WordCamp Ottawa 2019

Location RB 3110 – Richcraft Hall: Carleton University

The goal of Introduction to WordPress for Beginners, is to introduce new and nearly new WordPress users to the terms and concepts of WordPress before the weekend sessions.

In Introduction to WordPress for Beginners, you will learn:

• What the WordPress dashboard is
• About WordPress content types
• How to add content to a WordPress site, including images and video
• How to add and manage menus, sidebar widgets, themes and plugins

The details:

• Introduction to WordPress for Beginners takes place Tuesday, July 9th, 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m at Carleton University – Richcraft Hall, RB 3110, University Drive, Ottawa, Ottawa, ON
• You need to register for this session separately. To register, please select or add the Pre-camp “WordPress 101: Introduction for Beginners” option to your ticket.
• You can attend this session without attending the main WordCamp on the July 13th weekend.
• WiFi information will be made available at the session
• There are no prerequisites for this session.

WordPress’ power comes from it’s extensibility. Actions & Filters allow you to add, change or remove features from your site. This talk will introduce you how to use these hooks, a must-know skill for anyone wanting to create a theme or plugin. Basic PHP knowledge is not required, but helpful in attending this talk.

You started using Gutenberg or you are not sure about taking the plunge? Then, join this panel to hear how the new WordPress editor is shaking up our projects, codebase and life as a developer and a project manager. Rather than the good and the bad, we would like to focus on what changes for us in our daily approach in an agency and invite you to make your own opinion.

This presentation will discuss the different project management approaches for design and/or development in a WordPress context, and will offer an overview of the different tools, free or not, which are available. There are no specific pre-requisites to attend, but you will get a lot more out of this if you currently manage more than one project at a time.

In “Free Software / Free Society”, Richard Stallman describes in detail the philosophy behind the (GPL) Gnu Pubic License. While that philosophy is admirable, it isn’t the reason that most people use Free Software.
In this presentation, Ron will delve into his experience with Free and Proprietary Software, why people choose Free Software, and our roles in a Free Software community.

Location RB 3110 – Richcraft Hall: Carleton University

The goal of Introduction to WordPress for Beginners, is to introduce new and nearly new WordPress users to the terms and concepts of WordPress before the weekend sessions.

In Introduction to WordPress for Beginners, you will learn:

• What the WordPress dashboard is
• About WordPress content types
• How to add content to a WordPress site, including images and video
• How to add and manage menus, sidebar widgets, themes and plugins

The details:

• Introduction to WordPress for Beginners takes place Tuesday, July 9th, 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m at Carleton University – Richcraft Hall, RB 3110, University Drive, Ottawa, Ottawa, ON
• You need to register for this session separately. To register, please select or add the Pre-camp “WordPress 101: Introduction for Beginners” option to your ticket.
• You can attend this session without attending the main WordCamp on the July 13th weekend.
• WiFi information will be made available at the session
• There are no prerequisites for this session.

We migrated 1,300 websites from HTML to WordPress. Learn how I assessed the business processes beforehand, conducted a company-wide process audit and implemented improvements involving the client services, business account managers, sales, finance, marketing and IT teams. I will also discuss how I built the CRM requirements and worked directly with the CRM developers to track and automate reporting of the various website statuses such as cancellations, suspensions, and brand new website build requests.

• How to assess the big picture around website processes
• How to work with different teams within a large corporation to educate them on business process updates
• How to work with the older generation on selecting website templates for migrations
• How a multi-site instance was set up for the migration of 1,300 websites

Does it feel like keeping up with SEO has been a wild ride the past year?

The one constant in SEO is change, but the past 14 months have been especially turbulent. And the rapid pace of change is speeding up! Hard to know which changes to pay attention to and what to do about them.

Voice Search?
Mobile-First Index?
Quality and E-A-T algorithm updates?
Site speed?
Structured Data and Schema?
Major changes to SEO Tools (Hello, Yoast SEO and Google Search Console!)
Whew.

