The Realm of Technical Communication: tcworld conference 2022
tcworld conference 2022: an inspiring experience deep inside technical communication
November 8, 2022, Stuttgart. My plane lands 22 minutes early — a good way to start the three-day tcworld conference adventure!
Earlier in August
It all started in August 2022, when I published and shared on Linkedin an article showing that, in my opinion, often the word “complexity” is misused:
https://medium.com/@lucavettor/often-complexity-is-an-alibi-ae61e103bae8
Some people from the tcworld staff read the article and found it interesting enough to message me and ask to share my experience interviewing subject matter experts at the 2022 conference.
I was simultaneously flattered and scared: my first presentation at an international conference! Could I not have accepted? Of course, I took it!
Preparation
Melting complexity into simple when interviewing SMEs was the title. The promised takeaway:
Technical writers and SMEs are all SMEs; they need to agree on every single word to build successful collaboration. Extremely simple to say, extremely hard to work, but achievable.
Based on that, I wrote three different versions of the presentation. The last one appeared to be solid and logical enough not to disfigure next to presentations by other technical communication professionals.
I was ready to deliver my little experience and dig into the sea of knowledge of tens of technical writers.
The conference
Entering the International Congress Center Stuttgart (ICS) is inspiring: you can hear the buzz of knowledge sharing in an immediate connection with everyone attending. That’s the strength of putting together hundreds of professionals focused on technical communication!
The list of presentations I wanted to attend had some superpositions, but it was a starting point, and, more or less, it shows what I actually participated in.
My takeaway
Among the massive amount of suggestions, insights, and valuable indications I got, that’s the highly concise list of ideas I collected and will develop in my technical writing life:
- PDFs are still there! How many technical writers are sad to use that old technology still! Will we ever get rid of it?
- There is no universal agreement on whom is responsible for technical documentation.
- The most effective way of prioritizing content is to estimate the negative impact on the audience for not having that content.
- Giving a structure to the content is crucial to maintain it constantly up to date.
- Audiences need scannable content and a progressive discovery of it.
- The critical double question to satisfy audiences is: What’s the last information you searched for? Did you find it?
- Documentation is a product.
Conclusions
It was a fantastic experience for two reasons:
- First, I connected with hundreds of people who face the same challenges as me daily.
- Second, by presenting my thoughts, I had the priceless opportunity to gather feedback from tens of other technical writers.
Would I repeat it? Sure!
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