Reducing Costs, Generating Revenue, and Improving the Customer Experience Through Better Content

In addition to tracks on Content Strategy, Content Operations, and TechComm Management, the theme for this year’s AI track is:

From Experimentation to Execution: Scaling AI in Content Ops

Our 2026 Program

7:00am–5:00pm

Registration in Grand Ballroom Foyer
Coffee (breakfast on your own)

8:00am–Noon

How to Build a Content Governance Model
Daniel Schommer, Content Strategist, Intuitive Stack

FULL DAY: Effective Content Inventories and Analysis
David Hobbs, Early Digital Strategist, David Hobbs Consulting

Free Workshop
Does Your Documentation Survive an AI Assistant? A Hands-on Docs Audit
Prithvi Ramakrishnan, Co-Founder and CEO & Manny Silva, Head of AI Docs Practice, Promptless

From Notes to Knowledge: Learning Faster with Notebook LM
Susan Kelley, Senior Manager of Communications and Engagement, Medidata

Noon–1:00pm

Lunch on your own

1:00–5:00pm

Operationalizing the Content-First Framework
Sarah Johnson, Founder, Content-first Design

FULL DAY: Effective Content Inventories and Analysis
David Hobbs, Early Digital Strategist, David Hobbs Consulting

FREE Workshop
They Already Sent a Poet, and It’s You!
Carol Hattrup, Manager, Client Learning, Netsmart

MythBusters Lab: Let’s Test What Really Works for Remote Content Teams
Leann Long, Sr. Manager, Heather Barbre Blades, Sr. Technical Writer, and Nicole Edens, Manager of Technical Writing, Jack Henry

Creating Taxonomies for Your Organization in the Age of AI
Rebecca Schneider, Executive Director, AvenueCX

5:30–6:30pm

Welcome Reception

7:30–

Registration in Pre-function Area
Continental Breakfast in the Exhibit Hall 

8:30–9am

Welcome to LavaCon!

9–10am
Featured Speakers
(three sequential 18 minute TED-like talks)

More AI Doesn’t Mean Less Human
Jessica Reed, Director of Customer Innovation, Adobe Global Digital Strategy Group

Carpe (the AI) Diem!
Alesia Harwood, Special AI Consultant to Cisco

Your Operating Model is Broken: Revolutionizing Content in the Age of AI
Erik Bremer, Sr. Director, Global Content Engineering, Dell Technologies

10:15–11am

Five breakout sessions

Impact Map: Getting Stakeholder Buy-In for Content Initiatives
Sara Feldman, Director of Member Engagement, Consortium for Service Innovation

Stuck in a PDF world? Unlock Next-Level Intelligence with Structured Content
Chris Kocher, Sr. Solutions Architect, MadCap Software

The Docs are not Alright (and AI Alone Won’t Fix Them)
Kayce Danna, VP of Product, Markup AI 

How Netsmart Uses AI-Accelerated Learning to Onboard Teams Faster
Laura Ohlson, Sr. Learning Experience Designer
and Lauren Pulino, Client Learning Leader, Netsmart

Who Are We Writing For? Rethinking Technical Communication for an AI-First Future
Herb Toews, Senior Manager of Customer Enablement, Xerox
and Stefan Gentz, Principal Worldwide Evangelist,  Adobe

11:15am–Noon

Building Momentum: Structuring Small Steps to Achieve Big Wins
Trey Smith, Senior Engineering Program Supervisor, Honeywell

WYMIWYG: What You Model is What You Get
Markus Schork, Director of Technology Solutions, Codal

The Undocumented 80%: Processes Nobody Writes Down
Pritish Gupta, Co-founder, Trupeer AI

Orchestrating Content Workflow at Ellucian Using AI Skills
Pam Noreault, Principal Information Architect, Ellucian

From 2 AM Failure to 8 AM Fix: Self-Healing Docs, Agent Instructions Included
Manny Silva, Head of AI Docs Practice, Promptless

Noon–1:15pm

Networking Lunch in the Exhibit Hall (Symphony Ballroom) and
Comfort Dogs in the Pre-function Area

1:15–2pm

Dell’s Content Transformation Journey
André Pellet, Dir. Global Content Engineering,
and Erik Bremer, Sr. Director, Dell Technologies 

Stop Building Bots, Start Hiring AI Employees: How HR Thinking Makes AI Agents Safer and Smarter
Amanda Patterson, Sr. Consultant, Comtech Services

Building an Enterprise Content Engine that Delivers Results
Kelly Dowling, Senior Director, Content Strategy  and Kara Hughes, Director, Product Strategy – Experiences, ASUG – Americas’​ SAP Users’​ Group

The Human and AI Handshake for Content Generation at Blackbaud
Zohra Mutabanna, and
Elizabeth Favre, Senior Technical Writers, Blackbaud

Beyond the Bot: How Structured Content Drives an Agentic Ecosystem Across Your Entire Content Stack!
Patrick Bosek, CEO, Heretto and
Shai Chaudhary, Principal Program Manager, Content & AI Innovation, OneTrust

