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I've been a member of the STC for several years and have never attended
their annual conference, because their doesn't seem enough of value to
me to justify the time and expense.... even if my employers were to pay,
I would have a hard time justifying it.
Ideally, in an STC conference I would see a number of different tracks,
one or two of which would be on technical topics.
Several people have commented that they were for non-software companies
and don't think too many people would care for tracks on their
technology. Not so--- I have worked for software companies, but the
software is for particular industries (e.g., manufacturing, healthcare).
I would be interested in sessions on those industries - and of any
other industry which I might think could be interesting to work in, to
help learn about one or more issues that concern that industry and what
people in that industry write about.
If there were two technical tracks, I would suggest to make one on
various computer technologies (because there are so many who are or want
to be writing in the software industry) and another on various other
industries. If there only one technical track, of course, have both
computer-industry and other-industry topics.
Ideally, tracks run in parallel. So if the particular technology doesn't
interest you, you can always attend a non-technology track (e.g.,
tech-writing tools, management, etc.).
And some technical topics could be of interest as both a topic to write
about and as something of practical use. For example, XML is a popular
topic because there are people writing about XML applications as well as
people using XML in documentation (not necessarily the same people).
Accounting topics could be of interest both to people who would write on
such topics, as well as to contractors and possibly managers.
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