Past ASTC (Vic) Meetings

This is a summary of the meetings that the ASTC (Vic) has held.

• 2007 meetings
• 2006 meetings
• 2005 meetings

2007 meetings

Meeting Details

1 March 2007, Technical Writing 2.0, Tony Self

Chances are we've heard the term Web 2.0 by now. It refers to the current wave of Web innovation that has given us podcasts, Google Earth, wikis, blogs, YouTube, MySpace and Web services. A similar quantum transformation is occurring in the documentation field, where Web 2.0 innovations are flowing into the technical writing arena. Wikis are now not an unusual form of documentation. Collaborative authoring and content management systems are becoming widespread. RSS to being tentatively used to deliver documentation updates. And XML is having an impact on approaches to paper-based and online documentation.

Tony Self, from HyperWrite, will present a fascinating explanation of what Tech Writing 2.0 is, and where we should position ourselves professionally to take advantage of the opportunities offered. And how to counter the inherent threats! Tony will also brief us on the upcoming WritersUA Conference in California in March, and the AODC Conference in Melbourne in May. He will introduce us to some of the new authoring and content tools coming onto the market.

Tony Self is a founding partner in HyperWrite Pty Ltd, which was the first hypertext document development company in Australia. Tony has over 25 years documentation experience, including 15 years with online and hypertext documents in WinHelp and HTML formats. He has managed large online documentation projects in Australia and New Zealand. Tony has undertaken roles in technology training design and delivery, and computer-based training development, in Australia and Ireland. He has spoken at conferences in Australia, the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In addition to consulting, Tony lectures in technical communication at Swinburne University. He is on the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Technical Committee and has recently completed a Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

ASTC (Vic) Annual General Meeting

The AGM is being held on Thursday 3rd May, 2007, directly following our guest speaker's talk. Each current committee member will present a report summarising their activities for the year. Minutes (PDF).

Adobe® Acrobat® 8 Professional, Brian Chau

Adobe® Acrobat® 8 Professional software enables business professionals to reliably create, combine, and control Adobe PDF documents for easy, more secure distribution, collaboration, and data collection.

Brian Chau is an Adobe Sales Engineer. He has been with Macromedia/Adobe for about 10 years and is a certified Dreamweaver and Flash developer.

Technical Writing using OpenOffice.org Writer, Jean Hollis Weber

OpenOffice.org Writer is a strong competitor to Microsoft Word for both drafts and final layout (desktop publishing) of many technical documents, because it combines some of the best features of Word and FrameMaker. Indeed, Writer does several things better or easier than each of them. Users of Word, in particular, could benefit from switching to Writer. OpenOffice.org (OOo) is an free and open-source office suite that runs on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Solaris and other platforms.

OOo includes several components: word processor (Writer), spreadsheets (Calc), presentations (Impress), drawing (Draw), database (Base) and equation editor (Math). OOo documents are zipped files containing XML files and graphics files. OOo 2.0 and above uses the OpenDocument format as its native file format, but will open and save files in a variety of other formats.

In addition to all the usual features you would expect to find in a word processor (such as checking spelling, wildcard search and replace, embeding or linking spreadsheets and graphics, use of headers and footers, automatic tables of contents and indexes, and many others), Writer has many features of particular interest to technical writers. Here are a few of them:

• Document templates
• Styles (page, paragraph, character, frames, and lists)
• Advanced page layout capabilities
• Change tracking
• Master documents that work
• Fields
• Conditional content
• Bibliographic database
• Equation (formula) editor
• Macro language (OOo Basic)
• PDF export
• Microsoft Office compatibility
• Customizable interface

In this demonstration, Jean looks at the good and (a few) bad points of some of these in more detail.

If there are any aspects of OpenOffice they'd like to see, please let us know beforehand and Jean can specifically demonstrate this at the presentation.

Simplicity in Complexity: Striking the Right Balance, David Brewster

We operate in a complex world. Modern managers and their staff use less resources and more sophisticated tools to manage more information and operate more quickly than ever before. For those of us who support this environment, the challenge is to make the complex simple - or risk being ignored. At the same time, we need to avoid over-simplifying - or risk being irrelevant.

