Freelance / Small Business Workshop
Need help with how to think about your business, strategize, and meet your goals? Stick around after the day’s sessions are over for a workshop where Ian will offer up exercises, strategies, and inspiration for how to make sure you’re running your business, not the other way around. Be prepared to take notes along with the presentation and discussion.
WordPress 101 in Less Than an Hour
This session will show you the basics of creating a WordPress website in less than an hour. We will review the basic settings of a WordPress website. You will learn about how to install and change themes and plugins. We will learn how to create and publish posts and pages. You’ll leave with an understanding of the essentials and an ability to create your own WordPress site. There will be a few minutes at the end to answer your questions about the basics of WordPress.
Extended Q&A with Mystery Speaker
Speaker to be announced shortly before the session begins. This session will be an extended Q&A with one speaker. The chosen speaker will be based on feedback from attendees.
To vote for which speaker you think should get a few more minutes to answer questions, tweet @WordCampA2 and mention the speaker’s name. Whoever gets the most requests will be answering your questions here!
Clean Code is Profitable Code
How much time do you spend reading code versus writing code? The answer may surprise you…
Most of a developer’s time is actually *not* spent writing code, yet _how_ we write code – and the decisions we make throughout the process – are paramount in the development process. Give me just 30 minutes and I’ll show you how writing code slowly and intentionally actually made me faster and more profitable. Better yet, I can teach you how to do the same.
What we’ll cover:
– Developer mindset and solving problems
– What makes formatting so important
– Adopting and following standards
– How and why to write expressive code
– Building better functions
– Leveraging comments, and writing them better
– The power and benefits of incremental improvement
– Getting faster by moving slower
This presentation is for anyone who aspires to write clean, functional code. Whether you’re just getting started, or you’ve been programming for years, you’ll leave better equipped and inspired to write beautiful & useful code than when you entered.
Working in code should be a delightful experience, so let me help you make it pleasant and enjoyable!
Fireside Chat with John and Kyle
John James Jacoby and Kyle Maurer have been WordPressing for a little while now and enjoy talking about what’s happening in the industry. This session will be an informal discussion about what’s new, what appears to be coming, what we miss from the good old days, why we’re both excited (or afraid) and anything else the audience wants us to talk about.
This topic will not be a formal lesson on any one topic. It will be an honest, candid conversation about anything and everything we believe is important or interesting. Some topics we frequently enjoy talking about do include BuddyPress, selling WordPress plugins, eCommerce, WordPress news, the WordPress community, local beer, local politics, our ever changing industry, misconceptions in WordPress, under-appreciated people/products/features/resources in WordPress, pets, conferences and traveling.
Know something you want us to discuss? Tweet @MrKyleMaurer and @JJJ and we’ll make sure we cover it.
Javascript Workshop
Actions and Filters – Get Hooked on WordPress
This lighting talk will give a high level overview of WordPress filter and action hooks.
Elementary, My Dear Coder
Looking for ways to get kids more involved in computer science? In this session we will focus on tools that teach computer science and coding techniques with games to children ages 4-7. Plus these are free activities you can do with a single device, so you can go home tonight and start your child on a new learning path.
3 git Commands to Speed Up Your Workflow
These are three commands that I didn’t learn until I was far into my git experience, and I wish I’d known them from the beginning.
Roles, Caps, and Meta Caps: Harnessing the WordPress Capabilities API
Out of the box, WordPress provides a handful of user roles, from Subscriber to Administrator, each with an increasing level of access to manage content and settings on the site. While these roles provide a great starting point for many WordPress sites, they don’t offer the granularity one expects in a large organization with complex editorial workflows. Fortunately, these roles just begin to tap into the power of WordPress’s underlying capabilities API, which provides fine-grained access control for every aspect of the site’s administration, from controlling who can access a settings screen to which users can edit or publish a particular post.
This presentation focuses on the technical aspects of role and capability management in WordPress. How do you create and edit user roles? How do you dynamically filter capabilities? What the heck is a “meta capability”? How can you have more control than the various role editing plugins provide? We’ll take a journey through the code to learn the most effective and efficient ways to manage your users’ editorial and administrative experiences, using some examples from solutions Modern Tribe has implemented at Stanford Law School and Harvard Law School.
