Presented by Shayda Torabi in Paul Duke.

People are doing amazing things with WordPress every day. Whether it’s your friend at an agency down the road, or a designer across the world, WordPress is transforming peoples lives. It’s empowering. Whether you’re looking for ways to grow your business or trying to get more connected in your city, I believe that the tools to be successful exist within the WordPress community. I’m going to share insights from my experience at over 30 WordCamps, and teach you ways in which I believe you can build key business relationships while helping contribute your own story to the WordPress community. You showed up today, don’t you want to make the most of your weekend?

Presented by Naomi C. Bush in Anne Cramer.

How many times have you asked (or seen someone else ask): Do you know of a plugin that can do ___? My client wants to ___. Sometimes what you’re looking for is sitting right under your nose, ready to go to work for you and your clients. Come learn how I use a simple form builder (yes, that thing you use to create contact forms) to build complex custom applications, with no code.

Presented by Nancy Thanki in Mark C. Pope.

Accessibility is so much more than just catering to screen readers. What goes into making a website accessible? Many government contracts require websites to be accessible. A variety of companies and brands want them. It can affect the “magic” of SEO (ranking, search-ability, search engine karma, etc). How can you determine whether or not your website is?

Ultimately, it’s really not that hard, doing even one thing is better than nothing at all, and it’s never too late to start thinking about it. This talk will discuss both tools and techniques that can help you build accessible websites.

Presented by Brian Richards in Paul Duke.

Building websites with WordPress is fun, challenging, exciting. Building solutions that fundamentally alter a person’s behavior or the way of business for an entire network of museums? That’s nothing short of incredible.

Come and learn how WordPress helped transform an art museum, a library, and a national fitness center by awarding digital badges for real-world participation.

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Editorial note: In this presentation I’ll walk through case studies that feature the use of WordPress, BuddyPress, and BadgeOS (a WordPress plugin I helped develop) to build systems for the YMCA of Greater New York, Dallas Museum of Art, and the Pierce County Library System. Each of these systems offer digital badges and points to participants for completing various activities – “gamifying” WordPress. In the case of the DMA, they fundamentally altered their business model around this new medium of visitor engagement.

Presented by Julien Melissas in Ballroom.

As a middleman between Designers, Developers, Project Managers, and Clients in countless web projects, Julien has noticed lots of things that we could be doing to make our projects and lives better. Changing your workflows can improve everything for everyone.
Project phases covered will include:

• Kicking it off
• Planning/Project Management
• Design
• Development
• Content/Bugs
• Testing
• Launch/Handing the site off to the client

Perfecting your workflow can help you level up your professionalism, relationships with clients & colleagues, and happiness levels!

Let’s make better websites together!

Presented by Zachary Skaggs in Anne Cramer.

In 2014 Matt Mullenweg coined the phrase “Five for the Future” when asking those who make their living on the WordPress platform to give back to the WordPress community in some way by donating 5% of their time to the project. It’s an awesome goal, but can be intimidating and seem out of reach for a majority of WordPress users (especially non-developers). Here we will discuss many ways to leave a positive mark on the future of WordPress without writing a single line of code. From beginner to pro, ANYONE can contribute to WordPress with minimal effort if they know where to look.

Presented by Angelica Yarde in Mark C. Pope.

In this talk, users of all levels can expect to learn different ways to create content strategies for their WordPress sites and blogs. I will cover several ways to create an editorial calendar. how to generate content ideas, and resources for implementing good content creation practices using tools in WordPress.

Presented by Kate Newbill in Ballroom.

The biggest and best-known ecommerce solution for WordPress does everything. It’s flexible, extendable, and almost infinitely configurable. It’s a Swiss Army Knife with 276 blades. But if all you need is a bottle opener, do you really need to walk around with a 2kg knife in your pocket?

We’ll talk about the things you need to consider when choosing an ecommerce solution. I’ll give you a list of questions to help you decide. And we’ll discuss some of the available WordPress ecommerce products so you can make an informed decision.

Presented by Mickey Mellen in Anne Cramer.