In this session, management expert and simplicity specialist David Brewster will explore how we can get this balance right. He will discuss five principles of simplicity and investigate, through open discussion, how they might be applied in various technical writing situations. A stimulating discussion is guaranteed.

David Brewster spent 10 years as a middle and senior manager before becoming a consultant and educator 10 years ago. He is the author of two books and many articles on simplicity and management. www.davidbrewster.com

Getting a translation/localization quote, Alexandre Chalyga

• What information do you need to provide in order to get a reliable translation quote?
• How word count is done on the files of different format?
• What is the best way to prepare an initial bilingual glossary?
• What translation tools do the translators usually use?
• What quality assurance should the translators follow?

Alexandre Chalyga is a Localization manager at Moldflow Pty Ltd. Alexandre has a Master degree in Translating/Interpreting and has over 15 years translation experience as well as over 8 years of experience in managing translation/localization projects both on the translation provider's side and the client's side.

Oracle documenation processes and tools, Simon Watt

An informal overview and demonstration of some Oracle documentation processes and tools. There are at least 150 technical writers documenting Oracle products. Most are located at Oracle headquarters in Silicon Valley and some in other parts of the US. There are also a few tapping away in international offices such as myself here in Australia. I report to a manager located in Silicon Valley. My contribution to the documentation library is integrated with the contributions of dozens of other writers to create the library of books delivered to the public. This is an informal presentation of some of the tools and processes used by Oracle writers.

Simon dropped out of a mechanical engineering course to begin technical writing with Philips Medical Systems in 1976. He worked for a diversity of employers documenting a diversity of products from intracranial pressure transducers to explosive handling mining trucks. He moved away from mechanical engineering projects to computer engineering projects in 1988. Simon has been involved in software documentation ever since. He did GDip (Computer Science) RMIT, and for the last 8 years has been with Oracle. Further details available over a bottle of red...

6 December, ASTC (Vic) Christmas function

The Christmas function this year will be held at Bells Hotel & Brewery, at 157 Moray Street, South Melbourne. Costs of $15 per head (members & partners), and $20 per head (non-members) include lots of finger food. Drinks are at bar prices. Come along and mix with your peers.

2006 meetings

Meeting Details

2 February 2006, iTours, April Weiss

The iTour is used to introduce a user to a software application and guide the user through the application. The iTour includes screen captures from the software, mouse movements to show where the user should move their mouse, and can include voice-overs which describe the activity and/or text boxes in which a description of the current activity is placed. iTours can be created with products such as Macromedia Flash, Captivate, and Robodemo.

This talk will reflect the result of April's PhD research at RMIT which includes development of three projects used within the university's online learning environment. The iTours resulting from one of the projects are used within Online @ RMIT and have received over 1200 visits a month.

April Weiss has 24 years experience in the information technology industry, working in and around technical communication. For five of these years she managed a technical communication and software implementation company, and for five, was a manager in the team that designed and developed the RMIT Online Distributed Learning System (Online@RMIT), which provides online learning to 40,000+ students world-wide. April is also a PhD research student in Visual Communication at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia focusing on the effective design of online animated interactive software tours.

2 March 2006, Semantic, Structured Authoring Dismembered, Tony Self

Some say that the days of style-based, narrative authoring are numbered, as the reasons for moving to semantic, structured authoring become more compelling. In this talk, Tony Self describes what "semantic, structured authoring" means, describes how XML fits into the picture, explains the importance to technical communicators of DITA and DocBook, and then provides a live demonstration of the practical issues of structured authoring. Tony will also give us a preview of what's on offer at the 9th annual AODC Conference to be held in Cairns in May.

Tony Self is a founding partner in HyperWrite Pty Ltd, which was the first hypertext document development company in Australia. Tony has over 20 years documentation experience, including 13 years with online and hypertext documents in WinHelp and HTML formats. He has managed large online documentation projects in Australia and New Zealand. Tony has undertaken roles in technology training design and delivery, and computer-based training development, in Australia and Ireland. He has spoken at conferences in Australia, the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In addition to consulting, Tony lectures in technical communication at Swinburne University. He is the co-author of Swimming With the Tide, a Business Guide to the Internet.

