Danielle Villegas, also known as TechCommGeekMom, is attending the STC Summit for the first time this year, so we’ve asked her to blog about her experiences at the Summit. This is the ninth post of her series.
The second full day of the Summit was as jam-packed as the first. After a breakfast at the cafe across from the hotel again with my Philly Chapter buddies, the morning started off with more content strategy for me with Val Swisher’s “10 Golden Rules of Global Content Strategy.” I always love Val’s talks, and she makes them very relatable. (Have you ever heard my story of how info from her blog helped me get my job?) It was a great way to start the morning. Next, as a change of pace to indulge the instructional design-wannabe in me, I attended Jamie Gillenwater’s “Create Learning that Lasts with Interactive Documents.” I really enjoyed this because I’ve known Jamie online through social media because of her elearning connections, so seeing a presentation about how to use the same instructional design techniques for technical communication documentation was thought-provoking and informative.
My big networking get-together was a lunch date with a fellow NJIT student from the Master’s of Professional and Technical Communication (MSPTC) program. We had taken a few classes together last year before I graduated (she’s still in the program), comparing notes not only on the MSPTC program, but also on what we were learning and absorbing in the education sessions at the Summit. We both agreed that the Summit was a great opportunity to learn things outside the classroom from some of the rock stars of the tech comm world.
I decided to spend my time immediately after lunch catching up on the yellow “Vendor Bingo” sheet getting signatures. I knew most people had completed their sheets the day before, but I was only about a third of the way there. I made sure that even though I have absolutely no buying or decision-making power whatsoever, it’s helpful to know what products are out there in the market. It was cool to hear the vendors talk about why their particular product was different from the competition. I think they were also glad somebody was stopping by during some of the down time! (It’s a good time to get the full attention of the vendors!)
I only took one afternoon session, which was the “Content Strategy for Mobile Devices” talk given by Ann Rockley and Charles Cooper. I knew Ann Rockley’s reputation of being the “mother of all content strategy,” so I knew this was an important session to go since I am a content strategist and am really interested in mobile. I was glad that I got there a little early to get a seat, as the room ended up with people sitting on the floor in the aisle and standing room only! Charles and Ann gave a fantastic talk of how to start the thought process of planning content for mobile documentation.
I took the rest of the night off. I went to an Atlanta event to see a documentary filmmaker I like who was speaking in town, so I had an adventure on the MARTA and getting lost in the wrong neighborhood on the way there. That was fun to do something that wasn’t “touristy” and a bit “off the grid.” Upon returning from that, I sat in the lobby for a bit, writing this blog, and saw all the banquet attendees moving the party to the bar in the hotel lobby. It was cool to see people all dressed up in their evening finery with happy but tired faces, so I was catching up with them for a bit.
It was another full day full of excitement for me. Wednesday is a half day, and I imagine it will be a more relaxed, but enjoyable day.
Danielle M. Villegas writes the blog TechCommGeekMom.com. She graduated with her MSPTC degree from NJIT in 2012, and is currently a Web publishing consultant for BASF North America and an instructor for World Learning teaching business and technical writing.