Full Schedule

Alan Houser, Consultant/Trainer, Group Wellesley, Inc.
Saturday, 19 May | 8:30 AM-4:30 PM | Rock Spring
Sunday, 20 May | 8:30 AM-5:00 PM | Rock Spring
Foundation

The CPTC Preparation Training course registration is $1295 USD for STC members.

This does not include the Summit conference registration.

Registration Counter
7:30 AM-6:30 PM | Outside Expo Hall

8:00 AM-Noon | Celebration 5-6

The Leadership Program is hosted by STC’s Communities Affairs Committee. It is designed to recognize innovative communities, provide STC community leaders with training in best practices for a successful community, and enable community leaders to network with their peers from across the country. The Community Achievement Award and Pacesetter Award winners will be announced at this session.

Bernard Aschwanden, John Daigle, Beth Gerber, & Matt Sullivan
Noon-4:45 PM | Celebration 1-2

Sponsored by Adobe, register here: https://www.adobetechcomm.com/stc-summit-2018/

Participate in the Adobe Tech Comm workshop at the STC Summit 2018 on 20 May! The event is specifically designed to give you an opportunity to meet and learn from renowned technical communication experts, get hands-on with the latest tools, and connect with peers.

Welcome Reception and Expo Hall Open
5:00-6:30 PM | Windermere Ballroom

Attend the welcome reception in the expo hall and catch up with old friends, network, and meet exhibitors. There will also be a cake cutting ceremony in honor of the 65th anniversary.

Michelle Gardner
8:30 AM-4:30 PM | Celebration 9
Practitioner

With technical communicators looking for new directions to take the content industry, consider learning more about user experience (UX). This is a great time for you to add UX methodologies to your portfolio. According to a recent study, most B2B organizations have just begun to embrace UX as a core competency in their product development processes, with one-quarter hiring their first full-time UX developer in the last year. Most of these companies have had UX staff for fewer than 5 years. Moreover, almost 70% of UX personnel are self-taught. This full-day, interactive workshop gives you the opportunity to be among the first in your organization with a strong foundation in UX methodologies. You will learn to review user interfaces by applying usability heuristics, understand how user personas are necessary to the design process, create journey maps to improve product features and build content, and run usability tests.

Tina M. Kister
8:30 AM-4:30 PM | Celebration 10
Practitioner

Good page design is an essential component of effective technical communication. It ensures that information is easy to find, read, understand, and remember. It can elicit an immediate and positive visceral response, which also facilitates effective communication. Good page design is a discipline that can be achieved by applying fairly simple guidelines based on an understanding of the science of human visual perception. This presentation explores the scientific phenomena related to visual perception and how these phenomena form the foundation of best practices in page design. We look at how sensation processes (in the eye) provide the foundation for basic design elements, and how translation processes (in the brain) provide the foundation for basic design principles. Basic design elements and principles can then be combined, based on simple math and logic, to create documents that are both useful and visually appealing. The presentation includes examples and a quick-reference sheet for immediate practical application, and is appropriate for everyone.

Jessica Kreger
8:30 AM-12:00 PM | Celebration 7
Pracititoner

As a technical communicator, you see opportunities for both your team and your role to grow. But how can you make the transition from independent contributor to manager? In this workshop, Jessica Kreger, Senior Manager of Client Training and Education at TradeStation, an award-winning online brokerage firm, will share lessons learned on how to transition to management. Discover best practices for developing management skills, interviewing, recruiting, hiring talent, on-boarding and training new writers, team authoring, and balancing your role as documentation manager and content developer. Learn how to allocate work for creating topics and managing reviews. You’ll leave the workshop equipped with a checklist of the steps you need to advance your career, and to manage your new team.

Ben Woelk
1:00-4:30 PM | Celebration 7
Practitioner

Temperament types have big impacts on work relationships. Today’s workplace presents challenges for both introverted and extraverted team members. Many workplaces are adopting open space layouts that foster teamwork but provide little opportunities for introverts to contribute as individuals. Extraverts may struggle with working with Introverts. Because of Western society’s emphasis on extraversion, many introverts feel unsuited or ill-equipped to thrive in today’s workplace and are not sure how to take that next step to increase influence and improve visibility. All personality types may have issues working with coworkers or management. Is your manager a Guardian, an Idealist, a Rational, or an Artisan? How does that change how you approach them? Suitable for all attendees, you’ll benefit from understanding your temperament and how you interact best with others. Attendees will benefit most from the workshop if they know their Myers-Briggs/temperament profile in advance. I recommend taking the tests at humanmetrics.com and keirsey.com before attending.

Neil Perlin
1:00-4:30 PM | Celebration 8
Foundation

Topic-based authoring creates content in small chunks instead of book-length documents. Structured authoring applies formal structure to those topics. They’re different processes but most effective when used together. Consistency makes the content easy for authors to write and readers to absorb; “bead-sized” content allows single sourcing to almost any format and device. But implementing topic-based and structured authoring can be time-wasting, expensive, and over-complicated if done wrong. In this fast-paced, tool-agnostic workshop, you’ll look at various factors to see how to implement topic-based and structured authoring as quickly, inexpensively, and simply as possible.
You’ll look at:
• Definitions of topic-based and structured authoring.
• Business factors – support for company strategy, handling legacy material, and similar business process issues.
• Technical factors – technical trends and how they affect content development, maintenance, and distribution.
• Implementation factors – information type definition, template creation, cascading style sheets, DITA vs. non-DITA, and other implementation specifics.
• Hands-on practice on paper – the heart of this workshop – to define a topic type and structure. You won’t leave with all the answers. Companies are too different for pat answers. But you will leave with the concepts needed to start implementing topic-based and structured authoring.

Co-facilitated by Jack Molisani & Ben Woelk
Monday, 21 May | 1:00-3:00 PM EDT | Celebration 14
Tuesday, 22 May | 1:00-3:00 PM EDT | Celebration 14

Have you ever been caught off-guard by an unexpected question from your boss? Or wanted to network at a meeting but didn’t know what to say? The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science works with scientists to help them communicate complex topics clearly and engagingly using principles from Improv (improvisational) Comedy. The facilitators will introduce you to the basics and Improv comedy, then lead you through exercises designed to improv your organizational communication skills. This session offers an exclusive interactive learning experience, and extended networking opportunity.
*This is a paid workshop session offered Monday and repeated Tuesday during the conference. Only 40 tickets ($20/person) will be sold via the Summit registration site. Please do not delay in purchasing one if you want to participate as it is likely this will sell out! Because improv must be done in small groups, we can only accommodate 20 people in the workshop on Monday, and 20 people on Tuesday. Attendees MUST purchase a ticket and bring it with them to the workshop on the day they selected.

Registration Open
7:30 AM-4:30 PM | Outside Expo Hall

Continental Breakfast
8:00-8:45 AM | Expo Hall

Expo Hall Open
8:00 AM-5:00 PM | Windermere Ballroom

Meet the 2018 exhibitors and sponsors

Opening General Session-Opening Keynote Speaker
Carla Johnson
9:00-10:15 AM | Windermere Ballroom

Carla is a popular speaker, author, storyteller, and Chief Experience Officer for Type A Communications. Her keynote address, “Perpetual Innovation,” will talk about how the world’s most innovative teams create great ideas to deliver exponential outcomes. Don’t miss her talk during the Opening General Session on Monday morning, 21 May, at 9:00 AM.

Coffee Break
10:15-10:30 AM | Expo Hall

Andrea Ames & Sam Dragga
10:30-11:20 AM | Celebration 1-2
Foundation

The new editor of Intercom magazine, Andrea Ames, and the editor of Technical Communication, Sam Dragga, will host a session with conference participants and STC’s section editors and columnists. Andrea and Sam will explain the missions of their publications, editorial processes, recent submission trends, and other topics of interest for scholars and practitioners looking to publish or serve as reviewers. The aim of the session is to help prospective authors understand how to contribute to STC publications. Participants will have the opportunity to comment and ask questions of the editorial teams.

