Announcing speakers and talks

Announcing speakers and talks

Hello folks!

First off, we’re excited to announce that we’ve finalized our list of 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 (Prague beckons!), conference shirts (now printed on demand) and of course our generous sponsors (want to join them?). Read on for more details!

Speakers and talks

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!

  • Carolyn Stransky – A11y-Friendly Documentation
  • Anne Edwards – Learning to love release notes
  • Louise Fahey – Tackling technical debt in the docs
  • Rowan Cota – A Year in the Life of The Better Docs Project
  • Ivana Devcic – “It’s a Feature” - Documenting Known Issues and Product Shortcomings
  • Jim Fisher – Don’t Say Simply
  • Liam Keegan – Measuring the impact of your documentation
  • Predrag Mandic – Run your docs
  • Vlad Stirbu – What about compliance?
  • Tony Ibbs – A brief history of text markup languages
  • Abigail Sutherland – Teaching geeks to fish: tales of a contagious documentarian.
  • Sarah Ley-Hamilton – So you want to make videos?
  • Gillian von Runte – Document What Matters: Lean Best Practice for Process Documentation
  • Val Grimm – Choosing a tool … and choosing your moment
  • Alexandra White – How to tear down existing documentation and rewrite docs that actually work

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, 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, boat trip on Saturday afternoon, writing day and reception on Sunday, and official party on Monday evening.

In the meantime, check out the Visit Prague page on the conference website for some resources on transport, where to stay, where to eat, etc. You can also pop into the #wtd-conferences channel on Slack to ask questions!

Beth Aitman and Daniel Beck are volunteering as our Welcome Wagon committee this year. If this is your first time attending the conference – or even if it’s not – they’ll be hanging out in #wtd-conferences and on site during the event to help out you get the most out of the experience.

Conference shirts

As you probably noticed, we are not including shirts with your conference ticket this year. This is due partially to the logistics of sizing, ordering, and managing stock, but also because of the inevitable leftovers that we find ourselves with every year.

Inspired by our friends at DjangoCon US, we decided to shake things up and sell shirts separately, so you can buy exactly the fit and size that you want. We ran this campaign for the Portland conference and received great feedback on the vendor and the product, so we feel confident that you’ll enjoy your Prague shirt too!

Head over to our Write the Docs Prague 2018 Pop-Up Shop and order this year’s shirt. The campaign will run until September 30th in case anyone wants to order their shirts after the conference, but we recommend to order at least 2-3 weeks before the conference if you want to sport your new threads.

And don’t worry, you’ll still have a Write the Docs Prague 2018 souvenir from the conference even if you decide not to order a shirt.

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:

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 the option to participate in a new job fair that we’ll be hosting on Tuesday.

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

The Write the Docs Team

Sponsors