Snack-size tech comm videos from STC13

Scott Abel talked several tech comm speakers, bloggers and other luminaries into short videos at this spring’s STC Summit in Atlanta. The results are now available as Adobe Thought Leader Interviews at STC SUMMIT 2013. Most videos pack an interesting, usually well-argued insight into a minute or two. Taken together, they’re a good survey of topics and trends that were bounced around the Summit – and a perfect excuse to relive some of the #STC13 spirit!

Here are some of my favorites and what I like about them.

Sarah O’Keefe: Tech Communicators Need to Focus on the Business explains why tech comm’ers need to see how their content and their deliverables fit into the larger business schemes of their organization or client. It’s not exactly the first time Sarah has put out this message, but I consider this a recurring theme and one of the most urgent challenges for our profession.

Ann Rockley: The Benefits of Content Modeling shows how and why single-sourcing and content reuse requires prior planning. You need to model your content to ensure it comes out useful in the different formats. I appreciate Ann’s message that you not only need to do it, but you need to do it right.

Bernard Aschwanden: Benefits of Structured Authoring offers a primer on DITA and neatly sums up why the separation into concept, task and reference topics makes sense in a lot of cases. I like the video because it’s quite a feat to summarise both DITA and topic-based authoring in 2:40 minutes – and with examples to boot!

Rahel Bailie: Reclaiming Content Strategy urges tech comm’ers to reclaim the content strategy turf from the marketing people who may sell themselves better and know about writing copy, too – but we tech comm’ers can add the badly needed technicial knowledge as well. I cherish Rahel’s vote of confidence that we can and should reach out into this neighboring discipline!

Andrea Ames: It’s Not Your Mother’s Tech Comm Anymore argues that tech comm has to change and is in fact changing as users consume it in ever-developing context which makes tech comm’ers, and in fact users, too, the curators of documentation. I enjoy Andrea’s enthusiasm that blends “must do” and “can do” in most of what she does.

Oh, yeah, and then there’s my own 1:17 minutes of fame, ranting about tech comm’ers who wait for instructions and tasks. My point is basically: “Don’t Ask for a Mandate“, but rather prototype what content needs you find and let the solution sell itself. (I stand by my argument, though I don’t like my overzealous look of a young lawyer fearing to screw up his first court case… 🙂 )

But I highly recommend checking out the entire series of interviews, because they cover a wide variety of topics, technologies and tools!

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