Liz Fraley
10:30-11:20 AM | Celebration 5
Practitioner

How do you prepare for the future when you don’t know what’s there? Do you buy a tool? Change an architecture (like go to XML)? Take a class? Adopt UI/UX practices? Will a grand, sweeping execution of committed action guarantee your place in the future? Where does the future come from? What do you have to understand to get where you want to go? Every day we make decisions and take actions. Hundreds of them. Each and every one has an impact on the future. In this session, we’re going to learn how to look into the future and see the steps it takes to get you where you want to go. We’ll talk about how you can adopt change and set your own pace. In this session, learn how to you can rapidly adopt change and still learn at your own pace. Learn how to break things down so that you’re on track to get to where you need to be. I’ll describe several situations where teams have been successful out of the gate. We’ll walk through several real-life situations where teams have done just this, adopted change one step at a time setting a pace and achieving their goals successfully. Learn that you can deliver the standard and quality you do now even if you have to go through change.

Sarah Kiniry
10:30-11:20 AM | Celebration 6
Practitioner

How do you reliably estimate the documentation and communication needs of a project that hasn’t even been started? How do you maintain that estimate in the face of iterative development and unplanned implementation changes? This session will use a set “workflow” to generate a detailed list of needs, distill them into tasks for the Agile process, and use the workflow chart itself to set a global “definition of done” for your organization’s technical communications.

Melonie McMichael
10:30-11:20 AM | Celebration 7-8
Foundation

We talk about it all the time, yet we have no specific word for it. We know it is a needed and valuable skill, yet we do not teach it. We see it as part of our technology skills, yet do not recognize it as a skill on its own. What is this nebulous ability that is so important to our field yet so little quantified? Technological adaptability is the ability to learn technology quickly or deal with technology issues efficiently and with confidence. A skill in and of itself that can be learned and taught, most of us are required to demonstrate this ability to excel in our field. The goal of this session is to establish the significance and application of technological adaptability to our field, to provide our field with a common language to discuss technological adaptability, and to assisting the individual in assessing and expanding on their own adaptability skills.

Bernard Aschwanden
10:30-11:20 AM | Celebration 9-10
Practitioner

Writers are involved in project management. From the smallest piece of content (maybe just a review of a letter) to the most complex content going (documenting an airplane, drug, electric car, government policy, software manual, medical device, or any other information) we manage scope, schedule, budget, quality, risk, stakeholder input, and so much more. Isn’t it about time we leveraged the best practices of project management to deliver the best documentation we can? Learn to manage projects better by knowing more about the core components of a project. Identify what these mean for tech comm. Leave with a key list of 10 knowledge areas, and an understanding of how they relate to every single tech comm project we work on. Better documentation through better management of our work. Sounds easy, right? Show up, learn how, show immediate value when you return to work.

Ben Woelk
10:30-11:20 AM | Celebration 12-13
Foundation

Many introverts struggle to succeed in the workplace when asked to “think on their feet” or to make decisions without an array of facts in hand. Much workspace design is moving to open plans, where anyone, much less introverts, may struggle with distractions and lack of privacy. Some introverts may look for leadership opportunities, but feel stymied when trying to figure out how to move up. Although not every introvert is interested in a formal leadership position (nor have the opportunity in their workplace), every introvert has the ability to become an influencer.

Join the presenter as we discuss how to identify our strengths and become influencers when we don’t have positional authority. We’ll discuss strategies that work for us and how to make sure we’re not passed over when leadership opportunities arise. We’ll also create an action plan for becoming that influencer or leader. Attendees will benefit most from the presentation if they know their Myers-Briggs/Keirsey temperament profile in advance or have used other tools such as Enneagram or Strengths Finder.

John Daigle  
10:30-11:20 AM | Celebration 15
Practitioner

Chunks of repetitive content are often reused for different audiences (in-house vs. public facing) and different outputs (print vs. online.) Shared text, tables, screenshots and multimedia assets are constantly changing. Somehow they must be kept “in synch” among a team of authors.  This session will explore solutions to help manage these challenges. While many of these techniques are not tool-specific, John will use Adobe RoboHelp 2017 to demonstrate these tips:

• Audience-specific Dynamic Content Filters and Conditional Build Tags (CBT) help you customize content for multiple audiences
• User Defined Variables (UDV) – A project-wide technique to manage changes to product names, prices, “boilerplate” snippets. Use a script to universally retrofit a project and create variables “on the fly”
• Snippets – Convert paragraphs, tables, screenshots and even multimedia tutorials to a snippet and make it possible to populate changes throughout a website in one go

Low tech alternatives to source-control – use “Live Linking” of assets such as CSS, master pages, images, multimedia and PDFs to keep authors on the same page

Helen St. Denis
10:30-11:20 AM | Tech Talk Theater, Expo Hall
Foundation

You’ve decided to implement DITA XML and you now need to convert your existing content from Word, FrameMaker or other unstructured formats. The content audit has been done and you need to figure out what you REALLY need to do to your content before you start the conversion. Attend this education session, to learn:

• What is the most useful thing to do pre-conversion?
• What kind of things influence what else you might want to do pre-conversion?
• What are the common trouble areas in the different source formats?
• What is best left for post-conversion?

Hosted by the IDL SIG
Time: 11:30 AM-1:00 PM
Contact: manager@stcidlsig.org
Location: Celebration 4

Save the date for our annual business meeting in Orlando. We will be meeting in Celebration 4 and lunch will be on us! Come hear about what we offer, what we’ve accomplished, and how you can get involved.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/idl-sig-honest-to-goodness-face-to-face-biz-mtg-lunch-buffet-tickets-45128706175

Lunch on your own
11:30 AM-1:00 PM

Explore downtown Orlando and dine at one of the many restaurants near the conference hotel.

Moderator: Beth Bailey
Panelists: Rhyne Armstrong, Lisa Meloncon, Jack Molisani, & Tavia Record
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 1-2
Foundation

As technical communicators, we all seek ways to improve our skills and tend to find the next best practice to writing a proposal, design document, learning content, marketing material, or even an email to get our ideas across successfully. Regardless of what we call ourselves, technical communicator or information designers, as more novice communicators navigate through school or finding a job, there is a common question, “What do I need to learn?” This panel of experts include an academic researcher, a hiring manager, a college student seeking to graduate, and a recruiter share their thoughts on the competencies that hiring managers seek. After presenting their ideas, they will be open to providing their thoughts on questions raised from the audience.

Aiessa Moyna
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 5
Practitioner

Technical communicators at all levels and in all settings need to work collaboratively. Whether you’re relatively new in your career or a seasoned professional, working as a lone writer/editor or leading a large department, you frequently will have to work on a cross-functional team where your success – and the success of your business – depends on collaborating with colleagues with varying backgrounds, skills and levels of expertise. What can technical communicators learn about collaboration from U2, The Beatles or Nirvana? A lot! During this session, we’ll examine the song lyrics and stories of popular rock bands to learn how successful collaborators seek diverse perspectives, build trust, bust barriers, work their networks, manage conflict and, when their best-laid plans go astray, improvise.

