InfoPlus January 2025

ISTC News

First of all, Happy New Year! We kept this issue back a few days to ensure you all had a good celebration and are now back in the general swing of things and ready for another year of technical communications.

A Renewals Reminder

Renewals for ISTC Members opened on 2nd December and payment can be made via the website or by contacting the ISTC office (istc@istc.org.uk).

Members have been sent an email with details and can check the renewals page of the ISTC website.

Your membership fee helps the ISTC to nurture, educate and support technical communicators from all areas of specialism. We aim to continue to do this and be even more effective for you and all our members.

Annual Survey

The ISTC Annual Survey covering employment is available for all technical communicators in the UK. The purpose of this survey is to collect data relating to qualifications, experience and pay of technical communicators in the UK.

Please click on the link here to get started.

Do not hesitate or delay. It will take you 10 minutes at most (guaranteed). The deadline for the survey is 31 March 2025.

Website Team Update

Redesigning the ISTC Website: A Collaborative Effort to Better Serve Our Members

In spring of 2024, a team of ISTC members and council members began an important initiative to redesign our website. This project aims to create a platform that better meets the needs of our members and reflects the ISTC’s role as a professional body. Guided by user experience (UX) principles, we’ve adopted a strategic approach that will not only shape the website but also support the wider goals of the organisation.

Members are already benefitting from improvements to the current site. A number of fixes and infrastructure upgrades have been implemented to offer a more stable and user-friendly experience. This continuous improvement occurs alongside the larger efforts to deliver a redesigned site.

As a member-run organisation, we are all about serving our members. By focusing on what matters most – whether it’s accessing trusted information, finding networking opportunities, or showcasing professional excellence – we aim to deliver a website that makes your membership even more valuable.

For those involved in the project team, this initiative has been an invaluable opportunity to gain hands-on experience in UX design and strategic planning. From defining the project to gathering insights from member interviews, the work so far has been both rewarding and challenging. As we look ahead, the team will focus on refining user personas, improving content strategy and specifications, and redesigning the information architecture (IA) and navigation of the site.

We warmly welcome more ISTC members to join this exciting initiative. The tasks mentioned above are just a sample of the wide range of opportunities available on the project. There is space for all levels of experience and areas of interest, and all you need is enthusiasm and about an hour a week to contribute. If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, please email istc@istc.org.uk. Together, we can create a website that serves us all.

On a personal note, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to my fellow team members: Catherine, Linda, Maria, Mike, and Simone, for their hard work in 2024. Your efforts have been invaluable in driving this project forward, and I truly appreciate everything you’ve done. Thanks also to everyone else who has contributed over the course of the year. Your work is making a real difference!

Stay tuned for updates in the year ahead, and don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d like to get involved!

James Bartley
ISTC Webmaster

IJTC Update

We’ve got a lot of plans for new articles (plus the remainder of my dusty old Word VBA ones) for 2025.

In 2024, we reached the total of 66 articles being published. This isn’t bad for something that we launched in June 2024!

For 2025 we’d like to match this total and hopefully get even more articles! We’ll have articles from our regulars, plus extras from our sisters & brothers in Australia and New Zealand. But we also want them from you too!

If you have anything that you would like to publish then get in touch with me via the editor@ijtc.net address.

Advertise in InfoPlus

Get your company or products noticed in the TechComms community! We are offering new opportunities for advertising in our monthly InfoPlus newsletter.

These adverts are banners to be positioned as you choose. Placement examples are included in this PDF, which also contains all the necessary steps and costs involved to place an advert in future editions of InfoPlus.

If you would like to advertise with us please contact Chantel Sankey – istc@istc.org.uk.

ISTC Community

Become more involved in the professional community through the ISTC Area Groups, join us online at one of our monthly ISTC Meets events, and find us on social media (links below). Members (once logged in) also have access to the ISTC Discussion Forums.

Area Groups

If you wish to start your own Area Group, contact istc@istc.org.uk.

Cambridge Area Group

The ISTC would like to take this opportunity to thank Deborah Stevens for her many years running the Cambridge Area Group as she steps down to focus on other matters.

If any members who have benefitted from Deborah’s efforts would like to get in touch with a message, please do so via istc@istc.org.uk.

We are investigating how we can best continue the group in Deborah’s absence, so please contact istc@istc.org.uk if you would like more details on this.

Midlands Area Group

This group has been dormant for some time but a member has expressed interest in it being set up again. If you’d be interested in being part of this please contact istc@istc.org.uk

Thames Valley Area Group

The Thames Valley local group meeting is at the Bird-in-Hand pub in Knowle Hill, RG10 9UP on the second Tuesday of each month from 7.30pm. All are welcome.

