2018 STC Technical Communication Summit news roundup

Skyline view of Paris with Eiffel Tower in background.
STC logo

Last month’s STC Summit celebrated a milestone in the field of technical communication – the Society for Technical Communication’s 65th anniversary.

The STC is the world’s largest and oldest professional association dedicated to the field of technical communication. So what news from this year’s annual conference, which took place last month in Orlando, Florida on the theme of ‘Communicate the Future’?

We’ve listed some of the key links below for our technical authors, writers and editors to catch up on the event.

Talking points

Carrying the earth on our shoulders
Larry Kunz tries to answer a perennial question raised at the Summit: How can we integrate content into a unified presentation when the content comes from all over the place?

The linchpin of inspiration
Where does inspiration come from? What is the process? And who is the linchpin in all of this? Carla Johnson outlines the answers in her keynote speech in which she places technical communicators at the heart of the process as they work at the intersection of people, information and technology.

2018 STC Summit: Programming & Priorities
An interesting critique by Bart Leahy who is ‘on the education, outreach, and marketing sides of technical communication’ and who struggled to relate to STC’s heavy emphasis on tech products that he doesn’t use. He’s also blogged some HR conversations from his hallway and social media chat about techcomm training and preparing for a career in technical writing.

Session notes

STC Summit 2018 reviews by day
Kelly Smith outlines her four days of conference – workshops, talks and thoughts.

From Technical Writer to Content Strategist
Slides from Melanie Seibert’s talk on why content strategy is a good career path for technical writers and how you can make the transition to this in-demand profession.

Summit recaps

2018 STC Summit Recap
An STC Summit first-timer highlights DITA, chatbots, multiple systems and audience empathy as the main conversation points.

Conference recap: STC Summit 2018
Another conference first-timer reviews three notable sessions they attended on mobile game design, audience engagement on NASA tech, and how users read in a a physical or virtual environment.

Communicate the future at #STC18 and beyond
A roundup of this year’s theme – and thoughts on its practical applications.

2018 STC Summit – Cheers to a milestone birthday and the future!
The president of STC San Diego has collected a number of session links and notes.

Next year’s STC Technical Communication Summit will take place from 5-8 May 2019 in Denver, Colorado.

CJ Walker

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