Category Archives: conferences

Looking back on Technical Communications UK 2012 conference

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Technical Communications UK 2012, the conference organised by The Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators, ended last Thursday, and I’ve had a few days to reflect on this event.

What was new

There was a more of an international feel to the conference this year – there seemed to be more overseas speakers and delegates than in previous years. There were many new speakers and perhaps more case studies than before. Some of the new speakers had interesting content, but came across as a little nervous.  It’s great to see new speakers, and I’m sure the nerves will go as they as do more presentations.

We saw new topics such as publishing content to tablets and other mobile devices. Technical Communicators are in a good position to make best use of these new technologies, because of our experience of publishing information to more than one medium, the abilities of the software tools we use, and because our approach is not to have the presentation format and content “baked together”. This ability to adapt to future trends might explain the greater confidence that seemed to be around the conference rooms.

Other new topics were:

  • Developing community based content instead of user generated content. The former is getting users to write to a shared common goal. The latter often ends up as being “all about me”.
  • Media synchronization. This is something I covered that seemed to generate a lot of interest. This is the idea that a user can move from watching a video, to listening to an audio narration, to reading text instructions, and back again. All the media are synchronised, so flow of information is seamless.

Negatives

There were very few negatives. The audio of presentations were all meant to be recorded, but unfortunately not of them were.

There was one question left hanging in the air: How do you get non-Technical Authors to write in DITA or in other structured ways?

A good conference – roll on TCUK 2013

I look forward to next year’s conference. I’d like to see more discussions on how some consumer technology has become simpler and more ubiquitous, and how technical communicators should be adapt to that. Does that require a new style; does it now fall outside of the work that technical communicators do?

I’d also like to see a little more on using wiki-based technologies.

We work in a fast paced industry – it’s surprising how many new topics there are to explore at conferences such as these.

See you at Technical Communications UK Conference 2-4 October

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We’ll be at Technical Communications UK conference next week. Ellis will be speaking on the 4th October (at 11.00) on “What does the iPad 3 mean for Technical Authors?”. The Technical Communications UK conference includes speakers from outside the technical communication profession, with the aim of bringing a new perspective on communicating information.

A successful conference is as much about the people you meet as the presentations, so it will be fun mixing with all the other delegates.

How to build a multi-million dollar business by putting manuals on the Web

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One of the issues we’ve been promoting for many years is the importance for Technical Authors to publish their user guides and online Help on the Web. A surprisingly large amount of companies still don’t offer Web versions, for reasons that include:

  • It’s too difficult
  • Our competitors might read it and reverse-engineer our product
  • Support/Training/Marketing will object

The problem with this approach is that others are likely step in and fulfil this need. One such person is Kyle Wiens, CEO of ifixit.com, who I saw present at the STC Summit 2012 conference last week.

Kyle has built a multi-million dollar business on the back of offering repair manuals that manufacturers choose not to put on the Web. The manuals are available free-of-charge, with ifixit.com making money from selling spare parts.

self-repair manfiesto

Wiens said that if machines in other industries — for example, tractors used by farmers — were to break down over a handful of years and couldn’t be easily repaired, consumers would openly revolt. “In industries where consumers really care about a quality, long-lasting product, there’s no way companies can get away with it,” he said. more

We’ve suggested in the past that organisations publish Help for their competitors’ products, so they can engage with their future customers.

Publishing to the Web provides a path to publishing to mobile devices and tablets. It also means, finally, Technical Author can measure the value of what they produce – how many people want to read it and what they think of it.

Regardless of the objections from other departments, this is probably the single most important thing a Technical Author can do.

Do you agree?

There and back again – Notes from the STC Summit 2012 conference

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I have just got back from speaking and attending the Society for Technical Communication’s annual conference in Chicago – STC Summit 12. While my body is back in London, my brain is still partly still halfway across the Atlantic, which might explain any incoherence in this post.

Themes

As there can be ten sessions running in parallel, each attendees’ experience can be unique. However, it is possible to spot the major themes of the conference. These were:

  • content delivered on mobile devices,
  • using HTML 5,
  • intelligent/adaptive content (the content that’s delivered to users differs depending on the context and the user), and
  • using video.

Another theme was: what ever technology changes are likely to appear on the horizon, Technical Communicators are in a good position to handle them. Certainly compared to the Publishing industry.

Highlights

The “Beyond the bleeding edge” themed presentations were very impressive. Mozilla’s Popcorn project could have a big impact on Technical Authors. The popularity of the ifixit.com Web site, and the rapid growth of the company, shows how popular instruction manuals can be if they are accessible on the Web. It also shows what can happen if you don’t publish your content on the Web – someone may reverse engineer the content and publish it on their site.

I also really enjoyed Karen McGrane’s presentation on the approaches the Publishing and News industries are taking to tackle the issue of mobile content.

Thanks to social media, you have a friend in every city

Primarily thanks to Twitter, there were many people I felt I knew already. I was looking forward to finally meeting people such as Rahel Baillie, Val Swisher, Rhyne Armstrong, Janet Swisher, Andrea Wenger, Anker Jain, Joe Gollner, Larry Kunz, Alan Houser and John Hedtke. I didn’t get a chance to say hello to everyone – I missed Scott Abel and Rachel Houghton, for example. Even though Americans are welcoming by their nature, it does help to be connected to people via Twitter.

