Information Development World 2014
 

PRESENTERS

Scott Abel
President & CEO
The Content Wrangler
Known as the Content Wrangler, Scott Abel is an internationally recognized content strategist and vibrant speaker. He's frequently employed as a keynote presenter at content industry events like Content Marketing World, Localization World London, Adobe Day, Localization World Singapore, Technical Communication UK and LavaCon. A formal journalism education, combined with 10+ years as a technical writer makes Scott a natural choice for content marketing professionals and organizations who need the tools to write content once and use it often.
 
Rahul Awasthy
Marketing Manager, Cisco Cloud
CISCO
Rahul Awasthy is passionate about Tech Marketing and building thought leadership that connects the present to future trends. In his role at Cisco, Rahul develops Cisco's thought leadership for Cloud Platform and Security areas. He leads integrated Go To Market plans and works closely with Product and Corporate communications in delivering a consistent story to the customer. Cisco's global presence and large ecosystem of partners, channel and sales rely heavily on Marketing to tell a unique story that communicates our unique value. Prior to Cisco, Rahul served as a marketing consultant to Virgin America, a Product Manager at AT&T and engineer at few early-stage start-ups. Rahul graduated from Haas, UC Berkeley with an MBA and also holds a MS,Computer Science from University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
 
Rahel Anne Bailie
Content Strategy Consultant
Intentional Design Inc.
Rahel is an integrator of content strategy, requirements analysis, information architecture, and content management to increase ROI of content that matters, and a supporter of content structure and standards. She is founder of Intentional Design, Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, co-author of Content Strategy: Connecting the dots between business, brand, and benefits, co-editor of The Language of Content Strategy, and co-producer of Content Strategy Workshops. In 2014, she is developing a content strategy as Global Head of Content Strategy for RS Components in the UK's East Midlands region.
 
Diana Ballard
Business Development Manager
LOGOS Group
Diana Ballard has been Business Development Manager at LOGOS GROUP (www.logos.net) for 14 years. Previously, Diana was technical publications manager in a Japanese manufacturing environment and worked in business development consulting. An enthusiast and evangelist for language and content strategies.
 
Marlowe Sarah Beckley
Manager of Content Strategy
SapientNitro
Marlowe (formerly Sarah) Beckley has spent the last fifteen years championing the customer in various careers, including tech writing and magazine editing. While her eight years of content strategy experience includes projects for HSBC, Allstate, State Farm, and the Options Industry Council, she has also worked in the healthcare, technology, and hospitality industries. Beckley speaks regularly at conferences such as Intelligent Content and STC, and teaches workshops on topics such as content matrix methodology and creating structured, “future-proof” content. After a substantial career in Chicago that included stints at DDB, OgilvyOne, and Razorfish, she high-tailed it to sunny California in late 2013 to join SapientNitro as a Manager of Content Strategy where she is currently focused on a hospitality client’s taxonomy and promoting content strategy education.
 
Andrew Becraft
Senior Manager, User Experience
Author-it Software Corporation
Andrew Becraft is the Senior Manager for User Experience at Author-it Software Corporation, where he leads the front-end design and development team in Seattle. Before joining Author-it in early 2013, Andrew managed a team of technical writers and production engineers at Microsoft for six years, and was also responsible for the integration of user assistance into his productÕs core user experience. Prior to Microsoft, Andrew held technical publications and content localization positions at Nintendo, TRADOS (now part of SDL), and Lionbridge.
 
Mysti Berry
Principal Technical Writer
salesforce.com
Technical writer for over two decades, working for enterprise software companies, including API work, content strategy, and content collaboration experience.
 
George Cristian Bina
Managing Director
Syncro Soft
George Bina  has more than 15 years of experience in working with XML and XML-related technologies and contributes to a number of XML related open source projects. He is one of the founders of Syncro Soft, the company that develops oXygen XML Editor.
 
Doug Bolin
Associate Director, User Experience Design
Digitas
Doug Bolin has over twenty-five years of experience creating content rich and functionally complex user experiences for a variety of clients and platforms. This includes extensive work with all aspects of intelligent digital content - researching, producing, managing, publishing, analyzing and optimizing it. Currently with DigitasLBI, he previously directed and managed user experience design and content strategy at Zentropy Partners, Sapient and Razorfish. Doug is also a passionate explorer of integrating emerging digital technologies and content to drive innovative solutions as well as a fascinated contributor to thought leadership and education as an adjunct professor and frequent conference presenter.
 
Andrew Bredenkamp
Chairman and Founder at Acrolinx; Board Member of Translators without Borders
Acrolinx
Dr. Andrew Bredenkamp is president and founder of Acrolinx. Andrew has over 20 years of experience in multilingual content development. Before starting Acrolinx, Andrew was Head of the Technology Transfer Centre at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) Language Technology Lab. Andrew holds degrees in technical translation and linguistics and a Ph.D. in Computational Linguistics. He is on the advisory board of a number of organizations, including Translators without Borders and The Centre for Next Generation Localisation (CNGL).
 
Melissa Breker
Co-Founder
Content Strategy Inc
Melissa Breker is founding partner at Content Strategy Incorporated, a Vancouver agency that helps large companies to meet their business and customer-experience goals by changing how they think about content. Recent clients include Wells Fargo, Samsung, BC Hydro, and the City of Nanaimo. Melissa has worked in multiple industries with both large and entrepreneurial organizations to tie business goals and audience requirements together to create measurable results. She’s passionate about connecting people and making a difference through content strategy. She currently teaches content strategy at Langara College and has recently designed an online course for the Content Marketing Institute.
 
Brian Buehling
Managing Director
Dakota Systems
Brian Buehling is currently the Managing Director for Dakota Systems, a leading firm specializing in dynamic content delivery solutions. At Dakota, he has worked on implementations for over a hundred corporate and government systems spanning publishing, aerospace, defense, manufacturing and software industries. Prior to Dakota, he led content management system initiatives for several companies including Wolters Kluwer Health, John Deere and AT&T. His team's decision support system at John Deere Health was selected as a Finalist for Business Intelligence Applications at Comdex/Window World Open and was nominated for the Smithsonian Award for innovation in information technology. He has earned a M.B.A. with concentrations in Finance and Strategy from the University of Chicago and a M.S. in Systems Science and Mathematics from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. Additionally, he has academic experience as a visiting lecturer at Boston University (CDIA) and Ohio University teaching business communication and computational theory.
 
Michelle Carey
Information Architect and Technical Editor
IBM
Michelle Carey is an information architect and technical editor at IBM and has taught technical communication at University of California Santa Cruz Extension. Michelle is the co-author of the book DITA Best Practices: A Roadmap for Writing, Editing, and Architecting in DITA. She is an expert on topic-based information systems, software product error messages, grammar, embedded assistance for user interfaces, and writing for international audiences. She also writes computational linguistic rules for a grammar, style, and terminology management tool.
 
Elizabeth Carlassare
Formerly Group Manager, User Experience
Formerly Intuit
Elizabeth Carlassare is keenly interested in all things content and best practices for leading productive information development teams focused on creating exceptional customer experiences. She has 25+ years of experience with Silicon Valley companies including Intuit, Symantec, Adobe, and SGI. She's the author of "Dotcom Divas: E-Business Insights from the Visionary Women Founders of 20 Net Ventures" (McGraw-Hill, 2000) and was named one of the "Net's 25 Movers and Shakers" in 2001 by Interactive Week magazine.
 
