Let's Look in the Mirror and See What We See

 Starting right up with social innovation, this first session is interactive, where each attendee gets a small wireless keypad and Tony Self and Matthew Ellison will be getting responses from the audience to polling.

The Help button on the keypad does nothing, it's "no help at all."

Tony Self: In the U.S., for Toyota owners, "UA" means "unintended acceleration."

First out of the box: How do you plan to spend evenings in Seattle?
1. Checking conference topics on the internet
2. Sightseeing
3. Visiting bars
4. Falling asleep in front of the TV
5. Other

Lots of people picked "other" because they plan to work.

Most people thought TOCs for online user guides indispensable, very important, or moderately important. One person commented that many users in a usability study don't use it, but for those who do, it's very important. (I've long believed that the more ways users have to access and find information, the better the information is.)

A quarter of respondents don't telecommute, and another 54% telecommute less than 1 day or 1-2 days per week.

35% say they have no contact with users.

More than half think that DITA will be widely adopted in 5 years, or at least used widely in large companies. Tony: "HTML5 will be a competitor to Flash, not DITA."

iPhone gets the majority of smartphone users (22%, BlackBerry is next at 10%), but 57% of people don't have any kind of smartphone. (Surprising for a roomful of geeks and technical professionals.)

When using Help tools and need Help, 39% use Help, 30% search Google, and 31% ask or email a colleague or peer. One person commented that they "use Help out of bizarre loyalty, and then I search Google."