Tag Archives: STC Summit

Conferences I’m Attending This Year

I’m attending three conferences this year: Confab, the STC Summit, and Lavacon.  Why did I pick these conferences, over others? I attended Confab’s inaugural conference last year and felt it was a good fit for my web publishing role at work. Although my job title is “senior technical writer,” I spend about 60% of my time being Continue Reading »

Presentations Versus Conversations

Recently I listened to Moira Gunn interview Steve Rosenbaum about content curation in her podcast, Tech Nation. I heard Steve present on a similar topic at Confab. Interestingly, I found the podcast, which was a conversation between Moira and Steve, more interesting, fluid, and natural than Steve’s Confab presentation. Steve’s presentation at Confab was great. Continue Reading »

Diverging Directions for Tech Comm: Social Media or Structured Authoring

Two powerful trends in tech comm seem to be moving in different directions: social media and structured authoring. I have used a wiki as my primary format for documentation for the past year and a half. I tried to corral a group of volunteer technical writers to edit and update the wiki, because I embraced Continue Reading »

Podcast: Organizing Help Content: Breaking Out of Topic-based Hierarchies

The recording is available in a variety of formats: Audio with Slides MP3 Audio Only PowerPoint Show File PowerPoint Original File iPod format I recently gave a presentation at the STC Summit in Sacramento titled “Organizing Help Content: Breaking Out of Topic-based Hierarchies.” I would have recorded my presentation, but recording is not allowed. I Continue Reading »

WordPress Workshop Outline for the STC Summit

Tomorrow I’m giving a four hour workshop on blogging and WordPress at the STC Summit in Sacramento. I thought I’d post my outline in case anyone is interested in how I approach these workshops. In preparing this outline, I realized that my focus on WordPress and blogging has shifted more towards producing content rather than Continue Reading »

Organizing Help Content: Breaking Out of Topic-Based Hierarchies

At the upcoming STC Summit in Sacramento, I’m presenting a session titled Organizing Help Content: Breaking Out of Topic-Based Hierarchies. The title is a bit wordy. It’s basically information architecture applied to help content. Or even simpler, making help content findable. In this post, I’ll give you a sneak peak at what this presentation is Continue Reading »

Simple Tips for Website Accessibility: Brenda Huettner at the STC Summit in Dallas, #stc10

In this interview, I ask Brenda Huettner, who is writing a book on accessibility called Communicating with Everyone, to provide some practical tips for making my website, which includes audio, video, images, and text, more accessible. [youtube rxDeiViMJhg]