Consulting, Publishing, Engineering

Category Archives: Technical Communication

STC Summit 2016

I went to Anaheim for a week or so to attend the 63rd annual conference for the Society for Technical Communication.  Anaheim was a bit overwhelming to me – there were huge roads with dozens of lanes and thousands of cars and the Disney omnipresence.  But everything was beautiful and sunny, and (as always for STC Summits) I had a great time!

Though it may seem oddly self-serving since I was on the program committee, I do think we had a very strong roster of old and new speakers covering a nice range of topics, from the opening talk about the internet of things from David Rose through our closing talk “Publish or Perish: How to Win the Hearts, Minds, and Wallets of Next Generation Consumers with Content Marketing” by David Beebe of Marriott International.  We also had some networking opportunities, and some social events, and some downtime to just reconnect with old friends.  Here’s the motley crew from one dinner:

 

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I was thrilled to run into Barbara Giammona at one of the early breakfasts – we haven’t seen each other in <mumbledy mumble> years.

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This next pair of shots shows the difference between a professional-grade photographer like Rick Lippincott (the one of me and Rachel Houghton) and a quick pic with my cell phone (the one of me and Micheal Opsteegh, with friendly photobombers Todd DeLuca and Kit Brown-Hoeskstra.  Want to see more of Rick’s photoset?  Just click the picture to go to his Flickr account.
STC Summit 2016photobombers

All in all, it was a fun, if exhausting, week.  I’m already looking forward to next year!

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Big D 2015

I’ve often said this event is the best value in our industry, and this year was no exception. And apparently it’s no secret anymore either – there were over 1,000 attendees. From a personal point of view, I was delighted to give my updated talk “Digging Deep: Leadership Lessons from Eleanor Roosevelt“.  I think it… Continue Reading

Interchange 2015

Interchange is a tech comm conference hosted by the STC New England chapter.  This is my second year attending and speaking. First off, the great thing about a smaller event like this is that it’s really easy to spend quality time with the other speakers and attendees. This year, the high-tech sector of the New… Continue Reading

Speaking with the STC-Phoenix chapter meeting

Last night I drove up to Tempe to give my presentation “Contract or Captive: Which is right for you?” to the STC-Phoenix chapter meeting. This time around, I updated the slides based on what I learned in Carmen Simon’s workshop called “Using Neuroscience to Create Memorable Presentations”.  *I* think they looked great, and the audience… Continue Reading

Interchange – the STC New England conference

I was delighted to go to the Society for Technical Communication New England chapter conference “Interchange” last month.   This time areound it was in downtown Lowell, Massachusetss, which turned out to be a beautiful venue.  Here’s the view from the Interchange conference hotel. Lowell made its name as a factory town. The keynote speaker was… Continue Reading

Intelligent Content 2014

Intelligent Content Conference (ICC) was held in San Jose this year, and it was educational, fun, exhausting, and completely amazing.  The event sold out, so it was a full house for pretty much every event and every session.  I actually showed up the day before, and was delighted to see that I’d be sharing some… Continue Reading