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speakers & trainers

Keynote

Kristina Mausser

President and Senior Content Strategy Consultant, Kina’ole, Canada

Kristina Mausser is the president of Kina’ole Inc and a senior content strategy consultant. A veteran of the web industry, her international portfolio includes work with some of today’s leading organizations including Sephora, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Saks Fifth Avenue, the Ford Foundation, and the Cannes-award winning agency, The Barbarian Group. Kris regularly speaks at conferences around the world and is excited to be returning to Europe this summer to present at soap!

Talk title:
Inspiring Action Through Content Leadership

Maryland Sara

Information Developer, SAP Hybris, Germany

I have been working as a technical writer for 11 years, and for a year now, I’ve stepped up and accepted the challenge to be my team’s scrum master. I’m also the community organizer of Write the Docs Munich. When I’m not in the office, I’m either out exploring new places or experimenting in my kitchen.

Talk title:
More Than Just a Technical Writer

Oded Ilan

Chief Marketing Officer, Iridize, Israel

Even before Oded Ilan had graduated from the university in 1999, he spent 4 years as a high school teacher. Following graduation, Oded worked in various high-tech industries as a business developer. He still believes that his hardest “sell” to date was convincing children to “purchase” education. Getting the message across, creating appealing yet meaningful content and delivering the correct story to the customers has always been a passion of Oded’s. As Iridize’s Chief Marketing Officer, he gets to see, first hand, how technology helps the training and documentation landscape with a new approach.

Talk title:
Overcoming the Forgetting Curve: New Content Creation Paradigms

Barbara Szwarc

Technical Writer, SAP Hybris, Germany

We are a trio of technical writers with different backgrounds, working together to make the lives of our developers and customers easier one document at a time.
After work, we like to get together and take our friend Mort on trips around the globe. Recently he enjoyed his Canada road trip and his visit in Portugal. He’s ready to come back to Kraków!

Talk title:
What the tag? From wiki to DITA in less than 80 days

Justyna Adamczyk

Technical Writer, SAP Hybris, Poland

We are a trio of technical writers with different backgrounds, working together to make the lives of our developers and customers easier one document at a time.
After work, we like to get together and take our friend Mort on trips around the globe. Recently he enjoyed his Canada road trip and his visit in Portugal. He’s ready to come back to Kraków!

Talk title:
What the tag? From wiki to DITA in less than 80 days

Mateusz Wiktor

Technical Documentation Specialist, Braintribe, Austria

We are a trio of technical writers with different backgrounds, working together to make the lives of our developers and customers easier one document at a time.
After work, we like to get together and take our friend Mort on trips around the globe. Recently he enjoyed his Canada road trip and his visit in Portugal. He’s ready to come back to Kraków!

Talk title:
What the tag? From wiki to DITA in less than 80 days

Marta Bartnicka

Manager for CEE, IBM Translation Services Center, Poland

For 20 years now, I have dealt with translation, verification, localization testing, localization projects management (including for multiple languages), and terminology, as well as implementation of machine translation and Continuous Delivery model. Presently, I coordinate software, documentation, and web pages localization into over a dozen of Eastern European languages. I can proudly say I have quite some experience in working at the crossroads of cultures, where corporate policies and local customs meet.

I hold the degree of M. Eng. in IT (Science-Technology Information Systems, Wrocław University of Science and Technology).

My hobbies (alphabetically speaking) include: cross-country skiing, gardening, hiking in Tatra mountains, and spending time with my children.

Talk title:
How to turn local success into global failure

Anton Bollen

Technology Evangelist, TechSmith, Germany

Originally from Germany, moved to the United States when I was 15 and lived there for 10 years. There, I became acquainted with instructional design and developed a passion for instructional videos of all kinds. After a few years of working as an Instructional Designer, I moved back to Germany to represent the company in Europe in a variety of ways. I enjoy working directly with and learning from companies to better understand their training and content needs and challenges. I have a son (as I told everyone while on stage at soap! 2015), my hobbies include brewing beer. I am also trying to beat the rubiks cube in less than 90 seconds… I am close, but not quite there.

