December 21, 2016 — Freelancing is easy. That is, until you rely on it to pay the bills. Whether your a seasoned agency owner or a just-starting-out freelancer, having the right tools and systems in place to manage your projects and handle repetitive tasks is sink or swim important.

I’m going to take you through some of the tools I use, including Trello, Mix Max, Google Apps and Zapier, and the ways I use them to run my business.

If you’re in the space of building WordPress sites and getting paid for it, this session is for you.

December 21, 2016 — One of the hardest ‘Good Intentions’ in business is to send a regular client email newsletter. How many times has a business started a newsletter only to lose energy and stop after 2 – 3 times? Why? Because it can take 3 – 5 hours to create a newsletter, write the content, source images, and send it out… and business owners and their staff ‘don’t have the time’.

With WordPress’s in build ‘Press This’ feature and the Tribulant Newsletter Plugin any business can create a client newsletter in less than 17 minutes. No writing, no image sourcing, no formatting, no hitting the send button, no problem in no time at all. This is one of the simplest, easiest ways to communicate regularly with clients, generate leads and sales in less time that a normal one-to-one business presentation takes.

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December 21, 2016 — Advertising is changing more rapidly than ever. The traditional push, paid-media advertising is being replaced with strategies and activities primarily based on owned media channels and original content; some brands even consider themselves as media houses. This is very beneficial for the WordPress community, but there is still need for innovation and improvements, to make the platform perform even better in this new space.

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December 21, 2016 — Search engines love it. Social media platforms have embraced it. Your audience can’t get enough of it. Online video is everywhere, but how is your brand using video?

Too often businesses approach video in entirely the wrong way, they invest in production but just fail to see the results. In this presentation, I’ll walk you through my 7 Elements for an Effective Online Video Strategy and introduce you to the importance of developing a clear strategy that works seamlessly with your overall marketing strategy before you even think about rolling the camera.

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December 21, 2016 — This talk is about the importance of end-to-end testing, and not treating UX as something separate from programming. Promoting the idea that UX problems are fundamentally engineering issues, not design flaws that can be fixed later. This is aimed at a technical audience (plugin devs, designers, site implementors) but is not highly technical – includes examples of UI and error handling failures in general and from WP sites.

December 21, 2016 — Thabo Tswana is a web designer living in Harare, Zimbabwe. He states that “he has a hunger to constantly grow and evolve as a designer. He has a genuine passion for programming, technology and website security”.

Thabo was the lead organizer for WordCamp Harare, which was one of the three WordCamps chosen to take part in the WordCamp Incubator Program. The other two WordCamps took place in Denpasar, Indonesia and Medellín, Colombia.

December 20, 2016 — The thing about speed is that people only notice when it’s absent and this absence affects every metric you care about. + Bounce rate + Search ranking + Conversion + Page views + Customer satisfaction + Revenue Learn the top tips and tricks in order to speed up your website and increase satisfaction.

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December 20, 2016 — Have you ever had a light-bulb moment? Whether you’re a business owner, blogger, developer or dreamer, you probably know the feeling. Product ideas can be gold – if you know how to use them. WordPress can help you get there. In fact, thanks to new features like the REST API, there’s never been a better time to use WordPress as a platform for your product projects.

Luke will outline his framework for taking your product idea from conception through to reality, with his tips on experimentation, validation, user engagement, hiring, branding, and monetisation.

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December 20, 2016 — This talk will cover some things I’ve learned working customer support for WordPress.com. These things include:

when you need to get in-your-face
domains are hard
never reply upset
kill with kindness
when support informs development

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December 19, 2016 — Public relations, brands and bloggers: who’s influencing who? Sure running a blog is great, but social media followers aside — how do you monetize it? Can people really tell it you’re buying followers and engagement? The blogger market is becoming increasingly more saturated, as more and more Millenials want to be considered influencers. More often than not, bloggers with larger social media followings are hired over their low-follower peers, but how effective are the campaigns they are hired for? This talk will examine the realities of bloggers who are trying to make a living and whether or not these campaigns are actually paying off for the clients. A strong emphasis will be placed on the importance of systematic support in face to face discussions, versus faceless, less personal (and expensive!) sponsored posts on social media — and where the influencer world is heading. Spoiler alert: don’t quit your day job.