Conference highlights and thanks to the community!

Conference highlights and thanks to the community!

Hey everyone,

The Write the Docs team is now emerging from the post-conference recovery period, and we wanted to send out a quick message to thank everyone for helping to make our conference such a success. We appreciate everyone who makes the conference possible: speakers, sponsors, organizers, and attendees alike.

Conference recap

At 700 attendees this conference was our biggest yet! We had the usual mix of talks on the main stage along with Q&A, lightning talks, unconference sessions, writing sprints, social event, and job fair. We thought everything went pretty smoothly this year, including experiments like the new social event platform.

Overall, we were excited with how our awesome community come together in our new venue. Lots of knowledge was shared, and we had a great time.

Talk videos

Videos of the talks are now available on YouTube. This includes all conference talks and Q&A, as well as the lightning talks. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don’t miss any future content.

Thanks again to all our presenters and moderators! Huge thanks also to Bart at Work for handling the A/V production on our event, it was flawless once again this year.

Shirts still on sale

If you want a souvenir from this year’s conference, our Write the Docs Portland 2021 Pop-Up Shop is still open! We have loose and fitted options from different fabrics, and you can choose exactly the size and cut you want.

The campaign will run in 3-day batches for another few weeks. Shipping is available from the USA or Europe.

Code of Conduct transparency report

As with any Write the Docs event, this conference was covered by our community Code of Conduct. We aim to be as transparent with CoC incidents and enforcement as we can.

To ensure that our CoC was visible and accessible, we took a number of specific steps:

  • Every participant agreed to the Code of Conduct in advance during registration.
  • The CoC, or a summary, was included on the conference website and Hopin Reception
  • The CoC was repeatedly mentioned in our conference introduction and announcements.
  • We specifically stressed that the CoC applies to all conference spaces including the social event.
  • We encouraged all attendees to report any incident, even if they were not sure whether it was a violation.

None of our organizers were approached about any CoC concerns at this event. We know that this is, in part, a reflection of the thoughtful and inclusive community that we’re so lucky to have.

That being said, we’re also very conscious of the fact that just because nothing was reported doesn’t mean nothing happened. If there was any personal conduct or other aspect of the conference experience that did not meet the expectations of behavior set out in the CoC, please email us at conduct@writethedocs.org.

Keep in touch

Don’t forget our Prague conference on October 3-5, and our Australia & India conference on December 2-3. Tickets are on sale now and the CFP is open for Prague, and Australia & India will be open soon. They take place during the day in the CEST and AEDT time zones, respectively.

We’re also looking for more sponsors to make our other events just as magical as this year’s Portland event. You can see all our sponsorship options on our website.

Our Slack network has expanded yet again this year. Our #general Slack channel has been extra busy in the days and weeks leading up to the conference, and we hope that y’all continue the conversations throughout the year. If you haven’t joined, now’s the time! Check out the Write the Docs Slack.

Our monthly newsletter is the other place to keep track of everything that is happening with the community. Subscribe to make sure you hear about all the conferences, meetups, job postings, and summaries of relevant conversations in our Slack.

Thanks again

Thanks so much to the following companies for supporting the Portland conference this year:

We’re so grateful to our sponsors, speakers, volunteers, and attendees for making this conference possible. Whether you were able to come out this time or not, we hope to see you again next year – or even sooner at one of our other events!