Speaking

In the second episode of season 6, Janina Neumann interviewed our Sabine and Holger about AI, language and culture.

You’ll discover:

• Why AI’s default voice is male, American and Protestant
• How the Bible became the training data for hundreds of under-resourced languages
• What happens to your organisation’s culture when nobody has documented it
• Why shadow AI can become a culture problem (not just a data protection one)
• How AI-generated copy can hide internal disagreement instead of revealing it

We’ve written up this conversation in our article, Life Imitates AI.

Who Are You Optimising For? What Queer Theory Can Teach Experimentation

10 September 2026

Experimentation teams ask what converts. Far fewer ask who it converts for.

In this session, Sabine used queer and feminist theory as a working lens on conversion rate optimisation (CRO). They showed how binary defaults in forms, product categories and imagery tell some people they aren’t the intended user, and how “data-driven” can still harden categories that don’t match how people live.

To queer something is to expose the norm it enforces and make room for what that norm leaves out – and experimenters already have the tools to do that.

Attendees left with one concrete next step: find the gender field on one of their own forms, ask whether it needs to be there and, if it does, whether it needs to be binary.

A draw‑along workshop to map your organisation’s maturity in 9 key areas.

​When something feels “off” in your growth – leads stalling, good people leaving, website underperforming – it’s tempting to grab the nearest painkiller: a new headline, a new campaign, a new employer brand.

​This workshop was not another painkiller.

​Credible by Design was a live, draw‑along version of our Culture & Website Diagnostic for expert‑led brands. In about 50 minutes, participants mapped their organisation’s maturity across nine key areas, and saw exactly where their culture and website needed treatment first.

And we’re doing it again – subscribe to our Luma calendar to get notified of new dates.

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) can do more than organise and link ideas: it can help you engineer the context in which you make decisions.

In this session, Sabine introduced a practical definition of personal context engineering: turning these inside insights into sustainable external action. Along the way, they built on three ideas from the PKM community – observability (Nicole van der Hoeven), personal ontology (Martijn Aslander) and discernment (Nick Milo) – to show how a PKM can become an inside-outside network that supports better decisions and creates the conditions for Al support that that reflects your constraints and values.

We did a short guided exercise mid-session to identify a (type of) personal insight that’s currently hard to retrieve, and map one small ‘findability’ upgrade so it reliably shows up when it matters – as the kind of context your future self (and AI) can actually use.

Participants left with a personal context-engineering map and one retrieval upgrade you can reuse.

Hot Copy is a weekly roundtable hosted by Katie Peacock, streamed live on Wednesdays at 10:00 Eastern Time. Together with Jess Haney and Codi Smith, Sabine joined the roundtable for an episode on how to make community a strategic growth lever, why communities are back, and a debate on whether they actually drive revenue.

Sabine wrote a guest post about what it costs your business if your emails are not accessible – and how to fix it.

On 23 October 2025, Sabine delivered a live, 90-minute introductory workshop for fellow conversion copywriters as part of Joanna Wiebe’s Copy School Professional.

Sabine spoke to the Userbrain team about how user testing helps us uncover gaps in brand messaging and validate our copy before we present it to clients. And they did a fine write-up of it all.

Learn how to incorporate usability testing into your conversion copywriting workflow to make data-backed decisions, in this piece Sabine wrote for the Lyssna blog.

17–19 November 2023, Texel

Where does persuasion end and manipulation begin? At Conversion Hotel 2023, Sabine joined a panel discussion on ethics in conversion rate optimisation (CRO), together with Martin van Kranenburg and Kaat Declerck.

Their position: you don’t need dark patterns or pressure tactics to reach above-average conversion rates. People-first, evidence-informed CRO builds the kind of trust that lasts beyond a single test.

Afterwards, Sabine collected what the weekend sparked in 21 Thoughts on Conversion Rate Optimization, Inspired by Conversion Hotel 2023.

On the evening of February 2, 2023, Reflecta opened the virtual doors for the inspiring event “Changemaker Impulse on Communication”. The evening provided a lively forum for exchange and exploring new perspectives.

Our founder, Sabine Harnau, was among the four speakers of the event. She presented our radical values-based way of marketing, which focuses on accessibility, data protection and a minimal ecological footprint.

“Unpopular opinion: Take the path of least resistance in your business. This may seem counter-intuitive, but Sabine Harnau, Chief Growth & Creative Officer at From Scratch Communications shared how her cutting-edge, ethical approach to selling ideas, products & services merges techniques from design thinking, user experience, psychology, socio-political studies, and linguistics.”
Discussion topics included:

• Good vs. bad resistance
• Distinguishing the core of your work from the fringes — and what to do with that realization
• Listen and respond: to the data and your energy

Our Sabine joined podcast host Mary Baird to simplify how to eliminate NOISE in your business communications. She helps purpose-driven companies like yours to know your message, share it in the right places, and promote your offer, so it truly makes a positive difference in the world.

