December 10, 2017

December 10, 2017 — In 2002, the percentage of the population over the age of 50 was over twenty-seven percent. By 2020, it will be over thirty-five percent. The size of the 50 plus population will more than double in the next 35 years. Our nation faces a demographic revolution as 78 million boomers enter their retirement years. A baby boomer turns 60 every 7.5 seconds. This demographic shift will result in tremendous changes in the workplace, civic organization and healthcare. This segment is adopting and using technology faster than any other segment. And, they are the group with the most disposable income. Ignoring them and their needs is not just a bad practice, it’s bad business. More importantly, the things that can be learned from working with this audience can inform efforts with other segments. We’ll look at some of the unique aspects of designing, developing, and testing with this audience.

December 10, 2017 — If there is passion for innovation, things get done. This is often true for the WordPress Open Source project and smaller projects within.

The WCEU design team set a tall goal this year, beyond the usual design work for the event. We decided it was time to make creating and customizing a WordCamp site easy and intuitive, so we released a new WordCamp default theme for all. I’d like to share our goals, design consideration, and how we released the CampSite 2017 theme beta just before the event.

December 10, 2017 — Do you really know how your users are using your site? Do you know where they are coming from? Do you have any idea on what marketing paths are working best that you are currently using?

In this talk, we will go over real world examples and tools we use on a daily basis to improve our client’s user experiences by removing roadblocks and increasing conversions.

Buzzwords: Heat Maps, Screen Recording, Analytics, Link Tracking, and Effort

December 10, 2017 — If I had a dollar for every time I wished for a clone to help me get all my work finished… well, let’s just say it costs a lot more than that to raise a couple of kids.

As a parent, an educator, and a professional WordPress developer, I’ve given coding a central place in my children’s curriculum. Through games, Minecraft mods, and (of course) WordPress, they’re learning the basics of programming, site administration, and even entrepreneurialism. They’re not ready to take over my job (yet), but they have a great head start toward a future where programming skills pervade nearly every career.

Let’s take a look at some of the approaches, tools, and communities available to us as parents and educators. Our children will grow up to face a new kind of digital economy. We can help them learn the skills they need to thrive

December 10, 2017 — This session is all about kids and code. We will discuss why you should teach your kids to code. We will cover how to teach your kids to code. We will even talk about how to keep your young bloggers safe online.

We will cover resources and what you as a parent, or teacher need to know to make sure your child is ready for the future in code.

December 10, 2017 — Have you been tasked to build the most powerful weapon in the universe? No? How about a hyper performant and scalable system integrating multiple services and workflows all corners of the globe? Are you new to creating and maintaining a system for WordPress to thrive in, but don’t know how to keep it safe?

Whatever your task is, architecture is key. And while putting an exhaust port on the reactor core seems like a good idea, trust me when I say it’ll blow up in your face later. “Death Star” security happens whenever a system relies entirely on an outermost security layer — and fails catastrophically when breached. Defense in depth is especially critical as a site becomes more complex, utilizing systems which may not all be on the same server.

We’ll be exploring methods strong enough to cross the public Internet, flexible enough to allow your team to thrive, and robust enough to avoid single points of failure. Layering your security into a project from the beginning at every step and every layer will help prevent a young Jedi shooting a proton torpedo through a hole the size of a wamp rat and destroying your hard work.

A talk for projects and teams of all sizes, this will be an interactive time filled with lessons learned and examples from the real world. Just promise that afterwards you’ll use what you learn for the good of the galaxy and that you won’t go build a planet sized weapon of mass destruction.

December 10, 2017 — You know that Continuous something-or-other exists. Maybe you have even heard the terms Continuous Integration or Continuous Deployment, but not much more than that. I was in your shoes just a few short months ago. I came, I coded, I conquered. Now I am breaking it all down so you too can feel confident with the basics of continuous integration and deployment.

I will cover the basics of how to setup Github and Circle CI with WordPress and configure deployment to a staging environment. We will cover continuous-jargon and break down yml and script files to better understand how it works and how you can start to use it with your projects.

Attend. Absorb. And you too can conquer.

December 10, 2017 — “What do I need to learn to become a WordPress developer?” This question pops up in forums, social media, and everywhere else on a daily basis. I think a better question is “How do I prepare for a future that looks nothing like the status quo?”

Tech is changing at incredible speed, and what we consider important skills today may be meaningless a year from now. This talk is a discussion of what technologies are on the horizon, how the web and the internet will change, and how we can all prepare for a future with or without WordPress.

December 10, 2017 — I’ve been a PHP developer for most of my professional life, but earlier this year I switched to JavaScript full time. I’m here to tell you that it’s not a scary move, and can be a whole lot of fun!

From my first impressions of React, ES6, and large scale JavaScript projects, through to implementing large scale features, I’ll walk you through how I became a JavaScript developer in just a few months. I’ll show you how you can do it, too, and what this means for the future of WordPress development.