6 April 2006, Business survival strategies, Robyn Pollard

Robyn's passion is to increase the survival rate of business by transforming them into a successful business built on solid foundations - a business which is built to last. Most business owners look at the work that must be done for their business from a tactical point of view rather than a strategic view. Robyn coaches her clients to develop their business so that they can enjoy their life and are empowered by their business. After many years as a trainer, technical writer, business analyst and business coach Robyn has combined those skills into the development of the "Moving Forward Business Coach" program which is getting excellent results.

4 May 2006, Networking and Coffee

Please join us for networking and coffee at the Big Mouth Cafe on the corner of Barkly and Acland Sts, St Kilda, at 6.30 pm.

1 June 2006, ASTC (Vic) AGM

Thank you to those who attended and congratulations to the incoming committee for 2006/7. Meeting minutes (PDF) and treasurer's report (PDF).

6 July 2006, "Oh, THAT learning curve", Deborah Pickett

We didn't know that it was impossible for a small documentation team to move to XML, so we did. Six months after first hearing about DITA, we are using it in production and finding that the sacrifices we thought we'd have to make, we didn't (and a bit the other way, but we don't like to talk about that). Some of us even like it. Hear about the real problems that we faced, how we solved some of them, and convinced ourselves that the rest weren't really problems at all.

A card-carrying XML nut, Deborah Pickett expects to be the first up against the wall when the counter-revolution begins. Until then, she is happily forcing DITA down the throats of anyone nearby at Moldflow, where staff reprogramming is almost complete. She recently discovered the meaning of "illeism".

3 August 2006, The extraordinary behaviour of ordinary words, Kate Burridge

Linguistics Program, Monash University

All aspects of the system - sounds, words, grammar - are constantly on the move. Most of the changes result from a complex network of different influences. One of the most important of these is repetition or ritualisation and part of this talk will explore the many different ways change is shaped by the frequency with which we use words and phrases.

Frequency of use has a profound effect on our linguistic behaviour, especially with respect to pronunciation. Words used more often are typically at the forefront of change - the repetition of everyday words means they'll be the first to be affected when sounds are on the move. But this contrasts strikingly with what occurs in grammatical change. Here everyday words are again exceptional but for the opposite reason - they are typically the last to change. In fact, they may never change. So we're left with what appears to be a paradox. Common everyday words are first to be affected in sound change but last to be affected in grammatical change.

Kate Burridge completed her undergraduate training in Linguistics and German at the University of Western Australia. This was followed by three years postgraduate study at the University of London. Kate completed her PhD in 1983 on syntactic change in medieval Dutch. She also taught at the Polytechnic of Central London before joining the Department of Linguistics at la Trobe University in 1984. In February, she moved to Monash University to take up the Chair of Linguistics. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities.

Her main areas of research are: grammatical change in Germanic languages; the Pennsylvania German spoken by Amish / Mennonite communities in Canada; the notion of linguistic taboo; the structure and history of English. Kate is also a regular presenter of language segments on ABC Radio.

See Kate's website for her publications and more information.

7 September 2006, Tour of the Melbourne Museum of Printing

The tour will be held on 7 September, between 6:30 pm and 7:30 pm. Please RSVP by August 31st if you intend to come as places are limited. The charges for this tour will be $5 for members and $10 for non-members.

About the museum:

The Melbourne Museum of Printing (http://www.printingmuseums.com/melbourne/) is a museum of traditional typography and printing. We have organised for a special guided tour during which we we will be shown manual typesetting, linotype and letterpress printing. It will be an interesting step back in time!

The museum is located at: 36 Moreland Street, Footscray 3011 Telephone number: 9689 7555

There is ample on-street parking around the museum and it is accessible by public transport. Museum and location details

5 October 2006, Automation in the Composition Process, Chandi Perera

This presentation will cover how automation technologies are changing the traditional composition process with gains in efficiently, time to market and costs.

