I have agreed to fill-in for a slot at the "ISTC Meets" webinars. I decided to recover and update part of a mythical 3-hour class I delivered at ISCTE in 2015, focusing on my experience in using different tools in specific scenarios.

In APCOMTEC's reality, each event is nothing short of a small miracle that somehow persists exist against all odds.

The unexpected news of the day (or the year, or the decade) is that EuroSIGDOC just won the Diana award, for their long-term contribution to the field of communication design. The work of Technical Writers @ Lisbon was one of the reasons for the award.

Oops! APCOMTEC did it again!

The usual suspects have been considering how to expand on the successful Summer School organized since 2018 by TCeurope and now APCOMTEC.

As teachers and organizers were mingling in the Summer School earlier this year, we learned that Nick Hill had done an extended presentation …

As I took my motorcycle back to Lisbon though the leisurely N1 road on the afternoon of Jun 18th, the words of two former students kept coming back to my mind. "I like my new job so much that it doesn't feel like work at all!"

It's time for face-to-face events again, or perhaps hybrid events. APCOMTEC, with the support of all the usual suspects, is organizing a half-day presential event on Saturday, November 6th.

We had planned to meet half-an-hour before the event, to make sure that everything was set up just right. However, the keys to start the Zoom meeting were held hostage by a ROTIP event (random obnoxious traffic in Porto) of force 6, which expanded a 15-minute short trip into a …

33 persons attended the 15th formal meeting, which took place virtually through the BlueJeans conference system. After the presentation by José Aragão, we challenged the participants to apply their new skills.

20 persons accepted the challenge. We split the participants among five virtual rooms, and asked them to rewrite four …

Eight persons attended the 14th formal meeting, which happened to be the lowest attendance ever at a formal event. Of course, that did not make the talks any less interesting, or the conversation any less insightful. You just had to be there, for the talks, for the pizza, and for …

The 13th formal meeting was spurred by opportunity. Rosário Durão was passing through Portugal, and the date suddenly emerged as the only option to hear her in Lisbon. Farfetch accepted to host an evening meetup in the new Lisbon office, but required one of the speakers to be from Farfetch …

After some weeks of preparation, we finally held the 12th edition of Technical Writers @ Lisbon, this time at Feedzai's Lisbon office in Parque das Nações.

Participants started arriving before and around 9AM as scheduled in a joyful mood and commenting about the amazing office view overlooking the Tagus river. We …

This 11th formal session introduced the roles and tasks of technical writers to MSc. students in Management of Information Systems.

The class has ten working students, which attend the classes after their regular work. Students arrived at their own pace, with Prof. Ângela Nobre using the initial time to …

Come Saturday morning, it was surprisingly hard to park next to Atelier Concorde, quite unlike the time that I had visited the before. The meeting was in the project room of Atelier Concorde, fresh out of an exhibition. Three of the walls were covered with drawings. The drawings created a …

Eleven people attended the presentation by Rosário Durão at ISCTE. She presented her ongoing research on ways of visualizing science and technology.

The VISTAC research project aims to distinguish between what is universal and what is culturally specific in visuals and visual conceptualization in different parts of the world.

The …

Five persons attended the informal meeting at the bar “Foxtrot” at Bairro Alto. The first person arrived at 18h30. The group broke up at 22h00. Nobody remembered to take pictures. We were too busy talking...

The conversation ended with a surprising offer for a room. In the future, this room …

Fifteen people attended the meeting, including nine people that stayed for lunch.

Mariana set up camp at the entrance, while I prepared the large open space on the first floor. Not knowing how many people to expect, we started at the largest space, where about 50 chairs face a projection …

Eight people attended the informal meeting at the bar “Irish & Co.” at Parque das Nações. The first person arrived at 18h00, but two people arrived around 20h00. The group broke up at 21h00.

The chat was varied and lively. We had a few vacation reports (some of us drove all …

Nineteen different people attended the meeting, including sixteen in the morning, twelve at lunch, and fourteen in the afternoon. Some people only came in the morning or afternoon.

At the end of the day, I believe that the attendees met new people, enjoyed themselves, and learned. Of course, we always …

After the class at FCSH on April 22nd, professor Rute Costa praised the event to her colleagues. Some students did not attend the first class because of scheduling conflicts, so Rute asked us to go back for a second class. We set a new date. Unfortunately, Rui Diogo Serra could …

Carlos Costa challenged me to give a class on the importance of technical writing to his students of Software Engineering. However, he warned me that these students preferred technical topics and might despise management topics, for example. In the end, I decided to approach this class by recounting 21 of …

Looking back at what Technical Writers @ Lisbon has achieved in the last two years, we surprised ourselves with the interest and quality of the presentations at our formal events. However, only a handful of people attended each presentation, and few people attended all of them.

Professor Rute Costa accepted our …

Twelve people attended the informal meeting at the bar “39 degraus” (29 steps) at Cinemateca Portuguesa.

The first person arrived before 18h00, but the conversation started shortly after 18h10. People kept arriving as late at 20h00. Eleven people stayed for dinner, mostly with a choice of burgers or fresh pasta …

As we tried to fit a formal meetup before the end of the year, we faced a shortage of Saturdays. So, we took the opportunity to try something different: a formal meetup in a Thursday evening.

By 7 p.m. we had set up the auditorium. Manuela was thoughtful enough …

Seven people attended the informal meeting at the terrace of Hotel Altis Avenida. This time, everyone found the correct Altis hotel.

The meeting started shortly after 18h00, and we broke-up the meeting after 20h30. However, four people had a follow-up conversation at Starbucks, and two of those continued the conversation …

Four people shared a car from Lisbon to Aveiro in order to attend the third technical communication meeting by APCOMTEC, the Portuguese association of Technical Writers. In particular, I had the company of Maria Spínola, Laura Barros, and Carlos Costa.

Everyone agreed that getting out of bed early enough to …

ISDOC‘2014 (Information Systems and Design of Communication) benefited from crossing the growing traditions of EuroSIGDOC conferences in Lisbon and informal practitioner meetings in Lisbon. Everyone involved was important.

There was a warm atmosphere at the conference this year that contrasted with the contemplative mood typical in previous years. This …

Four people attended the informal meeting: Daniel Bofill, Laura Barros, Carlos Costa, and myself. We met at 18h30, and left at 22h15.

First we talked about structured writing and about upcoming conferences, namely TCUK’2014 (16–18 September, in Brighton, UK) and UX-Lx (4-6 June, in Lisbon).

Then we talked …

13 persons met for two hours of friendly conversations.

The group started gathering outside but, by 19h30, it was too cold to stay outside. As the six of us were about to occupy two small tables in the corner, more people started to arrive, and the employees quickly set up …

We had just 11 registrations, including organizers and speakers, but we also expected about 15 students of MOSS (Masters on Open Source Software) to attend. For personal reasons, several past participants informed us that they would not be able to attend.

24 persons attended the meetup, including 14 MOSS students …

Eleven people attended the informal meeting at the terrace of Hotel Altis Avenida (and a few people noticed that there are other Altis Hotels in Lisbon).

The meeting started shortly after 18h00, and the last four people left the hotel at 21h30.

We just talked, together or in small groups …

We had 31 registrations, including 21 professionals, 7 teachers, 7 researchers, 3 students, and 1 journalist. We had 26 persons attend the meeting.

We started at 9h15 with brief welcome speeches by Carlos Costa (on behalf of ISCTE and EuroSIGDOC) and Ana Rita Remígio (on behalf of APCOMTEC). Some of …