STC Summit 2016

You have created a content strategy targeted at specific users and their unique needs. You have helped improve your products through usability testing. How else can you make a difference? Influence the overall user experience of your product. As a content developer, you are uniquely situated to see the whole picture and individual improvements and features. In this session, learn how to use your position and understanding of user needs to ensure the success of new features or changes to existing ones. Become a user advocate with your knowledge, confidence, and simple tools (such user profiles and journey maps).

The world’s landscape is changing with a millennial workforce, mobile devices, and technology bringing information everywhere, and the digital revolution’s impact to society on the horizon. Technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), content automation, and augmented reality (AR) will provide new ways to deliver precise information with less need for human interaction. The new technologies save us time, effort, and money. However, with these changes come changes to our jobs. How will the digital revolution impact the role of technical communicators? Where will our existing skills fit? What new skills do we need to hone? Join this session to get answers to these questions and learn about the largest generation in the workforces (millennials) and how to adjust our deliverables to meet their requirements.

As content consumption is shifting from desktops and laptops to tablets and smartphones, a number of organizations are publishing their technical content for mobile devices to deliver content anywhere, anytime for their customers. Most organizations have adopted responsive design that enables technical authors to port technical help to mobile devices. Though it is a good first step in the right direction, it is not enough to cater to the fastest growing trend in the tech comm industry.                                                            
With close to 60% of organizations publishing content for mobile devices, technical authors need better means to engage users. A content centric mobile app is the next step that will foster more user engagement and increased content readership. In this presentation, Abhishek Jain, Product Manager at Adobe Systems, will share some real world use cases where mobile apps added immense value. In addition, he will cover some interesting ways to create apps with almost no technical knowhow.

You've jumped on the DITA bandwagon, and now you have a collection of structured, modular content. But you quickly realize that with modular content and potential for reuse, things can get out of hand. Maybe you think you need a Component Content Management System. Vendors agree and tell you why you need the features of their particular toolsets, but do you? How do you select a system that meets your particular needs? This presentation reviews the extensive research and decision-making process that our writing group used. The focus is how to establish your requirements and then evaluate solutions, rather than on any specific CCMS tools.

As new markets come online with their connected devices and older international markets increase their spend on new products and services, “things” that aren’t multilingual, or don’t function in a user’s (aka “customer’s”) language, or break when translated - will become a critical problem for your organization.                                                                
This session will be a facilitated audience discussion about the trends and issues surrounding the development and support of connected products and their documentation used by customers who speak other languages. What are the most common translation mistakes and their impact? When is machine translation “good enough” and for which use-case is it appropriate? How to best manage the ripple-effect when source content changes? How do you  balance a global voice with a local feel? The session will be made up of open questions, open answers, and live polls. Using your phone’s browser, you will be able to both share your insights and learn from the wisdom of the STC crowd. Space is limited, so register early. 

This will be an interactive discussion where you'll be participating by going to www.sli.do on your phone and then entering the event code #stc2016 in the JOIN EVENT box. Alternatively you can just go to this permalink on any browser https://www.sli.do/xakx5bos

TO VIEW THE PRESENTATION CLICK HERE: https://prezi.com/embed/wgt7zosxflf4/ 

What are the questions and insights needed to set up a translation process for your team? This session will cover current trends in the translation industry and help you understand key translation questions a global enterprise should be asking. You’ll learn newfound translation “common sense” for a process, plus the time and cost savings in the file prep stage-- internationalization (i18n). Finally, you’ll know how to take an assessment (info translators don’t want to share) and capture metrics to optimize the translation process.

What is effective content delivery? Standard print, help systems, and online classes can provide answers to specific questions, but fall short when compared to the depth and ROI that online courses provide for specific training needs. In this session, Matt will discuss why he is moving away from traditional authoring and training formats and toward online courses. He'll review two online courses he developed and compare the relative depth of online classes and online courses. To show their effectiveness, he will compare the online courses against similar content available in book, help, and live training courses. Matt will then share his method for successfully modeling course content, including the details of his migration to a courseware provider.