Business and Technical Writers (BizTech), NWU Bay Area Chapter

Who Are We?

BizTech, as the name implies, is the National Writers Union business and technical writing division. Whether you are a technical writer, business writer, advertising copywriter, organizational, public relations, or medical writer—or someone who creates or massages copy of any kind for a living— you are welcome to join us and participate in union activities.

What Do We Do?

Biz-Tech networks locally and nationally, keeping members informed about issues that matter in our work, and initiating activities to help strengthen our writing careers.

As you may have read in American Writer, we recently launched initiatives to help recession-proof our BizTech careers. For example, working with the NWU Hotline Director, Kenya Briggs, we created a resume bank for writers. BizTech writers were the resume bank's initial beta testers, and, once the kinks were fully ironed out, we opened the resume bank to the entire Union membership.

Offshoring

The Biztech division has a major project dealing with offshoring. Offshoring is a big problem for tech writers and there are no easy solutions. We are attacking it on many fronts. You can learn all about what we are doing at the Offshoring Project site.

Sample Contracts and Documents

BizTech encourages writers to always sign a fair contract before beginning work. In this economy, we often don't have as many options as we'd like to create contracts in our favor. But, we have to try! A group of sample contracts and other relevant documents is posted here, by our former Chair Andreas Ramos, and can be downloaded on his website from the link:

http://www.andreas.com/faq-contractordocs.html

What's on the front burner this year?

At the local level we hold BizTech evening meetings every month or so (except December). Meetings are open to all BizTech writers. Meeting topics range from our members being presented with the results of senior tech writer Allen Schaaf's tech writing survey, to exercises and tips on ergonomics by tech writer and structural integration practitioner, Renate Kempf. As you can see, we are equally devoted to our health and our wealth. See the Calendar for current meeting details and topics.

The BizTech Newsletter

The Biztech Division sends out both local and national newsletters, by email, to all BizTech members. This keeps BizTech members up-to-date on our current activities and concerns. We urge BizTech members to submit articles, news of your region and how it affects BizTech writers, or tips for survival in this economy.

The Writer as Publisher Seminar

It took place in May 2002, was produced by San Francisco Bay Area Local 3, and has taken on a life of its own since then. We have put together CDs and a book of the Writer as Publisher Seminar. For a look at the seminar, an opportunity to buy the kit, and for more information, go to www.writeraspublisher.com.

How You Can Help

Please keep your email and other contact information up-to-date with the NWU New York office and your local. Submit all email address changes to changes@nwu.org. Should your email address change, drop us a line so we can keep our BizTech database updated, too.
Saturday, May 17, 2008 10:38 am