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 all the way to Parede.

While on Hotel Altis Avenida, we talked about the recent conferences:

• ISDOC, especially the panel, but also the participation of practitioners in this mostly academic conference.
• The APCOMTEC event, where four of us shared a car to Aveiro and received the afternoon wisdom of Frances Gordon.
• UX-Lx, which gathered people from all over the world (40 nationalities!) in Lisbon.

We confirmed that conference debriefs might find a place in future formal events, just like Jonatan in Dubai (I met Jonatan in UX-Lx). We also considered our options for future meetings in Lisbon.

Thanks to everyone that attended!

More on Plain Writing

Frances added a few tidbits about her courses. She usually sells her courses to companies, and not directly to the public. However, she licensed her courses to Português Claro, which localized them and plans to offer courses directly to the public.

The course has two days, because that is the most you can sell to a company. And the course teaches the quick wins, enabling companies to see immediate benefits from the courses. The best students will learn more by themselves.

Frances had no idea of how fast we would go though her course in Aveiro. She has taught her courses in several countries, including to students that struggle with reading, for example in Nigeria. She found that we were quick to read, but we intervened a lot.

Frances is in the advisory board of IC·Clear, the International Consortium for Clear Communication. They are piloting an online post-graduate course in clear communication. She thinks that some parts of the course are very good, while other parts are less so. Still, she recommends the course.

The project has a Portuguese partner: ISEC (Instituto Superior de Educação e Ciências), with the contact being Sandra Fisher-Martins of Português Claro.

The invitation

Following our previous meetups, we now propose another informal and unstructured meetups.

• Thursday, 19 June, starting at 18h00.
• Terrace of Hotel Altis Avenida (Rua 1º Dezembro 120, Lisboa — GPS: Lat. 38º 42’ 54’’ N Long. 9º 8’ 27’’ W).

Participation is free, although you are expected to pay for some food and beverages at the hotel bar. The following photo was taken last September in the same place.

There is no obligation to register but, to guard against surprises, could you please inform px@acm.org if you plan to attend?