STC Rochester Spectrum 2019

The internet has significantly changed workplace teams. Do you use email, instant messaging, online meetings, or discussion boards to collaborate or communicate with coworkers? Congratulations, you’re part of a virtual team! However, the dynamics of these teams are different and the methodologies organizations use today don’t meet the needs of a distributed, diverse, and international workforce. But you can improve the situation by joining us in this session to learn what others are doing and share your own experiences and suggestions. The speaker has been a virtual worker and manager for over 8 years and understands virtual team issues and opportunities. He will present challenges and solutions to change the experience from frustrating to positive and also guide a frank group discussion. The old rules don’t apply to virtual teams, so join us to learn new rules (and which to break). You and your teammates will be glad you did

Since the opening of Disneyland in 1955, Disney’s Imagineers have been entertaining audiences of all ages at Disney parks around the world by bringing stories to life through immersive and engaging experiences. What does that have to do with technical communication? More than you might think! Communication is at the heart of everything the Imagineers do, and there is a lot we can learn about technical communication by looking more closely at Imagineering and how it has developed over the years. This presentation provides an overview of some of the practices, principles, and processes used by Walt Disney Imagineering in the design and construction of Disney parks and attractions, and how those practices, principles, and processes can be applied to technical communication and information development to help us create effective and engaging experiences for our audiences.

As a Technical Communicator, you’re adding value to your organization by facilitating a two-way knowledge flow between your organization and its customer users. Harness the basic principles of Agile methodology while leveraging your existing communications skills as well as your position in the middle of the knowledge lifecycle to transform your information sinkholes into a transformational workflow for your team. In this session, you’ll learn how our team adopted the Agile principles of simplification, iteration and continuous feedback and applied them to our workload—making the necessary and frequent required updates to our various documentation channels less of a headache. Learn how to make change good for your documentation and your team.

Virtual Reality is the cutting edge of gaming entertainment, with emerging technology that immerses players in new worlds like nothing we've seen before. But VR is increasingly being used for real-world applications in a wide variety of industries, not just for games. In this session, we'll look at how VR enables us to create training and educational experiences that are engaging, impactful, and address the challenges of employee training in innovative ways. From concept to implementation, we'll talk about the development of virtual reality experiences, including multi-disciplinary team roles, needs assessment, planning, graphic and textual content development, and deployment. We'll also explore how the platforms of virtual reality and augmented reality have created a paradigm shift in designing user experiences, and the interesting challenges presented by these new technologies. You'll also have the chance to try out virtual reality for yourself!

Can we take what we've done in the past and use it to move to the future? Sure! Microsoft Office uses XML behind the scenes. How do you move from unstructured to structured content AND make what you create as accessible to others as possible? In this session Bernard explores a bit of what we've done in the past (write unstructured content) and explores how to think about re-working that information. We'll take a Word file, perform quick analysis in Excel, rework the content, then migrate it to structured DITA content. Once it's converted we'll upload it to the cloud and showcase edits, reviews, and publish to multiple channels. Attendees help to create a simple document that is then analyzed, modified, reviewed, and published, live, in a single session. See and participate in the workflow taking ideas of the past and applying them to content for the future.

In this presentation, we'll learn how the partnership of technical communication and user interaction, from the early phases of development through product release, improves the user experience. We'll hear two perspectives from those in the trenches: a technical writer and an interaction designer at Sonos, creators of the leading whole-home sound system. They'll share how they've successfully collaborated on content in apps to create a better user experience.

As organizations mature their content management needs grow. The journey from Microsoft Word to desktop publishing to content management can be difficult; especially for companies whose specialty is science, not communication. INFICON is in the process of moving from desktop publishing to content management using ST4 by Schema and the challenges we are facing are instructive for those considering a similar move.

How do you know what the future holds? How do you know what to do to make sure you’re ready for it? Do you invest in skills? Do you buy a tool? Take a class? What? How do you prepare for the future when you don’t know what’s there?

Some people say that if you want to guarantee your success in the future, you have to make a change.  Buy this tool. Choose this architecture. Take this class. Write for translation. Convert your content so it creates a good user experience. Change it now! Do it all at once! Make a grand, sweeping execution of committed action. Boom! You’re completely different. You’re safe.

But that’s not how it happens. Successful people know that in order to achieve sustainable, repeatable, and lasting change, you do it in steps. If you want to be ready for whatever the future brings, you have to understand what to do and how to get there.

Because, after all, where does the future come from? The future is decided by actions.

Every day we make decisions and take actions. Hundreds of them. Each and every one has an impact on the future. If you make small changes and take small steps you can ease into it gracefully. You can learn that new tool. You can adopt the new architecture. You will be able to deliver the standard and quality you do now even if you have to go through change.

There’s already a pain in learning. There’s a pain in adopting new ways and new methodologies. Success isn’t jumping off a cliff, it’s making a transition.

In this session, learn how to look into the future and see the steps it takes to get you where you want to go. Learn how to break things down so that when you’re faced with a new situation, a decision you’ve never had to make before, you’ll be able to handle it. Learn how to rapidly adopt change while still setting your own pace.

