AODC - Melbourne

Unpacking after the last trip was hardly worth the trouble, as we were heading off to Melbourne on Tuesday for me to attend the 8th AODC (Australasian Online Documentation and Content Conference) being held at the Hilton on the Park hotel. This is the second AODC I've attended, though I was a vendor at one before than. Last year I was a speaker; this year Eric and I ran a bookshop one day and I attended sessions the other two days. The bookshop was organised by Sue Woolley of Monarch Computing Services, who has gathered a selection of books on technical-writing related topics, many self-published or from small press in Australia. I had several books in the collection, so was highly motivated to help out. The conference was informative and enjoyable, with good food (morning and afternoon tea and lunches) complementing the good talks. The organisers include Joe Welinske, who runs the WritersUA conferences in the USA, and Tony Self of HyperWrite in Melbourne. Evenings were, of course, social events, including the popular "Uncle Dave's Trivia Night" featuring Dave Gash of Hypertrain dot Com.