They rarely have a set subject but the conversation always has a strong tech comms flavour. Maybe something from recent news, something that has happened at work, or some new technology to discuss.

London Area Group

The next London Area Group meetup is pencilled in for Wednesday 22nd January.

The location is, by default, near the Royal Festival Hall at The Southbank Centre.

We can meet either inside (in the foyer) or outside (at the bench outside of the Foyles). You can confirm the exact location in the WhatsApp chat for the group at the time of meeting as it’s decided in the moment, depending on the environment.

ISTC Meets

ISTC Meets is our monthly series of live online presentations and discussions from industry experts across Technical Communication.

However, there won’t be one for January and they will return in February.

For full details of the upcoming speakers, and for all future ISTC Meets, please visit our website.

If you contact ISTC directly, istc@istc.org.uk, they can add you to the ISTC Meets mailing list.

Social Media

Community Forums

The forums are available to all members once you have logged into the ISTC website.

A Request for Back Issues

In ISTC Towers we’ve recently been looking at all of our back issues of our magazine, Communicator – or The Communicator, as it was originally called. Currently we are missing a few scans of our older issues and we’d like to find these gap fillers.

Do any of our membership have PDFs, or maybe the original magazines that can be borrowed and scanned in, of the following issues:

Early issues of ‘The Communicator’ used the older numbering scheme of a numerical issue number, ranging from 1 through to 77. These ran from 1968 through to 1988.

The Communicator 1968 – Issues 02, 03 & 04
The Communicator 1970 – Issues 07, 08 & 09
The Communicator 1972 – Issue 13

From 1989 onwards, we started using our current title of ‘Communicator’. We have the following issues missing:

Communicator 1990 – Issues 08, 09, 10, 11 & 12
Communicator 1991 – Issues 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07 & 11
Communicator 1992 – Issues 02, 07, 08 & 12

In 1995, we changed from the monthly issues to the current convention of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter editions. We only have the one issue missing and that’s the Spring 2000 edition.

Any help would be appreciated if you have the above issues so that we can complete our collection in 2025, making it our 57th year of our magazine. Please contact me if you’re able to help via InfoPlus email: newsletter.editor@istc.org.uk

A bit of AI … poking and prodding.

The UK Government put forward a law (still in the discussion stages) about how people and companies can protect themselves from the AI scrapers and LLMs out there. This link takes you to the overview of what’s suggested will form this new law. It’s currently being looked at in the Lords so the usual to-and-fro between the two chambers will need to be played out before anything else happens in the UK.

Although there is a new UK law being brought in, the simple overview is that it will offer a similar system to the EU Artificial Intelligence Act re: opting your work out of AI scrapers, which, in my honest opinion is akin to bolting the barn door after the horse has bolted. But it’s better than no law(s) at all protecting the copyright of creators and that includes us in technical communications too.

Both approaches aim to ensure the safe and ethical use of AI, but the EU’s law is more rigid and comprehensive, while the UK’s is more flexible and innovation-friendly. But we shall see just which law has the biggest teeth and/or will stand up for creators in front of the AI behemoths.

Upcoming Events

It’s a new year, so there are a wide range of in-person and online only conferences coming up in the first few months. All of their details are below:

Title: DITA Europe Conference
Date: Copenhagen Feb 17-18, 2025
Online/In-Person: Copenhagen, Denmark.
Website: https://ditaeurope.infomanagementcenter.com/

About:
DITA Europe is designed with your specific needs in mind – providing strategies you can use immediately as you create and manage technical content, and expanding your professional network with information development experts from around the world.

Discount available:
Save 10% off the cost of registration when you use discount code – TCW – on checkout.

Title: Axe-Con 2025
Date: Tuesday, February 25 to Thursday, February 27, 2025
Online/In-Person: Online only
Website: https://www.deque.com/axe-con/

About:
Building accessible digital experiences requires a team effort, across design, development, management, testing, accessibility experts, and of course, legal. Axe-con is the first of its kind, dedicating topics to each of these key players. This is not an assistive technology convention.

Title: NORDIC TechKomm 2025
Date: March 12th–13th, 2025
Online/In-Person: In-Person at the Downtown Camper by Scandic in Stockholm
Website: https://se.nordic-techkomm.com/

About:
The main conference theme is “Technical Information in Heavily Regulated Industries”.

