January 7, 2016 — If you’ve written a line of code in any language, you’ve gotten into a state where you don’t necessarily know what the frig is going on. That thing – it’s right there in the template! Or right in that functions.php file, but nothing happens! Or the wrong thing happens! AAAAAAAARGH!

Sure, you can try adding “echo”, “print_r”, “var_dumps” and the like all over the place, but it’s messy, and there is a better way. With a little bit of set up (but not much – seriously), you too can debug like a champ. If you’ve never seen a real debugger before, or if you’ve just dabbled with one, this talk could change your life substantially for the better.

January 7, 2016 — Having a website is a great but if you do not know what is working and what is not, are you getting the most out of your site? This presentation we will go over the analytics dashboard and describe some of the uses for specific areas. We will also go over a list of things to do right now to improve your data. This involves things like setting up site search, custom filters to remove common spam referrers, setup goals and automating your reports.

January 7, 2016 — The story begins with a simple, but valuable, warning from experience: that even the best developers can fall victim to the pressures of routine. This talk discusses how results can quickly be replaced by burnout and imposter syndrome.

The cure for Jason was a WordPress plugin framework, purpose-built to rediscover his confidence and fall in love with coding all over again. We follow his journey back to development bliss through the challenges of creating space for experimentation without the usual client pressures, transitioning from pet project to collaborative product, and learning to accept that it’s okay not to know everything.

The success (and failures) of the experiment soon fed into the philosophy of Big Bite and began to influence everything from how they worked to the environment they created for their staff, as well as how they communicated with clients and gave back to the digital community.

Learn the ways in which open source can be embraced, from the smallest acts of personal knowledge sharing to the broadest business practices.

Presentation Slides »

January 7, 2016 — The classic contest. Themes against plugins. Which are better? Which can solve your problems, fix your site and grow your business? In this epic showdown we’ll explore the purposes and use cases, pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses of these two critical components of any WordPress website.

Presentation Slides »

January 7, 2016 — Ever thought about creating a Blogging Schedule to really take your blog to the next level? If you have you maybe asked yourself “How many post per week or month should I write?”. This is a tricky question and I want to help answer it with a method I developed called the 20/30 Rule. We will come back to that in a moment. First I would like you to imagine having an engaged audience that loves to read every new article you publish.

It has been proven that the best way to become an expert in your field is to write. So, what is holding you back? I bet the first thing is time and a close second for some is what to write about. For the purpose of this talk, you are going to be helped with the time portion of your blogging fear.

Presentation Slides »

January 7, 2016 — I’ve been focused on selling WordPress products for almost 5 years now. I started out selling themes, last year my company AppPresser grew from 0 to $30k/mo. I recently released a SaaS product that has had a steep learning curve. Join me and learn about the ups and downs of selling WordPress products.

Presentation Slides »

January 7, 2016 — A tongue in cheek review of the things you can do to make your plugin submission make the review team cry, from pestering everyone and their mother about the speed of a review to simple mistakes that make the process take longer than it should.

Presentation Slides »

January 7, 2016 — An American turns 50 every 7 seconds. The senior age group is now, for the first time, the largest in terms of size and percent of the population in the U.S. Those aged 50 and older represent 45% of the U.S. population. One-third of the internet users in the U.S., are adults aged 50+ representing the Web’s largest constituency.

WordPress sites must be designed with this in mind. You will learn how to meet seniors’ needs from one of their own.

Presentation Slides »

January 7, 2016 — You love WordPress, and if you are not already making a nice living with it, why not? The WordPress economy is expanding and more people are becoming involved in all aspects around WordPress, whether it be freelancing and entrepreneurship, blogging and content creation, search engine optimization, social media and marketing, developing plugins and themes, designing sites, User Interface, Maintenance, User Experience, Executives, Project Managers, Teachers, Presenters, and on… all working with WordPress in some capacity. This light-hearted session will break down several different types of popular positions and some of the requirements to do that job, which traits work best with which titles, and how you can begin to find your dream WordPress job.

Presentation Slides »

January 6, 2016 — Prevention is the key to plugin vulnerabilities! Learn what to look for in your own code to help safeguard from potential issues. A step-by-step guide will be provided on how to avoid vulnerabilities and make your code more secure. With the generosity of popular plugin authors, we will review some recent vulnerabilities found, share how they fixed the problems and discuss the best methods for getting the word out about your plugin once it’s been securely updated. Yes, there will be code.

Presentation Slides »