STC will offer multiple preconference educational opportunities for Summit attendees on Saturday and Sunday, 19-20 May. There will be two-day certificate sessions over the weekend and workshops and vendor tools sessions on Sunday.
The certificate sessions are $1,495 each for members and $1,995 each for nonmembers, and include registration for the conference. For just the certificate session, the cost is $725 and $1,295, respectively.
The half-day workshops (Sunday afternoon) are $250 each for members and $500 each for nonmembers.
The vendor tools sessions (Sunday morning) are absolutely free to both members and nonmembers. Both Adobe and MadCap Software are scheduled. You must register with the vendor to participate. See the link for details and instructions to register.
And don’t forget, Leadership Day/Program, Part 1 is also on Sunday morning, with optional afternoon discussion groups.
Preconference Certificate Sessions
All certificate sessions are two-day sessions, scheduled for 19–20 May. Session instructors will also recommend regular conference sessions to complement the certificate sessions.
Karen McGrane and Jeff Eaton, Content Strategy and Content Management
Nobody expects the editor of a newspaper to also operate the printing press. But people responsible for developing content for the Internet are expected to deal with it all—from communication goals to publishing tools. This workshop provides an overview of both content strategy and content management for digital publishing. Content strategy looks at the human side of planning for, creating, and maintaining great content, while content management encompasses the range of publishing tools and technologies used to deliver content to Web, mobile, and social channels. In this two-day session, you’ll learn look at content from the perspective of people and on the terms of technology.
You’ll learn about:
- How people work with content management tools throughout the content lifecycle: auditing, planning, creating, and governing
- How CMSes think about content, and what makes them easy (or difficult) to use
- Understanding content structure and metadata, from the perspective of the user, the editor, and the CMS database
- Wrangling your content and migrating it to a new CMS: dealing with problems from people and technology
- Defining roles, permissions, and approval workflows within a CMS
- Maintaining content over time and how the CMS can support the governance process
- Publishing content across a variety of channels, including web, social, mobile, and even print
- Special issues related to localization and translation of content
Phylise Banner, Data Visualization: Seeing Through the Numbers
This two-day program will explore data visualization and literacy, focusing on various techniques to conceptualize narratives and create visualizations. Along with gaining a more comprehensive understanding of data visualization, participants will be introduced to new ways of managing, analyzing, and visualizing data sets, as well as textually expressing underlying relational content. After taking this course, participants will be able to create effective data visualizations and content-based relational data narratives and will understand the theories, technologies, and effective practices associated with data visualization.
Michelle Corbin and Linda Oestreich, Technical Editing Fundamentals
This is a course in technical editing designed for beginning through advanced technical editing practitioners. It is a solid introduction for beginning technical editors and a great refresher for advanced technical editors. The course presents material on several topics over the two days and concludes with discussions and materials on a career in technical editing. It is interactive and includes exercises during the class and homework between the two days.
Prerequisites include a working knowledge of English grammar, punctuation, spelling, and style. This course does not teach those skills, but it helps you learn how to apply your knowledge responsibly as an editor. In addition, you need the desire to improve your technical editing and learn about the many skills it requires.
Preconference Workshops
Preconference workshops will take place from 1:00-5:00 PM on Sunday, 20 May.
Alyssa Fox and Paul Mueller, Building and Managing Successful Teams
This workshop explores key characteristics of successful teams and their members. Alyssa and Paul will discuss interviewing, leadership, and why people choose to stay. They will also explore decision types, personality types, and common dysfunctions of a team. Team, career, and project management topics allow them to also discuss project estimating, scoping, and team workflows. Interactive discussions will enable attendees to share experiences, learn from each other, and find solutions that work for your environments.
Joe Welinske, Developing User Assistance for Mobile Apps
Smartphones have sparked a huge, new software segment the mobile app. Providing user assistance for mobile apps is becoming an area of exciting opportunity for technical communication professionals. This workshop provides instruction regarding design, writing, implementation strategies, and tools in support of mobile app development.
Peter Lubbers, HTML5 Design & Development
Bring your laptop and get hands-on experience using HTML5 to deliver user assistance. During this workshop, Peter will introduce many of the HTML5 features that help you deliver information to your audience. These features include new HTML5 Markup, Forms, Multimedia (Audio/Video), Offline capabilities, and more. During the hands-on workshop you will become familiar with some of the best practices and helpful free tools that will ease and speed up development.