If your role is about getting people to improve the user experience, stories will help you do a better job. They’ll help you connect with other teams, help them to understand your research and embrace the need for change.

Sway stakeholders with the ultimate change management tool. Learn how to find a story worth telling and how to structure it for maximum effect.

That’s because stories affect us on all levels of our being: rationally as well as emotionally and neurologically. (For example, through hormones, mirror neurons and by activating specific areas of our brains).

In this training, participants learn how to find a story worth telling and how to structure it for maximum effect. They try out techniques in interactive exercises and explore the power of stories in a safe environment.

This bonus follow-up to the GiveBack event “Who Am I? LGBTQIAH+” provided a safe space for people of all gender identities and sexual orientations to ask questions about creating a welcoming work environment. Sabine hosted this session alongside IATL co-founder, Kaivalya Kashyap. The conversational arc ranged from irritation and a wish to remain independent of other people’s approval to stories of forgiveness.

Sabine and the inimitable Karo Tak had a chat about greenwashing and wokewashing, ethical copywriting, From Scratch as a collective — and “the million dollar question: Can you be ethical and get rich?”

This live webinar and Q&A was recorded as a podcast episode. First, Fernando Ureta of 4ChangeMakers asked Sabine deep questions about copywriting that makes the world a better place. Then, founders of fair & sustainable organisations had the opportunity to get answers to their copy-related questions.

Almost every good product depends heavily on UX research.

But that research is worth nothing if the findings don’t make it into the final design.

The way we present our results affects the way stakeholders relate to them — and whether the finished experience “solves for users”.

So Sabine was super chuffed to help foster a closer relationship between UX research and copy with her talk, Storytelling for UX Researchers – Getting Buy-in to Solving for Users

In this live webinar and Q&A, sustainable fashion designers had the opportunity to get a deeper understanding of the copywriting secrets that help them resonate with their audience. The focus was on letting their values shine through while avoiding common pitfalls like greenwashing and preaching.

Whether it’s about refreshing their marketing materials, welcoming new audiences with a compelling email campaign or nailing their product descriptions with on-message, accurate copy, this event was a one-off opportunity to learn from Sabine!

In this fun and engaging workshop, we explored the power of storytelling to reduce inequality and build community:

• Why storytelling is the most inclusive way of growing your brand
• How stories work — a quick (!) dive into the neuroscience
• A simple method for telling your story so it resonates and draws people in
• Where to find helpful, inclusion-driven resources
• We also looked at some example stories together to see what works, what doesn’t, and why

Rain Bennett makes 6-second stories on video, which is amazing enough on its own.

But he doesn’t stop there: he also teaches storytelling in this groundbreaking podcast for NGOs & social enterprises.

So Sabine was honoured to be a guest on his show! This is probably the most raw & real conversation about storytelling she’s ever had. They covered topics like:

• Do you have to be a naturally-born storyteller to resonate with your audience?
• How can you overcome the embarrassment of telling a story?
• And how do you structure that middle part of your story?

It can be dang difficult, but there are techniques and tips that can help you slay the Jabberwocky.

Great copy can be the difference between people buying your ideas and products — or an indifferent shrug.

Websites, emails, storytelling, social media: this workshop covered the essential copywriting strategies that will set you up for success.

There was also plenty of time for Q&A.

If we want to achieve the Global Goals by 2030, we all need to work together. Understanding our differences can help us express our shared humanity.

And that’s our best chance.

Sabine spent an hour in deep conversation with Social ImpactCX founder, John Corrigan

Listen below and look forward to nuggets like these:

• How to get started with implementing cultural sensitivity in your organisation
• How to adapt your social enterprise or NGO to your audience’s cultural differences
• The good, the bad & the ugly — examples of do’s and don’ts

Hosted by Kerry Bannigan (UN Conscious Fashion Campaign), this panel looked at the power of storytelling to turn purchases into purpose-driven, meaningful actions.

Sabine really enjoyed inspiring NEONYT visitors to tell better stories — together with her fellow panelists:

• Hannah Kussel, Head of Retail, Das Gerber
• Amanda Johnston, Curator and Education Consultant, The Sustainable Angle
• #VEPSIambassador Nina Botzen / Chloé Mukai
• Jorge Richardson, Product Manager, Closca Design

Thanks to the teams at VEPSI and NEONYT for organising the talk!

Future Fashion Focus: LIVE Mastermind, London, April 2019

Support Driven Expo Europe 2019, Belgrade

Ethical Brands for Fashion Revolution, London Museum of Brands, 2018

Video interview with SHE Leads, February 2018

Video interview with Jen Gale, September 2017

(together with Martin Blacher) — Linguistic Im/politeness, Aggression & Rudeness Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2016

CC Expo, London Olympia 2016