“Beyond the Bleeding Edge” Looking for Submissions for STC Summit

In the last year or so, have you …

• developed online help designed to be single-sourced out to an iPhone as well as a PC?
• created a document containing metadata-driven dynamically customizable content?
• created a hybrid document that incorporates content from social media?
• performed a hard-dollar cost-justification of your documentation group’s work?
• Or done something else that’s really cool, perhaps a bit weird, and applicable to tech comm?

Many technical communicators are hard-put to keep up with the daily grind, let alone have time to look into emerging technologies. “Beyond the Bleeding Edge,” which debuted at the 1999 annual conference, addresses this by presenting summaries of technologies and methodologies that are too new or unusual to make it into traditional Summit sessions. Now, the Bleeding Edge is looking for presenters for the 2012 STC Summit, 20-23 May in Rosemont, IL. Is there a technology or methodology that you’d like to discuss? It can be: 

• New, like creating online help that can change its content depending on the outside air temperature
• Existing, but fairly new to technical communicators, like physical context-sensitivity for mobile devices.

To be accepted, a Bleeding Edge topic must be fairly new as of early 2012. A Bleeding Edge presentation should be: 

• Short – You’ll have about 20 minutes to cover your topic and take questions.
• Informal – Attendees prefer handouts, but this is at your discretion.
• Level-appropriate – You can cover a topic at whatever technical level you consider necessary as long as you let attendees know what to expect.

If you enjoy new topics and like to discuss them, we want to hear from you. Send your proposals to Neil Perlin, Hyper/Word Services, nperlin@nperlin.cnc.net or +1 (978) 657-5464 by 19 March. There are only three slots this year and slots fill up quickly, so don’t delay!