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STC 54th Annual Conference Report

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Leaving Las Vegas...

Though Minneapolis lacked the glitzy razzmatazz and scorching temperatures of Las Vegas (home of last year's STC conference), this year's event (which took place May 13-16 2007) was widely acclaimed as the most dynamic and successful STC conference ever. In any case, with something to see and do at the conference from 7am to 11pm most days, there wasn't much time left for sightseeing!

New and improved features this year included:

  • The largest vendor EXPO hall ever, featuring over 70 providers of products and services to technical communicators, including Adobe, the conference's Platinum Sponsor.
  • The EXPO hall also had extended opening hours this year (opening on Sunday evening) and the conference Welcome Reception and International Reception were both held in the exhibition hall.
  • The first STC International Pavilion, which provided a specific place for international members and attendees to meet and greet.
  • Informal "Springboard" sessions, where attendees and speakers were encouraged to grab a whiteboard marker and start (or continue) a discussion around one or more hot topics.
  • "Institutes": Five specialized tracks hosted by leading industry experts, with invited speakers providing in-depth knowledge on key topics: "Web 2.0", "Globalization, Localization and Translation", "Information Design and Architecture", "Content Management", and "Knowledge Management".

Sunday May 13 - Leadership Day

Leadership Day is held each year before the main conference and is an opportunity for STC community and society-level leaders to get together to share advice and learn about recent and future developments of the Society.

Several important announcements were made this year, including:

  • The leadership Community Resource (LCR) was launched: Designed to help STC communities be more effective, the LCR is the primary source of information and assistance for the Society's community leaders. There's now an email address (lcr@stc.org) and a web page (http://stc.org/LCR/) where STC community leaders can get help, self-help training, and inspiration for improving member value through their community activities.
  • STC is in the process of recruiting a Director of Community Relations to coordinate community efforts and ensure that the LCR plays a pro-active role in reaching out to STC's worldwide communities.
  • A new "pass-through" funding model for STC member communities will come into effect in 2008. All STC communities will receive a fixed amount (yet to be determined) for each and every member that joins their community in addition to their STC general membership. This will likely increase the need for communities to better market themselves to attract members, though the full impact of the changes to the funding model are still being investigated.
  • STC has rejoined INTECOM, the international council of technical communication societies, whose annual meeting took place in Minneapolis immediately after the STC conference. INTECOM itself announced changes to its mission statement to better serve its member societies and play a more effective role in promoting the profession as a whole.
  • STC is finalizing comprehensive revisions to the Society's bylaws, which haven't seen a major update in over 30 years. The changes will provide more flexibility in the way the Society is run and will ensure compliance with New York state law, where the Society is incorporated as a 501c3 charitable non-profit association.
  • STC is working with a member of the US Department of Labor's Business Research Advisory Council to redefine the job description for technical communicators contained in the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system. SOC is used in government spending calculations, planning for educational subsidies and for determining pay scales across the industry (both in the US and internationally). This same SOC is to be adopted by the UK government. A similar classification exists in France (managed by APEC?). It would be interesting to investigate if this description needs updating also.

After the introductory presentations, a series of 20-minute "progression sessions" enabled participants to group together at round tables to discuss specific themes. I attended sessions on "Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers", "Tools for Virtual Communities", and "Reviving a Community", which provided interesting ideas for some of the issues currently facing the STC France Chapter. In particular, I had a very interesting discussion with Ilana Sztaimberg, vice president of the NY Metro Chapter who led a highly successful membership motivation campaign last year that really worked to get more volunteers involved in their chapter activities. Their secret? Make their community something that people actually wanted to be a part of. Make volunteering fun and make it easy for people to get involved.

The Expo

Among the exhibitors I spoke to was Jennifer Parkes from DocZone.com, providers of the "industry's first hosted XML content management system", who claim to have you up and running in 30 days. I found that surprising, given that my own company has been in the process of implementing an XML content management system for several years now. I was even more surprised to find that DocZone's solution is based on Xhive/Docato, the same technology that my own company is using. DocZone's secret is a fully hosted environment that uses the DITA XML Schema, a built-in browser-based XML editor (plug-ins are available to integrate desk-top XML authoring environments such as XML Spy, XMetaL and Epic). DocZone's solution also includes comprehensive workflow and versioning features, and a built-in translation memory tool from XML-Intl. After reading the fine print, it's clear that the 30 day promise only covers a small part of the overall process required to migrate to DocZone's solution, but it nevertheless deserves a closer look.

