Conference Report
Overview of the 49th Annual STC Conference
By Fred Wersan
The 49th STC Conference was held at the Opryland Hotel, about 15 miles outside
of Nashville. The building is about the size of the Pentagon. When you check in,
they give you a GPS transponder. If you get lost, you press a button and they send
out tracking teams to find you and help you get back to civilization. They have
convenient hotel maps located throughout the hotel. You simply press the map at
the location where you want to go and an LED display tells you that you can't get
there from where you are. I'm told that they asked the Usability SIG to redesign
the maps and the members ran off screaming, never to be seen again.
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| Photo by Fred Wersan |
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As we wandered the hotel, we eventually stumbled upon the convention center where
we attended the conference sessions. XML and single-sourcing continue to be the
Holy Grail that motivates many of the sessions. After attending several sessions
this year and last, I'm thinking that even though low-cost, turnkey solutions aren't
yet available to writers, we should be thinking about the structure of our documents.
To the extent that we create new templates or style guides (or update existing ones),
we can do so with structure, rather than style, in mind. I suspect that for many
of us, FrameMaker 7.0, with its merging of the structured authoring into the base
product, will help in this process.
The vendor area seemed to be mostly translation companies and people who want to
do stuff with your documents on your behalf (print, convert, and so on). There were
relatively few companies selling tools (Adobe, eHelp, Component-One). Considering
how many writers use FrameMaker, I'm puzzled by Adobe's lackluster participation
in this (and last year's) conference. You'd think they'd have been trumpeting release
7.0 to everyone who walked by, but they seemed to be keeping it a secret. People
also expressed disappointment with the give-aways. However, the STC 2003 Dallas
booth gave out cool pens that light up when you press the clicker. (Sorry for the
imprecise term, but I'm a software writer, not a hardware writer.)
Lots of folks went into Nashville to catch music in the clubs and bars. The Monday
night open mike was a big hit. And I got a kick out of visiting the Gibson store
in the nearby Opry Mills mall, where you can watch craftspeople making mandolins
and banjos.
On a personal note, my workshop on creativity (http://www.stc.org/49thConf/Session_Materials/file_2a.asp?ID=31)
was well attended and full of fun.
Editor's Note: You can access materials provided by presenters at the 49th Annual
Conference at http://www.stc.org/49thConf/Session_Materials/show_IE.asp.
Fred Wersan has been a technical writer for 13 years. He is currently
employed at MAK Technologies, in Cambridge, Mass. You can reach him at fwersan@mak.com.
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