Chandi Perera has an honours degree in engineering and a degree in computer science. He has worked for CSIRO and Lonely Planet Publications with responsibility for IT, content management and publishing technology. He is active in international professional and standards organisations. Chandi is currently the VP of Professional Services for Typefi Systems.

2 November 2006, Turn Key Operation (TKO) Business Modeler, Serg Zaccaria

TKO is an innovative software tool that can greatly assist small to medium organisations, technical writers, OH&S consultants and numerous other professionals in producing manuals. TKO can easily build and deliver operations manuals, policy and procedure manuals, employee manuals, training manuals, OH&S manuals, product or technical manuals set and measure KPIs and much more on a platform that is compliant with quality management systems.

TKO was developed over the last 8 years in regional Victoria and has become commercially available over the last 3 years, in the last 18 months through Transform Business Systems.

Some of the demonstrated benefits that TKO can deliver are:

• Reduce expenses: use previously created databases as the platform for new client's manuals (Whole manuals or parts thereof).
• Increase productivity: easily edit and produce manuals (For example, TKO can format a 200 page manual ready for printing, complete with index, headers/footers and much more in under a minute).
• Deliver manuals in multiple format: in print form, PDF and HTML - with no technical knowledge needed.
• Increase product mix: deliver operations manuals, policy and procedure manuals, employee manuals, training manuals, OH&S manuals, product or technical manuals.

There are no restriction on the number of manuals produced, or databases created, so TKO can accommodate a business needs today and well into the future.

Serg Zaccaria has been involved in the engineering/scientific instruments industry and technical sales for over 20 years in a number of roles, and is presently working for Transform Business Systems, the main distributor of TKO.

23 November, ASTC (Vic) Christmas function

The Christmas function this year will be held at Bells Hotel & Brewery, at 157 Moray Street, South Melbourne. Costs of $15 per head (members & partners), and $20 per head (non-members) include lots of finger food. Drinks are at bar prices. Come along and mix with your peers. Please RSVP by 20 November using this invitation (PDF).

2005 meetings

2005 Meeting Details

7 September 2005, Content Management, Luke Hoban

There is a large overlap in Technical communications and content management. Luke sees CMS as the next logical evolution in what we do. It builds on some of the pain we feel in single source and translation issues, and makes us think and work differently with structured authoring. There are currently lots of tools available for CMS, but most only work well in the environment that they have evolved from, so picking the right one for a company is a bit complex. Much like using a new text editor, once you know what it is that you want a tool to do you have half the problem solved. Similarly, with CMS once you know about the different features available you are in a better position to pick the right one for your business or clients. If we get through talking about the theory, Luke has some examples to show for single sourcing, transforming structured FrameMaker files, and the use of conditional text to not only do content management, but more importantly, to do content creation.
The material presented will be the basis for Luke's presentation at the TCANZ conference in New Zealand in mid September.

6 October 2005, Macromedia Captivate, Brian Chau

Come and see how simple it is to create trackable Flash-based self-runningsoftware demonstration and interactive software simulation using MacromediaCaptivate.
Brian Chau is a Macromedia Systems Engineer and a certified MacromediaFlash and Dremweaver developer.

3 November 2005, Accessible forms for websites, Dr. Sofia Celic

Forms are an important part of interactivity with a website and is an area that is often left behind as accessibility implementation improves in non-interactive pages. This presentation will cover form implementation, display and error/help handling. Some (X)HTML and CSS knowledge is required to get the most out of the information.
Dr Sofia Celic is a senior Web Accessibility Consultant in the Accessible Information Solutions team at Vision Australia. She assesses websites and online applications according to globally accepted guidelines designed to aid people with disabilities perceive and interact with the web. A specific area of interest is the usability of accessibility, gleaned from website testing with people with disabilities. In addition, Sofia is a member of the working group for the new version of the guidelines and has worked on applying accessibility principles to Flash.

1 December 2005, ASTC (Vic) Christmas Party 2005

Bells Hotel & Brewery
We will have the upstairs function room to ourselves. Lots of finger food is included in the cost and drinks are at bar prices. Come and sample in-house beers, or enjoy a glass of your favourite wine and mix with your peers.

PDF invitation

Copyright ASTC Vic 2004-2008