STC Central Illinois Chapter e-Newsletter -- version 9.21.01.2
* Meeting Poll Results
* Leadership Without Authority: Creating Positive Outcomes in a Team Environment
* Rescheduling How To Negotiate A Better Salary
* Congratulate Marcia Krause -- Our New Chapter Secretary
* Canadian Issues SIG
* Mark Nazimova and New York***************************
MEETING POLL RESULTS
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With 33 responses in, we think we can safely say that our membership would like to solve our geographic dispersal problem by holding lunch and dinner meetings.* 85% of our members are willing to attend lunch meetings.
* Between 55 and 73% are willing to attend dinner meetings.
* 64% replied yes to a dinner meeting starting at 6:30; however, when we counted both the yes and probably/possibly/maybe votes, 73% are willing to attend a dinner meeting starting at 6:00.
* 19% are willing to travel to Decatur, Bloomington-Normal, Springfield, or Peoria to meet.
* 61% are willing to attend a half-day seminar on the weekend.
So we will continue our policy of alternating lunch and dinner meetings.
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LEADERSHIP WITHOUT AUTHORITY: CREATING POSITIVE OUTCOMES IN A TEAM ENVIRONMENT
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Program: Leadership Without Authority: Creating Positive Outcomes in a Team Environment
Speakers: Gloria Keeley and Bea Hilsenhoff
Date: Tuesday, October 2, 2001
Time: 11:30 a.m.
Place: NCS Learn, 125 West Church Street, Suite 300, Champaign, Illinois 61820
Cost: FREE!!!
Refreshments: Will most definitely be served (which is why your RSVP is so important)
RSVP: By noon on Friday, September 28, to nmoster@metasolv.com or 217/762-9568*** Leadership Without Authority: Creating Positive Outcomes in a Team Environment ***
Teamwork has become a critical component of individual success in today's increasingly complex technological landscape. Yet how many of us know how to make a team work, help a team achieve its goals, or facilitate a team's success? In short, how many of us know how to lead -- especially today as we position ourselves to take leadership roles in enterprise initiatives such as content management, single sourcing, and knowledge management? Learn how mastering the art and science of leadership without authority can help ensure your continued growth and professional success.
*** Who is Gloria Keeley? ***
Gloria Keeley, who has played many roles in information technology support to the higher education community since 1981, is currently the Director of Development for the Office of Business and Financial Services at the University of Illinois. She leads a team responsible for:
* Analyzing needs, defining requirements, and creating information technology solutions to support the business of central and academic units at the University
* Creating and improving the methodology currently used by the Office of Business and Financial Services
* Providing project management support for University business initiatives
Gloria also plays a supporting role in the Keeley household as wife to Michael and mom to Christopher (10) and Margaret (13).*** Who is Bea Hilsenhoff? ***
Bea Hilsenhoff's began her professional career as an electronics technician for the U.S. Navy. Before leaving the Navy, she taught new sailors and marines the basics of electronics troubleshooting. Bea's ten years of military experience proved helpful after she obtained her MBA and became the Director of Administrative Computing at Parkland College.
Bea is currently the Assistant Director of Development for the Office of Business and Financial Services at the University of Illinois, where she continues to work to improve the project management support for University business initiatives. Bea also heads the team that supports the award-winning Illinois Higher Education Procurement Bulletin successfully implemented in 1997.
Despite her career accomplishments, Bea reserves her greatest bragging rights for her two sons, Danny (20) and Doug (13).
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RESCHEDULING HOW TO NEGOTIATE A BETTER SALARY
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We had to cancel our September meeting because our speaker, Karen Steele, was stranded in Montreal. We will reschedule Karen's presentation as soon as air travel and her schedule permit. Cross your fingers for November.*****************************************************************************************
CONGRATULATE MARCIA KRAUSE -- OUR NEW CHAPTER SECRETARY
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Marcia is replacing Steven Peter, whose new digs in New Jersey make it difficult to fulfill his chapter secretary responsibilities.Marcia will now be doing triple duty: Employment Manager, Co-Web Master, and Chapter Secretary.
Please congratulate (or commiserate with?) Marcia the next time you see her.
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CANADIAN ISSUES SIG
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By Alexa Campbell, Canadian Issues SIG managerWould you like to join a group of Canadians? Now who wouldn't want that opportunity? The new Canadian Issues SIG is now signing up new members and you can be a part of this new group. You'll find it's a great way to network with other STC members in Canada and elsewhere, focusing on issues pertinent to Canadians. One of the good features now is that membership is free for the rest of the year!
