October 3, 2017 — Performance is a key metric of every website. In my talk I am going to show you code that I have seen in my life as a professional WordPress Developer and that could/should be improved. Furthermore I am going to show you how to change needed but slow code to asynchronous code which does not interfere with the user facing frontend.

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October 3, 2017 — Having more than one WordPress instance alive? Than you might know about the pain maintaining several instances. Getting them hardened, updated, secured, backuped, monitored. Being a professional WordPress administrator I’ld like to give some insight views how we tackle these daily duties. It’s all about the topic “cat vs. cattle”.

October 3, 2017 — Minimizing the back-end development effort with an MVC approach to WordPress theme development using the Timber framework, the Advanced Custom Fields plugin and some magic.

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October 3, 2017 — When a web project is going great, client relations is a breeze. But what do you do when its not? Misunderstandings, under-bidding, over-asking, delays, and more can stall that project and sour a relationship. But with a bit of preparation, and pro-active management, you can give your project the best chance at success and turn upset clients into your biggest evangelists.

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October 3, 2017 — You always start with the best of intentions. The parent/starter theme you begin your custom site with has a beautifully laid out style.css file. You do your best to keep everything organized and logical, but in the throes of deadlines and CSS frustrations things get ugly. Maybe you’ve heard of Sass and don’t know how to begin. Maybe you’ve used Sass and aren’t quite seeing the light yet. We’ll go over how to begin with Sass and how to use the Inverted Triangle way of organizing Sass to help you keep your sanity throughout the entire project.

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October 3, 2017 — Discover the power of turning down work in your WordPress business.

Many starting WordPress business owners underestimate how long it takes to build a strong foundation for their business. Often, out of desperation, they will take on any job, at any price, no questions asked. Ending up financially and emotionally drained. This is probably a reason why so many businesses close down in their first two years. Having experienced this myself the hard way, I discovered the power of the tiny word “No!”, the most powerful key we hold to end this rat race.

Saying “No!” is counterintuitive. And it is certainly is not an easy thing to do. But practicing to say “No!” can keep you from disliking your business and the people you do business with. The moment you stop saying ‘Yes” to every opportunity that arises, your WordPress business can grow bigger than you could have imagined.

The “No!” strategy is all about doing the work you are passionate about and are good at, and with the right clients. It really boils down to doing less of the work you dislike, isn’t profitable or does not fit your beliefs.

Learn to say “No!”
I feel the time is right to share some insights about why and how I learned to say no to certain work and clients. I will share my six step process that helped me grow my WordPress business over the years…

And remember: “If it’s not a hell yeah, it’s a no.”

【同時通訳あり】
WordPress でビジネスをしていく上で、依頼を断る力の大事さを理解しましょう。

WordPress サイトの開発やデザインを請け負っている企業のオーナーや個人の多くは、しっかりしたビジネスの基礎を築くためにかかる時間を過小評価しがちです。必死になるあまり、価格がどうであれどんな依頼でも疑問を持つことなく受け入れてしまうことも少なくありません。そういった場合、財政的にも、感情的にも、疲れ果ててしまいます。とても多くの企業やフリーランスで独立した人たちが2年以内に辞めてしまうのは、こういった理由からではないでしょうか。マヌエラは、自身も大変な思いをした経験から、「No」と言うことの重要性に気づきました。それは、厳しい競争を勝ち抜くためのキーとなるのです。

「No」と言うことは反直観的で、決して簡単なことではありません。しかし、練習することで、自身のビジネスやクライアントを嫌いになるのを防げます。遭遇するすべての機会を受け入れるのをやめることで、想像以上に事業を大きく成長させることができるでしょう。

「No」を言う方法を学びましょう。
今こそ、私がなぜ、そしてどうやって特定の案件やクライアントを断っているのかを共有する時ではないかと思います。これまでに自分のビジネスを成長させてきた6つのステップをお教えします。

忘れないでください。「『もちろん！』と即答できないなら、『No』が答えである」

Presentation Slides »

October 2, 2017 — I would like to share what I’ve learned bringing a Japanese business into the US market from a conversation starting with, Hello.

My belief is that your best opportunity is one step out of your comfort zone and that business should feel like a conversation. Whether you are creating SaaS products for end users, building B2B relationships or moving into new markets. Anything is possible by putting the conversation first.

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October 2, 2017 — This is a panel discussion meant to help anyone (such as freelancers, content creators, and small business owners) with questions about WordPress-related business issues.

October 1, 2017 — Better data enables better decision making, and it begins with how you track it – to provide more context to what’s already out there. Event tracking is a feature of Google Analytics that allows site owners to trace actions on their site, even when a URL change is not recorded. Instead of only tracking page views, Event Tracking is a method available in the ga.js tracking code that you can use to record user interaction with website elements, such as a button click on your website. This is accomplished by attaching the method call to the particular UI element you want to track. During this session, you will learn how you can boost your WordPress website analytic using Event Tracking.

October 1, 2017 — Launching a multilingual website might sound ambitious, but it’s well within your grasp, especially with WordPress. Implementing a multilingual WordPress website can expand your reach exponentially if you implement it correctly.

During this talk, we’ll cover a few options to accomplish the task, go over a few items you’ll need to consider, and go through a quick demo and/or case study.

Takeaways include: Why one should (or shouldn’t) consider making a site multilingual; the various options for making a site multilingual, what’s involved, the pros and cons; additional items to consider (plugin compatibility, SEO, etc)