Differences between European conferences

It’s the first time I’ve spoken at a conference in the USA, and it was interesting to see the differences and similarities between it and the European conferences I speak at.

The STC Summit is bigger than any other similar conference, apart from tekom (in Germany). At the same time, I was speaking, delegates could attend nine other presentations. Some of the presentations, particularly the “beyond the bleeding edge” presentations were more “advanced” than I’ve seen at any European conference.

The conference also has “lightning talks” – three nine x 20 5 minute presentations one after the other. These forced the speakers to be succinct and this format worked very well. There were also a lot of talks on personal promotion – finding jobs, networking, selling yourself etc.

This year’s ISTC (STC equivalent in the UK) conference, “Technical Communication UK”, has a little on mobile content and nothing on HTML 5 or intelligent content. The UAEurope conference seems to be much closer to the STC themes – perhaps because so many of the speakers are from the USA.

Another difference was the number of students and people under 30 attending the conference. The STC places a lot of emphasis on research, professional development and awards, which was good to see.

The elephants in the room

There was a consensus that DITA and other forms of XML were the way to go, but no-one really challenged this belief. Often, content has a short “shelf-life” and consequently little value, so a cheap, quick and dirty solution may be the best solution. DITA is still really weak in terms of the outputs it delivers.

America most definitely has an obesity problem – having another meal an hour after the first, huge portions and cheese sprinkled on everything. So does Britain, but on a different scale. It’s worrying to see the direction in which Britain may go.

There was also a belief that we’ll live in a world of a myriad of mobile devices  - that the 80:20 rule won’t apply. I wonder if just a few devices will end up dominating the marketplace.

There still seems to be an awful lot of people who are not publishing their content to the Web, and if you’re not on Google, you’re invisible. The rise of mobile devices may well be the catalyst for this to change.

Final thoughts

I look forward to watching the recordings of the presentations I missed – the STC’s Summit@aClick site will contain the recordings in 6-8 weeks time. I’m pleased I took up this offer to speak at this event. I found the event was informal, informative and full of humour.

Upcoming Cherryleaf presentations and events

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Here is a list of the upcoming Cherryleaf presentations and events:

What is the future for Technical Communicators when many organisations believe products are getting easier and they don’t need to spend so much on user documentation? We’ll look at whether the traditional model for technical communication is broken, research into how “cool” apps such as Facebook do (or don’t) provide Help, and how to deal with developers who believe the need for a user guide is a sign of poor software usability.

With more and more people using the iPad and other tablets for reading technical documentation, this workshop looks at how tablets can be used by organisations to design and deliver technical documents and other forms of User Assistance.

One of the most popular developments in computing in recent years has been the emergence of cloud-based computing and Software as a Service (SaaS). So is technical writing likely to move to the Cloud? In this presentation, we look at how we implemented a cloud-based authoring solution as a way of getting developers to participate in the authoring process.

In this 40 minute (approx) webinar, we’ll provide an overview of some of the emerging information design trends for presenting technical documentation on tablets.

We’ll be hosting our third “Trends in Technical Documentation” talk later in the year. If you’d like to present at this session, then do let us know.

Come and speak at our “Trends in Technical Documentation” talks

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Cherryleaf is curating and hosting a programme of talks on trends in technical documentation. At these sessions, there’s a presentation from a respected member of the Technical Communication profession, plus the opportunity to network with your peers.

We’re looking for people who would like to present a case study or share their view of the future trends in technical communication with their peers. It’s a great place to practice a presentation you’re preparing for a conference later in the year.

Each talk is hosted by Cherryleaf in central London, and lasts approximately two hours. Spaces are limited to 12 delegates.

The first talk was held on 24/1/2012: on What will be the future for Technical Communicators if everything ‘just works’?

The second talk is likely to be on technical authoring in The Cloud (if we can find an additional speaker).

If you’d like to explore the idea of speaking at one of these talks, then contact us and we’d be happy to discuss it with you.

 

The Trends in Technical Documentation Talks – strategy seminars and debates

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Inspired by Dr Aleks Krotoski’s Connections talks at the Royal Institution, Cherryleaf will be curating and hosting The Trends in Technical Documentation Talks during 2012.

At these sessions, there’ll be a presentation from a respected member of the Technical Communication profession, plus the opportunity to network with your peers. Each talk will be hosted by Cherryleaf in central London, and will last approximately two hours.

The first talk is:

  • What will be the future for Technical Communicators if everything ‘just works’?

It will be held on 3.00pm-5.30pm on 24th January 2012, in Birdcage Walk, London SW1H. Spaces are limited to around 15 delegates.

We intend to hold these events once per quarter, and we’re looking for three people in 2012 who would like to present a case study or share their view of the future trends in technical communication with their peers. If you’ve got something interesting to say, then why not become a speaker at this event. It may be useful as a testing ground for any presentations you’re preparing for conferences such as UAEurope or Technical Communications UK.

There will be a nominal fee (between £20-£30) for attending this event. Contact us for more information.

 

Ellis to provide the keynote at Technical Communications 2011

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Ellis has been asked to provide the keynote presentation at Technical Communications 2011, which is being held Tuesday-Thursday this week. The original presenter is unable to attend, so the ISTC has asked Ellis if he could step in and present on topic – “The role of Technical Communicators today”.

The conference presentations will be videoed.