Ben Colborn
Manager, Technical Publications
Nutanix
Ben Colborn is manager of technical publications at Nutanix, a Silicon Valley IT infrastructure startup. In addition to writing documentation for support engineers, partners, and customers, he is involved in implementing an intelligent content strategy in his group and in collaboration with other parts of the company. Previously he worked at Citrix Education, where he developed instructor-led training material and eLearning for Citrix virtualization technologies and also participated in implementing DITA for training. He holds a B.A. in English from University of Idaho and an M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from San JosŽ State University.
 
John Collins
Senior UX Content Strategist
Rosetta Stone
John Collins grew up surrounded by content, taking his first job in high school working with paste-up boards at a publishing house. After a stint as an award-winning journalist, he became a technical writer and then a content strategist at Rosetta Stone, where he’s done everything from architecting and writing Help systems, to writing user interface microcopy, to working with locale strings in source control, to leading internationalization projects, and even wireframing user flows. John’s passionate about quality content, content strategy, user experience, and localization. (Hint: It’s all related!) He’s spoken at WritersUA and the Society for Technical Communication Summit.
 
Charles Cooper
Vice President
The Rockley Group, Inc.
 
Charles has over 20 years of experience in quality assurance and over 15 years of experience in eContent, user experience, taxonomy, workflow design, composition, and digital publishing. He teaches, facilitates modeling sessions and develops taxonomy and workflow strategies. He has assisted companies by analyzing their content, current workflow and taxonomy systems, helped to create new ones and worked to ensure that they are maintained on a consistent basis. He not only understands process, he understands the production tasks and can design a process that works for everyone in an organization.
 
Charles always keeps the voice of the customer in mind when developing solutions. He has a strong background in process and business planning and believes that taxonomies, structure, organization, workflow, and quality assurance processes must be designed to support the company as they work to provide products and services that their customers need. Charles is a co-author of "Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy, Second Edition", "DITA 101: Fundamentals of DITA for Authors and Managers," and "eBooks 101: The Digital Content Strategy for Reaching Customers Anywhere, Anytime, on Any Device."
 
 
Laura Creekmore
President
Creek Content
Laura Creekmore has been making tech and content hold hands and play nice for 20 years. In 2008 she founded Creek Content, a consultancy focused on content strategy and information architecture for organizations in complex fields like health care and financial services. Recent Creek Content projects include the development and implementation of the content strategy for a private personal health improvement site, and rebuilding the taxonomy for an event-focused mobile app. Laura is adjunct faculty at Kent State University, teaching content strategy, and she is editor of 2 books in The Content Wrangler content strategy series. She blogs about content strategy and way more than you'd care to know about copyright law at http://lauracreekmore.com and http://creekcontent.com.
 
Caity Cronkhite
Technical Writer
Salesforce.com
Caity Cronkhite is a DITA enthusiast and a technical writer at Salesforce.com in San Francisco, California, where she specializes in software documentation and its delivery. She began her technical writing career at a tender age during her undergraduate education at Carnegie Mellon University, where she earned a degree in Technical Writing and Communications. Caity strives to make structured authoring approachable, accessible, and fun (Yes, fun!) for everyone, with an emphasis on teaching DITA concepts to both new and veteran technical writers.
 
Autumn Cuellar
Associate Product Manager
Design Science
Autumn Cuellar is the Associate Product Manager at Design Science, where she works with publishers, engineers, educators, and programmers to implement MathML in XML publishing workflows. Before joining Design Science, Autumn was a researcher at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, developing CellML, an XML language for describing biological models, and associated metadata and ontologies.
 
Don Day
Principal Consultant
Contelligence Group LLC
Don is a content engineer with deep experience on innovative authoring solutions and information architectures for structured, semantic content for the Web and across the enterprise. He provides consulting on strategy, technology, and best practices for optimizing the value and usefulness of unstructured data.
 
Dewey de Butts
Technical Publications Solutions Architect
Technical Publications Services
Dewey is all about quality content. Her career in technical publications for print and online spans a variety of industries and the information workflow from top to bottom. Experience includes leading content management system initiatives, identifying business requirements, designing content strategies and best practices, devising reuse schemes, architecting information, defining taxonomy systems, mentoring principals in new information paradigms, defining standards and processes, creating and editing content, and negotiating with collaborative stakeholders. She has been an evangelist for structured, task-based, topic-based, reusable, and single-sourced content, regardless of tools, long before it was trendy. Lately she concentrates on mentoring structured content implementations.
 
Pam Didner
Global Content Marketing Strategist
Author and Speaker
With years of experience in multiple global roles, Pam Didner is an expert at creating successful global marketing plans that meet local marketing needs. As a former Global Integrated Marketing Strategist for Intel, she led Intel’s Enterprise product launches and worldwide marketing campaigns. She also provided strategic guidance on audience development, messaging architecture, editorial planning, content creation, media buys and social media outreach on a global scale.   Selected as one of BtoB’s Top Digital Marketers in 2011 and 2012, Pam is also an author, speaker and global content marketing strategist. Her new book, “Global Content Marketing,” is the first content marketing book to offer a complete process to scale content across regions. Pam has given keynotes, presentations, and workshops at conferences in the United States and Europe. She also shares her marketing thoughts on www.pamdidner.com and contributes articles to the Huffington Post, Daily Crowd Sourcing, Content Marketing Institute, and other publications.
 
Margaret Duggan
Manager Educational Content
kCura
Margaret Duggan is a certified instructional designer and manager of educational content for kCura, developers of the web-based e-discovery application —Relativity. An advocate for learning, Margaret oversees the training, certification, and instructional design teams. Her team also executes hands-on labs at industry events that demonstrate the software’s capabilities to attendees. The company’s eLearning activities include live and on-demand webinars, tutorials, and instructional videos. Margaret has more than 13 years of experience in elearning and was a presenter at the Chicago elearning Technology Showcase in 2013. She also regularly facilitates and presents at kCura’s annual user conference, discussing such topics as “how to develop effective training programs.”
 
Alan Elias
SVP Communications
Wells Fargo
Alan Elias is a highly experienced communications professional who joined Wells Fargo in December 2010. He leads public relations, issues management and crisis communications for the Wholesale Banking division of Wells Fargo. In this role, Elias regularly interacts with national and international journalists as well as senior Wells Fargo executives to help enhance and protect the reputation of the company.
 
Tom Fishburne
Founder/CEO
Marketoon Studios
Tom Fishburne is the founder and CEO of Marketoon Studios, a content marketing studio that helps businesses such as GE, Vodafone, Microsoft, Unilever, O2, and Kronos reach their audiences with cartoons. Fishburne started drawing cartoons on the backs of business cases as a student at Harvard Business School. His Marketoonist cartoons have grown by word of mouth to reach 100,000 marketers a week and have been featured by the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, the New York Times, and an advertising billboard in Times Square. Fishburne draws from nearly 20 years in the marketing and innovation trenches in the US and Europe, most recently as a VP at Method Products. During his five years with Method, Fishburne launched new products, led marketing, and started the European business from scratch. He previously marketed brands such as Haagen-Dazs, Cheerios, Yoplait, and Green Giant at Nestle and General Mills, developed web sites for Disney, Starwood, and Mayo Clinic at iXL interactive agency, and helped launch the first English-language magazine in Prague. He lives and draws north of San Francisco with his wife and two daughters. More at marketoonstudios.com.
 
