Conferences
Because of the enormous geographical area covered by the TransAlpine chapter, monthly chapter meetings are not feasible. Instead, we organize a two-day conference once or twice a year, usually followed or preceded by a one-day workshop. The conferences provide the membership with opportunities to learn, to network, to meet friends that live far away, and to have fun. For some members, who do not even live in the TransAlpine area, the STC-TAC conferences are the number one reason to be part of our chapter.
10th Anniversary STC-TAC Conference
Watch for TAC’s tenth anniversary conference (our 17th) in spring 2009.
16th STC-TAC conference (Ljubljana, Slovenia, April 16–18, 2007)
Our 16th TAC conference took place April 16–18, 2008 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Hermes Softlab, an international supplier of IT solutions and software engineering services, hosted our event that was attended by 47 technical communicators from Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Austria.
It kicked off on Wednesday, April 16 with a 1-day workshop hosted by graphic expert, Patrick Hofmann, teaching us about, “Creating and evaluating usable graphics for international audiences.” Our 2-day conference followed on on Thursday and Friday with our keynote speaker, Patrick Hofmann, speaking on, “Pictures and profits: How visual information design and simple usability studies can save your company millions.” The day continues with expert presentations, our chapter business meeting, and our annual networking dinner that evening in Ljubljana’s traditional Sokal restaurant.
The second day our our conference included more presentations from technical communication experts and our famous “chocolate raffle.” And we wrapped up the conference with our traditonal “champagne” toast apéro featuring sparkling wine from Slovenia.
View the conference presentations
- Workshop: Intuitive images: Creating and evaluating usable graphics for international audiences (Patrick Hofmann)
- Keynote: Pictures and profits: How visual information design and simple usability studies can save your company millions (Patrick Hofmann)
- Business anthropology research as a tool for understanding users (Jasna Vukovič)
- Brave new world: How one writing team moved to DITA-based authoring (Helen O’Shae)
- Building a team from the ground up (Erin Heximer)
- Improving the quality and usability of error messages (Katarzyna Kostorz)
- Conversion to XML: Moving from FrameMaker to DocBook and Surviving (Andrej Vernekar)
- Tools that work (Alice Jane Emanuel). Find the presentation at www.commatheory.com
- Web 2.0 in a corporate environment (Bogo Vatovec)
- Leading a small group of technical writers working in “Scrum” teams (Piero Margutti)
Download the presentations here.
15th STC-TAC conference (Zurich, April 18–20, 2007)
After an 18-month hiatus, 25 attendees took part in our 15th conference in Zurich, Switzerland hosted by Zurich Financial Services. XML expert, Sarah O’Keefe facilitated our 1-day workshop, Beyond Desktop Publishing: XML and structured authoring, for 11 participants. During our conference, Sarah also spoke on Working in a third-culture world. Other presenters shared their knowledge of cross-cultural communication, blogging, information architecture, flat-screen information systems, JAVA programming, and designing online workspaces. Outside of the conference, attendees networked over a delicious fondue dinner and had time to explored Zurich’s old town. The three days of learning ended with our traditional chocolate raffle and “champagne” toast to another successful event.
14th STC-TAC conference (Berlin, September 28-30, 2005)
For the 14th conference, we went all the way North and found a beautiful location in a beautiful city: Berlin. The local group of technical communicators has done an extraordinary job with this conference, even though the number of visitors was on the low side. It must have something to do with economics: more work, fewer people to do the work, and less money on the budget for better work.
The people who decided not to come to Berlin missed out on very high quality presentations, a great venue, and an excellent dinner.
13th STC-TAC conference (Milan, April 20-22, 2005)
The TAC pack returned to Italy with a very special event. In one the Milan offices of Siemens Building Technologies, 19 Italians met for an all-Italian pre-conference day, a kind of super-LIG meeting. At the same time, in another room, 10 people were trained on usability testing by two of the greatest experts in the field, Bill Gribbons and Joe Dumas, both from Bentley College in Massachussettes. The two conference days were traditionally fun and educative, with a highly involved group of attendees.
Food is an important part in the equation. We had dinner in the lovely restaurant “Al Sodo”. Their main room was just enough to fit the 30 dinner guests and the food was excellent.
12th STC-TAC conference (Munich, October 20-22, 2004)
After hosting the 11th conference in Vienna, ITL offered us another venue for the 12th: their lovely offices in Munich. Again, the event was a great success. The conference featured a 1-day hands-on One-World-Publishing workshop and 2 days packed with presentations and discussions. At this event, we were honoured by the presence of Andrea Ames, STC president. And we had no less than 2 director-sponsors in Munich: our own Vici Koster-Lenhardt and Jim Romano, who flew in from Minneapolis just to be part of the TAC pack - even if it was only for a day or two.
Non-bored board people. From right to left: Vici Koster-Lenhardt (DS region 2), Andrea Ames (STC Prez), Vilma Zamboli (TAC Prez), Jang Graat (TAC Vice-Prez), Jim Romano (DS region 6). Thanks to Glenn Lea for taking the picture and sending it in.
11th STC-TAC conference (Vienna, April 21-23, 2004)
Although the number of attendees was limited to just over 30, the 11th STC-TAC conference was a great success. The conference featured a 1-day hands-on XML workshop and 2 days packed with presentations and discussions. The end of the conference was marked, as always, by a chocolate raffle and a champagne reception.
Tower of power. Director-Sponsor Vici Koster-Lenhardt (left), Immediate Past President Brian Martin (middle) and incoming Treasurer Nancy Gelman (right) perform their duties in the preparation of a high-spirited conference closure.