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Pat Anderson asked whether anyone went to SIGDOC 94.
SIGDOC 94 was, in my estimation, a great success. The mountains at Banff
were awe-inspiring, the cool temperatures were a glorious change from an
Arizona summer, the elk and deer roaming the conference grounds were
charming (although you had to watch where you walked), and the Canadian
viewpoint was refreshingly sane and cosmopolitan. I heard news and music
from all around the world -- and I heard the name "O.J." only once the
whole week!
The conference, you say? Well, that was good, too, though sometimes
uneven. Compared to an STC conference, it was small. 150? 200?
Excellent conditions for networking, though. Highlights for me (aside
from the side trip to Lake Louise) included:
- Roger Leviens of Xerox, discussing the past and future of The Document
(paper won't go away until we have a hypertext/multimedia tablet the size
and weight of a small book -- and Xerox is working on it).
- Sessions on the world wide web (I'm a neophyte at this stuff; this is
my first posting).
- A panel discussion about the future of documentation by representatives
of Microsoft, Lotus, Apple and WordPerfect.
- Sessions by BellCore about integrating documentation and training (and
my company just took exactly the opposite route!).
I also went to some bummer sessions, but I won't go into those.