Spectrum 2012 Call for Proposals

STC – Rochester Chapter
Spectrum 2012

April 23, 2012

Knowledge, Expertise, Leadership:
Influence Change in Your Organization

Are you someone who can and should influence change in your organization but aren’t sure where to start?

As a technical communicator, your talent is your ability to identify needs and explore solutions. However, technical communicators often do not feel equipped with the tools, skills, or language necessary to influence the decision makers in their organizations or show how the improvements they propose will benefit their employer or client.

Join other technical communication professionals to learn how to leverage your talents to successfully create a case for change that focuses on what matters to your employer, your customers, and you as a professional. The content you generate is critical to your employer’s success. It’s important that you are able to show the value of the content you create as well as the value you bring to your employer.

Spectrum 2012, Expertise, Knowledge, Leadership: Influence Change in Your Organization, will provide state-of-the-art information, technology, and inspiration. Become empowered with the technical and soft skills your employer needs for success and immediately add value to your role as a technical communicator. Become an expert. Share your knowledge. Lead change.

All technical communicators are welcome to submit proposals for Spectrum 2012. STC membership is NOT required to submit a proposal.

Why should you present at Spectrum 2012?

If you’re a seasoned presenter, you know the benefits of conference presentations.

If you’ve never presented at a conference, but have thought about it, here are some reasons to consider submitting a proposal this year:

It’s easier to justify attending the conference to your employer if you’re a presenter.
Several presentation options are available.
Being a conference presenter is a great way to contribute to our field, plus it looks good on your resume.
The conference registration fee is waived for presenters. (Registration fee is not waived for Lightning Talk presenters only.)

Presentation sessions

A variety of speakers, topics, and presentation styles will offer opportunities to learn, network, and revitalize your excitement about your profession. Presentation sessions are no more than 45 minutes long, including Q and A.

Presentation: Inform your audience about a concept, process, tool, or technology that can be applied in a technical communication environment.
Case Study: Show how you solved a business or technical problem. Report on a successful communication project, technology implementation, or management effort, and its results.
Workshop: Prepare an interactive demonstration or learning exercise.

What are we looking for? We will select 9 presentation sessions that support this year’s conference theme. Topic ideas include:

How to be a valuable employee and become more employable
Communicating your value to your employer or client
Building a business case
Personal branding
Becoming the expert in the room
Promoting initiatives that support quality standards, such as ISO and Six Sigma
Applying technology that builds your value as a technical communicator
Defining your organization’s value proposition
Becoming proactive
Your user experience with industry tools
…What are your ideas?

Progression sessions

Progression sessions offer a great opportunity to connect one-on-one with conference attendees. In a progression, each speaker delivers an oral presentation (10-15 minutes) at a roundtable, to a group of 6 to 10 participants. Each speaker then moderates a short discussion with the participants for another 10 minutes. Every 30 minutes, participants change tables to hear a different presentation. Each presentation is made 3 times, each time with a different group of participants.

What are we looking for? We will select 8 to 10 speakers to participate on topics including user experiences with a variety of technical communication tools, demonstrations on how to use tools of the trade, what the benefits are, how they implemented the technology, lessons learned, etc.

Other topics that support this year’s theme will also be considered. Progression speakers will not have access to a projector, but we encourage using a laptop and/or providing handouts for the sessions.

Lightning talks

New for Spectrum 2012! Lightning talks are a series of five-minute presentations on topics of interest to technical communicators. If you had five minutes to deliver a Spectrum presentation, what would you say? What would you say if you had 20 slides, displayed for 15 seconds each?

Lightning talks will test your oratorical skills. The timing of the slides and the presentation is strictly enforced. You must provide 20 slides, which will be displayed for 15 seconds each, and you do not control the slide display.

The lively session will close the conference and bring everyone together for an exciting wrap to the day!

What are we looking for? We will select 8 – 10 lightning talks on any topic. Be Creative!! Your topic might be insightful, inspiring, thought-provoking, useful, humorous, controversial, or enlightening. If you would like to see some examples from last year’s Summit Lightning Talk session, Ben Woelk has provided some: Summit 2011 LT.

Speaker selection process

The Spectrum 2012 committee will evaluate all proposals and notify submitters by January 18, 2012. If your proposal is accepted, we will send you a presenter information form, in which you can provide additional information about yourself and any co-presenters, as well as provide a description of your presentation for the printed program.

Handouts, presentation slides, and papers

If you would like to provide copies of your presentation slides or handouts, please bring enough copies for at least 35 attendees for your session.
If you would like to provide a link to your presentation materials (for example, to a website or to SlideShare), we will provide a place on the Presenter Information Form for you to enter a link.

Next steps and key dates

December 18, 2011 — 2011 Deadline for submitting the Proposal Form to spectrum@stc-rochester.org.
January 18, 2012 – Submitters notified of acceptance.
February 18, 2012 – Presenters return speaker agreement.
March 5, 2011 — Registration opens for Spectrum 2012.
March 31, 2011 –Submission of slides, handouts, and other presentation materials
April 22, 2012 – Keynote Speaker and Welcome Reception for speakers and sponsors. NOTE: The keynote speaker and Welcome Reception are on Sunday night and are included in the registration fee.
April 23, 2012 – Spectrum 2012