Rob Hanna
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 6
Expert

Intelligent agents and AI-powered cognitive content solutions perform best with machine-ready content—intelligent content designed to be read by humans and processed by computers. To deliver the right answer to prospects and customers who have questions, you’ll need to optimize your content production approaches and begin crafting content with the precision humans appreciate, and machines require. There’s no reason to create new departments full of writers dedicated to creating content specifically for chatbots and voice interfaces. A better solution is to leverage existing marketing and product content for these new delivery channels. To do so successfully, and at scale, you’ll need bridge the gap between technical communication and marketing by developing a coordinated effort designed to produce high-quality content at scale; content that is accurate, timely, and contextually-relevant. Attend this session to better understand the need for intelligent content and its applicability to chatbots, voice interfaces, and intelligent agents. You’ll discover the world of micro-content and the importance of framing information for intended user responses. And, you’ll find out how aligning information types to memory encoding principles can help you dramatically improve content performance.

Attendees for “Preparing your content for intelligent machines” should understand concepts related to structured authoring, especially with DITA/XML. Basic knowledge of chatbots and Information 4.0 will be helpful.

Related articles and resources include

• J.Gollner, Content 4.0, 28-Dec-2016, http://www.gollner.ca/2016/12/content_4-0.html
• R.Gillespie, Defining Molecular Content, 19-Jul-2017, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/defining-molecular-content-rob-gillespie/?published=t
• E.Pratt, Artificial Intelligence and Chatbots in Technical Communication – A Primer, 11-Sep-2017, https://intelligent-information.blog/en/blog/2017/09/11/artificial-intelligence-and-chatbots-in-technical-communication-a-primer

Jamie Gillenwater
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 7-8
Practitioner

In every career path, professionals help others. As a content professional, what problem do you solve? We often think content is the solution, but what is the real problem? The culture of a company influences customer, employee, and vendor relationships more than any other business asset. In this session, we will discover the relationships between the players, along with how to change your company’s culture. We will discuss the following aspects of company culture:
• Talent acquisition
• Talent development
• Hidden biases
• Leadership We will discuss how each of these pieces fit together for success, along with tools and techniques for assessing and addressing each of these areas.

Sarah O’Keefe, Dawn Stevens, & Val Swisher
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 9-10
Practitioner

Join three industry-leading consultants (Sarah O’Keefe, Val Swisher, and Dawn Stevens) for their view of the future of tech comm. What’s hot? What’s not? Where is the industry going? What do you need to do to succeed in today’s tech comm environment? Learning objectives:
* Understand big-picture tech comm trends
* Learn about skills that are and will be in demand
* Avoid career dead ends

Alisa Bonsignore
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 12-13
Practitioner

You don’t need to be the CEO to be a leader. In this session, we’ll discuss a variety of ways in which techcomm professionals can take the next step in their careers, even if traditional management roles aren’t available or desired.

Scott DeLoach
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 15
Foundation

In this session, Scott DeLoach will present design tips and tricks for MadCap Flare’s HTML5 targets using real-world examples, including projects highlighted in MadCap Software’s ever-expanding Customer Showcase, and explain how the designs can be replicated in your projects.

Daniel Foster  
1:00-1:50 PM | Tech Talk Theater, Expo Hall
Foundation

Snagit has become the #1 most used software tool among technical communicators, according to a Content Wrangler benchmark survey.

At this workshop, learn to use the new Snagit 2018 to create and update visuals for your technical content. We’ll cover tips for accelerating common workflows, updating screenshots more easily, and getting value from new features like animated GIF creation.

Bring your laptop with Snagit 2018 installed (free trial available at www.techsmith.com/snagit), if you want to follow along.

Bethany Aguad, Crystal Brezina, Nick Ducharme, & Alex Garcia
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 1-2
Foundation

The collaboration of experienced leaders with newer practitioners fosters leadership skills as the newer practitioners advance their careers and prepare to take on management roles in their companies and profession. Four young leaders detail their development from student members to Orlando Central Florida chapter leaders. Mentored by experienced professionals, these four “Rising Stars” describe the key roles they now hold within the community and how the chapter’s flourishing student mentoring and leadership development programs accelerated their growth into positions of responsibility. The presentation with interactive question and answer breakout includes a take-away handout, along with an index to an online toolkit of techniques and proven strategies to support newer members or less experienced practitioners as they prepare to assume leadership positions.

The topics covered in this session include:

• The student mentoring program as a model for workplace mentorship
• Veteran leaders training new leaders: Training entry and middle-level practitioners to assume leadership roles
• Annual Leadership Retreat as a key to strategic planning
• Fueling volunteerism with fun: integrating social activities into Administrative Council meetings

After the formal panel presentation, informal interactive discussions maximize the take-away value of the session by enabling participants to explore ways of adapting the leadership development approaches described in the session to their own STC communities and their professional careers.

Phylise Banner
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 5
Practitioner

This session will introduce to an easy-to-use and powerful visual learning design method called Learning Environment Modeling (LEM) — a unique visual language created to enhance communication and foster collaboration between instructional design professionals and diverse stakeholders. During the session, participants will learn how to:
• Visually communicate the correlation of specific design elements to learning results.
• Use Learning Environment Modeling (LEM) to collaborate effectively with blended learning project teams and clients.
• Facilitate more effective communication throughout the design process.
• Use a learning environment design system and tool to remove or reduce ego-centric behaviors and attitudes during the design process. Join us to explore how LEM supports creative learning experience design and removes barriers to communication throughout the learning design process.

Crystal Elerson
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 6
Foundation

Being able to communicate effectively requires good listening skills developed over time. Beyond using our ears to listen, we use our eyes to see and read people. Leading research experts, such as Dr. Paul Ekman, claim that without training, the average person misreads visual cues 50% of the time. That means that half the time, we are wrong in our perceptions of the feelings and thoughts of others during face-to-face meetings. In today’s technology driven world, we meet with clients, customers, and colleagues face-to-face through video-driven meetings. The visual clues we need to understand each other are in front of us all the time, but we have not learned to read them properly. This session aims to train the audience in the basics of reading faces for immediate practical use in professional settings. The soft skill of reading faces will help improve interpersonal communication and reduce misunderstandings due to faces, giving the user an edge in the work place. Updates from last year: Although this session will include much of the same material from last year, I have added updates to include gestures as part of body language.

Sara Feldman
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 7-8
Foundation

You already write quality content, but do you know if it is effective and adaptive to consumer trends? Mobile-friendly content is already a given, but a proliferation of new channels is changing the content landscape even more dramatically. Internet-connected appliances, conversational user interfaces, chatbots, augmented reality—these devices demand that content contributes to a seamless user experience. Consumer behavior and new technology is also shaping user expectations for quality content. If your content isn’t the best and quickest answer to your target users’ questions, then they will go elsewhere. Even Google’s AI is learning to favor content that most effectively fulfills the searcher’s intent. Learn about a user-focused effective content framework to guide your content decisions and learn how the future of seamless content experiences impacts your writing today.

Dawnell Claessen, Emily Kowal, & Ann Marie Queeney
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 9-10
Foundation

A presentation and discussion about the future of the profession of Policies and Procedures and our roles and the nature of our work in that future. This session will present attendees with ideas about the skills that will be most valuable for Policy Analysts, Procedures Writers, Compliance and the Process Specialists of the future. We will discuss the technologies and methods that will allow us to continue to contribute to process improvements and to the success of our organizations. This session will also discuss what will likely remain the same, and skills that are important now that we can carry into the future in our field, followed by what is sure to be different and new for Policies and Procedures Practitioners’ work in the future. This session will be beneficial to any attendees engaged in or interested in Compliance, Process Improvement, Policies and Procedures, Quality Processes and Regulatory Affairs.

Rhyne Armstrong
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 12-13
Expert

Surrounded by countless unseen horrors, your survival depends on those you choose for your team. Will you choose wisely, or will your choices be your doom? In this horrifyingly enlightening session, we will use key elements from popular leadership resources to make sure you, your team, and your organization is equipped with the tools and techniques required to stay alive! Will you be overwhelmed by those blood thirsty fiends waiting to rip you to shreds, or will you learn enough to keep the destruction at bay? Your life may depend on your attendance.

