Do you know those people who work hard and over-achieve in their business and career, but their success comes at the cost of their physical health, mental well-being, or relationships at home? That’s the people Andrew Lawless helps.

He is the Founder of the High Performance Consultant Academy™, a Behavioral Scientist and Certified High Performance Coach™. As a finalist of the Kolbe Professional Award he is recognized as one of the world’s leading human instinct coaches.

Andrew served as a consultant to organizations, such as the legendary Behavioral Science Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, The World Bank, National Instruments, Waters, and Fortune 10 and 500 companies.

He discussed his work with the White House and testified before the US Senate on the importance of professional development to the US Economic Security. He is a former adjunct professor at the University of Maryland.

STC participants can take the High Performance Index for free ($97 value) here: https://accelerate.teamlawless.com/be-a-high-performer

Presentation Description

Ask Who not How

Judith L. Glick-Smith, Ph.D., is an author, technical communication expert, knowledge architect, and leadership development consultant for over 40 years. Judy is a Past International President and Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication.

She is a recognized expert on the topic of “flow” and “flow-based leadership.” She is passionate about helping individuals and organizations make better decisions and prepare for the unexpected by facilitating flow in their lives and work environments.

Judy is the author of Flow-based Leadership: What the Best Firefighters Can Teach You About Leadership and Making Hard Decisions, which was number one on Fire Chief Magazine’s Top 9 Public Safety Leadership Books of 2016.

She is, also, a co-contributor and co-editor of the following books:

• Visionary Leadership in a Turbulent World: Leading in the New VUCA Context, which made the Forbes’ Summer Reading List for 2017
• Exceptional Leadership by Design
• Women Courageous: Leading through the Labyrinth.

She has been studying flow-based decision making and leadership in Fire and Emergency Management Services for over 15 years.

Her Ph.D. is in Transformative Studies with a concentration in Integral Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She has a Master of Science in Conflict Management from Kennesaw State University.

Scott Abel is a content strategy evangelist, known as The Content Wrangler. He has helped countless organizations to streamline their content production and delivery processes and improve the quality and effectiveness of their technical product information. He is a recognized thought leader in the field of content strategy and has been a featured speaker at numerous industry events around the world.

Scott is the co-author of the books “The Language of Content Strategy,” (a go-to resource for content professionals looking to improve their skills and knowledge) and “Intelligent Content: A Primer” (a comprehensive introduction to the concept of intelligent content). He is also the founder of The Content Wrangler, a content strategy consultancy that works with organizations of all sizes to develop and implement effective content strategies, and Information Development World, a conference that focuses on the latest trends, tools, and best practices in the field of information development.

With a deep passion for content and a strong focus on the needs of end-users, Scott has built a reputation for providing pragmatic, results-oriented advice that helps organizations to create content that is engaging, effective, and relevant to their audiences. His approach is centered on the belief that great content is the result of a well-defined strategy that is grounded in an understanding of user needs and business goals.

In addition to his work as a consultant and author, Scott is a sought-after speaker, having presented at conferences and events around the world. He is also a regular contributor to industry publications and blogs, and has served as a judge for several industry awards programs.

Currently, Scott is working with component content management system maker, Heretto, to educate leaders outside the content industry about content production capabilities like content operations and single-source omnichannel publishing that can differentiate their firms from their competition.

Abby Brunn is the Content Editing Team Lead at KnowBe4. Along with editing technical documentation and UX content, she also develops internal style guides and writing resources. When Abby’s not editing, she loves playing Animal Crossing, going to the beach, and hanging out with her cat.

Alan Houser is a technical communication consultant and trainer in the fields of XML technologies, publishing workflows, authoring and publishing tools, and technical communication best practices. He is an STC Fellow and former Society president, a former member of the OASIS DITA technical committee and Lightweight DITA subcommittee, and an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Alan is a frequent presenter at technical communication conferences and enjoys deploying best practices and standards to help organizations improve the efficiency of their technical communication workflows.

