WordCamp Miami 2018

An insightful interview with several youths ages 6-14. The focus? How they publish on the web in 2018.

What tools do they use? What are their friends using, and why? Do they publish with WordPress?

Why are these questions important to the larger WordPress community? Because it’s vital for current WordPress users, developers, and product maker to know what the next generation is using. When it comes to technology, you don’t adapt – you die. And getting an insight to how youth is publishing on the web is one way to figure that out.

See this post with information on all speakers on this panel.

An insightful interview with several youths ages 6-14. The focus? How they publish on the web in 2018.

What tools do they use? What are their friends using, and why? Do they publish with WordPress?

Why are these questions important to the larger WordPress community? Because it’s vital for current WordPress users, developers, and product maker to know what the next generation is using. When it comes to technology, you don’t adapt – you die. And getting an insight to how youth is publishing on the web is one way to figure that out.

See this post with information on all speakers on this panel.

An insightful interview with several youths ages 6-14. The focus? How they publish on the web in 2018.

What tools do they use? What are their friends using, and why? Do they publish with WordPress?

Why are these questions important to the larger WordPress community? Because it’s vital for current WordPress users, developers, and product maker to know what the next generation is using. When it comes to technology, you don’t adapt – you die. And getting an insight to how youth is publishing on the web is one way to figure that out.

See this post with information on all speakers on this panel.

An insightful interview with several youths ages 6-14. The focus? How they publish on the web in 2018.

What tools do they use? What are their friends using, and why? Do they publish with WordPress?

Why are these questions important to the larger WordPress community? Because it’s vital for current WordPress users, developers, and product maker to know what the next generation is using. When it comes to technology, you don’t adapt – you die. And getting an insight to how youth is publishing on the web is one way to figure that out.

See this post with information on all speakers on this panel.

An insightful interview with several youths ages 6-14. The focus? How they publish on the web in 2018.

What tools do they use? What are their friends using, and why? Do they publish with WordPress?

Why are these questions important to the larger WordPress community? Because it’s vital for current WordPress users, developers, and product maker to know what the next generation is using. When it comes to technology, you don’t adapt – you die. And getting an insight to how youth is publishing on the web is one way to figure that out.

See this post with information on all speakers on this panel.

Join in for a fireside chat between JJJ and Matt, for an unscripted mix of intimate, personal, and professional discussion. They’ll probably reminisce about pivotal moments in the history of WordPress, dream big about fun new future WordPress features, maybe bring up BuddyPress & bbPress a bit, or what it’s really like to manage really big open source software. Please sit down, relax, make yourself comfortable, and join us!

For All Site WordPress Site Owners and Admins

We already know that WordPress is powerful with endless possibilities right?

…but how do we make it profitable?

How do we transform our passion into cash?

That’s what this session is all about.

Carlos Vazquez, a 14-year digital marketing veteran will reveal the formula he uses to convert any WordPress site into an automated cash machine. So, whether you’ve been running your site for years or even just starting out, you’ll discover the game changing formula being used today by Starbucks, McDonald’s, and many more.

As creators of content how do we draw attention, build viewers, increase engagement, 
employ SEO effectively and even cross generational lines?

The ability to create and share content can be a challenge – content is the result of 
the creator’s vision and their passion. This must be shared by digital tools to draw
attention and not create the wrong perception. 
The intent may not be taken by the viewers for what it is intended. There may be a 
lack of understanding that the viewer has a perception that is different than the creator. 
The creators of content need to understand that each platform draws a different viewer 
and engagement is as diverse at the person reading, viewing and listening. 
Crossing digital platforms is not easy, so there must be knowledge of who you’re 
trying to attract and what bait you’re using to grab their attention.

This talk will show how your content will
hold your reader’s attention and encourage them to return back to your site. 


Perceptions are important because they do define our presence in the world.

The lines between designers and developers are starting to blur. With the addition of tools like Sketch, Zeplin, Invision, and many others, we can improve our workflow and develop with record speed. Whether that’s designing a quick website as a freelancer, working with designers as a contractor, or simply prototyping your startup idea, these tools will help you translate your thoughts, improve your workflow, and essentially, communicate effectively. 

Topics: 

• What is Sketch
• The benefits of using Sketch as a developer
• How Sketch Plugins speed up and streamline development

Dr. Nancy Richmond will present the most important social media tips for 2018. She will share best practice examples that will leave you feeling inspired and excited to grow your following and engagement on social media.

You don’t need to be an established developer – this is an Intro talk into PHP. Hooks are a great way to see immediate advantage of learning and using custom PHP.

