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.

February 2, 2019 — “Why don’t we just use this plugin?” That’s a question I started hearing a lot in the heady days of the 2000s, when open-source CMSes were becoming really popular. We asked it optimistically, full of hope about the myriad solutions only a download away. As the years passed, we gained trustworthy libraries and powerful communities, but the graveyard of crufty code and abandoned services grew deep. Many solutions were easy to install, but difficult to debug. Some providers were eager to sell, but loath to support.

Years later, we’re still asking that same question—only now we’re less optimistic and even more dependent, and I’m scared to engage with anyone smart enough to build something I can’t. The emerging challenge for today’s dev shop is knowing how to take control of third-party relationships—and when to avoid them. I’ll show you my approach, which is to ask a different set of questions entirely.

February 2, 2019 — As someone who builds WordPress websites for clients, you’ve probably learned that offering (or requiring) monthly maintenance contracts is smart business. It’s likely you’re including core software, plugin and theme updates as part of your maintenance plan, which ensures a steady income stream you can rely on and helps with your financial forecasting. But are you including website security as part of your project proposal and scope?

The security of your clients’ websites is often not a priority or is left till the end of a project (or sale?) as an optional add-on for the client to consider after going live. The value of a strong website security posture can be difficult to explain to clients, but when put in the context of their business and possible loss of revenue, it can become an integral part of your offering that separates you from the rest.

In this session, Adam will cover simple website security best practices that you can implement immediately for your own site and those of your clients. In addition, he’ll also offer advice and examples on how to best present the importance of website security during the proposal, scope, and maintenance package stages to your clients. Not only does this ensure your maintenance plans offer what every website needs, but also presents an additional revenue stream opportunity for your business.

February 2, 2019 — Psst! Hey, buddy, do you have questions about quotation marks? Issues about italics? Concerns about commas?

If so, join award-winning author and editor Liz Coursen for this fun, fast-paced workshop that will have you writing like an Einstein after 50 minutes! Using real-world internet content, you will learn how to recognize, identify, and avoid the most common editing mistakes made every day by web content writers.

If you were playing hooky the day your high school English class reviewed punctuation and grammar, you will learn most of what you need to know about modern editing if—IF—you come in with one thing: the belief that you can learn the fundamental rules. Come in with an open mind and leave a better writer than 90% of the population! Come in with an open mind and leave a better, more confident writer! Come in with an open mind and leave with portable, permanent skills, actionable skills that will give you a significant edge over your competition!

February 2, 2019 — Curious how other WordPress professionals build sites, and what tools they use to get the job done? Two seasoned developers, one frontend, one backend, will go take you through how they approach building WordPress business sites from scratch (including from a starter themes), what priorities matter to them and why, and what software/techniques they use to build great sites.

February 2, 2019 — The topic will cover WooCommerce core features that help store owners improve their site performance and sales. Often underutilized or overlooked we are going to look at these features, how to use them, and empower store owners.

February 1, 2019 — Design Patterns in software engineering are a huge help for developers, providing a common, shared vocabulary across languages and platforms that facilitates communication and reasoning. Due to their very nature, they are rather abstract and difficult to properly assimilate and apply in a practical context. This session will discuss the construction of a real WordPress plugin while using several of the more common Design Patterns to demonstrate their real-world usage and highlight the benefits they provide.

February 1, 2019 — Panel: WordPress Security