The Society for Technical Communication (STC) Summit gathers technical communicators from around the world each year. This year it will be held in Sacramento, California, May 15th to 18th. XML Press will be launching books, sponsoring a tweet up, and participating in several sessions and workshops.
Books
XML Press will launch Robert Delwood’s The Secret Life of Word: A Professional Writer’s Guide to Microsoft Word Automation, the answer to the question, “How can I become more productive using Microsoft Word?” It gives writers an in-depth look at the hidden capabilities of Word, and describes how to take advantage of these capabilities without being a programmer. Copies of the book will be available at the conference book store, and Robert will be at the Summit signing books.
XML Press will also launch Char James-Tanny’s Learning Author-it. Char, the Author-it guru’s guru, has taught hundreds in her acclaimed classes and has drawn on her extensive experience to create the definitive resource for learning Author-it. Copies of the book will be available at the conference book store, and Char will be at the Summit signing books.
Alan Porter’s new book, WIKI: Grow Your Own for Fun and Profit, will be in the bookstore for the first time, and of course our other books will be available, too. We also have another project that might be ready for the show. Come by our booth in the Consultant’s Corner to see if we succeed in getting it out the door in time:).
Pre-conference workshops
Brenda Huettner, co-author of the forthcoming book, Communicating with Everyone, will offer a pre-conference workshop with Jack Molisani on Sunday, May 15th from 1pm to 5pm:
Career Tactics and Negotiation Skills for Technical Communicators
A recent study found that today’s workers have held an average of 11 jobs by the age of 45. With this kind of turnover, it is critical that we each take responsibility for our own careers. Whether you’re currently employed or not, you need to proactively advance your career through networking, negotiating, and constantly improving your skills. In this highly-interactive session, we’ll work on the topics that you want most. Do you have a career issue, question, or challenge? Bring it to this workshop and let’s crowd-source a solution!
Unfortunately, the pre-conference workshop I was planning to present, Build a Print Revenue Stream Using Print-on-Demand Publishing, was canceled due to circumstances beyond my control, but I will be at the conference, and if you’re interested in the topic, look me up and we can discuss things off-line.
Sessions
Several XML Press authors will be presenting sessions at the Summit, including:
| Richard Hamilton: | Managing Book Development with a Wiki |
| Brenda Huettner: | Co-authoring without Homicide |
| Char James-Tanny: | Creating Accessible Web-Based Content |
| The DUH Factor: Diverse, Understandable, Human (Web Content for Everyone) |
Tweetup and other events
We are co-sponsoring a tweetup on Monday evening at 9pm at Brew It Up, 801 14th St., Sacramento. See the invitation for more details and to sign up to attend.
We will have books in the conference book store and a table in the Consultants Corner. I hope you can check them both out. The STC Summit is a great place to find out what’s happening in Technical Communication, learn some new stuff, meet old friends, make new ones, and have a great time. I hope to see you there.
