🇺🇸 WordCamp US 2024

In this technical workshop, we’ll explore Disney’s comprehensive strategy for leveraging Gutenberg to modernize our diverse platforms. Join us as we delve into the distinctive methods we employ, our overarching strategy, and how Gutenberg is instrumental in refining our websites for enhanced performance and user experience.

In this session we will explore the strategic and technical processes behind migrating Vox Media’s extensive portfolio—including Vox.com, Polygon, and The Verge—from the proprietary Chorus CMS to a headless WordPress multisite. Attendees will learn about creating a new backend editorial workflow, managing extensive data migrations, and developing a custom GraphQL API for Vox’s “Duet” frontend. Key takeaways include methods for customizing CMS to fit specific editorial needs, essential factors for successful large-scale migrations, effective collaboration with internal teams, and ensuring a smooth launch day. This session is ideal for those curious about the complexities of large-scale CMS migrations.

In this session we will explore the strategic and technical processes behind migrating Vox Media’s extensive portfolio—including Vox.com, Polygon, and The Verge—from the proprietary Chorus CMS to a headless WordPress multisite. Attendees will learn about creating a new backend editorial workflow, managing extensive data migrations, and developing a custom GraphQL API for Vox’s “Duet” frontend. Key takeaways include methods for customizing CMS to fit specific editorial needs, essential factors for successful large-scale migrations, effective collaboration with internal teams, and ensuring a smooth launch day. This session is ideal for those curious about the complexities of large-scale CMS migrations.

CNN’s journey in Brazil involved critical decisions, from code architecture to development team culture, which enabled CNN to implement innovative and agile solutions. In this session, attendees will explore the technical strategies transforming CNN Brazil from a newborn company to a major player, becoming one of the top three Brazilian news portals. By the end of this session, participants will gain insights into practical performance tuning and robust software development from an enterprise-level perspective. They will leave with valuable techniques to enhance their projects, understanding how thoughtful decisions can drive significant growth and reliability in a competitive digital landscape.

Join us for a fireside chat featuring Burhan Hamid, CTO at TIME, and Tim Hossain, VP, WordPress VIP Growth and Demand Generation. They’ll share insights on how the TIME Product and Engineering teams replatformed time.com, focusing on building user-friendly, scalable components to enhance the customer and editorial experience.

Learn how they created reusable components for major topics, like Taylor Swift’s Person of the Year, House of the Dragon, and political news, such as the Trump shooting, allowing editors to control when and where these patterns appear, with the flexibility to update once and apply those changes site-wide. Discover strategies to streamline editorial workflows and maintain engaging, consistent user experiences.

Join us for a fireside chat featuring Burhan Hamid, CTO at TIME, and Tim Hossain, VP, WordPress VIP Growth and Demand Generation. They’ll share insights on how the TIME Product and Engineering teams replatformed time.com, focusing on building user-friendly, scalable components to enhance the customer and editorial experience.

Learn how they created reusable components for major topics, like Taylor Swift’s Person of the Year, House of the Dragon, and political news, such as the Trump shooting, allowing editors to control when and where these patterns appear, with the flexibility to update once and apply those changes site-wide. Discover strategies to streamline editorial workflows and maintain engaging, consistent user experiences.

Join Travis, a seasoned online business entrepreneur and Customer Success Manager at WooCommerce, alongside Bryce Adams from Metorik, as they uncover the powerful strategies that industry giants use to scale their businesses with WordPress and WooCommerce. In this insightful session, they will delve into large companies’ real-world applications and success stories, showcasing how these platforms provide the flexibility and scalability needed to thrive in today’s competitive market. Attendees will gain practical knowledge of the best practices employed by top-tier enterprises, learning how to implement these techniques to elevate their own businesses and achieve sustainable growth. Whether you’re a seasoned WordPress user or just beginning your journey, this session offers valuable insights that can be applied to any stage of business development.

Join Travis, a seasoned online business entrepreneur and Customer Success Manager at WooCommerce, alongside Bryce Adams from Metorik, as they uncover the powerful strategies that industry giants use to scale their businesses with WordPress and WooCommerce. In this insightful session, they will delve into large companies’ real-world applications and success stories, showcasing how these platforms provide the flexibility and scalability needed to thrive in today’s competitive market. Attendees will gain practical knowledge of the best practices employed by top-tier enterprises, learning how to implement these techniques to elevate their own businesses and achieve sustainable growth. Whether you’re a seasoned WordPress user or just beginning your journey, this session offers valuable insights that can be applied to any stage of business development.

In the WordPress Speed Build Battle, participants have 30 minutes to recreate a famous website. This high-pressure competition tests participants’ ability to quickly adapt, think creatively, and demonstrate their technical skills within a limited timeframe. The website to be recreated is kept a secret until the start of the challenge, adding an element of surprise and excitement.

Audience members will gain valuable insights from observing the challenge. They will learn innovative techniques for using WordPress, discover new ways to approach web design under time constraints, and see firsthand how expert builders tackle unexpected challenges. Additionally, viewers can pick up tips on improving their own WordPress skills and get inspired by the creativity and resourcefulness of the participants.