Sessions Attended

Keynote General Session - Simon Singh

Following a rousing introduction from outgoing STC President Paula Berger, Simon Singh took the stage for the opening keynote presentation. Simon is a TV producer and best-selling author. He described the making of the documentary "Fermat's Last Theorem", a fabulous insight into the world of mathematics. Simon is living proof that it is possible to make even the most complex and (for many people) yawn-inducing topic both accessible and inspiring for non-specialists.

Among the many fascinating details of the documentary film-making process that Simon shared with the audience was how he actually edited the soundtrack from one of his interviews to change what the person said "for sake of simplicity". Every time the interviewee, a world-renowned mathematician, said the word "prime" [as in "prime number"], they replaced it with the word "number" taken from elsewhere in the same interview. While some might consider this act be highly unethical, Simon argued that he was merely doing what technical communicators do every day when editing copy received from subject matter experts: simplifying the content so that it was more accessible to his target audience (that is, people probably don't recall what a prime number actually is). (http://www.simonsingh.net/ - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh)

Web 2.0 - 101 (Scott Abel)

Scott's fast-paced, no-nonsense presentation style provided a great introduction to web 2.0 technologies and trends, including structured authoring, user-generated content, DITA, wikis, podcasts, and mashups, Scott set the stage for many of the hot topics to be discussed in subsequent sessions. Many of my top takeaways from the conference came from this session. See also: http://www.thecontentwrangler.com

Some of the Web 2.0 applications and other websites mentioned:

It's Not My Aunt's Online Help Anymore! (Neil Perlin)

"Embrace and extend other people's data"

In this thought-provoking session, Neil described recent technological advancements that are in the process of affecting the very foundation of our profession. Neil's talk was not so much focused on tools as it was on how we, as technical communicators, need to adapt to these changes.

Traditional documentation is disappearing! It's no longer about doing online help differently or better. It's about completely rethinking the way that technical communicators can contribute to the production and management of content and knowledge throughout the enterprise.

According to Neil, the future of our profession depends on our ability to break out of the mold that we have built for ourselves ("those quiet people over in the Tech Pubs department who write the user manuals that nobody reads") and bring our skills to a wider audience. His presentation was full of motivational and practical advice on how we should be looking to "embrace and extend other people's data", adding value by improving access to and organization of key enterprise data that can make a real difference to the company's bottom line. "Documentation comes from the doc group", he said. "Content comes from anywhere". As technical communicators, we should be managing "content", not "doc".

He gave the example of a company who launched a $1m project to implement the Documentum content management system for the sales group, without the documentation group even being involved in the decision! He also explained that many "low-tech" companies, such as hospitals or insurance companies, have "procedure writers" or "methodology experts" who don't even call themselves technical communicators (and who perhaps don't have the same training), even though their jobs are very similar to ours.

As an example of "embracing other people's data", Neil mentioned "Goggles" (http://www.isoma.net/games/goggles.html), a proof-of-concept online game that combines live data from Google maps with a simple Flash-based flight simulator. This is a "mash up", an application that takes somebody else's existing data and does something else with it.

A more practical example might involve providing taking recent customer support issues/discussions, structuring them and integrating them with online documentation. We may be able to add far greater value to the enterprise by finding new ways to exploit existing customer support data than simply adding a new chapter to the documentation, for example.

We need to free ourselves from the mundane time-consuming tasks and concentrate on providing value. For example, we should be training developers to write better (by introducing them to Word's readability index tools, for example). This is the only way, according to Neil, that we can transform ourselves from a cost center to a profit center, thus improving our status within the company, our job security, and our salary expectations.

As a cost-center, management doesn't like to fund us. This would be different if we were seen as a center of excellence or a profit-center that sells services that address the business needs of other teams in the company.