In May 2001, STC formed a new SIG devoted to improving communication among its Canadian members. I am Alexa Campbell, a long-time member of STC who is serving as SIG manager. I'm inviting Canadian STC members, and others who are interested in Canadian issues, to join this new group.
Right now, STC members can sign up for the Canadian Issues SIG for free until the end of the year. SIG membership dues will be billed in the 2002 STC dues notices scheduled to be sent out in November. To sign up for SIG membership, email your request to the STC membership department (membership@stc.org).
Keys to the success of any organization are the enthusiasm and support of its members. I hope many of you will step forward to help make this one of the most effective SIGs in STC. We can use volunteers to fill important positions of newsletter editor, webmaster, listserv coordinator and membership coordinator. The tasks are not hard nor take a lot of time; however, they will take your commitment.
We already have established a listserv that will be a good source for exchanging information and ideas. To subscribe to the list, go to http://lists.stc.org/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=stc-ca-l and click the "Join stc-ca-l" button. Complete the information and you're there. (Note that the l is a lower case L.)
If you have any questions about the Canadian Issues SIG, please contact me, Alexa Campbell, at (204) 632-2345 or email acampbell@rrc.mb.ca
Here is some information about the Canadian Issues SIG, its mission, its name, and its goals.
*** Mission statement ***
The Canadian Issues SIG fosters communication among Canadian members of STC to allow them to exchange information and to discuss issues within STC that
* Are of a particular concern to Canadian members
* Arise by reason of political, socioeconomic, and geographical constraints because the members reside in Canada*** Rationale for name ***
The name reflects the membership of the SIG, and carries on the title of the Canadian Issues Committee, which was formed in 1990. In the ten years of its operation, this committee helped identify and resolve many issues of concern to Canadian members of STC. Membership in the SIG is not necessarily restricted to Canadian members but is open to anyone with an interest in the special needs and concerns of Canadian STC members.
*** Areas of interest ***
The Canadian Issues SIG explores the following areas of interest:
* Increasing the technical communications profile and reputation across Canada
* Monitoring, helping shape, and publicizing technical communication education in Canada
* Helping evolve standards to encourage a consistency in the technical communications courses offered across Canada
* Communicating the value of technical communication to business, industry and academe
* Enabling educational institutions, industry and practitioners to share ideas about technical communication
* Promoting a professional development program for Canadian technical communicators, by making it easier to advertise such programs
*** Goals ***
The following are the goals of the Canadian Issues SIG:* To link Canadian chapters, which are spread out geographically, and which lack a unified voice in STC internationally
* To provide opportunities for Canadian members to communicate about needs, concerns and issues that are unique to Canada by virtue of geography, economics or politics
* To provide a venue for promoting professional development activities for Canadian members
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MARK NAZIMOVA AND NEW YORK
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Editor's note: I met Mark Nazimova at the SingleSource 2001 conference in San Francisco in April. Mark, who lives in New York, was kind enough to share his experiences with his friends. I thought I'd pass them along.~~~~~~~~~~~~
To everyone who emailed asking if I'm okay, and for anyone who's wondering about the situation in New York City...
I'm fine. I never made it in to the office. I got up late yesterday morning, turned on the radio while having breakfast, and heard about the first plane about ten minutes after it hit (when everyone still thought it could be an accident); as I was listening to the radio they got an eye witness report about the second plane. (That stopped me in my tracks.) After that I was glued to my TV set. (I don't have cable, and only one TV station was broadcasting; all the others were out, since their antenna was on one of the World Trade Center towers.) Eventually, the subway system was shut down, so I couldn't get into Manhattan.There was a strange dissonance between the feeling inside my apartment, where the story unfolding on TV seemed the only reality--fire and debris and death--and (when I eventually went out) the scene outside my apartment, where it seemed like just another beautiful sunny day in my Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn. With people going about their business. Except for the dark plume of smoke high up in the sky, drifting over from Manhattan. Except for the smell of something burning. Except for the occasional thin piece of plaster or sheet of paper that would slowly, slowly float down, in a lazy carefree spiral, from the sky. From across the river, several miles away. From what had been a building, where people used to work.
