WritersUA Conference | Session Information

The Conference for Software User Assistance


Jennifer Abbingsole Simon Bate Nicky Bleiel Bob Boiko Rhonda Bracey Joe Brockmeier David Castillo Jim Causey Michael Crandall Scott DeLoach Lisa Dyer Laurie Edelman Matthew Ellison Nick Floro Vanessa Fox Joe Ganci Dave Gash Teresa Goertz	Leah Guren Richard Hamilton Joanne Harvey Alan Houser Rob Houser Michael Hughes Char James-Tanny Denise Kadilak Charlene Kingston John M. Kinsky Andrew Ko Michael Kohlhase Adam Lasnik Michelle Lentz Bruce Michelsen Kevin Moore Scott Nesbitt	Pam Noreault Paul O'Rear Ulrike Parson Neil Perlin Scott Prentice Kris Rockwell Axel Roesler Anders Rosenquist Tony Self Steven C. Seow Kevin Siegel Omaha Sternberg Joshua Tallent Marcy Telles Thomas Towle Joe Welinske Jacob O. Wobbrock
This symbol indicates top-rated speakers from past WritersUA / WinWriters events.

Jennifer Abbingsole - Global 360, Inc.: Jennifer Abbingsole has been working as a staff technical writer in Alameda, CA, since 1997 with an Engineering team employed by ViewStar then Mosaix then Lucent then Avaya then eiStream now Global 360, Inc. Currently manager of a small Documentation team, Jennifer continues to develop and maintain primarily HTML Help projects of various sizes for a system-administrator type audience, and to advocate for the department during the R&D transition to Agile Development.

Simon Bate - Scriptorium Publishing Services: With over 30 years experience in technical publications, Simon Bate has acquired extensive knowledge in writing, managing, production, book-design, template design, and document conversions of all sorts. Simon takes great delight in programming and scripting. His motto is: "let the computer do the work." He also enjoys teaching and sharing his knowledge with others. A certified technical trainer and Adobe Certified Instructor, Simon teaches Scriptorium classes in FrameMaker, DITA, XMetaL, Structured Authoring, and XSL.

Nicky Bleiel - ComponentOne: Nicky Bleiel is the Lead Information Developer for Doc-To-Help and a Doc-To-Help trainer. She has 15 years of experience in technical communication; writing and designing information for software products in the documentation, media, industrial automation, simulation, and pharmaceutical industries. She is a Director At Large of the Society for Technical Communication and has presented talks at WritersUA, STC, tcworld, LavaCon, and DocTrain on many topics, including embedded help, tools and technologies, user assistance design, single sourcing, wikis, Web 2.0, and convergence technical communication.

Bob Boiko - Metatorial Services Inc.: Bob Boiko is founder and president of Metatorial Services Inc., and is a faculty member of the University of Washington Information School. In 2004, Bob sparked the creation of CM Professionals, the first and only content management organization for practitioners. Recognized world-wide as a leader in the field of content management, he has almost 20 years of experience designing and building Web, hypertext and multimedia systems and tools for some of the world's top technology corporations (including Microsoft, Motorola, and Boeing). Bob has sat on many advisory boards and is the recipient of many awards including the 2005 EContent 100 Award for leadership in the content management industry. He is author of two editions of The Content Management Bible and the upcoming book Laughing at the CIO: Leading Information Management in the Information Age. Bob is internationally known for his lectures and workshops.

Rhonda Bracey - CyberText Consulting Pty Ltd: Rhonda runs her own technical communication and consultancy business (http://www.cybertext.com.au) from her home in rural Western Australia. Since 1992, Rhonda has worked in numerous software companies. She is pedantic about 'unfriendly' user interfaces and passionate about improving them. In the past few years, that passion has seen her take on the mantle of 'user interface expert' in the small software companies where she has been the lone writer and often the only user advocate.

Joe Brockmeier - Novell: Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier is a longtime FOSS advocate, and currently works for Novell as the community manager for openSUSE. Prior to joining Novell, Brockmeier worked as a technology journalist covering the open source beat for a number of publications, including Linux Magazine, Linux Weekly News, Linux.com, UnixReview.com, IBM developerWorks, and many others.

