September 10, 2023 — In this talk, I will explain how design could be used to solve problems for customers and grow business.

Yes it’s great to get a new UI, yes it is great to deliver a better customer experience but most important is that the design must serve the customer’s needs and the business goals. And if you are missing either of those ingredients it is just a fresh coat of paint and it doesn’t really matter.

I will address this with some real examples and how thinking from a different perspective could lead to a great outcome for customers and business.

September 10, 2023 — After 30 years of employment in the nonprofit world with an impenetrable glass ceiling, enough was enough. I took my background in sales, marketing, and customer service and mixed it with my hobbyist experience running viral WordPress websites in the entertainment field. The result: if you can demonstrate the value of your skillset, be open to learning every day, and walk away when it’s the wrong fit, then there is a place for you in WordPress without knowing code. A how to on changing your life, and a road map for agencies looking to get out of echo chambers and diversify their teams.

September 10, 2023 — Discuss how to convert a WordPress website to static files and upload them to a serverless environment.

September 10, 2023 — A common challenge for organizations, projects, and businesses is attracting more people. On the other hand, reaching a wider audience has never been easier, and translating your website can be a crucial step. People simply prefer reading content and doing business in their native language.

However, without the right tools, it can be both expensive and time-consuming. This is where automatic translation can give you an edge. Today, it is often indistinguishable from human translation. Plus, it’s super quick and affordable.

This is what I’d like to talk about – how to use AI translation to translate your website and find a bigger audience.

This topic is relevant for the WordPress audience because of the language barrier most of us face in the often English-first world. I’d like to show how something that seemed too expensive and complex just a few years ago is today easily achievable.

September 10, 2023 — The Internet has evolved leaps and bounds since its early inception in the research and academic domain, and on top of it a huge and vibrant open web ecosystem flourished. In just 30 years the web ecosystem has reached levels that were not imagined at the time of its inception. WordPress emerged as part of this evolution with an initial focus on the blogosphere, and it has itself evolved considerably and played a seminal role in the open web across time for almost 20 years. The web of today is vastly different from the past, and we are now in the midst of a web economic “boom” fueled by modern creators and formats fulfilling the needs and desires of new generations of content consumers. In this talk we will distill a brief history of the Internet, the Web, and the Creator Economy, and why and how WordPress is very well positioned to continue its evolution journey and also play a seminal role in the success of modern content creators.

September 10, 2023 — WP-CLI provides developers with powerful tools to quickly manage WordPress sites, automate tasks, and diagnose issues from the command line. But if you’re not creating your own commands, you’re leaving a lot of time-saving potential on the table!

In this session, we’ll explore best practices for using wp-cli, combining and reusing commands, and other tips and tricks.

Previous experience with WP-CLI is not required.

September 10, 2023 — I’m going to talk about 3 tiers of customer support. This topic is relevant to WP product company managers, support team leaders, support engineers and freelance web designers and developers.

Most companies provide Tiers 1 and 2, and then refer to the development team for more complex tickets. In this method, customers have to wait longer and development team needs to do more and gets distracted in order to replicate the issue. This is more expensive for the company and it often leads to defensive support strategy and creates a “them vs us” situation.
Having all 3 tiers of support can lead to faster support for customers and you can be more generous with the scope of your support. It also frees up the development team for high impact projects. Customers will be more satisfied and they will have a much closer relationship with the support team.

A tier 3 support engineer should have development experience, debugging skills, communication and excellent written English. This might sound like an unusual skillset, but it does exist!

Tips on managing multi-tiered support: Each ticket should be on the lowest tier possible, it’s more efficient for the last experienced user to handle the simple tickets, but if it’s obvious that a particular ticket is very complex then it should be assigned straight to Tiers 2 or 3. It’s more efficient for the support team to remain as the point of contact. Developers should not be sending tickets to the customers.

Communication is the key! For support teams with more than 1 person, it’s essential to work closely together.
Team capacity should be continually monitored. It’s important to plan ahead when recruiting team members. Tier 1 engineers can be promoted to Tier2 and Tier 3 requires a different skillset.

As a support team grows, you need someone to manage it. At Barn2, we have a Head of Support plus 4 support engineers across 3 tiers.

September 10, 2023 — The topic will essentially cover key points required to learn the art of crafting user intent content in the business-centric world. The session is intended for beginner-intermediate to Pro level business/marketing writers. My session will enlighten the audience by discussing the following attributes & pointers:

Why writing with one reader in mind is essential
Importance of figuring out the point that matters the most for readers
Questions that you need to ask before you start writing
Discussion on performing the “So What?” test
How you can hold the attention of your readers
Utilizing the power word- YOU
The art of writing less yet saying more
The idea of crafting sentences that sing with your readers
Making sure your message reaches the widest possible audience
Concept of incorporating stories into your business & technical writing
And Finally the method of utilizing Rhetoric, the advanced persuasion technique for business writing

September 7, 2023 — In 2013, this speaker launched a blog for female creative entrepreneurs. It became an overnight success in its niche in Italy. Nine years later, the blog is still going strong. It grew from a handful of contributors to a newsroom of over one hundred authors.

In December 2017, a new team was able to take over thanks to the smooth editorial processes.

This talk shares the challenges encountered in creating a workflow for the authors.

Learn practical solutions that different teams can use to coordinate their efforts. Get tips for managing user permissions, assigning editing and curation, and publishing.

September 7, 2023 — The best lessons in life are simple. This is one such principle – the ultimate key to charisma, influence and impact.

Consider this for a moment…

We are all in the game of persuasion. Almost everything we do – writing blog posts and emails, applying for a job, presenting ideas, creating products and websites, answering customer support… There’s one common goal – to persuade someone.

I’ve been a lifelong student of persuasion, behavior and copywriting. And my brain fried with excitement when I stumbled upon this one sentence. A sentence that elegantly sums up all wisdom about marketing, sales, charisma, influence, power and impact.

Tell me if you agree with this…

We are already juggling with so many challenges that we don’t need yet another complex marketing method.

Persuasion doesn’t require good looks, a silver tongue or infallible logic. It doesn’t require confidence, charm or a magnetic personality. Persuasion’s got nothing to do with you. You will soon see why – when you attend this talk!