May 22 - 24, 2016 in Portland, Oregon
May 22 - 24, 2016 in Portland, Oregon
Write the Docs just about four weeks away now! We hope you are all as excited as we are for the conference.
Tickets are almost sold out, so make sure to purchase a ticket now, if you haven’t already. We expect them to sell out by early May.
If you can’t make it to this year’s conference in Portland, don’t fret. We’ve just announced our European conference, taking place this year again in Prague, September 18-20. Tickets are now on sale, and the call for papers is open.
We’re putting the finishing touches on the Portland conference, so this email contains more information for you about this year’s conference events. We’ve added some new resources, and we hope you’ll take advantage of them. We also hope you’ll be able to join most if not all of the events outside the main conference talks, because they’re some of our favorite parts of the event.
The schedule for the conference is now fully filled out. We’re excited about the talks, Writing Day, and all the other wonderful festivities we have every year.
We are trying something new this year to help everyone get the most out of the conference, which we’re dubbing the Welcome Wagon. It has two parts:
We’ve put a ton of work into our guide. It’s got a ton of good information, answers to your questions, and some pro tips to help you get the most out of the event. Whether it’s your first time or if you’ve joined us before, there’s something for everyone in our Welcome Wagon guide.
Our events are also going to be great. They are:
Both events will help to answer any last minute questions you might have, and to get to know Leona and Christy, who are our official Welcome Wagon liaisons.
These resources are here so you make the most of the conference. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to make you feel more welcome!
If you’re in town Saturday afternoon, please join us for our annual hike to Pittock Mansion. We’ve had rain every year, so that means it should be sunny this year, right?!
Space is limited, so that we don’t overwhelm the trail. Please get a free ticket if you want to come along!
During the day on Sunday, we’ll have our Writing Day, followed by the reception in the evening.
Both of these events on Sunday are at CENTRL Office, located at 1355 NW Everett St (map). Head there at any point during the day to pick up your badge, join a doc sprint, and meet some of your fellow attendees.
The Writing Day is modeled after the concept of “sprints” from the open source and software development world. The idea is simple: to get a bunch of interesting people in a room together and have them work towards shared goals.
Sprint projects include Mozilla’s [MDN][https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/] and Write the Docs’s resources for documentarians. You are welcome to bring your own project to work on. Let us know if you want help, and we will add it to the list on our website, so people will know it’s an option. The site is also on GitHub, so you can add your event that way, too.
New this year, the combined efforts of a couple of meetup organizers have produced an API docs session on Sunday. If you’re interested in APIs and documentation, this is a great option for your Sunday as well. Space is limited for that event as well, so RSVP if you are interested in attending.
We encourage everyone to drop by on Sunday evening for our conference reception. You’ll have a chance to get acquainted with each other over some drinks and snacks, plus it’s a great place to find some folks to grab dinner with, so you can continue your conversations over more substantial food.
This year we’ll be holding the conference party at the Jack Knife. It will begin at 7 pm. It’s only a few blocks from the conference venue. We’ll be providing finger food and drinks, with both alcoholic and non-alcoholic options.
The party is a great chance to chat about the first day of the event, and forge connections with other documentarians. It’s a private event only for conference attendees, so we hope you’ll join us!
We’ve released the breakdown of our daily schedule. The doors open at 8am on both days, so that you can arrive early, get yourself settled, grab some breakfast, and take advantage of the Welcome Wagon. The conference begins at 9:00am. Talks run all day, until shortly after 5pm.
We’ll hold an unconference downstairs in Lola’s Room again this year, again on both days. The unconference begins shortly after lunch, and will continue until the end of the day. Sessions begin with a couple of topics to get you started, followed by time for unstructured topics. If you are interested in leading a session, read more about our unconference .
This year will be the best Write the Docs yet! We have taken everyone’s feedback and continued to tweak things to make them even better than before. As always, let us know if there is anything else we can improve.