Alisa Bonsignore clarifies complex ideas, developing sustainable content strategies for a global clientele. Her experience spans several industries over more than two decades, with particular focus on making the world a better place through sustainability communications aligned with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Alisa is an STC Associate Fellow, a Certified Master Gardener, and frequently speaks at conferences and workshops.

Allie Proff, CPTC, is passionate about technical writing because it combines her love of reading and writing with math and science. She has been communicating technical knowledge for more than 15years, whether it be in the U.S. Navy, as a high school math teacher, or a technical communicator for various companies. Allie’s aim is to help people do amazing things by connecting them with the content they need in a way they understand.

Amanda Patterson “fell into” her first technical writing job after several years teaching college-level writing. She has spent much of her technical writing career building and deploying automated assembly equipment for the manufacturing industry. Currently, Amanda is the Technical Communications Manager at Hunter Douglas, where she focuses on internal and external product documentation for luxury window coverings and growing her rockstar team. She is the current Programs Manager for the STC Rochester chapter that allows her to connect with exciting people. Amanda has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with a specialization in Sci-Fi and the human experience of the future. Feel free to ask Amanda if she thinks she’s a robot.

Amelia Lax is a Knowledge Editor for Sub-Zero Group, Inc., where she revises customer instructions, technician-facing manuals, user interface text, and the occasional cookbook. She has eight years of professional writing experience, including in medical software documentation and tutoring academic writing. Amelia is passionate about workflow optimization, intuitive design, and accessible communication on complex topics.

Anisi Rouleau is the Technical Content Manager at KnowBe4, the world’s largest platform for security awareness training. She leads her team to write Knowledge Base articles, release notes, video scripts, and UI text. Both in and out of the office, Anisi prides herself on being “extra at all times”. She loves dad jokes, video games, and any reason to wear a costume.

Ann Marie Queeney is the owner of A.M. Queeney, LLC a consulting business specializing in procedures in healthcare and other industries. She is an enthusiastic champion of technical communication and enjoys empowering SMEs to strengthen their own writing and editing skills via personal coaching and training. Outside of work, Ann Marie is a history fan who volunteers for a nonprofit historical organization.

Ann Marie is an active STC volunteer who served as a 2020-2022 STC Board Director and CAC Chair. She is currently an STC Education committee and Policy & Procedures SIG council member.

Art Berger works as a Technical Writer for Solo.io, where he helps create technical documentation for the company’s service mesh and API gateway technologies and open-source projects. Over the past year, he has worked on the company’s documentation framework by analyzing various options for static site generation and web content hosting, implementing Hugo theme components for documentation needs, and updating HTML/CSS styling to align with new corporate branding guidelines. As the STC Carolina chapter’s President of the STC Carolina chapter, Art enjoys connecting people in the local area with other professionals, events, and resources to succeed in their tech comm pursuits.

Ashley Gordon is a Senior Technical Writer with experience at both enterprise and startup organizations. She specializes in customer-facing instructional and expository content and has also produced promotional and product marketing materials. Ashley has years of experience collaborating across teams to create content that answers users’ questions and drives them towards decisions. She also enjoys taking on internal initiatives that promote a company-wide culture of documentation. Ashley is the Vice President of STC’s Chicago chapter. She lives in Chicago, IL with a rotating cast of foster dogs whom she hosts through the nonprofit rescue One Tail at a Time.

Ben Woelk, CISSP, CPTC, is Governance, Awareness, and Training Manager in the Information Security Office at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), where he’s responsible for content strategy, security awareness, and program management. Ben teaches RIT courses in cybersecurity policy and law, technical writing, and introverts and leadership. His Hope for the Introvert Podcast shares conversations with introverted leaders, and how they apply their strengths in the workplace and other parts of life. Ben is co-founder of Your Journey to Leadership.

