Register and grab a coffee before the talks begin.

We'll get you set up for a day of thought-provoking talks and Q&A sessions with a short talk about where we're going as a community.

Content design leaders are supposed to have the answer. To cut through complexity, align everyone, and land the strategy that just… works. So what happens when it doesn’t? When, despite our best thinking, we get it wrong? In this talk, Caroline explores an uncomfortable truth at the heart of content leadership: failure isn’t an edge case. It’s part of the job—and something we need to design for. We’ll look at how to recognise when something isn’t landing, how to respond intentionally, and how to turn missteps into momentum. Not as an emergency protocol, but as part of the everyday practice of designing and iterating. Because progress rarely looks like a straight line. It looks like pivots, reversals, and the occasional u-turn. And sometimes, the most effective way forward is to go back.

Talk description coming soon.

We bring our morning speakers together to answer audience questions, hosted by Denise Brooks.

Enjoy lunch in the unique surroundings of the Barbican if you're with us in person, where you can chat to fellow attendees and speakers.

We’re in an era of literary UX design, where designing and designed product experiences are almost entirely predicated on the quality of language. From building chat-based and agentic experiences, to shaping AI behavior and responses, to using AI tools for our own work, the input and output of UX is shifting from visual and spatial, to textual and semantic. With deep roots in user-centered design, writing, rhetoric, and semiotics, no discipline is better suited to steer this shift than content design. To do so will mean leveraging our core competencies to broaden the problems we tackle, the contributions we make, and our role on UX teams. In this talk, Timothy will discuss the ideas and elements of literary design, map out the impact and opportunities it presents for content designers, and share practical ways to ready and empower our teams to lead through this transformative period.

Looking into the emerging world of self-made design tools, and what they offer in terms of influence and ways of working. In this session, Pete will share some design tools he's made before, and he'll invite the audience to collaborate on a live vibe-coded example.

Ever wondered what it would be like to work in a content design-first organisation? Imagine! The possibilities!!! But with everything happening that’s shifting our discipline at the moment (including, but not limited to, AI, layoffs, general design panic, state of the world), Ellen wonders if any of us are working in a team that we wouldn’t class as a little dysfunctional? Once we’ve accepted we’re not in our content design utopia, how, in 2026, does the discipline look for the majority of us? In this talk Ellen reflects on some of the major lessons she's learned from always working in slightly ‘wonky’ environments.

We bring together Tim, Pete and Ellen to answer audience questions, hosted by Denise Brooks.

Time for a quick break and an opportunity to network with peers or enjoy the amazing Barbican building.

Talk description coming soon

There's no future for content design. There's only the future of YOU. You've been doing the real work all along—writing the PRDs, prototyping, building and coding, handling the systems work nobody asked for, and more. It’s time to create your own identity.

Why do you get paid? Consider these two responses: First, what is the business value you and your team create? Second, and just as important, what are the ways you trade your labor for coin? In this practical talk, Torrey Podmajersky answers these philosophical questions with the 41 ways our content skills create business value, the personal values we use to influence our work, and how we can use these to effect change in our workplaces.

We bring Torrey, Felicia and Candi together to answer audience questions, hosted by Denise Brooks.

Take some time to relax and reflect on the day's talks and insights with your fellow attendees, speakers, and event hosts at our wrap party!