Here are the slides the panel put together for the Adobe Day Europe discussion on "Assisting the millennial user – challenges and opportunities in the decade ahead". We didn't get time to cover all of the topics in the time we had available.

1. Assisting the Millennial
User
Challenges and Opportunities in the
Decade Ahead
Thursday, 13 June 2013

2. Your panel
Chris Despopoulos (CD)
Dave Gash (DG)
David Farbey (DF)
Ellis Pratt (Moderator)
Matthew Ellison (ME)
Paula Stern (PS)
Stefan Gentz (SG)
Willam van Weelden (WvW)
Thursday, 13 June 2013

3. The questions
Thursday, 13 June 2013

4. The questions we will
pose to the panel
What do you think will be going on in
technical communication in the next 10
years?
What are the necessary things for techcomm
going forward?
How will the role of technical professionals
change over the next decade?
Have you had an ‘aha’ moment relating to the
future?
Thursday, 13 June 2013

5. The questions we will
pose to the panel
What do you think will be going on in
technical communication in the next 10
years?
What are the necessary things for techcomm
going forward?
How will the role of technical professionals
change over the next decade?
Have you had an ‘aha’ moment relating to the
future?
Thursday, 13 June 2013

6. The questions we will
pose to the panel
What do you think will be going on in
technical communication in the next 10
years?
What are the necessary things for techcomm
going forward?
How will the role of technical professionals
change over the next decade?
Have you had an ‘aha’ moment relating to the
future?
Thursday, 13 June 2013

7. The questions we will
pose to the panel
What do you think will be going on in
technical communication in the next 10
years?
What are the necessary things for techcomm
going forward?
How will the role of technical professionals
change over the next decade?
Have you had an ‘aha’ moment relating to the
future?
Thursday, 13 June 2013

8. What do you think will be going on in
technical communication in the next 10
years? Image:wikipedia
Thursday, 13 June 2013

9. Techcomms in the next 10
years?
Ubiquitous network + service mashups (CD)
Changes to what users demand (DG)
Distinction between Help and knowledge bases will
fade (WvW)
Further divergence between technical
documentation (APIs, etc.) and user assistance
(ME)
Help will only be for complex tasks (WvW)
Social Media and video (PS)
Thursday, 13 June 2013

10. What are the necessary things for
techcomm going forward?
Image:Brett
Jordan
Thursday, 13 June 2013

11. What are the necessary
things for going forward?
Embedded doc becomes part of GUI (CD)
Video, video, and more video (DG)
Virtually everything will be task-oriented (DG)
Our role will need to change (WvW)
We need to focus on answering our users'
real questions (ME)
Be ready to deliver User Assistance anywhere
(DF)
Thursday, 13 June 2013

12. How will the role of technical
professionals change over the next
decade?
Thursday, 13 June 2013

13. How will the role change
over the next decade?
Mapping content to user context (CD)
Maximum minimalism (DG)
More GUI work (CD and DG)
You'll be using new tools to deliver user
assistance in new ways (DF)
More influence on the application (WvW)
Better contact with clients (WvW)
Thursday, 13 June 2013

14. Have you had an ‘aha’ moment relating
to the future?
Image: Stefan Andrej
Shambora
Thursday, 13 June 2013

15. An ‘aha’ moment relating
to the future?
Product development is information
management (CD)
Search technology is critical (ME)
Thursday, 13 June 2013

16. What they said at the Adobe Day USA
Thursday, 13 June 2013

17. What they said in the USA
“How what you are doing is presented is
going to make a difference”
“Globalization is going to be really key going
forward, which will affect ROI”
Thursday, 13 June 2013

18. “We must get to know the 'language' of our
audience in order to stay relevant”
“Regardless of our age, background or
beliefs, we must adapt to the way young
people consume content.”
What they said in the USA
Thursday, 13 June 2013

19. “Content strategy applies to the enterprise,
not just tech pubs”
“Things will get blurred and content will get
unified. We will be an integral part of teams.”
What they said in the USA
Thursday, 13 June 2013

20. "Ten years from now, we may find that the job
title ‘Technical Writer’ is no longer used. We
may have multiple titles to match what we are
doing at the time."
“We will see 'documentation' disappear from
our vocabulary; everything we do is content
creation”
What they said in the USA
Thursday, 13 June 2013

21. “Producing bad docs efficiently isn't helpful, -
you need to produce the right content, too”
“Your tech pubs dept needs least 3 smart
phones, 3 tablets for testing your content on
commonly used mobile devices”
What they said in the USA
Thursday, 13 June 2013

22. More information
adobedayatuaeurope.campaignsandevents.com
Twitter: #adobeday
www.cherryleaf.com
Twitter: @ellispratt
Thursday, 13 June 2013