Conference platform¶

Following the success of last year’s virtual format, the conference will again be held on https://hopin.to/. Hopin not only provides a stage for our amazing speakers, but also has integrated chat, unconference rooms with breakout calls, and expo booths. We’re updating our Welcome Wagon guide, to be released soon, so it’ll all feel familiar before you’ve even arrived.

Full presentation schedule¶

The conference website is now updated with the talk schedule for the main stage presentations, so you can start planning your time (and getting excited!) for the conference. We’re excited to continue the new tradition of live Q&A after most talks, which will come from your questions but be moderated by our MC.

One of the big changes in the schedule based on the community feedback is scheduling more breaks during the day. We are all trying to balance our screen time, so we wanted to make sure that your eyes get their rest! We hope that this adjustment will help you stay alert and happy throughout the conferences.

Another change that we made is to move the social event to an earlier time. We want you to have fun socializing with your fellow documentarians, but we understand that your family and home time is also important these days, so hopefully this will help us stay engaged and enjoy the social activities even more.

All talk videos will be published on our YouTube channel no later than 1 week after the conference.

Start thinking about Writing Day¶

Our pre-conference Writing Day will happen on Sunday, and it is much more fun when folks come with their own projects in mind!

If you have a project or are part of a community that you think would benefit from a writing sprint, start brainstorming now about what you might want to focus on. If you’d like us to include your project on the Writing Day page, drop us an email at portland@writethedocs.org. Or just show up on Sunday ready to introduce your project!

Shirts on sale¶

The 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 until May 31st. Shipping is available from the USA or Europe. However, due to the global shipping situation, we recommend you order your shirt at least 2-3 weeks in advance if you want to sport your new threads during the conference.

All our events and activities¶

Write the Docs is more than a conference. Every year we make sure to have a variety of activities that our attendees can enjoy, whether you want to learn something, meet new people, or share knowledge. And even though this years conference is held online, we’re holding to that plan.

• Lightning Talks. We’ll have lightning talks each day after lunch. These are 5 minute presentations and a lot of fun. They can be about anything you want, this is your chance to share something you are passionate about with the audience. Slides are not required.
• Unconference. We’ll be running the Unconference all day Monday and on Tuesday afternoon. Want to chat with like-minded folks about a specific thing? This is the place.
• Job Fair. As with the previous few years, on Tuesday morning we’ll have a job fair where you can find your next documentarian friendly job.
• Social event. On Monday night we’ll be moving to a spatial chat platform for our social event. This will be a more familiar social space where you can move around and join groups of people having conversations. We’ve used similar platforms at other events, and found that they really help people get to know each other in a more natural way.
• Conference Help Desk. If you have any questions about navigating the virtual event, we’ll be running the Write the Docs Helpdesk booth, where you can chat with one of the organizers and the Welcome Wagon team.

The Schedule page has the latest and most complete information about all our events. This is where we will also update any changes/cancellations if they should occur.

Thanks to our sponsors¶

Thanks in particular to our sponsors for supporting the conference this year. We’ve excited to have them at our Job Fair and around the entire conference participating in a few different ways.

• Google
• Cloud Native Computing Foundation
• Slack
• Twilio
• KnowledgeOwl
• MongoDB
• Juniper
• Netlify
• Starburst

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 on Tuesday.

Thanks so much for all your support and enthusiasm so far – we’re so excited to see you all next month!

The Write the Docs team