Amitoj Singh
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 15
Foundation

As Technical Communicators, it’s important to understand and stay on top of key trends as they shape the future of Technical Communication. This year, Adobe reached out to a very diverse group of Technical Communication professionals and received responses from more than 2000+ respondents across 30+ countries and 32+ industry verticals making Adobe Tech Comm. Survey 2017-2018 one of the largest Technical communication survey in the world. Join Amitoj Singh, Product Manager for Adobe Technical Communication tools, as he discusses these trends.

In this session you will learn:

• How is the adoption of structured authoring and which standards are gaining popularity
• Future of various output formats. PDF, Responsive HTML5, Mobile ouput and others
• Flight to the world of Chatbots : On runway / taken off / en route / landed?

Refreshment Break
3:00-3:45 PM | Expo Hall

Enjoy a 45-minute refreshment break before the last set of sessions on Monday afternoon.

Moderator: Marilyn Woelk
Panelists: Todd DeLuca, Jamie Gillenwater, Jennifer Shumate, & Marilyn Woelk
3:45-4:35 PM | Celebration 1-2

Join us for a discussion on the many different aspects of management. Find inspiration and practical help for your management challenges! Learn new tips for being an effective, motivated, and successful leader! Whether you are a new manager, a manager who needs greater challenges and better results, or a professional who is thinking about becoming a manager, you will benefit from this session!

Kirk St.Amant
3:45-4:35 PM | Celebration 5
Practitioner

Usable objects create and contribute value to the related organization; non-usable ones do not. Technical communicators must therefore increasingly design materials to meet the usability expectations of different audiences. They can thus benefit from approaches that help them understand and address the usability expectations of different groups. This presentation introduces technical communicators – from the novice to the experienced – to cognitive psychology models that can facilitate the design of communication products to meet the usability expectations of different audiences.

Attendees will learn how to:
— Use these models to do research related to the usability expectations of different audiences
— Apply the related findings to create materials that meet the usability expectations of these audiences
— Convey such research and design ideas in ways that connect to and contribute to an organization’s core practices Through using such approaches to guide and discuss their work, technical communicators can more effectively reveal the ways in which they contribute value to their organizations.

Melanie Seibert
3:45-4:35 PM | Celebration 6
Practitioner

The world needs more content strategists. As a tech writer, you possess valuable skills that uniquely equip you to “do content strategy.” In this talk, I’ll recap my own journey, plus provide an overview of content strategy, reasons why you should pursue this exciting field, and specific tactics that you can use to successfully transition from technical writer to content strategist.

Maria A. Flores
3:45-4:35 PM | Celebration 7-8
Practitioner

Cyber security skills are in high demand, yet in short supply. We, as technical communicators, can transition our writing and related experience into this booming domain. Learn about opportunities, audiences, and strategies for meeting the challenges of writing in for cyber security.

Joleen Hanson & Jennifer Smoot
3:45-4:35 PM | Celebration 9-10
Practitioner

Technology makes entrance into the world of international business much easier and less expensive than ever before. Few business leaders would turn away from the opportunity to grow their company in a region that was out of reach for them just a few years before. However, even when a company has the means, a global-ready business model, and an executive team eager to make the jump, they can still be knocked out of the international market before they even begin. The big questions companies should ask aren’t just about technology, finances and business plans. The bigger question should be: Is your whole team ready for the realities of intercultural communication? Managers need to prepare employees at all levels for communicating with colleagues from different cultures. With the help of recent research with a large international company, this interactive session will explore strategies and approaches for helping communication professionals proactively develop intercultural communication skills. Be proactive – don’t wait for employees to learn by trial and error!

Angela Eaton
3:45-4:35 PM | Celebration 12-13
Foundation

Joining a new field or taking on a new role in one can be stressful. Additionally, senior practitioners may be hesitant to point out where newcomers might strengthen their skills. One group of practitioners who comes into contact with most newcomers in our field is editors, who frequently review early work and have a very accurate idea of the strengths and areas for improvement in new technical writers and editors. This session will present the results of a new survey conducted of senior technical editors, asking them about how newer practitioners can improve their craft. Attendees will come away with a handout describing the most commonly mentioned issues and strategies for dealing with them. Faculty members will also benefit from learning about what skills advanced practitioners think newcomers could strengthen.

Lisa Pietrangeli
3:45-4:35 PM | Celebration 15
Foundation

Ever wonder if what content management and reuse solution vendors are telling you really works? Will implementation really go as smoothly as they claim? Does the solution excel in our top 3 “Must Haves”? In this presentation, Lisa Pietrangeli, will provide practical information about how to explore technology, prioritize your needs, and plan your implementation. Using a real-world use case based on her experience with an actual customer, Lisa will provide specific information about what to expect and how to ensure a smooth implementation for your team.

Florida Chapter
7:30-10:30 PM
Orlando Restaurants

Come join us for a fun night of networking, relaxing, and socializing with other 2018 STC Summit attendees. …and what better way to do all that than with a “pub crawl”

We are currently finalizing our starting points, which are located in two major gathering points on International Drive: “Pointe Orlando” and “I-Drive 360,” home to the Orlando Eye.

Pointe Orlando is within walking distance of the hotel, while I-Drive 360 is a bit further away and can be reached by car (free parking available), Uber/Lyft/Lynx, or by riding the I-Drive Trolley, which runs until 10:30PM (2 tickets to the trolley are included for those staying at the host hotel).

Stay tuned for more information!! We will be posting the pub list soon, as well as instructions on what you need to do to attend. Please note that you must be a Summit attendee to attend this event.

The Florida Chapter looks forward to seeing you there!

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2018-stc-summit-pub-crawl-tickets-45175710767

Registration Open
7:30 AM-4:30 PM | Outside Expo Hall

Continental Breakfast
8:00-8:45 AM | Expo Hall

Expo Hall Open
8:00 AM-4:00 PM | Windermere Ballroom

Meet the 2018 exhibitors and sponsors

Bruce Poropat
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 5
Practitioner

What we write must compete for the attention of readers who navigate oceans of words every day. Good technical writing has always require brevity, but it’s more critical that ever that we don’t dilute our writing with extra words, complex phrasing, and extraneous information.

This talk outlines:

• How to spot common wordy pitfalls that waste reader time.
• Ways to distill sentences into just what the reader needs to know.
• The benefits of minimalist prose in technologies like responsive web design.

Jessica Kreger
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 6
Foundation

You’ve got the words down pat, and are a pro at writing and editing. But when it comes to design or working with designers, well, that’s a different story. Fear not, as this crash course in UI/UX design for students and new technical communicators will illustrate the basics of how to use user interface (UI) design to improve the user experience (UX) of both your products and your help system. Join Jessica Kreger, Senior Manager of Client Training and Education at TradeStation, an award-winning online brokerage firm, as she demonstrates how to enhance the design of online help systems. We will cover key topics including: basic UI/UX terminology; making visual-verbal communication; using screenshots, photos, and video; developing personas to guide design decisions; using designers and design software; and proving impacts to your bottom line. You’ll leave the workshop with the foundational knowledge to apply the basics of design yourself and work with UI/UX designers; an array of metrics to prove the value of user-friendly interfaces; and many expert references for more information.

Peter “Scotch” Scocimara
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 9-10
Foundation

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have been described as the 4th Industrial Revolution. In this review of the three prior revolutions, Peter Scocimara from Google Cloud will talk about possible changes to how we work, how we interact with machines and how we can prepare for a world where AI is ubiquitous.

Val Swisher
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 9-10
Foundation

Join subject matter expert, Val Swisher (CEO, Content Rules) for a highly illuminating and thought provoking exploration into artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential impact upon the future of content management.