Neil's parting advice... "Go drinking with the tech support guys! It's amazing what you'll learn about your product"

The Future of XML Publishing (Salim Ismali)

"Search is like memory. Syndication is like the nervous system."

Salim Ismali is head of Yahoo Brickhouse, Yahoo's new semi-autonomous product development business unit. Salim described many examples of how XML is making possible many new types of online application that allow people to reuse and combine existing data in different ways.

Salim's main message here was that the old adage "Knowledge = Power" is no longer true. Value is no longer contained in the data one owns but in the services that one can provide on top of that data. Recent Web 2.0 technologies have made it far easier for people to publish and share information, but the biggest challenge remains how to structure and access that information in useful ways.

Blogging is great, but it generally results in a mass of unstructured information that is not easy to exploit. With the advent of "structured blogging", blog entries can now be created using XML schemas and/or "microformats" that make it possible for other applications to exploit that information in different ways.

This session also highlighted the changes in the way that we interact with information in the Web 2.0 era compared to the earlier days of the Internet.

We have moved from a system of "send/retrieve" (via email) to "searching" (via search engines) to "watching" (via RSS feeds and aggregators).

Interview with Usability Expert: Jared M. Spool

"The best thing about users is that eventually they die!"

http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2007/06/04/podcast-jared-spool-interviewed-by-carolyn-snyder-at-stc-2007/(Duration: 1h24m21s)

While I wasn't able to attend this session, Jared was kind enough to publish a recording of the session on his blog, and I highly recommend you download it to your iPod at the earliest opportunity. Jared is a foremost authority on usability and design and offers some great advice for getting into the profession (turns out that many usability specialists started out life as frustrated technical writers!) and how to use simple techniques to eliminate frustration from the products and services we produce.

For Jared, "frustration is the polar opposite of usability" (09m59s). His advice: seek out the people affected by that frustration, look for the pain and look to solve these people's problems - you're bound to make friends (10m26s). One of the first places to look is technical support (12m40s), as these are the guys that are really in tune with user frustrations. He provides the example of Netflix (23m12s) to show that "it's all about the user experience". Users don't acclaim the information architecture of the site, or the Ajax/web 2.0 features of the site, but they love the whole Netflix experience.

According to Jared, usability is largely about observing people. Instead of going around thinking we know how people use things (when in fact we don't) (27m11s), we need to observe real customers using our products, so as to dispel our illusions (or if budget is limited (28m17s), go talk to people who talk to customers (sales engineers, tech support, training), or find cheap ways of getting in touch with customers: trade shows, user group meetings, join customers for lunch while they're in the building doing onsite training (30m40s, 41m54s), ...

Other advice and recommendations include how to deal with colleagues that resemble Wally from Dilbert (35m01s), how best to handle an onsite customer visits (38m06s), convince a manager about the value of usability (43m43s) - tip: base development team bonuses based on how few calls are received by customer support (48m08s), and how to work with in-house usability experts (49m57s), prototyping and testing the validity of usability recommendations (59m10s).

Perhaps Jared's most radical statement: "The best thing about users is that eventually they die!" (1h04m20s). Don't miss the hilarious description of Ebay's website redesign (1h08m02s). The interview ends with Jared's humorous review of the history and predictions for the future of the technical writing profession (1h13m15s), and tips for working with clients (1h17m58s) and limited budgets (1h20m20s).

Structured Content Management 101 (Ann Rockley)

In this session, Ann Rockley explored the potential uses for structured content management solutions throughout the enterprise, and the opportunities for leveraging the experience gained by technical communication departments in implementing such systems. Ann described the key elements of a structured content management solution - Enterprise taxonomy, Content model, Reuse Architecture, Metadata, Workflow - and explained key reasons for success or failure of such projects. The principles she described are detailed in her book "Managing Enterprise Content" (http://www.managingenterprisecontent.com/)

Anyone Can Create Structured XML Content (Michael Boses)

"More products fail due to complexity than lack of features"

Michael Boses also spent considerable time in his session exploring the key factors for success and failure of structure authoring projects. His main advice was to remember the actual users. For the solution to be successful, it has to be "good" but it also has to be "good for the users". If the solution offers great advantages or savings for the company but is much harder for users to use than their previous solution, then there will be resistance to change. Consequently, there will be little support from the people responsible for making the system work.

