Read about our attendance at the Summit for Technical Communicators in Denver and the American Alliance of Museums conference in New Orleans.
Leisa and I had the privilege of attending some conferences in the United States this May.
We attended the Summit for Technical Communicators in Denver, where we learnt how we can make our help documentation and our training process better for you. Because of this conference, we are planning to add some video tutorials and establish regular online courses or webinars for Vernon CMS users around the world.
We then headed down to New Orleans attended the American Alliance of Museums conference. The city of New Orleans is a lot of fun, and we certainly made the most of our downtime while we were there, going on a haunted history tour to learn about New Orleans’ wild past, enjoying wandering around the uniquely charming French Quarter, and of course, sampling the delicious regional food.
At the conference, we had the pleasure of seeing one of our clients, Stephanie Becker from the Georgia O’Keeffe museum give a talk about how they use Wrike as a part of their project. It is always a delight to meet our clients at conferences, especially to hear them talk about the things that are happening in their world.
A key issue that came up multiple times at the American Alliance of Museums conference was how museums can discuss uncomfortable, highly charged, or controversial subjects. We went to a panel with a variety of institutions discussing how they talk about climate change in their exhibitions, a topic that is very important to discuss but can spark some very heated conversation. There was an enlightening talk about how museums can try to combat fake news and how to use their position as a cultural authority to responsibly present truths. There were also discussions about how to deal with objectionable material, like civil war statues and colonial history items in a thoughtful way, another topic that can spark difficult conversations among museum staff and museum attendees. It is clear that these difficult topics are topics many institutions are grappling with.
Written by Cherry Elias
Documentation and Training Consultant
Vernon Systems develops innovative software for cultural organisations to manage and share their collections. We've been dedicated to the cultural sector since 1985.