In this talk learn more about:
• How at its heart AI is a sophisticated natural language processor.
• The synergy between content management/taxonomies and training AI natural linguistic patterning.
• How content management is critical to AI effectiveness in data mining dark content and determining future applications such as virtual agents and chat bots.

Michael Ward & Lacey Corbin
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 12-13
Practitioner

If you think translation is a confusing black box, this session is for you. You do not need to speak another language to ensure that your documents are spot on for readers around the world. We will reveal what really happens to your technical documents when they go to a translator and talk about what translators wish you as the document’s author knew beforehand. By starting your technical project with translation in mind, you will be ahead of the game. In the future, you will be able to save time, money, and heartache by preparing documents that are 100% ready for translation so that your clients (and readers) around the world stay happy.

Liz Fraley
9:00-9:50 AM | Tech Talk Theater, Expo Hall
Foundation

There are experts on every tool and technology, and they always think there’s only one solution (or, at least, they present it that way). Somehow it always seems like the tool experts recommend is the one that’s their bread and butter. When you try to do it yourself, it can feel like you’re comparing apples to cars. In this session, we’ll talk about what works where (classifications, contexts, and situations) and answer questions like “if you have X and Y, do you have the same thing as B and C?”

Moderator: Julie Dwyer
Panelists: Alyssa Fox, Liz Pohland, Jane Wilson, & Ben Woelk
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 1-2

It’s the Summit’s 65^th anniversary, and what have we learned over the years? …Technology moves quickly, and whether we’re writing and designing for hardware and software—or robots and AI, we technical communicators are always expanding our knowledge and resources to prepare for the future.

As we prepare for the future of STC, join our town hall session to tell tales, ask questions, and discuss constructive ideas.

How can individual members contribute to the future of STC? What lessons learned do you think everyone should know? How can we innovate for the future? Whether you’re a new or seasoned member, don’t miss this opportunity to help shape the future of your organization.

Sarah O’Keefe
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 5
Practitioner

Assets have long life, and their value depreciates over time. Does content meet that definition? Some content does not. A tweet is usually short-lived with relevance measured in hours or, at best, days. But other content lives for months or years. An aircraft maintenance manual, for example, or a product description might remain relevant for several years after being created. What makes content an asset? A content asset is information that helps a customer accomplish a task. Content that you can deliver in multiple formats is more valuable than content locked into a single delivery mechanism. Content with metadata is more valuable than content without metadata. Some content just doesn’t contribute to the user experience. It provides information, but not useful information. The formatting is not particularly attractive. Readers ignore or throw away the document. This type of content is sadly common. The level of effort required to create it is significant, but the result is a content liability. Join us to learn about how to make sure that your content and your publishing infrastructure are an asset to your business and not a liability.

Tina M. Kister
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 6
Practitioner

Good page design is an essential component of effective technical communication. It ensures that information is easy to find, read, understand, and remember. It can elicit an immediate and positive visceral response, which also facilitates effective communication. Good page design is a discipline that can be achieved by applying fairly simple guidelines based on an understanding of the science of human visual perception.

This presentation explores the scientific phenomena related to visual perception and how these phenomena form the foundation of best practices in page design. We look at how sensation processes (in the eye) provide the foundation for basic design elements, and how translation processes (in the brain) provide the foundation for basic design principles. Basic design elements and principles can then be combined, based on simple math and logic, to create documents that are both useful and visually appealing. The presentation is appropriate for everyone.

Erica Cummings
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 7-8
Foundation

“Did you get a chance to review that draft I sent you?” As writers, it’s a question we’ve all asked. And at some point, most of us have gotten little more than a blank stare in response. Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of writing is getting the type of feedback you need, in the format you need it, in a timely fashion. The more steps in the writing/editing workflow process there are, the higher the chances it can get hung up somewhere. But we can’t just ax the process altogether. We need feedback to ensure we deliver quality content. In this session, we’ll discuss some of the frustrations we all experience when attempting to move our content through the workflow process. More importantly, some of solutions to this problem I’ve seen work in my own company will be covered as well. This includes improving team accountability, building an effective/repeatable process, and leveraging tools where you can. Having a solid process for moving content through the workflow will help you in the fast-paced future of technical communication.

Bernard Aschwanden
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 9-10
Foundation

We’ve come to think of it like this: content is content. Marketing and technical communications are generated for the same end users at different points in the product adoption life-cycle. The distinction between marketing communications and technical communications is far less pronounced than it once was. Managers sometimes see little difference in skill-sets and often put content creators together in one role or department – and maybe they’re right. During our careers we’re often dealing with a lot of technical content but also creating marketing communications; we’re in a good position to see how very little difference there might be between them. They’re both an always-on dialogue with the user, just at different points in the product adoption life-cycle. We’ll explore the audiences who consume content, ideas related to a seamless content experience, how both training and support factor into this, and talk about implementation ideas.

Elizabeth Bailey
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 12-13
Foundation

Every technical communicator, whether controlling a single large project or a dozen small ones, must develop a set of management skills appropriate to managing a documentation effort. This session speaks to the skills that are necessary managing these efforts and is appropriate for the new technical communicator. Attendees will walk away with a better understanding of the skills needed and have a better idea of how they can enhance their own skill set.

Dustin Vaughn
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 15
Foundation

The line between pre-sales and post-sales continues to blur. Our customers expect a conversation – an experience. Much of the purchasing decision happens outside of the “normal” (aka outdated) view of the purchase funnel. Surviving in this environment requires a shift in focus towards a compelling digital experience.

Join Dustin Vaughn, Head of Solutions Consulting at Adobe, as he discusses the shift to digital experience and how tech pubs can drive this critical organizational change.

In this session you will learn:

• How the convergence of pre and post-sales content impacts business
• How technical writers can influence the shift towards a digital experience
• How to deliver a compelling experience to your customer

Lisa Pietrangeli
10:10-11:00 AM | Tech Talk Theater, Expo Hall
Foundation

Is Microsoft Word letting you down? 36Software is pleased to present SmartDocs – The only completely collaborative content reuse and management solution for your MS Word content. Optimize what your company already has and relies on. Get more than you ever thought possible out of Word and SharePoint with SmartDocs as your solution. Don’t leave anybody out – SmartDocs is for everyone, no matter where they work.

SmartDocs is just a fraction of the cost, training, and set-up time to XML or DITA-based CMS solutions. Proven. And, unlike other solutions, SmartDocs is scalable and affordable for teams of 5 to 5000. Join Lisa Pietrangeli and Bryan Lynn to experience everything that SmartDocs can do, without ever leaving your Word environment. Bring your questions and Word content challenges. SmartDocs will solve them!

Hosted by the Academic SIG
Time: 11:00 AM-1:00 PM
Contact: Beth Agnew, beth.agnew@senecacollege.ca
Location: Celebration 5

Hosted by the Consulting & Independent Contracting SIG
Time: 11:00 AM-1:00 PM
Contact: Marilyn Woelk, marilynw@wingzcreative.com
Location: Celebration 15

Hosted by the Policies and Procedures SIG
Time: 11:00 AM-1:00 PM
Contact: Emily Kowal, ecelaric@gmail.com
Location: Celebration 10

Hosted by the Technical Editing SIG
Time: 11:00 AM-1:00 PM
Contact: Amanda Swiontek (Amanda.swiontek@stc-techedit.org)
Location: Copper Canyon Grill, 9101 International Drive, #1220

Those who want to walk over with us can meet in front of the Urban Tide restaurant at 11am. We’ll head over at 11:15am. The SIG will pay for our members’ lunch. Non-members are also welcome. RSVP and food-ordering link.

