ISTC News
One thought
For many years, the success of a conference has often been measured by the quality of its speakers and programme.
My idea is that perhaps the success of TCUK27 should also be measured by the contribution of its delegates.
If so, what role do we want delegates to play?
Every technical communicator brings knowledge, experience and ideas worth sharing. The question is not whether we have enough expertise within our community.
The question is whether we can create a conference that allows that expertise to flourish.
What if the most valuable people at TCUK27 were not only those standing at the front of the room, but everyone sitting in it?
Traditional conferences are built around speakers. Their role is to share knowledge, while delegates attend to listen, learn and network.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that model. It has served the ISTC well for many years and has given us many memorable conferences.
However, technical communication has evolved. We now work in highly collaborative environments, sharing ideas across disciplines, solving problems together and learning continuously from our peers.
If that reflects the way we work every day, should it also influence the way we design our conference?
Rather than asking how many presentations we should have, perhaps we should first ask what kind of conference experience we want to create and what role we want delegates to play within it.
Conversations are often easier when there’s something tangible to respond to.
This is why we’ve prepared a short discussion paper, Rethinking TCUK27. Rather than presenting a finished solution, it sketches out one possible vision for a more collaborative conference and invites members to help shape it.
Whether you agree with every idea or not isn’t the point. What matters is that the conversation starts; that you take part and contribute your thoughts and ideas to the discussion via our istc@istc.org.uk email address.
UK Technical Communication Awards
Entries are now open for 2026 through the ISTC website and will close at the end of August. Please check here for details. Then fill out the entry form to nominate yourself, your team or someone else. If you need any help with your online submission, contact us at istc@istc.org.uk.
We are keeping the established guidelines. The Awards are open to any individual or team, whether employed, self-employed, contracting, volunteering, permanent, temporary, full-time, or part-time. We continue to encourage entries of all types, from traditional documentation to those demonstrating technical innovation and look forward to receiving yours.
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
Content and Style
The website team continued their work from June on updating the website. We centralised our editorial administration files, and agreed on new features to add to the content tracker.
To prioritise those website updates, we balance strategic priorities with immediate, and often seasonal, priorities. For strategic direction, we work through the list of content improvements we revealed through doing the Affinity exercise.
With the Membership pages updates nearing completion, we’ve turned our attention to the TCUK area of the website. This year will bring some exciting news about TCUK, and we are planning a stronger structure and user experience of the information across the TCUK pages.
These updates are more examples of putting our user research into practice, and we’d love to hear what you think of the changes.
Send us a short email at info@istc.org.uk telling us what you like and what you think could be better!
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
July newsletter
The latest newsletter was sent out on 19th July 2026.
There were six new articles by CJ Walker (Firehead).
No new ADITL articles were included because … <checks stash of articles waiting to go in> … we didn’t have any to use.
We’ve included mostly serious ADITL articles – and one humorous one.
They don’t have to be ADITL-type either, we will publish whatever type of article you’d like to submit.
I asked Jean Rollinson for her entire back catalogue of articles that she’s created. So look forward to some of those in the next IJTC Newsletters … or four.
The IJTC website is here. Please note that to be able to log in, you must be a member of the ISTC and you will have been added when you joined.
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.
- If you would like to submit your “day in the life”, they are also welcome.
- 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.
There’s rarely 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 planned for Wednesday 19th August. 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.
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.
No ISTC Meets in July & August
Our ISTC Meets take the summer months off and we will be back in September with more talks for our members.
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.
MadCap Flare News
Embracing a Lasting UX Ecosystem Lifecycle
By Phillip Garcia
Every organization runs on a content ecosystem, essentially a web of tools, workflows, repositories, and the people navigating through it all. Yet too often this web is fragile because it has been patched together with tacit knowledge and workarounds.
Add a new stressor to the web, such as a regulatory change, a new artificial intelligence (AI) initiative, a spike in translation volume, or a product launch, and it can suddenly rip.
This creates a painful user experience (UX) for anyone who touches the ecosystem. Technical communicators see their review cycles stall. Translators face higher costs. Subject matter experts (SMEs) drown in email threads. Duplicate, siloed content leads to inconsistent information for customers and the teams who support them.
Avoiding rifts in an enterprise’s content ecosystem requires taking a holistic approach to creating and maintaining a lasting UX that is predictable, efficient, adds value, and won’t degrade over time. To provide a solid foundation for this approach, technical communications teams should embrace four foundational pillars: assess, identify, build, and cultivate.
