ISTC News
Help shape TCUK27: A quick survey!
The ISTC (Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators) is exploring the possibility of organising the next edition of the ISTC’s conference TCUK for 2027. TCUK has always been shaped by the people who attend it, and your feedback will help guide what happens next.
Your views are extremely valuable. Whether you have attended TCUK before, are thinking of attending in the future, or you are simply interested in the direction of the profession, please complete this survey to help guide and shape TCUK27.
The survey should take about three minutes to complete. All responses are completely anonymous.
Your responses will help us understand the level of interest and what would make a future TCUK event exciting and valuable for the technical communication community.
Thank you for helping us shape the future of TCUK27. We need to collate all of the results by the end of this month.
ISTC Awards – Volunteer Judge
The ISTC is looking for volunteers to act as judges for the UK Technical Communication Awards in 2026.
The ISTC Awards recognise the value of clear, concise and effective information products across our profession. From traditional documentation to modern digital formats, they celebrate the impact that high-quality technical communication has on organisations and, most importantly, on users.
Why volunteer as an ISTC Judge?
As a volunteer judge, you will engage with a wide range of current technical communication practices. You will be central to recognising excellence across the profession and help shape what ‘good’ looks like in our field. Judging the awards is a fantastic way to support your own Continuing Professional Development (CPD).
It requires some short-term flexible commitment during the judging period. You are expected to review the award entries and assess them against the entries’ own briefs and industry best practice. As the Judge, you are also expected to give overall feedback and recommendations for improvements to each entry.
You may choose to involve additional reviewers to support you. All judging is carried out anonymously.
Who we are looking for
We are ideally looking for technical communicators with 5 or more years’ experience. A broader range of experience is very welcome.
More important than anything else is your enthusiasm for the profession and an interest in helping to recognise and shape high standards in technical communication.
Your contribution is highly valued and plays an important role in maintaining the quality and credibility of the awards.
Interested?
If you would like to volunteer or find out more, please contact istc@istc.org.uk by 31 May 2026.
Call for volunteers for the accreditation of courses for ISTC members
We are also looking for a team of volunteers to review courses in our field. These courses cover entry to intermediate level courses for technical communicators as well as a number of specialist areas that include GenAI and content strategy.
Volunteers should be Corporate Members (Member or Fellow) and be able to review courses according to a set of ISTC guidelines. This experience can give you an insight into current benchmarks and trends in technical communication from the training providers’ perspective. You will also be in a position to provide feedback which would allow the ISTC to guarantee a good educational standard.
This experience can be recorded in your CPD journal that can then be used for applying for and maintaining your Fellow status.
If you would like to volunteer or find out more, please contact istc@istc.org.uk by 31 May 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.
MadCap Flare News
AI Raises Stakes on Content Curation
By Anthony Olivier
Artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing at a remarkable pace, producing content better and faster than ever before. But any thoughts of replacing technical writers with AI is short-sighted and fails to address the majority of the value these professionals bring to an organization.
In fact, we recently conducted a survey of technical communicators and discovered that only about 25% of their time was spent on content creation: drafting and composing, formatting and styling, creating screenshots and diagrams, and publishing and repurposing content.
By contrast, these same technical communicators indicated that roughly 75% of their work was related to content or knowledge curation. This included project management and coordination, cross-department content consistency, information architecture and planning, and researching and interviewing subject matter experts (SMEs).
To be sure, there are powerful AI tools that technical communicators can and should harness to maximize their productivity, and ultimately this should cut the content creation time significantly. Conversely, AI in content creation will most likely increase the amount of content being generated too. Therefore, technical communicators will play an increasingly critical role in managing AI-driven content to ensure that it is accurate, relevant, timely and consistent—effectively bringing content curation from behind the scenes to front and center.
So, how does AI elevate the importance of content curation? What does the content curator’s role entail? What curation skills are required in the age of AI? And why is it important to start educating the executive suite now? Let’s take on each of these questions.
AI Amplifies the Need for Content Curation
AI tools may be able to create unprecedented volumes of content, but they can’t distinguish between right and wrong. They are notorious for hallucinating, and all too often, they simply make bad decisions.
Most technical writers who have worked with generative AI (GenAI) tools probably have at least one horror story of how GenAI applied to documentation or online Help gave an incorrect instruction or misidentified a fix or workaround in error. The examples go on and on.
These AI shortcomings are expanding the need and scope for content curation. Content not only needs to align the right content with the right communications vehicle for the right audience; it also has to understand the audience and incorporate semantic understanding, governance and guardrails to avoid duplication and ensure that AI-driven content is consistent, accurate and valid.
