Announcing speakers and talks

Announcing speakers and talks

We’re writing today with an update on the fast-approaching Portland conference!

First off, we’re delighted to announce that we’ve finalized our speakers for the event! Every year talk selection gets more and more difficult as we get a larger, stronger batch of submissions. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to send us a pitch – we literally wouldn’t have an event without you!

We also have some info about ticket purchasing (now’s the time!), trip planning (Portland’s cool!), and our generous sponsors (want to join them?). Read on for more details!

Full speaker line-up

Every year, we look to bring a wide range of voices to the Write the Docs stage. Because the role of “documentarian” looks so different to each of us, we aim for a line-up that spans a good mix of practical, philosophical, and technical topics – with the odd whimsical one thrown in for good measure. We’re really excited about the presentations we’ve got this year – we hope you are too!

  • Matt Reiner – Show Me the Money: How to Get Your Docs the Love and Support They Deserve
  • Meghan Mahar – Tutorials, Tooltips, and Popups…oh MY! How to ease yourself and your users into in-app messaging.
  • Chris Bush – SDK Reference Manuals: A flow-based approach
  • Ingrid Towey – How to edit other people’s content without pissing them off
  • Shannon Crabill – Documenting for Open Source
  • Mike Jang – How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Command Line
  • Alicja Raszkowska – Draw the Docs
  • Jessica Parsons – Lessons Learned in a Year of Docs-Driven Development
  • Paul Wallace – Localize the Docs!
  • Kathleen Juell – Writer? Editor? Teacher?
  • Heather Stenson – Any friend of the docs is a friend of mine: Cultivating a community of documentation advocates
  • Mark F Iverson – Harvest Past Experience to be a Great Tech Writer
  • Sarah Moir – Just Add Data: Make it easier to prioritize your documentation
  • Jodie Putrino – Defying the Status Quo: How a grassroots effort can transform an organization
  • Kay Miles – Product Documentation Strategy: What Is It and Why Do We Need It?
  • Riona MacNamara – Sponsored Talk: Documentation for Good: Knowledge as a tool for equity and inclusion

Head over to the Speakers page to see the full abstracts. We hope there’s something there for everyone to enjoy, and also something that will broaden your horizons a bit.

Tickets are going fast!

If you don’t have your ticket yet, now’s a great time to snap one up. Conference tickets have sold out for the last several years, and they go faster along with the speaker announcement, so if you’re planning to come, don’t leave it to the last minute.

Buy your tickets here!

Planning your trip

In the next few weeks, we’ll be announcing more details about the conference events, including the full schedule, annual hike on Saturday afternoon, writing day and reception on Sunday, and official party on Monday evening. But on top of that, there’s ALL SORTS of stuff to do in Portland.

We’ve got a couple of excellent volunteers – Mo Nishiyama and Alicia Duncan – who are heading up our Explore Portland committee. They’re already hard at work putting together resources to help you plan your visit! Check out the Visit Portland page on the conference website, or pop into the #wtd-conferences channel on Slack to ask a question.

Thanks to our sponsors

We are so grateful to have our sponsors help in bringing these events to life every year. Thanks sincerely to the following companies for supporting the Write the Docs community:

Google

Microsoft Developers

Twilio

Braintree

Square

Salesforce

Cisco DevNet

GitLab

ElasticSearch

Knowledgeowl

Netlify

Cloud Native Computing Foundation

StickerMule

Want to lend a hand? Head over to our sponsorship prospectus for details on how your company can get involved! We have several types of sponsorship available, including tables at the job fair that we’ll be hosting on Tuesday.

And that’s the latest on the Portland conference. We hope you’re all getting as excited as we are! Stay tuned for more details.

The Write the Docs Team