Assess
In most organizations, UX degrades over time because ecosystems evolve reactively. Tools are added to solve immediate problems. Processes get documented but not enforced. Knowledge is embedded in people instead of systems. For this reason, the first step is to honestly assess the organization’s ecosystem and understand the gap between how it is designed to work versus how it works in practice.
A strong assessment will uncover what is running the content operation beyond the official systems. For example: Shadow workflows live on personal drives and ungoverned team spaces. There are multiple versions of the same content without a clear owner. Review loops are inconsistent. Content is unstructured in ways that quietly block AI readiness. These types of patterns surface across organizations regardless of industry.
The purpose of the assessment is not to assign blame. Rather it replaces assumptions with evidence and provides something solid to build on.
Identify
While assessment is about surfacing the full picture, identification is about zeroing in on the issues with the greatest organizational impact and the strengths worth building on.
It’s important to capture pain points, which tend to cluster in predictable places. For instance: Teams that collaborate on SharePoint, Confluence, or Jira and manually migrate content to structured systems may create formatting errors and inefficiencies that compound over time. SME review cycles can stall when reviewers receive full documents instead of targeted segments. Translation budgets balloon because inconsistent authoring and a lack of content reuse mean the same work gets repeated over and over.
Equally important is identifying where the content ecosystem is already working. This may include teams that consistently deliver clean, reusable content; SMEs who complete reviews on time; product areas where documentation and support are in sync. These bright spots become the anchors for change that actually spreads.
Build
The build pillar focuses on turning insight into intentional design. Too often, organizations attempt to solve ecosystem challenges by focusing on a single dimension, such as introducing a new tool, mandating governance, or launching an AI initiative. Each can deliver incremental gains, but none are effective in isolation.
Here the focus is on closing the gap by designing an environment in which tools and processes can succeed together. This is where technical communications specialists, in collaboration with other leaders in the enterprise, begin shaping the environment to reduce friction, strengthen collaboration, and set the stage for scalable success.
Many technical communicators have already led their organizations to adopt structured authoring to enforce consistency, improve reuse, and reduce downstream rework. However, with AI, “Junk in, junk out,” moves from a metaphor to a measurable business concern. So, ensuring that content is structured, well-tagged, and consistent takes on even greater importance.
Meanwhile, it’s just as critical to invest in anyone involved in creating, contributing to, or delivering content. Role-specific training, clear governance models, and accessible review tools help teams to adopt new processes more readily. Similarly, establishing (and adhering to) style guides, terminology frameworks, and metadata standards strengthens consistency.
Cultivate
The build pillar establishes the foundation, but cultivation is what makes it stick. This is where the focus shifts from design to enablement.
High-performing teams become internal models. Outdated tools that no longer serve the user experience get retired, even when they once represented a significant investment. Instead, investments align with the content ecosystem the organization is building toward, not the one being left behind. And the enterprise develops the habits, governance, and shared standards that turn a well-designed system into a durable one.
A Continuous Lifecycle
A lasting UX ecosystem is not a one-time initiative but rather an operational discipline that requires ongoing attention as organizations grow, markets shift, and technology evolves.
Applying the four pillars gives organizations a structured path from reactive fixes to durable, scalable systems because the framework addresses the right things in the right order. It enables technical communicators and the enterprise’s leadership to understand what is happening, focus on what matters most, build infrastructure that holds, and invest in the people and practices that make it last.
In this way, it’s possible to cultivate a well-orchestrated ecosystem where team, tools, and content work together. Authoring is effective, review cycles are predictable, translations are efficient, AI is reliable, and every user has clarity and confidence in the content they depend on.
About the Author
Phillip Garcia is a senior solution architect and enablement specialist at MadCap Software, who brings deep experience in software and solutions consulting.
AI News & Apps
NotebookLM now Gemini Notebook
My personal standard AI tool that I use everyday in my role has had a name change and even more features added.
I’m halfway through creating my article (for IJTC) about NotebookLM plugins and this has set me back again… sigh. Now to re-test every plugin with the new Gemini Notebook.
AI Oops-a-daisy!
Marie Claire accidentally left an AI prompt in one of their recent articles, an explainer on The Odyssey.
“This version feels a little tighter and more magazine-style” it helpfully reads. It was particularly proud of the phrase “embracing his villain era”.