Steve Fisher
Experience Architect
Republic of Quality
Steve is the content nerd-herder and design fanatic at The Republic of Quality (http://www.republicofquality.com/). With over 18 years of experience he leads the charge on the user experience end of projects, coordinating research, strategy, visual and interaction design, and content strategy. Steve is a professional member of the Graphic Designer’s Society of Canada and served as their national VP of web for three years. He spends much of his time representing RoQ on the global stage as a sought-after speaker on topics like responsive web design, UX, open source, design thinking, and web process. He has presented at such conferences as TEDx, SXSW, Future of Web, HOW Interactive Design conference, Web Visions and DrupalCon, and is a contributor to .NET Magazine. He also loves Twitter (https://twitter.com/hellofisher... maybe a little too much).
 
Elizabeth Fiting
Training and eLearning Manager
Author-it Software Corporation
Elizabeth Fiting is the Training and eLearning Manager at Author-it Software Corporation and has been a learning design and technology professional for over 10 years — specializing in scenario-based eLearning and blended learning solutions with a focus on adult learning theory. She has worked with clients in a variety of industries, including life sciences, financial institutions, universities, restaurants, utilities, non- profit organizations, and SaaS companies.
 
Tonie Flores
Master Systems Analyst
Data-Doctor.Info
Ms. Flores is a seasoned agent of common sense content strategy based on decades of experience. For nearly ten years she has worked at an engineering software company. There she designed a lasting architecture for content in Author-it and re-structured content in Qvidian. In the past, Ms. Flores has introduced clients to new technology that automates information, guided them through complex system implementations, and deployed software solutions throughout user communities in US, Latin America, and Asia. MS Flores has BA Mathematics, MS System Analysis, and distinctions including Senior Member STC, Advanced Toastmaster, and Master Practitioner Neuro Linguistic Programming.
 
Linda Francis
Partner
360c
Linda has designed and implemented consumer and employee facing systems for enterprise, government, private sector and advises startups. Now, Linda, who has always been a connect-the-dots person, is excited to join the conversation and share her thoughts about how UX and Agile teams can work together (fueled by agile and lean startup ideology) to bring down the wall (figuratively and sometimes literally) that often exists in enterprise today and enable teams to deliver products that people love.
 
John Frazzini
Senior Manager, Technical Communications
VMware
John Frazzini is currently a Senior Manager of Technical Communications at VMware. He has been creating industry-leading content for over 20 years at Oracle, VMware, and TIBCO Software. John has been working with the team at VMware to drive the next generation in content delivery and consumption. Video, social media, content analytics, and interactive content are part of the content strategy roadmap.
 
Ray Gallon
Owner/Consultant
Culturecom
Ray Gallon is the owner of Culturecom, a consultancy specialising in Business Process Improvement through Communication, and is a founder/researcher at The Transformation Society — a research and training company oriented to adapting to accelerating rates of change. Ray has more than 40 years' experience in media, communications, and information design and management, including work with G.E. Medical and Carestream Dental. He is a member of the international board of directors of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and past president of STC France. He is a frequent speaker on communications topics at conferences and seminars around the world, a published author and teacher, and a multiple award-winner for technical information and radio productions.
 
Chip Gettinger
VP, Solutions
SDL
Chip Gettinger is VP, Solutions, in the SDL Content and Analytics Technologies division. He manages a team working with SDL customers to maximize their own customer experience by deploying SDL products. Chip has over 20 years’ experience in global publishing, content strategies, customer experience management and content management solutions, working closely with industry organizations, partners and customers in technology solutions and deployment.
 
Robert Glushko
Adjunct Full Professor
School of Information, University of California at Berkeley
Robert Glushko has been an Adjunct Full Professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Information since 2002. He has over thirty years of R&D, consulting, and entrepreneurial experience in information systems and service design, content management, electronic publishing, Internet commerce, and human factors in computing systems. He co-founded four companies, including Veo Systems, which pioneered the use of XML for electronic business before its 1999 acquisition by Commerce One. Veo's innovations included the Common Business Library (CBL), the first native XML vocabulary for business-to-business transactions, and the Schema for Object-Oriented XML, the first object-oriented XML schema language.
 
Eeshita Grover
Senior Manager, Documentation
Cisco
 
Eeshita Grover is an experienced professional of 16+ years with a career equally divided across writing, teaching, and leading content creation and delivery. Eeshita has been with Cisco for the past 8 years building and driving content strategies with an emphasis on delivery for the web, mobile web, and video. Eeshita has led content design using DITA for the various content types and their presentation for ease of consumption. The Mobile web and Video have been the key drivers in the recent past and Eeshita has seen the success they have achieved with regards to customer satisfaction.
 
 
Paul Gustafson
President and General Manager
TDA Group
Paul Gustafson is president and general manager of TDA Group, Silicon Valley's premier content marketing agency. The award-winning marketing communications firm provides a broad range of services to engage buyers wherever they are: on the Web, on smartphones, on tablets, and through print.
 
Matthias Gutknecht
Business Development Manager
STAR AG
Matthias Gutknecht is a Business Development Manager at STAR AG. He is a subject matter expert on customer and product communications, marketing execution, communication logistics and knowledge management processes. Matthias has more than 25 years experience in research, design, development, selling and deployment of knowledge and content management solutions and services. Before joining STAR AG Matthias was in charge of developing the cross-media communications services offering for Xerox Services Europe. He was engaged in many content and knowledge management business and technology consulting assignments and has developed the Xerox Services knowledge management offering in joint co-operation with Xerox Research Centre Europe in Grenoble and Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) USA. Before working for Xerox Matthias was a researcher in artificial intelligence, knowledge based systems and neural networks at the Zurich University AI Lab. He holds a PhD in Economy and Computer Science from Zurich University.
 
Jake Hartnell
Product Designer and User Researcher
Hypothes.is
Jake Hartnell works at Hypothes.is as a product designer and user researcher. Before that he attended the UC Berkeley School of Information where his work largely revolved around eBooks. He's also a science fiction writer.
 
Brenda Horowitz
Information Developer
Citrix
Brenda Horowitz is an Information Developer at Citrix. In her current role, she helps the Information Experience team understand customers’ needs and provide the optimal information and user experience throughout the customer journey. Brenda has a broad range of skills and expertise across the product life cycle, including: • Market analysis • Customer research • Requirements gathering • Competitive product analysis • Product design (user interface, internationalization, localization) • Content strategy • Information architecture and development (UI content, online help, tutorials, demos, user documentation, training materials, marketing collateral) • Content curation • Testing (prototyping, QA, beta, and user acceptance) • Customer support She also has experience in: • Strategic business planning • Workshop facilitation • Curriculum development and training • Conference presentations • Vendor relations • People and project management • Process improvement • Mentoring Technologies she’s worked on include: • Pattern matching algorithms • Medical devices such as cardiac monitors and IV pumps • Database compression • Linguistic software • Real-time and ruggedized systems (for range/telemetry, aircraft simulators, nuclear power plant simulators) • Network storage • Voice recognition and multi-modal (voice and visual) browsers • Embedded computing platforms • Call Center scheduling • Desktop and application virtualization Brenda holds a bachelor’s degree from The Johns Hopkins University, an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology, and has completed coursework in human-computer interaction and Design Thinking from Stanford University.
 
Alan Horvath
Managing Director
STAR Group America, LLC
Alan Horvath is the Managing Director of STAR Group America, LLC, located in Lyndhurst, OH. STAR Group America is a subsidiary of the STAR Group. Prior to coming to STAR, Alan spent 17 years at Rockwell Automation as an IT Manager where he led various software development teams responsible for the development of business applications. Alan is a 1983 graduate of The Ohio State University where he received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a major in Computer and Information Science.
 
