At our second online Tech Comm Café on January 10, 2018, eight writers from all over the province curled up in the comfort of their homes for our coffee chat. Our most entertaining conversation was our discussion about wearing company T-shirts or other freebees we receive from companies such as socks. Most of us wore the T-shirts for gardening, exercising, painting, and as pajamas. No one liked the idea of being a walking advertisement in public.
It was interesting to learn which technical writers already knew each other and the connections between us. A few of the attendees knew each other from other cities and provinces and now reside in the same province again. Other connections included current and former colleagues, and writers who happen to live in the same neighbourhoods.
We discussed goals for the year and upcoming conferences such as STC’s 65th annual summit in May and the MadWorld 2018 conference in June. One attendee is going to the MadWorld conference. We discussed the challenge of reading online and attempting to read magazines from a tiny iPhone screen. Some people still prefer print books and magazines. There was a study done comparing a seed in a room with no lights from screens with a seed in an environment with lights from electronic devices and a modem and wi-fi running. The seed in the room with no lights from screens grew, and the other seed did not.
We also discussed how the Spectre and Meltdown bugs are affecting our workplaces. We all enjoyed reading and discussing this article from Cloudflare, which does a great job explaining them.
Well, you’ll have to excuse me. It’s time to get ready for bed and I need to go find my company T-shirt. The next Tech Comm Café for Vancouver Island will be in March (date to TBD) and March 14 for Vancouver.
Serena Beck has been a technical writer for 13 years and currently writes about blood and plasma hardware and software. She is the past president of the STC Canada West Coast chapter.