Let’s look into your future and take steps today that will help you get to your future destination.

User experience includes every interaction people have with a company and its products...from opening the box to setting up and using the product. When it comes to using an app to interact with a product, the visual and written content on the screens must work together seamlessly to deliver a simple and delightful experience.

We all deal with change in our own way. We find a way that works for us as individuals. But what happens when you are a manager of a team and you need to implement change? How do you help a group of individuals collectively and successfully deal with change? IN THIS SESSION, YOU WILL LEARN: • Definition of change management • Why change management is necessary • 6-step change management cycle • Meaning of a loss curve • How fear affects change • Tips for managing change

If MSWord is your content creation platform, you likely spend a lot of time emailing files for review, hunting for the correct version of your files, and compiling changes to content that are submitted by reviewers. And, you probably spend even more time transforming and styling content to other formats for multichannel delivery to your customers. Yet, you want to publish your content to cool websites and keep them updated regularly. Join this session to see a demonstration of how structured authoring using XML and a Component Content Management System can make the magic happen and relieve hours, days, or even weeks of time from your content delivery processes.

"Intelligent agents and AI-powered cognitive content solutions perform best with machine-ready, intelligent content designed to be read by humans and processed by computers. To deliver the right answer to customers with questions, you’ll need to optimize your content 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 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.
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 microcontent and the importance of framing information for intended user responses."

Don’t think management is for you? Neither did I—until I became a manager. Whether or not you are in management or think it could be possible, join me for a look at my journey down this unexpected career path. We’ll look at how to discover your management style and find mentors who can bring out your best. We will discuss personality types and how to use that information to better understand yourself, your motives, and your employees and explore how this can help you be a better manager. Learn how to identify your strengths and weaknesses and use that information to gain a greater understanding of your management style. Finally, we will discuss the harder parts of management, like change management or personnel issues, and how to approach those through the lens of your management style and personality type. All this while being authentic to yourself—the unexpected manager!

Information 4.0 promises to revolutionize technical communication, just as online help and the web did. And, as with online help and the web, there will be mistakes along the way. Exploring those mistakes to see what lessons we can learn for the future is the focus of this presentation. We’ll look at mistakes in areas like justification to management, misunderstandings in terminology and technology, and others, illustrated with real examples (unfortunately) like “RoboCop” and “HLMT”. We’ll then look at how these mistakes might recur under Information 4.0 and how to avoid them. The goal? Don’t repeat past mistakes while moving into the future.

Rule one in writing: Know your audience. Project analysis begins with building a reader profile. With a proper reader profile, writing to an audience becomes easy. The message is specific, and needs can be anticipated. By using this method, your documentation will increase product value and customer loyalty. In today’s evolving world, the audience never stays the same. Needs change over time, new types of members emerge with every product release, and technology changes the way audiences expect to interact with documentation. Have you talked to Alexa lately? Fortunately, with advanced HTML5 outputs that use Google Analytics, technical writers...

"Leadership opportunities make you a better technical communicator by increasing your credibility, bolstering your industry understanding, and accelerating your
professional development. The labels “leader” or “influencer” can be intimidating, but the reality is that leadership is more accessible than most people think. Leadership takes many
different forms and is more about seeking new experiences or finding new dots to connect than obtaining any particular title. You don't need to be ""prequalified"" tolead. Sometimes being a leader is just doing what needs to be done or helping others do what needs to be done. It’s about making a difference. Join your peers in this interactive session to address common misconceptions
around leadership, expand your perspective on leadership opportunities, and take the next step in your leadership journey."

We’ll start with a timeline that highlights significant techcomm and chapter events over the past 60 years and during the presentation invite participants to add significant events that capture their involvement with technical communication past, present, and future.

Technical communication teams provide critical value to organizations, but are often underfunded. In an age where companies are pushing products and changes to the market at breakneck speed, technical communication teams are more heavily taxed and under pressure to do more with less and faster. Implementing a structured authoring or content management solution requires the appropriate funding, but can also enable teams to achieve the efficiencies they require to perform optimally. This presentation will provide the audience with the tools they need to perform a cost-benefit analysis and calculate the ROI of such a proposal. All attendees will receive an ROI calculator they can use to build their case and get the budget approval they need. Furthermore, we’ll discuss all the factors that you can take into account when making your case for new tools.

A guide on how to approach your unique personal employment, education, and skills history by viewing it a body of relevant data to be shared with your audience of potential employers to craft a positive and engaging narrative. Included are brief examples of revised and reshaped resumes, functional job descriptions, cover letters, and online content that highlight the strategies honed by experience that only you can bring to a potential project or position. Emphasis is on holistically representing personal and professional qualities in real-life situations.By creating your story to highlight your best assets, you increase your perceived value to target businesses and the likelihood that you will have the opportunity to exercise greater autonomy and experience a more rewarding career and quality of life whether as a consultant or full-time employee.