February 4, 2019 — In May 2016, Harare, Zimbabwe was selected to host a WordCamp Incubator. This led to the birth of a local WordPress community. Thabo will talk about what it took to get the WordPress community in Harare started, and what you can do to grow your community.

Presentation Slides »

February 4, 2019 — Content Management Systems (CMSs) like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla have bridged a huge gap when it comes to content creation and it’s wide spread. They has given a voice to many folks who otherwise would not be heard. When we talk about content creation, we are also talking about templates, wizards, and other tools we use to modify content. As I’ve seen this growth in Africa through my work and my involvement with CMS Africa, I will speak about my love for open source content management and how in Africa it has created a level playing field between the technologically capable and those who don’t consider themselves geeks.

February 4, 2019 — We all know the basics of good customer service, we just tend to hate doing the work. I absolutely love to infect people with my obsession to do business differently. Mostly through sharing my adventures and misadventures with customers, as well as sharing tips and tricks on how I do this with my WooCommerce store and stay sane. It makes for great conversation so I love for people to ask as many questions as possible. I may just throw a few bow ties at the people who ask the best questions.

February 2, 2019 — Join digital strategist Andrew Schulkind as he lays out the process he and his team have developed over 22 years of tackling web development and other digital marketing initiatives for a range of B2B clients. In this session, you will gain insight into:
• Convincing stakeholders of the value of proper planning process (hint: it actually saves time and money)
• Aligning the process with your desired outcomes
• The document templates you’ll find most useful
• How the planning process helps post-launch

You’ve built dozens of WordPress sites, maybe even hundreds. You know what you’re doing. So when starting a new site it’s tempting to roll your sleeves up, dive right in, and get to work.

Or maybe you’re a marketer or business owner about to build your first WordPress site. Sure, some things seem daunting, but you can let your developers hand the confusing bits, right?

On even the simplest of sites, something nearly always gets lost in translation between the client’s expectations, the designer’s vision, and the developer’s execution.

A solid planning process and proper documentation minimizes the potential for confusion and miscommunication. You save time, you save money, and most importantly, the finished project is more likely to successfully achieve the desired results.

February 2, 2019 — The new visual editor sure does inspire consternation in the WordPress community. As with any disruption, there will be winners and losers in professional world – and lots of questions. Instead of focusing on launch and transition issues, I’ll describe how I believe the fundamentals of the WordPress experience will change for both the end-user AND the professional – and discuss potential opportunities for businesses in the WordPress ecosystem.

February 2, 2019 — The wp_options database table is the center of all WordPress websites. It stores critical site data and is used on nearly every page in WordPress. However, it’s also very easy for the wp_options table to slow your site to a grinding halt. This talk will review best practices for keeping your wp_options table in check to keep your site performant.

February 2, 2019 — Come get all your questions answered on building and growing companies from our group of seasoned veterans.

Moderated by Sam Hotchkiss

February 2, 2019 — In 2014, The University of Maine determined that umaine.edu needed to be taken to the next level. A year later, a robust new website was launched to coincide with the incoming class and our 150th year celebrations. This session details the journey between these two points, and how we avoided common pitfalls in website redesign projects affecting hundreds of content contributors and their individual websites.

February 2, 2019 — A required feature of any website these days is a contact form. There are many free and premium plugins for WordPress that can be used to create simple contact forms, surveys and quizzes, user generated content, email marketing captures, or even complex conditional ecommerce checkouts.

We’ll go through the options in what form plugins will allow you to do to suite your needs. Also, we’ll look at some features that makes your forms easier to fill out than others.

February 2, 2019 — Gutenberg is making waves in the WordPress community and changing how we compose content forever. So what’s the essential new stuff that Gutenberg brings to content authoring? We’ll focus on the block–the brick that builds our content–and will learn how to build a nifty Gutenberg block from scratch to offer our customers an easy and predictable way to compose their content.