SPECIAL OFFER! 2-FOR-1: BRING A FRIEND OR COLLEAGUE FOR FREE!

Dr. JoAnn Hackos will be in Europe in November for the DITA Europe Conference and has kindly accepted our invitation to come to Paris to host a special STC France Saveurs et Savoirs event on Wednesday November 19th. Bonus: We'll also hear from Virginie Ahrens from ILOG, recently awarded the "Rare Bird Award" by the Center for Information-Development Management for their XML-based "OneContent" collaborative content management framework. Virginie will provide a brief insight into the solution and say a few words about the project ROI.

In her address, JoAnn will paint a picture of the pressures under which information-development managers work and how they are transforming their organizations to be better aligned with corporate objectives. The transformations require significant new skills and competencies among staff members. The rather free-wheeling creativity fostered by an over-emphasis on desktop publishing is rapidly being replaced by a manufacturing discipline.

New information developers must be versed in topic-based authoring, writing for use in more than one context. They must be familiar with international standards such as DITA, DocBook, XML, XLIFF, and others. They are most valuable if they are knowledgeable about the disciplines of information architecture, information design, content management, translation coordination, and customer and usability studies. They need the discipline required to function well in a structured-authoring, controlled-language environment. They must have the technical education and experience to understand the technologies about which they write without trivializing the content. And, they must recognize that unless they can continually prove their worth to management inside and outside their departments, their positions will be outsourced to lower-cost economies.

As with all our Saveurs et Savoirs events, we'll kick off the evening with a networking cocktail from 19h, with the presentation starting shortly after 20h. Advance registration is required.

Cost is 25€ for STC members and students, 45€ for non members.