In this presentation I’ll be sharing all of the tools that we use at GreenMellen to help us keep moving forward. We’ll dig into the products we use, but also into some of their competition so you can decide what works best for you. This will cover areas including organization (such as Asana), communication (such as Slack), files and notes (such as Dropbox), education and reading (such as Feedly), social media (such as Buffer), development (such as ManageWP), SEO (such as Moz) and business (such as Freshbooks).

• Slides

Presented by Shelly Peacock in Anne Cramer.

If you have ever had a client pick out a random theme, and asked you to build it out- then you spent 2 days learning how it worked- then this is for you. Don’t spend all your time learning new wheels- get a framework and learn it inside and out.
Frameworks are going to be your best friend- there are several out there, I will talk about my top four faves- and the pros and cons of each. And, there are so many snippet resources out there- implementation will be your best teacher.
The Bonus? Build sites in 2 days, not 2 weeks.

Presented by Lisa Melegari in Paul Duke.

We can’t all be experts, but we all can do something to contribute to the WordPress project. I’ll be the first to admit I’m still a beginner with WordPress even after using it for 8 years. But I never let my lack of knowledge hinder me from being a source of help and service to the WordPress community. I’m here to share my story of how anyone, regardless of WordPress know-how, can get involved and do some good in their local community or the WordPress project at large.

Presented by Nicky Pink in Ballroom.

With tens of thousands of themes available for your WordPress website, choosing between them and knowing which to avoid, can be an overwhelming decision. In this talk, we will go over some of the factors that go into choosing the best theme for your website, as well as where to find them and how to gauge the quality.

• Slides

Presented by Rich Robinkoff in Paul Duke.

​So much attention is paid to the code that goes into making WordPress a stellar product, but you don’t hear much about the human side of it. While you will find the occasional blog post or random tweet talking about mental health and happiness in the WordPress community, most overlook the best way to contribute to WordPress…paying attention to your mental and physical health, and taking care of each other. Give back to WordPress by stepping back from the code and looking at the world around you.

Presented by Aaron Reimann in Ballroom.

The Elegant Themes “Divi” theme is quickly becoming one of the most popular WordPress themes available. Aaron will share best practices and ideas to help make the most of your Divi installation.

Presented by Mallie Hart in Paul Duke.

Learn about amazing tools to help you improve your blogging. We will go over a variety of tools including tools for idea generation, planning, creating, editing, and marketing. Take your blog to the next level by learning about these tools today!

Presented by Aaron Reimann in Mark C. Pope.

As a developer I’ve never been a big fan of page builders. If you want something done, do it yourself was my mindset. Now that I can’t build as quickly as a client wants I have been forced to use page builders. I’ll be comparing some of the good, bad and ugly ones.

Presented by Jenny Munn, Tom Nguyen, Mickey Mellen in Ballroom.

We’ll have a panel of local SEO Experts Tom Nguyen, Jenny Munn and Mickey Mellen, answering your questions and discussing the latest changes and techniques to help get your site to the top of Google.

Presented by Rich Owings in Ballroom.

I will focus on how local search engine optimization (SEO) differs from traditional SEO, and why it is so important to local businesses. I’ll outline the key components of local SEO and explain how you can use your WordPress site to strengthen each of them.

Attendees will learn:

• How local SEO differs from traditional website SEO
• The major components of local SEO
• Ways to optimize their WordPress site for local SEO

Presented by Tom Tortorici in Mark C. Pope.

The visual design of a website is only half the job. The other half is the writing, which can engage and convert visitors if it’s done right — or push them away if it’s done wrong. Come find out why good marketing copy is just as much about the customer as it is about the company. Check out a slew of home page makeovers, to see how a creative treatment of a strategic message makes a business stand out. And uncover insights for making a genuine connection with those nice people who visit your (or your client’s) site.

Not a writer? Get helpful tips for working with copywriters.

Presented by Judi Knight in Ballroom.

Come and learn the usability rules for home page design that will keep people on your website. Then we will take volunteers who want valuable user feedback and apply the rules that we just learned in giving actionable advice for improvement. This is a fantastic way to see web design problems and what to do about them in the wild. Fun and eye opening for all.

