Held in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, the theme of the 2nd Annual Documentation & Training West Conference is Web 2.0 and Its Impact on Communication. The event takes place May 6-9, 2008. Registration is only $899 if you register online by March 15, 2008 (saves $100 off regular price).

The event features sessions and workshops that help technical communication professionals learn valuable new skills, understand important emerging technologies, and improve the usefulness of the information products they create.

Unlike other technical communication industry events, DocTrain West offers paid attendees pre- and post-conference workshops at no additional charge.

The event features several interesting sessions on DITA, including DITA, DITA, DITA, and entire day of DITA presentations. Sessions of interest:

• DITA in Business Documents - Michael Boses and Ann Rockley
• Extreme Content Makeover: Migrating Content to DITA - Joe Gollner
• Using Task Modeler to Streamline DITA Content Development - Mark Wallis
• DocBook vs. DITA: Will The Real Standard Please Stand Up? - Teresa Mulvihill
• Using DITA for Online Help - Alan Houser
• Understanding and Communicating the Financial Impact of XML and DITA - Amber Swope
• [Workshop] Making DITA Work For Your Data - Alan Houser
• [Workshop] DITA Authoring and Publishing with XMetaL - Alan Houser

Many of the sessions that don't have DITA in the title, will also address issues relating to implementing the Darwin Information Typing Architecture. Take a peek at the entire schedule.

DocTrain West will also include a vendor exhibition hall in which platinum sponsors Adobe, RedDot, Author-it, MadCap, PTC (and a few NEW entries in the DITA arena) will be demonstrating their latest software products. Nearly 30 vendors in all will be represented. Check out the sponsors signed up so far.