About our guest speakers and their presentations
Write emails people will read
Do people read emails anymore? Yes鈥攖hey do. But not the way you think. This talk will show you exactly how to write subject lines, optimize your links, and lay out your email copy so your message gets across, plus a quick way to test if your email will get read. This session is useful for everyone, whether you send mass emails or just internal ones.
Dayana Kibilds, Higher Ed Marketer, Author, and聽International Speaker
Day聽Kibilds brings people in the higher education industry together for shared ideas, sharper thinking, and braver work.
For nearly two decades, she has led award-winning work with institutions around the world. An international keynote speaker and bestselling author of Mailed It!, Day is known for turning complexity into clarity and helping teams move from insight to action.
She teaches and shares her work widely, through workshops and courses, her volunteer roles with Council for Advancement and Support of Education, Digital Collegium, and American Marketing Association, and her weekly newsletter, You Ask, Day Answers.
A look inside 成人VR视频 and UWaterloo鈥檚 web environments
Join us for a casual Q&A with Joe Kwan of University of Waterloo and our very own Web Services Portfolio Manager, Matt Corks, as we compare notes on our Drupal worlds.
We鈥檒l dig into our web ecosystems: where they align, where they differ, how they evolved, and how we support our communities. Expect honest insights and a few surprises!
Joe Kwan, Manager, Web Development at University of Waterloo
Joe Kwan has over 20 years of experience in the web development and web product strategy. He has held multiple leadership roles in full-stack development, UX research and design, and management consulting.
Currently, Joe is the Manager, Web Development at the University of Waterloo and has spoken at many industry events including #PSEWeb and Evolve Digital as well as being featured by The Drop Times.
The human side of AI
Matissa Hollister, Assistant Professor, Organizational Behaviour at 成人VR视频 Desautels Faculty of Management
Matissa Hollister is an Assistant Professor (Teaching) in Organizational Behaviour at 成人VR视频 in the Desautels Faculty of Management. Her research examines how jobs and careers have evolved over the past fifty years in North America and Europe. She is also an expert on the responsible use of artificial intelligence and the impact of AI on the future of work. Professor Hollister received her PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard University.
Preparing your content, team, and strategy for the future of discoverability
The search landscape is changing, and there are obvious signs of where it's going. Your future audiences may not visit your website. Or scroll your social feed. They鈥檒l ask an agent to find the answer, and your content will either show up in that response or it won鈥檛 exist.
This changes what your website needs to be, what your social strategy is for, and how your comms and PR actually reach people. But here鈥檚 the counterintuitive part: the best way to prepare for a machine-driven future is to make your content more human, not less.
鈥峊ake a glimpse into the content landscape that鈥檚 emerging and the Human-in-the-Loop workflow that keeps your team鈥檚 expertise, judgment, and storytelling at the center of it. AI can do a lot of things. It鈥檚 up to us to decide what it should do.
Brian Piper, Educator, Author, and International Keynote Speaker
Brian Piper is an award-winning author, international keynote speaker, and consultant who has been optimizing digital content since 1996. He co-authored the second edition of Epic Content Marketing with Joe Pulizzi, wrote Epic Content Marketing for Higher Education, and hosts the AI for U podcast.
He helps higher education and mission-driven organizations collaborate with AI to make their work smarter, faster, and more human, bridging the gap between innovation and impact.
成人VR视频 Web Services presenters and organizers
Charly Blais,聽Digital Communications Advisor (Communications and Institutional Relations)
Charly is a digital communications professional, currently working at 成人VR视频. She supports strategic, institution-wide web initiatives related to digital governance, user-focused content, and community building.
Matt Corks, Portfolio Manager, Web Services (IT Services)
Matt has worked with Drupal since 2005, and managed the development team responsible for 成人VR视频's website since 2024. Besides contributing patches and giving presentations, Matt has worked on web sites for a wide variety of corporate, institutional, and non-profit clients, including for the Linux Foundation, the federal New Democratic Party of Canada, and various consulting agencies.
Presentations: WMS Update; A look inside 成人VR视频 and UWaterloo鈥檚 web environments
Simon Labonne, Digital Content Specialist (Communications and Institutional Relations)
Simon started working in higher education in 2014. Holding an MA in Communication Studies from Universit茅 de Sherbrooke, he is a digital content specialist at 成人VR视频. When he鈥檚 not working on a new website or a marketing campaign, he is trying to improve his golf game.
Presentation: Best practices for AI-generated images
Joyce Peralta, Manager, Digital Communications (Communications and Institutional Relations)
Joyce has been building websites and digital communities for over 20 years, including 15 years of experience in higher education. She is currently Manager, Digital Communications at 成人VR视频. Her prior experience includes positions at the University of Victoria, Western University, and Kings University College.
Joyce is an award-winning international speaker who has presented at ContentED, Digital Collegium, DrupalCon, HE Connect and #PSEWeb. Her topics of focus include web standards, governance, and user experience.
Presentation: Taming the beast: Why consistent content matters (and how we'll get there)
Psst!聽get a sneak preview of this presentation topic in our recent article, Why 成人VR视频鈥檚 websites can be hard to navigate, and what we鈥檙e doing to fix it.
Daniel Zhang, Digital Communications Advisor聽(Communications and Institutional Relations)
A music grad working at the intersection of digital communications, UX, and web strategy, Daniel focuses on helping large organizations make their websites clearer, easier to manage, and more useful for the people who rely on them.
At 成人VR视频, Daniel works on projects that improve how content is structured, governed, and experienced across the university鈥檚 web ecosystem. This includes content modeling, website migrations, and collaborating with teams across the institution to make complex information easier to navigate.
Presentation: Extreme content makeover panel discussion