So it is a week after the most excellent Technical
Communication (TCUK) 2013 conference. It was a chance to learn some new stuff,
revitalise some old stuff and meet a load of people across a wide range of
writing disciplines. I found the “commercial proposal” sessions especially
useful in that I tend to do quite a bit of it these days, on both sides of the
customer-bidder fence. I especially enjoyed Kai Weber’s exposition on “meaning”
– a blast to my old PhD days and re-invigoration of social constructivist
principles (and sharing our views of reality, which were mostly convergent).
His session was so nicely contained that I failed to heckle him with any
awkward ontological questions. The same could not be said about the “Agile”
session – and to this moment I fail to have a reasoned answer to how on earth
you pay for a project run in an Agile way, without giving the writing team a
pile of blank signed cheques (which is great for the writing team).
My paper about the risks and opportunities to be found
writing in the Energy and Resources sectors was well received, with no fewer
than two in-the-pipeline journal articles as spin-offs. What surprised me most
was that although my study was small-scale, that the emergent findings seemed
to resonate far and wide with people who work in other sectors, even as far
away as software. Anyway, the presentation slides are available on opal-flame
here and a full unedited academic-style write up will be available soon.
On a tangential note, I am glad to be back in the realm of
home cooking (and jam making). Three days of English chain hotel food leaves a substantial
lump in one’s stomach. I’m sure if Sir Paul McCartney stayed at a Marriott, we
would have never got the fabulous song “Yesterday”. Think about that one and
don’t eat the scrambled eggs, ever.
