The June issue of Intercom has been posted to the STC Web site

With increasing demand for technical products, the technical communication field has grown. What used to be the strict discipline of creating and editing policies and manuals has now exploded into a rich field of communicating in many media as well as performing user analysis, applying usability methods, creating e-learning, and much more.

Menno D.T. de Jong, PhD has been selected as the new Editor-in-Chief of Technical Communication, the quarterly, peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Technical Communication.

After 12 years and 48 issues as editor of Technical Communication, George Hayhoe has announced his retirement. For more information and a job description, please visit http://www.stc.org/announce/EIC.asp

The Consulting and Independent Contracting (CIC) SIG will present a Web seminar on setting up and optimizing your small business from 1:00 to 2:30 PM Eastern Time (GMT-4) on April 2. Attorney Christopher Juillet, who has worked in the high-tech industry since 1979 as a writer, publisher, and consultant, will discuss topics pertaining to what small business owners should know about copyright and trademark, protecting intellectual property on the Internet, the differences between the types of small businesses, and more. For more information or to register for the seminar, please visit http://www.stcsig.org/cic/pages/webinarreg.htm.

The TransAlpine Chapter STC-representing Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, and Switzerland-will hold its 2008 conference at Hermes Softlab in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The event begins with a one-day workshop on April 16, followed by the two-day conference on April 17-18. For more information, please contact Dan Jones, chapter president, at Daniel Jones, or visit, stc-on.org/transalpine

The Manitoba Chapter STC and Red River College will hold their 5th annual technical communication conference at the Red River College Princess Street campus from April 14-15, 2008. STC Past President and Manager of Conferences Saul Carliner will serve as keynote speaker. For more information, please contact Brad Friesen, chapter president, or visit the Manitoba Chapter STC Web site.

The Related Events page on the STC Web site is updated regularly with information about upcoming events and ongoing opportunities for technical communicators. These include conferences, seminars, calls for papers and grant proposals, publishing opportunities, and other items of professional interest.

The Boston Chapter STC will host a series of workshops from 9 AM to 5 PM at The MathWorks, Inc., on April 5 in Natick, Massachusetts. Karen Giventer will discuss skills and techniques that participants can incorporate into their job searches. Jonathan Kranz will present a session titled "Moving into Marketing: How to Expand Your Technical Writing Skills into Sales, Marketing, and PR," and Neil Perlin will discuss structured authoring's pros and cons and provide a set of exercises that can serve as the basis for a real structured authoring implementation. For more information or to register for the workshops, please contact Pam Sarantos, Program Coordinator, at 1stvp@stcboston.org, or visit www.stcboston.org.

STC members have been invited to join Immediate Past President Linda Oestreich on a two-week professional and cultural program in China from October 19-31, 2008. People to People Citizen Ambassador Programs, a nonpolitical, private-sector organization founded by President Eisenhower in 1956, is developing the trip for technical communicators to meet with their colleagues in several cities in China. The costs of roundtrip airfare from Los Angeles, hotel, group transportation, meetings, most meals, and cultural activities are estimated to be $5,295; interested participants are responsible for paying their own way.