Hooks are one of two things:

Action Functions (add, edit or remove functionality)
Filter Functions (modify output)

Both of these are native to WordPress Core and are also created by Plugin developers to help you – a fellow developer – out. Learn how to use these powerful tools to your own advantage for customization and getting the results you want.

This is a Lightning Talk so it will be limited to the core concept itself and you will see up to three practical examples of an action and filter respectively.
You will walk away with the knowledge of how to find these hooks within a plugin or WordPress core and have the confidence to experiment with these.

Bonus: After the lightning talk feel free to discuss this further in the Happiness Bar with the presenter. This document also has more information  to help you dig deeper into Hooks for WordPress.

In this session we will discuss ways to get involved in open source projects and the benefits of getting involved. You are here at WordCamp because you value WordPress correct? Think about all the businesses powered by WordPress and the positive impact it has on people. Ready to hear more? 

In this session the kids and I, will talk about the obstacles we face in getting them to focus on building their entrepreneur ideas. Parents are busy with work and responsibility, sure we want to help our kids build their ideas. Why haven’t we yet? How can we help them do it themselves using WordPress? Let’s talk about helping create the kidpreneurs of the future!

Sometimes, using Advanced Custom Fields Plugin (Free and Pro Version) can become a burden. This is normally because in our excitement to use the tool we by-pass the planning it takes to make the plugin work well and don’t always choose the right field for the job.

During this lightning talk I will talk about how to:

• choose the right fields to use
• plan out your use of ACF
• organize your fields
• create connections

How to setup and manage email automation for a growing online business… and the best practices.

In this talk Nakeesha will speak about format and tips for writers developing content for the web. Her talk with focus on creation of interesting thought provoking content in an easily digestible format for the web reader. A discussion regarding the best strategies for increasing the popularity of post and utilizing writing as a marketing tool will be included.

The Women in WordPress panel brings together a diverse group of women from across North America for an honest discussion. Aiming to inspire encourage he WordPress community, but women in particular, the panelists will discuss their achievements, struggles, and give advice to those just starting out. They will also talk about how men can be better allies to women overall, but especially to those who are just starting out their WordPress journey, whether in development, design, marketing, or blogging.

Optimizing your WordPress is always a challenge and google is more demanding about it every day: During the session, I will go over all the details to make your theme hit 100%: 1) Loading fonts, 2) Optimizing your theme for Above-The-Fold/Below-The-Fold styles loading, 3) Loading styles asynchronously, 4) using Webpack to bundle your theme with WordPress. 5) Using SVGs and loading them like template parts (cached). 6) There are many other tricks and things to take into consideration. I will work with one initial theme and make it hit 100%. Everything will be measured to show the typical “before and after”.

I will talk about the importance of automating your WordPress development regardless if you are building themes, plugins or full websites. Also, I will provide resources on how you can set it up based on your current workflow.

Learn how your small business can create a successful (i. E. money making) local brand on a shoe string marketing budget by hacking a noisy marketplace.

The Women in WordPress panel brings together a diverse group of women from across North America for an honest discussion. Aiming to inspire encourage he WordPress community, but women in particular, the panelists will discuss their achievements, struggles, and give advice to those just starting out. They will also talk about how men can be better allies to women overall, but especially to those who are just starting out their WordPress journey, whether in development, design, marketing, or blogging.

In this session we will cover simple tips for setting up the WooCommerce subscription plugin for simple and variable products, recurring payments, prorating subscriptions to a set day, sales tax tips, initial membership fees with a free trial period and more.

An insightful interview with several youths ages 6-14. The focus? How they publish on the web in 2018.

What tools do they use? What are their friends using, and why? Do they publish with WordPress?

Why are these questions important to the larger WordPress community? Because it’s vital for current WordPress users, developers, and product maker to know what the next generation is using. When it comes to technology, you don’t adapt – you die. And getting an insight to how youth is publishing on the web is one way to figure that out.

See this post with information on all speakers on this panel.

An insightful interview with several youths ages 6-14. The focus? How they publish on the web in 2018.

What tools do they use? What are their friends using, and why? Do they publish with WordPress?

Why are these questions important to the larger WordPress community? Because it’s vital for current WordPress users, developers, and product maker to know what the next generation is using. When it comes to technology, you don’t adapt – you die. And getting an insight to how youth is publishing on the web is one way to figure that out.

See this post with information on all speakers on this panel.