Don’t just design and build a Death Star, maintain it too
So you have your WordPress site up and running and its awesome. But what’s next? Don’t let those pesky Rebels destroy your new site come learn about what you can do to keep your WordPress site in good working order after it is completed.
Podcast ROI: How to determine if your podcast is worth it
Podcasting is a steadily growing medium and a perfect way to build a following around your service, product, or brand. But how do you determine the return on investment for your podcast? Most people define success by download numbers or ad sponsorship revenue. In this session, you’ll receive 9 different ways to determine the success of your podcast.
Whoops I Did it Again; How to Fix Your Site if You Haven’t Followed WordPress Standards
If you’re like most people, you jumped into WordPress with both feet excited to start building your site.
Now you’ve been to a WordCamp and you are learning the “right” way to do things.
In this session, we’ll talk about how to get back on track; undoing that custom code we hacked in, or running outdate versions of software. By the end of the workshop, you’ll have steps to get your WordPress site back to following all the WordPress standards.
Show Me the Cache!
Learn anything and everything you’ve ever wanted to know about caching – why you need it, how to get it, and what to watch out for when using it. We’ll start with caching 101 and then examine the different caching tools you can use to speed up your WordPress site.
How to OWN Your Business as a Young Entrepreneur
You’ve just been hit with the perfect idea to change the history of technology forever. An idea that will revolutionize the way people think about technology today. You have full access to the software and resources needed to turn your ideas into a reality. Just one small problem…you’re 13!
Making Spreadsheets, Building a Website and Incorporating your Business Name doesn’t really go well together with Homework, Babysitting, and Completing Household Chores. Whether you’re a young entrepreneur or an experienced business owner with millions in annual sales, you are encouraged to come as I discuss the four pillars of owning a business as a young entrepreneur: Time Management, Content, Audience, and Marketing.
I shouldn’t be up here talking to you: Embracing Impostor Syndrome
I’m a total fraud, and it’s just a matter of time before everyone finds out. That little voice in our heads saying that is just Impostor Syndrome.
An all too common problem in the WordPress community…Impostor Syndrome prevents us from recognizing our own achievements.
In this session, you’ll learn how to recognize it, why it keeps you from realizing your potential, and how to keep it from holding you back.
The Power of WordPress Membership Sites and Automation
How to build a WordPress membership site and automate the entire process.
Momma’s got a brand-new grid.
Are you thinking about CSS grids for your layouts? Browser support is just about here.
I’ve been looking hard at the work of Jen Simmons and Rachel Andrew, the two people writing most of the material to teach us designer/dev types what we need to know to start using this new spec.
And thanks to some time I’ve spent playing on CodePen, I think I’m ready to use grids in WordPress!
So let’s look at:
WHAT CSS grids are.
WHERE it makes sense to use them.
HOW they help us make previously tough problems solve themselves.
WHY grids are not just great for symmetrical layouts – but also wildly asymmetrical ones as well.
And I’ll see you on the grid!
Hosting: Making sense of it all
On this session I’d like to explain all of the different hosting environments, service types, and help people make educated decision on what’s right for their business.
Design, WordPress, and You
You know how to build a WordPress theme, you’ve written your share of plugins, you know all the secrets to transform a WordPress site into the application you need it to be. But do you like to solve problems by adding more options? Are you worried that “good enough” is not good enough?
Perhaps it’s time to work with an expert in web design, a professional who can enhance both the beauty and the usability of your creations. In this session we’ll discuss the importance of designers to WordPress development, how to decide when you need one, and how to find one worth working with.
Content Is for Everyone: How to Create Accessible Content
Are you inadvertently excluding people from engaging with your content because it’s not accessible to the blind, the hearing impaired, or foreign language speakers? What about the very old or the very young?
In this session, I’d like to look at ways in which we could be missing potential clients or simply cutting people out of our market by not making content more accessible, and ways content creators and businesses can work to address this problem.
An Image is Worth a Thousand Headaches (Lightning Talk)
An image can make or break a website. How do you know if one will break yours?
In this session, you will learn not only how to pick a quality image, but some of the common pitfalls with using images on your website and how to overcome them.