The only two people that I was able to remember worked there--my oldest friend, Steve, who works in one of the twin towers, on the 71st floor, one floor above where my father used to work in the same building; and my cousin Brian, who works directly across the street from the same tower, in the World Financial Center, and every morning walks by the tower at about the time the first plane hit--both got to work late, thank God, after the attacks began, and are okay. (In a strange twist of fate, each happened to be watching the football game on TV the night before; it was a good game, so each decided to stay up late and watch it through to the end, and so got up late.)
Steve, on the sidewalk, had parts of the building rain down on him from the second crash, and ran, falling once or twice. Thank god, almost everyone in his department who was in the building got out okay; they're still trying to track down one colleague who might be in a hospital.
It turns out that Steve's brother just got a new job a week ago... in the World Trade Center, in the same tower as Steve, but lower down--on the 30th floor. He was outside when the first plane hit, and he, too, is okay.
My cousin Brian got out of the train a few blocks away, on the way to his office across the street from 1 WTC, and saw part of the facade of one of the towers and a jet engine on the ground, didn't know exactly what had happened, and on the next block looked up and saw a hole high up in the side of one of the towers. He said you could see the floors inside the hole; you could see floors on fire; in other parts of the building, near the top, you could see people breaking windows and throwing burning furniture out the window; some people had broken out the windows and placed themselves as far outside the window as they could get without falling out. (I've been in that building on the 70th floor, and found it a little scary to place myself against the almost floor-to-ceiling window and look down; I can't imagine what would make someone remove the window and then put themselves halfway out, over thin air. Or I don't want to imagine.)
Brian then saw the building start to collapse; he said it began with the first 30 or so floors at the top, collapsing one onto the other, and then the rest of the building went, collapsing outward. He ran. Along with everyone else, he kept running. He eventually walked home (to 86th Street, for those of you who know Manhattan geography, but I heard of people walking to Queens and the Bronx); he said that the streets were full of people walking uptown, quiet... no one talking... no one able to fully assimilate what they had just seen, what they had just lived through.
(For anyone curious about building design, it seems that the World Trade Center was built to withstand almost anything. You'll remember that the bomb in its basement about seven years ago didn't even bring it down. But they hadn't thought to plan for jet fuel inside the building, enough jet fuel to get a plane across the continent--all going off at once inside the building. The current theory is that some of the steel girders eventually weakened and buckled from the heat, and that caused some floors to collapse, which caused the remaining floors to collapse.)
But Brian later told me that the thing that shook him up the most, the image that seared itself most deeply into his memory, wasn't the first tower collapsing. It was earlier, when he twice saw people jump to their deaths from around the 100th floor.
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I work at a building in midtown--above Penn Station, at 32nd Street. The offices that face south look out over all of downtown, with the World Trade Center's twin towers always the most salient part of the skyline. Yesterday (while I was at home) at least one person at work saw a plane fly very low down Sixth or Seventh Avenue past our office building; a few saw the near side of the first tower as the plane rammed its far side. Eighteen minutes later, many of my colleagues were looking at the two towers as another plane, flying in from New Jersey, turned, and flew directly into the north face--the face they were looking at--of the other tower. One person said that seeing footage of this replayed later on TV, it seemed to happen so quickly, but that as she watched it actually occur, turning and flying right into the building, it unfolded slowly.My colleague Elizabeth was married a year ago; her husband works in one of the two towers, a few floors from the top. She happened to be meeting with my boss yesterday morning, and looking out my boss's window they saw both attacks (the first from the other side of the tower, the second directly). As the second plane flew into the building, and the fireball engulfed the upper floors, she kept screaming "my husband works there!"
Her husband called his mother a short time later and said "I'm okay, I'm on my way out," but later the building collapsed, and as of today there hasn't been word from him. The family is searching the hospitals, and hoping. We're all hoping.
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It's especially tragic that when the buildings collapsed, they fell onto scores of emergency workers--firefighters, police--who were in and around the buildings trying to help victims escape.There's a firehouse a few blocks from my office, Ladder Company 24 and Engine Company 1. Today their ladder truck is parked outside the firehouse, with the ladder partially extended, rising up at a 45 degree angle, an American flag hanging from the top of the extended ladder. The truck is coated with a layer of light gray powder, the color of building rubble and ash. The top of the truck has some debris on it. The front bumper is heaped with that same combination of powdered rubble and ash that coats the rest of the truck. There are some bouquets of flowers that people have stuck behind the bumper. A sign on the wall outside the firehouse informs passerby of a wake for a Father Mychal Judge, a fire department chaplain who died at the World Trade Center, that will be held in the Church of St. Francis of Assisi directly across the street from the firehouse.
