October 21, 2017 — Jetpack isn’t just for WordPress backups and site security — it can also make your content look amazing and get noticed faster. Learn five ways you can boost your content to the moon with Jetpack’s features.

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October 21, 2017 — Do you work for a non profit or own a small business that has a website in WordPress?
In this session will discuss the unique website needs and requirements of these two kinds of niche organizations.
The presentation would be based on Case Studies, where I will talk about the following challenges faced by non profits and small businesses and using WordPress as a solution:
Working with limited budgets for a website
Branding and Messaging of your organization
Payment integration for Donation/ E-commerce
Blog and Social Media integration with the website
We will discuss the following WordPress implementation to solve the above challenges:
WordPress themes: Website front-end
Deciding the website taxonomy: Categories and Tags
Blog, SEO and Social Media plugins
Advanced Topics
Brief intro to Custom Post Types and Advanced Custom Fields
Brief intro to WP Command Line Interface (CLI) to install WordPress

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October 21, 2017 — WordPress at IBM

October 21, 2017 — Did you ever feel like a poseur? Like any minute your clients, or level-10 WP colleagues, are going to find you out?

“I have no idea what I’m doing. Someone much more technical than me would know this. Am I being filmed?”

I do. Every day.

But I learned there are a ton of people in this World of WordPress (WoWP ©Mike Morucci just now) who have different skills, but not all of them. Who struggle with issues but somehow find solutions, often by trial, error & Google search, and share them. You’ve just got to dive in.

In this talk, I will share #FAIL after #FAIL after #FAIL:

Web site?! Let’s start a Private Facebook group.
Just pick a template…from a million choices.
SITE DOWN! SITE DOWN! What did YOU do, Mike?!
I don’t need an expensive host. LOOK, this is only $4.95/month!
When should I launch? It’s not ready… It’s still not ready… It’s ready! Wait…
I can make my own logo. For free!
Why share my mistakes? Because failure is awesome. It brings wisdom one wouldn’t acquire without failing in the first place. I’ll also share a few tips/tools that keep me sane.

This talk is meant for the newbie who wears that badge proudly and is not embarrassed to say: “Hi, my name is Mike, and I don’t know a &*$%ing thing about PHP.” Or for the expert, who just likes to judge. I want you to feel better, too.

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October 21, 2017 — When you’re passionate about your content, how do you get others interested when you’ve only got 140 characters to pitch yourself in an authentic and passionate way. Here are tips, tricks, and best practices that let you work smarter rather than harder when it comes to plugging your WordPress site on social media.

October 21, 2017 — What’s the best way to update WordPress and plugins that causing the least amount of stress in your life and the lives of your clients? How often should it happen, what’s the process to best eliminate risk, and how much should you charge for website maintenance when doing it for others? (hint: it should be more than $50/m per site) I’ve been managing over 40 websites for the past three years and have seen it all. So much so that I created a process that my developer follows so I ensure high quality of work, in the least amount of time, reducing as much risk as possible as we update our client’s websites every month. I’ll go over my the step-by-step process, best practices and power tips so you can safely update your websites every month, or learn how to provide this as a service to clients.

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October 21, 2017 — As one of your primary marketing tools, your website represents you and your brand to prospective clients and well, the universe.

Does it make a great first impression? Is it useful and easy to navigate? Does it reflect your brand value? Or is it causing confusion and frustration to your visitors?

With a nod to Marie Kondo, this fun and creative talk will provide strategies to tidy up, declutter, and freshen up your website. WordPress website designer and strategic communications expert Lisa Petrovich Smith will give you simple, strategic, and sustainable actions to create a powerful website that is both beautiful and useful and that works for your brand.

Lisa will share actionable tips and takeaways to help the audience:

Apply key design principles to make a powerful first impression
Clarify your website’s messaging
Identify immediate practical steps to improve your website’s usefulness.

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October 20, 2017 — Freelancing is never a bad idea. You can spend as much or as little time as you want, but still reap the benefits of extra cash, flexible hours, more satisfying work, and the feeling of your own independence. However much freelance work you want to do, you need to know about the business side, legal stuff, and how to find and keep clients. I’m also going to tell you how you can use a WordPress site to tailor what clients and work you get, how to fill your portfolio to get started, how to price your work, and how to avoid making mistakes no one warned me about. Find what makes your work unique and get paid for your value!

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October 20, 2017 — We have all been there: a project gets defined and scope set when suddenly a new requirement becomes a ‘must have’ from a key stakeholder. Surely this one off addition can’t hurt. But soon comes another one. And another. Until finally our original design has become ‘design by committee’ and no one is happy.

Understanding how to ask the right questions up front can mean the difference between happy clients who are eager to give you more business and nightmare clients who can never be satisfied.

This session will focus on delivering a better discovery process with all team members that not only uncover their individual goals, but uncover the big picture. We will discuss how to ask the right kind of questions. The ones that give you all the backup you need later to stand firm and calm the stakeholder down when the ‘one off’ requests come in.

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October 20, 2017 — Sketching is a universal language anyone can speak and understand, regardless of their technical background.
If you’ve ever had to explain a technical problem to a stakeholder, developer, designer, or client, then you’ve likely run into issues of miscommunication. A quick sketch can help validate that you are both on the same page, or show that you’re thinking completely different thoughts. Either way, this quick visual aid will have proved its value.
In this talk we’ll look at some quick steps to creating sketches that you can add to issue you’re discussing. This doesn’t require being an artist or a designer, if you can draw a few basic shapes then you can make sketches work for you.

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