You’re not alone in feeling overwhelmed. We’ll get right into the nitty-gritty of understanding the implications of the major changes and nailing down specific strategies and tactics to adjust our thinking and adapt our WordPress sites, content, and processes to succeed in this new reality, while maintaining our sanity. And slay a few sacred cows in the process.

We’ll particularly focus on the needs of small business sites, bloggers and small to medium, e-commerce sites while keeping the jargon under control.

You started using Gutenberg or you are not sure about taking the plunge? Then, join this panel to hear how the new WordPress editor is shaking up our projects, codebase and life as a developer and a project manager. Rather than the good and the bad, we would like to focus on what changes for us in our daily approach in an agency and invite you to make your own opinion.

What is eCommerce? It’s selling something (physical or digital) on the internet.

To a lot of people, developing eCommerce is a very scary thing. “It is only for the Advanced Developers,” some people say.

Let’s break down those walls together, as I show you the basics of building an online store.

A panel discussion with members of the WordPress community exploring ethical issues that can arise when working with clients, with each other, and within the WordPress community at large.

Panelists: Michelle Ames, Matt Graham, Shanta Nathwani, Cami Kaos, and Chris Wiegman

With all the new changes to WordPress with Gutenberg, many people are confused.
I’m going to show you how to create your home, about and contact pages in 30 minutes using Gutenberg blocks.

There is so much confusion about what types of things should be put on a page and what should be in a post. Static vs. Dynamic content is the best way to tackle this. An “About Us” page would be just that… A PAGE. If you are talking about something that is more time sensitive, then you want to do a post. Connected to this would be Categories and Tags. What are they? When creating a website, you can edit a menu to include not only pages, but also category archives that can create a more complete experience for small businesses. This is not just how to do it but WHY you should do it. This gives an in depth look at the justification for placement of content on your website and way finding.

A panel discussion with members of the WordPress community exploring ethical issues that can arise when working with clients, with each other, and within the WordPress community at large.

Panelists: Michelle Ames, Matt Graham, Shanta Nathwani, Cami Kaos, and Chris Wiegman

Taking lessons from lovable furry old Grover of Sesame Street fame we’ll explore methods for civil and constructive communication within open source projects, on social media, and for remote workers. It’s a playful look at how tone and context impacts the people we work with and share our internet and world with everyday.

A panel discussion with members of the WordPress community exploring ethical issues that can arise when working with clients, with each other, and within the WordPress community at large.

Panelists: Michelle Ames, Matt Graham, Shanta Nathwani, Cami Kaos, and Chris Wiegman

Whether you’re new to WordPress, running your own site, designing client websites, or even a full stack developer, there are countless ways to get tripped up when moving a WordPress website. WordPress migration plugins cost money, often cause problems, and don’t help you gain a deeper understanding of how your WordPress site functions in the background.
When would you need to move a WordPress site?
– You built the website locally and are ready to launch
– You built a site on your own server and need to move it to your client’s server
– You want to move your site from one webhost to another
– You’re changing the domain name for a website
You will learn:
– How to import and set up your WordPress files
– How to import and set up your database
– How to set up a WordPress user through the database
– How to check the site before it’s live
– DNS rundown
– Troubleshooting: Database changes
– Troubleshooting: Plugin and PHP errors
– Extra: How to integrate your site with the WordPress Toolkit in Plesk

From the brains of several WordPressers comes a panel discussion on the use of page builders now that Gutenberg is in core.

Questions that could be touched on:

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

A panel discussion with members of the WordPress community exploring ethical issues that can arise when working with clients, with each other, and within the WordPress community at large.

Panelists: Michelle Ames, Matt Graham, Shanta Nathwani, Cami Kaos, and Chris Wiegman

The sessions/presentations might be what pique your interest to attend your first word camp, but the conversations had in hallways outside them is what will keep you coming back. Whether you’ve been to 0, 1 or N+1 word camps before, you’ll appreciate how the hallway track offers the highest fidelity opportunities to communicate and share knowledge with others. After all, everyone is both speaker and audience member there!