Caity is the founder and CEO of Good Words LLC. She received her degree in Technical Writing and Communication from Carnegie Mellon University. Caity started her career as a technical writer and is now an entrepreneur. She is passionate about using her personal and professional experience to uplift freelance workers, employees, and others advocate for meaningful work protections and career opportunities. When Caity is not running her company, she enjoys gardening, bodybuilding, road trips, mentoring, and restoring her historic Seattle, Washington home.

Carl DeBeer is an evangelist for SEO in technical documentation. With nearly a decade dedicated to improving content findability, he enjoys crunching data, finding solutions, and the Oxford comma.

Chris Hester leads a global web content design and publishing team and manages web content sustainability and strategy, content risk management and compliance, and content governance at UL Solutions, LLC. She is a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, and has presented at the STC Summit, the TCUK conference and other events.

Christina Mayr is a technical writer, information architect, outspoken user advocate, and champion for the technical writing profession. She currently leads a small team of technical writers in an IT organization within the gaming industry and is also an instructor with the Duke University Technical Writing certificate program. Christina has served STC as a volunteer leader, presenter, author, and mentor for more than 10 years. In her spare time, she runs a résumé and career coaching consultancy, helping clients from all industries get better jobs and better pay by improving their job search strategies and application materials.

Christine Christensen has worked in the technical communication field for 12 years and is currently a Documentation Manager at Trimble. She has a master’s degree in technical communication from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and a bachelor’s degree in English from Utah State University. She is a Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC) and currently serves as the president of the STC Rochester chapter and the co-facilitator for the Women in Tech Comm SIG. She lives near Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband and dog.

Chuck Campbell works at the New York Power Authority as Senior Manager, Instructional Technology Solutions. He has created and delivered technical presentations for more than 30 years to many clients, including the US Navy, US Postal Service, FedEx, Cargill, US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and Norwich Pharmaceuticals. Chuck has also presented at several STC chapter conferences, including Interchange and Spectrum, and the STC Technical Summits.

Chuck’s passion is learning and mastering new technologies, then teaching those technologies to others. He is always looking for new ways to engage learners, including eLearning, gamification, and other training methods and technologies.

Dr. Daniel L. Hocutt serves as Web Manager on the Marketing & Engagement team and teaches as adjunct professor of liberal arts at the University of Richmond School of Professional & Continuing Studies in Richmond, Virginia. His research interests are at the intersection of rhetoric, user experience, and technology, in data analytics in technical communication, posthuman rhetorical agency, and digital literacies. Daniel has published articles in Technical Communication, Communication Design Quarterly, Computers & Composition, Present Tense, and the Journal of User Experience along with several edited collections. He and his co-authors are proud recipients of the 2023 Frank R. Smith Distinguished Article Award.

Danielle Matthews is a Senior Technical Content Strategist with Medidata Solutions. She has worked as a technical writer and software trainer for the past thirteen years. Her focus continues to be on accessibility in documentation and she volunteers as a consultant on this issue for multiple companies. She has additional experience in education and mental health fields.

Dave Lines is a technical writer with the IT team at Epic Games, where he writes how-to guides and reference docs for Epic’s internal wikis, as well as writes FAQ responses for Epic’s AI support bot and spends an unreasonable amount of time analyzing the bot’s metrics! When he’s not writing documentation or studying user-interaction reports, Dave likes to spend time hiking and paddling in the beautiful mountains and rivers of his home state of North Carolina.

David L. Caruso has committed his professional life to explaining the complex to those who need to know, and whose lives literally depend on understanding it. He has always considered himself a creative problem-solver; someone who likes to work with a team or gather all the relevant information and then synthesize it into an appropriate document for the target audience. His work at NIOSH, where he helps workers better understand occupational safety and health information, and with the CDC where he helps respond to global health crises like Ebola and COVID-19, have made good use of his innate desire to communicate effectively. David is an STC Fellow and has served on various committees including this past term on the Nominating Committee and as Chair of the 2018 Summit Conference Committee.

Deanne Levander is an STC Fellow, past Society and chapter leader, long-time Technical Communication Book of Knowledge (TCBOK) and STC volunteer. She works for an international biomedical manufacturing company and lives in St. Paul, MN.