David Castillo - Buena Vista Learning LLC: David Castillo is a solutions architect and independent consultant who has worked with leading companies like Boeing, Hill-Rom, CPS Innovations, Marriott International, USAA and others to design and implement innovative eLearning systems. David is co-author of Flash for Interactive Simulation and is a frequent speaker at major professional and technical conferences steadfastly promoting innovation in eLearning development

Jim Causey - Microsoft: Jim is a Senior Programming Writer at Microsoft, where he works in the Windows Mobile division. He's worked for 15 years as a software engineer and freelance writer and editor in both the public and private sectors. He's the author of Windows XP Networking Inside Out for Microsoft Press (with Curt Simmons), and Teach Yourself MCSE TCP/IP in 21 Days for SAMS. When he's not writing or coding, he loves to indulge in photography, cooking, and exploring the Pacific Northwest with his wife.

Michael Crandall - University of Washington Information School: Chair of the Master of Science in Information Management program and Senior Lecturer in the Information School of the University of Washington. Past positions: Technology Manager for the US Libraries Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Manager of the Knowledge Architecture Group in Microsoft Information Services; involved in multiple information management projects at Boeing. Since 2001, he has been a member of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Oversight Committee.

Scott DeLoach - ClickStart: Scott is the founder of ClickStart (www.clickstart.net), a user experience design, consulting, and training company. Over the last 19 years, Scott has presented over 90 papers on embedded user assistance, web-based Help, interface design, usability, and CSS at conferences across the US and Canada and around the world. He has been developing online Help systems since 1992, is a certified instructor for Flare, RoboHelp, and Captivate, and is the author of CSS to the Point. Scott holds a Master's Degree in Technical and Scientific Communication from Miami University. You can email Scott at scott@clickstart.net

Lisa Dyer - Lombardi Software, Inc.: Lisa Dyer manages the Information Development group at Lombardi, Inc. As part of her daily job, she runs a knowledge base system in which DITA content and wiki content are mashed up to provide a rich source of community-generated and company-generated content. Lisa also founded and runs the open source DITA2Wiki Project at SourceForge.net, and is an XML and collaboration enthusiast at large. She has a passion for obliterating knowledge silos and building rich, effective, and collaborative information experiences.

Laurie Edelman - Altera Corporation: Laurie Edelman is a Senior Technical Writer with Altera Corporation, where she is responsible for creating web-based training targeting programmable logic devices. Laurie has experience creating user assistance documentation within a variety of industries including Education, Software Quality Assurance, and Software Engineering. Laurie has worked in the high tech industry as a programmer, QA Manager, web designer, writer, and technical editor. Her wide-ranging experience lends a valuable and integrated perspective to creating user assistance documentation.

Matthew Ellison - Matthew Ellison Consulting: Matthew has 20 years experience as a user assistance professional in the software industry. Much of this time was spent managing a team of writers and trainers at a UK-based consultancy company, before enjoying a period in the U.S. as Director of the WinWriters (now WritersUA) Conference. Matthew has been a popular speaker at WritersUA events throughout the world since 1997, and has covered a diverse range of topics from context-sensitive Help to the Spice Girls. He now runs his own independent UK-based training and consulting company that specializes in online Help design and technology. Matthew holds a B.Sc. in Electronic Engineering and a Post-Graduate Certificate of Education from Bristol University in the UK. He is a certified instructor for Adobe RoboHelp, Captivate, MadCap Flare, and WebWorks ePublisher Pro. Matthew's website is www.ellisonconsulting.com.

Nick Floro - Sealworks Interactive Studios: Nick Floro is the President of Sealworks Interactive Studios. Nick has over 15 years of experience developing e-Learning solutions, and working with Fortune 500 companies to help them understand the technology and create new solutions to help their teams grow as well as grow their client base. Nick has won several awards from Apple, and a Producer of the Year award from Multimedia Producer magazine. Nick also won Best in Blended Learning for his DemoFest project at DevLearn 2007 in San Jose, CA.

Vanessa Fox - Nine By Blue: Vanessa Fox, called a "cyberspace visionary" by Seattle Business Monthly, is an expert in understanding customer acquisition from organic search. She shares her perspective on how this impacts marketing and user experience at ninebyblue.com and provides authoritative search-friendly design patterns for developers at janeandrobot.com. She's also an entrepreneur-in-residence with Ignition Partners, Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land, and host of the weekly podcast Office Hours. She previously created Google's Webmaster Central, which provides both tools and community to help website owners improve their sites to gain more customers from search and was instrumental in the sitemaps.org alliance of Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Live Search. She was recently named one of Seattle's 2008 top 25 innovators and entrepreneurs. Look for her book Marketing in the Age of Google in early 2010.

