The Future of Technical Communication
Saturday, June 5, 2010
8 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Best Western Chelmsford
187 Chelmsford Street
Chelmsford, MA
All profits from this event will be donated to the Boston Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication (STC).
TOPICS AT A GLANCE
Download a complete agenda (PDF, 176 KB)
• “Social Media: Present and Future”
• “What’s Up, eDoc?”
• “Effective Job Search Techniques for Social Networking”
• "A Wiki Primer"
On Saturday, June 5, Tabby Cat Communications is sponsoring an all-day conference, “The Future of Technical Communication.” Four dynamic speakers from STC will be sharing their knowledge on trends and tools that are affecting our careers.
Seminar Topics
Social Media: Present and Future
Rich Maggiani, STC Fellow and Communications Consultant, Solari Communication, Essex, Vermont
Social media has quickly become a robust method of communication, allowing customers and companies, as well as professionals at all levels, to engage in a dialog through a shared community. The use of social media continues to evolve as its various communication methods are tested and evaluated. In this session, you will learn:
- The rules of social media.
- How social media has changed the face of communication (including some funny and poignant examples).
- How social media is being used and can be used in technical communication.
- Some of the sobering realities of social media and its resultant effects.
Come prepared to engage in a discussion of social media, its uses, its advantages and disadvantages, and its future.
Rich Maggiani has been involved in STC leadership for the entire length
of his 13-year membership. He has led two committees that reported directly to the STC Board: Public Relations and Competitions. He has also served as an international Art Competition judge for many years, membership manager for the Consultants and Independent Contractors SIG, and held many positions for the Vermont chapter, including one of its co-founders. Rich has spoken at numerous STC international conferences, as well as other professional conferences.
In 2004, Rich founded Solari Communication, a firm dedicated to simple, clear communication in corporate and organizational environments. Previously, he founded PDI Creative Communication, a full-service marketing and graphic design agency. He is a past chair of the Board of Directors for Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. Rich is currently an Adjunct Professor of technical communication at Champlain College. He has also taught business writing to graduate students at
Saint Michael’s College, and taught many other college-level classes in communication and business related topics.
Rich enjoys viewing the world as a metaphor. Retreating to the tranquility and solitude of the wilderness helps him gain the clarity he finds necessary to live in an otherwise noisy world. He fully appreciates the insight and perspective that his three teenage children and wife of 25 years bring to daily life. Rich is a musician and mountaineer. Rich can be reached at rich.maggiani@solari.net.
What’s Up, eDoc?
Neil Perlin, STC Fellow and Owner of HyperWord Services, Boston
It’s a cliché to say that the one constant in our field is change, but it’s true. In just a few years, we’ve seen Vista Help go from concept to reality to passé, the death and return of RoboHelp, the emergence of new authoring tools, the spread of XML, the continued push for DITA, the emergence of low-cost eLearning tools like Captivate, the on-going debate over “structured content,” the use of Flash for application and training development, metadata, social networking technologies like blogs and wikis, aggregation, smart phones and netbooks, and who knows what’s next…
Keeping up technically and professionally in this world requires three things:
- An ability to communicate, something so obvious that it’s often taken for granted.
- An understanding about these new technologies, if only at the conceptual level.
- A business sense about these new technologies—understanding how they fit into our companies’ strategic directions and our ability to explain that strategic fit in business terms.
These are turbulent times. But they’re interesting times too, with the promise of new and challenging work if we keep up.
Neil Perlin has 31 years' experience in technical communication, with 25 in training, consulting, and development for online formats and tools, such as WinHelp, HTML Help, JavaHelp, WebHelp, CE Help, RoboHelp,
and Flare.
He is a columnist for Intercom and the Professional Communication Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers'
(IEEE PCS) journal, and a frequent speaker at STC chapters and conferences, IEEE PCS, and other groups. He is a member of the STC-Boston chapter, started and ran the EDoc SIG from 1993 to 1996, created and manages the "Beyond the Bleeding Edge" stem at STC’s annual conference, represented STC for the W3C (WorldWide Web Consortium) for three years in the early 2000s, and is a 2010 STC Fellow.
Neil is Madcap-certified for Flare and Mimic and Adobe-certified for RoboHelp and Captivate. He provides training, consulting, and development for online documentation and help, Flare, RoboHelp, Captivate, Mimic, XML, single-sourcing, and structured authoring through Hyper/Word Services. He blogs and tweets periodically about technical communication, amateur astronomy, and barbecue at NeilEric. Contact Neil at nperlin@nperlin.cnc.net.
Effective Job Search Techniques for Social Networking
Ed Marshall, Principal, Marshall Documentation Consulting, Boston
During the past five years, social networking
has grown rapidly in popularity. Today, it’s an essential component in promoting small businesses and finding work.
In this presentation, Ed Marshall, an independent technical communications consultant who has used social networking successfully to land paying projects, introduces us to some of most popular, helpful professional and social networking sites, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. He also explains how to use each site for expanding your job search beyond your immediate network to:
- Advertise that you are looking for work
- Post your resume
- Collect recommendations
- Research companies
In addition, Ed covers these topics:
- Best practices and examples for using social media safely
- Lesser-known tips for effective online resumes, profiles, and snapshots
- The advantages of having your own Web site and blog
Ed Marshall is an independent technical writing consultant and sole proprietor of Marshall Documentation Consulting, with more than 22 years of experience. He specializes in APIs/SDKs (application programming interfaces/software development kits), Web services products, and other types of documentation aimed at developers. Throughout his career, Ed has developed expertise in using tools to "let the computer do the work," such as advanced tools for editing files, comparing files, and searching and replacing text in files.
Ed is a popular speaker at a variety of professional development conferences, locally and nationwide. His previous appearances include events sponsored by the Society for Technical Communication (STC), WritersUA, and DocTrain. He can be reached at ed.marshall@verizon.net.
A Wiki Primer
Patti Butcheck, Senior Litigation Support Specialist with over 18 years experience as an Application Support Specialist; based in Philadelphia
We’re all familiar with Wikipedia, the most famous encyclopedia in the world and the original wiki. So, exactly what is a wiki and how can it be used? And, more importantly, should we use a wiki? Wiki expert Patti Butcheck will answer these questions and more during this presentation.
Patti Butcheck’s current responsibility is to provide litigation support to Pepper Hamilton’s attorneys, which involves several creative solutions for today's challenging technology. Previously, she spent four years developing procedures for increasing Klehr Harrison’s document production capabilities and efficiency. She also developed their in-house knowledge base, procedural lists, and general "how-to" and "troubleshooting" documents on the company’s PMWiki Intranet. Her goal is to help migrate law firms from paper-based documentation to digital solutions involving several medias, including video, PDF documents, and wikis. She can be reached at pbutche@gmail.com.
Directions to the Best Western Chelmsford
From I-495 North:
- Take Exit 34 toward Route 110/Lowell.
- Drive 0.2 mile; take a slight right onto Route 110/Chelmsford Street. The Best Western Chelmsford is 0.2 mile away on the right.
From I-495 South:
- Take Exit 34 toward Route 110/Lowell.
- Drive 0.2 mile; turn left on Route 110/Chelmsford Street. The Best Western Chelmsford is 0.1 mile away on the right.