Linda Jansak
Technical Communications Consultant
Purdue University Calumet, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Linda Jansak is an emerging technologies consultant with roots in journalism and communications. She has helped small, medium, and multi-national companies improve their marketing strategies and bring focus to their brand stories. Linda also teaches technical communication in the Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering at Purdue University Calumet. She is one of the founding members of the Chicago eLearning & Technology Showcase, where she is on the Advisory Board and acts as host representative for the Chicago Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.
 
Joe Jenkins
Vice President
Oberon Technologies
Joe Jenkins is a Vice President at Oberon Technologies and has over 20 years of enterprise software development, implementation and business consulting expertise in content management, automated publishing, and content delivery across many industries. He is responsible for overall product and business development at Oberon. In addition, Mr. Jenkins performs strategic implementation services activities including development of multi-year implementation roadmaps, conducting requirements workshops, and architecting enterprise solutions enabling content reuse, automated publishing, improved translation processes, and dynamic content delivery. Mr. Jenkins is a frequent speaker at industry conferences on the innovative use of structured content to drive enterprise value.
 
Tom Johnson
Senior Technical Writer
41st Parameter

Tom Johnson is the Senior Technical Writer for 41st Parameter in the San Francisco Bay Area. You may know Tom through his blog, "I'd Rather Be Writing" idratherbewriting.com where he explores topics such as visual communication, structured authoring, information architecture, and more. He also records podcasts, interviewing technical writing luminaries around the world. Tom is a champion of video and has presented a number of times on how to record both audio and video to help users learn technical products.

 
Marcia Riefer Johnston
President
Marcia Riefer Johnston, Inc.

Marcia has run a tech-writing business for… a long time. The author of "Word Up! How to Write Powerful Sentences and Paragraphs (And Everything You Build from Them)," she taught tech writing in the Engineering School at Cornell University. She studied literature and creative writing in the Syracuse University Masters program. 

For more information about Marcia's book, see http://howtowriteeverything.com.

 
Colleen Jones
Principal
Content Science
As principal of the consultancy Content Science, Colleen has led strategic initiatives for clients ranging from Dell to Equifax to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She regularly consults with executives and practitioners to improve their strategy and processes for digital content. Colleen shares content insights in her top-selling book, "Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content" (New Riders). Her newly released second book, "Does Your Content Work?" (New Riders), explains how to start evaluating whether your content is effective. Colleen also is the co-founder of ContentWRX, a platform that evaluates your content's effectiveness.
 
Neal Kaplan
Technical Communications Manager
Ayasdi
Neal Kaplan is the Technical Communications Manager at Ayasdi, a data analysis and machine learning startup. He is responsible for product documentation, customer support, and training content. Neal has 19 years of experience as a technical communicator, and has created every possible type of documentation for companies ranging from startups to multinationals. He blogs about his ideas and experiences at Customers and Content. Neal lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two daughters. 
 
Lesley Kew
Principal Editor
Intuit
Lesley Kew leads the QuickBooks desktop content team at Intuit. She has 30 years of experience in all phases of content design and strategy, both as a leader and an individual contributor. Lesley is fascinated by how real people consume in-product content, and spends a lot of time with users, either in the usability lab or in the field. She uses her research to help writers be more successful and help users succeed.
 
Michelle Killebrew
Marketing Program Director, Strategy & Solutions - Social Business
IBM
I am a marketer at heart. I love dissecting what makes a compelling marketing experience, whether is the creative, the process, campaign optimization -- all of it, really! I enjoy rolling up my sleeves and getting into the technical aspects of what works and what doesn't. I have a varied marketing background -- both in B2B and B2C with over 14 years of high-tech marketing experience. My day job: I joined IBM through the acquisition of Coremetrics, and I'm now responsible for driving the strategy and category management of IBM's Social Business initiative.
 
Marilyn Kirschen
Consulting Technical Writer
CareFusion Corporation
With almost 30 years in the Technical Communications field, Marilyn has seen tools and output evolve from daisy-wheel, fixed-width text developed in nroff and troff to single-source XML stored in a CCMS and output via a transform interacting with the CMS. Information design and a positive user experience with documentation have been paramount for Marilyn, who began her career as an editor and then moved to writing. She has worked in both large and small companies, advocating for the user and for ways to make information delivery more efficient. When Marilyn was at Interleaf, she used Worldview Press, a new Interleaf product, to develop information kiosks for a Seybold Conference. A former Director of Documentation and Training, Marilyn led that department in the transition from Word to FrameMaker and WebWorks. An advocate of change when change is required, Marilyn is currently the project leader for the CareFusion Dispensing unit’s implementation of DITA with a CMS.
 
Eric Kuhnen
Director of Global Operations
Astoria Software
Eric Kuhnen specializes in competitive market research, win-loss analysis, Agile Product Management, and sales training and has extensive experience bringing new products to market and growing top-line revenue.
 
Ted Kuster
Staff Technical Writer
Salesforce.com
I was a newspaper reporter and then a magazine writer until I got pulled into technical writing during the 90s Silicon Valley boom. I paid my dues publishing long-form Framemaker output, then I got the chance to build all-DITA help content sites from scratch for two startups. (The first one is long gone, but you can still inspect the last, at help.collab.net.) I want to help other writers use this magical technology to unleash their talent and delight users and I want to share the enjoyment I've derived from using DITA in my work every day.
 
Fabrice Lacroix
CEO
ANTIDOT - Fluid Topics
Fabrice's career is intimately linked to the development of the Internet and of the Web. He began as a system developer in the telecom industry, and in 1994 he took part in the creation of the first French ISP as CTO, developing many breakthrough technologies. Convinced that the future is in the data more than in the infrastructure, and keen on innovation and entrepreneurship, Fabrice created Antidot in 1999. Fabrice is also board member of several different companies, investors and organizations where he shares his views on innovation and the evolution of the software industry. Fabrice graduated from ENSIMAG and holds a Master in Computing from the Imperial College London.
 
Kyle Lacy
Director of Global Content Marketing & Research
Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud
Kyle Lacy is Director of Global Content Marketing & Research for Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, a leading provider of interactive marketing solutions. He is the author of three critically acclaimed books, Twitter Marketing for Dummies (2nd ed), Branding Yourself (2nd ed), and Social CRM. Prior to ExactTarget, Kyle co-founded a marketing technology company, helping over 350 clients build and deliver digital marketing experiences.
 
Paula Land
Founder & Principal Consultant
Content Insight
Paula Land divides her time between being a content strategy consultant and a technology entrepreneur. As founder and principal consultant at Strategic Content, she develops content strategies and implementation plans for private clients such as REI, Costco, F5 Networks, NetApp, and GHX, as well as partnering with other agencies on large-scale projects for clients like Microsoft and MasterCard. As cofounder of Content Insight, she is the impetus behind the development of CAT, the Content Analysis Tool, which creates automated content inventories. Prior to her current ventures, Paula was content strategy lead in the Seattle office of Razorfish. Paula is the author of the new book, "Content Audits and Inventories: A Handbook." (XML Press, September 2014).
 
Diana Langston
Director of Content Strategy & User Engagement
Extole
Diana Langston is passionate about the role content plays in increasing business growth, customer success, and product adoption. She has 13+ years experience working in content management and strategy, user education, technical communications, marketing, and community platform and engagement management at high tech companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is constantly looking for ways to improve the user experience, set customers up for success, and drive user engagement with the product and content/community experience. Diana is a member of the Product Team at Extole and serves as the Director of Content Strategy and User Engagement. Bridging the gap between teams to ensure the success of Extole customers is a central part of her role. She enjoys talking about shifts taking place in technical communications and the need to evolve with how users interact with content. You can find her blog at langstonstrategies.com or follow her on Twitter @dianalangston7.
 
