September 3, 2025 — Creating websites stuffed full of cool data visualizations for an entire government agency usually requires a large technical team (read: expensive). But what if you don’t have the in-house capacity? That’s the situation for National Marine Sanctuaries, the arm of the US federal government that protects two million square kilometers of ocean and lake habitat. However, WordPress to the rescue! In this presentation, we’ll be showcasing Sanctuary Watch, a connected WordPress plugin and theme designed to greatly lower the bar for creating data visualizations (created by a small team at Sanctuaries). Sanctuary Watch will be the primary way that the Sanctuary system delivers our scientific information to the world. Even better, the Sanctuary Watch plugin and theme are built in an open-source way and specifically designed for other organizations to use. In this presentation, we will also cover how *you* can use Sanctuary Watch on your own WordPress sites. Presented byJai Ranganathan

September 3, 2025 — You don’t need to have a “creative role” to be creative at work. Creativity allows us to show up as our full selves, and that benefits our workplaces as much as it benefits us. There are no limits to how you can bring your unique, authentic creativity to work, no matter your title. In this session, I’ll share how I’ve used creativity to get hired, get promoted, and show value at work—all while remaining true to who I am. I’ll explore the many personal and professional benefits of creativity, along with practical ways to apply it in any role. In this session, you’ll learn how to: * Use your creativity to get the job you want * Explore your creativity to help you be fulfilled at work * Show your value through your creativity Presented byTess Needham

September 3, 2025 — Ready to trade boilerplate for brainpower? In this lightning‑fast workshop, I will show how AI coding assistants like Cursor and ChatGPT can generate, refactor, and document a production‑ready WordPress plugin in just 30 minutes. Watch a blank folder become a fully functional ZIP as Maulik live‑codes with AI in the driver’s seat and best practices riding shotgun. Attendees will learn how to: Get ready for developing your plugin using AI Craft precise prompts preparation and usage Keep the AI on track with WordPress coding standards, security, and accessibility Do’s and Don’t while Vibe Coding your plugin! You will leave with step-by-step instructions and the confidence to pair‑program with AI on your next client project – no prior AI experience required. Presented byMaulik Vora

September 3, 2025 — With all the talk about the importance of making WordPress Accessible, how does someone with low vision teach and work with WordPress? I will share the tools and techniques I have used for years as a WordPress instructor at Pratt Institute, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and elsewhere in New York City. I will demonstrate the Operating System and WordPress adjustments I need to make it possible for one with low vision to be productive. This talk is based on my article in Smashing Magazine on what it’s like to have macular degeneration. “Using Low Vision As My Tool To Help Me Teach WordPress” https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/using-low-vision-teach-wordpress/ Presented byBud Kraus

September 3, 2025 — There are many job seekers in WordPress. There are many job openings. And there are plenty of opportunities to freelance. So how do the right people find the right jobs? As someone who has been tweeting weekly job openings for years, and who has a keen interest in seeing the ecosystem thrive, I’ve been (unofficially) working to help people find jobs – and helping companies learn better recruiting. So how does one find a job? How do you hire well? How do you make sure someone is a good fit for your culture? And how do you determine if a position is right for you? Or do you chuck it all and decide to freelance instead? This talk will highlight three things job seekers can do (or do better) in job searching, and three things employers can do better for recruiting. And a few things to think about before you hang your own shingle instead. Attendees from either side of the hiring table will leave this talk with actionable items to improve their prospective opportunities. Presented byMichelle Frechette

September 3, 2025 — Join us for an insightful session on WordPress Campus Connect, an exciting new event series designed to bring WordPress directly to educational institutions. This session will provide an overview of the program’s progress so far, highlighting the impact on campuses and the engagement with students and faculty. The session will also feature a dynamic panel discussion with WordPress Campus Connect organizers and students, offering firsthand perspectives on the program’s influence and its potential to foster a deeper understanding and use of WordPress within academic environments. Attendees will gain valuable insights into how these events are bridging the gap between education and open source technology, creating opportunities for innovation and collaboration in the campus setting.

September 3, 2025 — Managing a handful of WordPress sites is tough. Now imagine 150 — with one marketing team, zero developer bottlenecks, and no chaos. In this session, Jakob Trost shares how CANCOM used Full Site Editing, smart templates, and content automation to build a scalable, no-code website system. You’ll see how centralized assets, synced templates, and dynamic logic enable lightning-fast rollouts — with consistent design and blazing performance across every site. Learn how the team slashed coordination overhead by 60% using frontend collaboration, integrated global forms with Salesforce (local overrides included), and built a system where new sites go live without a dev ever touching a line of code. If you’re managing multiple WordPress properties — or planning to — this talk will show you how to turn WordPress into a true enterprise system. Presented byJakob Trost

September 3, 2025 — Technology is always evolving and WordPress is no exception. If you are stuck with a Classic theme on an old website or just aren’t sure how to deploy a block theme, you will learn how to easily and quickly refresh and update your site. No page builder is needed. We will explore examples of websites that were built in 2018 or earlier that are now fast and fresh with the WordPress 2025 theme. You will leave this session with confidence and skills to bring your technology up to modern standards. There will be time for Q and A. Presented byMary Ann Aschenbrenner

September 3, 2025 — Gutenberg excels at crafting beautiful static content, but what if you could empower anyone to build dynamic, interactive web experiences directly within the block editor? This session dives into Block Composability, a powerful concept that enables the creation of rich, interactive content using blocks, making advanced web development accessible to even less technically inclined users. Join Seth Rubenstein (Head of Engineering, Pew Research Center) and Max Schmelling (Engineering Team Lead, WordPress VIP) as they showcase real-world applications of Block Composability, including: Large census-like databases Quizzes used by universities and schools across the country Pivot tables Discover practical methods to empower your users to create their own interactive web experiences. Explore new APIs like Block Bindings and a sneak peek at Block Bits, along with tools that connect the concepts of Block Composability and remote data using WordPress VIP’s Remote Data Blocks.

September 3, 2025 — The Core Performance team has been incubating enhancements for WordPress through the Performance Lab plugin. These have been available for a few years now; some have been merged into core (e.g. Speculative Loading) while others are more experimental and remain in testing (e.g. Optimization Detective). This talk will look at how these performance plugins impact the speed of a stock WordPress site running the Twenty Twenty-Five default theme, using Core Web Vitals benchmarks and Lighthouse scores. It will also look at how the theme’s performance can be further tuned, including the use of core patches proposed for the next major release (also available in plugin form to leverage today) to further accelerate the loading of pages to improve the user experience of site visitors. Presented byWeston Ruter