I attended my first STC National Conference a few months ago. I was enlightened.
I'm an indexer, information architect, and consultant. I decided in 1998 that I would spend the following year attending and presenting
at as many conferences as possible, and I did. It didn't take long
to find I overextended myself. With one conference each month, from
March to November, I realized my childhood dream of traveling the
country and living out of hotels. I also realized how exhausting it
can be. Fortunately, my week in Cincinnati at STC's 46th annual
conference, the "River of Communication," couldn't have been more
comforting and rewarding.
It didn't start that way. Compared to other conferences, the
national conference was huge, the audience diverse. There were so
many sessions scheduled at the same time it was often difficult to
choose-and even harder to walk the length of the convention center
within the time allowed for breaks! Further, I'm an indexer and
information architect, not a technical writer. I was horribly
outnumbered.
Nevertheless, acceptance of my differences came easily. Other
members of the Boston Chapter provided refuge (and wine), and I was
starting to recognize faces from some of the other conferences I had
attended that year. There was also a speaker's reception (more
wine), and it was great not just to meet speakers from the Writing
and Editing track (where indexing was placed), but also from the
Information Design track. Finally, one attendee suggested that the
sessions were better attended than usual, that few people left the
convention center and the conference behind for the sake of other,
non-conference activities.
For me, the conference was about meeting people. I was introduced to
Boston Chapter members in droves, since there were so many who
attended. I met writers, web site designers, indexers, illustrators,
consultants, help authors, translators, software designers, and
teachers. I wandered the booths at the exhibition and inspected the
award-winning documentation displayed in the main hall. And of
course, I took home more business cards than I know what to do with.
Overall, it was a fantastic initiation into the diversity that
comprised the society.
The part I know best regards my own field. There
were several indexing sessions, a first for national conferences.
Peg Mauer, who manages STC's Indexing Special Interest Group, had
developed and recruited the speakers for an indexing stream. I gave
one presentation myself, and I also participated on a panel with
Peg, Dick Evans, and Joan Griffitts, all of whom are indexers and
STC members. These events and others were well attended and well
received, and I was pleased to meet a number of people who find
indexing both valuable and interesting. In fact, it would have been
possible to spend most of the conference attending only indexing
events.
If I learned anything about STC and the documentation/communication
industry, I learned this paradox: the diversity of our members
creates a coherent whole. Thanks to the quickly evolving
technologies of online documentation, previously disparate fields
are starting to overlap. Translators are working with software
designers to improve localization. Help authors and knowledge
managers are creating the same products. Indexing has merged with
information designers, just as illustrators are collaborating with
educators, to develop usable intranets and online classroom
materials. As much as this conference gave me a focused view at the
work and skills of many different people and their careers, it also
impressed upon me a sense of unification within the entire field of
technical communication.
And that, of course, is the point of the "River Communication."