There's a message that someone has written on the side of the truck by running their finger through the ashen powder. "We owe you our lives 9/11/01."
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I came into work this morning (Manhattan below 14th Street is closed off to all but emergency vehicles and people who live there, but everything above 14th Street is open). In some ways it's like a normal day--my train was running, there were people on it, there were people on the streets, there were some cars--but it was quieter. There were fewer everything--fewer people, fewer cars, some stores and offices were closed--and the people themselves were just quieter.I found that--for the first time ever during normal hours--everyone who wanted to enter my building had to show their company's ID. Very good. Then I got onto the elevator, and that was the first time that I felt shaky and insecure.
The first thing that I did when I got off at the 24th floor was walk to one of the corner offices facing south. And look out the window for my first direct view, unmediated by television. And sucked in my breath and muttered something, as I saw empty space and a rising cloud of smoke (there are several fires still burning) where forever there had been the massive Twin Towers, 1 WTC and 2 WTC, rising head and shoulders over all the buildings around them. Now, there's just absence, and only smoke is rising.
I walked next door into my boss's office, started asking her what she had seen yesterday from her window, and began losing it.
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There are some chilling and moving pictures at the New York Times Web site (www.NewYorkTimes.com ); you might need to register to see anything beyond the home page, but registration is free. To see these pictures:Look for the section, on the right side of the New York Times home page, labeled "Photos."
Click on "9 Slideshows: Images of Terror." A new window, titled "A Day of Terror," will open.
At the top right of the new window, click the arrow next to the "More Slideshows..." drop-down list box. The list box will open.Select "A Day in Terror" from the list box. These are the photos.
Mark
------New Message Below------- ------New Message Below------- -------New Message Below------
It's now Thursday.
Last night I attended a prayer service that my synagogue held for the congregation and the community. When I eventually returned home to Brooklyn, around midnight, walked from the subway station and turned the corner onto my block, I saw that my street was closed off with those wooden barricades used for parades. It looked like a fire truck was parked in the middle of the block.Now you should know that there's a firehouse in the middle of my block--Ladder Company 122 and Engine Company 220--and that the afternoon of the attack, the sidewalk in front of it was filled with cars, and the two spaces inside the firehouse, where the trucks usually are, were filled with cars. That could only mean one thing--all shifts for the firehouse had come in, and they had taken the trucks into Manhattan.
As I now walked up the midnight-quiet street in the warm dark air, I saw that there were actually three fire trucks, all parked in the middle of the street outside the firehouse. They didn't look familiar; as I got closer I observed that all the fire trucks were from out of state, from different towns in New Jersey. The firemen that belonged to the trucks were quietly resting on the bumpers and up on the platforms. They were keeping our neighborhood safe while our guys were away in Manhattan. I asked them if they wanted any coffee or juice. They thanked me and said no, they were being well taken care of. They were very gracious. (This as they prepared to sleep outdoors on their trucks.) I didn't understand why they were thanking me. I thanked them.
This morning I found out that my Uncle Nat, who volunteers with the Red Cross, has been downtown with his unit for several days, doing 12-hour shifts supplying food and water to the emergency workers about two blocks from the crash site. My Aunt thinks he'll be back home Friday.
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Smoke continues to pour from the site. Sometimes you can smell it in Brooklyn, sometimes you can smell it uptown--it depends on which way the wind is blowing.Other buildings near the twin towers have since collapsed or are structurally unsound and in danger of collapsing. I've heard that the office space lost so far is equal to all the office space in Dallas.
There were at least 90 bomb scares in Manhattan today. My building developed a panic because of something going on nearby, thought there was a bomb scare, and emptied into the street. Some people were too shaken up to return to work.
