Notes from 49th International STC Conference
Nashville, Tennessee, May 5-8, 2002

Keynote Address

David Macaulay

David Macauley is perhaps best known for his book "The Way Things Work: From Levers to Lasers, Cars to Computer – A Visual Guide to the World of Machines", which spent 50 weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list. Macauley uses clear language, engaging stories, and entertaining, informative illustrations to demystify technical communication. An educator at heart (he once taught junior high school), he taps multiple media to engage his audience. And although he cannot resist a good story, as a technical communicator he still manages to keep his audience and his purpose in sight. Macaulay was selected by the Society for Technical Communication as its Honorary Fellow for 2002; he was installed prior to his keynote address at this conference.

• The speaker's fascination with the largest, fastest structures; cool technologies, etc., dates to childhood.
• Before writing on subjects such as buildings, bridges, and the like, Macauley first studied the subjects in excruciating technical detail, in order to learn what to include and what to leave out.
• One of his signatures is to stick in an occasional unobstrusive piece of Woody Allenesque humor, such as a huge ape paw in the corner of one of his graphics on the construction of the Empire State Building – the kind of thing you only catch on a second or third reading.
• He designed an entire museum in the form of a detailed anatomical representation of the human brain – complete with the Corpus Café on the border of the two hemispheres.
• He was always seeking to balance the whimsical and humorous with the scientifically accurate. The goal was to spark and maintain interest while still faithfully conveying technical information.

• His goal was "to be playful but be clear."
• His complex illustrations, rooted in his architectural training, are designed to involve the reader visually. It becomes almost an interactive process, even in a printed book.