Joan Lasselle
President
Lasselle-Ramsay
Joan Lasselle is President of Lasselle-Ramsay, Inc. Joan has over 25 years experience designing and developing new product content and training for high tech, healthcare, finance and insurance industries. Since 2000, Lasselle-Ramsay has worked with their clients to help them move to the use of XML/structured content to help streamline the development of content and customize output in multiple forms and formats. She is a past board member of Content Management Professionals (CMPros), and a regular contributor at industry conferences. Joan holds a M.Ed. from the University of Oregon.
 
Lee LeFever
Founder
Common Craft
Lee LeFever is the Founder of Common Craft and author of The Art of Explanation. In 2007 Lee and wife Sachi started producing short animated videos designed to explain complex ideas. Since then, Common Craft has won numerous awards, created explanations for the world's most respected brands and earned over 50 million online video views. Today, Common Craft's mission is to make the world a more understandable place to live and work by inspiring professionals to focus on explanation as a skill that can solve problems and create opportunities.
 
Ahava Leibtag
President & Owner
Aha Media Group, LLC
Ahava is passionate about content and prides herself on tackling the toughest content projects—from healthcare to higher education to hip-hop (seriously). She has more than 15 years of experience in writing, messaging, and marketing, and is a well-recognized content expert. Her first book, The Digital Crown: Winning at Content on the Web was published by Morgan Kaufmann in November 2013. Ahava is the president and owner of Aha Media Group, LLC, a content strategy and content marketing consultancy founded in October 2005. Prior to beginning Aha Media, she was a communications strategist for a government agency. Ahava has also worked for two major advertising agencies and a commercial production company, and she served as the metro beat reporter for The Jerusalem Post. Ahava received her M.A. from Georgetown University and her B.A. from Stern College. She lives in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region.
 
Mark Lewis
Content Engineer / DITA Educator
Quark
Mark Lewis is a content strategist, author, and DITA Metrics educator. He is recognized throughout the industry for his ability to prove the business case for moving static content to XML and intelligent content. Through design metrics, his approach can prove alignment across content strategy and corporate strategy. His experience spans a variety of industries including finance, aviation, and oil & gas. Mark started the DITA Metrics community to promote the sharing of metrics, ROI and case studies. In his book DITA Metrics 101, Mark's cost models offer a framework to determine the savings possible with enterprise-wide DITA implementation. He is also a contributing author of DITA 101 Second Edition and a technical reviewer of Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy, both by the Rockley Group.
 
Toni Mantych
Information Architect
ADP
Toni Mantych is currently the sole Information Architect for a department of over sixty information developers at ADP. In this role, she has led numerous content strategy and information architecture initiatives, most recently a multi-year migration to structured authoring with DITA and the implementation of component content management. Since 2007, Toni has been teaching graduate-level courses in information architecture, DITA, content strategy, usability, and various tech comm tools and technologies at Portland State University. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a certified AIIM Metadata and Taxonomy Practitioner.
 
Ed Marshall
Independent Contractor
Marshall Documentation Consulting

Ed Marshall is an independent consultant technical writer and the sole proprietor of Marshall Documentation Consulting, with over 26 years in technical writing. He specializes in technical documentation for developers including API (application programming interfaces), SDK (software developer’s kits), Web Services products, etc. 

Over his career, Ed has developed expertise in using tools to “let the computer do the work,” such as advanced tools for editing files, comparing files, and searching / replacing text. He has presented many talks at local STC chapters, the STC Conferences / Technical Summits, the WritersUA Conferences, the DocTrain Conferences, and other professional conferences, including the TEKOM trade show in Germany (October 2012), at their invitation. Ed is a Certified MadCap Advanced Developer (MAD) for MadCap Flare 9 (2013), 8 (2012) and 7 (2011).

 
Jennifer Maynard
Technical Publications Team Leader
Stryker Medical
Jennifer Maynard is a senior technical writer/technical publications team leader at Stryker Medical, one of the world’s leading medical technology companies. With a BS degree in Scientific and Technical Communication from Michigan Technological University and a MBA in Management from the University of St. Thomas, Jennifer has been writing technical documentation for over 20 years. She began her career at IBM, where she was first introduced to SGML and XML. Since joining Stryker, she has been actively leading her team in their transition to XML. With XML, the team can better manage their large document library, enjoy the benefits of reuse for consistency and translation cost savings, and quickly respond to regulatory and quality changes to create a better customer experience.
 
Ljuba Miljkovic
Chief Product Officer
Automatic
Ljuba is a scientist-turned-designer whose work spans hardware, software, and services. He’s the founding designer and Chief Product Officer of Automatic Labs in San Francisco. Before that, he was at Adaptive Path, an experience design consultancy where he worked with organizations of all sizes to imagine the future and make it great. In his past life, Ljuba was an energy scientist at Stanford University, where he conducted research into technologies to fight climate change. He believes a strong analytical approach to design can yield creative solutions that solve problems users may not even know they have.
 
Tony Mrsich
Founder and Principal
High Techniques™ Partnership
Tony has seen the good, bad, and ugly of training through his extensive international experience with technical training, sales training, and curriculum development. He provides training for hot topics such as cloud computing, network solutions, telesales, and security (www.High-Techniques.com). Tony provides training to a wide variety of target audiences, including technical/sales employees, channel partners, and retail/service staff members. Previous clients include Nebula, Apple Inc., Cisco, VMware, AT&T, and PayPal. With his Moon in Leo (nod to his home in the SF Bay Area), Tony embraces and is energized by instructor-led training (ILT) environments. He has a keen ability to develop seminars, eLearning, certification testing, ILT, and other deliverables. His B.A. in economics frames Tony's understanding of training as a corporate investment with the expectation of improved productivity. Tony works to maximize the value of the customer experience for all involved.
 
Cheri Mullins
Consultant
Mullins Consulting
Cheri Mullins is an information architect, user experience analyst and designer, usability researcher, writer, educator, and content strategist. Her research is focused at the intersections of technology, culture, and language. Contact her on Yahoo, Facebook, or Twitter @cherimullins.
 
Kevin Nichols
Director, Global Practice Lead, Content Strategy
Sapient/Nitro
 
Kevin Nichols is the Director and Global Lead of Content Strategy for one of the largest digital and interactive agencies in the world, Sapient. For over seventeen years, Kevin has worked in Internet and web technologies. In 1995, while completing his graduate studies at Harvard, he interned at the Sabre Foundation. He went on to work in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he conducted media relations and acted as Webmaster for the Physicians for Human Rights website. Returning to America, Kevin worked as a contract consultant, before taking a position at Sapient. Kevin then went on to play a key role in launching MITOpenCourseWare, where he designed a substantial part of the publication process and managed the production team. Later, as a senior consultant at Molecular, Kevin was responsible for 1MM+ accounts of Fortune 100 global brands like HP. During this time, he worked with marketing and communications groups to structure and stream-line their content and content life cycles.
 
In 2007, Kevin started his own consulting firm. He is currently a Director and the Practice Lead for Content Strategy at SapientNitro. When he is not gracing United Airline 757 cabins or Hilton's queen-size beds with his presence, Kevin likes to spend his time on Cape Cod, writing the next 'Great American Novel'. Kevin is committed to international human rights especially those of refugees and victims of war. You can learn more about him at kevinpnichols.com.
 
