STC Annual Conference Registration Rates

Members can register for STC’s annual conference using the form provided in the Preliminary Program, which will be mailed with the February issue of Intercom, or online at www.stc.org. Online registration is not yet open which will be open to all. Full-conference and one-day registration rates appear below. The last day to register for the conference at the advance rates is April 21, 2006.

Registrations are Open for STC India Chapter Annual Conference

Registrations for the STC India Annual Conference are open. To register, print out the registration form available at the following location: http://www.stc-india.org/conferences/2005/inner_Reg.htm. Send the completed form to:

Rithu Kumble
Hewlett-Packard,
#3, Embassy Icon, 5th floor,
Infantry Road,
Bangalore - 560 001
(Phone number: 91-80-22053581)

The registration desk will remain open till 5th December, 2005. All registration forms must be accompanied with a valid demand draft or check for the appropriate registration fee drawn in favor of India Chapter, STC, payable at Bangalore . Participants will receive confirmation for their registrations once complete payment is received. Register Now! For more details refer to:

http://www.stc-india.org/conferences/2005/inner_Reg.htm.

Send  an email message to rithu.kumble@gmail.com if you need any clarifications on the registration process.

The conference, "Tech Comm 2005: Lessons from the Desert -- Resilience,
Survival, Success," will take place on November 11 and 12 in Mesa, Arizona, USA. Presented by the STC Phoenix Chapter and STC Instructional Design & Learning Special Interest Group, the conference will offer an oasis of experience and expertise that can help communicators of technical information survive and thrive in today's business environment. Planned session topics include computer-based training, Web usability, multimedia, single-sourcing and graphics for presentation and instruction.

Expected speakers include international Society president Suzanna Laurent
and second vice president Linda Oestreich, as well as past Society presidents Mark Hanigan and Lance Gelein.

Conference attendees will receive complimentary admission to a half-day STC Community Leadership Workshop. In addition, Tech Comm 2005 will feature several post-conference workshops for a modest additional charge. Planned topics include teaching in an online environment using the Blackboard Learning System (TM), creating effective visual structures, and developing online learning using Macromedia Flash 8 software.

To get all the details and register today, visit www.region5conf.com.

Learning Opportunities  

Upcoming STC Remote Seminars

December 7, 2005

Jack Danaher will host an STC Web-Telephone Seminar, "Mastering Metadata: Making the Most of Your Content Management System," from 1 to 2:30 PM eastern time. Danaher will discuss the role of metadata in content management, its benefits to an organization, and strategies for developing a metadata model.

January 11, 2006

Jeff Johnson will host an STC Web-Telephone Seminar "Textual Bloopers and How to Avoid Them", from 1.00 PM (EST). This seminar covers common textual bloopers that occur in computer-based products and online services. A short quiz will provide practice in recognizing these errors. He will also discuss techniques to keep them from occurring, particularly the importance of developing and adhering strictly to a project lexicon.

President and principal consultant at UI Wizards, Inc., a product usability consulting firm, Jeff Johnson has worked in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) as a user-interface designer and implementer, engineer manager, usability tester, and researcher. He is the author of GUI Bloopers: Don'ts and Dos for Software Developers and Web Designers (2000), and Web Bloopers: 60 Common Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them (2003).

January 25, 2006

William Horton will host an Web-Telephone Seminar "Developing Visual Fluency" from 1:00 PM EST. This seminar will boost your visual creativity so you can imagine the right picture to communicate your message. It will also hone your critical skills so you can make your first attempts truly professional. William Horton is a recognized international authority on appropriate uses of new electronic media. He is author of nine books on technical communication, including Designing and Writing Online Documentation (John Wiley & Sons, 1994), The Web Page Design Cookbook (John Wiley & Sons, 1996), and Designing Web-based Training (John Wiley & Sons, 2000).

February, 8, 2006

Susan W. Gallagher will host an WebTelephone Seminar "Documenting APIs: Step Up to the Plate" at 1:00 PM EST. This session presents an overview of API (Application Program Interface) documentation. It will discuss the target audience; call out and describe each of the possible deliverables; and look at the kind of information you need to provide, where to find the information you need, and how to understand it after you find it. Finally, it discusses the tools that are available for generating reference material automatically and offers a list of both hardcopy and online reference materials.

February 22, 2006

Susan Haire, Amy Himes, Marella Colyvas will host an Web-Telephone seminar "Improve Your Technical Communication Skills through Creative Writing Techniques" from 1.00 PM EST. This seminar will help you explore your creative side by teaching you:

• How to tap into your creativity to improve (or jump-start) your writing
• How to use character interview techniques with job candidates, end users, and subject matter experts
• How to develop personas to facilitate product development
• How to catch and keep a reader’s attention in manuals, proposals, training materials, etc., using opening hooks and design structures

Presenters will use examples from fiction to demonstrate these techniques, and then show you how to adapt the techniques to your technical writing.
This seminar is a "must" for anyone interested in giving a different slant to their work, and for anyone interested in exploring fiction as a career alternative.

For more details on these seminars and for registration: stc.webex.com