March 31, 2017 — Come one, come all! Grab a cup of coffee and join Automatticians Konstantin Obenland and Michael Cain for a morning show-style WordCamp talk that’s buckets o’fun for anyone and everyone. We’ll break the session into three segments: news from around the WordPress world; a special guest interview with a WordPress “celebrity”; and a “shop talk” segment about a design or development topic that we’re hoping to learn more about by pretending to be experts in front of you, our audience.

There will be laughter (hopefully?), there will be tears (regrettably?), there will even be some awkward silences (definitely). But most importantly, there will be plenty of that whole-grained, balanced-diet WordPress that you just can’t get enough of.

March 31, 2017 — I want to tell you something and I’m going to be brutally honest. That slideshow at the top of your homepage? It sucks! Listen, I get it. It looks pretty. It fills space. Maybe you even think it’s “impressive” and “eye-catching.” But it’s being ignored by that vast majority of your visitors while slowing down your website and diluting your message. By throwing a slideshow at the top of your homepage you’re basically saying, “I want to take the most valuable real estate on my website and completely screw it up.” I want to share some alternatives with you. I want to help you structure your website in a way that engages visitors, minimizes frustration, and produces better results. And for those few and far between times in which a slider *may* be appropriate, I’ll give you some tips and recommendations on what tools and techniques to use.

Presentation Slides »

March 31, 2017 — How translation sprints helps bring in new contributors!

March 31, 2017 — This episode we talk about Global WordPress Translation Day 3, the new Plugins page, submitting How To videos to WPTV and the Support Forums.

And yes, the puns were intentional.

March 30, 2017 — When building themes and plugins for WordPress, code quality is important. It’s also just as important to be able to easily test and deploy your code when features are ready. This becomes even more important when working on a team. In this talk we will look some Continuous Integration tools and techniques for WordPress, and how they can help you and your team develop faster and more effectively.

March 30, 2017 — 1 in 5 people in the US, report having some kind of disability. For some, these disabilities make it difficult to access the internet. That’s where web accessibility comes in. According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), web accessibility means that “people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web.” Not only does web accessibility help people with disabilities, it helps others experience the Web, including individuals whose abilities have changed as they’ve gotten older.

Web accessibility is so much more than standards and checking off items on a list. It’s about having empathy for someone else. To be frank, web accessibility makes it possible for everyone to google the burning question that we all have at 2a.m.: Where can I get pizza at this hour?

This talk will cover:

The basics of web accessibility
“People First” language
The importance of empathy
Inclusive design and content creation best practices
Helpful tools and resources

March 30, 2017 — You’ve always wanted to launch a podcast, but you just aren’t ready. What are you missing: Gear? A Launch Strategy? Courage to get on the mic every week?

Steve Stewart has been helping podcasters with their shows and their tech for more than 5 years. In this session he will explain what an RSS feed is, what you need to launch a podcast, and answer your questions about monetization or growing an audience.

March 30, 2017 — Blogging can be one of the best methods for driving inbound leads into your business. Yet, the biggest challenge many small business owners face is not whether they need a blog, but how to build a blog that brings in business.

March 29, 2017 — Installing WordPress, plugins, and a theme is just a start, but in maintaining and growing your website, you’ve got to make plans. Sure, your initial idea of creating a WordPress site for whatever reason is great, but if you’re trying to get people to either subscribe to your newsletter, share your posts, fill out your lead forms, leave a comment on your posts, click an ad, or buy your stuff, you’ve got more to do.

If you’re not getting some type of return on investment, which is to get people to do something on your website, then your website is broken. Come sit in and let me help you fix your problem by giving you ideas that you can use.

This is for all content creators, as this is like a checklist of things you should be doing for your WordPress website. Also, it includes links to further information to help your blog or website.

Presentation Slides »

March 29, 2017 — Overview
Increase agency efficiencies, reduce development headaches and get clients on board early by creating low-fidelity wireframes to describe content architecture. Learn the tactics and tools to streamline your content architecture process.

Knowledge/experience level
Beginner to intermediate WordPress experience. Basic familiarity with development and implementation of pages, custom post types, fields and taxonomies.

Takeaways Attendees will learn
– How to use low-fidelity wireframes to inform development of site content types, components, taxonomy and technology.
– How to leverage content architecture wireframes for client training and content entry.
– How to gain client approval on content architecture to streamline development