Lunch on your own
11:00 AM-1:00 PM

Explore downtown Orlando and dine at one of the many restaurants near the conference hotel.

Deanne Levander
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 1-2
Foundation

Every professional group has a body of knowledge, and STC is no exception. We have the TCBOK! This session explores the content available on the TCBOK, how to use it, and how (and why) to contribute content. TCBOK Committee members will be on hand to answer questions. Attendees are encouraged to develop content in advance and submit it during the session.

Jamye Sagan
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 5
Foundation

As technical communicators, we can help communicate the future by being ready to tackle any project we receive – even ones outside our realms of expertise. For instance, our clients and employers may ask us to help develop training materials and programs, even if we have never formally studied instructional design. Education plays a crucial role in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. At Hogwarts, the school where Harry Potter and his friends study magic, we witness several examples of instruction in action. Each of these professors – whether terrible or terrific –has important lessons to share with us regarding effective instructional design and training delivery.

In this presentation, we will profile various Hogwarts professors, and analyze the effectiveness of their lesson delivery. Within the lens of each professor profile, we will share practical tips on tackling common training issues, as well as provide some real-life (aka Muggle) training examples. By the end of the presentation, you will have the necessary tools to confidently tackle many basic training requests. Even if you have neither read the Harry Potter books nor watched the movies, you can still learn something from the Hogwarts professors.

Melanie Seibert
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 6
Practitioner

Designing content for a familiar interface—like a desktop computer or smartphone—presents a number of challenges. But soon you’ll be asked to design content for a conversational interface, or chatbot, which presents a whole new set of opportunities and constraints. Each type of chatbot (voice or text) has its own abilities and requirements. How do you create helpful experiences for these interfaces? Together, we’ll learn to think beyond the screen, and take advantage of the exciting potential of the conversational UI.

Vishal George Palliyathu
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 7-8
Practitioner

AI driven Chatbots are a rage now. Would these make the current documentation libraries obsolete? Or would our current doc source be leveraged to be made as a good corpus to chatbots. We do live in very intresting times, and our careers too need to transform!

Dan Day
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 9-10
Practitioner

Artificial intelligence can write, spell, check grammar and build a story. So what separates it from us, as human technical communicators, in the future? Our Social Intelligence can save us, if we understand and learn to apply it–and that’s exactly what this session does! You’ll learn how to:
– Understand Social Intelligence and how it affects how we communicate
– Become more versatile, adapting to the communication styles of others…something AI cannot do
– Leverage your individual human strengths to become a better communicator You will leave this workshop with a toolkit you can apply immediately to become a more effective, socially intelligent communicator.

Rhyne Armstrong & Nate Wolf
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 12-13
Practitioner

Do your docs match your marketing? Does that match the on-screen text? If not, why not, and who made that horrible decision? In this session, we discuss how our team is driving brand language for our product, how we are dictating voice and tone, and why it makes sense coming from us. Learn about the struggles we face, and how we are doing this on an enterprise level. Don’t just be a passenger on the road to customer understanding, take control of the wheel!

Tom Aldous, Alexander Lum, & Susanna Carlisi
1:00-1:50 PM | Celebration 15
Practitioner

Moving to DITA can be complex. It takes careful planning, the ever-elusive budget, and proper execution to ensure a successful implementation without slowing the company down. And, until now, there hasn’t been a very clear demonstration of how to execute a transition to DITA in depth. However, if you attend this session, you will learn just how Susanna Carlisi of Ciena and Tom Aldous of The Content Era, collaborated to successfully implement DITA within Ciena with a modest budget and a team that understands the big picture.

This session will be valuable for anyone interested in the following:

• Transitioning to XML/DITA
• Implementing Adobe FrameMaker or other XML environments
• DITA on a modest budget
• Executive approval using bigger business objectives
• XSLT and ExtendScripts
• Structured Authoring

Craig Baehr & Liz Pohland
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 1-2
Practitioner

Join CEO Liz Pohland, Chief Examiner Craig Baehr, and CPTC trainers to talk about the program and your questions about becoming professionally certified. These experts will answer questions on everything including study strategies, resources, continuing education, and other aspects of the program.

Kirk St.Amant
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 5
Foundation

Individuals in technical communication generally acknowledge the importance of research in advancing the field in the future. Industry practitioners and academic researchers, however, often differ over what research is and how it should be done. Recent work in this area reveals certain approaches can foster effective research-based collaboration across these areas. This presentation overviews these approaches. Designed for technical communicators in industry and academia, the presentation examines how each group has historically viewed research and how it adds value over time.

In reviewing these ideas, the presenter will note areas of overlap across industry and academia and explain how such overlap can help bridge different perceptions of research. By introducing strategies for engaging in research, the presenter will reveal how both groups can establish meaningful collaborations that benefit all involved. (The presenter will also review examples of how such approaches have led to effective industry-academic research partnerships in the past.) The presentation will conclude by noting how attendees can foster such research-based partnerships within the field and discuss how such partnership can help examine ideas of value and value creation in the future.

Shadi Abou-Zahra
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 6
Foundation

The Web has come a long way from its static and document-oriented origins to today’s highly rich and dynamic web-based applications. Yet there is much more to come. Advances in natural language processing allows for increased voice-based and multi-lingual interactions, and artificial intelligence applications allow for on-the-fly adaptations and personalization of web content. At the same time, web-based virtual-, augmented-, and mixed-reality applications are emerging and rapidly evolving. These technological advances provide unparalleled opportunities for people with disabilities. At the same time, ensuring accessibility of your web content today facilitates its uptake by the emerging technologies of the future.

Takeaways:
* Advances in AI, such as AI-based image and voice recognition, provide critical opportunities for accessible content authoring
* Advances in AI are also critical to overcome the challenges of making advanced technologies, such as VR, AR, and XR, accessible
* Essential concepts of accessibility, such as understandable content, facilitate AI-based applications, such as translations
* Making web content accessible makes it usable for a broader audience, and for other uses such as adaptation and personalization.

Alexandra Cata
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 7-8
Practitioner

Examining successful, free mobile games is an easy, fun, and cost-effective means of quickly experiencing effective or ineffective mobile usability, while also providing an easy entry point into mobile design. This approach is relevant because technical communication already leans on general game design for other methods, such as gamification. Additionally, technical communication research is beginning to specifically examine video games and how technical communicators can work within that space.

In this presentation I will:

• Discuss why mobile games are relevant and worth examining.
• Provide a heuristic for evaluating mobile games using Joe Welsinke’s 4 C’s from Developing User Assistance for Mobile Apps 2nd ed.
• Apply the heuristic to three different mobile games while discussing both mobile app and mobile game design methods.

Darcy Beery & Stacy Barton
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 9-10
Practitioner

Given the choice between finding the user manual or googling a short video on YouTube, many users would prefer to both hear and see the information being presented, especially younger generations who have been raised with technology. The basic concepts of video production need no longer be shrouded in the the mysterious aura of Hollywood as consumer technology has become both cost effective and highly professional. If you or your company have been toying with the idea of producing videos for clients or customers, but have fretted about the costs or effectiveness of this method, take heart it is now easier and more anticipated than ever before.

Lisa Meloncon
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 12-13
Practitioner

90 million Americans lack health literacy skills to productively participate and engage in their own health care. And as we well know, technical communicators are adept at producing and designing information that can be understood by specific, targeted audiences. With this growing need for health communication specialist, the question becomes how do technical communicators participate? What can we do to enter/contribute to this discussion? We can apply our knowledge of usability, methodology, and technical communication to patient education in what I call patient experience design (PXD). In this presentation, I explain what PXD is, how PXD developed and describe a successful project to illustrate that the future is now for the merging of technical communication to health communication.

