Summit '13: Five Questions with David Pogue

David Pogue, the keynote speaker of the 2013 STC Summit and soon-to-be an Honorary Fellow, was kind enough to answer a few questions for Your Friendly Neighborhood Blogger in anticipation of his appearance in Atlanta. David was also the keynote for the 2009 Summit and was such a big hit that we invited him back. Below are his answers to questions about STC, technical communication, and his plans for Atlanta.

Usually I ask our keynotes what they know of STC, but since you were our keynote speaker for 2009 I’m sure you’re very familiar with the Society. Instead I’ll ask what you remember of our 2009 conference and your experience there?

I’ll never forget it. I felt as though I’d arrived home after a long absence from my home country. Here was an audience who knew every nuance, who got every reference, who have spent their careers staring down the same challenges I have. It was a mutual lovefest.

What made you desire to return to the STC Summit?

Nothing could keep me away!

Also, I’ve just completed one of the most difficult tasks of my career: explaining Windows 8 (in a book). It is, in many ways, unexplainable. I had to take some radical approaches, and I can’t wait to see what fellow tech writers think.

One of the things our members who attended the Summit in 2009 most remember was your piano playing; do you intend to give a repeat performance?

But of course! I have some new song parodies to try out on them this year.

When we announced that you were our keynote speaker this year, one member told us “I don’t buy any tech devices without first consulting his column, so I’m pretty excited that he’s the keynote speaker.” How do comments like that affect you when writing your column?

Obviously, your members have excellent taste. 🙂

My very first editor made clear, when he gave me the column, that its purpose is to conclude “buy it” or “don’t buy it.” So that’s always in the back of my head as I write. I’m always, always thinking of the poor reader who has to lay out real money to buy this stuff.

Many of our members rave about the Missing Manual series; can you talk a bit about that series and its future?

I started the series in 1999 as a reaction to the elimination of user manuals. Weirdly, the Missing Manuals have actually accelerated the trend; I’ve had product managers tell me, off the record, that internally, they discuss creating a user guide and then someone else says, “Nah, let’s just let Pogue do one of his Missing Manuals.”

I sold the series to its publisher, O’Reilly, in 2004, and they’ve been excellent custodians. They’ve expanded the series to 120 titles, although I’m still writing them: I’m the sole author of the Mac OS X, Windows, and iPhone books; I’m the coauthor of the iPhone and iMovie books.