Wow! An STC event that is covered by the Huffington Post. Wow! STC France and STC Transalpine deserve a round of applause louder than exploding volcanos for putting together such an excellent event! I didn’t attend, but I can feel the waves of excitement pouring out of Paris. It seems everyone had a fantastic time. Diana Railton tweeted:

The Content Strategy Forum in Paris was the best conference I’ve ever been to. Many thanks to @stcfrance @Wion and all presenters #csforum10

It wasn’t all cruises and champagne, however. It was also a matter of getting smarter about content strategy, as Rahel Bailie says in this CMS Wire article – It’s Time for a Strategic Content Lifecycle.

If you are in technical communication and know nothing about content strategy, you would do yourself and your career and your workplace a favor if you sat down and read – and studied – the articles and slides coming in the wake of this amazing conference. Rahel Bailie’s discussion of the content lifecycle is the perfect place to start your studies. That’s because her focus is on the beginning – the strategic analysis. The reason that this analysis is so important is because it kicks off the content lifecycle. Yes, there is a lifecycle to your content! Go read what she says, and then you’ll be just as eager as others are to see her slides from the conference as well as the future discussions that post promises.

(If you need a break from the reading now and then, get the visual experience from the pictures in the Flickr CS Forum 2010 group.)

If you are wondering what content strategy has to do with technical communication, let David Farbey share the messages that he took away from csforum10 – and we’re not talking about the ones from a ouija board! Keep an eye on David Farbey’s blog for future meditations about content strategy and technical communication. Like many attendees, he’s been overwhelmed by all the energy pouring out of the conference and needs a moment to digest. We’re just jealous and eager to hear his reflections!

Exploring Editorial Strategy is a topic that will make you sit up and take notice. You’ll be shouting hallelujah when Jeffrey MacIntyre, Predicate LLC sings the “content strategy gospel”.

It’s so good to see mobile addressed in Erin Scime’s presentation about the possible return of shovelware. I see so little discussion in technical communication circles that it makes me fear the topic of “mobile” is being neglected. It mustn’t be! Erin Scime’s presentation should clarify why.

As Eyjafjallajökull calms down and people arrive home, more articles will be written and more discussions will be started. Monitor this SlideShare collection from the conference and Rachel Lovinger’s Delicious bookmarks to collect all your favorite news from CS Forum.

Finally, here’s the link from Steve Rosenbaum’s article in the Huffington Post as Content Strategists Gather in Paris, which was originally published in Fast Company as Filter or Be Flooded: Do You Need a Content Strategist? – exposure of the good kind!

Take another bow, STC France and STC Transalpine. You have triggered a vibrant kind of seismic activity in the technical communication world this month!

Mark 15-16 April 2010 on your calendars for the Content Strategy Forum 2010. It’s “where business analysis meets user experience and content development”. Will you be there, too?

The program and registration information reveals a rather dazzling lineup of workshops, presentations, and discussions led by leading experts and practitioners from the emerging field of Content Strategy.

We’ll try to keep up with the news here, but we also recommend that you subscribe to articles from STC France and follow news coming from the @stcfrance Twitter account. They’ll sharpen your appetite for an exciting forum in April!