Bernard Aschwanden
2:10-3:00 PM | Celebration 15
Practitioner

Migrating content to a component content management system (CCMS) clearly has costs associated with it. In many cases the costs of NOT migrating can be even higher. How do you make the business case that it’s time to move to a CCMS? This case study session talks about the costs a business faced, how they justified their migration to a CCMS, and some of the results they have seen. Through planning, content strategy, migration, and training content is clarified, simplified, reused, and the dollars are documented. Learn how to make the case for a CCMS based on more than cost cutting. Learn tips to make the case that your documentation and a great CCMS can reduce costs, generate revenue, and improve the business top AND bottom lines!

In this session you will learn how to:

• Differentiate between a CMS and CCMS.
• Bring down costs and facilitate reuse with a CCMS.
• Drive sales and help increase revenue by using structured content management.
• Five steps to evaluate a CCMS.

Exhibitor Raffle Drawings, Refreshment Break
3:00-4:00 PM | Expo Hall

Enjoy a 1-hour refreshment break before the last set of sessions on Tuesday afternoon. Find out who won the vendor raffles.

Moderator: Liz Herman
Panelists: Nicky Bleiel, Alyssa Fox, Lisa Meloncon, & Tavia Record
4:00-4:50 PM | Celebration 1-2

Join us for an engaging dialogue where panelists at varying stages of their careers provide thoughtful insights around current events pertaining to women in technology and technical communication. Learn firsthand how these professional women navigate career development, mentorship, leadership, and career advancement. Hear from women engaged in academia, consulting, content management, proposal management, and business development. In addition, find out more about STC’s new Women in Tech Comm Special Interest Group (SIG). Don’t miss what is sure to be a lively conversation.

Noel Atzmiller
4:00-4:50 PM | Celebration 5
Practitioner

This session is intended for technical communicators who have been tasked with providing technical writing training to engineers (and other highly educated, technical individuals). Attendees receive information about 10 lessons learned that they can use when developing and leading their training sessions.

Sudhir Subudhi
4:00-4:50 PM | Celebration 6
Expert

Target audience: Technical Writers, Documentation Managers, Content Strategists, and other decision makers, business stakeholders Concept: Currently, many organizations know the benefits of User Experience (UX) or Information Experience (IX) in particular for content industry. These subjects are fascinating. Yet It’s just theory to most organizations. Putting it into practice organizationally is a real challenge. Many are unaware where they are, where to start and where to end. Through this session, I will explain a sample IX Maturity Model, that content experts in a company can implement, to mature the company as a whole, phase-wise.

Takeaway: Printout of IX Maturity Model; Printout of IX tools and methods at different stages of a project; Content experts and stakeholders can visualize where they stand and what activities they can do next; and companies can see what level of IX they can implement immediately.

Kim Chmielewicz
4:00-4:50 PM | Celebration 7-8
Practitioner

Technical communicators in environments that do not invest in the latest tools and applications may feel disadvantaged by their perceived lack of resources. In such scenarios, writers/illustrators/information architects do not need to do more work, but deeper work. “Deep work” is significant reflection and thoughtful organization not solely driven to display information in automated formats, but uses customized structures to reflect the way data is most useful to the employees, customers, and vendors of organizations. Learn how to utilize your professional experiences and unique best practices via considered analysis and honest reflection on solutions you have created, and practice techniques that enable closer listening to your occupational muse and your collaborators in service of asking better questions to obtain more robust insights. This discipline leads directly to more useful and valuable outcomes for your customers and extends your confidence in your communication skills. Be prepared to contribute some of your own insights to our discussion and to be potentially overwhelmed by all the possible applications this new framing may unlock for you!

Robert Delwood
4:00-4:50 PM | Celebration 9-10
Practitioner

Regular expressions take find and replace to new levels. You can find text *patterns*, not just exact text. With patterns you can find, replace and even format all the phone numbers, replace all span tags in a Flare document (“<span>my text</span>” with “my text”), find every e-mail address in a document all documents names, all dates formats, and words you’re not even sure how they’re spelled, like Jeffrey, or Jeff, Jeffery, and Geoffrey. Do each of these in a single search. This ability, also called regex, is described as find on steroids. Learn how Flare supports find using regular expressions. It’s not limited to one product. This works with any text based product. With other tools, such as NotePad++, you can make changes to one or more files at the same time. It’s versatile enough that writers and programmers alike can use it, and opens a new world to find and replace.

Larry Kunz
4:00-4:50 PM | Celebration 12-13
Practitioner

Your technical communication future will take place against a backdrop of corporate change. Whether you’re a permanent employee or a contractor, the companies you work for will evolve through mergers, acquisitions, and realignments. This session prepares managers and team leads for this future of inorganic growth. You’ll learn the dynamics of combining diverse teams, workflows, and tool sets. A case study describes how one company anticipated and handled the upheaval that resulted from three major mergers within a year. Larry Kunz describes how he led a cross-corporate team that successfully integrated three separate DITA content bases — each with different configurations and workflows — onto a single content management system. Larry and his management team also worked to align corporate cultures, preserving the best aspects of each company while being sensitive to employees’ concerns and fears. Their approach emphasized empathetic listening and clear communication. You’ll leave this session with practical, proven ideas for smoothing transitions and building new, unified teams.

Tamas Rasch
4:00-4:50 PM | Celebration 15
Foundation

Understanding how product documentation is consumed can fuel your company with data that has the potential to transform operations and impact strategic decisions. To gain this insight, you need to change the way you track and mine the behavior of users when they search, read and interact with your technical content. By combining the latest delivery, text-mining and analytics technologies, you will transform tech content into a sensor and its delivery into a data generator. You will thereby unleash a tremendous potential of information innovation.

After reviewing the flaws of the “old” approaches to content analytics, we will study how to properly capture the interactions of users with content. We will also explore the different levels of value that we can derive from modern delivery, text-mining and analytics technologies. We will see how those new technologies can multiply the value of tech content.

Annual Business Meeting
5:30-6:30 PM | Windermere Ballroom

STC’s Annual Business Meeting will be held on Tuesday, 22 May, at 5:30 PM. Plan to attend to congratulate STC’s 2018-2019 Board of Directors and incoming STC President Jane Wilson. Click here to view the rules for the meeting.

Florida Chapter
7:30-10:30 PM
Orlando Restaurants

LET’S EAT! STC SUMMIT DINER MEETUP RESTAURANTS

Below are the list of restaurants participating in our “Diner Meetup.” Remember tickets are free, however, you are responsible for the cost of your meal and all beverages.
Click here to reserve your space: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2018-stc-summit-diner-meetup-tickets-45176330621

Each person attending needs to sign up separately!

Tapa Toro – delicious Spanish cuisine and entertainment
Taverna Opa – Greek food, nightly belly dancing and live music
Lafayette’s – Creole / Cajun / Southern, Burgers, Pizzeria
Marlow’s Tavern – Classic America Tavern Fare
Blue Martini – Martinis & champagne accompany a global tapas menu, live music & daily specials
Tin Roof Orlando – Unpretentious shotgun shack bar & music venue with creative takes on American pub food
Sofra Mediterranean Grill – fresh and healthy flavors of the Mediterranean, sharing the most authentic and exotic recipes that have been passed down for generations
Copper Canyon Grill – Casual, family-friendly American restaurant known for its crisp salads, fresh seafood, rotisserie chicken, wood grilled steaks and chops

Registration Open
7:30-9:30 AM | Outside Expo Hall

Coffee Service
8:00-8:45 AM | Outside Expo Hall

Joshua Santora, Communications, NASA/Kennedy Space Center
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 1-2
Foundation

People love watching steel cans being catapulted into space, but do they appreciate the “how” or have any interested in the “what?” When the flash of rocket launch fades, there is a lot to communicate and most of it is drenched in technical jargon. NASA is continually faced with the challenge of drawing in the general public and helping them appreciate some of the most technical concepts known to man. Joshua will share his insights on wading through the technical to captivate an audience!