Diligent curation of AI-generated content is even more critical in highly regulated industries, such as medical devices, pharmaceuticals, automotive manufacturing, and food and beverage, and frankly any organization that requires consistently agile releases. Here, incomplete or outdated information or hallucinations introduced by AI can compromise health and safety, create gaps in regulatory compliance, or lead to other serious liability risks.
Understanding the Content Curator Role
The scope of curation required with AI-driven content means that content curators will bring a mix of familiar and new skills to their roles.
Content curators will be experts who need to assemble existing content components or topics into different communications vehicles, such as chat bots, how-to guides, course materials, and policy manuals, to name a few. They will also need to manage the content to reduce duplication, maintain consistency, understand and address content gaps, and ensure that vast stores of content can be easily searched.
Additionally, the curator will need to govern the content and provide guardrails before it is fed to customers, employees, and others, as well as AI tools downstream. Therefore, curation needs to go beyond filtering to also augmenting content—whether created by colleagues or AI tools—with metadata and tags that make it easier to search, organize and analyze. And for AI content, additional guardrails are needed to ensure that it is accurate.
Curation for AI Content Blends Old and New Skills
In defining the content curator role earlier, it was clear that many of the functions performed in this role parallel those of today’s technical communicators. Notably, most technical communications teams have invested in producing and managing structured content that is centrally managed to provide a single source of truth and can be readily repurposed. This puts them ahead of the curve, since AI tools require structured content to produce accurate, relevant responses.
While large enterprises may benefit more from highly structured, componentized content that adheres to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) standard, many businesses can get the necessary structure by adhering to topic-based authoring. Either method allows for the classification and tagging required for AI agents and tools to effectively search and analyze this content.
However, to support AI, technical communicators need to go beyond the “how, what and where” of standard classification and tagging and consider including a semantic understanding of content that provides deeper context and helps to answer questions around “why, when, and if.” This semantic understanding becomes essential for content curators as GenAI tools are used to create volumes of new content.
For example, submit the same question to the same GenAI tool, and it is likely to deliver a different answer each time. Now multiply that variation across multiple AI tools. Often, the content—i.e. the point being made—is the same even if the word choices differ significantly. Very quickly, this can lead to scores of duplicative content with slight variations that lead to inconsistent experiences for users and flawed AI analysis.
Having a semantic understanding of content addresses this issue by providing the foundation for semantic duplication analysis that goes beyond comparing words to comparing meaning. Armed with insights into areas of duplication, technical communicators can more readily curate content, e.g. determine what will serve as the source of truth and what can be removed to ensure that humans and AI tools, alike, access the right information. In the process, they will also cut the costs and inefficiencies associated with managing and maintaining redundant content.
To cope with growing AI content volumes, content management and delivery solutions are beginning to automate classification, tagging, and the application of semantic understanding to content. At the same time, technical communicators will need to gain some skills around data to take advantage of these capabilities and extract the necessary insights to curate content for humans and AI.
Educating the Larger Organization
Clearly, technical communications professionals will play a critical role in ensuring that their organizations operate on accurate information. However, many business executives believe they can replace technical communicators with AI-powered content tools.
The problem is that most executives do not understand the full scope of work performed by technical communicators, who in the age of AI are evolving to become knowledge engineers with responsibility for their organization’s entire knowledge supply chain.
Organizations need to be aware and weigh the risks of inaccurate information that can disenfranchise customers—or worse, compromise safety and introduce liability risks. And they need to understand how the curation of AI-driven content plays a central part in ensuring that their knowledge supply chain operates effectively.
That is why now is the time for technical communicators to educate executives on the risks of AI-driven content that accompany the benefits, the structure and guardrails that need to be implemented to protect users and the organization, and how technical writers bring the critical skills to lead the charge. In doing so, technical communications professionals will set up themselves, and their companies, for success.
About the Author
Anthony Olivier is the founder and CEO of MadCap Software. For nearly 25 years, he has headed companies at the forefront in delivering solutions that streamline the corporate content lifecycle.
Website Volunteer Team update
Resources Page
Our Resources Page was getting a bit long-in-the-tooth and it has been overhauled (Stage 1) and it’s now available for you to view.
There’s more to come, but we need your help. We need lists of recommended apps, websites and similar items to those that are on the updated page.
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
March newsletter
The April issue was sent out (a bit late) on the 22nd April and it contained our first two ‘A Day In The Life’ articles. One was UK-based, the other was NZ-based.
There was also a plug for the TechCommsNZ event that’s being held in late September.
