December 30, 2019 — The WordPress community is comprised of people and their relationships with one another and the open source CMS itself. Combined we are a global neighborhood, complete with volunteers, freelancers, employees, a marketplace, and a multitude of opportunities; opportunities for relationships, working, learning, teaching, sharing, volunteering, and more.

At its foundation, its most fundamental part, this neighborhood is built by every individual member. We are each an integral part of this growing, morphing phenomenon, so it is up to us to ensure that it is a robust living organism.

How do we do that?

*For Myself: by making sure I stay healthy both physically and emotionally
*For You: by checking in on my friends and coworkers to help where needed
*For Us: by contributing to the community in thoughtful and deliberate ways

This talk will share ideas to keep us all healthy, learning, and flourishing, for the betterment of ourselves, each other, and the WordPress neighborhood.

October 9, 2019 — Have you ever had a client insist on having admin access to their website? They own it, so they have that right…but how long did it take before they called you to fix what they broke once they logged in?

While clients who break their own sites are guaranteed revenue, those calls never come at a convenient time and are ALWAYS urgent.

So what can we do to both empower our clients and make sure their sites continue to run well?

This talk will present several ideas for ways that we can do just that, including:

Helpful plugins
How to train a client in WordPress
How to set user permissions
How to set pricing for fixing mistakes
Creating a user manual
Other tips for managing the client relationship

Attendees will leave with some good ideas and action items to better help clients help themselves…or not.

September 19, 2019 — Have you ever had a client insist on having admin access to their website? They own it, so they have that right…but how long did it take before they called you to fix what they broke once they logged in?

While clients who break their own sites are guaranteed revenue, those calls never come at a convenient time and are ALWAYS urgent.

So what can we do to both empower our clients and make sure their sites continue to run well?

This talk will present several ideas for ways that we can do just that, including:

Helpful plugins
How to train a client in WordPress
How to set user permissions
How to set pricing for fixing mistakes
Creating a user manual
Other tips for managing the client relationship
Attendees will leave with some good ideas and action items to better help clients help themselves…or not.

July 26, 2019 — From the brains of @themattyg comes a panel discussion on the use of page builders now that Gutenberg is in core. Joining us will be @MichelleAmes and guests yet to be announced!

Questions that could be touched on:

What does Gutenberg solve that Page Builders don’t? Vice Versa?Should page builders continue to be their own interface or adapt and integrate into Gutenberg as a collection of blocks?Why would a user want to use both a page builder and Gutenberg on the same site? Would they want to?Should developers focus on developing for page builders, Gutenberg or neither?How are you using Gutenberg today? How are you using page builders today?How do we change our approach to building sites for clients, when they have this new level of control?When starting a new WordPress site, what considerations would you take when choosing between a page builder, Gutenberg or the classic editor? Which one would you choose?If you already use a page builder on your site, would you consider switching to Gutenberg?

July 26, 2019 — Have you ever had a client insist on having admin access to their website? They own it, so they have that right…but how long did it take before they called you to fix what they broke once they logged in?

While clients who break their own sites are guaranteed revenue, those calls never come at a convenient time and are ALWAYS urgent.

So what can we do to both empower our clients and make sure their sites continue to run well?

This talk will present several ideas for ways that we can do just that, including:

Helpful pluginsHow to train a client in WordPressHow to set user permissionsHow to set pricing for fixing mistakesCreating a user manualOther tips for managing the client relationship

Attendees will leave with some good ideas and action items to better help clients help themselves…or not.

May 7, 2019 — The WordPress community is comprised of people and their relationships with one another and the open source CMS itself. Combined we are a global neighborhood, complete with volunteers, freelancers, employees, a marketplace, and a multitude of opportunities; opportunities for relationships, working, learning, teaching, sharing, volunteering, and more.
At its foundation, its most fundamental part, this neighborhood is built by every individual member. We are each an integral part of this growing, morphing phenomenon, so it is up to us to ensure that it is a robust living organism.
How do we do that?

For Myself: by making sure I stay healthy both physically and emotionally
For You: by checking in on my friends and coworkers to help where needed
For Us: by contributing to the community in thoughtful and deliberate ways

This talk will share ideas to keep us all healthy, learning, and flourishing, for the betterment of ourselves, each other, and the WordPress neighborhood.

December 14, 2018 — There are WordPress Features You May Not Know. If you are like many, there always seem to be things you wish you could do with WordPress, but maybe can’t figure out. This session will provide you with some great tips and tricks for you to make working with WordPress even easier. From changing the number of posts on the dashboard page, to adding a target to link to on the menu dashboard, there are many things that are easy to accomplish — if only you know where to look. Not only are there screen options on almost every dashboard page, but there are help pulldowns, too, helping to answer questions before you might even need to turn to help in a forum. We will also cover shortcuts for use in the editor window, and a quick and easy way to save your favorite plugins to find at a click to upload to your site.

Presentation Slides »

December 13, 2018 — WordPress powers almost a third of the internet, making it not only powerful, but as an open source project, WordPress is a tremendous gift to all of us. So what do you do with an amazing gift like this?

Make a living from it.
Have fun with it.
Give back.
Pay it forward.
All of the above!
I make a living with WordPress, but I’m also what you might call a “serial volunteer.”

In the years that I’ve created a career with WordPress, I have also set aside time to help others through:

Mentoring
Organizing Meetups
Organizing Hackathons
WordCamp organizing and speaking
Creating WordPress classes and clinics
Setting up WordPress coworking days
Creating free and discounted non-profit websites
and more!
There’s a side effect to giving and giving back with WordPress: I’ve found that the more I give…the more I’ve gained: friendships, clients, jobs, and the warm feeling that only comes from sharing good things.

June 4, 2018 — WordPress powers almost a third of the internet, making it not only powerful, but as an open source project, WordPress is a tremendous gift to all of us. So what do you do with an amazing gift like this?

Make a living from it.
Have fun with it.
Give back.
Pay it forward.
All of the above!

I make a living with WordPress, but I’m also what you might call a “serial volunteer.”
In the years that I’ve created a career with WordPress, I have also set aside time to help others through:

Mentoring
Organizing Meetups
Organizing Hackathons
WordCamp organizing and speaking
Creating WordPress classes and clinics
Setting up WordPress coworking days
Creating free and discounted non-profit websites
and more!

There’s a side effect to giving and giving back with WordPress: I’ve found that the more I give…the more I’ve gained: friendships, clients, jobs, and the warm feeling that only comes from sharing good things.
Attendees can expect to learn more about the social power of WordPress, how the WordPress community functions, and how giving back is really a way to give to yourself.

May 3, 2018 — This session will provide you with some great tips and tricks for you to make working with WordPress even easier. From changing the number of posts on the dashboard page, to adding a target to link to on the menu dashboard, there are many things that are easy to accomplish — if only you know where to look. Not only are there screen options on almost every dashboard page, but there are help pulldowns, too, helping to answer questions before you might even need to turn to help in a forum. We will also cover shortcuts for use in the editor window, and a quick and easy way to save your favorite plugins to find at a click to upload to your site.