Andrew will continue his AMA from 10:50am…

Haven’t you wished you could ask any question to an “expert” at WordCamp? Problem is that many talks have short Q&A sessions – and while we encourage speakers to visit the Happiness Bar after the talks, it’s still difficult to ask sometimes. Also there could be someone ELSE in the room that has a great answer, or would love to bond over the subject you’re interested in.

Like last year, this is part of the reason why we are bringing three “Ask The Expert” sessions to WordCamp Miami this year. In a nutshell:

One person knowledgable in a particular field
No slides, no prepared presentations
Approx 30 min of that person answering as many questions as possible
Think of this as a mini-town hall or a Reddit “AMA”.

Stay tuned for more information about the speaker and questions that could you ask!

Haven’t you wished you could ask any question to an “expert” at WordCamp? Problem is that many talks have short Q&A sessions – and while we encourage speakers to visit the Happiness Bar after the talks, it’s still difficult to ask sometimes. Also there could be someone ELSE in the room that has a great answer, or would love to bond over the subject you’re interested in.

Like last year, this is part of the reason why we are bringing three “Ask The Expert” sessions to WordCamp Miami this year. In a nutshell:

One person knowledgable in a particular field
No slides, no prepared presentations
Approx 30 min of that person answering as many questions as possible
Think of this as a mini-town hall or a Reddit “AMA”.

Stay tuned for more information about the speaker and questions that could you ask!

We’ll break down what it really means to protect sensitive information that gets transferred through a website and what happens once it reaches its destination. How does enabling HTTPS have an effect on the overall security of your website? or does it?

Haven’t you wished you could ask any question to an “expert” at WordCamp? Problem is that many talks have short Q&A sessions – and while we encourage speakers to visit the Happiness Bar after the talks, it’s still difficult to ask sometimes. Also there could be someone ELSE in the room that has a great answer, or would love to bond over the subject you’re interested in.

Like last year, this is part of the reason why we are bringing three “Ask The Expert” sessions to WordCamp Miami this year. In a nutshell:

One person knowledgable in a particular field
No slides, no prepared presentations
Approx 30 min of that person answering as many questions as possible
Think of this as a mini-town hall or a Reddit “AMA”.

Stay tuned for more information about the speaker and questions that could you ask!

This workshop will give you a crash course on essential components of an e-commerce store. We’ll cover choosing a payment gateway and managing transactions, shipping items, tips for order fulfillment, and assessing tax. After 25 minutes, you’ll have a foundational overview of what you need to get your store running smoothly, and where to get more information.

One of the common pursuits of many entrepreneurs is repeat income or recurring revenue. To archive this with an online business is to build a membership website. Though it may sound rather trivial building a membership site in WordPress is much more involved than just installing a bunch of plugins and hope that they play nice with each other. If you have never done this before and or not familiar with the process; you may end up with a non-functional membership site and even worse no recurring revenue. This talk will discuss, how to create a membership site, some of the pitfalls/ common mistakes. It will also delve into what you need from a membership site and the necessary tasks and tools required to build a functional recurring revenue site.

10 minutes to provide crucial ways to limit your legal liability online that are often overlooked. Privacy Policies are legally required by many states and how a website deals with visitor’s PII must be clearly and conspicuously disclosed, many distributors such as Amazon or Ebay won’t allow you to sell if you don’t have a privacy policy, Terms of Use are necessary to limit where you can be sued, how to make TOU more enforceable.

The final panel will be a mix of prepared questions and moderated (to control length tone and moderate quality) audience questions to turn some of the aspirational and motivational points back into tactical practical takeaways.

Attendees will be guided through how the pieces fit together while inspiring and highlighting practical takeaways where attendees gain long-term motivation, and are able to implement immediate tactical changes when they get back to their desk.

The final panel will be a mix of prepared questions and moderated (to control length tone and moderate quality) audience questions to turn some of the aspirational and motivational points back into tactical practical takeaways.

Attendees will be guided through how the pieces fit together while inspiring and highlighting practical takeaways where attendees gain long-term motivation, and are able to implement immediate tactical changes when they get back to their desk.

The final panel will be a mix of prepared questions and moderated (to control length tone and moderate quality) audience questions to turn some of the aspirational and motivational points back into tactical practical takeaways.

Attendees will be guided through how the pieces fit together while inspiring and highlighting practical takeaways where attendees gain long-term motivation, and are able to implement immediate tactical changes when they get back to their desk.

With almost 20 years experience working with both professional services and product clients, while building and managing development teams, Pat is a veteran WordPress community subject matter expert. Drawing from lessons learned and experience working with all sizes of organizations and clients, Pat’s goal is to discuss how to successfully work with clients and increase Lifetime Total Value in executing your service or product.

