December 19, 2019 — I’d like to share tools to boost productivity both online and offline. (Some tie into WordPress, and those will be highlighted.) Subtopics include: project management, task lists/to-dos, scheduling, booking, virtual meetings, screen sharing, bookkeeping, backup options, and cloud storage. Tools discussed are a mix of free and paid, which provide options for every budget.

Presentation Slides »

December 19, 2019 — Sourcing responsibly is crucial to the security, efficiency, and success of any WordPress site. Faced with millions of open source plugins and themes on the repository, how do you evaluate the add-ons you use to enhance your website? This introductory talk will go over best practices for ensuring you select the best and most necessary plugins for your website needs. I will also cover security basics, such as how to update your plugins and themes to ensure they don’t leave vulnerabilities on your website that could lead to being hacked.

Presentation Slides »

December 19, 2019 — We live in a world of continuous integration, continuous delivery, version controlled code and configuration. Yet when it comes to delivering content we are relying on doing all publishing straight to the production environment and hoping it works, editing the live document to fix issues we only find once they are in production. I propose there is a better way.

Let’s build our content on our development instances the same way we develop code and configuration. Then using the power of Github, WP-CLI and Automated Testing tools like Behat, let’s professionally deploy our content to production will full confidence it works as intended. Let’s give editors better tools to build better content in a word of Gutenberg while saving anyone the need to overwrite the production database ever again.

Topics include:

WP-CLI for generating content
Connecting Github and your WordPress site
Leveraging multiple environments
Behaviorally testing content

Presentation Slides »

December 19, 2019 — While WordPress makes it easy to build just about anything, the content you eventually place on that site will determine it’s effectiveness. This talk will explain the basics of UX website design as it relates to WordPress, with an emphasis on the impact of branded content. It will also suggest ways to easily incorporate UX design and branding into the sites you build.

In addition to these topics, I’ll also share some WordPress-compatible tools that help improve a site’s UX, overview the relationship between user experience and SEO, and provide a takeaway that designers can use to help create branded, UX-friendly content for their sites.

Presentation Slides »

December 19, 2019 — You work hard to create your content. So how can you maximize its impact on your bottom line? Through repurposing. If you have a blog, you already have a good start. Your next step is to take all that awesome original content and repurpose the heck out of it. In this session, you’ll learn from a prolific content generator: how to create and push out and manage your content; how to keep your freshest content up front and alive, find unique ways to get the most out of your existing content and identify the right channels for repurposing it.

Presentation Slides »

December 19, 2019 — Caching is critical to the functioning of the modern web. From CDNs to browser caching to DNS TTLs to the WordPress object and full page cache, caching can be a confusing and challenging topic. With Google emphasizing site performance in the latest page rank algorithm changes, it is a topic we can’t afford to ignore. This talk will explain caching in layman terms (with some power-user pro-tips sprinkled throughout) and will give actionable advice on how to make caching work for any site. We will cover the tools available and how to use them effectively and where it might be worth spending money to get better results.

Presentation Slides »

December 19, 2019 — Over the past five years, I’ve been running a weekly, one hour, live interview show featuring a new guest from the WordPress community every episode. During each interview I’ve attempted to get to know the guest, their interests, and their story. Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about the people who make up this community. In this session, I’d like to share hard data as well as some personal reflections I’ve gleaned from just listening to all the people who use and make WordPress.

Presentation Slides »

December 19, 2019 — Have you heard the phrase, “crappy photography = crappy website?” The photography you use has an incredible power to make or break a project, doesn’t it? Even the most beautiful website build can be crushed by poor quality images taken on a phone. And there is also a dirty little secret that most web designers don’t know about when it comes to using stock images.

Bruce and Josh Hudson, a father and son team, have combined 47 years of experience in the professional photography world, as well as media creating and business. During their program, The Power of Photography, they’ll be sharing:

How photography plays a key role in website development.

Pulling the curtain back and revealing the dirty little secret about stock images and why you should never use them.

Learn what criteria you should be using when looking to partner with a photographer.

The power photography has to create stories and how you can use that in your designs.

And the 7 elements needed to produce images that have intent and impact.

The Hudson’s have a passion for helping their commercial clients tell the story of their business through photography and video. Their ultimate goal with every project is to work directly with developers and designers to achieve a more effective, relatable, and memorable online experience. They are ready to share their secrets and help you learn how to better utilize photography for your clients and websites! Join the Hudson this year in Seattle at Word Camp!

Presentation Slides »

December 19, 2019 — As developers, we are capable of many amazing feats. We can create experiences that touch the lives of millions, brings aid to the corners of the world, empowers new businesses and bring a voice to the voiceless. WordPress powers over 30% of the entire web! However with this capability, we must also take on the responsibility for the people, and data, we interact with.

During this session, we’ll discuss how a culture of security can benefit not only your organization but also protect your end users and yes even the world. We’ll look at the ethics of privacy, secure web design and architecture, and the impact our decisions have on the community and our users. Mixed in will be best practices for secure coding, how to manage sensitive data from clients and users, compliance with various regulations and laws around privacy, and how to foster a culture of security even while you manage distributed teams. I’ll share my experiences from almost a decade in Open Source and some of the mistakes and successes I’ve had along the way.

Most of all, as WordPress continues to empower more and more of our digital world, it is up to us to decide as a community how we will use this influence and together we can work to make the world a better and safer place for people no matter where they come from.

Presentation Slides »

December 19, 2019 — The days of static website content are dead. Creating dynamic content should be a cornerstone of any good digital marketing strategy. The content you produce not only draws potential customers in, it shows leadership in your industry, not to mention the SEO benefits associated with it.

The need for content production goes deeper than having something to post on your blog, Facebook, or Twitter that week. It’s about strategizing with your entire team to make sure the content you produce supports your product or service and provides real value to your online audience.

In order to work with a team, you need a solid content process in place. Moreso, you need to create company culture that includes content creation.

In this talk, we will cover the following topics:
– The Importance of Regular New Content
– Setting up a Process
– Getting your Team Invested through Company Culture
– Re-Adjusting your Process to Fit your Team
– Reporting to your Team

Attendees can expect to learn the value of good content, how to create a company culture that includes content creation as a team, and setting up a process for content creation that fits your team’s workflow.

Presentation Slides »