by Kristin Kirkham, Secretary and Incoming 1st VP

As a lone writer, the annual STC Summit is the perfect opportunity to see what other writers and companies are doing. I even found a group of lone writers split between their marketing and technical departments, like me!

Although I have seen my share of the U.S., Philadelphia was definitely a new city to me. Luckily, I had an entertaining crew from the Lone Star community to “corrupt” me!

The sessions were long enough to get a good sense of the material and tools, but short enough to let you decide if the information would be helpful for your personal use. Because I am the only writer in our company, it was difficult for me to choose which sessions I wanted to attend, especially when every topic sounded interesting!

Here is a snippet of just a few lessons learned. Although some of the information isn’t new, it was a good refresher:

• Instructional Design = ADDIE: Analyze, Develop, Design, Implement, & Evaluate. PowerPoint is NOT training. People will generally remember five things in a presentation, so only teach them five things.
  

• Become an arbiter for your company. Don’t just have a style guide, use it. Distribute writing standards throughout the company.

• Your Web site is a conversation. Make sure your Web site answers the user’s question, “How do I..?” Great example is Amazon.com. Task-oriented procedures.
  

• Content Management. It’s not all about re-use. Inventory living content. Customer needs change. Tools: Microsoft SharePoint and Google Docs.
  

• Software Misuse. Use meeting requests to set meetings. Do not send e-mail after e-mail. Tools: Meeting Wizard (it allows the group to come to a consensus on times).
  

• Edit documents in real time. Use one real time meeting rather than multiple e-mails to edit, collaborate, and share documents. Tools: ThinkFree.com

The best decision I made was to attend a SIG lunch every day. By mingling with writers interested in similar fields, I was able to probe them with my questions on which tools they used, processes and procedures for their documentation, and of course, how to maintain sanity.

My favorite session attended would most definitely be the Lone Writer's Progression. I had never attended a progression at an STC conference, but from now on, I will be at every one offered! I was a bit disappointed by the turnout, but because it was on the last day of the conference, the entire convention center was looking a little bare.

After four days of classes, I was ready to get back to work and prove to my company why the conference was such a wise investment. Thank you to all of the speakers and presenters for sharing your golden nuggets of wisdom!