Dr. Guiseppe Getto is an Associate Professor of Technical Communication and Director of the master’s degree in Technical Communication Management at Mercer University. His research focuses on utilizing user experience (UX) design, content strategy, and other participatory research methods to help people improve their communities and organizations. Read more about him at: http://guiseppegetto.com.

Dr. Jackie Damrau is an STC Fellow, the Book Review Editor of the STC’s Technical Communication journal, and Co-Chair, 2022-2023 STC Education Committee. She works at Cathedral Plumbing LLC as a Project Manager/Scrum Master on projects related to a new home construction application suite centered on the plumbing industry. Jackie facilitates the project/scrum events, conducts product demos for assigned application modules, and provides management with project statistics.

In her spare time, Jackie enjoys raising her two grandchildren and reading murder mysteries along with other esoteric subjects. Find more about Jackie on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/jackiedamrau).

Dr. Kei Tomita is an Assistant Professor of Interactive Design at Kennesaw State University. She received her Ph.D. in the Department of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University-Bloomington. Kei’s research investigates how the visual design of instructional media can enhance people’s cognitive and affective learning experiences.

Dr. Philip B. Gallagher is an Assistant Professor of Technical Communication at Mercer University. His research interests are accessibility, ADA compliance, and UX biometrics for technical communication, user-centered design of multimodal information, and the influence of technology in writing ecology. His publications have appeared in Computers & Composition, Computers & Composition Online, and the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. He is a member of STC, ATTW, and NCTE.

Elizabeth Alley is a Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC) with more than 13 years in technical communication preceded by more than 11 years in nonprofit public art project management. She advocates for the user, providing clear and concise information to help readers do their jobs or understand a product or process. As an artist, Elizabeth focuses on sketching, painting, teaching art to adults, and advocating for the use of sketching in everyday life as a tool to improve memory and observation skills. She has organized, curated, produced, and participated in more than 45 solo and group shows since 1999.

Em Turner is a technical editor based in Durham, North Carolina with experience writing and editing documentation in the technology industry. Outside of work, Em keeps busy with many hobbies, including knitting, cross stitching, exercising, playing video games, caring for two cats, and of course, writing.

Over the last 14 years, Erin Wiedemer has worked as a technical writer with several Fortune 500 companies. As accessibility standards have evolved, she’s developed skills for delivering documentation that meets or exceeds the standards. She spearheaded adherence to HIPAA and Section 508 accessibility requirements in medical software documentation for the Veteran Affairs. In her roles with Google and Salesforce, she’s been an accessibility and WCAG standards subject matter expert. Erin and Danielle Matthews, a co-presenter, have given several webinars and workshops on documentation privacy and accessibility at STC and other venues.

Jennifer Goode, PhD, CPTC is the founder and lead consultant at Anypso, where she provides targeted learning solutions with a focus on learner experience, measurable outcomes, and large-scale organizational change. She is co-founder of Your Journey to Leadership and founder of Anypso Academy, where she leads individual, group, and organizational development programming. Jennifer is a frequent presenter and workshop leader at national conferences. In her spare time, Jennifer enjoys adventuring with her family—in the kitchen, in the garden, and on the road.

Jill Stanton, Custom Training Director at Fredrickson Learning, has more than 25 years of learning and development experience and a bachelor’s degree in Education, Theatre, English, and Psychology. Her career has included designing and managing award-winning learning teams and projects, including video, interactive video, eLearning, curriculum design, strategy, IT system development, performance support, learning strategy and design consulting, classroom training, and translation. Jill is passionate about sharing about learning and has presented on multiple topics at conferences including learning personas and paths, design thinking, effective audio for eLearning, project management, video for learning, accessibility in eLearning, and research-based instructional design.

Jo Lam is an information ambassador with experience focused on content automation. She thrives in the face of the unknown and is passionate about empowering fellow professionals while raising the standards for the content industry. Her background in video game design drives her enthusiasm for user experience and intuitive design. Jo is a solutions engineer, an information architect, a past president of STC Toronto, and a member of Women in Tech, Women in STEM, Information 4.0 Consortium, World IA Association, and the Semantic Content Graph Guild.

