By Meredith Kinder, Carolina Communiqué Managing Editor

The theme for this quarter's articles just fell in my lap. All authors chose their own topics, and this quarter, they all happen to communicate ideas and illustrations of how we as technical communicators can better ourselves. Does this mean we're all on the same page? Or maybe it means this is an important topic? Certainly, it seems to be at the forefront of many minds.

During the holiday season, I urge you to reflect on what you can do to better yourself in 2009. And maybe this newsletter's articles will help give you some good ideas.

• Michael Harvey suggests ways to communicate your value, especially if you are job searching. He urges us to put your writing skills to work for ourselves in creative ways.
• Brian Castelli provides a recap of his presentation at the Carolina Chapter's November membership meeting: how to communicate effectively. He gives suggestions on how to create a good first and last impression, how to improve your impromptu speaking, and how to master technology.
• Monique Cobb explains how our hobbies and interests outside of work can help us excel as technical communicators. She gives personal examples, tying her love of the arts to her technical communication career.
• Jenna Moore urges us to reach out to the community using technical communication skills and explains how the Carolina Chapter can be a vehicle for doing just that.
• Tracy Scott gives a testimony of her recent STC involvement as a competitions judge and how she values and has grown from that experience.
• Andrea Wenger helps us improve our writing with a much-needed grammar lesson on properly using possessives.

Meredith can be reached at newsletter at stc-carolina dot org.