What's the point? Article 3: Promote Industry and Public Awareness about Technical Communications

In this third entry in the "What's the Point?" series, we'll look at article 3 of the STC Australia Chapter's charter:

"to promote industry and public awareness about technical communications and technical communicators within Australia"

This charter item requires some obvious questions be answered.  

Which industry should we be trying to reach? The industries that employ us? Those that don't, but could?

As for making the public more aware us us, why? I'll focus on industry awareness, because that is where I can see the upside.

If You Like Open Source...

... and don't mind my writing, please check out a couple of articles I've written for Linux.com.


The Big Tent of Open Source has Room for Anarchists, Intelligence Agencies and Businesses Alike

and

 The Non-Babble Intro to Cloud Computing on Linux

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Should you ever give your words away?

As a guy who sometimes (i.e. right now) blogs for free, I was interested to come across this article, in which Columbia Journalism Review editor Ann Friedman makes the case that sometimes, it is OK to write for free.

I am, obviously, with her. I write full time for a living. I also write the odd article for a little extra dough. But the STC Australia Chapter blog is purely on a volunteer basis. I am not even sure that anyone actually reads this stuff. (Hi Dad!)

Do you have a strong position on the issue?