June 10, 2019 — As our work environments change and more people start working remotely, new challenges are encountered and habits arise (both good and bad). In this talk about working remotely, at home, how it can affect us and some ways to ensure our remote work environments can be more productive and work for us, instead of against us.

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June 10, 2019 — How often do we update something on our website, whether it’s a plugin, theme, or WordPress itself, and then move on without testing if our site still works? It probably happens more often than we’d like to admit. Of course we want our site to always work as expected, but there is just so much to test, we don’t have the time to do it all. Especially with what seems like daily updates. What if YOU didn’t have to test every little thing on your site to see if it’s working? This talk will discuss ways to automate testing of critical site functionality like contact forms, e-commerce checkout, and landing pages to ensure your site’s essential features are working as expected after every update.

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June 10, 2019 — For a variety of reasons, we humans tend to be poor assessors of both the probability that something bad will happen, and the damage that is likely to result should such a thing occur. Academics have studied this phenomenon since about the 1960s under the rubric of risk assessment. What does this way of thinking have to teach us about WordPress security? Can we construct a risk matrix to help us choose which aspects of WordPress security are most in need of our limited time and attention?

In this session, I’ll draw on both on my own experience providing technical consulting in the areas of security and scaling to some of the world’s largest and most security-sensitive WordPress sites, and on the wisdom of community members who maintain smaller sites for businesses and individuals. In addition to providing a brief overview of the total security landscape as it applies to WordPress, we will attempt to use some of the tools of risk assessment to help us focus our attention in the right areas, including any we tend to naturally overlook.

This session, though touching on some technical topics, is suitable for anyone who administers, uses or develops WordPress sites.

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June 10, 2019 — Whether you work remotely or work with remote coworkers and partners, it’s becoming increasingly common to need to collaborate differently. In this session panelists, who are all remote workers, discuss their strategies for success and pitfalls to avoid when working remotely.

June 10, 2019 — When I started my business in 2011, I didn’t think I needed a business plan. I only needed clients, tons of clients. Even though my title was Web Designer, I took every job that came my way. I made WordPress websites, of course, but also did graphic design, print design, social media management, training — basically anything!

In less than eight months, I had to go back to work as an employee because I managed to spend way more money than I earned.
I kept freelancing on the side with no direction whatsoever and finally, I realised that I needed a plan.

It doesn’t matter what your financial goal is for the year or your mission for your small business. Having measurable goals and a clear strategy will allow you to do what you love and make a living out of it.

In this talk I will go over the basic sections of a business plan and show you some examples of how you can make one that represents you and your business.

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June 10, 2019 — ReactJS is changing how the web is built, including WordPress.

Take your existing development skills to the next level by learning the basics of ReactJS. We’ll explore things like components, state, props, and building interactive frontend applications for WordPress.

June 10, 2019 — WordPress 5.0 brings with it a new default theme called TwentyNineteen which is the first “official” theme to be distributed with full and native support for the new core block editing experience.

Using this theme as a guide, let’s take a deeper dive into:
– What customizations are available within each of the native blocks.
– Examples of other customizations that are possible with additional SASS/ CSS rules. (This includes a review of the new block-level classes.)
– Manipulating the position and layout of a block on the page using flexbox and CSS Grid.
– Where to find additional block collections and how to install them.
– Some possibilities of making additional custom blocks without code. (ACF, Carbon Fields and other generators.)

This talk is geared for those with beginning or intermediate web development skills. Ideal audience members will have some knowledge of WordPress and a willingness to make small alterations to a child theme’s CSS and functions.php files.

This talk is also NOT geared toward a discussion of how to create a “gutenblock” from scratch. (The topic has been covered quite a bit more in-depth by people much smarter than me. =-] )

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June 10, 2019 — The new WordPress editor (Gutenberg) is how all new content is to be created on WordPress. However with the way the data is stored, is that really the best way to power an application? I will walk through the drawbacks for how Gutenberg stores data, and how to easily change that to more easily power custom headless (and not) web applications.

June 10, 2019 — Did you know your website can rank better than #1 in Google? You’ve probably noticed answers to your searches appearing directly in Google. That’s called position zero. Learn how to leverage your content to rise above the competition and achieve position zero results. I’ll share a 4 step process you can apply to your content marketing efforts to leap to the top of Google.

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June 10, 2019 — With the release of WordPress 5.0, users now have default control over page-level design decisions. In this talk we will discuss the thought process that went into core Gutenberg architecture decisions, different strategies to achieve “smart” control: that balance between complete content freedom, and heavyhanded control. Jamie will present some options to create flexible content strategies for your clients in this new era.