Jazz & WordPress
My ten years as a professional jazz musician has prepared me for the WordPress world in more ways than I could have imagined. What could these two disparate worlds possibly have in common? Well, as it turns out, tons. In this action-packed lightning talk, I’ll explore the parallels between the culture of jazz and the culture of WordPress. As it turns out, us WordPress lovers could learn a thing or two from jazz musicians – and vice versa.
WARNING: Immediately following this talk, you may find yourself making a beeline for the local record shop.
Intro to Code Testing and Continuous Integration
Test early, test often, test always. You’ve probably heard similar adages many times before, but you’re still not writing tests for your code. Why is that?
Most likely, the reason you’re not testing your code is one of three common scenarios:
1. You don’t know how to test.
2. You don’t realize how much faster you can operate thanks to tests.
3. You don’t believe scripted testing is actually valuable to you.
In this presentation, I would like to tackle all of those issues and get you up and running with – and excited about – testing today.
It has never been easier to build tests for your WordPress projects than it is right now. Tools like WP-CLI can generate your complete testing infrastructure with just a couple of commands. Testing frameworks like Codeception allow you to quickly test complex, browser-based features than ever before. Integration tools like Travis CI (and many, many others) afford you the ability to push new code into a project and trust it doesn’t break already-tested functionality. In this presentation we’ll see how to use all of these to our advantage to rapidly prepare our software for testing.
With the hard parts out of the way, and in record time, we can spend the balance of our time together on the why, what, and how of testing. In fact, I’ll give you the why for free right now: automated testing will save you dozens of hours and potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars on every single project – and make you a more effective developer in the process!
Here’s the deal: you’re already testing your code to verify it works before passing it along for client review. The problem is that you’re running your tests manually. Manual tests are messy and leave plenty of room for error and every time you need to test again, guess what? You’re testing the same things manually… again.
When you script your tests what you’re actually doing is codifying the intended behavior of your software – you’re documenting how the system should behave for all to see. Moreover, you’re defining your test once and confirming the desired behavior forever. From now until the end of time you can be sure that your software behaves as desired just by running the tests again. As for the what and how of testing, well, you’ll need to watch the presentation for those. I promise, though, writing tests will allow you to to complete projects faster and with less effort than going without. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but that’s the magic of testing!
Sample Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tcbwrywrlJ1GzhG4HfQszKeBrZ6-CpcJAlE0zRVIqfA/edit?usp=sharing
Other Info: The slide deck is from a version of this talk I delivered privately to a group of 7-10 intermediate and advanced developers.
I’m interested in giving yet another presentation on code testing because I’ve often been frustrated by the quality of the testing presentations I’ve seen at WordCamps. In fact, frustrated to the point of postponing testing for nearly 2 years after the first couple of presentations that I attended.
Using images and fonts legally on your WordPress site
Ever wondered if you could use an image you found on the web for a post or page on your WordPress site?
This class will discuss both images and fonts, licenses and fair use.
Contact Forms of Great Victory
At Caldera Labs, we think about contact forms – a lot. We’re obsessed with your contact forms because we believe that contact forms are more than just a contact form, they’re actually a crucial point in your sales funnel.
We believe contact forms can make or break a business, especially for freelancers, consultants and service agencies. In this talk, we’re obsessing over contact forms: the platforms out there to collect your leads, accessibility in your contact forms, responsive design for your contact forms, overall design, psychology of forms, A/B testing forms, and continuous improvement of forms.
This talk will not be platform-centric nor an advertisement. Although delivered by us at Caldera Labs, we will equally and unbiasedly present all leading contact form product options in the WordPress space with a fair pros vs. cons comparison in the product section. The talk will mostly be about form best practices with only a brief overview of platform.
Using your Word Press site to GO SOCIAL!
A comprehensive review of plugins, features, blogging, platforms and business strategies to increase your social engagement.
Thinking Video First
Users will be shown how to Create video content, 360 video, VR and how to use it across they web, social and more.
Javascript Workshop
Javascript Workshop
Panel: The Future of WordPress
Build a Simple Frontend App Using the WP REST API and React
Learn when using the REST API and a frontend framework like React is useful and how to create a few WP REST API endpoints, then leverage those in your first frontend React app.
Keynote
Creating a Content Strategy for your Blog
I’ll talk about how to create user avatars and use your analytics to decide what your audience responds to best, and how you can use that information to create content they love.