Joe Ganci - Dazzle Technologies Corp.: Joseph Ganci is President of Dazzle Technologies Corp., a custom training and learning company located outside Washington. D.C. Since 1983, he has been involved in every aspect of multimedia and learning development. Joe holds a Computer Science degree, and is a published author, having written several books and articles about e-Learning. He is widely considered a guru, for his expertise in e-Learning development, has taught classes and seminars at leading universities, in many government facilities, commercial firms, and educational institutions, and has spoken at many industry conferences. Joe is an Adobe Captivate Certified Expert. He strives to better the quality of e-Learning with practical approaches that work.

Dave Gash - HyperTrain dot Com: Dave Gash is the owner of HyperTrain dot Com, a Southern California firm specializing in training and consulting for hypertext developers. A veteran software professional with over thirty years of development, documentation, and training experience, he holds degrees in Business and Computer Science, and is well known in the tech pubs community as an interesting and engaging technical instructor. Dave is a frequent speaker at User Assistance seminars and conferences in the US and around the world.

Teresa Goertz - Microsoft: Teresa Goertz has 10+ years experience as a technical writer, the last 3 with the Windows Mobile group at Microsoft. She enjoys creating customer-facing content for traditional deliverables (help & how-to) to multimedia (viral and instructional videos) to social media outputs (Facebook, blogs, YouTube). She also writes an occasional column for Microsoft Innovation on Examiner.com.

Leah Guren - Cow TC: Leah Guren is the owner/operator of Cow TC. She has been active in the field of technical communication since 1980 as a writer, manager, Help author, and consultant. She now devotes her time to consulting and teaching courses and seminars in technical communication, primarily in Israel and Europe. Her clients include some of the top hi-tech companies internationally, including Intel, IBM, and Microsoft. Her usability work focuses heavily on cultural and linguistic issues, including her research on BDBL (bidirectional bilingual) website content. Leah is an internationally-recognized speaker in the field of technical communication and is currently serving on the board of directors of STC (Society for Technical Communication).

Richard Hamilton - XML Press: Richard L. Hamilton is the founder of XML Press, an imprint dedicated to producing high-quality, practical publications for technical communicators, managers, and marketers. He has worked at Bell Labs, Novell, and Hewlett-Packard in jobs ranging from software development to documentation management. Richard is the author of Managing Writers: A Real-World Guide to Managing Technical Documentation, and editor of the upcoming 2nd edition of DocBook: The Definitive Guide, published in collaboration with O'Reilly Media.

Joanne Harvey - Dexter + Chaney: For over a decade, I have served as the Documentation Manager for Dexter + Chaney - a Seattle-based software company that has repeatedly appeared on the prestigious Fast 50 list assembled by Deloitte, and that recently ranked as the #15 software developer in the Puget Sound region. As the Documentation Manager, my goal is to help users find answers to their questions in the most efficient manner possible, and as I work toward this end I'm always looking for new and creative ways to involve users in the design of a support system that will best meet their needs. I hold a B.A. in English from the College of William & Mary and a certificate in Technical Writing and Editing from the University of Washington.

Alan Houser - Group Wellesley, Inc.: Alan Houser is a distinguished consultant and trainer in the fields of XML, XML technologies, publishing workflows, and authoring and publishing tools. Houser holds an M.A. in Professional Writing and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Alan is an Associate Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee, and a popular presenter at technical communication conferences.

Rob Houser - Sage: Rob Houser is Director of the User Experience team at Sage with teams in Atlanta, GA, and Vancouver, British Columbia. Prior to joining Sage in 2007, Rob worked as a consultant helping his clients develop more user-centered products. Over the 18 years of his career, Rob designed and created embedded user assistance, online help, show-me demos, Web-based training, instructor-led training, Websites, and wizards - anything it takes to ensure a successful user experience. Rob is an Associate Fellow of STC and a Certified Performance Technologist through ISPI.

Michael Hughes - IBM Internet Security Systems: Michael Hughes is a Sr. User Experience Architect for IBM Internet Security Systems. He conducts field research and leads design teams in user analysis and conceptual design exercises. Michael has a PhD in Instructional Technology and an MS in Professional and Technical Documentation. His focus is designing UIs that accommodate the user as learner.

Char James-Tanny - JTF Associates, Inc.: Char James-Tanny is president of JTF Associates, Inc. and has thirty years of experience as a technical communicator. She speaks around the world on topics including Help authoring concepts and tools, social media, web standards, collaboration, and technology. Char is an Author-it Certified Consultant, a 2010 Microsoft Help MVP, and the secretary of the Society for Technical Communication.

