Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Remember the (STC) Alamo

Just over a week ago I attended what was simply the most open and stimulating regional STC event I have ever been to.

The Central Texas STC Fall Seminar, was organized jointly between the Austin and San Antonio chapters of the industry group and held at the excellent Hotel Valencia on San Antonio’s famed Riverwalk. (Home to many fine restaurants - including the one where we had lunch.)



But it wasn’t the setting that made it memorable – it was the participation.

In my experience a lot of these regional get-togethers end up in features and functions comparisons of tools, minutiae of the job, or arcane technical discussions about standards that only a minority of people use. Not so in this case.

The discussions ranged from using emerging new technologies, Web2.0 tools,, wikis, social networks, to how to develop and recognize metrics, to how to make sure that the documentation process is heard and accounted for in a Agile Development driven world.



But underscoring all the talk of technology was the realization that technologies will come and go, and the most important skill to develop was the ability to learn about new things, and communicate that in an empathic way.

There were several people who were attending their first STC event and they, along with everyone else, left with the impression that this is an exciting time to be in the corporate publishing world.

3 comments:

Konnie said...

This was a great event! The examples of comic books as technical documents for military use and for the 'Green Datacenter' were impressive. BTW, would have never known about this post if it hadn't been for Twitter. Konnie

Konnie said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Paulm said...

I enjoyed this event. The sessions were interactive discussions rather than lectures. We talked about real-world examples and I also enjoyed our discussions at lunch about STC and bringing members together. I'm excited to see how the STC Alamo and Austin chapters are working together to deliver more value to their members. What a great event!