In today’s ever-changing landscape, digital marketers face unique challenges. Economic uncertainty has businesses tightening budgets, and the rise of AI brings robust DIY tools into the mix. How can digital agencies remain steady and even achieve growth in these uncertain times?

In this session, we’ll explore key strategies for staffing, including how to retain top talent, empower professional growth, and efficiently manage remote teams. We’ll talk about the importance of building recurring revenue streams for financial stability, even when new projects are scarce. Discover innovative ways to leverage AI and other technologies to enhance your service offerings and compliment staff, without losing the human touch that sets your agency apart.

Topics covered include:

• Adapting to economic shifts and client budget constraints.
• Creating sustainable revenue models through subscription services and monthly service agreements.
• Utilizing AI tools to complement your agency’s expertise and increase efficiency.
• Effective team management and maintaining a positive work culture in a remote or hybrid environment.
• Empowering your team to grow professionally while fostering autonomy and knowing when to delegate tasks.
• Marketing your agency’s unique value proposition in a crowded and competitive market.

In this session, Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, will answer live questions from WordCamp US attendees.

This session will cover the OSS Capital thesis – why we believe open source is the most important trend in technology and the implications across crypto, AI and traditional software / tech businesses and markets.

iOne Digital was created to democratize publishing by showcasing and empowering Black-owned businesses. Leveraging WordPress, iOne has launched over 70 platforms, including BlackPlanet, the original social network predating Facebook. This extensive use of WordPress underscores their commitment to creating accessible and cost-effective digital spaces for the Black community.

Join Markus Robinson, the SVP, Product and Technology, to gain a deeper understanding of iOne Digital’s journey and impact. This session will explore the history of iOne, their vision and significant achievements. It will delve into their choice of WordPress, how their approach has evolved over the years and the technical decisions involved in managing such an extensive multisite network. This discussion will provide insights into the strategic and technical lessons learned, highlighting the thoughtful planning behind their expansive digital footprint.

This year Amnesty International open sourced their WordPress theme and plugins. Amnesty International will discuss their journey to launching 45 WordPress sites on the Humanity WordPress theme and how they went about open sourcing their code. The talk will cover a demo, the challenges faced and most importantly information on how you can download and install the Humanity theme on your WordPress install.

This session is especially valuable for NGOs looking for a theme as well as engineers who might want to build features or help fix bugs for an important charity.

Human Made recently collaborated with the Harvard Gazette, Harvard University’s official news outlet, to transform and modernize their digital presence. The project team established a scalable design system, reduced training time by simplifying the editorial workflow, and engineered custom blocks to captivate the reader and tell new kinds of stories — all without compromising on the highest accessibility standards.

This talk will guide the audience through the technologies and decision-making framework behind some of the most complex and interesting features of the new site. Expect to gain a fresh perspective on what’s possible within the block editor!

CNN’s journey in Brazil involved critical decisions, from code architecture to development team culture, which enabled CNN to implement innovative and agile solutions. In this session, attendees will explore the technical strategies transforming CNN Brazil from a newborn company to a major player, becoming one of the top three Brazilian news portals. By the end of this session, participants will gain insights into practical performance tuning and robust software development from an enterprise-level perspective. They will leave with valuable techniques to enhance their projects, understanding how thoughtful decisions can drive significant growth and reliability in a competitive digital landscape.

Learn how you can use Dub.co’s link & analytics infrastructure to transform every external short link shared in marketing campaigns (social media, email, SMS) into a powerful end-to-end attribution engine. By leveraging Dub’s deep integration with WordPress, marketers can gain valuable insights into how their efforts translate into revenue – turning what was once a black box into a clear, actionable flow.

The Automattic Special Projects Team helps interesting people, projects, and organizations to have a great experience with their WordPress websites. By connecting their partners with the best that the WordPress community has to offer, the team spreads enthusiasm for WordPress and open source in general.

In this follow up to Christy Nyiri’s presentation, Highlights from the Automattic Special Project Team, Mike Straw will show the technical details behind some of the advanced features and customizations the Automattic Special Projects Team has built for their partners, and share details to help developers implement them on their own sites.

The Automattic Special Projects team helps interesting people, projects, and organizations have a great experience with WordPress. By connecting their partners with the best that the WordPress community has to offer, the team spreads enthusiasm for WordPress and open source in general.

This session will showcase favorite websites and tools created by the team, highlighting how it uses the latest WordPress features, supports other teams at Automattic, and contributes to the WordPress community at-large. Following this talk will be a presentation by Mike Straw, which will touch on further technical details of the team’s projects.

The team at Human Made inherited an authentic, content-focused website, but it wasn’t built to enterprise standards. They stepped in to make sure that the old worked seamlessly with the new.

Although WordPress is great for content creation if users like the block editor,
enterprise sites need far more than its out-of-the-box features. But this doesn’t have to mean building a new site from scratch. The audience will gain an understanding of the key building blocks necessary for a highly performant, high-traffic website.

Hear the Human Made team discuss what it is like to have the client, agency and hosting work as equal partners, as well as Tailwind, Custom Blocks, Continuous Integration Tools, Visual Regression Testing, Efficient JS and CSS Load, and migrating to a capable enterprise Cloud solution.
This talk will help the audience understand how to keep a legacy site running while incorporating new technologies, and how this influences a very efficient use of budget.

