April 9, 2024 — In this talk I’ll share how being part of the WordPress industry enabled me to pursue my two passions: family and professional development.

My story begins with the founding of a WordPress development agency, a venture born out of a love for web development and the endless possibilities offered by the WordPress platform. I’ll share the highs and lows of entrepreneurial life—tackling client projects, navigating industry trends, and building a team—all while balancing the responsibilities of a growing family.

Selling the agency after thirteen years paved the way for a new venture: Strattic. This new direction brought with it new challenges, and demanded I learn the ins-and-outs of the startup business model. We’ll dive into the dynamic landscape of startup life within the WordPress space. After being acquired by Elementor, I had to learn to transition from being a founder and CEO for seventeen years to being an employee. This brought its own challenges, and demanded that I adjust while learning a lot about myself.

Central to this narrative is the unparalleled experience of being an active participant in the WordPress community. I’ll share the demands it places on time and resources but, more importantly, how it gives back in so many meaningful ways. The WordPress community has been a transformative force, exposing me to diverse perspectives, introducing me to individuals beyond my immediate circles, and immersing me in rich and varied cultures.

Working in the WordPress space has been a unique experience—one where the lines between work and passion blur. I’ll delve into why contributing to the WordPress community doesn’t feel like traditional work but rather a collaborative journey of knowledge-sharing and enablement of personal goals.

December 9, 2023 — Panelists share their experience of building their local WordPress community and inspire you to start or get involved with yours.

September 30, 2023 — For product companies wanting to grow in the WordPress ecosystem, strategic partnerships are often the best place to focus your efforts.

Join us for an active discussion with a group who knows partnerships well and together we’ll learn more about how to think and where to focus our energy to grow through partnerships.

September 29, 2023 — Join us for a comprehensive and engaging panel discussion at this year’s WordCamp as we delve into the world of performance optimization in WordPress. Our panelists, representing a diverse range of experience and expertise from site owners to plugin developers to core contributors, will share their insights and thoughts about website speed and overall performance and user experience.

During the panel, we will discuss the common challenges faced when it comes to performance optimization, and how to overcome them. Our panelists will also discuss why performance is critical for a good user experience, and how it can impact the success of a website.

Panelists will discuss the tools and best practices they follow when optimizing performance. We will also discuss how to handle performance challenges specific to different areas, how to balance features vs. their performance impact, and ideas for how we might leverage Gutenberg and Site Editing to improve WordPress performance in the future.

Join us and learn what it takes to take your website or product performance to the next level!

June 18, 2020 — Miriam says that when she started with WordPress, it was a shiny, exciting product with endless functionality. But, as the years wore on, WordPress started to lose its lustre. The future of WordPress overall was in question.
She believes we are now seeing the beginning of a WordPress renaissance. JavaScript, headless, and JAMstack are making developers excited once again. This is a very promising shift for our community since products can live or die by the enthusiasm (or lack thereof) of developers. In this talk, Miriam will discuss what this evolution means for WordPress the platform, and the steps we can take to support and encourage this momentum, and ensure the future of our favorite CMS for many years to come.

September 2, 2019

December 29, 2018 — Content security policies (CSPs) are a relatively new security element on the web horizon. CSPs use browsers to detect and mitigate certain types of attacks like cross-site scripting (XSS), clickjacking and other code injection attacks resulting from execution of malicious content in the trusted web page context. CSPs can be used for simple purposes like enforcing https on SSL-enabled sites, to more sophisticated uses like authorizing only truly trusted sources and blocking others.

Most sites do not have CSPs installed, but it’s important to be aware of them and how they can be used to add an additional layer of security to your website.

July 5, 2018 — Content security policies (CSPs) are a relatively new security element on the web horizon. CSPs use browsers to detect and mitigate certain types of attacks like cross-site scripting (XSS), clickjacking and other code injection attacks resulting from execution of malicious content in the trusted web page context. CSPs can be used for simple purposes like enforcing https on SSL-enabled sites, to more sophisticated uses like authorizing only truly trusted sources and blocking others.

Most sites do not have CSPs installed, but it’s important to be aware of them and how they can be used to add an additional layer of security to your website.

Presentation Slides »

June 22, 2017 — Reports show that WordPress is the most hacked platform on the web. But that doesn’t mean your site has to be hacked too. In fact, keeping WordPress safe is pretty easy. After a decade of hosting and maintaining WordPress sites at illuminea, many of which are highly targeted by hackers and have even been shared on the dark web, we’ve had to learn how to keep them secure without going crazy. We’ve found that there are a few simple measures that site owners can take that cover 90% of the security issues. We’ll also look at tools and tweaks that can harden and protect your sites even more. Most of these steps can be implemented by beginner users, while some need more experience.

September 29, 2016 — Content is king, and is an important part of driving targeted, quality traffic to your site. Studies have shown that content featuring an eye-catching visual perform better across social networks. You no longer have to be a graphic designer to create beautiful visuals – we will go through techniques and tools that can help you look great online quickly and easily.