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Proceedings HYATT REGENCY DENVER 5–8 MAY | DENVER, CO SOCIETY FOR TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION www.stc.org | summit.stc.org #STC19 The papers published in these proceedings were reproduced from originals furnished by the authors. The authors, not the Society for Technical Communication (STC), are solely responsible for the opinions expressed, the integrity of the information presented, and the attribution of sources. The papers presented in this publication are the works of their respective authors. Minor copyediting changes were made to ensure consistency. STC grants permission to educators and academic libraries to distribute articles from these proceedings for classroom purposes. There is no charge to these institutions, provided they give credit to the author, the proceedings, and STC. All others must request permission. 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Murphy and Allison Gisinger ii 2019 STC Technical Communication Summit Proceedings 2019 STC Technical Communication Summit 5–8 May 2019 • Denver, Colorado © 2019 Society for Technical Communication Table of Contents 2019 Society for Technical Communication Summit .................... vi Overview ..................................................................................................................... vi Conference Committee ............................................................................................... vi What Leaders in Industry and Academia Think About Technical Communication Training and Education ...................... 1 Rebekka Andersen and Carlos Evia Docs as Code and DITA .................................................................... 6 George Bina The Value of the Polymath Communicator ................................... 11 Alisa Bonsignore Cultivating a Design Mind .............................................................. 17 John Bowie Turn on a Power Tool to Create Highly Functioning Remote Teams ................................................................................. 21 Pam Estes Brewer Engineering Better Training Experiences through Innovative Presentation Techniques and Technologies ................................ 24 Chuck Campbell Unexpected Manager: Learning to Lead When I Didn’t Expect It ........................................................................................... 27 Christine Christensen Maintaining a Healthy DITA Project ............................................... 29 Radu Coravu Mastering Your Website 101 .......................................................... 31 Timothy Esposito iii Table of Contents Intro to S1000D™: Authoring to Support the Civil Aviation and Defense Industries .......................................................................... 36 André Evans Markdown, HTML5, and XML in Technical Communication Workflows: Introducing Lightweight DITA ................................... 38 Carlos Evia Making Agile Work for YOU ........................................................... 40 John Garison Pivot Your Passion into Profit ....................................................... 44 Jamie Gillenwater Architecting Your Team’s Career Path ......................................... 46 Megan E. Jensen and Brian Fish Technical Writers for Good: Humanizing Proposal Writing Through Nonprofit Grants .............................................................. 51 Elisabeth Kramer-Simpson Building a Tech Comm Team ......................................................... 55 Jessica Kreger Should There Be an App for That? Incentivizing Reality Through the Gamification of Everyday Tasks .............................. 57 Kelsey Loftin Let’s Tackle Open Source Docs .................................................... 62 Sarah Maddox Technology for Good: Helping Orgs Do (More) Good with Technology .............................................................................. 65 Robert E. Perry Jr. Website Search with Apache Solr ................................................. 67 Scott Prentice iv 2019 STC Technical Communication Summit Proceedings Table of Contents License to Write: Techniques for Tech Comm Success ............. 70 Ann Marie Queeney More Lessons Learned: What Harry Potter Professors Teach Us About Instructional Design ........................................... 75 Jamye Sagan Expanding Your Toolbox to Make You a More Productive Editor ............................................................................ 81 Kelly Schrank Disrupting PR: How Technical Writers Can Augment Public Relations .............................................................................. 85 Melissa Schuck Taxonomies for Technical Communication: Best Practices for Use in the Real World ............................................................... 88 Jennifer Shumate Making Video Part of Your Localization ........................................ 94 Sarah Stegall xAPI: Geek Free Introduction for Instructional Designers ........ 103 Megan Torrance In-Product Support: Evolving from Manuals to Driving the Customer Experience ................................................................... 108 Patty Viajar and Sarah Bosak Managing Service Outages: Getting Users Back to Success Quickly, Clearly, and Transparently ............................................ 115 Vanessa Wilburn A Tale of Two Podcasts ................................................................ 122 Ben Woelk and Allie Proff 2019 STC Technical Communication Summit Proceedings v 2019 STC Technical Communication Summit 5–8 May 2019 • Denver, Colorado © 2019 Society for Technical Communication Back 2019 Society for Technical Communication Summit to TOC Overview The 2019 Technical Communication Summit takes place 5–8 May at the Hyatt Regency Denver in Denver, Colorado. This 66th annual Summit oFFers more than 100 education sessions over three Full workdays with topics covering all aspects oF technical writing, editing, graphic design, inFormation design, usability, project management, and publication production. Practitioners, professors, researchers, and students at all levels of experience convene to learn from expert presenters and from each other. Conference Committee The ConFerence Committee builds the conference program by managing the call For proposals, reviewing the proposals, and selecting speakers who can present information on a wide variety of topics of interest to attendees. Nicky Bleiel Cindy Currie ConFerence Co-Chair ConFerence Co-Chair— Project Management, Leadership, and Career Development Track Manager Alan Houser Aiessa Moyna Tools and Technologies Content Design and Track Manager Delivery Track Manager Liz Pohland Kevin Siegel STC ChieF Executive Training Development OfFicer and Delivery Track Manager Claudia Ventura STC Education Manager vi 2019 STC Technical Communication Summit 5–8 May 2019 • Denver, Colorado © 2019 Society for Technical Communication What Leaders in Industry and Academia Think About Back to Technical Communication Training and Education TOC Rebekka Andersen, PhD, and Carlos Evia, PhD We highlight preliminary results of a multi-staged, multi-year research project that examines the skills that students and early-career practitioners need to lead and innovate in the changing profession of technical communication. Strong technical writing skills are still important, but professionals in the 21st century rarely can build and sustain a career on them alone. We re- port on skills and competencies that in the contemporary workplace are as important as the more traditional skills in rhetorical analysis, writing, and design associated with the discipline. communicators understand current career paths Introduction and challenges in the profession. Our project is Several trade and scholarly publications have of- guided by the following question: fered preliminary assessments of skills and compe- What can industry leaders, university administrators, tencies expected of technical communication stu- educators, and recent graduates contribute to the dents and early-career practitioners (see Andersen, development of curricula that prepare students to be 2014; Batova & Andersen, 2018; Bailie & Urbina, leaders and innovators in the rapidly changing pro- 2013; Dicks, 2009; Evia, 2018; Evia & Andersen, fession of technical communication? (Evia & Ander- 2018; Evia et. al, 2015; Rockley & Cooper, 2012). sen, 2018). Following those conversations, we decided to con- duct a study with the goal of developing strategies We ventured out to study the skills and competen- for preparing students and early-career profession- cies that students need after graduating from col- als to conduct meaningful knowledge work in the lege. We started the project by organizing work- changing profession. As part of that study, we have shops with industry leaders and university adminis- been conducting workshops at conferences (2 as of trators and educators (stage 1). this writing) and interviews (25 thus far) with indus- So far, we have conducted two workshops: try leaders and university administrators and educa- tors. Preliminary findings from our workshops and • At the Association for Computing Machinery interviews point to needed changes for technical Special Interest Group on Design of Com- communication education at various levels, from de- munication (ACM SIGDOC) conference in gree-granting undergraduate programs to certificate