Denise Kadilak - Blackbaud: Denise Kadilak is an Information Architect with Blackbaud, Inc., headquartered in Charleston, SC. In her 11 years with the company Denise's responsibilities have ranged from that of a writer creating and maintaining 1000s of pages of user-end documentation to technical-project lead investigating new tools and workflows for an 18-member documentation team. She participated in the Peer Showcase at the 2008 WritersUA Conference, demonstrating her company's help system. Denise has also presented on topics such as structured authoring and indexing at local STC meetings and conferences as well as the international STC conference in 2007.

Charlene Kingston - Crow Information Design: Charlene Kingston is a social media evangelist with 25 years of experience supporting software users with user assistance tools. She managed enterprise user assistance departments, provided user assistance products to software companies, and consulted on large software implementation projects prior to starting her own company, Crow Information Design, in 1995. Her clients include IBM, Walt Disney Corporation, The Dial Corporation, Catholic Healthcare West, Lockheed Martin, Arizona Department of Education, and the City of Phoenix.

John M. Kinsky - Intel Corporation: John M. Kinsky is an Information Development Manager at Intel in the Developer Products Division where he manages a team of writers distributed around the world: Germany, Israel, India, Russia, and the United States. John has 20+ years of direct experience as a technical writer creating software and hardware documentation. Outside of work, he is the mayor of a small city in Oregon.

Andrew Ko - University of Washington: Andrew Ko is an Assistant Professor at the Information School at the University of Washington. His research interests include human and cooperative aspects of software engineering and debugging, diagnostic and troubleshooting tools. He received his Ph.D at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, advised by Brad Myers. He received Honors Bachelors of Science degrees in Computer Science and Psychology from Oregon State University in 2002.

Michael Kohlhase - Jacobs University Bremen: Dr. Michael Kohlhase is professor for Computer Science at Jacobs University Bremen and group leader at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). His research interests include knowledge representation for STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), and inference-based techniques for natural language processing, computer-supported education and user assitance. He has pursued these interests during extended visits to Carnegie Mellon University, SRI International, and the Universities of Amsterdam, Edinburgh, and Auckland.

Adam Lasnik - Google: Before there was a public Internet, Adam was e-mailing. Before there was Netscape or Internet Explorer, he was surfing the Web. He's written comprehensive search engine optimization reports, managed sponsored ad campaigns for Fortune 500 companies, and provided broad communications consulting to successful startup companies.

Adam earned MBA and law degrees -- focused on Global Electronic Communications and Commerce issues -- and then moved to Germany to serve as an entrepreneurial consultant to a multinational IT company. Grateful for the international experience but fascinated by the burgeoning American dot.com scene, he hopped over to San Francisco and joined the high tech PR firm Niehaus Ryan Wong as an Interactive Strategist, helping clients understand and leverage the power of online communities. When the dot.com boom turned to bust, Adam spent the next years broadening his online communications and advertising chops with a mix of small and large companies.

In 2006, Adam became Google's first Search Evangelist, dedicated to building stronger relationships between Google and Webmasters.

Michelle Lentz - Write Technology Michelle Lentz is a freelance writer, writing for technology blog bub.blicio.us as well as her own award-winning wine blog. Michelle has run Write Technology since 2003, specializing in social media, instructional design, and technical writing. On the Job Twittering: Making it Work for You

Bruce Michelsen - Corda Technologies, Inc.: I am employed as a Senior Technical Writer for Corda Technologies, Inc. For over twenty years, I have developed online software documentation using many online help tools on various operating systems. I've been employed by WordPerfect, Novell, Corel, and other companies developing help, tutorials, tools, and websites. I earned degrees in English (BA) and Communications (MA).

Kevin Moore - TiER1 Performance Solutions: Dr. Moore is a Performance Improvement and Instructional Design consultant. Kevin's specialty is focusing on learner requirements for performance returns in any job-based situation. Notably, Kevin is known throughout the industry as an eLearning and Knowledge Management strategist with a key understanding of learning theories, strategies and methods and the ability to move from theory to practice to reach performance gains.

Scott Nesbitt - DMN Communications Scott Nesbitt is a partner in DMN Communications, a technical communications and consulting firm based in Toronto, Canada. Scott believes in providing documentation and information in the most useful format for users. To that end, he's constantly studying new methods for delivering content Think Simple - A Minimalist Approach to User Assistance

Pam Noreault - Sophos, Inc.: Pam Noreault has 16 years experience in technical documentation and training. She is a Technical Documentation Manager at Sophos, Inc. and she teaches three Technical Communication Courses at Columbus State Community College. Additionally, Pam holds a B.S. in Secondary Education from The Ohio State University and an M.A. in English Literature and Professional Writing from Wright State University.

