100 Rejected Summit Proposals
100 Rejected Summit Proposals
The call for STC Summit proposals is now open. Below are 100 Summit ridiculous proposals that were rejected in the past. They may be helpful as you prepare your own submission.
- 100 Mistakes I Made During My First Hour as a Technical Writer
- Technical Writer Versus Technical Communicator Versus Technical Author: Who Are We? Who ARE We?
- Robohelp Versus Flare: The Final Showdown, This Time the Matter Will Be Settled Physically
- Pronoun Linguistical Analysis of Button Labels on Financial Graphic User Interfaces of Romanian Currency Banking Applications
- Is Technical Writing Boring? Yes, No, Yes, No
- The Jackson Pollock Inspiration Behind the STC.org Home Page
- How to Start Petty Grammar Disputes Without [Deeply] Annoying Those Around You
- Ping Pong Techniques So You Can Play Like a Developer
- Best off-Line Practices for Tech Comm Influencers, Including Party Etiquette, Techniques for Waving, and Superficial Conversation Starters
- Choosing the Right Twitter Picture: Twitter Pictures for All Occasions!
- Let Bylaws Be Bylaws: The Fascinating History of New York’s Bylaw Practices, Origins, and Future, Including an Inside Look At the Seedy Underbelly of Bylaw Formation 62.3.5.1
- Technical Writing With Your Pet: Incentivizing Animals to Help Out With Usability Testing
- Twifficiency, Twindexing, and Twusability: Tweqniques for Twelite Twechnical Twriters
- How to Break Out of Technical Writing and into What You Love — Even If It Pays Nothing
- Ninja Techniques for Observing [Killing] Users
- NINJA!
- Tech Writer as Janitor, and Other Depressing Metaphors to Keep in Mind Throughout the Day
- Using Sarcasm “Effectively” in the “Work” “Place”
- Tomato Throwing Session (for no particular reason)
- Un-Leadership Day
- Strategies for Solace: Managing All the Alone Time in a Happy Way
- Flopping, Bouncing, Cradling: A Study of Hyperbole and Metaphor Used By Application System Engineers (PhD Dissertation)
- “Sharepoint Can Do that” — Mantras Technical Writers Need to Master in a Microsoft Shop
- Everything I Needed to Know About Tech Writing I Learned in the Hallways of Second Grade (not really)
- Fishing and Technical Communication: a History of Nots
- Learning to Love Demoralization
- An Interface Is Like a Crappy Student Essay: Helps for Teachers Transitioning into Tech Writing
- Publishing On the Fly — Literally
- Dr. Pepper Versus Root Beer, Let the Forces Rally
- Completely-Impossible-But-Fun-to-Explore Hypothetical Ethical Scenarios in the Tech Comm Workplace
- The Art of Art, and Other Illustrative Techniques
- Technical Writing and Mythological Deities: How Zeus Reclaimed the UI From the Underworld of Hades
- Moving Up and Down: Technical Writers Who Are No Longer Technical Writers (Some Are Unemployed and Living in Trailers, Others Are Rich and Living in Soho)
- Fulfilling Your Wasted Literary Talent Through Microtweeting
- Bringing Back the Use of “Which”: An Anti-Movement Against Restrictive Clauses
- Declente, Post-Pluperfect Tenses, and Hyperbolic Supposition: All the Grammar Rules You Should Know But Actually Have No Clue About
- If You Give a Technical Writer a Cookie … and Other Slippery Slopes
- Technical Writing Horror Stories for Children
- The End Is Near: A Manual for the Upcoming Apocalypse, Complete With Notes, Tips, and Cautions
- It’s Never too Late to Change Your Name, Join a Motorcycle Gang, Or Learn to Play the Vuvuzela — Special Session By Kathyrn Burton
- Three Way Blind Round-Tripping From Robohelp to Twitter to Facebook and Back Again
- Sharepointize This!