Jennifer Goode
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 5
Practitioner

Podcasting is one of the fastest growing areas of content production today. How can technical communication instructors capitalize on this rapidly expanding technology? This session will demonstrate how students can develop technical skills, increase content knowledge and understanding, and refine communication skills as they create podcasts for their course projects. It will also introduce the tools and technology necessary to set up your own course podcasting project. Finally, the session will share instructor and student reflections from a recent course that used podcasts as a major course project.

Soren Weimann
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 6
Foundation

Writing tools for modular content and reuse are becoming more and more accessible allowing SMEs to directly author documentation to be used for advanced processing and reuse. That does not mean that the need for technical documentation specialists are decreasing – but it means that the job is changing. SMEs are not likely have a natural interest in how all the links and dependencies in modular content allow them to be more effective. Please join me for a hands-on example of how technical writers and content architects can allow SMEs to write modular content and maximize consistency and reuse by preparing pre-filled writing templates and maintain deliverables while SMEs just write in their preferred tools.

Nicky Bleiel
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 7-8
Practitioner

Artificial intelligence systems can take technical content and deliver it in potentially unlimited ways, but will it change the way we write content?  In this presentation, we will consider how artificial intelligence works, how AI systems are trained, and what AI systems can learn from content.  We’ll also discuss the capabilities of AI-based chatbots, how chatbots can supplement traditional content deliverables, and if we need to fundamentally change the way we provide content to feed chatbots and other AI systems.

Andy Hines
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 9-10
Foundation

This session introduces the art and science of futurists. Participants will learn how futurists scan for “signals” of change, how they craft stories of how the future might turn out differently, and how they influence and communicate about the future. They will come away with handy tips and tools that will be immediately useful for being prepared for the changes ahead in the future.

Jack Molisani
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 12-13
Practitioner

In this session, professional recruiter Jack Molisani will share how the content strategy team at Facebook for Business enables success for billions of customers in over 100 languages worldwide. Then he’ll share how what he learned from Facebook for Business fundamentally changed his approach to his job and his career. First, watch an 18 minute TED-like keynote by Margo Merrill Fernandez, the Manager of Content Strategy at Facebook for Business: https://meet42914024.adobeconnect.com/p8jdpsdn6db Then attend Jack’s entertaining and enlightening talk on how Margo’s presentation inspired his realization about personal branding that fundamentally changed his approach to content strategy, his job, and his career. Will you have the same career-changing realization Jack did? Attend this session and find out! 

Matt Sullivan
9:00-9:50 AM | Celebration 15
Practitioner

Technical communicators seemingly get additional responsibilities and support for new technologies on a quarterly basis. From structure (DITA/XML), to reuse (across documents and business groups), and near-simultaneous omnichannel delivery to mobile, print, and web.

Join Matt Sullivan, author of a series of FrameMaker workbooks and reference books for a look at how Adobe FrameMaker helps you easily meet today’s requirements and the requirements you’re only just starting to hear about.

In this session you will learn how Adobe FrameMaker can help you:

• reduce time and cost of producing content by working with standards and structure
• share content across departments and job function
• slash time and effort needed to produce multiple versions and outputs of content
• seamlessly work with unstructured content and one or more content models in the same session
• easily work with up-and-coming content models like Lightweight DITA

This is a great chance to find out the absolute latest news about FrameMaker, TCS, and the rest of the Adobe product line.

Gale Naylor
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 1-2
Foundation

Are you transitioning to technical writing from another career? Or just starting out? Perhaps you’re looking to make a move into writing developer docs. In this session, I’ll tell you how I used my experience on an open source project to land a full-time technical writing position at Facebook. You’ll learn a little bit about open source projects: what they are; where you can find them; and what I think you can learn by contributing to one. Then, I’ll share my experience and suggest ways to get noticed and become a contributing team member. Finally, I’ll tell you about the other things I did that led to my success, along with a list of resources to get you started.

Li-At Rathbun
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 5
Foundation

When our boss or client says “good enough” work is good enough, shouldn’t it be good enough? Why is it a struggle to produce mediocre work when that’s what the customer wants? Yes, one day the powers-that-be will agree that all documentation must be flawless and superb. But how do we survive until that day comes? This session:
• Explores reasons for why mediocre work might be okay
• Teaches us a mantra—for those times we just need to hunker down and deliver so much less than what we’re capable of
• Is a venting session! In our cone of silence, we will close our eyes, use anonymous names, and share our travails. We will learn we are not alone in the trenches of mediocrity!*
* No, of course you’ve never worked on a project of this sort; I’m talking to the others. You’ll just be there “to observe.”

Dustin Vaughn
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 6
Practitioner

Marketing, Sales, and many other groups rely heavily on analytic data to make critical business decisions. However, when it comes to technical documentation, the most common approach to analytics is often to “hope and pray”. Join Dustin Vaughn, Solutions Consulting Manager with Adobe, to discuss how analytics can dramatically impact the career possibilities of the technical communicator by facilitating a transition from a cost center to a value center within the organization. We will also discuss how to align strategically within the organization to enhance your visibility and opportunities for success.

Crystal Elerson & Terry Smith
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 7-8
Foundation

During the 40-minute session, Elerson and Smith will present their preliminary findings related to reading in digital media from 2D screen to virtual reality. They will cover how reader cues translate between 2D and 3D, and between a static and interactive environment. This session will include screenshots and short videos to show methods of good and problematic communication in virtual reality to demonstrate the value of our recommendations.

Mike Parkinson
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 9-10
Foundation

Attend this high-energy, interactive session and harness the power of infographics to improve understanding, recollection and adoption. Learn how to turn words, data and ideas into clear, compelling infographics. See examples of what works and how it was made. At the end of this session, apply what you have leaned and create your own infographic. NO design skill required or previous experience needed. Apply your new skills in PowerPoint, Adobe Creative Suite and any other graphics software. All attendees get Mike’s Graphic Cheat Sheet, step-by-step guide to make professional graphics in PowerPoint, and low-cost and free graphics websites. Arrive early. This session fills fast.

Key takeaways:
– Spend less money and time making graphics using Mike’s Graphic Cheat Sheet, How to Make Professional PowerPoint Graphics guide, and low-cost and free graphics websites.
– Turn words and ideas into clear, compelling infographics.
– Visualize anything and improve writing and development speeds up to 50%.

Gretyl Kinsey
10:10-11:00 AM | Celebration 12-13
Foundation

Quick access to cancer staging information leads to faster diagnoses and improves patient care—which is a challenge when the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) Cancer Staging Manual is only available in print. What if the manual’s content were integrated into electronic medical records to help doctors find the information they need via API instead? The AJCC faced numerous challenges in implementing a structured content solution for electronic delivery. To ensure that API delivery would work as intended, the AJCC had to move unstructured content into strict, consistently used tags. The AJCC also had to make its new delivery methods work with existing health information systems, as well as minimize the impact of the new structure on the doctors who serve as volunteer content contributors. This case study shows how Scriptorium worked with the AJCC to build a DITA specialization that allowed them to implement such a solution.

Honors Event- Keynote Speaker
Andy Hines
11:00 AM-1:00 PM | Windermere Ballroom

The Honors Event is the last event of the Summit and will be held Wednesday, 23 May, at 11:15 AM. Brunch will be served with this event and  Andy Hines will wrap up what you learned about “the future of how we work, where we work, and you at work” at the Summit. Additionally, we’ll celebrate STC’s individual award winners, as well as the Most Improved Community and Community of the Year recipients.