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Some of the phone booths and lamp posts near my office have fliers on them, with color photos, posted by families hoping to find missing people. Their desperation is clear, because it's unlikely that anyone passing by here--nowhere near the attack site, nowhere near a morgue or hospital--will see the flier, recognize the face, and know where the person is. But they have to do something. "Giovanna 'Gennie' Gambale. 27 years old, 5' 6". Last seen on 102nd floor of World Trade Center II. Call with any info: (718) ...." "Missing--One World Trade Center, 100th floor. Roger Mark Rasweiler. 53. Any information, please call...."--------- ------------- -------------- -------------- ------------
On my way to lunch, I again passed by the firehouse near my office--Ladder Company 24 and Engine Company 1. The fire truck is still parked outside, still covered in that light gray coating of ash and powdery debris, but now the sides are completely covered in messages that people have inscribed into the powdery layer.I've since found out more about the Fire Department chaplain, Father Mychal Judge: he had been giving the last rites to a firefighter who had been injured by a falling body. The chaplain and the person to whom he was ministering were both engulfed by cascading rubble. (Someone who worked with him remembered that he used to say "If you want to give God a good laugh, make plans for tomorrow.")
But today, on the sidewalk outside the firehouse, there are new photos next to the one of Mychal Judge. There are pictures, taken at home and on outings, of Capt. Danny Brethel, Capt. Thomas Farino, Lt. Andy Desperito, Firefighter Steve Belson, Firefighter Mike Weinberg, Firefighter Bill Henry. This one firehouse lost six of their own.
A large white sheet hangs from the top floor of the firehouse: "Thank You New York For All Your Support E-1 / L-24"
I was wrong in my original message. I had said that scores of emergency workers were lost. "Scores" might give you the wrong idea.In the Fire Department alone, it was closer to a score of scores. The current estimate is that 350 firefighters are dead or missing. If I recall, that's more than the total number of victims, of all kinds, from the Oklahoma City bombing. Think about that.
Entire companies of firefighters are missing. Some of the top brass of the department, with years of experience and dedication, who were directing the operation from the front line, died at that front line. Other firefighters rushed into those twin towers to save people, and were lost when 110 floors fell on top of them.
Fire Departments in many cities have a special Rescue Company. They're the elite. New York City is a metropolis, so its Fire Department has five Rescue Companies. Excuse me, it had five of them. All five are gone. All. Five.
If you want to contribute, you could try the New York State World Trade Center Relief Fund: 100% of the funds collected go to the victims, survivors and families of the WTC disaster. There are no administration fees. (My company is matching all of its employees' donations to this fund.) 1-800-801-8092 or P.O. Box 5028, Albany NY 12205. There's also New York City's Twin Towers Fund (Twin Towers Fund, General Post Office Box 26999 New York NY 10087-6999. Or you can always make a donation to the American Red Cross (www.RedCross.org ), or call 1-800-HELP-NOW). And, until October 12, "The New York Times 9/11 Neediest Fund" (that's who you make the check out to), at P.O. Box 5193, General Post Office, New York, NY 10087.
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Responding to a disaster usually requires a great deal of blood. The problem here has been one of supply and demand.
As soon as I went outside in my Brooklyn neighborhood a few hours after the planes struck, people had taped hand-written signs to store windows and lamp posts and subway entrances, exhorting everyone to donate blood. When I walked to the nearest hospital, there was crowd of people, and a hospital employee was telling everyone that the hospital had already taken in all the blood they could handle that day, and that--except for O negative, the universal donor type, which they still wanted--people should come back the next day. It's been a similar story throughout the city for the last few days.The problem hasn't been the supply, it's been the demand. After the initial rush of victims in the first few hours, demand has plummeted. The problem is that dead people don't need blood. And that's pretty much the only kind of people they're pulling from the wreckage.
At last count, about 4,760 people are missing or dead.
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It's now Friday. The regular crew of firefighters is back in the firehouse on my block; when I asked, I was told that all of them from this firehouse are accounted for, none are missing or dead. Thank God.At work today, a friend and I went to the K-Mart downstairs in Penn Station and bought a slew of things for delivery to the city's central collection point for goods donated for the search effort downtown. As we wheeled our two shopping carts around the store, looking at our list of what was needed at the search site today, we didn't think twice about the other shoppers that we passed. Eventually I noticed that some of them also had lists. Then I realized that many of the shoppers around us also seemed to need many pairs of work gloves. Undershirts and cotton socks in several sizes. Tarps and towels and blankets. Bottled water. Beyond the basics, they specialized: some had purchased waterproof tubs and coolers, while a few others collected multiple pairs of steel-toed work boots. Just your average day at K-Mart.
One of the K-Mart employees told me that the work gloves had sold out yesterday, that they got a large drop-shipment this morning, and that most of those have already gone. The ventilator masks sold out yesterday.
My colleague Elizabeth still hasn't heard from her husband Greg.