Non-stop, practical, digital marketing tactics & strategies to help you and your clients achieve new levels of greatness. Some will be WordPress specific, others are simply high-value proposition approaches to big return gambles.

A new block-based editor (aka Gutenberg) is coming to WordPress 5.0 in 2018. This update will radically impact how you imagine and conceptualize your website content.

We’ll cover what exactly Gutenberg is and how to prepare for it. The key takeaway is an understanding of how Gutenberg will affect your existing content, and how to create exciting new layouts with it in the future.

Bonus: Free downloadable resources and demos will be provided.

If you want to get ahead of the curve with Gutenberg and be empowered to do more with your website; this is a must-see talk.

Some believe that the first thing a Customer Service Representative should do when they are dealing with an issue is empathize with their client. Emotions are key when it comes to empathy, so how can one, in a world where almost everything is done via text, empathize?

In this talk, Marc will go over five key factors that drive almost every customer to get to the point of reaching out, how to “read between the lines” of their issue, and determine the emotional elements involved so that you, as a service rep, can empathize with your customer and give them the type of support that will earn you years of customer loyalty.

With over 20 years of experience in supporting customers through various forms of text, Marc knows the strengths and weaknesses of the medium and will show you how to maximize the power at your fingertips to make your customers happy.

In this talk we will continue to build up our React knowledge by discussing more advanced concepts which most real world applications will require. Concepts such as:

• More advanced state management with Redux.
• Creating more complete apps using React-router.
• Building more advanced components by creating Higher Order Components and using render props.
• The basics of server side rendering.

This talk will teach you the very basics of using React. We will be covering things like basic component creation, rendering React to the DOM, and basic state management. We will also have a brief discussion about some of the core concepts behind React. Such as the virtual dom, and functional programming. At the end of this talk users will have the required knowledge to build a simple React Application. This talk will also include a number of practical examples, and those in attendance will be able to demo the examples using free online tools such as codesandbox.

This talk is geared towards getting people up to speed with how Modern Javascript works. The bulk of this talk will be used to cover the newer Javascript syntax, since that syntax will be used in the following React Talks. The Modern JS talk will also cover how to navigate the board Javascript ecosystem, and we will be touching on topics such as Node, NPM, and some of the various build tools that exist. Additionally, we will discuss some more advanced Javascript topics like Async Programming, and building modular Javascript applications.

This talk will cover core Javascript concepts which can often be overlooked when simply writing jQuery. In order to move beyond jQuery, this talk will first demystify how jQuery actually works at a fundamental level. To do this we will build our own MVP version of jQuery. Next this talk will cover other core JS concepts to provide a well rounded base before moving into the next talk (Modern JS). Some of the topics we will be touching on are the prototype, higher order functions, and various ways to create objects.

The final panel will be a mix of prepared questions and moderated (to control length tone and moderate quality) audience questions to turn some of the aspirational and motivational points back into tactical practical takeaways.

Attendees will be guided through how the pieces fit together while inspiring and highlighting practical takeaways where attendees gain long-term motivation, and are able to implement immediate tactical changes when they get back to their desk.

Okay so you started a business. You have a least one customer and they give you money for your service or product. Yipee! It’s all straightforward from here, right? Unfortunately, no. Dr. Walling will highlight five toxic beliefs that have the power to seriously disrupt the health of your business and the well-being of your life. These beliefs include: 1) My business is my baby. 2) I love my customers and my customers love me. 3) The hustle makes the money. 4) I got this! 5) No time for feelings- this is business. She’ll explain how founders adapt these ideas and the serious consequence they can have. And of course, she’ll walk you through how to avoid embracing these dangers so that you can do your work and enjoy your life.

With the addition of the REST API to WordPress core, single page applications with WordPress as the CMS has never been more popular. But how do you get started? This talk will be a basic introduction to using server side rendering with React, Next.js and the WordPress REST API to create decoupled JavaScript apps to interact with WordPress.

In this talk we will continue to build up our React knowledge by discussing more advanced concepts which most real world applications will require. Concepts such as:

• More advanced state management with Redux.
• Creating more complete apps using React-router.
• Building more advanced components by creating Higher Order Components and using render props.
• The basics of server side rendering.

This talk will teach you the very basics of using React. We will be covering things like basic component creation, rendering React to the DOM, and basic state management. We will also have a brief discussion about some of the core concepts behind React. Such as the virtual dom, and functional programming. At the end of this talk users will have the required knowledge to build a simple React Application. This talk will also include a number of practical examples, and those in attendance will be able to demo the examples using free online tools such as codesandbox.

