October 13, 2023 — In the middle of the pandemic, Ken Liu, an award-winning writer, lost faith in storytelling, the magic that has always made his life a joy. This is the story of how he rediscovered the meaning of narratives in our lives, and his message will challenge us all to rethink how and why we do what we do.

October 13, 2023 — Rejection after rejection. That was the norm after prison until this speaker found a new lease on life with WordPress.

This talk is a testament to the power of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), illustrating how it encompasses more than just identity and disability.

Follow along with this journey from reformed convict to self-taught software engineer. Find out how the WordPress community sparked radical change and opened doors to a brighter future.

October 13, 2023 — This talk examines what performance and scalability mean from a server-side development perspective and how to optimize for this environment.

It covers basic mechanisms like profiling, deferred processing and caching first.

Then go deeper into code that simply needs to run faster or in a more scalable way, including topics such as loop optimization, static data, opcaches and other concepts.

October 13, 2023 — Learn multiple ways speed up your WordPress builds with AI tools ChatGPT and BARD, from generating content that looks better than “Lorem Ipsum” to helping you with your CSS and coding.

Find out more about AI generated images, and how to structure prompts to get both images and background images. Discover other AI tools that might help you speed up your website workflow.

October 13, 2023 — The workshop for WordPress developers offers an opportunity to understand and work-with hooks. Learn more about some of the hooks WordPress has to offer and find out how to create your own.

October 13, 2023 — Large Language Models are the technology behind ChatGPT, Google’s Bard and more. They are weird and somewhat intimidating pieces of technology: we’re still trying to figure out how they work and what they can do, in a field that changes radically on an almost weekly basis.

In this talk I’ll break down how they work, what they’re useful for, what you can build with them and how to dodge their many pitfalls.

I’ll show you how to run surprisingly capable models on your laptop, and demonstrate techniques like semantic search and retrieval augmented generation which harness LLMs to help unlock the value in your own data.
I’ll also talk about their many limitations, including new classes of security vulnerabilities that threaten applications built on top of them.

Exploring LLMs has made me more ambitious with the projects I take on. Used thoughtfully, LLMs can unlock new capabilities, both for us and for the communities that we build software to serve.

October 13, 2023 — This talk explores AI’s impact on SEO with a focus on integrating automated content into your sites. Striking a balance is key as AI tools boost content output but risk losing authenticity.

Learn how successful strategy involves infusing AI-generated content with a brand’s unique voice and values. Align with search engine algorithms while prioritizing user experience. In this synergy, businesses can elevate SEO, connecting meaningfully with audiences.

October 13, 2023 — Learn about the approaches that enterprise agencies use to keep client sites secure. Find out why the White’s Local Family Business site gets hacked but whitehouse.gov does not.

October 13, 2023 — Increasing conversion rates is a game of micro-improvements, data monitoring, experimenting, and more micro-improvements.

This presenter has been working with WordPress products for 10 years, and has lead marketing teams toward increasing success with online conversion at StellarWP.

Find out how to track marketing metrics, visualize data for insights, and ignore the rest.

October 13, 2023 — As a leader, you not only need to figure out your own work/life balance but also ensure that you’re modeling the right behavior to those you manage and lead. Or at least do your best not to accidentally model a harmful one. This can be tricky under normal circumstances for a typical person… but how do you go from fully multi-office-bound to involuntarily fully remote for years with the unexpected curveball of a proposed remote-forward but hybrid solution just when you’re getting used to the former?!

A woman in tech leadership, an immigrant from a somewhat different cultural background than most of my team to begin with and now with a bonus of many other cultures mixed in, likely in a different place in life than most of the people I lead: how did I learn to better understand and empathize with people who rely on me for leadership but live a different kind of life.
I made mistakes and so will you, but hopefully my list will help you avoid some big ones in the future.