Get Smart Conference

Each year, WCA hosts Get Smart – a half-day professional development conference designed to provide Austin communications professionals with innovative tools and resources to remain at the cutting-edge of their professions. 

The conference attracts professionals from all aspects of communications, including writers, editors, marketing and communications directors, photographers, graphic designers, journalists, public relations professionals and more. They represent the freelance industry as well as non-profits, state agencies and small, medium and large-sized private companies.

Get Smart offers participants a slate of interactive, career-boosting sessions that provide insight, motivation and applicable skills. Leading public figures spearhead the conference and deliver interesting and informative sessions. 

Get Smart keynote speakers are notable figures in communications:

• Dr. Colette Pierce Burnette, president and CEO of Huston-Tillotson University
• Elizabeth Christian, president of Elizabeth Christian & Associates Public Relations
• ABC political analyst Matthew Dowd
• Dr. Betty Sue Flowers, director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
• Novelist Sarah Bird
• Amy Simmons, owner of Amy’s Ice Creams
• …and dozens more.