Posts about “Doctrain West 2008”
DocTrain chugged along today and picked up some speed with a heavy emphasis on social media. As with yesterday’s post, I’ll give you the skinny and the slides on each presentation as well my pick for ‘what’s hot’.
Great people, good food, and leading-edge content. Kudos to the organizers and to the Marriott Pinnacle for hosting this terrific event. And a huge thanks also to the Westcoast STC for the opportunity to attend.
The conference proper kicked off today with some excellent speakers across the board. There were a lot of presentations, so I’m going to keep it short and give you the gist of each one along with my personal “what’s hot” recommendation on something juicy, cool or just plain geeky that I gleaned from the talk. If the slides for the talk are available online, I’ll embed them as well.
So without further ado, here’s my take on the presentations that I attended.
Today I attended a pre-conference workshop on Simplified Technical English (STE) at DocTrain West. Berry Braster, director of Tedopres, presented the benefits of writing documentation using standardized, unambiguous English, especially when materials are being translated into other languages.
The implementation of STE involves developing a company-specific dictionary and using documentation software to aid in the mechanical side of ensuring uniformity of language across the board. The goal is to ultimately reduce costs and facilitate quality assurance.