The team at Human Made inherited an authentic, content-focused website, but it wasn’t built to enterprise standards. They stepped in to make sure that the old worked seamlessly with the new.

Although WordPress is great for content creation if users like the block editor,
enterprise sites need far more than its out-of-the-box features. But this doesn’t have to mean building a new site from scratch. The audience will gain an understanding of the key building blocks necessary for a highly performant, high-traffic website.

Hear the Human Made team discuss what it is like to have the client, agency and hosting work as equal partners, as well as Tailwind, Custom Blocks, Continuous Integration Tools, Visual Regression Testing, Efficient JS and CSS Load, and migrating to a capable enterprise Cloud solution.
This talk will help the audience understand how to keep a legacy site running while incorporating new technologies, and how this influences a very efficient use of budget.

Block Visibility allows users to conditionally display the content of any WordPress block according to various conditions, such as date, user permissions, location, and screen size. With over 20,000 active installs, the plugin integrates seamlessly with the WordPress Editor and has become an essential tool for building block-based WordPress sites.

In this session, Nick will share the development and design philosophy behind Block Visibility and demonstrate how to effectively use WordPress Core components and design patterns. Attendees will gain practical insights into extending the WordPress Editor and enhancing block functionality, which they can apply to their own projects.

In this showcase, James LePage, founder of WPAI, will dive into AgentWP, an AI agent built for WordPress. AgentWP functions as an expert AI assistant for individual user websites, performing tasks like writing blog posts, creating reports, and troubleshooting issues. James will explain the underlying systems enabling safe AI/WordPress interactions. He’ll demonstrate how AgentWP leverages frontier AI models, custom pipelines, and industry-specific fine-tunes to take safe action within WordPress websites, and how these actions are executed using familiar WordPress developer tools and methods. Attendees will gain a clear understanding of how cutting-edge agentic AI solutions like AgentWP operate under the hood and the sophisticated systems powering them.

For two decades, Gravatar has quietly powered billions of avatars across countless websites. Dive into the latest evolution of Gravatar as we unveil how we are building a new open graph that intertwines domains, identities, and social connections, setting the stage for a more connected and personalized web experience. We’ll highlight the simple integration process using our new WordPress plugin, APIs, SDKs, and web components. And we’ll discuss how profiles-as-a-service aligns with current trends such as decentralization, AI, and privacy.

Managing the security of a product with tens of millions of installations is challenging; add Open Source to the equation and the challenges become even more complex. This talk will showcase how Elementor has established internal and external processes to handle security and will highlight our partnership with Patchstack as our bug bounty program and how they have helped enhance our ability to mitigate issues quickly and effectively.

Managing the security of a product with tens of millions of installations is challenging; add Open Source to the equation and the challenges become even more complex. This talk will showcase how Elementor has established internal and external processes to handle security and will highlight our partnership with Patchstack as our bug bounty program and how they have helped enhance our ability to mitigate issues quickly and effectively.

The WordPress media library currently relies on server-side processing for tasks like image resizing. This can result in strained server resources and a subpar user experience. Client-side processing provides a solution to enhance both performance and UX by leveraging the user’s browser capabilities and technologies such as WebAssembly. This presentation dives into the technical aspects of media handling in WordPress and demonstrates the exciting benefits of the new client-side processing approach. It sparks your imagination by showcasing how these powerful new capabilities revolutionize media management and pave the way for new use cases within WordPress core and beyond.

In this session, Jessica will show you how Mrs.Sporty – Europe’s leading women’s fitness & health brand – managed to build a website system with 250 connected WordPress websites. As a franchise, Mrs.Sporty needs to be able to control some parts of these sites globally, while still allowing local franchisees to make local adjustments.

Jessica will walk you through this exciting case and explain how multiple multisites were linked together to synchronize some parts while leaving others open for local editing. She will highlight how the separation of content, design & layout was critical to making this case possible.

This past spring, the Pew Research Center launched a new digital news platform entirely built with blocks to power their condensed multisite at www.pewresearch.org. This initiative goes beyond the mere use of blocks for content and page layout, building upon the Center’s work in drag-and-drop web app creation using the block editor found in their Chart Builder and Quiz Builder plugins. Every system, feature, and functionality on pewresearch.org is a block, from the external user accounts system and login forms to the facets on post archive pages, interactive charts, media downloads, the legal acceptance form for specific media downloads, and newsletter signup forms.

The presentation will cover the key features of the platform, including Block Context Wrappers and Atomic Interactive Blocks. These innovations enable scalable interactivity for blocks, not just from a performance perspective, but also from a developer workload and support standpoint. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the possibilities of blocks and the new WordPress Interactivity API.

In this technical workshop, we’ll explore Disney’s comprehensive strategy for leveraging Gutenberg to modernize our diverse platforms. Join us as we delve into the distinctive methods we employ, our overarching strategy, and how Gutenberg is instrumental in refining our websites for enhanced performance and user experience.

