March 28, 2017 — Learn what it’s like to work at Automattic, the tools we use, our culture, the people, how to apply and what’s next for the company.

March 27, 2017 — Ok, so you’re a kickass WordPress developer. You’re always looking to learn new things. You read every technical blog post that you come across. You try your best to apply them in your WordPress project. Things are going well, but you’re not sure if there’s more that you could do to hone your skills.

Why yes there is! You could also teach. But you might be wondering, “Seriously, how can teaching make me a better developer?” That’s a good question! And that’s what I’ll share with you in this talk.

I’ve dedicated a significant amount of time to teaching. I write a lot on my personal site and sometimes on other WordPress educational sites. I also speak at WordCamps and local meetups. These teaching opportunities have been essential to help me grow as developers.

The good news is that you too can use teaching as a powerful learning tool! This talk will show you how. You’ll learn how to use teaching to build your development chops. You’ll also see how to do it so that what you give back benefits the WordPress community.

Presentation Slides »

March 27, 2017 — In a gold rush, the people who got rich were the ones who sold the tools. And buying expensive tools didn’t guarantee success.

If you’re working with clients or building a site to support your business, a form builder is the one simple, inexpensive tool you can’t do without. Come learn how I run my product & services business with this simple, unassuming tool of the trade. You’re sure to leave with a gold nugget or two 😉

March 27, 2017 — Denis Yanchevskiy is a developer living in Moscow, Russia. He is active in the local WordPress Community. Denis is active in the WordPress Support Forums with over 2,200 post.

Denis has several “How To” videos on WordPress TV and would like to see more native language videos being submitted.

March 24, 2017 — A hosting panel to discuss the difference, features and what is new for each platform. We will have technicians from WP Engine, BlueHost, ClickHost, Godaddy and more. Moderated by a WordPress developer.

March 24, 2017 — Great topic for developers of various levels. I walk through a case study and decision tree for building a theme framework and leveraging Child Themes and Grandchild Themes to build quality websites that can continue to be upgraded without affecting design or operability.

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March 24, 2017 — WordPress 4.7 now includes the content endpoints of the WordPress REST API. These endpoints provide new ways to read and write data on your WordPress sites that is perfect for use with JavaScript-driven interfaces, apps and more. But do you know what exactly is available and how to to find them?

In this talk I will give an overview of what endpoints are available and which endpoints might be available. Then we will talk about how to use the WordPress REST API to discover what is available from the WordPress REST API.

March 24, 2017 — WordPress is software like no other. Businesses harness its versatility. Creative skills are mastered with it. It unifies individuals from diverse backgrounds. Yet to so many, it remains “just” software. As a blogger, web designer, marketer, educator, and entrepreneur since long before its existence, I’ve watched it grow into a worldwide phenomenon. My own path to success is intertwined with a decade of WordPress use. Clearly, there’s more to this software than just a free install. Discover how WordPress will completely change your personal and business life for the better, if you let it!

March 24, 2017 — Imagine, for a moment, the ability to add a new class to your WordPress plugin and not have to worry about adding a new include statement and having the ability to organize the class into a pre-defined package structure.

Sounds nice, right?

Unfortunately, one of the problems that WordPress plugins developers face is having to work with older versions of PHP. But it’s really not as bad as you may think.

Although we sometimes, we sometimes have the ability to use newer versions of PHP (and that’s great), it doesn’t mean we have to forgo poor development practices.

See, depending on the paradigm with which we build our projects (namely, object-oriented programming), we have the ability to take a lot of redundant code out of our plugins.

Furthermore, we have the ability to more easily organize our code at both a conceptual level and at a virtual level.

In this presentation, I walk everyone through namespaces and autoloading, explain how they work, why they are beneficial, and then will show sample example code on how it works. I’ll also provide a downloadable plugin that they can use to study.

Presentation Slides »

March 24, 2017 — With years of management experience behind me, I’ve come to learn a few things about myself and about leading people. In this discussion, we’re going to talk about the human side of running a business. What it means to invest in your team(and vice versa), the pitfalls of working with others who are smarter than yourself, and how all of this can make your business better. By the end of the session we hope to laugh together and inspire one another!