Future Topics
I’m still working on a follow-up to my NotebookLM plugins article. This time I’m covering lots of different plugins that do various things with your source material.
Some of them doing similar things to the Ultra NotebookLM Exporter that I previously wrote about, but there are some completely different functions as well.
The IJTC website is here. Please note that to be able to log in, you must be a member of the ISTC.
We want your articles!
Here are the rules:
- It doesn’t have to be of an epic length. We’re not expecting you to craft x-thousand words to fill a page.
- 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.
When you’re ready to get your article(s) published, send it to editor@ijtc.net.
ISTC Slack
The details of where to find our Slack channel can be found on the Members’ Portal page when you log onto the ISTC Website.
Note: Slack are withdrawing support for Windows 10 users of their app.
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 13th May. We are finally back to doing face-to-face meetings and we will be meeting at the usual place on the South Bank.
The meeting invite will be posted in the WhatsApp chat for the group nearer the time.
A Request for Back Issues
We’ve added the list of missing issues to the Communicator Archive page.
If you’ve got any of the missing issues in .PDF format, then please get in touch.
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 May ISTC Meets is on Friday 29th May at 13.00 and Nolwenn Kerzreho will be discussing Structured content: Unpacking DITA Authoring Practices.
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.
Community Forums
The forums are available to all members once logged into the ISTC website.
AI News & Apps
JOBS Cull AT META & Facebook
Layoffs in the tech industry are increasing as companies that are spending more on their AI infrastructure but simultaneously cutting thousands of jobs.
Meta said that it’s cutting 10% of its workforce, just as Microsoft announced that it’s offering employee buyouts for the first time in its 51-year history.
Google Investing $40 Billion
Google are looking to invest up to $40 Billion in Anthropic – in cash and compute. It’s $10 billion up front and the remaining $30 billion depends if Anthropic hits certain performance targets.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT is now at v5.5. The grandaddy of them all is back with an updated engine.
The usual blurb is included as per each new release, so I’ll summise it as “bigger, faster, better” than the previous versions.
AI Table Tennis Robot Beats Humans
Ending the AI News on a “fun” item. I wasn’t sure whether to include this in the Back Page area, or the AI section. But then I found something else for the Back Page area 🙂
New Tools
A round-up of some new AI tools that might be of use to all tech comms people.
Note: Just because I’ve included a particular AI app in the selection below, it doesn’t mean that ISTC are promoting these AI apps.
I do recommend, however, subscribing to the There’s An AI For That‘s newsletter if you want to keep yourself up to date on all things AI.
BeatMV
For those of you wanting a side earner making viral music videos, here’s BeatMV. Not sure how this would be applied to a tech comms role, so purely for fun.
NOScroll
Fed up of ‘doomscrolling’? Then why not outsource it to NoScroll and get a consolidated list of what’s happened. Save your fingers!
GLIF
This tool is a front-end to the myriad of image and video generators out there. Run your prompts from here once, instead of in each separate app.
Free AI courses (care of Gov.uk) at AI Skills HUB
Technical Writer HQ Infographic
Our thanks go to Technical Writer HQ for the above infographic. We will be including one in every issue of InfoPlus for the remainder of this year.
Upcoming Events
There are multiple in-person and/or online-only conferences coming up this year. If you think we’ve missed any out, please get in touch via newsletter.editor@istc.org.uk, or send me a message via the ISTC Slack channel.
Title: Write the Docs, Portland
Date: May 3rd – 5th, 2026
Online/In-Person: Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark Ave Portland, OR 97214 or attend virtually.
Website: https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2026
Write the Docs is a global community of people who care about documentation: Programmers, Tech Writers, Customer Support, Designers, Project Managers, Developer Advocates, and anyone else who wants people to have a great experience with software.
Created in 2013 in Portland, Oregon, WTD has hosted conferences around the world in Prague, Sydney, Amsterdam, London, and Melbourne.
Title: tcworld China
Date: May 21st – 22nd, 2026
Online/In-Person: Courtyard by Marriott Shanghai Changfeng Park, Shanghai, China
Website: https://www.tcworld-china.cn/en/
Join tcworld China 2026, Asia’s leading international conference for professionals in technical communication, content, language, and product experience.
Here, global experts and innovators come together to exchange ideas, explore new technologies, and shape the future of intelligent communication.
Discover how AI, UX, localization, and global information strategies are redefining the way we create and manage knowledge. Learn about the latest practices in content operations, information architecture, and data asset management, and see how organizations are turning information into impact.