In late 2023, Disney Experiences unveiled Disney Connect, a spellbinding multi-site communication platform that transformed our segment’s public affairs and public relations content. We will discuss how we sprinkled pixie dust on Gutenberg, weaving together 50+ captivating pre-designed blocks for Gutenberg that capture the essence of our Disney magic, creating a platform that empowers our communications teams to build beautiful websites, quickly.

Join us as we share our tale of triumph, tribulations, and transformation in Disney Experiences. We will talk about our design approach, our unique Gutenberg development strategies, and our challenges as we reach for the sky.

The WordPress Hosting team invites you to join this Campfire Chat around hosting best practices, the test reporters of the Hosting team and how to improve your customers’ WordPress experience.

The problem with traditional sessions and workshops + content marketing is it usually isn’t relatable to every participant that joins. Sometimes, they are more into technical SEO, or content creation, or just starting off. The Campfire session (first of all sounds really cool) is the perfect setup for the discussion I want to have.

For those who don’t work directly with content marketing – it tends to be a bit harder to see the ROI 😀 It’s not paid marketing, it’s not fast, and it’s often hard to justify or predict outcomes. But there is a strategy, there are tips and tricks, and there are SOPs and action plans that can help you be on top of things. But let’s through Google and the oh-so-fun, core updates into the mix. Now what? After the AI boom, the algo updates have been volatile, to say the least; why is this URL increasing, but this one decreasing? Why am I being outranked by Quora and Reddit? Now what?

I want to have a discussion about content marketing (in general) with no set agenda on if we talk about content strategy, content creation, content distribution, SEO, audience engagement, analytics, goals and measurement, and content repurposing. If we cover all those topics? Awesome. If we end up only going into one, but its because we are all scared about the Core Update that is going to happen either during or right after WCUS? Also awesome.

We all have different experiences, different successes and failures, and what better way to dive deeper into that conversation, help each other out, and hopefully learn something new to try then in a safe place like WordCamp.

We all dream of the Utopia that is a truly inclusive community or workplace. Somewhere where everyone feels valued and welcome no matter their background. The land where the dreams you dare to dream really do come true.

The WordPress community is hugely diverse, and represents people from all sorts of backgrounds and with a wide variety of skillsets. Is it as inclusive as it could be, especially for the LGBTQIA+ community? Let’s discuss some of the challenges faced and how, as individuals, we can make small changes that could help remove some of the barriers that prevent people from being open and true to themselves.

This talk is for people with ADHD who want to learn WordPress. Eduardo Telaya, a tech expert with lots of experience, will share simple strategies to help you focus better and use your creativity in WordPress. You’ll learn how to make your work area less distracting, choose tools that help you stay organized, and turn your quick thinking into great ideas for your projects.

In this session we will explore the strategic and technical processes behind migrating Vox Media’s extensive portfolio—including Vox.com, Polygon, and The Verge—from the proprietary Chorus CMS to a headless WordPress multisite. Attendees will learn about creating a new backend editorial workflow, managing extensive data migrations, and developing a custom GraphQL API for Vox’s “Duet” frontend. Key takeaways include methods for customizing CMS to fit specific editorial needs, essential factors for successful large-scale migrations, effective collaboration with internal teams, and ensuring a smooth launch day. This session is ideal for those curious about the complexities of large-scale CMS migrations.

In 2018, one of the early Customer Success Departments in WordPress was started with one person, added to a team of nine developers and support techs. This tenth employee was viewed with some skepticism and a “let’s see how it goes” outlook.

Within the first month, that new hire started phoning new customers. And thus disrupted the way that plugin companies interact with their users.

From that first phone call in January 2018 to present day, customer success teams have influenced sales, and more importantly, satisfaction – resulting in less churn, great reviews, and customers who feel confident in using plugin software.

This talk will narrate the history of the triumphs, mistakes, and (sometimes) accidental steps and missteps that have taken them from one person with a phone to entire teams of change agents determined to help customers succeed.

iOne Digital was created to democratize publishing by showcasing and empowering Black-owned businesses. Leveraging WordPress, iOne has launched over 70 platforms, including BlackPlanet, the original social network predating Facebook. This extensive use of WordPress underscores their commitment to creating accessible and cost-effective digital spaces for the Black community.

Join Markus Robinson, the SVP, Product and Technology, to gain a deeper understanding of iOne Digital’s journey and impact. This session will explore the history of iOne, their vision and significant achievements. It will delve into their choice of WordPress, how their approach has evolved over the years and the technical decisions involved in managing such an extensive multisite network. This discussion will provide insights into the strategic and technical lessons learned, highlighting the thoughtful planning behind their expansive digital footprint.

In the WordPress Speed Build Battle, participants have 30 minutes to recreate a famous website. This high-pressure competition tests participants’ ability to quickly adapt, think creatively, and demonstrate their technical skills within a limited timeframe. The website to be recreated is kept a secret until the start of the challenge, adding an element of surprise and excitement.

Audience members will gain valuable insights from observing the challenge. They will learn innovative techniques for using WordPress, discover new ways to approach web design under time constraints, and see firsthand how expert builders tackle unexpected challenges. Additionally, viewers can pick up tips on improving their own WordPress skills and get inspired by the creativity and resourcefulness of the participants.

