time to the STC CWC chapter. Some of these ways were celebrated in the forum topic on Making a Difference, but many volunteers and members seem to be too modest to post in public about the great things they do! Here are excerpts from postings in the forum that list a few of the ways our members are making a difference:

• taking public transit
• recycling
• growing our own produce
• taking dogs to visit people in hospital
• introducing city dwellers to outdoor winter sports such as snowshoeing
• teaching yoga and meditation to young adults in prison
• helping feed the homeless and people with HIV
• working at the farmers’ market
• doing sound setup for church services
• engaging in Jewish-Muslim dialog at a synagogue
• raising children and teaching grandchildren
• revolutionizing the teaching system
• supporting cancer research
• buying items secondhand to reduce the strain on the earth’s resources
• supporting musicians and writers by promoting their work
• promoting awareness of how destructive big business is to our lovely planet and all who sail her
• helping a company develop a “smart grid” system that will help us make better use of our existing (aging) power infrastructure
• web designing for a charity that raises money for anti-poverty projects in India
• helping with a campaign to ban grizzly hunting in BC and protect grizzly habitat

Please visit the forum at http://www.stcwestcoast.ca/index.php/forums/viewthread/29/ and tell us about the ways you are making a difference in the world. We are all inspired and uplifted when people share their stories.

My Experience as President
It has been a year of growth for me, stepping into the role of president and taking on responsibility for the chapter, and the support of our amazing volunteer team is what made it possible. I would especially like to thank Heather, for being a supportive listening ear, and Eagranie, for agreeing to be VP and for fielding all of the president’s emails!

The presidency was an exploration for me in what it means to be a “wild woman,” offering my gifts to my people and place. This was an exploration that arose during a vision quest in 2007, and since then I have been working with different ways to express wild woman energy. To me, being big enough to hold the space for a chapter of 200 people seemed like a way to express that wildness, while channelling it into a productive form of service. Taking the risk of championing a chapter theme that went beyond the usual domain of technical communication-making a difference in the world-was another aspect of bringing my wild woman self to the role of president. I have been so pleased to see that this risk paid off. Volunteers and members shared their own ways of making a difference in the world, and I think that by sharing parts of our lives outside of our business roles we developed a warm sense of community in the chapter. This sense of community, the enjoyment of working with others, and a feeling of belonging were all surprise gifts that I didn’t anticipate when I agreed to be president. The wild woman takes me places I wouldn’t readily go, and beautiful new worlds open up.

In closing, I want to thank the membership at large, for your trust in me. I am glad that I conducted myself reasonably well, kept the chapter from dissolving, and headed up a successful chapter year that I feel is worthy of your trust.

Your New President
Now I turn it over to your new president, Eagranie Yuh! Little did she know where agreeing to coordinate last year’s volunteer lunch would lead! Eagranie has been my right-hand woman for the past year, and has contributed to the chapter in many ways. I have every confidence in her vision and leadership skills for guiding the chapter for 2009 – 2010. I know she will continue to build on the strengths of this vibrant, passionate chapter!

Have a great summer, and see you in the fall.

Warmly,
Karen Rempel
President 2008 – 2009
STC Canada West Coast

At first glance you might not associate beadwork with technical writing. It’s true that writing Complete Beading for Beginners is one of the most fun things I’ve done!

I first had the idea for a book on beadwork in a technical writing class at the New Westminster, BC campus of Douglas College (in 1992). I wrote an eight-page sample in that class, and worked on the design in a desktop publishing class. The support I received from my teachers convinced me to try to self-publish the book. I produced four full-colour, 66-page prototypes, and generated orders for 1,500 copies of the book. However, when I approached the Royal Bank for a loan to cover printing costs, they turned me down.

I was outraged! True, I was fresh out of school, with student loans and only a few months at my first tech writing job. But what about all my years as a faithful customer at the bank? What about my clearly outlined business plan? What about the orders for 1,500 copies, from both Vancouver and New York bead supply wholesalers? When the bank turned down my request, I thought of giving up on the book. But eventually I summoned up the energy to develop Plan B—finding a publisher.