Josh Anderson is an American Canadian Information Architect at Precision Content. He analyzes and structures content to reveal the insights that come from the creative organization of information. Josh was an English teacher in Japan and an SEO Specialist in the Chicago,Illinois area before earning a master’s in Information at the University of Toronto. He has spoken at industry conferences such as ContentTECH Summit, ConVEx, LavaCon, and World IA Day events in Toronto and Okinawa. In his free time, Josh creates and listens to a wide variety of music.

Jyoti Nerkar is a Lead Technical Writer working with Icertis, Pune. She is a passionate information developer, elearning content designer and developer, information experience specialist, content strategy evangelist, visual thinker, rich media experimenter, innovator, and STC India presenter. Jyoti has previously worked with BMC Software, PTC Software, Reality Premedia, and System Plus.

Kees van Mansom lost his first job by mentioning that he found the work so repetitive that he felt like a robot. Since then, he has dedicated his working life to utilizing and explaining technology to motivate people and make them achieve more. Kees feels at his best when working on transformation initiatives in the context of technical publications and thoroughly enjoys presenting his solutions to any audience.

As the leading solution architect in technical publication services at Accenture, Kees helps his clients in transforming their technical documentation processes by architecting solutions based on state-of-the-art technology.

Kelly Schrank, MA, ELS, has been in technical communication for almost 30 years. She brings consistency, structure, and clarity to her clients’ content whether she is writing content like blog posts, style guides, and standard operating procedures or editing formulary dossiers, manuscripts, proposals, slide decks, and training materials. Kelly has created infographics and infographic elements for her own business and her clients, covering topics from the light-hearted to pharmaceutical!

Kelly is an STC Associate Fellow and a BELS-certified Editor in the Life Sciences who has presented on infographics, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, checklists, editing, and networking.

Kim Chmielewicz holds degrees from Hamilton College in Clinton, NY and the University of Buffalo in anthropology, creative writing, and clinical laboratory science. She currently lives near Buffalo and works at Kodak Alaris.

Kim has been fascinated by drama and playwrighting since her youth, so in combination with my anthropology background, utilizing that metaphor to better understand how people interact to improve both team and customer experiences was very intuitive. Kim’s greatest professional accomplishments have come from educating others and seeing them put their new knowledge to use as well as problem-solving collaboratively to resolve issues and facilitate greater achievement.

Kirsty is the Integration Success/Content Manager for RPMGlobal, based in Brisbane, Australia. In her role, communication and documentation are key for ensuring collaboration and project success. Kirsty has recently served on the STC Board of Directors as Immediate Past President.

Lael Butler is a Technical Communication Specialist at Streamline Designs where she works with client and in-house SMEs to develop, implement, and maintain. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in public relations, Advertising, and Communication, Lael worked with a Fortune 50 company first in Marketing and later in Operations. She joined Streamline Designs in 2014 as an Executive Assistant but was given the opportunity to begin learning technical communication early on, and in 2020 was promoted to Technical Communication Specialist.

Laura Zdanski started her technical writing career as an Environmental Sciences researcher. Since then, she has attained her master’s in Technical Communication degree from North Carolina State University, where her graduate work focused on accessibility, verbal data analysis, and instructional design. Laura started her career at IBM in roles as an Information Developer to an executive communications assistant while working on document development and localization for open-source Quantum Computing. She also worked on the document team and led projects while at Stripe. Laura currently writes commercial and open source docs at Astronomer, a data engineering company.

Leah Guren is the owner/operator of Cow TC, a technical communication training and consulting firm. She works with some of the top hi-tech and medical device companies internationally, including Intel, IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco. Leah is a published author and has trained thousands of practitioners in her courses. She is known for her sense of humor and her strange love of cows. Leah is an STC Fellow and a popular speaker at TechComm conferences all over the world.