- View Source: An Unexpected Peek Behind the Technology that Powers Airport X-Ray Machines
- Restructuring the IT Totem Pole with New Totems
- Patience Is a Virtue for the Weak, Aggressive Attitudes Get Results: Tips and Tricks and Really Mean Phrases to Get What You Need/Want
- Red Rover, Red Rover: Team Building Techniques for Athletic Technical Communicators
- Pedagogical Discourse in Canonical Contexts: A Heuristic Investigation into the Academic Rhetorical Linguistic Meaninglessness to Distract or Impress
- If I were a ________________: Tech Writer Spinoffs on Fiddler On the Roof (includes dance and song)
- Will It Blend? An Experiment with Thick Manuals (bring yours)
- Deep-Fried Quick Reference Guides: Everything Reads Better Deep Fried
- Documentation On a Shoestring — the Ultimate Convenience for Walkers and Runners
- Name that Persona
- Documenting Spumoni: Exploring the Hidden World of Ice Cream’s Most Challenging Flavors
- It Was the Worst of Times, It Was the Absolute Worst of Times: Managing Last-Minute Project Manager Requests
- Live and Learn, Die and Burn: The End of One Technical Writer’s Career
- 15 Ways to Get Around Skimpy Billing Codes and Maneuver Out-of-Scope Budget Issues Through Off-Shoring, Laundering, and Defalcation
- Predator Versus Alien: Interacting with Project Developers
- Incredible Stunts By Technical Writers Mostly on Drugs
- Sitting Pretty: Your Looks Alone Won’t Get You By in Tech Writing
- Preserving Documents in Sub-Kelvin Temperatures Through the Next Ice Age
- Christmas Lists and Stocking Stuffers for Technical Writers
- Jeopardy: The Final Hour, Academics and Descartian Philosophers Test their Knowledge of What Is Real
- Technical Writing in the Golden Years: The Final Countdown to the Last Manual
- Logging into STC.org: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for Understanding the Sign-in Process and Subsequent Home Page
- Deconstructing Tech Comm, for No Reason Other Than We’re Bored
- Technical Writing in Hyperbaric Chambers for Those Moments When You Really Need Oxygen
- A Panel About Panels: What You Need to Know to Lead a Good Panel Discussion (Panel Format)
- Style Guides Across the Ages: From Chaucer to Vonnegut, the Technical Style Guides the Masters Didn’t Use
- Of Mice and Pen: A Sad Story About How One Technical Communicator Accidentally Stepped On a Mouse
- Let Go, Live in the Moment, and Other Useless Advice for Technical Communicators
- Making Sense of ISO 9437395-5.A-12, the New Standard for Federally Regulated Rocket Fuel Cylinder Valves
- Paranormal Documentation and Zombie Usability
- Project Managers in the Mist: a Mockumentary
- Cloning 101 and Time Banishment, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Deadlines and Love the Project Plan
- The Technical Writing Hypnotist: Subliminal Techniques for Deep Topic Investigation
- Forming the Banana Publications Style Guide: A Contrarian Reaction to the Apple Style Guide
- Beyond the Bleeding Gut: Innovations that Failed
- How to Build a Robust Content Management System Using Common Tools You Probably Have Under Your Sink or in Your Garage
- DITA: It’s Magic
- The Dirty Little Secrets of Technical Writing Everyone Wants to Know But No One Will Tell You
- Disturbing Stories of Seemingly Undisturbed Technical Writers
- Little Did I Know … : Reflections on a Career in Technical Writing
- Conquering User Hearts, Minds, and Hopes — One Help Topic at a Time
- Indexing for Hard-Core Word Nerds: No-Holds-Barred Techniques for Seriously Aggressive Indexers
- Country Songs and Anarcho-Punk Music By Technical Writers
- Love Affair With Commas: A Guide for the Sick and Twisted (Includes Both Curly and Straight Commas)
- Prison UIs for the Criminal Mind: Implementing the Impossible Exit, Infinite Loop, and Other Recursive Workflows
- Comma-Lamas: Comma/Lama Breeding Hybrids
- Killer Apps for Killers
- Don’t Make Me Think Part 2: “Don’t Make Me Move”
- Semicolons Are for Sissies, Dashes Are for the Undaring, and Other Useless Punctuation
- Adobeization Nation
- Exclamation Marks and Humor: The Hot Sauce of Technical Writing
- Watch-Learn-Do-Be-Become-Now-Read-Manual-Must: A New Approach to User Education
- The Plain Movement: Plain Language, Plain Clothes, Plain Hair, Plain Names — Loving Plain in a Plain Way
- The Grammar Thief: Stealing the Best Grammar Out There Everyday
- Technical Writers on a Plane: A Thriller with Intrigue, Espionage, and High Speed Documentation Action 30,000 feet in the Air
- Documenting the Edges of Outer Space: An Unknown Manual About the Unknown Unknowns (contents still to be determined)
- 99 Pages of a Manual on the Wall, and other Party Games Technical Writers Love
- Documentation Strategies for the Antisocial Web
Photo from myyearofnewthings
Tom, I didn’t realize you’d submitted so many proposals over the years.
