July 12, 2018 — This talk will provide examples and how-tos on the community building in real life. We will go into social media platforms and how it’s a start, but then we’ll dive deeper into IRL engagement; What does this look like? How can one start?

Also, this talk will go into the importance of community & how intentionally building community will directly affect the social trajectory of our neighborhoods all the way up to our nation.

July 12, 2018 — The wp_options database table is the center of all WordPress websites. It stores critical site data and is used on nearly every page in WordPress. However, it’s also very easy for the wp_options table to slow your site to a grinding halt. This talk will review best practices for keeping your wp_options table in check to keep your site performant.

Presentation Slides »

July 12, 2018 — Our project has 100% test coverage; we have end-to-end tests, unit tests, manual testing scripts—and my colleague can’t get any of it working!?

Poorly-written issues or out-of-date local installation steps can ruin a project, but when we think of testing we forget about the processes that surround our code. So how can we hold our workflows, onboarding steps and communication to the same rigorous standards of quality as our codebases? By applying that mentality to the issue trackers, READMEs and wikis we already have, we can save ourselves and our teams from communication and process errors and get back to making websites!

Presentation Slides »

July 12, 2018 — First off, what exactly is user generated content (UGC)? This is content that is created by your customers. It can be anything – a blog post, product reviews, photos, videos or comments. Content marketing is currently a top marketing strategy for most businesses. A report by Demand Gen shows that 47% of customers surveyed will read about three to five pieces of content prior before they consider reaching out to a company to get its products or services. In this talk I want to cover the different strengthen of UGC and how to make use of it for your site and buissenes.

Presentation Slides »

July 12, 2018 — Use of a decoupled CMS is an exciting approach that allows teams to maintain the WordPress admin while embracing frontend experiences that are engaging and flexible. The incorporation of the WordPress REST API into core now makes this possible. But can this be achieved on an enterprise scale?

In 2016, Human Made engaged in a project dedicated to realizing these possibilities. The goal was to create a fully decoupled WordPress admin leveraging a React front end. The technical challenges included API challenges, caching, themeing in PHP & React, and more. This session focuses on the logistical considerations taken to meet the challenge of creating a holistic WordPress/React product.

July 12, 2018 — Planning allows you to grow strategically, be prepared for setbacks, and prioritize your time. Would you be surprised if I told you that that’s also the definition of financial forecasting?

In this talk, we’ll take some really complicated topics in the world of financial forecasting and break them down into ultra-simple ideas using contexts that we, as developers or marketers, actually understand. You will walk away being able to define qualitative vs. quantitative forecasting, the Delphi method, regression-based analysis, moving averages and exponential smoothing, but all in the context of WordPress business-specific applications.

Presentation Slides »

July 12, 2018 — There are 28 Million small businesses that drive the American economy, 46% of small businesses have no websites. Cities are collections of neighborhoods – and neighborhoods are powered by small business. From coffee shop owners to fitness instructors the people we see in storefronts are building and reinforcing the unique character of our cities. Come listen to how WordPress.com and local independent developers are telling the stories of local small businesses in 2-hour increments. Come and join the revolution.

Presentation Slides »

July 11, 2018

July 11, 2018 — Are you a developer who builds websites, large or small? Are your clients asking hard questions about Google, or are some of their sites not ranking as well as they’d wish? In this talk, aimed at WordPress developers, I’ll teach you how to incorporate SEO into every part of the website development flow, to make sure you’re on the right side of these discussions. By asking the right questions during all the phases of a website’s development process, you can make sure the website will rank. You can also use these questions to land yourself the job if you’re still in the proposal phase.

July 11, 2018 — Protecting your plugin functionality with specific capability checks using the Capabilities API should be a best practice, but it is still one of the most underused parts of WordPress core. Using the API allows for granular access management by developers using the plugin, and may even prevent security holes. This session explains how to use the API by looking at examples and diving in deeper from there, both from the view of a plugin developer as well as of an external developer who needs to tweak a third-party plugin.

As another practical example, some of the upcoming improvements to capabilities in WordPress core itself are revealed, so that you are aware of what’s on the horizon.

Presentation Slides »