InfoPlus February 2026

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.

Website Volunteer Team update

Here’s an overview of what the Website Team have been working on during January.

Website Updates

The team started the new year by returning to the strategic project of redefining the ISTC website. One of the essential elements of any website is quality control, and so the team are creating an updated version of the ISTC website’s style guide. It will incorporate rules on contemporary approaches to writing for the web as well as a refreshed brand guidelines section. 

And continuing on the theme of content management, the team agreed on a plan for the next three months: to draw from their audit to define an improved site structure. That work will include creating templates for sections such as the conference pages. The team produced a wealth of analysis during their user research and are looking forward to transforming the abstract into real material.

Glossary page

We’ve scoured through the last four years worth of Communicator issues and extracted all the acronyms and their definitions. The next stage is to double-check which ones are already on the Glossary page and then update it with the new ones. They should be live by the end of February.

This will finally top off the Index and Glossary pages updates.

Going forward, these pages will be updated shortly after each new issue of Communicator is published.

Want to lend a hand?

If you’d like to help the ISTC improve its website and collaborate with other ISTC members in the process, send an email to istc@istc.org.uk. We’re a friendly team and there’s no pressure to volunteer a particular number of hours – you can help out as and when your availability allows.

IJTC Update

January newsletter

The January issue was sent out on the 16th of January and included five articles each from our regular contributors, CJ Walker and Jean Rollinson. The articles covered a wide range of topics and editing condundrums.

We now have over 140 articles, with many more to come. And yes, that includes my promised, but as yet missing, NotebookLM article(s). Now that I’m using it daily as part of my job, I’m finding out more and more that I can pass on. Including the use of Chrome/Edge plugins that expand the use of NotebookLM!

Future Topics

We used to run a column in Communicator called ‘Day In The Life’. I’m liasing with my contacts in Australia and New Zealand to see if we could relaunch it (via IJTC) and include interviews with people from both hemispheres. Then we’ll need to find some volunteers.

We want your articles!

Here are the rules:

• It doesn’t have to be of an epic length.
• There’s nothing stopping you from sending in multiple small articles for a series, along the lines of our series from Jean Rollinson and CJ Walker.
• It has to be relevant to the technical communicators who are part of ISTC – as well as our Australian and New Zealand colleagues.
• It must not be generated using AI. You can, however, write about AI tools used within the tech comms field.

Take a look at the other articles already on the website and see if your subject would fit in. Send it to editor@ijtc.net.

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

ISTC Slack

The details of where to find our Slack channel can be found in the email sent to all ISTC members on September 17th 2025, with the title ‘A problem shared is a problem halved’.

Before joining please remember:
This is a professional space, and all areas, including any private messages, may be reviewed by the ISTC and are subject to the ISTC’s Code of Professional Practice.

We look forward to seeing you in there.

Area groups

If you wish to start your own Area Group, 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 first 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 Wednesday 18th February. This meeting is online and the meeting invite will be posted in the WhatsApp chat for the group nearer the time. We are hoping that the March meeting will be an in-person one, when the weather is a lot nicer.

A Request for Back Issues

Communicator – or The Communicator, as it was originally called. We’ve added the list of missing issues to the Communicator Archive page.

ISTC Meets

This is our monthly series of online live presentations and discussions from industry experts across the Technical Communication spectrum.

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

Our February ISTC Meets is on Friday 20th February at 13.00 and Vladimir Izmalkov will be discussing “Guardrails for AI generated content”.

This is the Zoom link

Contact the ISTC directly, istc@istc.org.uk, to be added to the ISTC Meets mailing list.

Talking heads wanted!

Do you want to give a 30 minute talk on any aspects of tech comms (via Zoom)? Get in touch with ISTC Meets.

Social Media

We recently pared back our social media areas to make them easier to manage and post to. Our FB pages for ISTC and TCUK will remain for the time being whilst they are archived, then they will be removed permanently.

• ISTC (LinkedIn group)
• TCUK (LinkedIn group)

Community Forums

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

• The Lobby
• Jobs
• Newbies

A bit of AI … poking and prodding.

Davos AI Warning

The World Economic Forum was at it’s usual location in Davos at the end of January which featured intense focusing on AI. This included discussions with the industry’s top minds, including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Google’s Demis Hassabis, and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella.

• Amodei took a shot at U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent policy allowing AI chip sales to China, likening it to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea”.
• Hassabis believes this year could see AI-driven slowdowns in junior hiring, but that AI tools could ultimately enable more skill creation than traditional paths.
• Nadella said no company can “just coast” in the AI era, stating that big companies that don’t keep up will “get schooled by someone small.”
• Amodei also said we may be just 6-12 months away from models that do “most, maybe all” of what software engineers do end-to-end.
• Also, Kristialina Georgieva who is an MD at the International Monetary Fund said: “AI impacting labour markets ‘like a tsunami’ as layoff fears mount. Most countries and most businesses are not prepared for it.”

CLAUDE has its own ConsTitution

With the recent troubles that a certain AI tool (which is owned by a social media company) got into due to dodgy requests, Anthropic have released a constitution for Claude. It states what it can and can’t be used for going forward.

AI Slop

The online dictionary Merriam Webster made ‘AI Slop’ their ‘Definition of the Year’ and the updated entry now reads:

“Digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence,” encompassing AI-written books, junk videos, or propaganda”.

RUNWAY

Runway released the latest version (v4.5) of their short video generation AI tool and at the same time announced a test for us mere humans to see if we can detect a real video compared to an AI generated one.

CHatGPT including ads

Currently USA only at first, but for those of us on this side of the pond, it will be ‘coming soon’. The initial levels will be their free and Go tiers.

Essentially it’s being done to help suggest that you upgrade to one of their monthly payment models without any ads.

New Tools

I get a regular update from ‘There’s An AI For That’ website. It shows what’s new out there in ‘AI land’ and these tools caught my eye as being useful for people in our profession.

Releem – MySQL Optimization

Supercharge MySQL performance with one-click tuning.

Promptessor

Analyze and optimize your AI prompts for better results.

REWARX

This is a tool that will convert a standard snapshot of your product into something wonderful in 4K.

Note: These are not ISTC endorsements, just “nice to have” tools which I think might fit your workflow.