2:15–3pm

Hold On Loosely (But Don’t Let Go): Doing Good Content Work in Uncertain Times
Melinda Belcher, Executive Director, JPMorganChase

Getting Content Right at the Source Saves Time and Localization Costs
Michael Mannhardt, President, Congree Language Technologies

Ada Lovelace the Tech Writer:
Her 183-Year-Old Principles for Content in the Age of AI
Sarah Dugan, Doc Lead, GitBook

Writing at Scale, Intentionally:
Thomson Reuters’ Human-Guided Approach to AI Content
Emily Byrnes, Senior Manager of Content Strategy, Thomson Reuters,
Mike Buoy, Sr. Solution Consultant, Adobe, and
Brittany Dickson, Sr Dir of Customer Success & Services, Markup AI,

Show Me the Agents! Decision Framework for Content Operations AI
Aman Goyal, Agentic AI Product Manager, T-Mobile

3–4pm

Snack Break in the Pre-function Area

4–5pm
Featured Speakers
(two sequential 18 minute TED-like talks)

Not for Ages 3 and Under: Why AI in Content Creation Requires Organizational Maturity
Dawn Stevens, President, Comtech Services

The Barbarians are at the Gate
Sarah O’Keefe, CEO, Scriptorium

The Human Layer: Designing Content for Humans, Machines, and Everything Between
Stefan Gentz, Principal Worldwide Evangelist, Adobe

5–6:30pm

Networking Reception in the Exhibit Hall

8:00–10:00pm

Annual Storytelling Event
Location: Onsite at CJ’s Lounge

From poetry to stories and stand-up, grab your beverage of choice and hang out with your LavaCon peeps as we “talk story” (as they say in Hawaii).

They’ll be a place to sign up if you want to participate (five minutes per person).

No prior speaking experience required!

7:30–8:30am

Registration: Pre-function Area

Continental Breakfast: Exhibit Hall

8:30–8:50am
Featured Speakers
(three sequential 18 minute TED-like talks)

AI Didn’t Replace You—It Promoted You to Manager
Maria Romanovsky, Director Content Design and Strategy, TikTok

Content is Still King: Thriving in the Era of AI
Keith Boyd, Senior Director, Microsoft Corporation

When Truth Lags, Trust Dies: The Risk Of Scaling Unverified Knowledge With AI
Jason Kaufman, CEO,  Zaon Labs

9:45–10:30am

Maintaining Trust in the AI Era: The Enduring Value of Human Expertise in Content
Kay Conerly, Director of Content Strategy, McGraw Hill

AI Translation in the Real World:
Lessons from the Team at Aras on Building Scalable Global Content Workflows
Ben Cohen, Head of Customer Growth, Localize and
Nick Wyatt, Sr Dir, Marketing Ops and Digital Marketing, Aras

From Long Topics to Microcontent: The Strategic Shift that Makes Your DITA AI-Ready
Rob Hanna, CEO Precision Content

Beyond the Success Story: Technical Lessons from Enterprise Content Transformations
Raj Adepu, AEM Guides Practice Lead, and
Janine Marie Trakhtenberg, Enterprise Director, Hashout Technologies 

AI is Your New Top Reader. Are You Ready?
Fabrice Lacroix, CEO, Fluid Topics

10:45–11:30am

Content Development: Stop Building Sheds, Start Building Skyscrapers.
Suzanne Kelchner Senior Manager, Technical Documentation, Procore

Stop Reviewing Everything: A Smarter Model for Multilingual Content
Adam Goldman, Head of Partnerships and
Mathias Saint-Jean, Director of Growth, OTTO

Oh, the Content Professionals and Information Architects Should be Friends!
Craig Johnson, Founder & Chief Architect, Xemma

How We Turned Award Winning Content into AI-Powered Customer Experiences
Danny Capo, Sr. Manager, Technical Writing, and
Patty Delgado, Manager, Technical Writing, UKG

You Can’t Prompt Your Way to Trust — Why Trusted AI Answers Start with Structured, Governed Knowledge
Stefan Gentz, Principal Worldwide Evangelist,  Adobe

11:30–1:15pm

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall
Comfort Llamas in the Pre-function Area

1:15–2pm

Before You Fund AI: What if You’re Solving the Wrong Problem?
Lief Erickson, Principal Content Strategist, Intuitive Stack

Tech Stack Lift-and-Shift:
A Tag-Team Approach to Success with Limited Resources
Melanie Davis, Founder & CEO, Dragonfly Diva Docs 
Isabella Adornato, Documentation Director, Distech Controls Inc.
Mike Hovan, Sales Engineer, Fluid Topics

Content Design for AI: How Collaboration Makes AI Happen
Jessica Bjoeredahl, UX Content Design Manager and
Olivia Carden, Senior Product Manager, 6sense

How ServiceNow Used Agentic AI to Reduce Costs and Improve Customer Experience
Theresa Daudier, Senior KM Engineer, ServiceNow