#32 is my favorite.
I had to close my office door because I was laughing so loud!
Thanks for the (much needed!) humor!
I wish some of these had not been rejected, especially if Leah Guren was the submitter!
Thank you, Tom. I needed a laugh this morning.
But why did you reject #16?
Ninjas are good with everything!
Really? I find it hard to believe that “The Jackson Pollack Inspiration Behind the STC.org Home Page” didn’t make it. They must not have had room in the itinerary for another excellent presentation that year.
That is too funny!! I loved number 17, and I think you know why.
I actually think some of these may be good ideas for 2011′s conference.
This is going on my office door.
I love it!!! and just as I was starting to thing about the submitting a proposal for a training conference
@Cindy: Because then they’d have to accept PIRATES! and the inevitable bloodbath that would ensue….
Anything with “Seedy Underbelly” in the title, I’m there. I’ll also be signing up for #18 and #67. Thanks for a lot of good laughs.
Ice breaker for your next chapter meeting. Mix these with the titles of ones that got accepted and see how accurately people can identify which is which.
Outstanding! I’d love to have seen one of my personal faves, though:
“Serial Commas, Pro or Con? A 2-hour panel discussion by industry experts.”
#91 (!!!) I would have attended only to harass the speaker. Nice list!
This is one of the funniest posts on technical writing that I’ve ever read (and it really is difficult to make tech writing funny).
Thanks for the laugh!
BTW, thanks to #69, I’ll be watching my step … when I actually do unshackle myself from a seated position, that is.
Tom, you’re a dark horse – who would have known you were hiding such a wicked set of observations about such a soft, gentle field?
It’s been a while since I’ve laughed so hard – and tech comms is not (normally) funny! Thanks for that.
I’m coming to you the next time I need to name a project, but not if I need to submit any proposals!
CJ, I would love to spice up proposal names. The Summit actually has an 8 word limit on titles. That negates pretty much most of my creative titles — unless I hyphenate all the words, which I just might do.
Thanks for all the comments on this post. If you ever want me to spice up a title, just send it over.
I shudder to think what you’re naming your new baby, then!
Well done, Tom. I’m actually writing a blog comment.
Some of these would make great topics, actually, which is why they are so funny.
My favorites (for different reasons): 6, 11, 20, 82, 91, and 93. And the Sharepoint slamming.
Hysterical! I just couldn’t stop sniggering. It’s a good thing no one asked me to explain what was so funny. They just wouldn’t get it!
#40 (sorry Kathryn), #23 and #94 Ha!
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You could have released these over time. They would have given you some great blog content. Oh wait, you already have great blog content!
Thanks for sharing these. They’ll provide some great “what the heck” working titles for our Spectrum conference.
Loved this post, Tom. Thanks. Is it too late for me to submit “Bacon and Chocolate: Essential Elements of Technical Communication”?
This is a masterpiece, Tom. I think you should send out each proposal idea as a tweet and see what kind of response you receive…;-) very clever, fun, and beneath the satire, speaks to some of our profession’s more unique issues.
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