Paul O'Rear - Microsoft: Paul O'Rear has been working with Help technologies since Windows 3.0 and has developed a wide reputation for his expertise with all Microsoft Help engines. Prior to working for Microsoft, Paul worked with Sageline Publishing/Sageline Software for several years producing innovative extensions to WinHelp and HTML Help. Paul also worked as an independent software consultant via his company Helpful Solutions for several years contributing to the development of the Deva for Dreamweaver help authoring tool, among other ventures. In 1998, Paul became one of the Microsoft Help MVPs. In 2002, Paul joined Microsoft Corporation, working in Developer Division contributing to the content architecture, management, building and testing of perhaps the largest set of content that Microsoft ships - MSDN/Visual Studio documentation. Paul has also had the privilege of overseeing Microsoft's Help MVP program taking over from Peter Plamondon in 2004. Currently, Paul is a Program Manager facilitating internal and external adoption of a new Help engine, which will ship with Visual Studio 2010. Commonly referred to as Help 3, Paul is enjoying the opportunity to champion a potential successor to HTML Help 1.x.

Ulrike Parson - parson communication: Ulrike Parson started her professional career in technical writing 15 years ago. She worked as a technical writer for various software companies in Germany and managed different documentation teams. Today, she runs a technical communication business in Hamburg, Germany. parson communication specializes in software documentation and consulting services for XML-based documentation and Wikis. One of Ulrike's areas of expertise is documentation for software engineers, such as programmer's guides, cookbooks, and source code documentation.

Neil Perlin - Hyper/Word Services: Neil Perlin has 31 years experience in technical communication, with 25 in training, consulting, and devel-opment for formats and tools like WinHelp, HTML Help, WebHelp, Flare, RoboHelp, and others. He writes and speaks about online help and documentation for IEEE PCS, STC, and other groups. He is Flare certified and has used, trained, and consulted on RoboHelp since 1991 and Captivate since 2002. He offers training and consulting for structured writing, single sourcing, XML, and Flare, RoboHelp, and Captivate. He can be reached at nperlin@concentric.net or www.hyperword.com.

Scott Prentice - Leximation, Inc.: Scott Prentice is the President of Leximation, Inc. and has been working in the technical publications field since 1991. His work focuses on custom online help development, FrameMaker (plugin and structure application) development, as well as custom web application development. He has been involved with DITA for many years and created DITA-FMx, an enhanced DITA authoring and publishing environment for FrameMaker. Scott coined the term "AIR Help" after learning about Adobe's new AIR technology.

Kris Rockwell - Hybrid Learning Systems: Prior to founding Hybrid Learning Systems, a company dedicated to the development of innovative e-Learning solutions for aviation and military organizations, Kris Rockwell spent several years developing and implementing CBT and desktop simulation systems for the flight training department at US Airways. Kris has served as Co-Chair of the Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC) Smart Graphics Sub-Committee. His work with Smart Graphics, using the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format, has been featured on the Adobe Systems Website, and Kris was featured in Civil Aviation Training Magazine, Military Simulation and Training magazine, and the Defense Management Journal in the UK.

Axel Roesler - University of Washington: Dr. Axel Roesler is an Assistant Professor for Interaction Design at the Division of Design, School of Art at the University of Washington. His research interests are the intersections between design and cognition: how representational artifacts shape cognitive work, and how expert and novice users adapt to new technologies. Recent work in this direction include a new model for perspective-taking for the coordination of shared understanding, real-time documentation, and representation design for procedural and declarative content in technical instruction for online support systems.

Anders Rosenquist - ZAAZ: Dr. Anders Rosenquist is a Senior User Experience Researcher and Mobile UX Practice Lead at ZAAZ, a digital agency in Seattle (zaaz.com). Anders has worked on a range of UX, usability, and mobile projects for clients such as Sony, Dell, Microsoft, REI, Helio, Palm, and Lonely Planet. A former academic researcher, Anders spent many years studying how people learn using computer interfaces. Anders has particular interests and background in usability, mobile UX (see mobileux.net), information architecture and interface design.

