I just returned from the Society for Technical Communication (STC) Summit in Dallas, TX. The conference this year had a much more optimistic feel than the last couple of years. This year, I actually met more people looking to hire than looking to be hired, which was not the case at the last two conferences. Of course, given that those looking for jobs often don’t have the means to travel to a conference, I wouldn’t argue this is conclusive evidence of an upturn, but it was encouraging.
As has been the case with nearly every conference I’ve ever attended, the greatest value came from interactions outside the sessions (of course, the sessions are essential, they provide a framework both in terms of the schedule and the topics of discussion, but they are just the starting point). What struck me most from both the sessions and the informal discussion is that the technical communication community is fully embracing the technologies and methodologies that have been bubbling around for the last few years. In particular, XML (esp. DITA) and social media are mainstream. The questions and discussions centered around how best to use these tools, not whether to use them.
I had the opportunity to visit with nearly all of the XML Press authors (Robert Delwood, Anne Gentle, Brenda Huettner, Alan Porter, and Zarella Rendon), plus meet a few prospective authors.
I also had the opportunity to do the following video podcast with Tom Johnson about XML Press and our current offerings. For more information about these books and other offerings, go to xmlpress.net. One note, the video was done on the spur of the moment with no chance for me to prepare, and I forgot to mention our newest author, Robert Delwood, whose book, tentatively titled “The Secret Life of Word” looks at how technical communicators can get the most from Microsoft Word (Sorry, Robert).
WebWorks RoundUp 2009
October 21, 2009I’m just returning from WebWorks RoundUp 2009. It was a road trip (I drove to Austin from Colorado), my first solo road trip in years, and so far it has been a blast.
First of all, thanks to WebWorks for providing copies of two XML Press books to attendees. All attendees got complimentary copies of my Managing Writers and Anne Gentle’s Conversation and Community, and XML Press gave away a copy of Alan Porter’s forthcoming book, WIKI: Grow Your Own for Fun and Profit.
I thought the conference was a model of the kind of conference a company should have for customers. While the conference is open to all, it is primarily focused on WebWorks customers, who are an interesting, enthusiastic group of people, who are not shy about expressing their opinions.
I was equally impressed with the management team; the top managers were there throughout, accessible to the audience, and participated in most of the sessions, as moderators and participants. They got some honest (i.e., tough) comments from the audience, and handled them well. That said, the positive out-weighed the negatives by a mile.
The conference was divided into two tracks. The first was a “Boot Camp,” which matched up customers with technical experts, with a loose focus (things like Automation and DITA) that as far as I could tell served mostly as ideas for discussion. The second was a more traditional panel-focused set of sessions, with some case studies. This is where I spent most of my time.
Stewart Mader, author of Wikipatterns, gave the opening talk and joined the first panel, which centered on wikis and social media. His talk and the panel set a direction to the conference around wikis and using wikis as part of documentation. He brought up, though no one really answered, the question of whether you can use a wiki as your complete documentation set. I suspect it will work with some, but not all, products.
XML Press authors Anne Gentle, Alan Porter, and I were all there, and we all participated in panels (not all together, unfortunately; that would have been interesting). Anne spoke about her book, Conversation and Community, and also joined a panel on DITA with Lisa Dyer and Georg Eck. Alan participated on several panels, including one that I also joined about content development best practice, which refreshingly concentrated on what goes between the tags, rather than the tags (the idea of concentrating on what goes on between the tags was from Bob Sima of Tedopres).
Tom Johnson, author of the I’d Rather Be Writing blog (a must read) gave the keynote for the second day, talking about the “Seven Deadly Sins of Blogging,” which has been the topic of several good, recent blog entries on his blog.
Overall, I found the conference interesting and entertaining. I also found my first real visit to Texas since living there in the late ’70s to be a lot of fun. I’d forgotten a lot about Texas. Here are a few tidbits:
Big Fatty’s Barbecue, home of
El Farto Grande
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