The Documation conferences in North America and Europe were forums for document management applications, document systems, and document computing, and were the first major conferences to focus on the technologies, workflows, and integration of all structured and unstructured data types, including text, graphics, and data. The conferences showcased enterprise applications of technical information standards, in particular, SGML, XML, HTML, CSS, and other W3C standards.
The Documation Conference was co-founded by Frank Gilbane, Editor of the Gilbane Report, and Marion Elledge of the Graphic Communication Association (GCA) in 1993. The first Documation conference took place in February, 1994 in Los Angeles, CA. More information about the inaugural event can be found at
- Documation ’94 Conference and Exposition — announcement and program, and
- Gilbane Report Vol 2, Num 2 – Document Management Industry Update — Documation ‘94 & Other Spring Activity (PDF).
The event continued in San Francisco / Silicon Valley, Washington DC, and Boston until 1998. There was also a version produced by a Canadian company in Quebec City, Toronto, and Montreal for a few years starting in 1996.
The Documation France Conference was co-founded by Frank Gilbane, Yves Stern, and Guy Fermon, who co-founded TechnForum SARL in 1994 to produce Documation and other events in Paris, London and Geneva. TechnoForum was acquired by Reed Exhibitions in 1999 (check), Stern, Fermon, and Gilbane continued to organize the conference for Reed until 2004. You can see, in French, a PDF of the Documation Paris program 2004. Reed Exhibitions continues to produce the Paris Documation conference. See http://www.documation.fr