I was incredibly lucky, and my book was accepted by the first publisher I approached, BC-based Harbour Publishing. I thought I had it made, and all my work was over—now I’d just reap the rewards. It didn’t quite turn out that way—the book was accepted in early 1994 and released in late 1996. During the interim I learned many lessons about perseverance, compromise, and conflict resolution. Harbour wanted me to expand the book considerably, which I did. Then the book went through another major revision to fine-tune the tone and make it more suitable to the target audience. Harbour had done some market research and discovered that the teen market was untapped and keen to learn about beading, so this was the target audience we were trying to reach. Initially I had written the book with my younger siblings in mind. They were pre-teens, at least when I started writing the book!

I think mostly I was struggling with my own nature. I’d wanted to self-publish and have complete control. It was very difficult to trust that the people at Harbour knew what they were doing and were actually helping to improve the book. Of course, no one has good ideas all the time (not John Lennon—according to Yoko Ono—and not even the people at Harbour Publishing). So I also had to learn to distinguish between what I was willing to do for the sake of making a good book, and what I strongly disagreed with. Once I’d gained clarity myself, I had to communicate my feelings to the people at Harbour.

I know they also had to learn to trust me. For example, one area of contention was about using clear nail polish to make a knot in the thread more secure. This was something I’d been doing for years, but I guess it sounded kind of fishy. So I was asked to take this tip out of the book. I felt strongly that it was a good tip, so I sought and found proof that using nail polish was a recommended practice in several other books on beading. Harbour checked with a few expert beaders and received mixed responses, and in the end they decided to allow the tip to remain.

There were a few points during this painful process when I seriously considered giving up on the project. But somehow I stayed with the process, and Harbour did too, and the result is a beautiful book that I’m quite proud of. By the way, this process was not what Harbour Publishing expected either. They accepted my book because another book had been dropped from their spring list in 1994. They needed a replacement and thought that my book was ready to go (my full-colour prototype looked really good!). So looking back, I think I was lucky that Harbour didn’t decide to scrap the project when it turned out to be so much work.

Now, 13 years after its release, Complete Beading is a Canadian best-seller. Sales increased steadily from 1996 through 2003, when they peaked. That year, the royalty cheque was enough for me to buy a new car, my Tracker! The book has won local and international awards for technical writing (from the Society for Technical Communication). I’m pleased about the modest financial success, but there’s another reward I hadn’t expected. When I travel, I try to visit bead stores to see if they carry the book, or might be interested in ordering it. The nicest thing is discovering that the store has the book, and recommends it to their customers. That seems quite incredible to me—I created something that is now out in the world with a life of its own, contributing in some way to help others create.

If you Google my name you’ll find lots of beading stores that carry my book. It is available on Amazon.ca, Complete Beading for Beginners, or if you’re American, at Amazon.com, Complete Beading for Beginners. Of course, you can also pick it up at Country Beads on West 4th Avenue in Vancouver, where my book was launched in 1996. Or at Beadworks on Granville Island, also a strong supporter of the book.

Karen Rempel
President, Monkey Valley Enterprises Inc.

604.251.6337 (cell)

kyrempel [at] gmail [dot] com

2425 Wall Street
Vancouver, BC  V5K 1A4

Photo credits

• This page and Welcome topic: Mika Inokoshi Photography
• Yoga for the Office pix and last pic on Leadership page: Stephen Arthur
• Leadership pix: Marika Piehler

I finished a degree in ecopsychology at Naropa University in 2007, and since then I have been discovering different ways to use what I have learned to serve my people… which includes family, colleagues, and my professional organization, as well as other communities. In the busy city of Vancouver, I think we all belong to multiple communities. And to the community of the planet as a whole.

I believe that many people are concerned about the challenges we are facing as a planet, such as climate change, pollution, social injustice, and economic difficulties. I also believe that people want to make a difference, and do many things in their lives that are making a difference already. So I decided it would be empowering and lively to celebrate the ways we make a difference. This theme still excites me, and it carried me through the challenges I occasionally faced as chapter president for the 2008-2009 term. I believe it has infused our chapter membership of technical writers with enthusiasm about being a part of our STC community.

