Report by Ellen Lebelle

Several members of the STC France Chapter board traveled to London for the Competition Awards event on Saturday 21 January 2006 - A great mix of networking opportunties, presentations, leadership discussions and fun!

Hosted by the STC UK Chapter, the event was attended by over 30 guests - including judges, winners and organizers of the competition, members from several European chapters, and three current STC Board members. The event was a great success and provided a great mix of networking opportunties, presentations, leadership discussions and fun - including a champagne flight on the London Eye and awards dinner at a Covent Garden restaurant. New: See the video!

The weekend started early for Stuart (STC France Chapter President) and myself, as we traveled together on the 7.43am Eurostar to London on the Saturday morning - a chance to discuss preparations for the upcoming STC France Chapter Annual Conference: Taking Charge of Your Career event we are planning for Friday March 24, 2006 in Paris. Jennifer O Neill, STC TETCC Competition Manager (and VP of the France Chapter), had arrived in London from Brussels the night before and was able to set up the competition exhibit table early so that we had plenty of time to look over this year's competition entries.

The winning entries were especially interesting to examine. We can always learn something by looking at good work, especially when that work is accompanied by the judges’ forms that identify what was done right and what, in certain cases, could be improved. The competition is proving increasingly popular with companies each year and is an excellent (and very cost-effective!) way to receive professional and in-depth feedback about the quality of their technical documentation. Comments and criticisms from the 3-judge panels that examine each entry are always constructive and the whole competition offers a great learning experience for everyone involved. I have only missed one awards event since becoming a member of STC and am looking forward to participating again in next year's competition.

David Farbey, STC UK Chapter President, welcomed all attendees and pointed out the exceptional presence of so many STC board members: Paula Berger (VP and Incoming President), Mark Clifford (Assistant to the STC President on Global Interests), and Vici Koster-Lenhardt, Director of Region 2.

Ellis Pratt, Sales and Marketing Director of Cherryleaf, a UK-based technical communication recruitment company, kicked off the day's presentations with an interactive discussion entitled “The Marketing and Positioning of Technical Authors”. Ellis discussed techniques that technical communictors can use to identify their own niche markets when marketing themselves either to clients or to people within their own company. The talk included tips and exercises to help anyone – agency, freelancer or employee – recognize the people we deal with and who we often have to “sell” our work and services to on a regular basis.

Mark Clifford, who, in addition to his STC responsabilities, also runs an information design and new media recruitment agency, Clifford Sells Ltd, then went on to present a report on the growing interest the STC is taking in the international aspects of our profession. Mark is running for 2nd Vice-President in the upcoming STC election and will be our keynote speaker at the STC France Chapter Annual Conference in March.

Alice Jane Emanuel, from Comma Theory, gave us a thorough (albeit speedy!) presentation on "Quality in Technical Communication". Of course, in a technical communication competition, quality is essential. It's what the judges are looking for. Alice Jane pointed out, however, that quality can mean different things to different people. Quality for the user might mean that information can be easily found, understood and useful (such as an illustration that clearly indicates what to do in case of an emergency). For a manufacturer or service provider, quality might mean timely delivery and reduced support costs. For documentation managers and producers, quality also means technical accuracy and the ease with which a document can be translated to meet the needs of the company's target markets, and more.

Satisfying all these requirements for quality is a balancing act that requires many varied skills and a broad range of knowledge on behalf of the technical communicator. Acquiring and maintaining these skills requires specialist education and regular training and is the theme of the STC France Chapter Annual Conference: Taking Charge of Your Career event that we will be holding in Paris in March.

After lunch, the STC chapter leaders and other interested members met to decide whether to go ahead with the organization of a Regional Conference in London in October 2006. The decision was taken to pursue the project and those present discussed possible themes and agreed to set up a discussion group to help move things forward.

Mark your calendars and prepare a travel budget and join is in London on October 13-14, 2006. The two-day event will be the first ever STC regional conference to be held in Europe, involving all chapters from STC's Region 2 and is being planned to coincide with the STC Board meeting which will take place in London that week.

Paula Berger, STC Vice-President, who will be "sworn in" as STC President in May at the STC Annual Conference in Las Vegas, then went on to give a dynamic presentation of the changes that have occurred within STC, and those that are to come, as the STC energizes and refocuses on the profession. The key to the success of our organization in the future will be in looking outward, beyond the STC and certainly beyond the US borders.

We then heard from the BEST OF SHOW winners, The Human Interface Group, in Belgium. Beatrijs Vermaere showed us how a well-implemented usability and documentation process led to their exceptional guides. We would have liked to have had more chance to ask questions of the winning entrants, especially with regards to the process they were able to implement (as a salaried employee in a small company, it seems like such a hard sell to me!) We plan to ask Beatrijs or a representative from The Human Interface Group to speak at a future STC France Chapter meeting where we hope they'll let us in on some of the secrets of their success!

Alice Jane and Jennifer also gave a thorough presentation of the Trans-European Technical Communication competition, including what it means to the entrants (recognition for quality, peer review and constructive criticism, exchange of ideas, and more), how to enter and how to judge.

A panel of other winners from this year's competition then briefly presented their entries and we were able to ask them some questions. John Pascoe, one of the authors of "Stadium Engineering" (winner of the Book award), pointed out how valuable the judges’ evaluations were. As always, you come away having learned a lot.

After all the talk and enthusiastic discussions, it was time to head off for a "champagne flight" on the London Eye and dinner at an Indian restaurant close to Covent garden for the awards dinner, where winners were presented with their certificates and we all enjoyed some more relaxed and informal discussions - and some great food and wine!

After a good night's sleep, Stuart, Jennifer and myself were able to meet up for breakfast on Sunday morning with Vici Koster-Lenhardt and Tina Hoffman, STC UK Secretary, for more leadership discussions and ideas on how we can continue improving the value that STC offers to members. As members ourselves, we all agreed that attending the STC TETCC awards event was an invaluable learning and networking experience. We hope you'll consider getting involved in next year's competition and join us at next year's awards event!

The results of this year's competition and information about next year's competition will be posted shortly on the STC Europe website: http://www.stc-europe.org/.