Produced by:
in association with:
The Conference for
Software User Assistance
Professionals
Stockholm, Sweden
Conference Speakers
 Matthew Ellison |
 Anne Gentle |
 Roger Hart |
 Alex Johnson |
 Ultan Ó Broin |
 Mark Poston |
 Tony Self |
 Erika Noll Webb |
 Joe Welinske |
 Michael Zwecker |
Matthew Ellison
Matthew has 25 years of 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 US as Director of the WinWriters (now WritersUA) Conference.
Matthew has been a highly rated and respected 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 Matthew Ellison Consulting, an independent UK-based training and consulting company that specializes in user assistance design and technology.
Matthew holds a B.Sc. in Electronic Engineering and a Post-Graduate Certificate of Education from Bristol University in the UK. Last year he was the winner of the prestigious Horace Hockley award that is presented annually by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (ISTC). Matthew is currently a visiting lecturer on the MA Technical Communication course at Portsmouth University, and is also a certified instructor for RoboHelp, Flare, Captivate, and WebWorks ePublisher Pro.
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Anne Gentle
Anne Gentle has worked as technical writer for Rockwell Automation, BMC Software, Advanced Solutions International, and now Informatica. She is the author of Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation. She serves in an advisory role for LugIron in Austin, Texas, working on community analytics and social media marketing efforts. She volunteers as a documentation maintainer for FLOSS Manuals. She's an active member of the Society for Technical Communication, chairing of the Editorial Advisory Panel for STC's Intercom magazine and as a member of a special Social Media Task Force. As the mom of two young boys, she loves to be busy and on-the-go. She writes a blog at justwriteclick.com and welcomes conversation there.
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Roger Hart (Red Gate Software)
Roger is a Technical Author (increasingly a Content Strategist, too) at Red Gate Software. He creates user assistance for Red Gate’s flagship SQL Tools products.
He worries that a brief secondment to Marketing might have damaged him somehow. But the result seems to be an enthusiasm for bringing the skills and values of Tech Comms to the organisation’s wider approach to the web.
Roger blogs about technical communications, content strategy, and things that generally get his goat.
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Alex Johnson (Fitness First)
Alex Johnson is the training and documentation lead for the Members First project at Fitness First, the world’s biggest fitness company. He has been responsible for taking the Members First documentation online using MadCap Flare to produce software help and operation manuals in 6 languages for 10 countries.
Alex supports a team of 10 contributing authors and local translators using MadCap X-Edit and Lingo, with a (potential) readership of 6000 users. Alex has a BTech Hons (Information Technology) and has worked for 14 years in the software development industry, producing diverse documents from government tenders to bird watching guides.
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Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle)
Ultan Ó Broin is a director of Oracle Applications User Experience, responsible for user assistance (messages and Help) guidelines, patterns and standards deliverables for enterprise application designers and developers. With 20 years of experience in user assistance development and localization since 2002 he has rolled out Arbortext authoring environment training (DocBook and DITA specializations) to Oracle’s writing teams on three continents. With Oracle since 1996, he has an MA, MBA, and MSc in Information Systems, has published widely on the using XML for global content development and delivery, and is technical editor of a book on XML internationalization and localization.
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Mark Poston (Mekon)
Mark Poston is a senior technical consultant with over 12 years in content and publishing. He has gained a broad knowledge and understanding of the publishing requirements of clients. As technologies have changed and moved forward, the solutions he has worked on have reflected these changes. He is now heavily involved in the analysis, design, and implementation of XML publishing solutions and is an active member of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee and Enterprise Business Documents Sub Committee and the DITA Open Toolkit project.
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Tony Self
Based in Australia, Tony Self is recognized as one of the pioneers of hypertext and online documents. For 15 years Tony has worked in the areas of online Help systems, computer-based training, and electronic documents. In 1993 Tony founded HyperWrite, a business and technical documentation company specializing in hypertext.
In 1998 HyperWrite began producing the Australasian Online Documentation Conference, an annual event attracting specialists from Australia and New Zealand.
Tony served as Chief Technology Officer for Asia-Inc.com in 2000, where he was responsible for an innovative Asian business information web and WAP service. Tony has now returned to HyperWrite and consults on online documentation and Internet strategy.
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Erika Noll Webb (Oracle)
Erika Noll Webb is a manager of Oracle Applications User Experience. She is responsible for user experience research on all aspects of enterprise software user assistance including messages and help, guidelines and patterns on multiple platforms, including desktop and mobile solutions. Erika is an expert in both usability and accessibility, and has worked in the field of user experience for 15 years. She holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuropsychology with a minor in Human Factors.
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Joe Welinske
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.
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Michael Zwecker (LogMeIn, Inc)
Michael Zwecker has been a user assistance professional for over 12 years, with experience at companies such as American International Group, Euronet Worldwide, and now LogMeIn, where he is the Director of User Assistance. At LogMeIn, Michael planned and executed the full migration to DITA XML. A major focus of his efforts is to push single-sourced documentation content directly into product GUI.
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