The architecture of the WordPress Playground provides unique opportunities to build new development and product flows that take WordPress into new domains: powering offline apps, normalizing testing and development environments, providing isolated containers in which to stage updates, and integrating WordPress with complicated software projects.

This talk will survey several exciting projects built on the Playground and discuss the ways in which it might power your new tool or product. Come learn how it might revolutionize or dramatically simplify your existing development flows.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and exposing environmental injustices. The session will showcase how WordPress is at the center of Grist’s innovative storytelling for bold and impactful journalism. It will also cover the integrated analytics experience provided by Parse.ly.

This session is for publishers, agencies, and engineering teams looking to run newsrooms tailored to their unique needs, implement content syndication solutions in WordPress, and leverage analytics to inform their content strategy.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and exposing environmental injustices. The session will showcase how WordPress is at the center of Grist’s innovative storytelling for bold and impactful journalism. It will also cover the integrated analytics experience provided by Parse.ly.

This session is for publishers, agencies, and engineering teams looking to run newsrooms tailored to their unique needs, implement content syndication solutions in WordPress, and leverage analytics to inform their content strategy.

At the start of the pandemic, I built an online version of the dominoes-based game Mexican Train so my family could keep playing while staying safe. 200,000 games later, it has become my most successful “startup” to date, despite doing no marketing and being donation-based. It has also helped tens of thousands of people feel less isolated during the pandemic and after. I will walk through the surprising journey of starting a project on a whim, building a game on WordPress, how a community emerged, and the lessons I learned along the way.

Explore the journey from content creation to monetization within the WordPress ecosystem, giving you actionable insights to design, market, and sell online courses effectively.

In late 2023 www.nasa.gov re-launched on WordPress. This talk is a walk through of how the dev team cleaned up wp-admin to help the hundreds of users create the compelling content that won NASA a Webby award. From leveraging the dashboard as a 1-step setup, to creating content. Plus, modifying the admin menu to direct users where they need to go. In addition a demo of the block library and some other ways content creators interact with their content in WordPress.

Interested in creating online courses to sell or share online? Join me for this session as we go from that spark of an idea, to writing a course brief and outline, to hitting publish. We’ll dive deep into the process of course creation and touch on the related topics of self-publishing vs marketplace, choosing the right learning management system, and marketing your new course.

AI is a blazingly fast-paced world and its impact on digital workflows has been significant, particularly in the realms of social media, newsletters, and websites. We will explore several AI tools and their applications in digital marketing. Learn how AI tools can assist in curating content, scheduling posts, analyzing engagement, and even interacting with followers. AI can also assist in making changes to your website and tweaking web content to better reflect the keywords you are targeting. Additionally, AI can aid in managing your newsletter, from writing and scheduling to segmenting your audiences. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies and knowledge of AI tools that can be implemented immediately to save time, increase efficiency, and drive better results in their digital endeavors.

Are you thinking about growing your agency? Do yourself a favor and learn from our mistakes! In this talk, we’ll focus on bringing real world insights into the growing pains of agency life. Whether you’re a solo consultant dreaming of building a team or a small agency aiming for expansion, Karena and Gina will take a look at these pivotal stages of agency development, helping you anticipate risks and avoid common pitfalls.

We will cover critical topics such as effective team growth, clarity around service offerings, and the creation of solid processes and procedures. We’ll also explore crucial financial priorities, legal necessities, and the cultivation of a workplace culture that aligns with your vision.

This presentation will be packed with actionable takeaways for the WordPress professional, offering strategies for scaling, considerations for building with an exit in mind, and a variety of tools and resources that you can apply directly to your own agency expansion efforts.

Are you thinking about growing your agency? Do yourself a favor and learn from our mistakes! In this talk, we’ll focus on bringing real world insights into the growing pains of agency life. Whether you’re a solo consultant dreaming of building a team or a small agency aiming for expansion, Karena and Gina will take a look at these pivotal stages of agency development, helping you anticipate risks and avoid common pitfalls.

We will cover critical topics such as effective team growth, clarity around service offerings, and the creation of solid processes and procedures. We’ll also explore crucial financial priorities, legal necessities, and the cultivation of a workplace culture that aligns with your vision.

This presentation will be packed with actionable takeaways for the WordPress professional, offering strategies for scaling, considerations for building with an exit in mind, and a variety of tools and resources that you can apply directly to your own agency expansion efforts.

Regardless of whether you have a blog, a website, or online store, you have a Brand. In this talk, we will share the most cost-effective ways to protect and grow that brand.

We will talk about how to choose a name that sends the right signals about what you’re offering without triggering trademark conflicts. And we will explain multiple methods for registering and protecting your name and how to defend it from usurpers.

We will touch on the law where necessary, however, this will largely be a business focused talk to provide you practical, actionable advice and answer your burning questions.

Last September, a small but nasty bug was added to the WordPress Core code base and remained undetected until 6.4 was released in November.