This talk is geared towards getting people up to speed with how Modern Javascript works. The bulk of this talk will be used to cover the newer Javascript syntax, since that syntax will be used in the following React Talks. The Modern JS talk will also cover how to navigate the board Javascript ecosystem, and we will be touching on topics such as Node, NPM, and some of the various build tools that exist. Additionally, we will discuss some more advanced Javascript topics like Async Programming, and building modular Javascript applications.

This talk will cover core Javascript concepts which can often be overlooked when simply writing jQuery. In order to move beyond jQuery, this talk will first demystify how jQuery actually works at a fundamental level. To do this we will build our own MVP version of jQuery. Next this talk will cover other core JS concepts to provide a well rounded base before moving into the next talk (Modern JS). Some of the topics we will be touching on are the prototype, higher order functions, and various ways to create objects.

This session will be a lightning fast overview of how I built the Wapuu Slack bot using Javascript, the Slack API and the WordPress JSON API.

The final panel will be a mix of prepared questions and moderated (to control length tone and moderate quality) audience questions to turn some of the aspirational and motivational points back into tactical practical takeaways.

Attendees will be guided through how the pieces fit together while inspiring and highlighting practical takeaways where attendees gain long-term motivation, and are able to implement immediate tactical changes when they get back to their desk.

Hi, I’m Christie. I work with Josh Pollock, whom you probably know, on Caldera Forms. I came onboard to his team in an effort to think that maybe what a product needed to be successful wasn’t more development and support, but rather more business strategy and marketing, fresh out of business school.

I’ve talked to many community members who either are interested in getting an MBA, or interested in “hiring a Christie.” I thought this was an interesting pattern, so I decided to put together a quick overview of advanced topics in business.

I’ll cover when I think an MBA helps, and when it doesn’t. Then, we’ll do a quick rapid fire of things I think you should know about business-ing: how do you read and act on an income statement? What about electing your pass-through entity to be taxed as a corporation while remaining a pass-through entity? What’s the three sentence summary of theoretical frameworks for marketing? What do organizational behaviorists say about building good teams? How does price elasticity of demand affect your pricing strategy? Then, we’ll take questions from the audience and hopefully all walk away a little more calm (and a little less eager to go to business school).

Sometimes you don’t need an e-commerce plugin to sell items on your WordPress site. While the workshop has been focused on WooCommerce, Naomi will be briefly exploring other ways you can sell simple products and services. Some of these solutions are in the form of inexpensive or even free WordPress plugins.

Take your Google Analytics knowledge to the next level in this intermediate session that covers beyond-basic tactics including: Event & conversion tracking, custom reports, custom segments, custom dashboards, secondary dimensions, filters, referral spam, self-referral issues, and cross-domain tracking.

Nobody likes a slow site. Every year the weight of an average site keeps increasing, mainly because of image sizes. Optimizing images is the biggest win when it comes to your website speed.
In this presentation we will focus on different image formats and steps to follow before uploading them to a website. We’ll discuss PNG, JPG, GIF, SVG and when to use each one.
We’ll set up a process to prepare images for the web, and go over tools to measure loading time. We’ll also look at some examples of before and after image optimization.

The future of WordPress is changing. If you are a WordPress developer and primarily focused on PHP and some JavaScript, then you need to see what the road lies ahead for plugin and themes developers.

If you make a living out of building solutions for clients with WordPress, then you need to be on time for this introduction to the Developer Workshop.

We all use the internet, heck as WordPress users most of us even help make it. WordPress is the GUI-based website builder that is easy to learn but hard to master. It is used by millions of people in countless ways — from tricking out a pre-existing website, to tracking complex statistics, or just to troll your friends. WordPress as a platform has shaped the Web like no other. So what has this amazing open-source creation really done to the Web?

Come to my session as we dig deep and find the profound changes WordPress has made on the Internet.  We will explore WordPress as both a platform and a concept to understand how coloring outside of the lines and letting go of the reins can actually improve your customer’s satisfaction and your product overall.

We now think in blocks, this is the new “WordPress way”. In this talk you will learn how to build a block. We will cover creating a user interface in the new “Gutenberg” UI system, saving data and displaying it in the front-end. If you’re wondering what it means to build a custom block or extend a core block, this is for you.

This is a talk aimed at intermediate to advanced developers, who already know JavaScript somewhat deeply. Think of it as a getting started guide to a new way of working with WordPress that we’re just getting started learning how to work with.

Ah, the allure of running an e-commerce business. Sipping drinks on the beach while a third party logistics company, or Amazon, does all the work. Living the dream, right?