In the first 15 mins of this session, Jamie will share all the hints to help yourself (and others) get the most out of every hallway track. After that, a series of breakout sessions on pre-selected topics will have us collectively bringing the best parts of the hallway track into a single session.

Pre-selected topics you say? Before July 10th, go to http://wordcamp.gravityflow.io/ to fill out the Hallway Track Topics of Interest questionnaire. It will identify the biggest overlaps of all attendees:

• 3 topics you most want to learn about in attending the conference.
• 3 topics you feel most knowledge/experience to share back with others.

Personalized versions of your answers will also be printed and available in same size as your registration badge / lanyard, making for an easy way to open conversations in the actual hallways with other humans getting/giving help. Especially if you follow the Pac-Man Rule for conversations @ conferences

Whether you’re a business of one or a Fortune 100 company, telling the story of your brand has never been more important. Relating with the customer and relaying the journey of what got you here is an integral part of an effective content marketing strategy. More and more, people are looking to do business with brands that are “real” and “genuine.” In this talk we’ll cover:

• how to build an authentic brand that connects & resonates with your audience
• how to find, leverage and amplify your brand’s voice
• the elements that comprise a powerful brand story

And we’ll talk about how to combine these elements across different platforms to communicate your brand with the most bang for your buck.

Performing theme, plugin and core updates on your site can be intimidating and overwhelming, especially for older and more complex sites with many interconnected plugins – WooCommerce, I’m looking at you!

The solution is simple: use a staging site – a private copy of your site where you can safely test updates and resolve problems before your users ever experience an issue.

I’ll guide you across a number of ways to create a staging site depending on your specific needs, performing these updates, and then applying these updates to your main site. You’ll leave with a concrete plan for how to set up your own staging site, and will fear the update process far less!

We all know how is important for our business to have a monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and everybody talk about it! It’s something you need to build into your business plan. It gives you peace of mind that every month you get a certain amount into your bank account.

In this presentation, I explain how we build recurring revenue with our WordPress Care Plans, how we set the up and how we go about selling it.

Most people struggle with change and clarity of goals, with my three point formula…Purpose, Plan, Persistence, it will enable you to embrace change and have a clear path to success.

This talk is designed to help creatives, bloggers, event planners, marketers, content editors plan and document more inclusive experiences using WordPress to reach an often excluded audience of primary caregivers:
• My experiences bringing children into business settings at home in Canada and abroad
• The creatives and business owners I’ve met along the way and the challenges they’ve encountered
• What happens when you bring children into business settings and how I’ve documented it using WordPress as a platform
• Practical resources/takeaways: Inclusive experience tips for organizations, venues and event planners to accommodate primary caregivers and their loved ones

This talk is designed to help current and aspiring creatives, freelancers, bloggers, remote workers, business owners and side hustlers with limited time:
• My experiences blogging before and after becoming a parent
• Tools to carve out the time and structure for a creative practice
• How I’ve used WordPress to help me validate business ideas
• The evolution of a book through regular blogging
• Share your message and cultivate a following
• Practical resources/takeaways: Attendees will use interactive prompts and activities, leaving with inspiring tips and a practical roadmap to get started on validating their business idea, writing a book and building a community

By now we’ve all heard of how important privacy is on the web. As site owners we have the responsibility of protecting both our own privacy and the privacy of our users. This talk will cover basic technologies to improve the privacy of your WordPress site as well as how to address topics of privacy above and beyond the security protections you’re already implementing.

A panel discussion with members of the WordPress community exploring ethical issues that can arise when working with clients, with each other, and within the WordPress community at large.