Presented by Melissa Eggleston in Mark C. Pope.

What communication mistakes do organizations make that cause them to be zombie-like? Learn about research on identity and communication that impacts content decisions on our websites. In this session, we’ll discuss how to avoid being like “the undead” by:

• identifying communication problems on the web generally and on your own website
• determining your organization’s identity (it’s not the same thing as your brand)
• finding consistency in written and visual content with your identity
• selecting the right visuals for your website (photos, videos, graphics) and avoiding problematic ones
• getting others on board with this consistency (it’s sometimes like herding cats, I know)

We will talk about real-life examples of these various issues. You’ll walk away with practical tips you can begin using immediately to improve your organization’s communication on your website and beyond.

Presented by Rachel Carden in Paul Duke.

Much like online businesses or blogging, higher ed is a world of its own with unique challenges, content, stakeholders, and target audiences. In our world, we don’t worry so much about which eCommerce plugin is best. Instead, we’re more concerned with how to manage a large-scale network of faculty blogs, abide with FERPA regulations, and implement Active Directory single sign-on. This talk will showcase how WordPress is used in the world of higher ed and how we’re a great candidate for utilizing WordPress to its full potential, whether it’s using the powerful CMS to stretch limited resources or using its new API capabilities to share information and break down silos.

Presented by Lew Ayotte in Ballroom.

Security can be complex, intimidating, and even frightening. Don’t let the enormity of it scare you into inaction. Learn what some of the security researchers and security professionals deal with, and then find out some simple steps you can take to secure your sites.

Presented by Adam Walker in Paul Duke.

I’m a digital marketer with a love for my community and the nonprofits that serve my community. Some friends and I set out to create a way to help marketing professionals and developers use their specific skills to help local nonprofits, and 48in48 (48in48.org) was born. We recently finished our first 48in48 event where a team of over 150 people built 48 WordPress websites for 48 nonprofits in 48 hours. This session will explore what I learned during the creation, planning and execution of the event and will give some thoughts on how the WordPress community can give back using their professional skills.

This session will discuss:

– How we approached building a plethora of sites a short amount of time
– How we approached the volunteers
– What plugins we used that were essential for the success of the project and for the long term success of the nonprofits.
– Overview of what we learned and what we plan to do next.

Presented by Mitch Canter in Anne Cramer.

In this session Mitch will go over the inner workings of WooCommerce, an eCommerce platform built into WordPress. From initial setup to customization, he’ll cover everything you need to know in order to successfully run a WooCommerce installation. Finally, he’ll go over some great plugins and code snippets (in use on client sites) that have taken WooCommerce from “good” to “amazing”.

Presented by Micah Wood, Aaron Reimann in Mark C. Pope.

A workshop specifically for people who either know other frameworks and want to learn how to build within WordPress or for people who know how to hack at a theme but want to know how to do it “correctly”. We will be assuming that people in this track will already be familiar with CSS, HTML, PHP, Git (conceptually speaking) and have some local development experience.

Presented by Brian M Hilliard in Paul Duke.

Presented by Scott Mann in Anne Cramer.

Scott comes from a long line of business owners that drove their businesses into the ground by being too nice. He spent 5 years not charging enough and 10 years doing favors that were never returned. He’s here to share some of his hard-knock tips and tactics on staying nice but earning what you deserve and leveling up your business.

Presented by Ben Stoffel-Rosales in Ballroom.

Successful businesses have happy customers. Taking the time to discover the real problems, pain points and opportunities of your clients will help you propose and sell the solutions they need. This will make them happy. Your business will benefit as a result.

This presentation will cover:

• The importance of Discovery and how to conduct it.
• How to help customers define clear business objectives so you can enable their success.
• How articulate differentiation and focus on value instead of price.
• Choosing hourly vs fixed bid pricing based on the situation.
• When and how to bundle additional services like hosting, SEO and support services.
• How and when to say no to new prospects

Presented by David Laietta in Ballroom.

