August 22, 2018 — This talk will cover material in my report from the perspective of WordPress and the open web, both of which are core to my thinking.

August 22, 2018 — We used to be normal. Pageviews = ad impressions = $$$. Now we’re supported by our members, and that changes everything. Sure, views matter, but conversions matter way more. User experience must reinforce your business model, and we’ve done a ton of work — backend and frontend — to optimize our sites for membership. In this talk, we’ll discuss not just what we did, but why we did it.

August 22, 2018 — The talk is about WordPress security best practices. How to enhance and implement security practices in WordPress. The session is delivered by Shakir Ali who is a system engineer at 10UP.

Presentation Slides »

August 22, 2018 — Gutenberg will usher in an era of unprecedented customisation for non-technical users and editorial teams. It’s incredibly exciting… and simultaneously terrifying. In this talk, you’ll learn strategies you can employ—code snippets, training tips, and UX improvements—that you can use to ensure users have all the customisability they need, without the risks and downsides.

August 22, 2018 — At PMC we built our updated WWD.com Digital Daily email publication with Foundation for Emails 2. I will show some of the approaches I used leveraging Foundation for Emails partials to keep me from repeating code. I’ll also show how I organized this project to allow for other publications (and brands in our company) to expand what I started and use elements that have already been built.

August 22, 2018 — In this talk, we’ll explore:
– How the WP REST API can enable web to print workflows through InDesign,
– Making your content more accessible through Google Home and Alexa
– Even distribute your content to services your readers have built to consume content on their own terms.

Come explore how the REST API can truly be the foundation of a more open web.

August 22, 2018 — In this talk I’ll lay out a couple of different ways of thinking about the “open web” we’re after, what each of those visions postulates as the problem, and what solutions emerge from that set of problems. I’ll conclude with some of my own take on how WordPress as itself an “imagined community” (cf. Benedict Anderson’s 1983 book) can and should contribute to shaping the future of the web. (Hint: It’s about democratizing publishing through open source AND community).

August 22, 2018 — You wouldn’t try and work out what’s wrong with your car engine by looking at the front bonnet.. so why debug your application from the outside when you can “pop the hood”?

The xDebug extension for PHP offers some amazing tools for developers to both understand and debug problems in their applications, but is frequently passed over as its benefits, setup, and configuration are poorly understood.

This talk aims to bring xDebug to the masses, discussing the setup of xDebug for a couple of local environments ( currently Local by FlyWheel, Laravel’s Homestead and Laravel’s Valet, though open to including more ‘WordPress’ environments like chassis ) and the configuration of your IDE ( VS Code / PHPStorm). Along with some demonstrations of how this method of working can help everyone take their development to the next level.

August 22, 2018 — Facebook groups are a great way to build your brand and build connections but can you really make money from them?

In this presentation I’m going to explain how to create your own groups to support your customers, build trust and authority and upsell your products and services.

With two large groups (6k and 3k) I’ve learned the hard way how to deal with the trolls, share the right content, create connection and sell without selling.

I’ll cover:

Why you should consider a Facebook group
How to set primary goals for your group
How to build and maintain engagement
Managing time and resource investment in your group
What kinds of content to share
How to sell without selling
Dealing with trouble makers and keeping things positive

Presentation Slides »

August 22, 2018 — ndustry developments have highlighted the need for media organizations to reexamine traditional distribution models and cultivate genuine relationships with their audiences. But where do you start? What do those relationships look like? And are they scaleable and sustainable?

This experienced group of journalists share their experiments with audience engagement, from internal adoption and design, to implementing learnings and generating revenue. You’ll learn from the successes (and failures) of others and how to run a successful experiment in your own newsroom.

Moderated by Sherry Skalko (Executive Director, Injustice Watch), the panelists include Caroline Porter (Consultant, Shorenstein Center on Media), Harry Backlund (Co-Founder, City Bureau), and Sarah Schmalbach (Entrepreneur in Residence, Lenfest Institute).