Once the severity was clear, Core contributors worked around the clock to determine the appropriate fix, getting a new release out to the world in less than 8 hours from start to finish. Let’s examine what happened during this moment in the project’s history before zooming out in a case study of release management. Lessons the project learned will be shared in a way that you can relate to, allowing you to use them in your own work.

This is a joint talk by Aaron Jorbin and Jonathan Desrosiers, two contributors with over a combined 26 years in contribution experience. They have each led multiple minor and major WordPress releases, are both core committers and members of the WordPress Security team.

Last September, a small but nasty bug was added to the WordPress Core code base and remained undetected until 6.4 was released in November.

Once the severity was clear, Core contributors worked around the clock to determine the appropriate fix, getting a new release out to the world in less than 8 hours from start to finish. Let’s examine what happened during this moment in the project’s history before zooming out in a case study of release management. Lessons the project learned will be shared in a way that you can relate to, allowing you to use them in your own work.

This is a joint talk by Aaron Jorbin and Jonathan Desrosiers, two contributors with over a combined 26 years in contribution experience. They have each led multiple minor and major WordPress releases, are both core committers and members of the WordPress Security team.

Up against a challenge you don’t think WordPress can solve? Think again. WordPress functionality can be leveraged for so much more than blog posts. This talk will feature case studies on a wide variety of projects built in WordPress for the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE). In the past three years, Georgia established a community-focused site for statewide education staff using a strategic set of plugins and custom modifications within WordPress to produce the functionality needed. Once that site was launched, it opened the door for multiple additional WordPress sites under the GaDOE umbrella, including continuing education events for staff across the state, a menu builder with state-approved recipes for cafeteria staff, and rebuilding the main GaDOE site using a headless WordPress setup with Next.js. 

Key takeaways will include out-of-the-box perspectives for utilizing WordPress infrastructure in large-scale initiatives for enterprise and public sector clients. Extend the functionality of WordPress to build next-level sites, custom functionality, and mobile applications that will save your clients thousands when compared to other types of custom development. This will be a co-speaking engagement with Aaron Reimann of Clockwork WP and Dr. Keith Osborn, Chief Information Officer of GaDOE.

Up against a challenge you don’t think WordPress can solve? Think again. WordPress functionality can be leveraged for so much more than blog posts. This talk will feature case studies on a wide variety of projects built in WordPress for the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE). In the past three years, Georgia established a community-focused site for statewide education staff using a strategic set of plugins and custom modifications within WordPress to produce the functionality needed. Once that site was launched, it opened the door for multiple additional WordPress sites under the GaDOE umbrella, including continuing education events for staff across the state, a menu builder with state-approved recipes for cafeteria staff, and rebuilding the main GaDOE site using a headless WordPress setup with Next.js. 

Key takeaways will include out-of-the-box perspectives for utilizing WordPress infrastructure in large-scale initiatives for enterprise and public sector clients. Extend the functionality of WordPress to build next-level sites, custom functionality, and mobile applications that will save your clients thousands when compared to other types of custom development. This will be a co-speaking engagement with Aaron Reimann of Clockwork WP and Dr. Keith Osborn, Chief Information Officer of GaDOE.

The Wikimedia movement is the global community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit that supports these contributors and projects. For the last four years the Foundation’s Communications department has built and supported an open – anyone can edit – style blog using WordPress. It’s called Diff (diff.wikimedia.org) and it’s a multilingual blog that anyone can edit…or well, at least submit a post to be published.

Along the way we’ve learned some important and interesting lessons on how to allow anyone to submit a post, review and publish, while allowing for unique voices and perspectives. We’re using a mix of some off-the-shelf plugins, a bit of custom code, and bending WordPress and multilingualism to the extreme ends of how it’s “supposed” to work.

This session will introduce you to how we pulled this all off, some of the ways we’ve given back to the WordPress community, the challenges we’ve faced, and ideas on how you can run an open community blog.

Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker is an accessibility testing plugin that scans pages and posts for accessibility problems and puts reports in the WordPress admin. It was a winner of a 2023 Gaady award for its innovative approach to improving accessibility (fellow winners were Unilever and Studio 24), and is used by enterprise organizations, educational institutions, small businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies around the world, including NASA and The US Department of Veterans Affairs, among others.

Accessibility Checker was created to make it easier and more affordable for everyone to identify accessibility problems on their website. Competitor solutions rely on API connections and charge per page and per scan, frequently costing tens of thousands of dollars per year. This can easily put accessibility testing out of reach for many website owners. Equalize Digital came up with an innovative way to run accessibility scans on the website’s own server, within WordPress. The free, open source version available on WordPress dot org doesn’t limit the number of posts or pages that can be scanned, allowing even very large websites to start finding and fixing accessibility at zero cost. In this way, Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker is democratizing accessibility.

Laws around the world are increasingly requiring accessibility for websites of all types. Accessibility Checker is an ideal tool to showcase as it can help website owners better comply with these laws. Showcasing it may also attract more enterprise organizations to WordPress, as NASA stated that Accessibility Checker was a major contributor to their decision to use WordPress as the CMS for their new website.