Do you want to learn how to work better on the web? We’re going to chat about ways that you can improve your workflow, automate some common tasks, and offload the things that you don’t want to do to focus on the parts of working for yourself that you chose in the first place!

I’ve done web development since high school, and have run a web development company for the past seven years. A majority of that time was solely self-employed, but I’ve also worked for others, worked in teams, hired contractors, and worked as a contractor. There are pros and cons to each of these situations, and I’m here to discuss my experiences, as well as how to get the best out of these situations.

Presented by Val Hudgins in Anne Cramer.

The WordPress community is typically one of sharing – what we know, what we do, info on the latest big thing and the latest threat. Would sharing your knowledge of WordPress be right for you? Should you charge for it? What pitfalls are there? What are the benefits vs. the cost to produce a WordPress class? Are you considering consulting one-on-one or teaching a seminar to a roomful of people? Valerie will share her journey of teaching WordPress beginning classes and intermediate seminars over two states and three years. She’s interviewed other WordPress instructors and will share some of their insights, too. She’ll give you ideas, pointers, talk responsibility and give some warnings and encouragements that may just add to your bottom line.

Presented by Melanie G. Adcock in Ballroom.

Or what I wish I knew six years ago when I started my freelance business.

Are you a freelancer? Or thinking of taking the plunge? I want to share with you the mistakes I’ve made so you can avoid them and the process I now use to win clients and the process of taking a client from a lead to delivery.

• Incoming Leads
• Qualifying Leads
• Client Meetings
• Writing Proposals/Contracts
• Educating clients and anti follow-up
• Onboarding
• Delivery
• Referral Machine
• Recurring Revenue

I’ll also cover some great tools and systems along the way.

Presented by Nathan Ingram in Anne Cramer.

Unpredictable income creates stress and anxiety for many freelancers. Learn how to stabilize your business with a growing revenue stream of recurring income based on WordPress maintenance plans. We’ll talk about why this is important, how to package and price your services, and how to sell your services to clients.

Presented by Jason Coleman in Anne Cramer.

I’ll go over the past 5 years of our business as we developed Paid Memberships Pro, integrated it into our consulting, and then eventually transitioned to a 100% products business.

For background, some of this is covered in our transparency report blog post from this past summer:

Original Post: http://www.paidmembershipspro.com/2015/07/transparency-report-this-is-how-much-weve-made-since-2012/

Follow Up: http://www.paidmembershipspro.com/2015/11/transparency-report-pmpro-plus-launch-update/

This talk will be helpful for any WordPress developers or consultants who are thinking of building products of their own. I’ll use our own story as one example of how to do this, with advice that should helpful for businesses and freelancers looking to increase the value of their consulting services, add revenue streams from products, or transition 100% into products like we did.

Presented by Mallie Hart in Mark C. Pope.

You often come across discussions about balance when it comes to websites, usually taking a deeper look at the balance between design and development.

What you won’t see too often, if ever – I like to think it’s a fairly original idea on my part – is the balance of target with the design/development itself. Is the website designed for the creator or for the consumer audience.

I’m not saying this hasn’t been discussed, it absolutely has. However, most of those discussions end with a clear black or white answer. It’s either all about the company (creator) or all about the audience (consumer).

I believe, strongly, that there’s a way to meet in the middle – perhaps leaning slightly in one direction or the other – that allows both the creator and the consumer to get the most out of the site design.

And I believe, even more strongly, that WordPress is the solution that allows for this careful balance. And that’s what this topic would really be about …

Better and balanced designs can be both uniquely beautiful and imminently useful – especially when created with WordPress and all it has to offer.

Presented by Michael Earley in Mark C. Pope.

Firebug is the secret weapon of designers who are beginning to learn to customize WordPress websites. It is a great way to start to see CSS in action. The day you learn to change your site’s H2 headers for your blog post titles from blue to green will be the day you are on your way to having design power. We will go over using Firebug to find the elements that you would like to change and how to write css and see the changes happen before your very eyes. You don’t have to know css before this presentation since we will go over some of the basics to show you what you will be looking for.

Presented by Carel Bekker in Anne Cramer.