Continuing in the same style of magazines and AI, Take A Break has announced its fiction section will from now on be 100% AI.
And I bet some of you thought they had been using AI for their last 36 years of publishing those “stories”? 🙂
Publisher wins case against Anthropic
Anthropic has settled with Bloomsbury after “borrowing” a lot of their books (just over 14000 titles) to teach its AI engine.
The London-based company expects to receive the cash from the settlement in instalments, potentially starting in the second half of this fiscal year, with the proceeds to be split with authors.
After a deduction of about 10% for attorney fees and other expenses, Bloomsbury and the group of affected authors can expect to receive about $19m (£14m).
New AI Tools
A round-up of some AI tools that might be of use to all tech comms people. Keep yourself in the loop by subscribing to the There’s An AI For That‘s newsletter
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.
Car Background AI
This tool is an AI car photo editor for instant car background replacement. Try our AI car photo editor built for dealers. Get instant car background replacement in one click. No studios, no Photoshop, just listings that sell. 10 free credits to start.
Note: This is based/hosted in the USA, so it might not realise that other countries have cars with the steering wheel on a different side of the car.
does your website exist under ai?
This tool, Are You Found By AI, will scan a selection of Agentic AI engines and see if your website shows up.
It didn’t work too well with any of my own personal websites (which I’m not too surprised about), so I’m assuming better results will occur the websites of larger companies.
Free AI tools
A smorgasbord of free AI tools are available from AI Free Forever.
Text, image and chatbots can be generated, plus lots of other tools are available on the same website.
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, Berlin
Date: September 6th – 8th, 2026
Online/In-Person: Both – Paul-Lincke-Ufer 21, 10999 Berlin
Website: https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/berlin/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.
We invite you to our Berlin conference to join 200 other attendees to explore the art and science of documentation!
Title: Lead with Tempo 2026
Date: September 10th 2026
Online/In-Person: In-Person at Barbican Centre, London. EC2Y 8DS
Website: https://www.leadwithtempo.com/
Our global leaders cover topics such as:
- Thinking beyond the product to connect content across our orgs
- Leveraging AI within your teams
- Setting content design teams up for success
- Best-practice when designing for AI
- Fostering design-wide advocacy for content
Title: Hatch Conference
Date: September 18th, 2026
Online: Only streaming tickets are available.
Website: https://www.hatchconference.com/
Hatch runs out of Silent Green, a former crematorium turned cultural quarter. Indoor stages, open air, the feel of a design festival rather than a corporate conference.
As a conference born in Berlin, we are renegades, non-conformists and experimental. The talks and sessions at Hatch are unique and that energy comes through the screen!
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.
Title: Converge 2026
Date: October 22nd, 2026
In-Person: Sage 2, The Glasshouse, Newcastle (UK)
Website: https://converge.zeroheight.com/
Converge is zeroheight’s annual Design System conference, now in its 5th year. This time, we’re heading north to Newcastle!
Converge is for people doing the work of design systems, from starting out to scaling.
We’re coming together to share the messy realities, learn from each other, and move forward as a community.
Title: Service Design Global Conference
Date: 28th to 30th October 2026
In-Person: RheinMain Congress Center, Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 1, 65185 Wiesbaden, Germany
Website: https://www.servicedesignglobalconference.com/
The theme for this year’s event is “Beyond Boundaries: Enabling Solutions that Shape Tomorrow” and it explores how organizations across the public and private sectors, and the communities they serve, can move past today’s limits to shape more resilient, meaningful futures through service design. As organizations face structural, cultural, technological, and environmental boundaries, progress increasingly depends on new ways of working, collaborating, and making sense of complexity across disciplines.
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 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 – 14th-18th September 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 21st September, 2026, with additional slots on 23rd November 2026.
- Aimed at beginners and career changers. Intakes are from 21st September, 2026, with additional slots on 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
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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.
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Back Page
Have you ever had one of those days when Word just doesn’t seem to understand what you’re writing? It wants to help and when you press F7 to do a full spelling test, this kind of thing happens …
I spotted the above on LinkedIn but I’ve forgotten who originally posted it (my apologies to them) but it brought home the number of times that Word thought it was right, and I was wrong.
I am sure there are plenty more examples out there amongst us, and it doesn’t have to be Microsoft Word-based either.
Do you have any similar examples?
If so, you can send them to newsletter.editor@istc.org.uk, or send me a message via the ISTC Slack channel, by 17th August 2026.