A Bi-Monthly Newsletter
Volume 6, Issue 2, March 2003
STC WVC Home>Newsletter
Table of Contents>Why You Should Attend the 50th...
Why You Should Attend the 50th Annual STC Conference
By Rachel Houghton
How long has it been since you've been to the annual STC Conference? With
the state of the economy, I'd bet it has been a while since your company
was willing to fork over money for education and training outside of the
local area. This year, the 50th Annual STC Conference, is *the* year to
go. You'll learn new tools and techniques, share ideas, network with peers,
and preview the latest software and services from dozens of vendors.
There are more than 250 sessions, addressing every area of technical communication and every level of expertise. There are also opportunities for manual evaluations and index evaluations.
The manual evaluation sessions offer analysis of your technical communication product by experts in document design. In these workshops, experts will analyze documents for organization, page layout, writing style, and use of graphics. Participants will get one-on-one attention and take home useful tips and ideas. Complimentary tickets are required. To obtain a ticket, check the appropriate box on the Conference Registration Form.
The index evaluation session offers a one-on-one discussion with an experienced indexer who will evaluate your indexing project. Each attendee will receive 30 minutes of consultation. Registration is required for this session. Contact Bill Collins (302-636-1149 or william.l.collins@usa.dupont.com) to register and arrange to submit your index.
STC also offers post-conference workshops and tutorials for those who wish to delve deeper into select subjects. To guarantee your reservation to a post-conference workshop or tutorial, purchase tickets in advance using the Conference Registration Form. The cost of post-conference workshops and tutorials is not covered by your conference registration.
Networking opportunities are plentiful at the conference. On each full day of the conference there is a luncheon opportunity (for an extra $20 fee each) available. Monday is the Networking Luncheon, Tuesday is the SIG Networking Luncheon, and Wednesday is the Regional Networking Luncheon. Each luncheon goes from 12:15 p.m. to 2 p.m. and offers an opportunity to meet 7 other people and share experiences.
The Exposition offers vendors from the following areas and industries: publishing services (writing, editing, illustration, and other services), publishing technology (hypertext, multimedia, desktop, and electronic publishing hardware and software) and support (translation, prepress, distribution, data conversion services, telecommuting, tutorials, online help, and help systems project management).
The Employment Information booth has places for job hunters to post résumés and for companies to post announcements of job openings. You may meet your next employer or employee through this booth–don’t miss the opportunity! If you are looking for a job, send your résumé for employers to examine at the booth. If you have job positions and are looking for employees, advertise your jobs and pick up résumés of job candidates. Whether or not you attend the conference, your résumé or job posting can be included in the Employment Information Booth, and you can receive job postings after the conference.
Information about this opportunity is available here:
http://www.stc.org/50thConf/infEmpBooth_print.asp.
I will be there this year. Will you? If you are interested in attending and want to know more, contact me at stc@rhoughton.com.
Rachel Houghton is a lone writer at Cypress Semiconductor in Beaverton, OR, with a focus in Framemaker, Acrobat and Windows online help. She can be reached at stc@rhoughton.com.