Tony Self - HyperWrite Pty Ltd: Tony Self has worked as a technical communicator for almost 30 years, with the last 20 of those years specifically in the areas of online help systems, computer-based training, and electronic documents. In 1993, Tony founded HyperWrite, a hypertext and technical documentation company based in Melbourne, Australia. The majority of his work involves providing online and Internet strategy advice, innovative solutions and specialised training for customers in Australia and other parts of the world. Tony also lectures in the Technical Communication program at Swinburne University in Melbourne, and holds a Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning and a Graduate Diploma in Technical Communication. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (UK), a member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee.

Steven C. Seow - Microsoft: Steve Seow earned his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at Brown University with a research focus on human timing. He is currently a user researcher at Microsoft working on Microsoft Surface and is widely regarded as an expert on dealing with perceived responsiveness and performance in software engineering. Steve is the author of the recently published Designing and Engineering Time.

Kevin Siegel - IconLogic, Inc.: Kevin A. Siegel is the founder and president of IconLogic, Inc. He has written more than 100 step-by-step computer training books, including Camtasia Studio 6: The Essentials, Essentials of Adobe Captivate 4, Adobe Captivate 4: Beyond the Essentials, Essentials of Adobe Captivate 3, Essentials of Adobe Captivate 2, Essentials of Macromedia Captivate, Essentials of RoboDemo 5, Essentials of Adobe RoboHelp 8, Essentials of Adobe RoboHelp 7, Essentials of Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, QuarkXPress 8: The Basics and Essentials of Adobe InDesign CS3. Kevin spent five years in the U.S. Coast Guard as an award-winning photojournalist and has more than two decades experience as a print publisher, technical writer, instructional designer and eLearning developer. He is a certified technical trainer, has been a classroom instructor for more than 17 years and is a frequent speaker at trade shows and conventions. Kevin holds multiple certifications from companies such as Adobe and the CompTIA.

Omaha Sternberg - Sound Podcast Productions: Omaha Sternberg has been involved in audio and video since middle school, including working in a school news program broadcast on local television, acting and hosting in television, movies, and theatre, and most recently Internet radio and podcasting since 2001. Omaha runs MacRadio, an aggregate podcast portal site dedicate to Mac podcasts. Omaha also hosts and produces both the iGame Radio podcast and the DigiPen PodClass, the official monthly podcast for the DigiPen Institute of Technology. She has also worked freelance for both Mac|Life magazine and Macworld Magazine writing game reviews.

Joshua Tallent - eBook Architects: Joshua Tallent has been an eBook developer for 7 years, and is an expert on formatting eBooks in the variety of formats on the market. eBook Architects, his eBook conversion, consulting, and process development company, provides services to individual authors and publishers interested in eBooks. Joshua resides in Austin, Texas, with his wife and two daughters. He can be found online at www.ebookarchitects.com and @jtallent or @ebookarchitects.

Marcy Telles - Autodesk: Marcy Telles has been both a writer and a user-interface designer, and has worked on over 50 products. She has taught several technical writing classes. Currently, she documents the AutoCAD Map 3D application for Autodesk. She recently worked on approaching Help as an application feature, using design strategies to improve documentation. This has led to finding new and better ways to talk to users directly.

Thomas Towle - The Oxford Bean Publishing Company LLC: Thomas Towle is an Information Architect focused on Content Management strategies deploying single-sourced XML for multiple outputs. He has a Masters Degree in the Science of Communication (MSC) from Northwestern University and has worked in the telecomm and healthcare sectors for 18 years.

Joe Welinske - WritersUA: Joe Welinske is the president of WritersUA, formerly known as WinWriters. WritersUA is a company devoted to providing training and information for user assistance professionals. The WritersUA/WinWriters Conference draws hundreds of attendees each year from around the world to share the latest in user assistance design and implementation. The free content on the WritersUA web site attracts over 20,000 visitors each month. Joe has been involved with software documentation development since 1984. Together with Scott Boggan and David Farkas, Joe authored two editions of the popular and pioneering book Developing Online Help for Windows. He has also taught online Help courses at the University of Washington and UC Santa Cruz. Joe received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1981, and a M.S. in Adult Instructional Management from Loyola University in 1987.

Jacob O. Wobbrock - University of Washington: Dr. Jacob O. Wobbrock is an Assistant Professor in the Information School and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. His field is human-computer interaction, which, in his work, blends computer science, interaction design, and experimental psychology. His research interests comprise new user interface technology, input and interaction techniques, human performance, accessible computing, surface computing, and mobile computing. He directs the AIM Research Group (http://depts.washington.edu/aimgroup/).