40th Conference in Dallas

[Eric Ray <ejray -at- OKWAY -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>]

Ann Balaban said:

>Also, many of the attendees I talked with were dissatisfied with the
>level of expertise offered at this year's conf. We feel that the true
>technical writers are left out. Most of the sessions addressed commercial
>software user doc writers and financial/banking inst. writers. Most of
>it sounded more like business writing than technical writing.

          I know this is a little old, but I have to respond. I was at
     the conference in Dallas, and I thought it was outstanding! I
     only saw one presentation that was poor, all the rest ranged from
     good to great. I will admit that I am very eclectic in my
     interests and went to presentations on research, on computer
     documentation, on management, and a number of other things, so I
     wasn't really aware of or bothered by any bias to or against
     specific areas. I certainly felt that the conference met my
     needs, and I am a "true" technical writer, or at least I was the
     last time I looked.

     Sorry for bringing this back up, but I had to say that I enjoyed
     the conference and that it helped me in my job, my studies,
     and--not coincidentally--my contacts with other technical
     communicators.

     I will say that I got more out of the conference than some of the
     people I talked with in Dallas, but I also think that
     conferences, like most other "enrichment activities" tend to be
     as useful as the participants make them.

     Eric
     ejray -at- okway -dot- okstate -dot- edu