Dr. Libertad Pantoja Hernández has over three years of experience as a Technical Writer, primarily in the finance industry. With a background in Computational Biology, she has worked as a Data Scientist. She is now a Technical Writer at Wizeline, where she reviews and publishes API documentation using a DocOps approach. In 2021, she received a Mexican fellowship for Young Creators to continue improving her narrative skills. She launched the project Calladium to help the Spanish-speaking community learn LaTeX as a self-publishing tool.

Lindsay Alvarado is the Technical Training Project Manager for GS1US. In this role, she oversees the development of the online help center, user documentation and instructional videos. Lindsay is also an adjunct professor of business and has an extensive background in corporate training.

Liping Yang is a Ph.D. student in Rhetoric and Composition at Georgia State University. She received her bachelor’s degree in English and master’s degree in English Language and Literature. Liping’s research and teaching interests include digital rhetoric, technical communication, digital writing, and multimodality. Her publications comprise book translations and academic journal articles. Liping has also presented research at conferences such as CCCC, NeMLA, SAMLA, etc. She is the recipient of the 2022 SAMLA Harper Fund. Currently, Liping teaches college-level writing courses and also serves as assistant director in First Year Writing Program and Assistant administrator in Writing Across Curriculum at GSU.

Malinda (Mally) Dietrich is a Technical Writer at Epic Games. While she is new to her role as a Technical Writer, Mally has almost a decade of interest within the technical communication field — not to mention an almost completed Ph.D. to show for it. When she’s not working on documentation or her dissertation, Mally is spending time with her dog and partner, blazing new trails or trying the newest food truck.

Marci J Gallagher is CEO of Just Access LLC. She is an information services specialist emphasizing accessibility research and compliance. Marci has presented on communication accessibility at STC’s 2022 Summit, ACM’s SIGDOC 2021 conference, and is collaborating on STC webinars and programs for the Accessibility SIG and the STC Atlanta Chapter. Her most recent publications are in-press with SUNY’s Technical Communication collection on UX Equality, STC’s 2022 Summit proceedings, and in the journal of Plant Ecology.

Marco Angiuoni is a seasoned professional managing a team of technical writers at VMware. With a strong background in Localization, extensive Agile project management experience, and a passion for all things AI, Marco brings a unique perspective to his role. When he is not exploring new ideas in technical communication, you can find him relaxing with his dog and cats.

Mark Medalle is currently a Technical Writer at Crunchyroll, the world’s premier platform for streaming anime. With a work history spanning across multiple industries, including social media, automated vehicles, and quality assurance, he brings a unique and holistic perspective to technical communication. And as a former tennis instructor and 15-year martial artist, Mark is dedicated to lifelong learning, and genuinely loves helping people approach their professional and personal obstacles.

In his spare time, Mark enjoys spending quality time with his wife and two kids. He is also an avid gamer and builds custom gaming PCs for himself and friends.

Mike Jang is a Lead Technical Writer for Forescout, where he’s helping to document their cybersecurity tools. In his past lives, he’s helped UX designers and product managers learn best practices in UI text at ForgeRock, GitLab, and Cobalt. To figure out what to write, Mike spends much of his time analyzing and testing new software. Mike has written a couple of dozen technical books, including multiple editions of McGraw-Hill’s RHCSA/ RHCE Red Hat Linux Certification Study Guide. He’s also the author of O’Reilly’s Linux Annoyances for Geeks.

Mickella Rast is a proposal writer with Chenega Corporation, the largest Alaska Native Village Corporation in terms of federal contracting revenue. In the past, she has worked as a technical and freelancer writer. Mickella holds a dual bachelor’s degree in English and Communication and recently finished her master’s degree in Technical Communication. She is a member of STC and APMP, and is currently working toward certifications with APMP and Shipley.

