Today was both a good day and bad day for me. The good: the sessions were outstanding. The bad: everybody was leaving and there was very little time for me to say goodbye to everyone. So "bye!"
Also, survivors of the after party went around eating brains. At one point Robert Armstrong ( @nintey7 ) and Bill Swallow ( @techcommdood ) fought over the scraps of Will Sansbury's open skull. If anyone has pictures please, please don't share.
Sessions
Today I morally supported my Big Design co-conspirator, Brian Sullivan ( @brianksullivan ), who did a presentation on sketching with the design studio method. It was dense with great information. After his presentation two women went up to him and said his was the best session they'd seen so far and they were going to put it to use as soon as they got back to work. Yay! Brian has groupies.
Next I attended the UXD for Technical Communicators session by Will Sansbury ( @willsansbury ), Rachel Peters (@rachelhpeters ), and Yina Li (@yina_li ). They did a fantastic job of basic UXD orientation. I know they cut down their six-hour workshop to fit session time. If you weren't aware, they originally had a pre-conference workshop that was canceled because only one person registered. Dear techcomm community: don't fear the UX Machina. You have already been absorbed.
The Atlanta Dream Team
Finally I sat in Rachel Lovinger's (@rlovinger ) semantic web session. Her session activated my meta data super-self and I walked around with a heads-up display the rest of the day.
Final Thoughts On the Conference
I walked into the conference thinking STC was a dead org walking. In some ways it still is. However, the conference was a reminder of the quality of its members.
STC, the organization, can do a lot of things differently. I'm for questioning all costs like the need to print signs we can't use from year to year, for example. I think some traditions like the banquet may need reevaluation. Do we continue to do some things because we've always done them that way?
I also know there was an enormous cost to having Wi-Fi in the hotel. I can't speak to what went on behind the scenes, but I also know not having power and Internet access for attendees limited public engagement during sessions. The Hyatt owes STC. I would rather attend a conference with Wi-Fi in a hotel that isn't reminiscent of Logan's Run and gouges locals for even thinking of parking nearby.
The point is if we don't engage members, especially at the local level, STC will be a dead org. The extravagance of the annual summit is not as important as keeping the incredible talent interested in participating. These cool, smart people I hung out with is why I scraped to go to the conference. It will be the reason I go back.
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Unrest by Parkway Drive
Thanks for these posts about the STC Summit conference 2010. And I say, "Hear! Hear!" to just about everything you have said. You being there for me to get to know better would be a very good reason for me to scrape together the cash to make it over to North America for the STC conference next year.
[Reply]
Alice:
Thanks for your kind words. Trust me, I'm very frightening up close. I will try to attend next year, depending on my own financial situation.
[Reply]
Hi Keith,
Thanks for all you good words on our presentation! Sorry couldn't come over to say bye yesterday. I had an early flight.
See you next year!
Yina
[Reply]
Thanks for the recap. I was turned to your posts by one Karen Mardahl, even though I thought I'd been following you on Twitter. I can't speak to the STC Wi-Fi issue specifically, but I was right ticked that the hotel's general Wi-Fi access worked in my room and in the lobby, but NOT in the conference rooms. THAT's unacceptable. Had I paid for that access I would have been extremely upset, instead of just mildly annoyed.
Also, the STC2010 Wi-Fi access was sketchy at best, partly due to the Cyber Security conference next door using routers that clashed with our frequency range. You are right when you say "The Hyatt owes STC."
Hope we get to hang out next year. It sounds like your crüe's where the party's at.
[Reply]
mkanderson Reply:
May 13th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
No official "crüe". Just a bunch of folks who all fell in love with each other on Twitter and spent 3 days in a whirlwind conference romance.
[Reply]