 
Jeff Nowak
Chief Content Officer & Founder
Rocket Man DIgital
I am a passionate storyteller with a creative eye for exceptional content in a fast-paced, multi-channel world. No matter what the channel I deliver exceptional visual and written content that grips an audience, holding them captivated and desiring more. Whether creating content for huge digital platforms at General Mills or expanding brands into the digital age for Reader’s Digest, I have delivered page-one content that people google. My expertise is crafting a strategy targeted to users’ needs, then delivering remarkable content that creates a unique voice and personality users will want to engage with, talk about and share with friends. I have developed complete voice and tone guides for brands like Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, LiveBetterAmerica and numerous lifestyle publications and have orchestrated platform redesigns to elevate content use and engagement.
 
Sarah O'Keefe
President
Scriptorium Publishing
Sarah O'Keefe is the founder of Scriptorium Publishing (www.scriptorium.com) and a content strategy consultant. Sarah uses technical content to solve business problems; she is especially interested in how new technologies can streamline publishing workflows to achieve strategic goals. Her latest book is "Content Strategy 101: Transform Technical Content into a Business Asset."   Sarah speaks fluent German, is a voracious reader, and enjoys swimming, kayaking, and other water sports along with knitting and college basketball. She has strong aversions to raw tomatoes, eggplant, and checked baggage.
 
Greg Parikh
Vice President PeopleSoft Information Development
Oracle
Greg Parikh is currently the Vice President of Oracle PeopleSoft Information Development. His department, with a staff of 60+, is responsible for all of the information resources and deliverables for the PeopleSoft software product line. This includes documentation, embedded help, online help, end user help solutions, curriculum/training, video development, social media management, and more. His teams are located in the United States and India. Greg is a regular conference presenter, and has been asked to present his views on relevancy to many tech pub groups across the globe.
 
Farhad Patel
Technical Communications Manager
Huawei Technologies
Trendsetting technical communication manager, passionate about information architecture and technical writing, unenthusiastic cat lover, likes to leave his reading glasses at home, hiker/skier and Bollywood aficionado. Farhad has over 18 years of well rounded experience spanning careers in information development, information architecture, and project management. He is especially interested in how new technologies can improve information development and delivery. Farhad is currently indulging his penchant for both innovation and global work experience at Huawei where he’s working on integrating dynamic content publishing and augmented reality into information products while working in a multi-cultural, global environment. Farhad has an MS in computer science and began his career as an intern at Nortel where he progressed from creating industry-leading content and pioneering task based information development to managing information developers & architects and working on multi-faceted global project teams.
 
Laura Patterson
President
VisionEdge Marketing
Laura Patterson is a proven marketing practitioner, respected consultant and dynamic speaker. She is known for her practical, no-nonsense approach to proving and improving the value of B2B marketing. Inventive and engaging, Laura quickly gets to the heart of the matter to provide actionable recommendations and solutions. Because her 20+ year career began in sales and now spans customer relationship management and marketing, her recommendations are always cross-functional friendly. An early pioneer on the science side of marketing, Laura is recognized as one of the leading authorities in marketing measurement and performance, marketing operations, and marketing data and analytics. A strategic marketer, data and metrics master, she has helped over a hundred companies in a variety of industries fulfill their marketing potential and achieve competitive advantage.
 
Jani Penttinen
Founder & CEO
Transfluent
Jani Pentinnen started Transfluent in Finland back in 2011, and he moved to Silicon Valley in 2012 to expand the U.S. market as well as to increase connections within the Bay Area. In his free time, Jani enjoys swimming with his three kids, and taking pictures.  Transfluent's goal is to break down the language barriers that exist all around the world by combining the power of human translators and technology.
 
Paul Perrotta
Senior Director, Shared Content Services
Juniper Networks, Inc.
Paul Perrotta is Senior Director, Shared Content Services within the Information Experience (iX) organization at Juniper Networks. iX partners with multiple business groups to design, develop, and deliver an architected information experience for customers of Juniper products and services. Paul's focus includes iX business intelligence, operations, and shared content services such as illustration, editing, and production support. Prior to joining Juniper, Paul spent ten years at Cisco Systems, Inc., in San Jose, California. His last role at Cisco was as a senior manager of a technical documentation and training department, where he led 60+ information developers, editors, and managers who developed and maintained information products for over 80 software products. Before joining Cisco, Paul was an information developer at ROLM Systems; then a writer and manager at Pyramid Technology Corp; and manager, operations manager, and acting account manager for EDS Corp. Paul holds a BS in Technical Writing and Editing from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
 
Kathleen Pierce
Director, Commercial Content Operations
Illumina
Kathleen Pierce is the Director, Content Operations at Illumina. For over 20 years, she has built teams and business processes for companies in software, hardware, telecom, and life sciences. Her current areas of interest are sales/support-enablement technology, enterprise content management, and content operations.
 
Satish Polisetti
Co-Founder
AdsNative
Satish Polisetti is cofounder of AdsNative, the infrastructure enabling banner-less web. He previously worked at mobile advertising startups such as Amobee and MdotM and received the Mayfield Fund Fellowship in 2010. He has double majors in Mechanical & Electrical Engineering and was recognized with a '30 Under 30' award by his undergraduate alumni organization recently.
 
Dawn Poulos
Vice President of Marketing
Xyleme
With international marketing experience spanning North America and EMEA, Dawn is responsible for the market strategy that has driven Xyleme’s rapid revenue growth. She is the author of the popular Dawn of Learning blog and has written numerous white papers and trade articles on the topics of next generation learning technologies, social learning, XML, and content reusability. Prior to Xyleme, Dawn worked for a number of start-ups, including the network mediation and billing vendor Narus Inc. She holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Cincinnati and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
 
Ann Rockley
CEO
The Rockley Group, Inc.

Ann Rockley is CEO of The Rockley Group, Inc. She has an international reputation for developing multichannel content strategies and digital publishing solutions. She has been instrumental in establishing the field in content strategy, content reuse, intelligent content strategies for multichannel delivery, and content management best practices. Known as the "mother" of content strategy, she introduced the concept of content strategy with her best-selling book, "Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy," now in its second edition. Ann was ranked among the top five most influential content strategists in 2010. 

 
James V. Romano, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Prisma International, Inc.
As CEO of Prisma, a translation strategy and technology company, Jim has been helping companies become global-ready for over thirty years. His relentless focus on the seamless communication experience—the right content delivered in the right language on the right platform—grew out of his experience as a small kid in an Italian family in New Jersey, where none of the three existed. As a grown-up professional linguist, Jim develops localization and content strategies for a broad range of clients, from start-ups to large companies to government agencies. His recent work involves developing translation management platforms for retail, healthcare and hi tech clients.
 
Robert Rose
Chief Strategist
Content Marketing Institute
Robert helps marketers become stellar storytellers. Robert is the Chief Strategist for the Content Marketing Institute, and Senior Contributing Analyst for Digital Clarity Group. Robert is the author of the book Managing Content Marketing, which spent two weeks as a top ten marketing book on Amazon.com. As a recognized expert in content marketing strategy, digital media and the social Web, Robert innovates creative and technical strategies for a wide variety of clientele.
 
