North East Area Group meeting

Adobe comes to Newcastle – Wednesday 13th June
FREE ISTC Event hosted by Sage (UK) Limited for Northern Technical Communicators
“Trends in TechComm – anywhere, anytime” by Ankur Jain of Adobe
“Beyond the Comfort Zone: Today, You Will Not be Writing a Help File” by Robert Scott-Norton of Sage (UK) Limited
The event is being held in the Allendale assembly room at the premises of Sage (UK) Limited, North Park, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE13 9AA and will commence at 17:30 with an approximate end time of 19:15. After the event, you will also have the opportunity to discuss the presentations and network with like-minded people.
If you plan to attend, please sign up for the event at http://sagenewcastle.eventbrite.com to help us anticipate attendance numbers.
Please forward this message on to your colleagues or anyone else who may be interested. For more information contact Janine Weightman by email to:
northeastengland_areagroup@istc.org.uk.

Ankur’s presentation will cover Trends in TechComm with special focus on reaching customers – anywhere, anytime by offering technical content on mobile devices.
The proliferation of computer tablets, smart phones, and eBook readers has changed customer expectations as to how and when they can access critical content. A great number of technical documents contain content that must be output to multiple devices. With emerging digital technologies, publishers and technical communicators now have the opportunity to make their content accessible on multiple screens. Learn how you can create, distribute and monetize content using eBooks. In this session, Ankur will cover how to create and distribute EPUB and Kindle formats and will also share some best practices to follow while authoring/formatting your content for smaller screens.
Robert’s presentation will focus on the changing world of technical communication.
Technical communicators sometimes worry about the future of their roles as user-generated content grows, documents shrink, and agile methods make teams of ‘generalists’. But there are opportunities to use the skills that technical communicators possess – somewhere out there beyond the comfort zone. This story is one of how technical communicators were part of a key project team to manage thousands of customers through the transition to new software. From designing the earliest messages, planning and delivering both a customer and employee engagement plan, producing specialist materials for hundreds of conference attendees, all the way to inventing a robot. It is how the skills and knowledge of technical communicators can provide essential complement to those of product managers, marketing communicators, and technical support experts to produce something radically different from another help file. It is a story of what might just exist for you somewhere, just a little beyond your comfort zone.
If you plan to attend, please sign up for the event at http://sagenewcastle.eventbrite.com to help us anticipate attendance numbers.
Please forward this message on to your colleagues or anyone else who may be interested. For more information contact Janine Weightman by email to:
northeastengland_areagroup@istc.org.uk.