SpeedCon 2022: Communication Professionals: Past, Present, & Future was held on Saturday, April 9th. The 2021-22 Technical Communication Association (TCA) Board coordinated the event. Here is a recap of the day in case you missed anything!
What is SpeedCon?
SpeedCon is the annual knowledge exchange conference for academics and industry professionals in tech comm hosted by NC State’s TCA. For the first time ever, SpeedCon 2022 was hosted in a hybrid format, allowing with many coming in person to the NC State campus and many watching from home through Zoom far from the Triangle area. The result is a vibrant platform to share knowledge and network with a broad range of tech comm professionals.
What was the theme this year?
This year’s conference focused on specific roles and responsibilities in the past, present, and future of technical communication by examining the unique workplace applications of the diverse technical skills within the field. The goal was to broaden the lens of what it means to be a technical communicator since technical communication professionals are qualified for a wide variety of jobs, but we often concentrate on only a narrow range of the vast opportunities available. The result was an exploration of the positions available to tech comm professionals as well as the tools, technologies, and technical skill sets that support key job functions.
What kinds of events were held at SpeedCon?
Workshops, Speed Talks, Panels, and more! We were able to hear from 20 unique speakers from within the Triangle and far away. Topics for the day included:
- Thinking Like an Object – Dr. Stuart Selber & Dr. Johndan Johnson-Eilola
- Resume 2.0 for automated screeners: Writing for intelligent machines in AI-assisted hiring – Dr. Huiling Ding
- DITA in Real Life – Sonja Striplin
- Breaking into Tech Writing at Red Hat Panel – Jacob Berger, Samantha Gidlow, Sangeeta Raghu-Punnadi
- Content Audit and Gap Analysis of Perl’s Core Documentation – Khawar Khan
- Tech for Good: A Context for Community – Brandy Byrd
- What is ContentOps? Helping writers – Carolyn Carpenter
- Teaching Business Writing Students to Conduct Market Research Using Data Analytics Tools – Jianfen Chen
- Listening for Collaboration: Writing Strategies for Collaborative Work – Dr. Michelle McMullin
- MSTC Students Yesterday and Today Early Career Panel (IBM) – Catherine Airey, Daniel Miller, Rachel Amity Brown, Lauren Fulcher
- Careers in User Experience – Willamina O’Keefe
- From enterprise to open source and back again: Considerations across software documentation sets – Art Berger
- An Introduction to Crisis Communication – Allison Fisk
- MSTC Capstone Information Session & Brainstorm featuring Capstone project introductions by current second-year graduate students in the Technical Communication Program – Dr. Stacey Pigg
Is there any way I can catch what I missed at SpeedCon 2022: Communication Professionals Past, Present, & Future?
YES! We upload all of the presentations, with the speakers permission, to our YouTube Channel: Technical Communication Association at NC State (opens in a new window). Additionally, feel free to look around at past SpeedCon conferences as those recordings are also up on the channel!
Additionally, we invite you to keep in touch with the TCA on our various social media platforms below to learn about upcoming events, and speaking opportunities with the TCA, and to sign up for SpeedCon 2023!