June/Ju;y 2006

Volume 46, Number 6

STC's 53^rd Annual Conference

by Deb Lockwood and Martha Sippel

On May 7, 2006, technical communicators from around the world gathered in Las Vegas, Nevada, to attend STC's 53rd annual conference. This annual conference is one of the most educational, entertaining, and well-rounded experiences you can have as a technical communicator. It is the largest of its kind, drawing over 1,600 attendees with common goals: improving their skills, being exposed to new ideas and technologies, and meeting or reconnecting with other technical communicators from around the world.

Professional development opportunities abound

One of the most exciting aspects of recent conferences is that the program topics are evenly split between those of interest to beginners, and those that speak to experienced communicators. Plus, the programs committee makes a concentrated effort to ensure that there is a wide variety of interests represented by offering sessions in all of the following stems:

• Management
• Professional Development
• Theory, Research, Education, and Training
• Tools and Technology
• Usability and Information Design
• Writing and Editing

Besides the educational conference sessions, attendees can take advantage of pre and post conference workshops, vendor exhibits, and view the winning entries in the Society's international competitions.

This year's conference opening session featured Vinton G. Cerf and Robert E. Kahn, who are known as Fathers of the Internet for their design of the TCP/IP protocols and the basic arthictecture of the Internet. They jointly shared their excitement about work-related discoveries and collaborating with exceptional people on difficult problems.

Honors Banquet highlights

On Tuesday night, we both attended the Honors Banquet, where three of our chapter's own received the honor of Associate Fellow. Deb Lockwood and Linda Gallagher proudly watched as Martha Sippel, Mary Jo Stark, and Hugh Templeton received their Associate Fellow awards from Mark Hanigan, Associate Fellows Nominating Committee Chair, and Paula Berger, STC's current President.

The 2006 Society Honors booklet states, "Those selected as Associate Fellows are exceptional individuals who have demonstrated a consistent pattern of meaningful contributions to the Society and to the profession over a period of years."

Next year's conference

It's not too early to start thinking about signing up for next year's conference, which will be held in Minneapolis, MN, on May 13-16, 2007. Or maybe next year is the time for you to submit a proposal to speak at the conference yourself! The 2007 Annual Conference Session proposal deadline is usually in early August, so since you have time to prepare, why don't you consider presenting what you've learned to others who may benefit from your experiences?

More ways your leaders serve you

For most conference attendees the conference started on Monday, but for STC leaders, the conference began Sunday with Leadership Day in the morning and early afternoon. These sessions help us learn more about how we can improve the services we provide to you, our members. Several of our community's leaders either attended or presented these sessions that included recruiting and working with volunteers.

We have some great teams of people working on several different initiatives, so if you are interested in participating in helping to manage our STC RMC community, please let us or one of the other officers know.