A solid content strategy can be the difference between an online business that’s scraping by and a booming business.
Building Websites With A Purpose
In this talk I share how to use online surveys, user interviews, analytics and focus groups to build better websites. Shifting the conversation from client focused projects to user focused experiences allows you to truly understand and deliver for your users.
We will explore when to leverage tools like Google Analytics, Inspectlet, and marketing automation platforms. The outcome is a stronger relationship with your client, a repeatable method for continued website improvements, and an outstanding experience for both the client and its users.
Low-Hanging Fruit: How to Leverage Niche Keywords Others Ignore
Will anyone see my content?
It’s a terrifying question we’ve all asked ourselves. Whether you’re a marketer, new to an industry, or launching a new product, you need to have an attack plan. In this talk, we’ll cover the following three topics to help your next keyword campaign:
1. How to find niche keywords in your industry
2. How to qualify and refine in on the best keywords
3. The keyword tools you need to make your life easier
If you’re committed to building a popular and profitable site you need to make your content irresistible and impossible to miss – you can’t just hope people will notice you. By effectively targeting niche keywords you’ll see an increase in search traffic, attract paying customers, and grow your brand.
Design as a Differentiator
If you look at the WordPress landscape whether plugin, theme, service or agency there is a lot of discussion about features. The REST API, Zapier integration, multiple sliders, wooCommerce integration, uptime monitoring, varnish etc…
Features are sexy and at face value more features sound better. Yet the opposite is often the case. In fact you can provide powerful solutions that your customers and clients love with less features and more design.
In this talk I discuss using design as a way of standing out among the crowded WordPress eco-system.
How to Create SEO Friendly Website Architecture
In this session we’ll explore three SEO core tactics for creating a search engine friendly websites and blogs. We’ll deep dive into setting up content silos, the pros and cons of content depth, and super powers found in internal links.
Harness the Power of Mentorship
In my presentation, I will discuss the benefits and why’s of being a mentor and mentee. I will further promote why mentorship is absolutely crucial for our industry thrive, including my personal experience of being mentored.
Viewing code as a trade skill, I will also share how to be establish these meaningful relationships for both parties involved. My goal is to inspire and motivate my audience to take action and incorporate mentorship in their daily developer lives — what better way than to start now at the conference?
Design with Purpose: An Opinionated Approach to Web Design
Design with Purpose is the mantra that all web designers should adopt. If your design does not support a properly defined and researched purpose, it’s wasting the user’s time, your client’s time, and your time.
We’ll talk about how to think about your designs more effectively as a communication tool, and how to make clients more receptive to your work.
Get Your Website Visitors To Take Action (Without Voodoo Magic)
A great website shouldn’t be measured on how trendy the design is or how fast it loads. A great website needs to do the heavy lifting to generate leads or sales.
In this session, we’ll dive into your website’s call to action—How to identify your target market’s needs, present the solution, and determine the next best step they need to take to buy from you.
Lesson Learned from Selling WordPress to Enterprises
My WordPress journey started with small projects, with total budgets under $100. Nine years later, we have grown to reach the other end of the spectrum, regularly handling Enterprise WordPress projects with budgets of over $100K per year. At this scale, the rules for “selling” WordPress to a client change.
WordPress’ traditional advantages don’t necessarily apply anymore. I will start by addressing the two largest apprehensions that enterprises have- security & scalability- and cover other pain points like:
– Integration with existing systems
– Ownership and responsibility
– Extensibility and long term viability
– “Free” and “GPL” concerns
I hope the lessons I share in this talk from our own learning will help increase the WordPress adoption in enterprises.
Panel: WordPress eCommerce
Panel: Pricing WordPress Projects
Why is a custom website so expensive? What does a good theme usually cost? A panel of web developers will spill the beans on how they are pricing their work & why. Hear the pros and cons of different pricing models. Bring your questions for an interactive Q&A with a lot of talk about money and creating sustainable business models for the WordPress ecosystem.
Intro to HTML and CSS
HTML and CSS are the core fundamentals of web pages. If you want to build themes or plugins, but don’t understand HTML and CSS you’re not going to get very far. We’ll talk about how HTML works, and how CSS makes it look good.
Javascript Workshop
Panel: WordPress Hosting
