RE: Orlando Conference and Exhibits (ramble)

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

As I mentioned on another list, I thought the hotels 
were expensive for what they offered in the way of 
accommodation.  You'd get the exact same room (or 
perhaps better?) at a Day's Inn or Travelers -- and 
a corporate rate well under USD $100.  They kept the 
rooms clean, but I was annoyed that room-service trays 
would linger on the hall floors for 8 or 10 hours 
before being cleared... every day.

The "decoration" in the halls WAS absolutely an atrocity.
Sean probably stayed in the public areas and never had 
to endure the several-times-daily trek to-and-from the 
hotel room. "Hideous" would be a generous understatement.

But unlike Marilynne, I didn't find the architecture to 
be all that atrocious.  Overblown in the exterior decoration, 
to be sure -- well hey, it's Disney after all -- but 
constructed and laid out in a way that was quite practical 
while being twisty-windy enough to be non-boring. That is,
you could take more than one path to get where you wanted 
to go. Where the layout -- specifically the conference 
area -- was not intuitively obvious, they supplied wall-
mounted maps.  A blatant exception was the "Tubbi's Bruncheteria" 
or whatever they called it.  Many guests NEVER found it...
Buying a hot meal there was a pointless exercise. By the 
time you got through the checkout line, you were carrying 
a cold meal.  Breakfast at USD $8.00 was a tad steep -- 
any road-house restaurant or greasy-spoon would sell you 
a standard breakfast AND serve it to you (not make you 
run the cafeteria gauntlet) for half that, or less.
The "Coral Cafe" made it obvious THEY knew they were 
serving a captive market. Serving staff were ok, but the 
cook wouldn't even get hired as an apprentice in Montreal 
or Ottawa.

If you discovered "Juan and Only's" restaurant, you could 
eat well (and I did, thankyewverymuch), in pleasant 
surroundings, with excellent service, though for more 
than your finance department may wish to re-imburse...
I made the case that my company put me IN that hotel 
complex and that going to cheaper (but of a suitable 
standard) restaurant would have necessitated them paying 
for cabs or rental cars). I'll learn how persuasive 
that argument was, when the re-imbursement check appears.

Indoors held SO many fake plants, where live plants could 
have thrived, that I literally checked the outdoor grass 
and shrubbery to see if they were real.  Ah, Disney.

We were warned that the conference areas would be chilly, 
but I never had a problem, wearing shorts, sandals and 
golf shirts the whole time. But then, I'm from Canada 
and I found it a smidgen warm OUTSIDE -- especially that 
noon-hour I went jogging around the enclave -- but we'd 
only just finished with winter up here, so I'm biased...

Regarding the conference itself, I thought the Exhibit 
Hall was lame.  Sparse, actually.  I remember going to 
the first couple of Jack Rickard's ONE BBS-CONs (in 
connection with Boardwatch Magazine (about ten years 
ago)) and they were HUGE, saturated with vendors and 
overflowing larger halls than the STC thingy.  The 
entire audience was owners and Sysops of BBSs, and I 
doubt that they outnumbered technical writers in 
North America.  So, I was surprised that the STC in 
its 47th year of doing conferences, wasn't bigger and 
wasn't swamped with eager vendors.  The hours, and the 
early break-up of the exhibit area were not endearing, 
either. The Adobe offering was laughable (on the 
principle that you might as well laugh as cry, I guess).

The presentations that I managed to attend were all 
over the map. None were truly polished, but many were 
done by people who were obviously experienced, confident 
and well-versed in both their material and their skills.
Others were... not   :-)

Overall, I managed about 8 or 9 good ones and a couple 
of duds. I also got locked out of a couple I wanted to 
see, but hadn't realized they'd be way, way "oversold" 
for the size of room they'd booked.  Oh well.

Picture me, sprinting down the halls to get to my 
second-choice seminar after the first choice was 
packed beyond standing-room.

Back to the quality of presentations: I suggest 
that STC provide some coaching for the unsure... 
things like... either learn to talk at a decent 
volume, or learn to keep your mouth near the mike.
If you are too tall for the mike-mount, or if your 
belly keeps you too far from it, please develop 
the arm-strength to hold the mike up. Perhaps you 
could use your beer-hoisting arm.  Ahem!
And, fergawdsake remove "Y'know" from your vocabulary.

The post-conference full-day Information Design 
workshop by Saul Carliner was certainly worth my 
while.  I only wish my company and the travel agent 
had not booked me on a flight at 18h25. I had to 
skip the last hour-and-a-half.  Damn.  Then, flight 
delays till the next day made the departure time 
pointless, anyway.  Damn!   :-)

The proceedings are something of a goldmine, but 
not all the presentations are equally well represented 
in print.  Overall, a good resource, though.

I think I got my company's money's worth from the 
whole affair, and I'll certainly try to get to next 
year's event.  At least I won't have to miss a 
connecting flight at O'Hare.  :-)
And maybe the cabby that gets me from the airport 
to the hotel won't get lost next time.   :-)

/kevin