The programme is now available: https://www.tcworld-china.cn/en/program-2026/
Title: IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC)
Date: May 24th – 28th, 2026
Online/In-Person: Glasgow, Scotland
Website: https://icc2026.ieee-icc.org/
This flagship conference of the IEEE Communications Society will present a comprehensive and high-quality technical program, featuring 12 symposia, cutting-edge tutorials, and diverse workshops spanning the full spectrum of communications research and innovation.
Title: Evolution of TC
Date: June 2nd – 3rd, 2026
Online/In-Person: Sofia, Bulgaria
Website: https://evolution-of-tc.com/
Join industry leaders, innovators, and professionals in technical communication for two days of knowledge sharing, networking, and inspiration in Sofia.
The full programme is now available on their website.
Title: Adobe DITAWorld
Date: June – exact dates not released yet
Online/In-Person: Online
Website: https://2026-adobe-dita-world.meetus.adobeevents.com/
The 11th edition of the world’s biggest DITA Online Conference for Marketing and Technical Communication Professionals. Streaming worldwide in June 2026. As soon as the exact dates are published, this entry will be updated.
Title: Write the Docs, Berlin
Date: September 6th – 8th, 2026
Online/In-Person: Both – Paul-Lincke-Ufer 21, 10999 Berlin
Website: https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/berlin/2026/
Tickets will go on sale in April 2026 and the conference is still in the ‘Call for Proposals’ stage.
Title: TechCommsNZ
Date: September 23rd – 25th, 2026
Online/In-Person: Both – Commodore Hotel in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Website: https://techcomm.nz/Events/Category?Action=View&Category_id=792
This year’s theme is Evolve.
We’re looking at how we, as technical communicators, can adapt to changes in the profession and move forward with those changes successfully. We’re bringing you presentations focused on skills in the technical communication industry, what’s changing, and ways we can adapt to stay relevant, valuable and needed.
Title: Lavacon 2026
Date: October 25th – 28th, 2026
Online/In-Person: Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Website: https://www.lavacon.org/
LavaCon is a gathering place for Content Strategists, Documentation Managers, and other content professionals willing to share their best practices and lesson learned – what worked, and what didn’t.
Our Mission: To help organizations reduce costs, increase revenue, and improve the Customer Experience through better content.
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.
Training courses
Armada
The Technical Authoring Training Programme run by Armada is run over 5 days.
You can attend in-person at our dedicated training facilities at Bristol, Bromsgrove, Manchester or Reading, or participate live online.
The next course dates are:
- Online – 1st-5th June, 2026
- Birmingham/Bromsgrove: Classroom-based – 1st-5th June, 2026
- Bristol: Classroom-based – 14th-18th September, 2026
- Reading: Classroom-based – 23rd–27th November, 2026
For further details, see www.armada.co.uk/course/tatp.
Cherryleaf
The Cherryleaf courses are available online and can be booked for single tech comms people or as a group.
Using Generative AI in Technical Writing: https://cherryleaf.teachable.com/p/using-generative-ai
Technical Writer – Induction Course: https://cherryleaf.teachable.com/p/technical-writer-induction-course
TCTrainNet – tekom Certificate training in Technical Communication
There are two accredited courses available from TCTrainNet:
- TCTrainNet Professional
- Aimed at beginners and career changers. Intakes are from 22nd June 2026, with additional slots on 21st September 2026 and 23rd November 2026.
- Aimed at beginners and career changers. Intakes are from 22nd June 2026, with additional slots on 21st September 2026 and 23rd November 2026.
- TCTrainNet Expert
- Aimed at experienced technical writers. Intakes are from 12th October 2026.
Firehead
Firehead offer a number of accredited courses. They are supplied in a format of videos, PDFs, eBooks and assessments.
- DITA Concepts
- Make Search Better: An Introduction to Keywording
- Structuring Prompts for Technical Communicators and Content Developers
- Presenting in English with Equal Impact
- Content Strategy Overview
IMPORTANT
Attending an ISTC Accredited course does not automatically make you an ISTC Member. Becoming an ISTC member is separate from attending an accredited course and requires applying separately. If the training course has wet 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 by clicking here, you can unsubscribe at any time from within the email sent out each month.
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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.
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.
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.
Explore the benefits of ISTC membership and find out how to join.
Back Page
As a segue from our usual back page content, here’s an article I found a few months ago where Capcom (the arcade game giant) had spotted a spelling mistake in their game, “Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior”.
It was fixed in a crafty way as they used the sprite from a character’s leg to fix the error!
Click here to read the article.
Can you do any better?
If so, you can send them to newsletter.editor@istc.org.uk, or send me a message via the ISTC Slack channel, by 18th May 2026.