Publications/On-line

July 7-11 brought us together at TEAM in Kansas City. So much good, solid information and experience came out of that week! Getting together as a group really leads us to interesting discussions and discoveries. On Friday we spent time together as a group as well as being bumblebees (learn about "bumblebees and butterflies" in the section about Open Space) by dropping in on the Leader and Communication Skills Departments. We want to get to know our audience better and help other departments get the word out to Leaders.

The Publications Department talked about the tools of our trade: language, computers and review. More Areas are offering electronic options for working together, whether sharing their ALL draft via an electronic review loop with Area ADCs, making a .pdf file available to Leaders, or uploading the ALL to an Area web site for easy access. Some Areas have found ways to save money by sending the ALL out by email rather than printing extra copies and paying for postage. Each Area needs to consider its finances, staffing and the needs of Leaders.

Computers and software programs continue to be both a wonderful tool and necessary evil for editors. Many differences exist among computers, software versions and user skill levels, but the ALLECats@yahoogroups.com email group is a great place to share questions and get solutions from other ALLEs. We typically find at least one other person who is using the same program and can help with problems.

USWD has been working in new ways, and several Leaders recently expressed an interest in supporting ALLEs and ACCs working on Area Publications. This new Publications & Online workgroup includes:

Deirdre Knowles dknowles@eskimo.com
Kathryn Major kmajor@sbcglobal.net
Peggy Wiedmeyer mwiedmeyer@excel.net

We're focused on ways to help Areas meet their needs for communicating via publications and online options. Some of the projects we're tackling:

Interested? If you want to help with any piece of this, let one of us know.