Key topics for NORDIC TechKomm Stockholm:

Future Trends in Regulatory Compliance
Regulatory Landscapes
Technical Documentation Best Practices
Technology’s Role in Compliance
Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals Case Studies
Cybersecurity and Data Protection
Global Standards vs. Local Regulations
Risk Management through Documentation
Training for Technical Writers

Title: tcworld China 2025
Date: May 22nd- May 23rd, 2025
Online/In-Person: In-Person in Shanghai, China.
Website: https://www.tcworld-china.cn/en/

About:
Key Topics for tcworld China 2025:

Technical Authoring
AI in Technical Communication
International Standards
Information Design and information Development
UX
Software Documentation
Globalisation/Localisation/Terminology
Content Marketing
Education and Career Development
Content Management and Delivery

Training Courses

Accredited courses have been reviewed by a professional panel of experienced ISTC members. A course listed as “ISTC Accredited” means that the panel believes the course meets its stated objectives and is suitable for its intended audience.

Course providers have to apply for renewal of accreditation every 2 years, which helps to ensure the courses reflect current best practice.

Armada

The Armada course (run over 5 days) is available either online or via an in-person classroom-based course. The next dates are:

Online: 31st March – 4th April 2025
Bristol: 31st March – 4th April 2025
Reading: Classroom-based & Online – 16th – 20th June 2025

There are also classes available at their Birmingham / Bromsgrove, Cardiff, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Nottingham and Sheffield Training Centres. These would need to be arranged upon request.

For further details, see www.armada.co.uk/course/tatp.

Cherryleaf

The Cherryleaf courses are available online and can be booked for single tech comm people or as a group.

Technical Writer – Induction Course: https://cherryleaf.teachable.com/p/technical-writer-induction-course

Using Generative AI in Technical Writing: https://cherryleaf.teachable.com/p/using-generative-ai

ESTON Technical/Commercial Authorship

This course run by ESTON is online-only and is available any time. A discount is offered to ISTC members.

ESTON Technical/Commercial Authorship (Premier)

TCTrainNet – tekom Certificate training in Technical Communication

There are two accredited courses available from TCTrain and the dates they are run on for 2025 are:

TCTrain Professional course for beginners and career changers:

January 27, 2025
April 7, 2025
June 23, 2025
September 29, 2025
November 24, 2025

TCTrain Expert course for experienced technical writers:

April 7th 2025
October 20th, 2025

For ISTC members we offer a discount of 200 Euros too.

TCTrainNet

Please note that attending an ISTC Accredited course from the trainers above does not automatically make you an ISTC Member. You will still need to apply for ISTC membership afterwards.

If the training course has whet your whistle, then come and join us.

About InfoPlus

InfoPlus is your go-to source for staying informed about our profession, featuring news not only from the ISTC but also from across the technical communication community.

This complimentary newsletter is emailed to approximately 1500 individuals.

Subscribe to InfoPlus here, you can unsubscribe at any time from within the email sent out each month.

For advertising enquiries, contact istc@istc.org.uk.

Submitting content

If you have noteworthy information to share with your peers, please send it my way at newsletter.editor@istc.org.uk. We want to ensure that your news reaches as many people as possible.

Published and distributed on the first working day of each month, InfoPlus occasionally experiences slight delays until the first week of the month. Keep this in mind when submitting time-sensitive information.

Please get the information for the February 2025 edition to newsletter.editor@istc.org.uk by Monday 27th January 2025.

About our publishers

InfoPlus, the Monthly Newsletter from the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (ISTC), is a valuable resource for the largest UK body representing scientific and technical communicators. Whether you are involved in technical writing, technical illustration, or other forms of communicating technical information, ISTC is the professional association dedicated to supporting your career.

Explore the benefits of ISTC membership and find out how to join.

Back Page

Firstly, here is the solution to the ISTC Xmas Wordsearch:

Download the solution to the Xmas ISTC Wordsearch

Secondly, I’ve been sent this list by of language-based neologisms by Russell King:

Alliteration – Collective noun for a group of refuse collectors
Alphabet – Someone who always wins when gambling
Apostrophe – Prize awarded to Royal Mail employee of the year
Contraction – Someone who pretends to have a broken leg
Diphthong – Racy swimwear
Double Negative – Unconvincing Impersonator
Grammar – Your Mum’s Mum
Haiku – Mutiny on an aircraft
Oxford Comma – Descendant of the little-known Basingstoke semi-colon
Palindrome – Museum for Monty Python memorabilia
Parenthesis – Dissertation on having children
Pathetic Fallacy – Poor attempt to grow a rudely-shaped vegetable
Prologue – Experienced lumberjack
Subordinate Clause – What you find in shopping centres during December
Syntax – How the Church could make money from its parishioners

However, I always welcome more if you have something else, be it funny or a puzzle. You can send them to newsletter.editor@istc.org.uk by Monday 27th January 2025.

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