Lindy Roux
VP, Content Marketing
Rauxa
As the leader of our content marketing practice, Lindy leads a team of professionals helping our clients define and execute digital marketing strategies. A frequent speaker, author and industry contributor, her expertise spans customer insights strategies, content marketing, social integration, SEO, user experience and omni-channel marketing. Lindy comes to Rauxa with over 15 years of experience defining, creating and managing engaging digital experiences that resonate with required audiences and drive conversion, helping to meet business and user goals. Lindy has worked on a broad range of projects, from enterprise-level websites to intranets, ecommerce sites, experiential microsites, online communities, mobile sites and applications, and email and social media campaigns, in a number of verticals, including retail, telecommunications, consulting, healthcare, banking, insurance, pharma and food.
 
Richard Sikes
Managing Director
text&form Inc.
At text&form Inc., the Toronto-based office of text&form GmbH, Richard is responsible for revenue growth and profitability of the North American branch. This is being achieved through a number of initiatives to raise market awareness of text&form's high-quality linguistic offerings including software and multimedia localization, translation services, terminology management, process consulting and deployment, plus SAP translation. Richard has been immersed in localization since 1989. He has held positions as Technical Director for Central Europe for Micrografx, Director of International Development for Delrina Corporation, Director of Development Services for MGI Software Corp and Director of Globalization for Peregrine Systems where he oversaw localization teams at three company sites and spearheaded company globalization initiatives. Richard also founded the Toronto office of GECAP, which later became part of Bowne Global Solutions. When working with clients as a localization management trainer and international business development consultant, Richard focuses on a holistic view of the localization process as an integral part of a greater corporate globalization vision, as well as specific tactics for mission determination, process implementation and improvement, budgeting, personnel, infrastructure, and career-path planning, and team motivation.
 
Dr. Carmen Simon
Executive Coach, Co-Founder
REXI Media

Dr. Carmen Simon is changing how the world presents. Her ability to empower presenters is based on unique scientific research, and an unmatched understanding of both in-person and virtual environments. As the co-founder of Rexi Media, creator of Presenter Pro (#1 business app, 2008) holder of a double doctorate in information technology and cognitive psychology, and former lead of AT&T’s learning and development program, Dr. Simon has built her career helping employees at America’s most visible brands craft their own compelling stories. A recognized expert and published author in human psyche, presentation delivery and audience engagement, Carmen is a sought-after keynote speaker who reveals the secrets of getting your message not just heard, but remembered.

 
Matt Skallerud
President
Pink Banana Media
Matt Skallerud began his online career in May 1995 with the launch of GayWired.com, which became one of the top 3 LGBT websites worldwide. Having worked with companies, large and small, for more than 19 years to reach the LGBT online consumer through this site and others, he is now focused on the most cutting-edge global innovations in social networking and Web 2.0 technologies. He empowers his clients to reach the LGBT market using the most advanced techniques taking hold in the online marketing world today, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube, blogs and others. In addition, Skallerud is the former Board Chairman of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) and Travel Gay Canada (TGC). He is actively involved with key national LGBT organizations including the NGLCC, GLAAD and Out & Equal, just to name a few.
 
Russell Sparkman
CEO, Content Strategy
FusionSpark Media, Inc.
Russell Sparkman has 25 years of experience in visual communications (photography, video), the last 10 of which have been as the head of Fusionspark Media, which specializes in content strategy, content marketing and content production across multiple platforms for B2B, B2C, non-profits and government clients. Russell presents on content strategy for content marketing, transmedia storytelling and gamification at conferences that have included Content Marketing World, American Marketing Association, Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, and the Content Marketing Retreat, produced by the Langley Center for New Media. Russell is a member of the content marketing consulting team at the Content Marketing Institute.
 
Val Swisher
Founder and CEO
Content Rules, Inc.
Val Swisher is the Founder and CEO of Content Rules, Inc. — an end-to-end content services provider, helping customer plan and execute their global content strategy, create content in structured and non-structured environments, and prepare content for translation. Val is a global content strategy thought leader and an expert in making source English content global-ready. In addition to running Content Rules, Val is on the Executive Board for Translators without Borders, where she is responsible for creating and running the Simplified English program. Translators without Borders works with non-governmental organizations to provide critical, life-saving translations for humanitarian causes around the globe. Val is also part of the academic advisory team at UCSF Medical Center, where she helps medical students simplify their English content as part of the WikiProject Medicine rotation.
 
Amber Swope
DITA Specialist
DITA Strategies
Amber Swope is an internationally-recognized expert on the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) who specializes in helping teams design and implement unified content development environments for XML content. These environments provide custom, integrated support for authoring, storing, publishing, and localizing content. With over 20 years of experience in the information development field and 10 years of DITA expertise, Amber helps teams develop and optimize their environments to improve efficiency and reduce costs. In addition to co-authoring the “DITA Maturity Model”, Amber has authored numerous papers and articles on information design, development, and architecture and presented at leading industry conferences. Amber holds a Masters in Technical and Professional Writing and a Certificate in Computer Technical Writing from Northeastern University.
 
Mat Szwajkos
Associate Director of Content Production
POSSIBLE
I'm a lover of all things visual + social. A picture (or video) can say exceedingly more then 140 characters. (But that's not to say words don't matter.) I am a forward thinker, curious to create + discover what comes next. As an entrepreneur for the past decade I have developed a deep client base from Fortune 10 companies to start ups + a network of content creators + influencers to grow from a production house into a full service social media agency. I develop new offerings for each clients needs and best practices to use as guides to success.
 
Andrew Thomas
Director of Product Marketing for Content Management Technologies
SDL
 
Andrew Thomas is the Director of Product Marketing for Content Management Technologies at SDL. Mr. Thomas has worked with XML for a wide variety of content, from marketing materials, to printed manuals and web applications. He’s witnessed firsthand, the diversity of structured content and how it can empower businesses and customer engagement. Before joining SDL, Mr. Thomas was a language intelligence solutions manager for Adobe Systems and oversaw the translation process for their DITA content.
 
 
Chris Todd
Senior Manager of Global Knowledge Management
Yahoo
Chris Todd is a Senior Manager of Global Knowledge Management at Yahoo, where he focuses on delivering global help content for multiple Yahoo properties. These help pages are viewed by millions of customers monthly across 14 languages and 38 locales. After successful careers with Xerox, Oracle, and Mentor Graphics, Chris joined Yahoo in 2012, bringing his 20+ years experience of delivering world-class, customer self-service help content. Throughout his career, he’s worn many hats - leader, manager, coach, programmer, project manager, writer, analyst, and strategist among them. When Chris isn’t working to improve the Yahoo Help experience, you’ll find him catching a live blues concert, Eurogaming, or cheering on the Portland Trailblazers. Chris can be found on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdottodd/ and on Twitter at @CHRISdotTODD.
 
Rhonda Truitt
Director, North American Documentation
Huawei Technologies
Rhonda Truitt has been a Technical Communications leader for over twenty years. She currently holds the position of Global Director for Huawei’s Technical Communication Innovation and Best Practices Center. Rhonda and her team stay busy speaking at industry conferences, leading pilots for new documentation delivery tools, researching trends, and driving industry best practices. She started her career as an Instructional Designer at Nortel Networks Technical Training Center. Rhonda has an extensive background spanning customer research, user experience, technical customer documentation, strategic planning, instructional design, curriculum development, multi-media development and building taxonomy tools for marketing. Rhonda’s recent projects include leading her team in the research and development of an Augmented Reality solution for Huawei’s Technical Communications, improving customer satisfaction, and Dynamic Content Publishing. She created and held an Augmented Reality Think Tank at Huawei bringing together experts in the field from around the globe to discuss the impacts of AR to the technical communication field. Rhonda is an active member of standard development committees. Rhonda holds a Bachelors of Science in Journalism from Ball State University and a Masters in Computer Education and Cognitive Systems from the University of North Texas.
 
