March 1, 2019 — I intend to discuss podcasts, how they work in a content marketing plan, how to create them (in broad terms) and how to use them effectively, in a marketing plan.

Audience: Anyone interested in including podcasts in their marketing plan.

Presentation Slides »

March 1, 2019 — With much anticipation, the whole WordPress community is abuzz with its preparation for the coming of the new WordPress Post Editor experience. Codenamed Gutenberg as a callback to the 15th-century invention of the printing press, which heralded easier propagation of knowledge contained in the written text, the new Editor signals a commensurate leap on the path towards democratizing publishing.

The reimagining of the editor is centered around the concept of a block and is powered by a new force in WordPress, namely React.js, a technology pioneered by Facebook and embraced by many other web giants looking to improve the user experience. Using React in the editor allows for a richer development of elements and a better representation of what their combination will look like upon rendering in the frontend browser.

The fundamental shift that React represents is its departure from a PHP approach which requires a page reload triggered by saving settings or updating a post to see the changes in the dashboard. While we’ve long had the ability to invoke javascript via AJAX to make changes without page refresh, these calls are typically limited to a single focus. React allows all of the elements in the HTML structure to react to each other based on changes made to each.

And it can do all of this with great speed and efficiency because it does not need to interact with the database, like with PHP, and each block only uses the minimal set of React tools needed for its proper functioning. Upon publishing or updating a post, React packages each block from the javascript object to an HTML element complete with CSS and saves it as a comment to the post. In this way, a user can toggle between the classic editor and the new editor without losing any information.
In this talk, we’ll review in more depth how to create a block using the tools from the WordPress Block API and elsewhere, what the code constituents of a block are, and explore how to reshape existing code to render in this new Editor environment.

Presentation Slides »

March 1, 2019 — How to use Google Analytics data to make your website better for your users.

Understand your audience. Get to know them. Explore their interests. Follow their footprints on your website.

See what is working and what is not. Understand what is drawing in your visitors and how to keep them on your website. Evaluate your marketing channels. Improve your content and website structure. Find out if there are any problems. Use all this insight to make the most of your website and make it more interesting and accessible for your visitors.

March 1, 2019 — Local by Flywheel makes use of Docker to manage sites. This allows for some powerful ways to improve your developer workflow.

We’ll cover a brief intro to Docker, as well as how you can use the terminal and Docker to execute Composer commands and run WordPress unit tests in an isolated environment.

February 28, 2019 — You’ve built a WordPress site or two (or 10), your installed plugins and themes to MOSTLY get what you want. Now you’re ready to learn the inner workings of WordPress and take your development to the next level.

Jump into WordPress development and PHP by building a Plugin and learn to speak WordPress’ language: PHP.

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February 28, 2019 — The things that can help beginners debug the most common issues in WordPress that are not easily found on Codex. During this talk we will cover the essentials of WordPress troubleshooting, using real life examples and tips & tricks. This lecture is suitable for anyone who builds or manages WordPress websites. The goal is to provide the proper set of troubleshooting steps, so attendees can solve common problems on their own.

Sharing my experience and giving advice that will save you a lot of time and headache in the future.

My talk is mostly focused on steps that one should take to find and resolve the issues that are most common. I will be talking about White Screen of Death, Plugin conflicts, PHP memory limit, etc. (I will probably add more examples), but the focus will be on how to approach the issue and resolve it.

Also, one part will be about useful tricks when migrating websites (and resolving the most common issues during the migration). That is a bit more advanced, but I will explain it in a way that regular WordPress user can understand. The idea is to help the average user tackle the possible migration issue without having to know technical stuff in depth.

February 28, 2019 — The basic principles of graphic design are applicable to a lot more than design: in this talk, we’ll explore with Rafaella, how these fundamental concepts can extend into all aspects of your life, personal and professional. From Space to Gestalt, from Unity to Dominance, to Balance the principles that govern design (should) govern our lives as well, as – just like a product – a good, purposeful and worthy life can be designed.

Presentation Slides »

February 28, 2019 — Much like playing an open world game, each of us approaches a new development challenge with different skill levels, knowledge, and philosophies. It may seem like a person starting their first coding project has very little in common with a seasoned developer, but in fact, we are all here because we see the value in using developer tools we have not written ourselves. We’ll discuss how we, as players of this game, choose from the tools available based on their strengths (value) and weaknesses (risk) relative to our own skills and ability to weild these tools. We’ll explore how these decisions change as players level up, or face different challenges. By discussing skill, value, and risk instead of code, we can gain empathy and understanding for the decisions of our fellow players.

February 28, 2019 — As a developer, access to debugging information is vital to troubleshooting your code or finding where performance bottlenecks are happening. By using the WordPress Debug Bar, and related add-ons, you’ll be able to track errors, SQL queries, access the query, and give get insight into what’s happening under the hood of your WordPress website.

February 28, 2019 — Setting up a local dev environment can be tougher than mandalorian armor! Lando simplifies this process by making it quick and easy to spin up local services and tools. Lando is so easy that even a scruffy nerf herder could use it.

Strap yourself in for a talk loaded with tips, cool ideas, and Star Wars jokes!