Creating Content AI Agents That Actually Work
Emma Pindera, Content Strategist, PointClickCare

2:15–3pm

Biggest Bang For Your Buck: What We Learned From 99 AI Experiments
Tyrin Avery, Principle Technical Writer and Content Strategist, Salesforce

How to Best Leverage Your Most Challenging Employee
Amber Swope, DITA Strategies and Dan Schommer, Intuitive Stack

From Chaos to Clarity: Streamlining Regulated Global Content
Leah Catania, Sr Content Strategist, Insulet and
Bill Swallow, Director of Operations, Scriptorium

How a Golden Question Set Helped Us Build Trust in Our AI Agent
Rashmi Ramaswamy, Technical Content Strategist, Guidewire

Terminology: The Clever Cure for Hallucinations
Klaus Fleischmann, CEO, Kaleidoscope GmbH

3–3:45pm

Snack Break in the Exhibit Hall

3:45–4:30pm

Panel Discussion: Inclusive Content in the AI Era –
Bias, Culture, And Who Gets Left Behind
Dipo Ajose-Coker Solutions Architect RWS Group (Moderator)

One Product, Many Names: How to Establish a Governed Vocabulary and Ontology with the Tools You Already Have
Brendon Paucek, Senior Content Strategist, Teradata

Delightful Documentation? Improving Documentation Quality with the Kano Model
Yoel Strimling, Senior Technical Editor, Ceva

From Style Guides to Smart Assistants: How AI Supports In-House Content Experts at Red Hat
Katrina Kempney, Principal Content Strategist, Red Hat

From Hype To Help: Using AI to Scale Content Without Losing Quality
Nehal Sharma Sr. Software Development Engineer Amazon

4:45–5:45pm

Balancing Brains and Bots: Accelerating a Responsible AI Workflow
Megan Gilhooly, Sr Director Global Content and Intelligence, OneTrust

Leading the Shift: Building an AI-Ready Content Culture
Karen Brothers, Content Manager, Scott Safety

Make Inference Visible: Designing Content for Machine Reasoning
Scott Abel, Content Strategy Evangelist, Heretto

7 –11:00pm

Annual Karaoke Night sponsored by Heretto
Location: Onsite at CJ’s Lounge

7–8am

Continental Breakfast
Grand Ballroom Foyer

8:00–8:20am

Love People and Use Things: What My Cancer Journey Taught Me about Using AI and Working with SMEs
Viqui Dill, Documentation Specialist, Navy Federal Credit Union

8:30–9:15am

Beyond Proof of Concept: The Human-in-the-Loop Playbook for AI that Cuts Content Costs Without Cutting People
Adlore Casseus, Founder and  Principal,  Ascend Revenue Group

Your CMS isn’t Broken. Your Content Model is. AI Makes it Worse.
Luis Fernandez, Executive Director, VML

An Alchemist’s Guide to Modern Tech Comms
Mark Kleinsmith, Director of Technical Communications, Appfire

Ladies and Gentlemen, This is Your Content Speaking: Structured Content as the Best Investment in Certification, Scale, and Safety
Bernard Aschwanden, CEO, Writemore.ai and
Ryan Chin, Supply Chain Manager, JetZero

The Real Reason AI Fails in Operations (and the Systems That Fix It)
Ebony James, Operations Consultant, The Empire Effect Agency

9:30–10:15am

Zero to Hero: Flipping the Script on Content
Joe Gollner, Content Solution Architect, Gnostyx Research

Structure Starts with Trust: Building Cultures That Support Content Systems
Sandie Markle, Founder and CEO, Blueberri

Data Design is Content Design. Building a Scalable Taxonomy
Christi Guzik, Lead Content Operations Manager, Rocket

How to Resign from the “Cleanup Crew” and Become an Upstream Design Force
Amber Craig, Lead Content Designer, Salesforce

DITA 201: How to Optimize Conditional Text and Reuse
Lael Butler, Technical Communication Specialist, Streamline Designs, LLC

10:30–11:15am

From Shadow to Servant: Confronting the AI Beast
Rhyne Armstrong, Director, Technical Writing, Visa

Findable, Readable, Unstoppable: Small Edits for Big Gains (No AI Required!)
Brit Van Blake, Sr. Technical Writer, NiCE Systems

11:30–12:30pm

Closing Panel Discussion: The Future of Content
Jack Molisani, The LavaCon Conference (Moderator)

1:30–4:30pm

AI Agents: From Sidekick to Superhero
Melanie Davis, CEO, Dragonfly Diva Docs,
Jayme Perlman, Sr Content Designer, GitHub,
and Alex Huitric, Sr. Software Engineer, GridWhale Corporation

Build Your First AI Agent And Then Make it Agentic 
Dipo Ajose-Coker, Solutions Architect and Strategist, RWS Group

Be an Empowering Leader!
Rhyne Armstrong, Director, Technical Writing, Visa

8:00p–

Closing Social
Location TBD