WordPress isn’t just for websites and blogs. It’s a powerful CMS that can serve as the backbone of complex web applications, portals, and intranets. Using WordPress saves development time on the backend, allowing you to focus on crafting front-end experiences that guide users through complex processes like applying to receive government services, requesting medical records from a doctor, or requesting a nurse to start an IV at a hospital.

In this session, speakers Amber Hinds and Steve Jones will share lessons from building multiple enterprise WordPress portals and present a case study of designing and developing a portal for Nurse Pro Plus, an on-demand IV services company fulfilling requests at hundreds of hospitals across 12 states.

The portal leverages WordPress’ data structure, user management system, and key plugins to power its backend admin. The front end is an accessible Vue.js application that enables hospital representatives to order IV services, notifies available contract nurses, and allows one to pick up and fulfill the order. Essentially, it’s Uber for nurses.

Attendees will leave inspired to reimagine WordPress as more than just a website builder, but as a key tool for building sophisticated web applications. Takeaways will include helpful plugins when building portals, specific considerations for accessibility, security, and UX, and ideas for overcoming challenges when building WordPress-powered web applications.

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If you want to see screenshots of the portal we’ll discuss in this case study, please see this Google Drive folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MV-xVunUJES7a9V_ZD64XstC4XLd1PRJ?usp=sharing

Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker is an accessibility testing plugin that scans pages and posts for accessibility problems and puts reports in the WordPress admin. It was a winner of a 2023 Gaady award for its innovative approach to improving accessibility (fellow winners were Unilever and Studio 24), and is used by enterprise organizations, educational institutions, small businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies around the world, including NASA and The US Department of Veterans Affairs, among others.

Accessibility Checker was created to make it easier and more affordable for everyone to identify accessibility problems on their website. Competitor solutions rely on API connections and charge per page and per scan, frequently costing tens of thousands of dollars per year. This can easily put accessibility testing out of reach for many website owners. Equalize Digital came up with an innovative way to run accessibility scans on the website’s own server, within WordPress. The free, open source version available on WordPress dot org doesn’t limit the number of posts or pages that can be scanned, allowing even very large websites to start finding and fixing accessibility at zero cost. In this way, Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker is democratizing accessibility.

Laws around the world are increasingly requiring accessibility for websites of all types. Accessibility Checker is an ideal tool to showcase as it can help website owners better comply with these laws. Showcasing it may also attract more enterprise organizations to WordPress, as NASA stated that Accessibility Checker was a major contributor to their decision to use WordPress as the CMS for their new website.

In the WordPress Speed Build Battle, participants have 30 minutes to recreate a famous website. This high-pressure competition tests participants’ ability to quickly adapt, think creatively, and demonstrate their technical skills within a limited timeframe. The website to be recreated is kept a secret until the start of the challenge, adding an element of surprise and excitement.

Audience members will gain valuable insights from observing the challenge. They will learn innovative techniques for using WordPress, discover new ways to approach web design under time constraints, and see firsthand how expert builders tackle unexpected challenges. Additionally, viewers can pick up tips on improving their own WordPress skills and get inspired by the creativity and resourcefulness of the participants.

WordPress isn’t just for websites and blogs. It’s a powerful CMS that can serve as the backbone of complex web applications, portals, and intranets. Using WordPress saves development time on the backend, allowing you to focus on crafting front-end experiences that guide users through complex processes like applying to receive government services, requesting medical records from a doctor, or requesting a nurse to start an IV at a hospital.

In this session, speakers Amber Hinds and Steve Jones will share lessons from building multiple enterprise WordPress portals and present a case study of designing and developing a portal for Nurse Pro Plus, an on-demand IV services company fulfilling requests at hundreds of hospitals across 12 states.

The portal leverages WordPress’ data structure, user management system, and key plugins to power its backend admin. The front end is an accessible Vue.js application that enables hospital representatives to order IV services, notifies available contract nurses, and allows one to pick up and fulfill the order. Essentially, it’s Uber for nurses.

Attendees will leave inspired to reimagine WordPress as more than just a website builder, but as a key tool for building sophisticated web applications. Takeaways will include helpful plugins when building portals, specific considerations for accessibility, security, and UX, and ideas for overcoming challenges when building WordPress-powered web applications.

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If you want to see screenshots of the portal we’ll discuss in this case study, please see this Google Drive folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MV-xVunUJES7a9V_ZD64XstC4XLd1PRJ?usp=sharing

When building WordPress websites, the front-end presentation, back-end functionality, and visitor experience seem to always take priority. But what about the editing experience for website owners and managers — the people who must work within the websites we build? Their experience using WordPress, completing website-related tasks, and managing their website content affects not only how they feel about their website and the partner who built it but also WordPress as a platform.

As WordPress professionals, it’s our job to set clients up for success, empower them to fully use their websites, and ensure the highest levels of satisfaction. This means being intentional throughout the strategy, design, and build process, to simplify their workflows, prioritize ease and speed, and optimize for their editing experiences.

In this session, we’ll look at key questions to ask clients upfront to better understand who will be interacting with the CMS and what tasks they will need to complete, as well as which WordPress editing options best align with their preferences and needs, and which nightmare combinations to avoid. You’ll also gain insight into considerations for your client education and offboarding processes to make sure you equip clients to thrive as website owners.