Talk title:
Need more problems? Start localizing video.

Natalia Katryńska

Senior Technical Writer, Poland

Natalia has worked as a Senior/Technical Writer for the last five years. During her professional career she has delivered different kinds of documents for technical and non-technical audiences. She always represents the documentation side and advocates for documentation delivery in an agile development team/project. Currently, she focuses on how the documentation can become a communication channel in the project and how to automate the documentation process there. She is delighted to share her experience with you and give a talk about documentation demons at soap!

Talk title:
Finding your way back from Documentation Mordor

Meike Chabowski

Documentation Strategist, SUSE Linux, Germany

I am working in IT for 23 years, and more than 17 of them at SUSE now. My first 16 years at SUSE I was doing a Product Marketer’s job. But I moved to the Documentation team last year in January, because “they made me an offer I could not refuse”. The title “Documentation Strategist” might sound funny 🙂 – it just means that I am trying to spread the word about our documentation and engineering work, to make people inside and outside my world understand that documentation – YES – is important, to find new “channels” for delivering certain types of documentation (comics? videos? podcasts?), etc … Ask me if you want to know more :-).

Talk title:
Always Open – Open Source Documentation with Open Tools

Alan Miller

Managing Director, Simply Consulting, UK

Wow, where to go with this… I’m talker and a sharer, about places, music and books (and Content !?!?), I want my children to seek out fun, learning and experiences and I try to use my experiences to inspire them.
I’m passionate about my family, social equality and simplifying the world of Content. I’m also co-founder of www.givetoview.com helping charities to raise money for worthwhile causes in fun ways using video.
After many years in senior roles in the corporate world I decided to set out on my own. I wanted to be valued for my talent not my reliability, be able to chose to work with people and projects that interested and inspired me, I wanted flexibility to be with my children more and I wanted to be (a little bit) scared about what the future may hold…

Talk title:
Our content sucks, right..!?!?

Adam Sanyo

Senior Information Developer, ARM, Hungary

I have been working as technical writer for more than 6 years. I am a Senior Information Developer at ARM and I work in their Budapest office. I am currently involved in a project which focuses on migrating ARM’s document set to a new publishing platform.

Talk title:
Reducing waste in a project with conflicting needs.
The story of the 33 miners.

Brad Schmidt

Documentation Specialist, MSD, Czech Republic

A Silicon Valley native that’s lived in the Czech Republic more than 10 years with 2 years in Singapore along the way. I’ve worked in support, testing, documentation, and training in tech companies tiny and huge. Outside of work I hosted a radio show for over 10 years and contributed to music and humor zines for many years. I love craft beer, music in more languages than I can speak, and walking barefoot on natural surfaces.

Talk title:
Remote Collaboration for Introverted Geeks and Misanthropes

Dagmara Szostak

Project Management Specialist, GET IT Language Solutions, Poland

Dagmara is a Project Manager with extensive experience in translation and localization industry. She has M.A. degree in International Relations, and participated in student exchange programs at the universities of Madrid and West Virginia.
Avid traveller (she has visited over 45 countries), drama TV series and animals lover, and a first-time major conference speaker.
With her soap! presentation, she hopes to bridge communication and business awareness gaps between content management and language industry professionals.

Talk title:
“Done! Oh, wait… we need translation.” Facilitating content translation process.

Dirk Göhmann

Senior Technical Writer, Appway, Switzerland

I have been working as a technical writer for over a decade, during which time I have been exposed to a number of different authoring tools and approaches to writing. This sparked a general interest in understanding the pro’s and con’s of different tactics and keeping up-to-date with the newest trends and opportunities around producing help content.

Talk title:
User Documentation vs Loser Documentation: Great Content, No Readers?

Cate Mackenzie

Community Content Editor, Appway, Switzerland

My love of writing and editing has taken me on an exciting eight-year journey through academia, non-profits, financial services and software. Along the way I learnt about product management, content strategy, information architecture and UX – all of which have a place in technical communication.

