Conference Programme

Friday, 13th October:

Saturday, 14th October:

More about our Speakers

Here are some more details about our speakers:

• Patrick Hofmann, of n0rmal.com, will present The ROI of Usability and Information Design: How simple processes and common sense saved companies millions. His presentation will teach usability testing techniques and customer insight-gathering strategies that are not only affordable, but in some cases, free. There are countless ways to evaluate your products and services with little to no investment. Creating usable, visually helpful information can please your users and your company's bottom line.
• Sarah O'Keefe is founder and president of Scriptorium Publishing and author of several books on FrameMaker and structured authoring with XML. Her presentation will focus on how to analyze the business case (time, quality, and especially money) for XML implementation. She'll explain how to put together a compelling business justification for several typical implementation scenarios.
• Geoff Hart, a self-employed editor and translator, will present Improving speed and accuracy of technology transfer: a case study of process re-engineering. He'll describe a Kaizen exercise to revise the publication process in an R&D institute. The new process increased efficiency without sacrificing quality. Other communicators can adopt a similar process.
• Ian Larner, Information Architect and Software Engineer at IBM in the UK, will present DITA: (The Darwin Information Typing Architecture) Obtaining business value from information. He'll examine how DITA can help companies obtain business value from information, with reference to real experiences within IBM. With DITA, companies can gain faster time to return, increased consistency, reuse, and collaboration.
• Derek Torres and Ethan McCallum, Directors of Standard Six, a technical communications consultancy based in Chicago and Paris, are presenting Creating a Business Model Built for Success: How to Reduce Chance of Failure in the First Year. They will talk about their recent experience establishing the business in Paris. They will discuss precisely what steps to take in defining your business model and how to build your foundation in order to minimize or reduce the chance of your company failing within the first year.
• James Lawrence, currently Technical Publications Manager at McAfee will show us how Tech Pubs is run as a small business within McAfee. From Business Plan and SWOT analysis, through to restructuring and promotional activities, can his team be more than a 'necessary' cost-centre?
• Nad Rosenberg, founder and president of TechWRITE, Inc. will speak on Do-It-Yourself Tools that Enhance the Quality/Cost Equation. She'll describe how to develop tools that improve customer service, enhance product quality and monitor time-accounting metrics.
• Char James-Tanny , User Assistance Consultant at JTF Associates, Inc., and Kit Brown, of Comgenesis, both highly regarded experts, will present Managing Multi-cultural, Multi-site Teams Using Web Technology to discuss ways that managers can use web technology to build team rapport and to asses project needs, as well as evaluating the web technology.
• Silvia Cambié, Director of Chanda Communications and Chair of IABC Europe and Middle Eastwill talk about Moving from tactical to strategic communications - how communicators have the ability to make a valued contribution to the bottom line and want a seat at the executive table.
• B. Noz Urbina, of Mekon Ltd., provides XML solutions consultancy services to global organisations and SMEs. His presentation will focus on the ROI of usable structured content solutions across different business functions. He discusses developing XML solutions which enable corporations to communicate with customers through a growing variety of channels, micro-customize products, operate in multiple national markets while also maintaining accurate and reliable content.
• Stuart Mudie and Derek Torres are co-authors of the soon to be released Unofficial Guide to Windows Vista, published by Wiley publications. They are both experienced authors and frequent contributors to the STC magazine, Intecom. As Microsoft gets ready to launch its new operating system, Derek and Stuart will give us a first-hand view of The Impact of Windows Vista on Technical Communications with its large number of new features and improvements that will certainly have an impact on technical communicators and how we do our jobs working with new versions of many of the tools and applications we know.

Updated 26th September 2006 by David Farbey, on behalf of the organising committee