I’ll introduce the audience to AWS (Amazon Web Services) hosting and we’ll go through a step by step process to install WordPress on AWS. It will include many tips & tricks. This session will also include an overview of some key features of AWS that makes it so great for WordPress hosting.

Presented by Daniel Espinoza in Mark C. Pope.

In this talk I’ll present best practices for building extensions to the WooCommerce ecommerce plugin. I’ll explain how WooCommerce handles important data such as Products, Orders, Customers, and general settings. I will also show how to access and interact with ecommerce data.

I will also show how to modify areas of an ecommerce store like the Checkout process, My Account area, and Product pages.

Presented by Matt Cheney in Mark C. Pope.

WordPress is coming of age as an application platform. Plugins like WP-API 2.0 and the JSON REST API have arrived, opening up new opportunities for how websites and applications are constructed with WordPress as a CMS. More and more developers are discovering the benefits of “decoupled” development for websites and applications, where the front-end client (website, native mobile, desktop) is built as a separate system from the CMS itself.

This method of development has many applications:
– Coordinate front and back-end development in parallel via “the API Contract”.
– Use lean/elegant markup and best-of-breed front end development tools.
– Build rich interactive experiences leveraging modern JS frameworks like AngularJS or React.
– Support native mobile applications, the “internet of things”, and other web services.
– Provide content for applications in museum/gallery installations.

If you’re a developer who has been looking to try out some of these use-cases, or follow some of these new practices, there’s no better time than now to get started. This presentation will:
– Introduce you to decoupled development
– Showcase examples where WordPress serves as the CMS for websites, native iOS/Android applications, and museum touchscreens
– Walk through a simple example of creating a decoupled WordPress CMS that provides JSON to a variety of front-end applications

Presented by Cliff Seal in Mark C. Pope.

Did you know that running multiple instances of WordPress on a single server doesn’t actually require multiple instances of the codebase? In fact, as of WordPress 3.9, you don’t even need multiple instances of a plugin or a theme! Multitenancy can eliminate massive maintenance overhead in the right situations, think server-wide, near-instant updates that let you stay secure without keeping up with multiple sites. And that’s just the beginning of how it can help. In this session, I’ll show you how multitenancy can save time and energy while empowering your users. It’s simple, but powerful.

Presented by Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) – Keynote Speaker in Anne Cramer.

When you submit a plugin, it seems to fall into a big black box. Then, suddenly, you get an email telling you things that are incorrect and need some attention. What actually happens is at once incredibly simple and painstakingly annoying. I should know. I do it every single day. And I’m here to help you understand what it is.

Presented by Lew Ayotte in Paul Duke.

Pulling from my experiences developing leenk.me and iThemes Sync, I will discuss the most important aspects of integrating a SAAS app with WordPress. We will cover the basic ways of communicating data to and from WordPress, including creating a basic REST API in WordPress and using the WP-API. I will also briefly discuss the benefits of using WordPress as your SAAS framework.

Presented by Tamil Periasamy in Ballroom.

Too many WordPress developers and designers are unaware of WordPress’s JQuery. Did you know that you can optimize the aesthetics and user experience of your website by merely adding a few lines of code … all without needing to know ANYTHING about JQuery and JavaScript! This talk will explore the Do’s and Don’ts of using JQuery in WordPress and provide some simple yet beautiful examples that you can implement into your WordPress site in minutes. You’ll walk away with valuable advice that will help you on your journey from making your site go from NOT to HOT!

Presented by David Brumbaugh in Mark C. Pope.

Web Site security is a mindset, and an ever increasing source of anxiety for developers who see “[Big company] Web Site Hacked” headlines every day. Using the classic CIA Security Triad we will explore how developers can have more confidence in the Confidentiality, Integrity and Access regarding their own WordPress Sites, plugins and themes. The talk will include coding techniques, best practices and free resources available to all WordPress developers.

Presented by Tom McFarlin in Mark C. Pope.

This talk will focus on the purpose and significance of the three environments all professional developers should use when serving their clients.

This includes:

1. Development Environment
2. Staging Environment
3. Production Environment

The presentation will not stick to a particular set of tools, though. Instead, it will acknowledge the fact that developers choose to use a variety of different editors, debuggers, and so on.