Talk title:
User Documentation vs Loser Documentation: Great Content, No Readers?

Joanna Malicka

Learning Services Project Manager, Motorola Solutions, Poland

I started in Motorola Solutions 4 years ago as a technical writer (driven by my translator-wannabe linguistic attraction), then I assumed the role of a Program Manager in the documentation department. I channel my focus on improving the organization’s performance and other cross-project initiatives. Recently I became an Agile aficionado, implementing and coordinating efficient project solutions.

Talk title:
Rethinking your content. Happifying through improved usability.

Tomasz Poznański

Content Designer, Motorola Solutions, Poland

Tomasz began his career as a technical writer in the field of radio solutions, particularly radio infrastructure and base equipment. For the last years, he has been responsible for delivering functional and encouraging documentation designs, focusing on end-to-end solutions, and making the content just a tiny bit more jazzy.

Talk title:
Rethinking your content. Happifying through improved usability.

Paddy McShane

Customer Success Manager, Optimal Workshop, Ireland

I am a Customer Success Manager at Optimal Workshop. I work with User Experience professionals, designers and developers from around the world to help them get the most value from their subscriptions to Optimal Workshop’s UX tools, thus helping them improve the internet for everyone. Think of me as the Nick Fury of UX, keeping a reign on all you UX superheroes. An Irish man who has returned to his homeland from a few years in New Zealand, he is now spreading the good word of successful UX in the northern hemisphere; specifically Europe.

Talk title:
Customer Success and UX – the ultimate tag team

Tomasz Prus

Documentation Manager, Unit4, Poland

I am a Documentation Manager at Unit4 in Wroclaw. I have been working as a technical communication professional for over 8 years, holding various positions. My passion for content is coupled with a curiosity and interest in new technologies. When I am not in the office, I coordinate MeetContentWRO – local content professionals community. I am also a football fanatic – I play, watch, and support my local football team.

Talk title:
No documentation strategy? Build one from scratch!

Matthias Kraus

CEO, Xeditor, Germany

Matthias Kraus has been working in structured content since 2001. As founder of Xpublisher, a smart editorial-system and authoring solution for print- and digital channels, he has helped many organizations to improve their publishing methodologies. In 2012 Matthias founded Xeditor, a web-based super intuitive editor for structured content and non-XML experts.

Workshop title:
Create DITA without even knowing it

Wojciech Aleksander

Product Content Strategist, GetResponse, Poland

Wojciech Aleksander has been designing, creating and publishing valuable content since the beginning of the 21st century. Today, he leads the product content team at GetResponse. With passion for plain language, human and inclusive technology Wojtek sets standards for UX writing and technical writing in the GetResponse product. Before that he worked as an editor, information architect, interaction designer, or content strategist. He also teaches content strategy at the SPWS University in Sopot. He’s the co-founder of “uContentowani” a meetup for content geeks. If he’s not bringing order from chaos, he’s probably reading historical and crime novels, or playing Rummikub with his children.

Workshop title:
UX narrative

Rahel Anne Bailie

Chief Knowledge Officer, Scroll LLP, United Kingdom

Content strategy geek. Works with brands to manage content as business assets. Supporter of standards, schemas, and semantic content. Member of OASIS (LW-DITA SC). CKO at Scroll LLP, organiser of the Content, Seriously meetup, Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication. Lecturer in the Content Strategy Master’s Program at FH-Joanneum. Working on third industry book.

Workshop title:
The Secret Lives of Structured Content

Daniel Barrio Fierro

Information Architect, Dolby Laboratories, Poland

Information architect by trade, linguist by education, Daniel has created documentation and taxonomies for companies like Google, Volvo and Nokia. He currently holds a position as technical writer at Dolby laboratories, where he nurtures his craft within an amazing team. His eyes twinkle when hearing the words “systems thinking”.

