Forum 2000 3-00 (September 2000) by Mark Hanigan by Ami Wright by Judith E. Shenouda by Peter Greenfield United Kingdom

by Mark Hanigan, USA

Upon entering the Commonwealth Centre, the motif was set before the first word was spoken, before the first piece of literature was received. Lining the walkway were flagpoles, each adorned with one of the flags of the participating countries.

Truly, Forum 2000 was a global event. Technical communicators gathered from over 23 nations, representing many of the 15 member organisations of INTECOM, our confederation of technical communications societies. For me it was a pleasure to be a part of all this as a representative of my professional organisation, the Society for Technical Communication, STC.

It amazed me to learn, through my conversations and through participation in the sessions and idea markets, how much we have in common in pursuit of our chosen profession! Yet the differences are equally clear: different languages, products, cultures, and market places provide us each with unique challenges.

Of the many wonderful memories I took home, perhaps the most cherished was partnering with my friend and colleague, Anke Harris, President of the Institute for Scientific and Technical Communication, ISTC, on an idea market whose theme was globalisation. We heard a plethora of ideas and challenges for a wide array of individuals who stopped by our station.

May I offer this observation about my experience: If communication is the pathway to global peace, then we the technical communicators are among the peacemakers.

I thank Forum 2000 for inviting me to be a part of this.

By Ami Wright, USA

The Forum conference, like most conferences, was a good way to find out about what is happening in the technical communication field outside the areas on which I usually focus. Unlike many other conferences, the Forum conference had a strong global emphasis. This was in evidence from the first contact: approaching the entrance to the conference centre and encountering the flags of every country represented at the conference with the word "welcome" in the language of that country. This continued throughout the conference: many nationalities were represented among the presenters and the participants, and the topics of the presentations often had an international perspective.

True to the original concept, I had numerous interesting encounters during the idea markets, breaks, and lunches. Sometimes these were conversations with presenters or activators on something related to the topic of their presentation. Sometimes these were with other participants like myself, on topics that we chanced upon. Many people have good ideas and interesting things to say; not everyone is inclined to create a presentation about them. The Forum is designed to make it easy for participants to interact with other participants and discover those interesting things that aren't in the presentations. I was also pleased to meet many people in person that previously I knew only via e-mail.

For me, the Forum 2000 conference was a continuation of the ideas and interaction found in TC-FORUM. For those people who attended previous Forum conferences, it was probably the reverse.

By Judith E. Shenouda, USA

Sharing impressions of Forum 2000 provides a wonderful opportunity to reflect.

I received the handy Planning Guide on Monday at Activator’s Day and selectively checked off how I would spend my time. Tuesday was great. I followed my plan, which included Academy and Industry Relations by Brenda Sims and Neil Cobb and Information Mapping by Rebecca Smith, as well as opportunities to discuss Document Plans at the Network Luncheon and the Information Session.

On Wednesday Ilona Bernhart, from Océ, presented the elements of Enterprise Document Strategy, which addressed information management, document management, and digital print-on-demand issues. The lively debate between Barbara Giammona and Bogo Vatovec on Technical Communication Quality struck me as the debate that occurs between the publications manager, who cares about standards and language, and the subject matter expert, who accepts work that is good enough, though imperfect.

Notes on the two flipchart sheets from Wednesday’s Idea Market on New Product Development serve as reminders that a Document Plan for a new product can include a number of elements that I had not considered. These will be addressed in the Post Harvest.

Emails I have since received from Maaike Groenewege, Leena Pihlajamäki, Tim Ross, Ray Saffin, Kevin Thompson, and William Wright convey that technical communicators share common concerns. These colleagues requested a copy of Selling Your Comprehensive Document Plan to the Project Manager. How very nice to be able to contribute to their efforts.

Forum 2000 confirmed that Forum really is a great conference format.

By Peter Greenfield, UK

My general impression was that it was a very useful conference and that the delegate list covered a wide range of knowledge and culture; therefore it was just what I paid my money for in an international conference. I do think it is a shame that the hotels were not a part of the conference centre as the talk in the bar is always useful, and indeed the basis of the Forum principle. That said, the evening events were very enjoyable, if a little rushed.

The programme (and I have to declare here that I was a member of the programme committee) was very good and did cover the topics that I expected and hoped to see. However there was a very full programme and it was physically impossible to get to all the events that I wished to. In that view I thought that the lecture sessions could have been reduced to just the big issues to give time for the information sessions, or maybe the information sessions could be repeated and jumbled so that we had a second chance.

I enjoyed the debate session I managed to attend and think this is an interesting development - if the technology was available it would be fun to increase the audience on these sessions and maybe have a web bulletin board following the session. For me this added a bit of fun to the proceedings.

The venue was very good, ideally situated in a good area of London and close to tourist areas. The layout at first was a bit confusing and you did feel at times that you had to walk miles to the various rooms, but it did have the advantage that there was little interference between the various activities. I did hear criticism that the activator room was too large and noisy, but I think that is a main part of the idea market and that to have broken it down into smaller rooms would have lost the mobility aspect.

I am not too sure what success the companies in the exhibition had. Obviously the exhibition is a good revenue stream, but to be honest I did not find enough time to get to see the companies that were exhibiting. I do not know how you find more time without weakening the programme, and after all we only meet every 5 years; perhaps this is part of my point about using a venue where everything is together - what the size of such a place would be I do not know.

In general I thought it was an excellent conference and that the Forum style still works very well. We should be careful not to move too far away from the original format, to use technology more, and to allow more time for everyone to get together and chat.