Another DocTrain West conference has come and gone. This year, the focus was on social media/Web 2.0 and its impact on technical communication. But don’t think that it was all Facebook all the time. There were other, more traditional topics covered, too.

(A few more posts about the sessions will be online in the next couple of days. Keep checking back.)

Users: our technical writing partners

But one thing is clear: user-generated documentation is going to be a very important part of what we do in the very near future. As Aaron and I have said in the past, the people using products and services are doing so in ways that we can’t imagine in our development and documentation silos. They’re pushing the limits of the products, helping other users, and really driving the next phase of development of those products and services.

Harnessing that documentation will be a challenge. Aaron and I were discussing this and we came to the conclusion that one future role for technial communicators is to be information choreographers (to borrow a phrase from Bob Glushko). We’ll be gathering, editing, assembling, formatting, and publishing all the information from all of the sources that we encounter.

Not that we won’t be writing. I still think that documentation is necessary. It gives passionate users, the ones who take the time to write and blog and post to forums, a starting point.

High points of the conference

The biggest highlight was speaking with Stewart Mader and attending his presentations. To say Stewart is passionate and enthusiastic about wikis is an understatement in the extreme. It’s difficult to describe the amount of passion he has for this subject. You really have to listen to Stewart speak to understand what I’m talking about.

And wouldn’t you know it? I introduced Aaron to Stewart, and Aaron scored a free copy of WikiPatterns. I had to buy mine … Seriously, though, if you’re interested in wikis then WikiPatterns is a must read.

Darren Barefoot‘s keynote on social media turning everyone into a technical writer was funny and insightful. But Darren brought home the fact that users are our best partners in creating documentation.

Low points of the conference

A few of the sessions that we attended fell a bit flat. The speakers discussed technologies and trends, but at times they either didn’t follow through with concrete examples or they didn’t tie the disparate threads of their presentations together. Both Aaron and I were sometimes left thinking “when is this technology or methodology going to mature?”

Personal notes

Aaron and I really love Vancouver. It was great to be back, and it was a lot of fun to visit parts of the city which we hadn’t seen during our last trip.

It was great meeting up with several of the people we encountered at DocTrain last year — especially Scott Abel, Tom Johnson, Mark Lewis, and Linda and Greg Urban. And, Tom, sorry about the hot sauce incident at the Mongolian BBQ. And we met a number of interesting people, like Anne Gentle (whom we only knew online), Lisa Dyer, Stewart Mader, Teresa Mulvihill-Talbot and Fabrie Talbot, and numerous others. Sorry if we missed any names.

One highlight for me was to meet Donna Parrish live and in person. Donna heads Multilingual Computing, Inc. When I wrote for Multilingual Computing and Technology magazine back in the day, Donna was one of my editors. She was a darned good one, too. Imagine our surprise to finally meet after only knowing each other through email …

What about our panel?

The panel went pretty well. It started off with a few bumps, but within 10 minutes I think everyone really hit their stride and made some great points. Disagreements abounded, but no blood was shed. And Anne Gentle did a fine job of moderating us.

Do it again?

I really think that DocTrain is rapidly becoming one of the best conferences for technical communicators. Scott Abel and his crew keep putting together a great roster of speakers and sessions. The venue (at least in Vancouver, which is the only one I’ve been to) is great, and everyone seems to have a great time.

Would I come back and speak again? Definitely. But more on that on our news page in a couple of days…

Related posts:

1. DocTrain West 2008 day 3: keynotes, wikis, and interviews
2. Why no DocTrain day 4 recap?
3. At DocTrain West this week