Introduction

I've known Joe Welinske for nearly 30 years. In the spring of my junior year at the University of Washington, he posted a help wanted ad for his company, then known as WinWriters, on the bulletin board of the Technical Communication department. I applied and was accepted.

I turned that part-time job into a summer internship, and then continued to work there during my senior year. During that year, he had an idea to create a conference focused on developing online help. He rented a small conference room at a little hotel on 6th Ave. just north of downtown Seattle, invited about a dozen people to attend, and hosted a trial run.

It was a success. Within a few years, more than a thousand people were attending what eventually became the WritersUA conferences on user assistance at the Sheraton in Seattle. Over the years, the conference expanded its focus from online help--largely Windows Help early--to user assistance in general, and traveled to locations around the country.

Joe began developing ideas for other conferences as well because he has a passion for sharing knowledge to other professionals in the field. He created ConveyUX for user experience professionals, and now this to focus on UX writing.

For nearly 20 years, I attended every conference Joe hosted. A few years after the first WritersUA conference, I attended a major computer/printing trade show in San Francisco. They published a daily conference publication, a huge glossy thing, with ads, information about conference events, and more. I floated the idea of a conference newsletter to Joe, and he liked the idea. So for several years, I not only attended, I did almost all the work to publish a daily conference newsletter, some samples of which you can see on my portfolio website.

Several years after I started publishing the newsletter, I also started live blogging the conference. I'd do high-level articles, and also notes live from the sessions I attended. And that's what I'm doing here. It has (at least) two benefits. It help capture what I'm learning, and it shares a bit about what can be learned with the rest of the world.

As it turns out, more than 350 people registered for this inaugural--and virtual--event from around the world.