Discover how The New York Post harnesses the power of WordPress to deliver nonstop news to its readers. Linnea will showcase the use of Gutenberg blocks for the homepage and landing pages, allowing for real-time updates and customization. She’ll also dive into other block-based features including shopping modules, newsletter sign ups, video player, live blogs, and breaking news alerts that ensure the audience is always informed. This presentation will demonstrate how WordPress enables The New York Post to operate as a highly scalable and dynamic news platform.

In this technical session, we dive into the challenges and solutions for managing a high-traffic, large-scale WordPress site. With a history of 11 years on WordPress, handling 10 million posts, and 38,000 terms, The New York Post has been a testing ground for scalability. In this talk, Linnea will share her strategies for managing WordPress at the enterprise level, demonstrating how minor adjustments can lead to significant enhancements in site responsiveness and stability.

Attendees will learn about the architecture of the Gutenberg block-based site that has successfully handled millions of daily visitors and vast amounts of content. Linnea will detail her approach to identifying and resolving bottlenecks, implementing ongoing optimization techniques, and showcasing how tools such as New Relic and the Xdebug profiler can be pivotal in this process.

The session will cover:

– Practical profiling and monitoring setups to pinpoint issues before they become critical.
– Architectural decisions that support scalability and resiliency, particularly under the duress of traffic spikes.
– Optimization techniques that Linnea has personally implemented to significantly reduce response times with minimal code changes.
– Advanced caching strategies using the object cache and static variables.

This talk is tailored for developers and technical leads who manage high-traffic WordPress sites or are looking to scale any size platform efficiently. Join Linnea to explore how strategic thinking around scalability can transform the way you approach WordPress development.

Getting started with digital accessibility can seem overwhelming; join us in this session where we’ll cover various testing methods such as automated tools like WAVE and AxeDev, manual testing with keyboards, and strategies for reviewing and enhancing existing code. Making a website accessible to all takes work and doesn’t happen overnight; but that shouldn’t deter any creator or developer from taking the first steps towards digital accessibility.

Understanding the real impact of accessibility on users is often left out of the conversation around making websites accessible. In this session, we’ll delve into first hand experiences of individuals with disabilities and how digital accessibility directly affects their ability to navigate and interact with websites. By discussing the challenges faced by users, creators and developers can gain a deeper understanding of the importance of accessible design and its impact on fostering inclusivity in the digital realm. Additionally, we’ll explore practical examples of how we’ve improved accessibility in WordPress plugins, offering insights and strategies for ensuring inclusivity in WordPress development projects.

Getting started with digital accessibility can seem overwhelming; join us in this session where we’ll cover various testing methods such as automated tools like WAVE and AxeDev, manual testing with keyboards, and strategies for reviewing and enhancing existing code. Making a website accessible to all takes work and doesn’t happen overnight; but that shouldn’t deter any creator or developer from taking the first steps towards digital accessibility.

Understanding the real impact of accessibility on users is often left out of the conversation around making websites accessible. In this session, we’ll delve into first hand experiences of individuals with disabilities and how digital accessibility directly affects their ability to navigate and interact with websites. By discussing the challenges faced by users, creators and developers can gain a deeper understanding of the importance of accessible design and its impact on fostering inclusivity in the digital realm. Additionally, we’ll explore practical examples of how we’ve improved accessibility in WordPress plugins, offering insights and strategies for ensuring inclusivity in WordPress development projects.

This session will discuss the intricate world of pricing strategies, a critical factor in the growth and success of WordPress-based businesses. It is ideally suited for freelancers and small web agencies that focus on WordPress and related web services such as online marketing, SEO, and security. Discussions will focus on both the advantages and challenges of traditional pricing models, as well as the introduction of innovative ways to charge clients by leveraging current relationships and exploring new opportunities. Emphasis will be placed on pricing techniques that are particularly effective among the most successful WordPress service providers. Building a pricing strategy that grows with your business means you can develop flexible pricing strategies that evolve as the business grows, a concept that aligns with successful scalability and adaptability in pricing.

Every year, new privacy laws are going into effect that impact WordPress websites. Three are going into effect in 2024, five go into effect in 2025, and we’re currently tracking a few dozen privacy bills that could also be added to the mix.

Web Designers are busy enough without having to worry about passing the BAR exam on the weekends to keep up with all these legal requirements.

Fortunately, there are certain “Privacy by Design” techniques designers can implement that will not only help them comply with today’s privacy laws, but tomorrow’s as well.

And who better to offer such tips than a privacy attorney (married to an ex-web designer!)

WordPress is evolving, and so should we. The Interactivity API opens up new possibilities for building interactive, dynamic, and engaging websites without sacrificing performance. In this session, we’ll explore what this API is all about, why it matters, and how to get started with it. By the end, you’ll have a solid understanding of the Interactivity API and be ready to implement it in your projects.

Takeaways:

• A clear understanding of the Interactivity API and its potential
• Step-by-step guidance on setting up and using the API
• Real-world examples to inspire your own WordPress projects

Join us for a deep dive into this exciting new feature, and let’s build the future of WordPress together.