Dr. Nupoor Ranade is an Assistant Professor of English at George Mason University. Her research addresses knowledge gaps in the fields of technical communication practice and pedagogy, and focuses on professional writing and editing, inclusive design, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. Through her teaching, Nupoor tries to build a bridge between academia and industry and help students develop professional networks while they also contribute to the community in which they are part. Her research has won multiple awards and is published in journals including, but not limited to, Technical Communication, Communication Design Quarterly, Kairos, and IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

Peihong Zhu is an Information Architect at Precision Content and a council member of the STC Toronto chapter. With a previous career in bioinformatics, she understands the importance of technologies in information exchange. Peihong has received formal training in technical writing and DITA XML. Her current work focuses on helping clients publish structured content. Peihong is passionate about adopting innovative information architecture approaches to solve content problems.

Rachel Walters is a Documentation and Content Manager for Oracle Warehouse Management (WMS) Cloud Development. She has been in technical communication more than 20 years for both small and large companies working in industries including Wireless Technology, Transportation, Finance, and Healthcare. Rachel leads a team of technical content writers and works together with members of the product management team to develop vital content for customers. She manages Oracle Help Center, Release Readiness, and Cloud Integration content.

In her current role, Rachel is passionate about the nuts and bolts of content authoring tools, content strategy, warehouse automation, and logistics. She strives to create searchable, optimized, and impactful content throughout the customer journey.

Ray Davis has a master’s degree in Technical Communication and more than 25 years of experience as a technical writer, technical writing manager, and software engineer. Most of his experience is in the life science domain where he has written instructions for use, service and repair instructions, and managed writers doing the same. As a speaker, Ray has presented at conferences and in webinars on topic-based authoring, team management, and image generation in Adobe Photoshop. In his current position, Ray is using his expertise to help implement topic-based authoring in company’s technical publications department.

Ray Kim is an advocate for documentation and technical communication. He is an STC member, co-founder of the Albany, NY SQL group (CASSUG), and a member of the AlbanyUX user group. He has spoken at numerous SQLSaturdays and at PASS Summit. Ray holds a master’s degree in technical communication from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Syracuse University.

A musician in his spare time, Ray plays four different instruments (piano, clarinet, mallet percussion, saxophone). He also enjoys going to ball games, doing CrossFit, and is a two-time SQLServerCentral.com fantasy football champion. Ray lives in Troy, NY with his wife, Lianne, and their two cats.

Robert is a programmer, writer, and programmer-writer in Chicago’s legal community but formerly with NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. He’s passionate about technical writing, dedicated to API documentation, and encourages writers moving into API documentation. With more than 18 years of experience, he’s written documentation for Microsoft device drivers, APIs and SDKs from speech recognition to astronaut’s daily schedules. He’s even made sure astronauts had a supply of clean underwear.

Rob Sims has served in both technical writer and marketing communications roles for 25 years and has prepared a wide range of educational content for companies in both the business publishing and information technology industries. He is currently a Senior Technical Writer at GS1 US, in which he prepares online help, user guides, instructional videos, and on-screen help via a digital adoption platform.

Saul Carliner is a professor at Concordia University in Montreal. He also consults, advising organizational leaders and teaching workshops. Saul’s books include the Career Anxiety–Guidance for Tough Times, Training Design Basics, and An Overview of Training and Development. He has been named one of the top 100 Learning influencers by EduFlow and received several best of show awards in Society for Technical Communication publications competitions, the CNIE Award of Excellence in Instructional Design, and Kenneth Rainey Award for Excellence in Research. He is president of the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education, Fellow of the Institute for Performance and Learning, and an STC Fellow and past international STC president.

Scott DeLoach is the CEO of ClickStart, an STC Fellow, and an ATD Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD). He has more than 30 years of experience as a technical writer, instructional designer, trainer, and UX architect. At ClickStart, Scott provides content strategy development, design, consulting, and training services for P&P, knowledgebase, eLearning, and technical documentation projects developed using MadCap Flare.

Shawneda Crout is a Technical Project Manager for a nonprofit and an author. When she isn’t “wielding her digital pen” also known as a keyboard and mouse to solve for NGOs, SMBs, or clients, you’ll find her adding another book to her Post Grad Professional Development Critical Analysis Library or working on her next novel. For more information visit www.shawnedacrout.com.

