8 top talks at soap! conference 2018 (and 5 reasons why you want to attend soap! next year)
Conferences are always a bundle of fun and education. They bring opportunities to interact with knowledgeable people, network, get learnings, develop and grow ideas. Also, some of them make you feel like the world stopped for a while and put you in a different dimension, where all the people around you share your passion, get engaged in similar activities and mind the importance of the same values.
Last week, I represented Untitled Kingdom at soap! conference as a speaker — and I literally felt, that I don’t want the event to end. As I still can’t stop thinking about all the fantastic moments there, I decided to wrap up the main reasons why I feel soap! rocks so much, and why is it a place to go for all the content marketers, tech writers or UX pros.
1. Amazing workshops
soap! bubble! sponge! foam!
There are 4 tracks of soap! conf workshops, each of them run by a top expert, each of them with a different focus. I’ve attended the “Foam!” profile, including Design Thinking Workshop by Gosia Pytel and Public Speaking Training with Erin Vang. Impressions?
Design Thinking
Gosia Pytel is the volcano of energy, creativity and enthusiasm, experienced Design Thinking coach and E-learning professional. No boring stuff, no empty words or abstract content detached from practice. The workshop was well structured, explained each step of the design thinking process, and involved not only the theory but also the practical training. Step by step, exercise by exercise — 3 hours of creative focus, that helps you approach projects from a different, fresh perspective.
Public Speaking
Erin Vang is an expert in public speaking, content strategy, management, and leadership. Her public speaking training helped the entire group form a new mindset — public speaking is not about presenting yourself, but about effective interaction with the audience. The workshop covered eye contact training, fast improvising, or controlling the body posture. All that a speaker needs, wrapped up in a nutshell and put in practice. It couldn’t be better, especially a day before giving a talk!
2. Knowledge sharing
Talks
Soapy talks are juicy, insightful and concise. It was tough to pick a few of them, that impressed me the most, and stayed in my head for longer:
Rahel Anne Bailie
Rahel talked about cognitive bias in bots. She put a light on the fact that the majority of most popular bots nowadays have a female voice, and they do not defend themselves against verbal abuse. Her talk, funny at times, was mighty, eye-opening an thought-provoking.
Justyna Tofilska
As a Training Specialist at TTMS, Justyna gave a talk about the effectiveness of e-learning courses. She based her talk on well-presented statistics, considering our ability to focus on certain things and remember the learnings. An excellent piece of knowledge about the psychology of learning and future of education.
Rafał Pawlicki
Rafał is a Software Developer at DreamLab, and a rock star of soap!. In his talk, he described how he convinced developers to become partly tech-writers, by taking care of writing docs. His presentation was witty and full of humor, so he owned the public in a glimpse of an eye. Also, after his talk, Rafał became one of the most active members of the audience, asking questions, sharing insights and anecdotes.
Erin Vang
Number 1 authority in public speaking and content strategy. This time, Erin gave a talk on an extremely challenging topic — managing finance. As an owner of Global Pragmatica, Erin has a profound experience in planning, negotiating and managing a budget. During her talk, you could see the audience opening their notebooks. “Plan your budget in quarters” — you could read in their notes. Well delivered talk full of practical insights and good hints for every freelancer. Also, funny fact: Erin was the first one to use the claim “soapers ROCK!”, which is now one of the most famous slogans on the conference.
Kevin Duncan
Kevin is a business adviser, marketing expert, motivational speaker and best-selling author. He shared with us 10 bursts of innovation brilliance that he described in his “Smart Thinking book.” His talk was a real show (what a spirit, I couldn’t stop listening!) and he provided a few examples of his book for the lottery. Yup, I was lucky to get one, too!
Gosia Pytel
Gosia is a Design Thinking whiz who flooded the stage with energy. Gosia challenged the idea of innovation, and encouraged the audience to put the focus on solutions, that are meaningful and functional, not necessarily innovative. Good point!
Wojciech Aleksander
Wojciech from GetResponse gave a brilliant talk on content strategy, UX design and his preference towards simplicity over complexity. His speech was compelling and full of useful content marketing hints combined with UX design best practices.
Paweł Kowaluk
Paweł, a Senior Techwriter at Guidewire explained how to improve the readability of texts. In his presentation, he also mentioned Plain Language — the topic of my talk- and introduced a lot of tools for measuring the rate of readability, with Hemingway app at the top of the list.
Charisma, resourcefulness and great presenting skills — combined.
3. Networking and discussions
Networking is a thing, and at soap! It’s hell easy. Precisely saying, it’s not possible to stay aside, with so many open-minded and easy-going people around. It doesn’t matter if you are Chuck Norris of writing (a nod of appreciation to Rahel Anne Bailie), or you are just at the beginning of your content journey. Everyone shares their knowledge eagerly, supporting the less experienced fellows with advice or helpful hints. Heartwarming!
4. Diversity
Back in time, soap! gathered mainly the tech writers. Today, the conference is a place to go also for content managers, translators, designers, marketers and all people devoted to creating any content. Consequently, knowledge sharing at soap! is effective and fruitful, as every discussion combines different perspectives and backgrounds. This way, it’s way easier to get inspired and think about processes considering their entire context.
5. Homely atmosphere
Talk for a while with a bunch of people, and you become soapy friends. Just after a few hours spent together on workshops and networking evening, I had a strong “support group” around, that kept their fingers crossed for my presentation the entire time (and vice versa!).
Oh, and the place? Manggha Museum with its beautiful sunny garden makes you feel like at home. “Once people come to soap!, they usually come back next year” — says Gosia Radymiak, Head of soap! conference, and Customer Success Manager at Jorsek LLC.
And no wonder - see you next year, lovely soapy team!
