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!

• Paris Buttfield-Addison – Making interactive narrative storytelling accessible to everyone

• Payal Dhiman – Being a user’s documentarian: Studying user’s behavior and then defining a strategy for documentation.

• Rachel Robins – Supercharge your writing process with a designer’s toolkit

• Alexander Koren – Rethinking Release Notes

• Nithya Krishnan – Minimal Viable Product - What does this mean for user documentation

• Riona MacNamara – Knowledge Is Power: Documentation as a tool for equity and inclusion

• Fraser Mitchell – Through the looking glass - how user testing can give technical writers better perspective

• Akhil Behl – Your First Book - Doesn’t have to be rocket science!

• Leticia Mooney – The amazing, fantastic human bias that makes you bang your head on your desk

• Alec Clews – Creating API documentation for international communities

• Elle Geraghty – Information architecture for documentation

• Cameron Shorter – TheGoodDocsProject - Doc Fixit

• Sarah Maddox – Kubeflow open source docs need your help!

• Becky Todd – Git the Docs - A fun, hands-on introduction to version control

• Sarah Maddox – Tech Writing 101 Workshop

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

Call for volunteers¶

There is plenty to do during the conference and volunteers are essential to the success of all our events! We are looking for folks who are willing to help out during the conference. If you volunteer for two or more shifts (at an average of three hours each), you will receive a free ticket for the conference.

We are looking for folks to help out in these roles:

• Venue set up - Prepping the main conference hall on Thursday (early morning), including preparing the registration desk, laying out swag, arranging writing day boards, and other light physical labour
• Workshops/Doc Fixits - Assisting the Workshops and Doc Fixits speakers, including general information inquiries, directing attendees to specific tables, helping writing day project leads with logistical questions, and other duties as assigned
• Registration desk/Info - Registering people in the main conference hall and answering any questions
• Speakers - Finding speakers and making sure that they’re where they need to be when it comes time to speak
• Talk Timing - Keeping track of the length of the talks and warning speakers when they’re running out of time
• Unconference - Camping out in the unconference area downstairs, keeping the place in order, updating unconference room schedule, and so on
• Venue take down - What’s more fun than setting things up? Taking them down! Helping with taking down the conference set up and leaving the conference hall better than we found it
• Sydney expert - If you are a Sydney local and would like to share your tips and recommendations or answer questions about places to eat, sightseeing, services, accommodation, or other events that are happening around the conference, we’d love to have you on board!
• Floaters - Other duties as assigned ;) Assisting with odds and ends, requests from other volunteers and organizers, as well as answering questions; overall, being generally helpful

If you’re not sure how to do any of these tasks, don’t worry, the organisers will be available for questions and any problems you may encounter. We also have a dedicated volunteer coordinator and some volunteers from previous years will join us again, so you will have support.

To register as a volunteer for the conference, please read and fill out the Call for Volunteers form. You will receive additional information by mid-October regarding shifts, detailed duties, and other updates to the volunteer duties and schedules.

Please email our volunteer coordinator Alexandra Perkins at australia@writethedocs.org if you have any questions about volunteering for the conference.

Tickets are going fast!¶

If you don’t have your ticket yet, now’s a great time to snap one up. Last year we reached capacity a week before the conference, and this year we expect to reach it even sooner (we have already sold out 25% of the tickets), so if you’re planning to come, don’t leave it to the last minute.

Buy your tickets here!

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

Knowledgeowl

Buildkite

Gandi.net

Seq

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, and is a great way to support and tap into the growing Australian community.

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

The Write the Docs Australia Team