The internet is an amazing tool for sharing information with users all over the world, but what happens when “online” isn’t a guarantee? This was the question posed after 10up built an web-based product catalog for one of the world’s leading water technology providers. With a sales team of hundreds, how could we be sure that the sales materials were always available to the sales team, regardless of internet connectivity?

This session is a case-study on taking a web application offline, synchronizing JSON data and assets while maintaining a consistent user experience. Attendees will gain insight on the unique challenges of taking an app offline, as well as the technologies available and strategies for keeping data intact and the user experience seamless.

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Keeping a website updated is tricky, especially when you should back up the site first and test the updates on a dev version.

In this session, I’ll share how I run an exact copy of my site locally, test plugin / theme updates / make theme modifications, save the changes to git/GitHub and have the changes automatically pushed to my live server.

After months of trial and error, this is the best method I’ve found for keeping both sites in sync and ready to be edited without spending time making your dev site match your live site.

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Determining your business’s return on investment (ROI) when it comes to blog and social media content can be difficult, but it is far from impossible. In this breakout session we’ll cover multiple ROI models for content, high performing content types, content marketing best practices, and the metrics you’ll need to track to keep getting better.

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What’s popular this year, from UX for wearables to marketing automation, and from hero sliders (or not) to visual storytelling?  Some of the best ideas from years past continue into 2016 while others will crash and burn.  We will discuss what’s here to stay and what is just a fad.  Expect to leave with ideas to implement on WordPress sites including plugins, custom theming techniques, and even better web hosting.  See the latest trends from the perspective of Brad Griffith, President of Buckeye Interactive, a web engineering team dedicated to empowering small businesses and tech startups with sustainable growth.

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Review the concept of mental models then discuss how we can use custom post types to better align the backend WordPress experience with the mental models of the people using it.

This topic falls in the realm of design strategy; it’s not a particularly advanced UX topic, but for people not exposed to UX or mental models, this will provide a way to frame part of the challenge of designing the WordPress admin/editor/writer experience.

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If you’re building a site for your own purposes, or doing some freelance work for others, but don’t consider yourself a developer, you’re probably working with purchased themes. And just maybe you’re looking to have more control over the look of your theme, than what is afforded by many built-in theme customizer options. This talk will focus on some things I learned the hard way, that now routinely save me a lot of time and frustration in the mockup and styling processes, using simple techniques and free tools. A basic knowledge of CSS is recommended, though not required for this session.

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Building your personal brand is quickly becoming a requirement for business professionals.

In this presentation, attendees will learn how to build their brands and amplify their reputations using WordPress and the D.I.C.E four-step process.

The D.I.C.E process consists of personal brand Discovery, Integration of online and offline brands, content Creation via WordPress and Engagement with social media.

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Through the past few years, I’ve been involved with too many startups to count – some my own, some a friends, and hundreds of other peoples. I consistently see some things that lead to success and some things that lead to disaster – in the talk, we’ll go over the top ten key points and issues, some examples of what went right, and some examples of what went disastrously wrong.

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You have a blog and start out with good intentions, but don’t seem to be able to get your blog rolling. A lot of times, it’s because you don’t know what to write. I can help by sharing some writing prompts, and encourage others to use their personal experiences as prompts. I can also help others find the courage to use their experiences. When you write, you help others.

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In our consumer driven society, a strong visual presence can make or break your brand. Of all online shoppers, 65% say that quality photographs are important to them when considering a purchase and consumers are 72% more likely to buy from a brand that they follow online. So my question is, are you worth following?

Learn to Leverage Instagram for your business. Let me show you how to set up your account, manage your photos, develop a strategic posting strategy, use hashtags and geotags to reach your ideal client, and tools that streamline your entire process! Instagram is my jam… and by the time I’m done with you, it’ll be yours too!

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Ever thought about creating a Blogging Schedule to really take your blog to the next level? If you have you maybe asked yourself “How many post per week or month should I write?”. This is a tricky question and I want to help answer it with a method I developed called the 20/30 Rule. We will come back to that in a moment. First I would like you to imagine having an engaged audience that loves to read every new article you publish.

It has been proven that the best way to become an expert in your field is to write. So, what is holding you back? I bet the first thing is time and a close second for some is what to write about. For the purpose of this talk, you are going to be helped with the time portion of your blogging fear.

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Containers are a useful tool for building efficient, flexible, and dependable infrastructure. With the growth in popularity of Docker, containers are more accessible to developers than ever before. WordPress, being designed to run in shared hosting environments, presents some interesting challenges when being run inside a container. We’ll start by looking at the basics of how containers work and important considerations when moving to containers. Next, we’ll investigate the WordPress specific challenges to containerization and some possible solutions. Finally, we’ll talk about running containers in production.