Workshop title:
The joy of coding slides

Jarek Orłowski

Lead Information Developer, Dynatrace, Poland

Technical writer with 10+ years of experience in the craft. Develops all kinds of deliverables for audiences ranging from call centre operators to software developers. Used tools varying from MS Word to in-house developed fork of DITA. Survived a number of conversions, transformations and brand changes. Also writes for UX. Co-founder of uContentowani – the Gdansk area meetup initiative for content creators. Takes photos of boring stuff, builds bikes to ride them and guides street art tours in Gdansk.

Talk title:
The yin-yang of technical writing. Solve your problems to the user’s advantage.

Łukasz Górnicki

Product Owner, SAP Hybris, Poland

In short, 6 years ago I started working as a Technical Writer, then after a short period of doing Documentation Architecture I discovered I understand technicalities more and more and started playing with programming. 2 years ago I prepared a proof of concept of a different approach to building documentation portals, basing on static site generators. My managers liked it, let me set up a team and implement the approach. Now I’m a Product Owner of this team, and we are doing more than just a documentation portal.

Talk title:
Documenting Microservices

Workshop title:
Setting up Your own Docu Portal

Szymon Serwatka

Learning Manager, Dassault Systemes, Poland

My passion is aviation history. I wrote 2 books and multiple articles for Polish and international aviation press. Check out www.aircraftmiaproject.org.

Talk title:
Quality Technical Training – Making Things Happen

Patrick Bosek

Co-founder & Director of Customer Success, easyDITA, US

Patrick is a co-founder of Jorsek LLC, a company primarily focused on its flagship product easyDITA. Since beginning with Jorsek LLC in 2005 Patrick, has worked on a wide range of projects all focused on improving authoring, production, and distribution of content. Most recently, his primary focus has been perfecting easyDITA and generally advancing the product documentation industry.
Patrick is a software industry professional specializing in developing, productizing, and solving problems with product content software. He is a highly skilled developer, thoughtful manager, passionate customer advocate.

Talk title:
Problems you can solve and create with DITA

Stefan Gentz

Worldwide TechComm Evangelist, Adobe Systems GmbH, Germany

As the Worldwide Evangelist for Technical Communication at Adobe, Stefan’s mission is to inspire enterprises and technical writers around the world and show how to create compelling technical communication content with the Adobe TCS tools. Stefan is also a certified Quality Management Professional (TÜV), ISO 9001 / EN 15038 auditor, ISO 31000 Risk Management expert and Six Sigma Champion. Stefan is a popular keynote speaker and moderator at conferences around the world. He is also a member of the Conference Advisory Board of the world’s biggest TechComm event, the tekom / tcworld Conferences, member of the iiRDS working group for Intelligent Information and the OASIS DITA Adoption Committee.

Talk title: The Convergence of Marketing and Technical Communication

Gosia Pytel

Design Thinking Coach & Event Organizer, Flik, Poland

English teacher by education, innovative optimist by choice. Professionally focused on optimizing and designing e-learning services as a certified Instructional Designer, she uses design thinking on a daily basis, additionally drawing from LEAN methodology and using her teaching experience to create great online materials. In her spare time she helps in expanding design thinking community in Krakow by leading design thinking workshop for educational and business organizations. DT passion is usually expressed by her work with FLIK (she was a part of Design Thinking Week 2014 and 2015, PAMI 2016, Creative Breakfasts and other social initiatives).

Workshop title:
Design thinking life-raft – a problem-solving toolkit for everyday life

Piotr Nabielec

Chief Productivity Officer, Produktywni.pl, Poland

After 10 years in IT in various roles (Developer, Scrum Master, Manager, Head of QA, Trainer) I founded Produktywni.pl, where I am a trainer and consultant and also created two online trainings – I help people, teams and companies be more productive, build positive habits, achieve their dreams and get things done. I have a blog and my articles can be found on Lifehack and my book “Effective Multitasking” on Amazon.

Talk title:
What 1000 participants taught me about productivity