Susan Kelley has been a content strategist for more than 20 years. She is the Content Strategist for Medidata AI. Susan is a member of the Social Innovation Lab project and the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association, the Women in AI BRG and the Technical Content Strategy Taxonomy Council. She earned her master’s degree in Rhetoric from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where she taught in the Master of Arts program in Human-Computer Interaction (MCHII). While at CMU, Susan worked on DocuScope, a corpus-based language analysis program. At home, Susan volunteers as a mentor in Baltimore Public Schools and with Highlandtown Exchange, providing meals and groceries to 150 local families weekly.

Swapnil Ogale has more than 16 years of technical documentation experience across a range of industries in Australia and globally. He currently works as a Technical Writer with Amazon Web Services (AWS), documenting solutions for engineering teams. Swapnil initiated the Write the Docs community in Australia in 2016 where he has organiziedlocal meetups and the annual conference.

Swapnil loves travelling, reading, and is a foodie and sometimes even manages to combine all of this simultaneously. While he is not doing any of that, Swapnil presents at technical meetups and conferences about various things around technical writing, and raising the profile of documentarians globally.

Timothy Esposito is the Manager of Logistics Documentation at Oracle Corporation where he supervises an international team of technical writers. An STC member since 2005, Timothy serves on the Board of Directors as the President. STC honors and awards include Society Fellow, the STC President’s Award, Distinguished Chapter Service Award for the Philadelphia Metro Chapter (PMC), and the Chicago Chapter’s President’s Award. During his term as PMC president, the chapter won a Pacesetter award, the platinum level Community Achievement Award twice, and was named Community of the Year for 2017. When not working on STC projects, Tim volunteers with his township historical commission where he creates a monthly email newsletter and curates a museum. Tim also spends time with his family, rescues greyhounds, and tries out new board and card games with friends.

Tricia Spayer, Technical Writer/ Illustrator, and STC Fellow, has 26 years of technical communication experience with Pressco Technology Inc. in Solon, OH. She writes and manages technical documentation and web sites and delivers presentations regularly. She served as President of the Ohio STC Chapter, on the STC International Board of Directors, and as District Director for Toastmasters District 10.

For many years, Tricia has used Mind Mapping with its simple and effective benefits to organize web sites, solve complex problems, and create well-structured presentations. She will share her Mind Mapping secrets during this session to help you communicate with success.

Tyler Breedlove is a technical communicator who has eight years of applied experience in the technical communication field. He graduated in 2019 with a master’s degree in English with an emphasis in Professional Writing from Pittsburg State University.

Tyler is a senior technical writer at Oracle Cerner. He has facilitated updates to image standards used for Oracle Health product documentation and created image training for new Oracle Health technical writers. He also works with accessibility and user-experience teams to ensure that the image processes and guidelines of the Oracle Health documentation team remain accurate and appropriate.

Vladimir Petrov is a Staff Project Manager at VMware, where he has brought about a process to improve the visibility of code enhancement in vSphere, a flagman VMware product. He works with engineering and writing teams to manage, track, and drive projects that require quick turnaround on delivering fixes on vSphere to customers. Vladimir is a certified PMP with a decade of experience in creating tools, automation, and synergy of processes to improve work efficiency. He has also led a team of technical writers, covering products across the business units of VMware.

Originally from England, Zara has over ten years of experience in Technical Communications, and her love for writing has taken her across the globe. Less than a year into her career as a Technical Writer, her winning elevator speech took her to New York to ring the Nasdaq bell live on TV. Her double degree in Life Sciences with a Modern Language from the University of Manchester ignited her passion for finding innovative ways of delivering technical content. She has worked as a Scientific Translator, Technical Writer, and, more recently UX Creative Specialist, where she designed and oversaw the production and AV setup of UX sessions and video content. She now works at Wizeline as a consultant Software Technical Writer in Mexico.