June 1, 2020 — A two-person panel, featuring Francesca Marano and Umar Draz, discussing how to start and maintain a healthy, local community. Some of the questions covered:
– Why did they start the community?
– What issues did they faced (and are they still facing)?
– What advice would they give to others that are thinking about starting a local community?

May 30, 2020 — In this talk, Francesca will go over the basic sections of a business plan and show you some examples of how you can make one that represents you and your business.

Presentation Slides »

November 18, 2019 — WordPress è sicuro? Sì, certo! Tuttavia, un’installazione obsoleta di WordPress, con una password debole e plugin mal scelti, è decisamente vulnerabile.

Si dice spesso che “la sicurezza è un processo” e la sicurezza del proprio sito inizia con l’installazione di WordPress. Perché dovresti preoccuparti della sicurezza dal primo giorno, quando il tuo sito è nuovo di zecca e solo tua mamma lo legge? Cosa dovresti fare da solo, mentre il tuo sito cresce, quando non hai (ancora) il budget per assumere un esperto? Come puoi rendere più sicura la navigazione dei tuoi visitatori? Come puoi minimizzare il rischio di essere hackerato?

In questo talk, esaminerò alcune best practice che è possibile implementare per rendere il tuo sito più sicuro e perché dovresti averne cura. Nessuno di questi richiede una singola riga di codice. Tutto ciò di cui hai bisogno è buon senso e una buona comprensione di cosa fare e cosa non fare quando gestisci il tuo sito.

Presentation Slides »

November 14, 2019 — In this workshop I will go over the basic sections of a business plan and show you some examples of how you can make one that represents you and your business. There will be worksheets to help you draft your first business plan and crayons and markers to make it more fun!

November 14, 2019 — In this workshop I will go over the basic sections of a business plan and show you some examples of how you can make one that represents you and your business. There will be worksheets to help you draft your first business plan and crayons and markers to make it more fun!

October 11, 2019 — Networking is a great tool to grow your business. It can help you find new ideas, new customers, new partners, and even a new job if you are looking for a career change. Networking comes naturally to some people but is dreaded by others. It can be hard if you are not an extrovert and it is time consuming. The good news is you can learn how to network! How do you get out of your comfort zone and push yourself to talk to potentially interesting people? How do you measure the return on investment? How do you find a good balance between schmoosing and getting down to business? Let’s find out together!

October 11, 2019 — Dieci anni fa quando si iniziava un’attività la prima spesa erano i biglietti da visita. Oggi si pensa prima al sito. Spesso i freelance creano un sito senza un piano e un obiettivo chiari. È vero che WordPress rende relativamente facile la creazione di un sito, ma sarebbe meglio farsi alcune domande prima di imbarcarsi in questa impresa (sì, è epica e no, non c’è bisogno di imparare a scrivere codice).
Tutti i freelance hanno bisogno di un sito?
Se si decide di crearne uno, quali pagine dovrebbero assolutamente esserci?
Quali informazioni sono utili per i lettori? Quali assolutamente inutili?
E questi lettori poi, chi sono? E come si scrive proprio per loro.
In questa sessione esplorerò delle domande comuni che i freelance hanno prima di costruire il proprio sito e cercherò di dare delle risposte che aiutino in questa epica impresa.

Presentation Slides »

August 26, 2019 — Is WordPress insecure? Not at all! However, an outdated WordPress installation with a weak password and poorly chosen plugins is definitely insecure.

It’s often said that “security is a process”, and the security of your own site starts with you installing the WordPress. Why should you care about security from day one, when your website is brand new and only your mom reads it? What should you do yourself, while your site grows, even if you do not (yet) have the budget to hire experts? How can you make your visitors browsing safer? How can you minimize the chance you site got hacked?

In this talk I will go over some best practices you can implement to make your website safer and why you should care about them. None of these require a single line of code, only some common sense and understanding what is right and what should be avoided as a behaviour while you manage your site.

June 19, 2019 — The Italian WordPress community was dormant for years, until a bunch of people got together at WCEU Contributor Day in Seville, in 2015, and decided it was time to revive it.

After months of online chats in our Slack team, we organised an event that kick-started an avalanche of Meetups and WordCamps in Italy: a stand-alone Contributor Day.

Four years later, Italy has more than 30 active Meetups, 6 cities with WordCamps in planning stages, and a great number of Contributors across the project.

In this talk, I’ll go through the steps we took to organise it and I will also talk about Contributor Nights, special Meetup events where we concentrate on one of the Make teams and learn how to contribute from scratch.

June 10, 2019 — When I started my business in 2011, I didn’t think I needed a business plan. I only needed clients, tons of clients. Even though my title was Web Designer, I took every job that came my way. I made WordPress websites, of course, but also did graphic design, print design, social media management, training — basically anything!

In less than eight months, I had to go back to work as an employee because I managed to spend way more money than I earned.
I kept freelancing on the side with no direction whatsoever and finally, I realised that I needed a plan.

It doesn’t matter what your financial goal is for the year or your mission for your small business. Having measurable goals and a clear strategy will allow you to do what you love and make a living out of it.

In this talk I will go over the basic sections of a business plan and show you some examples of how you can make one that represents you and your business.

Presentation Slides »