Shay D.

I skipped the 8:30 session in favour of breakfast. While standing in line to be seated, I got into a random conversation with the woman ahead of me in line (also at the summit) and we ended up sitting together for breakfast, which was nice (and unusual for me. so social!).

10:00-11:00 Useful Shareware for Technical Communicators (I learned more from the guy I was sitting beside than the presenter, including Illusion OS - a free open source version of XP!)

11:30-12:30 Proces Re-Engineering for Topic-Based Authoring (another great session, gave me lots of ideas)

12:30-2:30 was the closing luncheon, wherein I picked a table at random and had yet another conversation with a person I had not previously met. She had been a research chemist for Eastman Kodak before becoming a tech writer. I learned a lot, including Kodak's Big Blunder that cost them the market.

C and I travelled on MARTA to the airport together after the luncheon. There was a wicked thunderstorm: for a while there was about 4" of water on the tarmac and huge lightning strikes. Our flight was not delayed, though, so I was on the ground at YYZ by 20 after 7 that night, and back home by 9pm. My puppy gave me kisses and chased the cat it was so exciting.

Monday morning started reasonably at 9am with the keynote speaker, David Pogue, author of Macs for Dummies, NY Times columnist, etc etc. He was very entertaining and made a lot of good points about simplicity in design. He sang the iPhone Song and accompanied himself on a Yamaha keyboard, (there is a music video of the song), and then things got meta as people took out their iPhones with the lighter app and waved them at him. It stopped in him in his tracks, I kid you not, it was freakin' HILARIOUS! (His presentation was pretty similar to the TED one, except he focused on docs instead of the voice software at the end.)

Favourite quote: "The software upgrade paradox: if you improve a piece of software too many times, you ruin it."

At the keynote, I met two older tech writers, who had worked together on a project in China. One of them was from Calgary, and as we kept bumping into each other, we started making plans to do meals and such.

After the keynote, the Expo hall was open, so I wandered around talking to vendors, picking up brochures and swag, and entering all the draws I could find. heh. Except the Wii, as I already have one, and thought it more generous to leave that to others.

I had lunch with J from Calgary, and after lunch the "educational" sessions started. So, more for me than for you, I'm noting the sessions I attended. I was going to reformat and fix up the notes I typed on my Palm, but hey, I left it at work. *headdesk*

1:30-2:30 Documentation with Wikis, Blogs, and Online Communities.
3:00-4:30 Structured Authoring for Personalization

4:30 to 5 was a break, and I went to the expo hall again, and got talking to vendors and so missed the 5pm session I was going to attend. But that's okay! Because the STC is putting video of every session up online for attendees! Yay!

I skipped the Annual Meeting in favour of dinner, came back for the Communities Reception, wherein they had a trivia contest and I won a t-shirt (see new icon), and bought 2 umbrellas and a flashlight for a buck each, and then there was the Tweetup! I was a bit nervous about it, what with the randomness of my Twitter feed and all, but wore my tweetup badge anyway (apparently if you use the barcode app on your iPhone to scan the bar code on the back it auto-follows the person, so you don't have to write down their Twitter name). It was quite fun and I met even more new people and we chatted for a good hour or so. Then M (from Winnipeg) and I walked back to the hotel for the Canadian drop-in get together and hung out there for another hour. At which point it was after 11pm, so we all crawled off to bed as sessions started again at 8:30 the next morning.