Maybe. Eventually. The reality is that it takes putting a lot of pieces in place in the right way while juggling your financial stability to start and sustain a modern eTailer, just like any other business. Competition is everywhere. Knockoffs are rampant. Trademarks are harder than ever to defend. You have to wear a lot of hats. Inventor, technologist, marketer, social media manager, customer whisperer, warehouse manager, shipping guru, packaging expert… the list goes on!

In this session, we’re going to take a 50,000-foot look at the systems, tools, and knowledge needed to launch a successful e-commerce store in 2018. There’s no way we can cover it all, but you’ll leave ready to conquer your corner of the e-commerce world!

Answers to your e-commerce questions from an experienced and diverse panel of experts from e-commerce and the WordPress community.

Answers to your e-commerce questions from an experienced and diverse panel of experts from e-commerce and the WordPress community.

The key benefits and advantages current online stores can take advantage of by re-platforming their business to WooCommerce. We’ll look at a successful store that recently made the jump, and also how to deal with selling with WordPress especially when it comes to large stores.

Those of us who work in the web industry find that we’re online a huge amount of the time. Going offline can make us feel disconnected. But what about going offline while we’re working? Right at the time when we think we’re most likely to need an internet connection: to get our job done.

Working offline can be highly productive, and is often calming and focused. Whether we choose to go offline, or whether our surroundings make it necessary — such as while we’re traveling — having the right tools, environment, and frame of mind allows you to make working offline a joy.

In this talk, John will cover the tools and approaches that he uses to develop while he’s in zen mode and not connected to the internet.”

Know a young child interested in learning computer science and coding, but the child’s reading level makes it difficult to know where to start? You’ve come to the right place! In this session we will go hands on with free online games that teach computer science and coding techniques to children as young as 4! These programs start with pre-reader courses and grow with your child so they can use the same program for years to come.

Never build your business alone. During this lightning session freelancers and entrepreneurs will learn how to create a profitable business by mastering the art of recruiting and managing talent without a budget.

“Being too nice literally increases your chances of being hurt, used and or taken for granted.”

Nice people are reputed to finish last. In business, being nice can increase the chances of success, but being too nice can cause a business to fail when your service and skills are undervalued and profits are not achieved. We don’t want to burn bridges, but we need to stand our ground. Studies show that self-respect encourages respect from others. In this talk, we will review ideas and practices I’ve seen work in developing and conveying self-respect. When we don’t value ourselves and our work, we tend to charge too little for the work we do, and struggle with asking for what we are worth. Self respect includes establishing boundaries to manage client expectations. We will look at tools that help manage client expectations by improving communication, organizing workflows and detailing contracts. To that end, you’ll learn how to apply these tools to business practices—allowing you to be nice, but not too nice.

“Be nice. And if you can’t do that, just don’t be mean.”

― Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, & Grumblings for Every Day of the Year

If you are new to WordPress or have just been using it “out of the box,” you may want to learn about some easy ways to add useful functionality to your website using popular WordPress Plugins. This talk will briefly review what plugins are, and how to select and install them. Tara will share the top plugins for adding things like forms, events, and image galleries to your WordPress site, as well as go over plugins which will help your website perform better.

This talk is designed for WordPress Beginners.

Haven’t you wished you could ask any question to an “expert” at WordCamp? Problem is that many talks have short Q&A sessions – and while we encourage speakers to visit the Happiness Bar after the talks, it’s still difficult to ask sometimes. Also there could be someone ELSE in the room that has a great answer, or would love to bond over the subject you’re interested in.

Like last year, this is part of the reason why we are bringing three “Ask The Expert” sessions to WordCamp Miami this year. In a nutshell:

One person knowledgable in a particular field
No slides, no prepared presentations
Approx 30 min of that person answering as many questions as possible
Think of this as a mini-town hall or a Reddit “AMA”.

Stay tuned for more information about the speaker and questions that could you ask!

When you look back at the history of WordPress, what distinguished WordPress was an emphasis on design. As the years passed, the definition of design changed and WordPress fell behind. How can WordPress leap ahead? The answer is inclusive design.

This talk will provide examples and how-tos on the community building in real life. We will go into social media platforms and how it’s a start, but then we’ll dive deeper into IRL engagement; What does this look like? How can one start?
Also, this talk will go into the importance of community & how intentionally building community will directly affect the social trajectory of our neighborhoods all the way up to our nation.

What could be the benefit of being part of the WordPress Community if you don’t even use WordPress? How far can you get if you decide to step out of your comfort-zone and overcome your fears?

