22/01/24
Report of the year 2023
Let's look back at tekom Europe's 2023: highlights, achievements, learning.
First of all, we want to thank all our volunteers involved in the country organizations, working groups, and other initiatives for organizing events, sharing ideas and contributing to the community – you are great! We look forward to a new year together with you.
Highlights of 2023
The first highlight of 2023 was the founding of tekom Ireland as a new country organization. The founding was celebrated with a first event at Munster University in Cork at the end of March. We are very pleased about the addition to the community – tekom Ireland is sure to become a fruitful community for all technical writers and related professionals in Ireland.
Another highlight was the 10th anniversary of tekom Europe, which was celebrated during the tcworld conference in Stuttgart. tekom Europe was founded at the tcworld conference in Wiesbaden in November 2013. We took this opportunity to honor all the founding members who signed the contract to establish the association. There were several events to mark the anniversary at the conference, where we celebrated together with our members, friends and interested persons. We look forward to many more successful years as an association.
In 2023, we didn’t experience only highlights. We also had to close two country organizations due to lack of activity and persistent decreases in membership. While we had to say goodbye to tekom France and tekom Poland, it is important to mention that we still maintain contact with the countries and are trying to keep and expand the existing community. Through online formats, we can still provide offers for these communities. Who knows what will come in the next few years – maybe these organizations will be re-established.
Events & Webinars
The different country organizations organized a range of online and on-site events in 2023. tekom Danmark adopted the event format of the “regulars table” from tekom Österreich, which was very well received. Another successful event was the three-country conference of tekom Austria, tecom Switzerland and tekom Deutschland in Bregenz. This year, everything revolved around the ways and means to intelligent documentation.
Alongside other events, tekom Belgium and tekom Netherlands organized a cross-border event and participated in the TechDocDay at Etteplan, contributing presentations and a stand.
tekom Romania also started to host the first on-site events again since the pandemic; they started with a small but nice event in Cluj-Napoca, with presentations on entering the profession of technical writer, different tools and trends, and other topics.
In addition to various other webinars, an iiRDS webinar series was realized. Three webinars hosted by country organizations gave different insights into the tool: Introduction to iiRDS, Implementation of iiRDS, and iiRDS in the Knowledge Graph.
Three assemblies of delegates (AoD) were held in 2023: the first one was held online in March, followed by the on-site AoD in Dublin at the end of May, and the last one took place in Stuttgart during the tcworld conference. The AoD in Dublin was especially great, as we welcomed the members of the tekom Ireland initiative committee for the first time. The delegates and other members of the AoD had time to exchange, catch up, and experience a traditional Irish dinner at one of the oldest pubs in Dublin.
European Conferences
As every year, three successful European conferences organized by tcworld took place with the support of the country organizations. The conference year started with Nordic TechKomm in Stockholm, this time at a hotel nicely situated within the iconic Haga National City Park. Presentations on topics such as VR, UX, terminology, AI, intelligent content, and digital product communication were given by international speakers.
The second conference in the series was the Evolution of TC in Sofia. This year, we were able to use the event space of VMWare. The modern rooms were equipped with everything we needed for the conference and, from the roof terrace, we had an indescribable view of Vitosha Mountain and the city of Sofia. Speakers and attendees from 12 different countries joined this year’s conference and had the chance to hear about and work on topics related to Docs as Code, Conversational AI, API Documentation, Gamification, and many more.
Nordic TechKomm in Copenhagen, which was a huge success, closed the European conference year. This year, the conference started with an extra networking event one day before the conference; this gave the attendees the opportunity to get to know each other and discuss tools and trends in technical communication. The keynote of the conference, “How Will AI Revolutionize Technical Communication?” delivered by Scott de Loach, delved into the most discussed topic not only at this conference but also at other conferences and events in the field over the year.
Working Groups and Cooperations
Another exciting event in 2023 was the European Academic Colloquium (EAC), which took place in Karlsruhe on May 5. About 100 international conference attendees visited the EAC to discuss and learn about current challenges in technical writing. The main topic this year was “Next steps in digital transformation”, focusing on how digitalization affects the field of technical communication.
The joint working group New European Regulations, which tekom Europe founded together with tekom Deutschland, met for the first time in Stuttgart in August 2023 for a few days of intensive work. These days resulted in work on the whitepaper "New Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230", which was published in December 2023 in English and will be published by tekom Deutschland in German soon. The working group is continuing its work in 2024 with in-person and online meetings.
In 2023, tekom Europe also established an official cooperation with Boti, the Swedish Industry Organization for Technical Communication. The associations will each be represented at the other conferences and cooperate in other fields as well.
Find out more about our Country Organizations and stay up to date with our event calendar.