atw: Re: Report on TCANZ Conference

  • From: "Monica Allen" <allenmm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 17:24:39 +1000

Bill,

There is already a conference, the Australasian Online Documentation
Conference and has been running annually since 1998
(http://www.aodc.com.au). The next one is to be held in Sydney 28-30 April
2004.

regards

Monica Allen

-----Original Message-----
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of HALL Bill
Sent: Monday, 20 October 2003 2:22 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Report on TCANZ Conference


As Jean mentioned in her online report on the conference, I too, was
invited to the TCANZ conference to give a presentation.=20

What Jean didn't mention was that she also gave an excellent paper:
"Break out of the grammar trap: Add value to content through
substantive, technical and usability editing", where she reviewed ways
editors can add value to the product beyond the nit picky punctuation,
grammar and usage, and suggested changes to the editorial workflow to
facilitate this.

I would like to add my $.02 to suggest that if that the next TCANZ
Conference is as good as the last, it would be well worth the
cross-Tasman trip to attend. Not only was the conference itself good
value from a professional point of view, but it was an ideal excuse for
my wife and me to see more of the country (we made it as far as the West
Coast of South Island). NZ is a green and fortunate land that makes
Australia look pretty dry, dusty and mean as a tourist destination - so
there are a lot of reasons for us to attend their conferences.

It would also be well worth considering hosting Australian-based Trans
Tasman Tech Writing conferences in alternative years to theirs. Assuming
that we can get our various state tech writing groups' acts together, we
should have enough resources to provide an attractive conference for the
Kiwi's to attend. It might also give us a chance to get acquainted with
our own interstate brethren. So far, the closest thing we seem to have
in terms of genuine professional conferences are the Open Publish
(http://www.openpublish.com.au) and Open Standards
(http://www.open-standards.com), but these cater to a more technical
audience than a genuine tech writers conference would.

Bill Hall

Documentation Systems Analyst
Head Office, Engineering
Tenix Defense
Williamstown, Vic. 3016
Phone: 03 9244 4820
Email:bill.hall@xxxxxxxxx
URL: http://www.tenix.com

Honorary Research Fellow
Knowledge Management Lab
School of Information Management & Systems
Monash University
Caulfield East, Vic. 3145
Phone: 03 9903 1883
Email: william.hall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
URL: http://www.sims.monash.edu.au/research/km/
=20

-----Original Message-----
From: Jean Hollis Weber [mailto:jean@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, 19 October 2003 2:17 PM
To: Australian Technical Writers List
Subject: atw: Report on TCANZ Conference


I attended the TCANZ (Technical Communicators Association of New
Zealand)=20
conference in early September. I was most impressed with the
organization,=20
the speakers, the topics covered, and the number of people who attended
the=20
conference.

The theme this year was "Focus on Users". The lineup of speakers was
most=20
impressive: two each from Australia and Canada, and three each from New=20
Zealand and the USA. Most of them were quite entertaining as well as=20
informative.

If you're interested, I've put a full report online at=20
http://www.jeanweber.com/about/tcanz03.htm.

Cheers, Jean

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