December 14, 2015 — I’ll start by showing you how to set up a contact form in under five minutes. In fact, you can time me! Then, I’ll show you all the options for making much more complicated, multiple-page forms. I’ll talk about using Gravity Forms as a simple shopping cart solution or a way to register users on your site. I’ll show just how flexible it can be by integrating it with Paypal, Stripe, Mailchimp, Zapier and many more services. Even if you’ve been using Gravity Forms for a long time, I’m betting that you will learn something new during my presentation.

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December 14, 2015 — You can stand in line at the store or stand in line online to get your hands on this “hot” New York pastry. This session will discuss the lessons learned in building an ecommerce site for James Beard Award-winning Chef Dominique Ansel’s Cronut. Learn how WordPress stands up to the crowds when we sell out of hundreds of pastries within 15 minutes every Monday morning. We’ll discuss things to consider when planning an ecommerce site and things we failed to consider until we were faced with overwhelming demand.

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December 14, 2015 — As designers we’re searching for the best – the best method, the best look, the best font. We have a continuous battle to create brands that are unique but that have a longstanding presence. We make tough decisions constantly, question our instincts, and settle. We fight and we strive to make long lasting beautiful, smart and informed design. How do we get there?

In this talk, seasoned Creative Director Sara Cannon is going to dive deep into the designers struggle. She’s going to share different processes that can make our work better. We’re going to discuss philosophy, methodology, and execution from the creative mind stand point. Hopefully by the end of the talk, you will be inspired to push your own creative limits and learned some tips on how to get there.

December 14, 2015 — Are you doing all you can before your website becomes accessible to billions of people? This talk is an overview of major elements to take into account before launching a successful WordPress website. Topics discussed include functionality, responsiveness, search engine optimization, speed, security, and backups.

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December 14, 2015 — Take your WordPress blog content to the next level when you re-purpose it into a digital eBook! eBooks are the new hot trend in marketing your website’s content, and you can assemble one easily using tools you likely already own! Learn about free vs. paid distribution options and how each style can benefit your website promotion strategy!

December 14, 2015 — Typography is a foundation of design. It can make or break your website. My aim with this talk is to point out some really basic, timeless typography rules that can help beginners to avoid classic mistakes and create better themes.
The talk will be useful not only for web designers but also for WordPress users because they will get a list of things to check typography-wise when choosing a new theme for their next project.

December 14, 2015 — We often forget when designing and developing websites that there are actual users on the other side of the screen. Whether through ability, age or cultural differences, there are a lot of ways that we can inadvertently alienate users. We sometimes forget that we’re making websites for our clients and customers, not ourselves.

In this presentation, I’ll give a brief rundown of considerations that should be given to make your website as effective to as wide a range of users as possible. Accessibility, internationalization, UX and UI changes will be covered, as well as some tips on how to determine your goal, and make your website work toward that goal for you.

December 13, 2015 — Educational technologists often find themselves in the unenviable position of tech-change communication at their institutions. While there came be a lot of enthusiastic educators advocating for such change, there can be just as many who regard a school’s adoption of new technologies like learning management systems as an imposition on their profession. A WordPress blog can serve both audiences as an information resource and training tool. This session will look at the University of Pennsylvania’s use of a WordPress blog as a case for serving such functions, as well as discuss how to apply this type of blogging to other tough tech-change-communication contexts (business, NGOs, etc).

December 13, 2015 — In 2012 and again in 2013, I hit the blogger’s dream — one of my posts went viral. As of today, it has over a million views and has been shared on Facebook 450,000 times:

During the two separate instances when it went viral, I learned a bunch of lessons on both blogging and hosting a website. The goal of the talk is to share these lessons and help bloggers be prepared should they go viral, too:

My hosting plan left my site woefully unprepared for spikes in traffic. What were some things I could have done to prepare?
My ad network shut down my account for alleged fraud, and I lost potentially thousands of dollars worth of ad revenue. Was there anything I could have done differently?
Tons of sites started republishing the post without permission. I even had to deal with a blatant case of plagiarism, when someone not only republished my post in its entirety, but changed the title and author. What was the best way to handle this?
I was also contacted by a few reputable sites (USA Today, HuffPost) to republish the post in its entirety. Was it worth it to grant permission?
Of course, the virility of the post drew the requisite trolls. What were some of the productive — and unproductive — ways to deal with them?

December 13, 2015 — I had a writer’s block and it was horrible: I felt uncreative, watched my blog dry up, crawled in the corner and cried. I felt like a loser. But I’m NOT a loser. So I fixed it. I created a blogging plan that involved only 10 minutes each day. My writer’s block disappeared, my blog stats climbed, and I now know how to turn it around when I find myself neglecting my site.

Whether you are a personal blogger or run a business website, this talk will give strategies for adding content without huge time investments. Learn how to eliminate writer’s block, create material relevant to your site’s purpose, compile content for later publication, and build a regular publishing habit.