TechDocs Roundup 2019

May 21-23, 2019

Technical Documentation Roundup 2019

Learn how modern tech comm shops create, manage, and deliver technical content. Brought to you by The Content Wrangler, The RoundUp takes place May 21-23, 2019 at the Quadrus Center in Menlo Park, California. Register here.

Going Micro: Adapting Content for Intelligent Machines

May 22, 9:20 am — Today’s headlines about advancements in artificial intelligence are cause for some alarm within our technical writing community. Already we see OpenAI that can turn out endless streams of stories and fake news that are indistinguishable from content written by human authors.
When will AI take my job? The short answer is no time soon so long as we learn how to adapt our methods to think differently about content. What we write must become far more precise and discrete to leverage the power of machines. This session will explore the journey from document-based authoring, to topic-based authoring, to block-based authoring, and all the way to fact-based authoring.

Attendees will learn:
• how we got here and where we’re going
• fundamentals of microcontent
• what’s next for technical communication

[Workshop] Precision Content® Authoring Fundamentals Workshop

May 23, 9:00 am to 4:30 pm — Learn the science and fundamentals of using the Precision Content writing methodology for creating effective topic-based structured content. You don’t need to be a DITA author to gain significant benefits from this introductory session. You will learn how to think differently about content as we apply these fundamentals to organize and restructure content to make it more usable, repurposable, and relevant.

This one-day session will focus on the fundamentals of topic-based writing by focusing on:
• Five Information Types used by the author for classifying and structuring content
• Four Cognitive Principles for analyzing and organizing information more effectively
• Three Principle Questions to ask before beginning to write content that help to set up and plan your content with your reader in mind
• Two Language Arts we use to separate content intended to inform versus engage our readers and when and how to use them, and
• One Unifying Content Standard needed to support the writing process and facilitate effective collaboration across your writing team.