Panelists: Michelle Ames, Matt Graham, Shanta Nathwani, Cami Kaos, and Chris Wiegman

With the revolution of Javascript in the past years combined with the greater need of mobile and super fast sites, new tools are out for developers. GraphQL is a new tool that replaces REST API’s. In this conference, we will look how to bring GraphQL into a WordPress development cycle.

How to build a headless theme using GraphQL and ReactJS.

This talk will give you the basic knowledge necessary to grasp this new tool and will leave you excited to discover more about it.

One of the qualities of a good developer is the ability to find and solve a problem. We create plugins for client projects and then realize it has a wider use case. So, we submit it to the plugin directory or open our GitHub. Pretty soon, you have adoption and support requests. So, how can your plugin support itself?

After all, you can’t eat good reviews and the hard-to-find donation button only gets you so far. What are your options for monetization without taking out core features or annoying your loyal users? In this talk, we will explore effective options and ideas to financially support your product so you can continue to develop and build.

What is a child theme. Why do I need one and how do I create one?
We will also cover the bits knowlege you need to get started customizing your theme

Learn how to contribute to the core of WordPress

Easy ways to make your WordPress site more accessibility friendly without sacrificing speed and appeal to a non-impaired audience.

Websites are a significant investment. With the rate at which technology advances websites need to be kept up to date in order to stay relevant. Ensuring that your codebase is as easily maintainable as possible is critical in both saving time and money.

Some of the points that will be talked about:
– Managing core and plugin updates with composer
– Using a task-runner to compile assets
– Organizing your theme using partials and includes
– Impactful code commenting

During this 15 minute talk, I will discuss different techniques and tricks to optimizing your website from a pagespeed perspective.

– Plugins
– Hosting
– CDN’s
– Functions.php
– Tools to monitor page speed

With WordPress 5.2 now supporting PHP 5.6 as the minimum required version, any developer can leverage the language improvements which happened over the years to make development easier and more efficient.

We’re going to dive into examples of syntaxes, tools and standards that will help you write better code, faster, and improve your PHP skills at the same time.

There are hundreds of thousands of non-profits in the world, and a huge portion of them use WordPress. How do you make one stand out more than the others when they all compete for donor dollars?

This talk will present several ideas that have proven successful in helping nonprofit organizations reach donors and better achieve their fundraising goals, including:

• Storytelling
• Online fundraiser ideas
• Using reviews to stand out
• Events and the media
• Building a fan base
• Leveraging Giving Tuesday

Attendees will leave feeling better prepared to help their organization (or their client’s organization) be successful.

From the brains of several WordPressers comes a panel discussion on the use of page builders now that Gutenberg is in core.

Questions that could be touched on:

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

A panel discussion with members of the WordPress community exploring ethical issues that can arise when working with clients, with each other, and within the WordPress community at large.

Panelists: Michelle Ames, Matt Graham, Shanta Nathwani, Cami Kaos, and Chris Wiegman

Have you ever had a client insist on having admin access to their website? They own it, so they have that right…but how long did it take before they called you to fix what they broke once they logged in?
While clients who break their own sites are guaranteed revenue, those calls never come at a convenient time and are ALWAYS urgent.
So what can we do to both empower our clients and make sure their sites continue to run well?
This talk will present several ideas for ways that we can do just that, including:
* Helpful plugins
* How to train a client in WordPress
* How to set user permissions
* How to set pricing for fixing mistakes
* Creating a user manual
* Other tips for managing the client relationship
Attendees will leave with some good ideas and action items to better help clients help themselves…or not.

Being a lead developer not only means being responsible for clean and optimized code, it also means mentoring and teaching junior developers. This is the case for any lead role in the tech industry. Having been a karate sensei for almost 9 years, come learn how I took cues from my time at the dojo, and applied it to helping junior team members. From learning styles to patience, and to self-confidence, much can be learned from the martial arts.

From the brains of several WordPressers comes a panel discussion on the use of page builders now that Gutenberg is in core.

Questions that could be touched on:

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