October 24, 2017 — If your marketing isn’t working, it might be because you haven’t properly branded your business. This session will cover how to develop your own brand, how to position it in the marketplace and attract the right clients. We’ll also cover ways to develop messaging for your business.

This session will be a condensed version of the work we do with all new clients to prepare their business for effective marketing. This will be easy to understand and practical.

Intended Audience: This session will help small business owners and leaders to improve their business with better branding.

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October 24, 2017 — As the WordPress community and its users increasingly become more transnational in its breadth and reach, new issues and challenges have begun to arise. With his experience working from behind the Great Firewall of China, John will discuss the current status of global Internet censorship, the rise of “Internet Sovereignty”, and how web site owners and developers can best reach users and community behind restricted national networks. This is intended for WordPress developers of all skill levels, WordPress beginners, business people and those interested in the greater climate of the Web.

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October 24, 2017 — The core principles of a great user experience are Content, Design & Functionality, and Speed. Some people say that we are living in the golden age of user experience but far too often we are technically trudging behind in providing rich and useful experiences and we especially lag behind when it comes to mobile-friendly websites. In fact, 53% of people will abandon a mobile site if it takes more than three seconds to load. Speed is a developer’s problem, a designer’s problem, and also a marketer’s problem. This presentation provides global and Canadian-specific facts and figures about how we are failing people visiting our websites and also covers the ways we can be improving our WordPress websites.

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October 24, 2017 — WordPress in a container. It’s the holy grail of portability in the world where Docker and its siblings exist. The talk will discuss containers in brief, then on how to make your WordPress installation in a container for various purposes – development, CI/CD, deployment.

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October 24, 2017 — The basics of setting up a store on WooCommerce.
Jonathan Perlman is an experienced web developer and teacher that works for Dawson College in Montreal, Quebec. He builds custom web solutions for the students, faculty and staff. Recently he’s been leveraging WordPress more and more to do the heavy lifting while focusing on the needs of the institution with custom themes and plugins.

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October 24, 2017 — Now that WordPress has an amazing Rest API, there is a lot of buzz around “Headless” or “Decoupled” sites. However, these are mostly covered with “how-to” and not “what this is” articles. My presentation aims to provide a higher level insight into what it means to be using WordPress, JavaScript and the Rest API, all in tangent. It will go into the Pros and Cons of using Limbless, Headless, and Brainless WordPress.

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October 24, 2017 — A storm has arrived. An avalanche of technology has emerged that engages consumers differently and these changes are impact the way consumers experience shopping in-store and online. Kiosks, online shopping tools, recommendation engines, influencers.

What is needed are strategies and affordable tools to ride this wave. If local businesses cannot keep with the consumer’s taste in these shiny new objects, they will wilt away. It’s not about reinventing the wheel, but about keeping place as a key spoke in the structure.

As a WordPress expert, you have tools that can help these businesses stay as an essential spoke in that wheel. What you need is a road map to help navigate that journey, and you need tools that can deliver the plan.

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October 24, 2017 — I have built 20+ WordPress websites for clients. I can explain how to figure out what your website will be about, why hosting is EXTREMELY important, how to find the best themes and plugins, why you need to backup your data, security, SEO, and cache. This will help people who know the WordPress backend, go from 0 to a completed website in no time!

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October 23, 2017 — This presentation will cover the basics of The Six Thinking Hats and provide references to more comprehensive materials.

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October 23, 2017 — Corey Freeman discusses her views on what to avoid on small business websites.