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The View from My Hotel Room in Minneapolis

I am in Minneapolis at the moment, attending the Technical Communication Summit, the annual conference of the STC. I've been a member of the Society since 1983 and served as its president in 1999-2000.

I look forward to this conference every year, because I love meeting up with old friends, meeting new friends, and learning about the cool new trends, tools, and skills of my profession.

This year I'm learning about wikis (think Wikipedia), and podcasting, and e-learning software tools, and creative e-learning techniques. It's been great!

I was on a panel this morning that discussed trends in the field and lessons we've learned in our careers. The panel was terrific, but our prep session last night was amazing. The panelists all sat in our panel moderator's room and shared ideas, laughed, argued a little bit, and just enjoyed picking each other's brains about everything that's happening in technical communication. It was so energizing that we didn't go to dinner until 10:30 at night!

It's so gratifying to mingle with these experts - these visionaries, really . I come home from these conferences full of ideas and inspirations to apply to my job. (Good thing, since my job pays for me to go!)

Of course, the best part of the conference is being with people who love the same things I love. STC is more to me than a professional association; it's also a huge network of friends who are passionate about their work.

And that's the icing on the cake.