According to Michael's experience, many companies don't spend enough time in the discovery and design phases before starting to build their system:

  • Definition of a "bad" project: Discovery: 5% / Design: 5% / Build: 60% / Deploy: 30%
  • Definition of a "good" project: Discovery: 50% / Design: 20% / Build: 15% / Deploy: 15%

The idea is to spend as little time as possible actually building the solution, which is only possible if the system has been well researched and carefully designed. "More products fail due to complexity than lack of features", yet many development processes are based on cramming as many "features" into the solution as possible, with little concern for the "usability" of the solution.

Every project involves risk. These risks can be reduced by taking the time to explore them and address them in the design phase. Michael suggested that "risk (and stress!) begins the moment we define success", so you should use a prototype-feedback-prototype-feedback loop to gradually improve understanding of the underlying problems, explore potential solutions, and only then should you attempt to define the meaning of "success" for the project.

As an example of this philosophy, Michael described a project he just completed for the Government of Eire which allowed users to produce DITA-compliant XML documents using a structured blogging plugin for the Wordpress blogging tool (www.structuredblogging.org) and microformats (http://microformats.org/). Government cabinet staff use the solution to prepare notes for cabinet meetings. The tool provides a very simple interface, and the users aren't even aware that they are producing XML content.

Michael ended with a reminder that "it's not about XML, it's about information architecture". He sells himself as a communications consultant or information architect, not as an XML specialist. The domain still has a vocabulary problem. XML, DITA, XSL, and so on, just aren't sexy. They don't sell the solution. It's what we can do with these technologies to solve real business problems that matters. 

Research Reports in Usability (Various presenters)

"Usability testing: A knife to the gut for the design team!"

Several teams of presenters reported on their experiences with various usability/design projects, including electronic library accessibility, public transportation website, and processing of procedural illustrations. My main takeaway from this session was the power and usefulness of video for usability testing. One presented suggested that sitting the design team down in front of a video of a user attempting to use their product can have the same effect as "a knife to the gut".  

Case Studies in Knowledge Driven Design (Kees van Mansom)

This session explored various examples of knowledge-driven applications on corporate intranet/extranets, and how a "knowledge design" tool could be used to capture the models and modes of reasoning needed to perform complex jobs and tasks. While I could see the potential uses for this type of solution for applications such as case management, application wizards, or troubleshooting guides, I wasn't particularly convinced by the tool that the presenter was promoting. He spent too long trying to demo the product, rather than exploring the underlying issues that the tool tries to address.

Using Classified Content to Increase Information Retrievability in a Flood of Data (Kristine A. Henke, Korin Bevis)

"Users don't care how they find information, as long as they can find good information quickly!"

This fascinating session provided practical advice for successfully implementing a content classification solution to help users find what they are looking for in large volumes of information. The presenters covered such aspects as information typing, content analysis and taxonomy development and maintenance, design and user testing. They also showed several examples of taxonomies in practice on websites, including:

The examples showed how quickly and easily it was for a user to "drill down" through a huge volume of information to find what they were looking for, even if they weren't quite sure what they were looking for to start with. for this type of search, a taxonomy-based solution is more effective than a search engine because it allows users to narrow down the search scope as they go, based on various criteria that describe the solution they are looking for. For example, on the ToysRus site, the presenter used the example of looking for a gift for her 12 year old niece who she knew liked animals. Using the taxonomy-based navigation on the website, she was able to find a suitable gift in just 3 clicks (Girls > 10-12 years old > Smallest Animals).

Although taxonomy-based classified content search certainly seems powerful, it is most useful when the user is looking for a solution that best fits a given set of criteria (for example, on epicurious.com, it's really easy to find a recipe based on whatever you happen to have left in your refrigerator), rather than for a specific item of information. It seems that for certain types of search, a search engine may still be more effective. Based on their extensive user test results, the presenters could definitely confirm one thing: users don't really care how they find the information. Taxonomies, Keyword Search, Tag clouds, Table of Contents, whatever! Just as long as they can find the right information quickly and consistently.