Sure, various tools will be mentioned and recommended but none will be pushed on any of the audience – the ultimate goal is to inform those who are there what their options are.

Further, we _will_ discuss the general workflow of going from development to staging and from staging to production and ways to easily and professionally move your code from one environment to the other.

Finally, the talk will cover why this matters and how it benefits both you (or the business) and the customer.

Presented by Micah Wood in Paul Duke.

Composer is a command line dependency management tool designed for PHP.

Come learn how Composer can help you:
– Simplify new project creation
– Minimize duplication of code in your project repositories
– Quickly install and update plugins and themes in bulk
– Manage versioning within your project
– Follow best practices when reusing and managing code across projects

Presented by AJ Morris in Paul Duke.

In this talk, you will learn how to use WP-cli, a command-line tool, for developing locally, as well as deploying a site to a staging or production server, and finally how you can use it to automate a lot of the processes for creating your own managed WordPress hosting. This talk is designed for developers or those familiar with command-line and basic linux scripting.

Presented by Evan Volgas in Anne Cramer.

This talk will show you how to set up a WordPress blog using Ansible, an open-source tool that is often used to deploy code and configure servers. We will deploy WordPress (as well some additional software, like Git) to a fresh new server. We will also look at how to version control your codebase with Git and discuss various ways you can bring Git into your workflow. Last, we’ll talk a little bit about Vagrant and how you can test your changes locally before committing them to your master codebase and deploying them on your live site.

The talk will assume basic competency with SSH (you should know how to SSH into a server, install new packages, update your package lists, etc) and a passing familiarity with Git (you should know what it is).

If you are an experienced developer who’s already using Git and Ansible/Chef/Puppet for provisioning, this talk will be too basic for you. If you are a new developer who’s dabbled a bit with version control and/or provisioning software, you’ll walk out of this talk with everything you need to securely deploy WordPress and Git via Ansible. If you’re not a developer, this talk may be a little bit further into the weeds than you’d enjoy going… although if you want to learn more about doing professional software development, there will be plenty of code samples available online and plenty of references to help you get started. If you’re not a developer and you want to come to this talk, try and read over a tutorial on basic SSH and Git and you should be able to follow along too.

Presented by Russell Fair in Paul Duke.

Using WordPress as an application framework has evolved over the past couple of years. One recent improvement has been the introduction of the REST API. Using this API in your applications makes getting and updating information easy and fast. This session we’ll cover how to prepare your application to use the API, discuss the available endpoints and run through setting up and using the API in an example plugin.

Presented by Judi Knight, Kyle Bowman in Anne Cramer.

If you’ve heard about WordPress but didn’t know where to start, or tried to get started and became overwhelmed, now you have an opportunity to get started with WordPress.

From the start of the day to the end, we will will guide you through the process of using WordPress. You will be getting around the dashboard, adding text, images and extra functionality on an actual site that we set up for you that you can continue to use after WordCamp. We will have lots of volunteers on hand to help should you need a little extra attention.

Bring your laptop and we will have a new WordPress site setup for each of you ready to go.

This full-day workshop will be hands-on learning experience divided into a morning and afternoon session. We will present a topic, and you will have an opportunity to practice it. Each group of campers will have an assigned helpers to guide you along the way.

Goals

Learn your way around a WordPress site
Get familiar with the terminology
Learn how sites are organized
Know how to add and edit content
Understand the basics of a theme, plugin and sidebars
Provide hands-on relatable experience for your site.
Come with a laptop and bring images and content – or you can grab some up for the practice site.

Presented by Mickey Mellen, Kathy Drewien in Ballroom.

The WordPress platform is a magnet for those who want to take matters into their own hands, who want complete control over their websites and want to be independent in running them. WordPress does make it really easily to completely customize a website. If you have a bit of knowledge of HTML and CSS, there is nothing you can’t change.

We’ll cover CSS, explain hex codes vs rgb vs cmyk, discuss dpi/ppi, and then use that knowledge to walk through a theme customization.