Manager's Report: A Philadelphia Story
By Dawnell Claessen
Well here it is at last...you may have noticed we didn’t publish our Q2 issue as scheduled in June due to resourcing issues. Instead, this issue combines both Q2 and Q3 articles.
Although it’s a bit in the past now, I’d like to tell you about our June conference activities.
The Policies and Procedures SIG had a great time and a very visible presence at the annual STC Conference in Philadelphia! I want to take this opportunity to again thank all our speakers and volunteers for their hard work in making sure SIG members attending the conference had a positive and relevant experience.
The wonderfully pedestrian-friendly downtown Philadelphia area enhanced the conference-going experience so much. There was always somewhere different to buy affordable coffee and snacks on the way between the convention center and the hotel. The Reading Terminal Station (between the hotel and the convention center) has been transformed into a wonderful collection of quick stop restaurants and shops and kiosks. The Pennsylvania Dutch Community runs a bakery shop in the terminal which nearly drove us mad with its baking aromas on Wednesday morning!
Lois Marsh and I attended Sunday’s leadership day activities. This gave us an opportunity to meet with other SIG leaders and brainstorm a bit. Then we had a great turnout at our reception table during Sunday evening’s Welcome Reception.
Monday morning, we had our breakfast meeting with 25 people in attendance - a great turnout for a 7:30 AM meeting. We quickly zipped through our business and got down to a really engaging discussion of our work and our practice.
We then held a draw for SIG luncheon tickets and some very cool mouse pads provided by MadCap Software.
On Tuesday afternoon we had our joint progression session with QPI and ES&H, which was very well attended. We stayed over to chat and share ideas with folks who lingered or ran in to catch the last hour or just one topic of the session. This is JUST the sort of thing that I enjoy, although by this time I was losing my voice!
On Wednesday AM Raymond Urgo gave his presentation. This rather advanced topic "Assessing the Maturity Grade of your P&P" was very well attended and again VERY participatory.
Our SIG luncheon on Wednesday was also well attended. We talked about new regulations, pesky approval processes and all those wonderful things P&P practitioners have in common.
If you are interested in any of those session materials, here is a link: http://www.stc.org/edu/55thConf/index.asp.
I am already looking forward to next year and I sincerely hope to see ALL of you next year in Atlanta. If you want to present as part of our SIG progression, start thinking about a topic. We will also be looking for speakers for more advanced P&P topics.