My husband dragged me kicking and screaming to my first WordCamp. I did not even know what WordPress was up to that point and I was scared of meeting the “nerdy” part of my husband’s life probably due to not being able to get involved.

The story I want to share is about how things evolved afterward, as I visited several WordCamps as a passionate volunteer to the point of getting a true WordPress Community-Junkie. It is about how I became a WordCamp organizer, speaker and emcee in almost no time. It is about how I found new enjoyable professional challenges.

It is the story about how I have been changing my life completely in only one year, because I dared to step out of my comfort-zone.

In this lightning talk, I’ll summarize the most important moments in the history of WordPress, as I’ve seen (or contributed to) them.

I’ll also share a few thoughts on what (I think) the future of WordPress is going to look like for the next 15 years.

Join in for a fireside chat between JJJ and Matt, for an unscripted mix of intimate, personal, and professional discussion. They’ll probably reminisce about pivotal moments in the history of WordPress, dream big about fun new future WordPress features, maybe bring up BuddyPress & bbPress a bit, or what it’s really like to manage really big open source software. Please sit down, relax, make yourself comfortable, and join us!

This is an advanced PHP talk. Having worked with and extended several high use and highly customized WooCommerce sites, we will go over a core method for approaching large features being added to the shop. From complex gateways to intricate edge cases of user roles and currency management, there needs to be method to the madness. The session will include a fundamental approach as well as coding examples of handling advanced WooCommerce functionality.

When working with the WordPress customizer folks tend to create items in PHP. In this session we will look at the customizer JavaScript API to implement dynamic settings, allowing us to bring live preview to complex settings.

It’s time to make the robots do all the things we can make them do. Machines can do just about anything as long as you give them the properly formed instructions. Fortunately for us WordPress allows us to give these instructions in an easy to learn and very robust manner called The WP-CLI. It is the fastest way to install, active and update any theme, plugin or just about anything else in your WordPress site.
In this presentation I will demonstrate a simple install script that will have a fully functioning, customized WP website in about the same time than it normally takes download the WordPress.zip file. We will also look for how third party tools and hosts are leveraging the WP-CLI to make your life as a developer even easier.

Retailers and web designers alike can get caught up in the look and functionality of a store’s website, forgetting that every decision made needs to be made with your business and your user in mind. In this session, we will learn how to identify your website’s primary call to action and create online experiences that encourage conversion. Discover the design principles that have a huge impact on how people interact with and understand your website—and how that can affect your company’s bottom line.

Website Accessibility should not be an option or afterthought. Learn what you should be doing to build website that are accessible to those with disabilities, and the available tools to implement and test your sites.

5 things you can do to improve your WordPress website’s visibility in Google, Yahoo and Bing and drive more traffic to your website from organic search. Action packed tips to improve on-page optimization, technical SEO, and off-site SEO.

As a long time Drupal community member, I decided to participate in other free software communities to share my experiences and learn from theirs. In Nicaragua, my home country, the local WordPress community is very active. In this session I want to share my experience in being involved for almost a year now. In particular:

* What I have learned about community building and event organization.
* How my background as speaker, code contributor, and mentor in Drupal has been useful in my volunteering efforts.
* The benefits of the two communities working together to promote the adoption of free software in the country.

It has been a great first year and I look forward to get more involved in the WordPress community.

Help make the world a better place with WordPress.

Assisting organizations that make this world a better place is highly inspiring and satisfying. But that can’t be the only reward when you give your professional best. In a nutshell: Birgit shares how to work with nonprofits and how to bring them into the best light online.

She dives into the importance of a rare commodity: Listening. She teaches how to create catered comprehension. She discusses how you can build a donor/member-oriented website and how to incorporate the organization’s “bucket list” within the realities of budgets and capabilities.

You will learn about the wide range of online needs for various types of nonprofits and share info about plugins and tools to build useful solutions. You’ll walk way with the resources to connect with other nonprofit technologists and services.

Just because the organization is a nonprofit doesn’t mean you can’t make a living building effective websites with a notable online presence.

The Women in WordPress panel brings together a diverse group of women from across North America for an honest discussion. Aiming to inspire encourage he WordPress community, but women in particular, the panelists will discuss their achievements, struggles, and give advice to those just starting out. They will also talk about how men can be better allies to women overall, but especially to those who are just starting out their WordPress journey, whether in development, design, marketing, or blogging.

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!

Answers to your e-commerce questions from an experienced and diverse panel of experts from e-commerce and the WordPress community.

