As SAS users, you rely on books from SAS to stay informed about the latest software updates and industry best practices from SAS authors.

As the organization that brings you those books, Publications Division employees attend trade shows, conferences and workshops for professional development and meet with publishing partners to strengthen and expand our relationships.

Last week, four writers and editors attended the Society for Technical Communicators (STC) Summit in Rosemont, Illinois. The conference dealt with issues related to HTML5, content reduction, and online Help. Pat Moell, Editing Manager at SAS noted that "conference attendees are dealing with the same types of issues that we are dealing with in Publications at SAS. In this rapidly changing communication era, how can we best meet the needs of our customers?"

In addition to attending workshops, John Kohl, Jenna Moore, and Pat Moell each gave presentations. John presented "Introduction to Global English," Jenna presented "Building Your Professional Network - Beyond the Social Media Maze," and Pat participated in a panel discussion on "Why Technical Editors Are Still Relevant."

There are 4 people from SAS attending BookExpo America this week in New York City. BEA attracts over 20,000 publishers, authors, bloggers, book sellers, and media in a multi-conference gathering of publishing-related activities. Kirsten Hamstra, Alison Bolen, and Shelly Goodin are attending Blog World and New Media Expo (a social media focused conference) and I'm attending IDPF (International Digital Publishing Forum) as well as BEA. The workshops and presentations deal with eBook creation, distribution and marketing as well as data about reading habits from consumers around the globe.

It's an interesting and exciting time in publishing! All of us at SAS work hard to stay on top of our own industry trends and challenges in order to bring you the content you need, in the format of your choice, to help you make the most of your investment with SAS.