Tuesday Morning Featured Speakers

 Tuesday is the longest LavaCon day, and it began with a slate of three featured speakers in the Grand Ballroom. 

Rob Hanna, CEO and Co-founder of Precision Content, kicked the day off speaking about "Broken Trust, Broken Docs: Fixing the Hidden Gaps Undermining Your Technical Content." He said that once we break people's trust in content, they won't even bother to look at it anymore. 

The top 8 factors affecting trust: credibility, consistency, clarity, transparency, relevance, accuracy, language proficiency, and presentation. These 8 factors make up your trust quotient on your content. 

 Content needs to get smaller and smarter so we can use it more effectively. Governed by 4 factors, of focus, function, form, and framing. 

Five archetypes for user intent: reference, task, concept, process, and principle. 

Provenance matters in how we deliver content. 

AI-augmented authoring is on =e of the biggest technological advances in the field of technical communication. But what it can't do is tell you what to write, especially when introducing new content.  

AI is simply another channel for your content. It is not the source of truth. Your content is AI infrastructure. If your source isn't trusted, your AI won't be trusted.  

Next was Megan Gilhooly, Sr. Director GRC Content at OneTrust, speaking on "Why Technical Writers Should Care About Governance, Risk, and Compliance (Even if It Sounds Boring)." She started with a story that led to the idea that privacy is no longer the provenance of the rich and famous. 

With the regulations out there, and with AI, we have to build privacy into our solutions. 144 countries have their own privacy laws. GDPR was enacted in 2018. /compliance is a moving target. 

The complexity of complying with these laws provides both a threat and an opportunity. Need to understand the threats to privacy. 

Purpose limitation says that you have to use data only for what users agree to. Right to be forgotten means that you must erase data at a user's request. Transparency means you have to tell users how you will use their data.  

Now add AI to the equations. AI is data hungry. Models do not forget without major business impact. Non-linear models can go any which way.  

Opportunity to be part of the solution, maybe swoop in and save the day.  With really structured content, can help avoid a compliance fire drill. 

 Privacy and the responsible use of data is what builds trust, and trust is everything. 

Finally,  Melinda Belcher, Head of Experience Design at JPMorgan Chase, spoke on "The Experimentation Mindset: How Testing Transforms Content Strategy." She stared by saying that HIPPO, the highest paid person in the room, is vibes, not data. 

The experimentation mindset isn't about being right, it's about being less wrong. Not about greatness, but by making small changes. About making decisions on evidence.  

Words are money They can cost us money, they can make us money. Second most important asset we have, after our product. That's why it's worth testing. 

Failure is part of the process. It gives us useful data.