Creating a taxonomy is a time- and labor-intensive undertaking. Several companies offer solutions for making the process easier, including IBM (http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/enterprise-search/omnifind-discovery/class.html). For smaller budgets, you might want to consider implementing a "folksonomy", where users tag documents (the same way the bookmark-sharing site www.del.icio.us.com works), however the results might not be as effective, compared to having a dedicated person (or team) responsible for classifying documents.

Adopting Content Management (Joan Lasselle, Rahel Bailie, Stephen Huffman, Emma Hamer)

"The right process needs to be the easiest process".

This series of down-to-earth panel presentations revealed some startling statistics on the success rate for implementations of Content Management Systems, and explored a number of ideas for improving that success rate.

30-35% of corporate CMS implementation projects, it seems, fail to meet expectations. These problems are not due to technical issues or feature limitations of the chosen tool, but most often due to poor change management. The move to a content management system can have a profound impact on the way technical communicators are required to work, and on the internal power structure of an organization. Anyone who does not pay sufficient attention to these aspects is asking for trouble.

If changes are not sufficiently planned for, users often see the new system as being imposed on them. This generally results in one of three possible reactions: Run, Hide, or Fight. Some people would rather change departments, jobs, or even their employer, in order to avoid having to deal with the new system. Others will try and pretend for as long as possible that the new system isn't there. They will continue to use the old system, and not take sufficient interest in how the new system works. Yet others may to purposefully try to sabotage or otherwise malign the new system, hoping that management will just give up and let them carry on working the way they are used to. Clearly, not every writer will transition well, but careful planning and change management is the key to reducing these problems.

A successful CMS system can offer many new opportunities for innovation and process improvement within the enterprise. To make the most of these opportunities, technical communicators should adopt a more "intrapreneurial" business mindset. That is, they should pro-actively seek out opportunities to use their skills and play more of a consultant's role within the company.

One speaker suggested taking the "agile programming" methodology to the next level: Agile Content Development. Instead of having all the writers working together at the end of the hallway and only venturing out when they need to "hunt and gather" information, one option is to co-locate writers directly within the development teams, with developers, clients, illustrators, and writers all working together in the same office. Writers often complain that they come too late in the process and are asked to document systems that were badly designed in the first place. While somewhat radical, perhaps this "co-location" idea could offer a solution, allowing writers to be involved in what's happening much earlier on therefore influence the design of the product itself.

Another issue of contention with content management systems, especially XML-based content management systems is that of control. Writers often fear that they will no longer be free to write in their own style and that the document structure imposed on them by the XML schema makes things much harder for them. In a well-designed system, this is not necessarily they case, though it is an understandable reaction when someone feels threatened. It should be made clear that a structured content management system is about controlling content, not people.

The system must be as easy as possible for writers to use the content control built into the system should support the company's business goals. Put another way, "The right process needs to be the easiest process".

Looking Forward (Phylise Banner Klein)

This session provided an opportunity for the conference organizers and participants to share feedback about this year's conference and propose new ideas and discuss areas for improvement.

As a member of the Program Advisory Committee for next year's STC conference in Philadelphia (June 1-4, 2008), I found this to be a particularly interesting session. I learned that the conference organizers are making determined efforts to raise the standards of sessions presented. They are increasingly looking for innovative and exciting speakers and best of breed presentations. A lot of effort will go into crafting the call for papers for next year's conference and into screening proposals for quality and relevance.

The session also provided ideas to take home to convince one's boss of the value of attending the STC conference. These reasons go far beyond the obvious educational aspect of the event. Not only does the conference provide an opportunity to make new connections, and potential business partnerships, it also motivates attendees to excel. One of the best arguments for convincing your boss to send you again next year, however, is to show the value of improvements you were able to make based on what you learnt at the conference. This once again links back to the need for technical communicators to increasingly be aware of the business value of their work.

Closing Keynote Session - Ze Frank

Loosely held together with the theme of "Acceleration Anxiety", Ze's inspiring and hilarious closing keynote presentation covered a lot of ground - from Earth Sandwiches to dancing cats, from airline safety cards to interactive toys and online performance art. (http://www.zefrank.com/ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ze_Frank)