Liz Pohland
This month I attended a “Publishing Business” conference in New York City, expecting to learn some new strategies for STC’s publications from “big” publishers—those with budgets and subscriber lists in the millions. I learned a lot, but what I was most surprised to discover was that many of the big publishing houses (publishers such as Condé Nast, Houghton Mifflin, and Wiley) are still struggling with, debating, and sharing insights on how to deal with the recent technological changes that are affecting their businesses and sales. Many of their concerns are the same as those expressed by technical communicators and Intercom authors. For example, sessions at the conference centered on virtual and alternate reality; mobile, tablet computing, and apps; standards and publishing outputs, such as EPUB; content, collaboration, and communication strategies; shifting platforms and new media; and usability and readability. Although I was surprised that publishers with big budgets and more staff were struggling with the emerging technologies, from the opening session, I was pleased to see the amount of crossover between the publishing world and technical communication.
This issue of Intercom starts off in a similar vein, with an overview of the 2012 Horizon Report on emerging trends and technologies. Many of the same technologies as those discussed at the publishing conference are mentioned here—mobile apps, tablet computing, adaptive learning environments, games-based learning, and haptic interfaces. Jeanette Evans provides a succinct explanation of these emerging technologies, along with some general observations on how to apply them to techcomm jobs.
Eddie VanArsdall has written a comprehensive review of one specific new technology—MadCap Flare 8—claiming that it is “a radical departure from all previous versions.” Some of the features he discusses include the new ribbon, floating and docking, HTML5 WebHelp, support for EPUB, and much more. If you are a MadCap Flare user, or are thinking of becoming one, you won’t want to miss this article.
At a recent STC Academic SIG workshop, held in conjunction with the annual CPTSC (Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication) meeting, many attendees and STC members expressed interest in mentorship programs. Karen Rempel provides an alternative to a mentorship program—a case study of the information interview service of the STC Canada West Coast Chapter. The article describes the service, its benefits, and their results to date. Perhaps other STC chapters or members might use this article as a prototype for starting their own service.