It has been very inspiring for me to hear of the many different ways our members serve their people: bringing food to people living with HIV or AIDS and their families, street-level outreach for the homeless, dog therapy for palliative care patients, helping friends and family members with child care, and many, many other wonderful contributions. It is not surprising that technical writers are so passionate about service when one considers that we have all chosen a type of work that is service-oriented, helping our clients, companies, and the end users of our documentation to solve their problems. One of the ways that I enjoy contributing is through teaching yoga to people who otherwise might not have an opportunity to experience it.

As a Vancouver-based technical writer, I have been creating technical documentation since 1993. I have quite a diverse range of technical writing samples in my portfolio, including some great printed books and other materials that I can show you in person. This page provides samples of online documentation from three different projects.

Rockwell Automation 2009

My most recent technical writing project for Rockwell Automation was to update a documentation set consisting of over 20,000 files, 7 users’ guides, 20 help projects, and 5 product inserts. I completed the updates in 9 months.

The product’s comprehensive documentation is highly regarded by the end users, and is a key selling point for the software. In addition to updating the documentation with the new features and changes for the current release, I converted all of the files to the latest versions of FrameMaker and RoboHelp. 

Some of the documentation was over 25 years old, and many different technical writers worked on the product over the years, resulting in a mix of writing styles, outdated language usage, and inconsistent formatting. Since there wasn’t time in the contract for me to do a thorough edit of the documentation, I provided the client with a list of recommendations for bringing the documentation in line with current company and industry technical writing standards. 

Here are some pieces from the documentation set.

Installation insert:  Arena Software Installation

Manual describing how to use the product with a third-party product called OptQuest:

OptQuest for Arena User’s Guide

I can show you the help projects and full manual set when we meet in person.

Rockwell Automation 2008

Installing server – before.pdf   Installing server – after.pdf

I rewrote the FactoryTalk AssetCentre server installer section, which is part of a very complicated installation process. The tasks were somewhat buried within the main body text, and it wasn’t clear when the user needed to do something. I pulled the tasks out of the paragraphs where they were buried and put them into numbered steps.

Version B – FactoryTalk AssetCentre Installation Guide.pdf   

Version B of the Installation Guide is the “before” version. Notice that the bookmarks don’t show the chapter numbers. (Open the bookmarks pane in your browser.) Also check out the word wrapping on Page iii of the table of contents.

Version D - FactoryTalk AssetCentre Installation Guide.pdf

Version D is the “after” version. I added the chapter numbers to the bookmarks pane to make it easier for readers to orient themselves in the book. I also changed the page numbering in the .pdf file to match the page numbers in the book. It can be very confusing for readers when there are two different numbering sequences. I also cleaned up the formatting of the table of contents.

Other technical writing work on this book included revising material for a new release of software and updating text to conform to the company’s style guidelines.

Version C – FactoryTalk AssetCentre Installation Guide.pdf

Version C was an intermediate patch release. I learned about the patch when I got back from vacation on September 2, and completed the revisions, put it out for review, and prepared the final .pdf by September 12. I also still completed Version D ahead of schedule.

Diamond Dust 2005

DD Fall 05 – before.pdf   DD Fall 05 – after.pdf

The Diamond Dust is the newsletter for a spiritual work school. I volunteered on the editorial team from 2005 to 2008. This is the first issue I worked on with the team, in the Fall of 2005. The before and after versions show how I redesigned the layout that the new layout editor had created. I wanted to give a more open, spacious look to the pages.

I wrote interviews and a regular column for this international newsletter with readership of about 550. I performed layout edits, copyedits, and proofreading. I trained others on the team in layout and editing skills. I created a Word template, style guidelines, and other procedural guidelines. The team consisted of about nine editors in three countries. We produced the newsletter by holding one phone meeting per issue, and the rest of our communications were by email.