TCUK Day 2: Dorothy, content strategy & tap design

Click here for the report on day one of the Technical Communication UK conference 2010

Last night’s salsa session proved to be a bit problematic. Not the dancing ability of the gathered UK techcomm massive was sub standard, indeed it seemed surprisingly high, more the male to female ratio. It probably says a lot about the masculinity of men that they feel uncomfortable dancing with someone of the same gender. So it was that a small minority gave up on the chance of dancing in favor of chewing the cud over a drink in the bar. Surprisingly a lot of delegates were off to bed early. Well 10:30 anyway! This was probably caused by a combination of an early start to get there and keeping something in the tank for the Gala Dinner tonight. None of us are getting any younger you know, as the salsa dancing proved.

I should know that going to bed early is a bad idea at conferences. So it proved as I awoke at 5am this morning. Maybe it was unfamiliar surroundings or just excitement for what the day offered. Personally I think it was just that it is rare for me to sleep 6 hours uninterrupted. Normally I’m kicked or wake up with cold feet after Mrs Robocolum(n) has stolen the duvet. Whatever it was, it’s somewhat surreal sitting in your room waiting for your early morning alarm call! After a run, it was time to answer the big question of the day. The air of anticipation as I walking into the restaurant was palpable. Was there just a temporary baked bean shortage in the Oxford region or was there something more sinister afoot. Unfortunately it appears to be the later. Still at least the mushrooms are to die for, but I made a metal note to start a campaign to get baked beans restored for the final day. Watch this space.

The day started off with a keynote presentation by David Black from Nokia on how they manage their documentation. In what was a very engaging and amusing 45 minutes, there were some controversial statements. Not least among these was that documenting a user interface is not required. Whilst statements like this must be taken in the context of mobile phones (have you ever read your mobile handbook?) what was interesting was not “what” was being said but “who” was saying them. Probably the most thought provoking thought came when David mentioned the manual that came with a light switch he had recently bought. Think about it. If the switch is down it is on. If it up, it is off. To make matters worse, the manual was translated  into a huge variety of languages, and the switch cost less than £1!

Next up a session on structured FrameMaker. I use FrameMaker in structured mode but you’d never know it. Apparently having the application in structured mode, even though you aren’t using structured features, makes no difference. Ever one to try something different it was too good a test to ignore. It works perfectly by the way. The session was more of an interest getter to me as I can’t see us even needing structured FrameMaker files. The unique selling point of the presentation was the free, yes free, plugin InsetPlus that can be used as a structured snippet library.

Next up was Joe Welinske’s presentation entitled “Write more, write less: embracing the value of crafted words and images”. Joe reiterated what was fast becoming the conference theme, namely that the challenge for technical communications was that software development will become increasingly more complex, not less. The end result was that we had to adapt or become as extinct as the baked beans at breakfast time. Joe also had a knack for soundbites, many of which seemed to strike a chord. Among them were:

• “UA will become most effective when we spend twice as much time writing half as many words.”
• “People are scanning for meaningful headings and highlighted information.”

Elsewhere there were talks on accessibility, content strategy, social media models and shower tap design. Well, why not? This last topic obviously hit a chord as the session soon resulted in a passionate debate on how a tap should be turned to make the water hotter. It just goes to show how something we all take for granted can be considered daft by someone else. Oh and by the way I stand by my argument that you turn the handle down not up!

The final session was a keynote speaker from Mekon, a content strategy consultancy who engaged us on how we could decide on and implement our own content strategy. Entitled “The yellow brick road to effective content strategy”, this was a feeble excuse to have liberal references to Dorothy, Toto and the Wicked Witch of the West (or was it East?). All very amusing, especially when the speaker announced he had failed to find an image of Oz so “here is a picture of Sweden instead.”

The main business over it was time for a tweetup in the hotel bar. Furniture arranging lessons ensued as more and more tweeters turned up and then it was back to glam up for the Gala Dinner and ISTC documentation award ceremony. After that for me it was time for bed (after writing this) as my big day is tomorrow. However I’ll sign off with this response from someone I had asked about how they had enjoyed the conference so far. They said, “Well I haven’t sworn a lot and I haven’t hit anyone.”

Click here for a report on day three.