Kathy Wagner
Co-Founder
Content Strategy Inc.
Kathy Wagner is co-founder of Content Strategy Inc. where she helps clients to solve business problems by improving their content and content processes. Kathy loves leading complicated projects for large global corporations and has worked with organizations such as Samsung, Wells Fargo, ATB Financial, and HSBC. She has a special affinity for content assessment and diagnostics. Kathy has also taught content courses at Simon Fraser University and the British Columbia Institute of Technology and is a co-organizer of Vancouver's Content Strategy & Information Architecture meetup group.
 
Mohamed Waseem
Vice President of Customer Success
Acrolinx
Mohamed Waseem is a senior executive in the enterprise software industry with over 18 years of experience. He has always focused on putting the customer first, and ensured that the software products he built provide an excellent customer experience. As the Vice President, Customer Success at Acrolinx, he brings his extra ordinary technical and process strengths to help the world’s best companies speak with one voice – with content that is more findable, readable, and engaging. He runs the Acrolinx Professional Services, Technical & Strategic account management and other customer-related functions at Acrolinx. Previously, Mohamed was a Senior Director, R&D at Software AG. During his tenure, he built products and transformed R&D processes. He envisioned and led an initiative that used customer and internal technical content to reduce issue resolution times. He scoped out requirements from strategic customers and ensured their delivery aligning multiple internal organizations. He established valuable, data driven KPIs to streamline weekly R&D planning and operations. He delivered dramatic improvements in customer experience, product quality, product release timeliness, and reduction of overall costs of product development.
 
Dechay Watts
Chief Content Officer
Sprout Content
Dechay Watts is co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at SPROUT Content, a content marketing agency that helps B2B companies build relationships and boost profits through strategic content channels. Dechay leverages her technology and marketing background to analyze client needs, set measurable goals and develop winning content strategies to drive leads and sales. She has been a guest speaker at Outreach Marketing Virtual Summit, Chi*Atlanta, Denver Content Strategy Meet-Up Group, CMS Connected and guest blogger for a variety of websites when requested, because she likes variety. Dechay is co-author of the book Brands in Glass Houses. Follow her on Twitter @Dechay.
 
Jen Weaver
Marketing and Communications Manager
Carmazzi Global Solutions
With over seven years of experience in the language services industry, Jen offers practical, hands-on information to help clients meet international goals. A Certified Business Cross Cultural Trainer, her bi-weekly educational articles in the Icon Logic Newsletter inform a growing readership of over 10,000 training and development professionals on the impact localization and translation hold for eLearning, and she frequently consults with clients and colleagues on evolving industry best practices. As Marketing and Communications Manager for Carmazzi Global Solutions, she uses her background of small business ownership to provide relevant resources to support diverse communication initiatives. With a Bachelors Degree in Communication Studies, Jen offers engaging presentations, offering valuable information in entertaining formats.
 
Leigh White
DITA Specialist
Ixiasoft
Leigh White is a technical communicator with over 18 years of experience as a content creator, information architect, XML technologist, and trainer. One of her primary interests is exploring ways that small technical publication groups can leverage existing tools and improve processes to maximize the reuse of their content, improve their efficiency, increase their offerings and save their sanity. To accomplish these goals, Leigh advocates that effective technical communicators need to be more than writers; they need to be part programmer, part designer and part project manager. She brings many years of personal experience as a writer on a small team with a small budget; having made nearly every mistake possible, she offers her experience to save you from those same mistakes. Leigh is also a devotee of XML and structured documentation and she believes that DITA might just save the world.
 
Philip Wisniewski
EVP, Client & Market Development
Kanban Solutions
For nearly 20 years, Philip Wisniewski has developed and managed strategic relationships with premier brands to deliver content-centric digital marketing and web development initiatives. Applying a mix of digital strategy, client service and business acumen, Philip can often be found evangelizing the promise of one-to-one interactive relationships between brands and their audiences, enabled through a foundation of software development and content engineering. He has driven business impact for such notable brands as Gillette, T Rowe Price, Ernst & Young, Nikon, Equinox, TracFone Mobile, Humana, AIG, Boost Mobile and Aetna.
 
Anne Wootton
CEO
Pop Up Archive
Anne Wootton is the co-founder of Pop Up Archive, a platform of simple tools to help media companies and archives find and reuse sound. Pop Up Archive began at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley and was co-developed with the Public Radio Exchange. Anne holds a Master’s degree from UC-Berkeley in Information Management and Systems, where she focused in digital archives and the sociology of technology. She has worked with independent producers The Kitchen Sisters and national grant agencies to identify preservation and access opportunities for independent radio. She is a 2012 Soundcloud Community Fellow and winner of the 2012 Knight News Challenge: Data.
 
Kathy Yankton
Content Architect
Cisco Systems
As a Content Architect at Cisco, Kathy has played a key role in the learning organization's journey from desktop publishing to single-source content and knowledge services. With over twenty years in the publishing industry, Kathy's resume of content experience ranges from higher ed textbook publishing, to trade computer books, and now training certification course content. A passionate advocate for disruptive innovation, she jumps at the chance to take something apart put it back together in a different way. Her latest project includes summoning daily inspiration from interests in cognitive theory, user experience, intelligent content strategy, design thinking, and ontology to turn the learning experience upside down (in a good way).
 
Scott Youngblom
VP of Global Sales
Oberon Technologies, Inc.
Scott Youngblom is a co-founder of Oberon Technologies, a leading provider of automated publishing IT solutions based on XML and SGML. With a degree in Communications and Business, Scott has an information technology career spanning over 25 years, with over 18 of them specifically involved with automated publishing solutions, including 12 years with Arbortext (now PTC). Having started out as a programmer in his early career, Scott has taken his technical background (along with his knowledge of various "best-of-breed" software publishing technologies) and applied them to Fortune 2000 organizations in support of meeting specific business requirements such as increasing company revenue, decreasing expenses to improve company margins, or meeting regulatory compliance and quality standards. He has worked with several organizations over the course of his career such as John Deere, Pearson Publishing, Abbott Laboratories, Eli Lilly, Johnson Controls, Department of Defense, Northwestern Life, Social Security Administration, General Motors, and many more customers across all industries.
 
Janice Zdankus
Vice President, Knowledge Management & Information Experience
Hewlett Packard
Janice Zdankus is vice president of Knowledge Management for Hewlett-Packard’s Enterprise Group. In this role, Zdankus and her team define, create, and share information experiences to ensure successful customer interactions with HP’s products and support. Zdankus was previously vice president, Solutions Enablement & Quality, where she and her team led the planning, design, integration and release of HP Converged Infrastructure solutions. Zdankus also served as vice president of worldwide software support in Technology Services, where she was responsible for the software services portfolio and profitable revenue growth. Zdankus’ career experience in the Commercial and Enterprise business units includes senior director of engineering of systems software, strategy planning, product marketing and engineering for systems software management products, and customer support, quality and warranty. Representative of her passion to increase the interest and representation of youth and minorities in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, she serves as the HP liaison to the board of directors of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME). Zdankus is active in sponsoring diversity and inclusion projects in the industry and community. Zdankus earned bachelor of science degrees in computer science and in industrial management from Purdue University, and a master’s of business administration degree from Santa Clara University in California.