Answers to your e-commerce questions from an experienced and diverse panel of experts from e-commerce and the WordPress community.

Just prior to WordCamp US 2017 I had the fun idea of creating an interactive bingo board for all of the fun and unique things that we regularly observe within our community. I was able to knock together the original concept after just a couple of hours thanks to utility provided by View and tailwind. Later I connected it to WordPress via the rest API so that I could more easily manage each of the squares available in the data set.

In this presentation I walk you through how I went from idea to prototype to fully functional web app. We’ll cover the purpose served by my chosen frameworks and why I picked those instead of writing plain, vanilla JavaScript and CSS (or competing frameworks, for that matter). While this will not be a deep dive into code, we will review specific code samples and you should get enough detail to build this – or something like it –yourself by the time the session has ended.

Here’s the specific list of the things you can expect to learn during this presentation:

* Why I chose Vue instead of React for this particular project
* Some of the neat things that Vue provides to us as developers (Vue.js 101)
* How to utilize local storage for resilience against connectivity issues and unintended browser refreshes
* The benefits of utility-based CSS classes
* How to register custom rest API endpoints
* Handling API authentication without regular users
* How you too can totally disrupt the State of the Word address

The Women in WordPress panel brings together a diverse group of women from across North America for an honest discussion. Aiming to inspire encourage he WordPress community, but women in particular, the panelists will discuss their achievements, struggles, and give advice to those just starting out. They will also talk about how men can be better allies to women overall, but especially to those who are just starting out their WordPress journey, whether in development, design, marketing, or blogging.

This session is intended to explain and show how to create a mobile app for a WordPress based site using React Native.

We recently built a mobile app for iOS and Android for Red Bull Global Rallycross.
Their website is powered by WordPress and the idea was to create a mobile app to access the same content.
This talk will take this app as an example and highlight some of the things we learned while building it.

This session will be 90% live coding.

First, I’m going to cover the basics of React Native:
– How it works
– React 101 (components, jsx, lifecycle)
– Layout system
– Styling views

Then I’m going to create a React Native app from scratch with a WordPress backend:
– Creating a project
– Adding basic navigation
– Building the news feed screen
– Adding the news details screen
– Adding a simple parallax animation

After this session I’m confident people will realize how easy it is to create native mobile apps with React Native.

You press Enter and instead of a new line you get a new paragraph. You want to create a nested list and it just doesn’t look how you want it to. You pasted text from your word processor and its format is all wrong.

Formatting an article in WordPress can be boring and frustrating, but it’s a crucial step in writing for the web.
People read on screen differently than on paper and formatting the text will help them get to the end of it.

This talk will show you how to leverage the options available in WordPress and it will teach you how to fix some common problems with a few HTML tags.

The Women in WordPress panel brings together a diverse group of women from across North America for an honest discussion. Aiming to inspire encourage he WordPress community, but women in particular, the panelists will discuss their achievements, struggles, and give advice to those just starting out. They will also talk about how men can be better allies to women overall, but especially to those who are just starting out their WordPress journey, whether in development, design, marketing, or blogging.

The final panel will be a mix of prepared questions and moderated (to control length tone and moderate quality) audience questions to turn some of the aspirational and motivational points back into tactical practical takeaways.

Attendees will be guided through how the pieces fit together while inspiring and highlighting practical takeaways where attendees gain long-term motivation, and are able to implement immediate tactical changes when they get back to their desk.

You met someone in life and many years later you see them on the cover of Forbes. The natural reaction is “Whoa – that person hit it big – like just out of no where.” The real story is not where that person is today, but the what, why, and how they spent their time and energy in the months and years prior to making it. More specifically what they learned and applied along the way, and how they coped with set backs and the ever present feeling anxiety of failure. I’m not on the cover of Forbes, but I will share my journey from the main stage at WCMIA.

This talk explains through an example the possibilities around the REST API of WordPress.

We can create any kind of integration with WordPress, it’s possible to create external systems to manage all the content and information behind the CMS.

This talk uses a small device with a microprocessor, like Raspberry Pi or Tessel to show the possibility of the integrations of WordPress with IOT.

In this specific case, I’ll interact with the crowd, asking them to scream very loud, and if they reach a number of decibels some post will be published inside the CMS by the integration with the WP REST API, and they can see live in the address that I will share with them during the talk.

I’ll explain briefly how it works the WP REST API and how this integration was made.

On average 68% of all shopping carts are abandoned. That’s a huge leak in any business’ funnel. In this power talk, conversion expert, Syed Balkhi, will share his top tips to reduce cart abandonment, boost sales, and increase profit-margins.