A Veteran's View of the STC 50th Annual Conference

By Jackie Damrau, 1^st VP

This is the second STC conference I have attended in Dallas. My first was, of course, the 40^th Annual Conference in 1993. Things were definitely different this time.

I cultivated many new relationships and renewed several from serving as an ITPC judge. It was nice to see those friends again. My roommate, Debbie Wiles, introduced me to the delegates from her trip to China, which resulted in a 10-course Chinese meal. By the end of the meal, we were quite full.

Doug Dow and Jackie Damrau Interacting The most fun that I had was helping out our Chapter as the host chapter. I had a wonderful time serving in the booth and working alongside members that I had not met before. My evenings were spent stuffing newsletters, followed by mornings of distributing those same newsletters. Dealing Bingo Cards with Stephen Poe had its fun moments as we tried to capture the people coming in to the Welcoming Reception.

Since the Chapter paid my registration fee, I felt that I had an obligation to get the most from the conference. Networking was very important for me as an up-and-coming officer for the Chapter. I also found great benefit in the sessions that I attended. One enjoyable session was with Stephen and Kathryn Poe in which I was asked to intercede during their "SME and the Writer" skit by phoning Stephen to interrupt him.

Here is an excerpt from the trip report that I wrote for my company, which allowed me the time off to attend this conference.

"The conference provided me with additional background on:

Becoming a better leader within the local chapter and society ( the techniques mentioned can be used in my professional career as well)
Using metrics (especially in ROI scenarios) to tell the correct story
Learning how to create effective user surveys
Continuing to build a visible, viable, and valuable documentation team
Enhancing my editing and writing skills
Using different brainstorming techniques to gather information (One of these techniques will be useful in the CARE30 class as an interactivity element to enhance the learning concepts.)
Gaining a better understanding of preparing documentation for internationalization and/or localization for use in non-English-speaking countries

"The major benefits received by attending the post-conference workshop, "Developing Technical Information for International Audiences," on May 22^nd were in understanding how to work with internationalization and localization vendors and in preparing documentation before sending it to one of these vendors for translation.

"The benefits were sizable for my professional growth at Perot Systems and for my continued support of the local Dallas STC chapter as its incoming 1^st VP and future President."

I just want to let you all know how enthused I am to be serving our Chapter. Share your suggestions with me as this year begins. This Chapter is for you—let your voice be heard.