Revised PMM Available For Purchase

A revised version of the STC Practice Management Manual will be available for purchase by non members shortly. The Membership Benefits Committee is preparing to publish this revised edition as, The STC’s Practice Management Manual for Telecommunications and IT Consultants. It will include an additional appendix on total cost of ownership, updated weblinks and minor text corrections.

The purchase price for non STC members will be $95. STC consultants who have renewed their memberships for 2006 may choose to receive, at no cost, either a hard copy of this revised edition, or an electronic version that they may print themselves. Non-members may purchase only the hard copy version.

To help deter unauthorized re-distribution of this document, electronic copies made available to STC members will be registered to individual recipients.

VoiceCon Discount For STC Members

STC has negotiated a special rate for its members for VoiceCon Spring 2006. VoiceCon considers itself the industry’s premier conference and show for voice-related products, services, and applications, and this year’s main event is just around the corner. It will be held March 6 - 9 at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando Florida.

The pre-discount is $2,295 for the full conference. The negotiated STC rate is $1,736. The $300 "Early Bird Discount" (until 1/27/06), and $200 team discounts, are applied in addition to this rate.

Call STC headquarters, at 800-782-7670, to receive the registration (VIP) code you will need

to obtain this discount. You must be a current STC consultant member to qualify.

We also suggest you call the VoiceCon registration desk at 800-470-5417 to ensure you are getting the correct rate. You will need to make a separate hotel reservation. The Gaylord Palms charges $199 per night for a room. Several other hotels in the area are less. For example, one could stay at the Country Inn and Suites for $98 per night.

STC & CTCA Continue Efforts To Work Cooperatively

Joe Webb and Mike Moszynski, the presidents, respectively, of the STC and Canadian Telecommunications Association (CTCA), have been working to develop closer ties between the organizations. Their efforts follow up on earlier arrangements to jointly host conferences (Orlando in 1994 and Vancouver in 1999), as well as a longstanding agreement to offer each other’s consultant members conference registrations at member rates.

Most recently, the STC distributed the CTCA’s of Call for Speakers for its spring conference in Toronto, which will take place April 7-9, and is notifying its members of a CTCA regional event in Vancouver, B.C. on February 24.

One current effort is to pool resources for a joint conference, perhaps sometime next year. However, in order for this to occur, the STC and CTCA need to agree upon an administrative arrangement and decide upon a mutually suitable location. Since the board of directors of each organization needs to be consulted along the way, this deliberative process is occurring over a period of several weeks.

Currently, both the STC and CTCA hold conferences twice each year, and, as a rule, STC conference attendance is up to 50% greater. Since, however, the majority of CTCA members are based in the province of Ontario, CTCA conferences held within a short driving distance of Toronto have been attended by as many as 50 consultants, a figure more in line with consultant registrations at recent STC conferences, which generally range from 35 to 75. However, consultant attendance at recent CTCA conferences held outside Ontario has been closer to 25.