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Are you ready to start or grow your WordPress design and development work into a real business?  Brad Griffith bears all and tells the tale of his agency from inception through year 6, developing WordPress websites and other open source software.  Buckeye Interactive was founded on open source principles, centered on the idea that small businesses and tech startups need not turn to an amateur or an over-priced big city agency to build their websites and mobile apps.  A passionate group of midwesterners can build world-class sites and apps just at least as well as the New York City or Silicon Valley elite.  Learn how Brad has grown Buckeye Interactive to launch 40+ sites and apps each year while salvaging their sanity and profitability, and maintaining a focus on the open source values and small clients their team loves.

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In this talk Nathan B. Weller tells the story of the Elegant Themes blog. From its humble beginnings as a simple way to announce new products and bug fixes to the most visited blog about WordPress in the world in 2015. He will walk through the strategies Elegant Themes adopted that have resulted in their dramatic growth over a few short years. As well as a peak at what they’re doing now to keep the growth streak alive.

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We all love WordPress but know that things can go wrong from time to time. What if you knew exactly what to do whenever a WordPress issue arises? This can include anything from a theme or plugin issue all the way to those really bizarre things that can happen leaving you clueless how to troubleshoot them. No high level amount of technical experience needed with the tricks we will show you. Being equipped to handle WordPress issues can really help you keep things running smoothly on your site and focus on the fun stuff rather than hair pulling and other madness.

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There are tons of places to put your content, but not all of them give you the control and ownership you should have. Your WordPress site is still probably the best place to call home for your online creations. In this session I’ll show you why that is, walk through tools and techniques for using WordPress as your digital home while pushing content out to other places, and answer your questions about how to build an online presence that is fully yours.

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Getting your audience to engage with you can be difficult. If you are a podcaster, it becomes even harder.

Plugins can make it easier for your audience to engage:

*Premium Podcast Players (Free and Premium)
*URL shorteners (Lite and Pro options)
*Social Media Icons and services (including Speakpipe, a voice message plugin)

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Sometimes when you’re using WordPress, things just seem to go wrong. It’s not always your fault, so no need to panic. There’s ALWAYS a solution.

What you know in this situation are 2 things – you’re not able to use WordPress and you need to get it back in working order.

This presentation is to make you more aware of what to do when things seem to go wrong with WordPress. We’ll go over reasons why this could happen and some really common scenarios to look for.

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The difference between the ‘right’ word and the ‘almost right’ word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”” – Mark Twain

Do you create content for search engines or for people? If you answer, “people,” you’re at once ahead of your time and behind it.

Only now are SEO specialists finally catching up to what most copywriters have known since the medium first hit the computer screen – content matters more than keyword loading. Join Gery L. Deer, managing and creative director of GLD Enterprises Communications, Ltd., for a discussion on the elements of audience-focused, high-quality content to generate organic search results and retain visitors.

A Pulitzer-nominated, 20-year veteran freelance journalist, copywriter, IT professional, and entrepreneur, Gery has provided both code and content for website over the years and has always maintained content over keywords. “If the idea is to sell something or drive traffic to and through a website, the only option is to offer visitors the highest quality, user-focused content possible.”

He’ll also show how this concept will make your social media posts more effective and drive LIKES and new followers to your content.

10 Elements of Audience Focused Content Article

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According to research by BrightLocal, 64% of local customers use online search engines and online directories as their primary method for finding local businesses. Only 28% of people use traditional paper directories.

Times have changed, and digital marketing is upon us. If you are a locally-based service business, it is essential that your website is optimized correctly and that you have properly claimed local directory profiles, Additionally, it is important that you optimize your local citations/links and have established a solid review strategy.

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From quality content to great pictures, your WordPress website is the hub of all your marketing efforts for your company. Are you getting the most out of it? Building and launching your website is just the beginning. This discussion features easy-to-use tips and resources to turn your website into your strongest marketing tool.

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Your podcast’s website is its home on the Internet; it’s your platform to build your branding and grow your audience. Learn how to optimize the site for better findability (SEO), engagement, conversions, ease of use, mobile devices, and more. These tips will work for the hobbyist as well as for the professional. If you want to get more out of your podcast website, then you need this session!

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The eLearning and Online Course industry is booming and is growing each year to keep up with the demand of people who want to learn online. We’ll talk about why you should consider putting your content online to teach your audience.

I’ll address how businesses can streamline their internal and external training through an eLearning platform (built with WP of course). I’ll also talk on how entrepreneurs can package their intellectual property and make online courses to sell. We’ll go over case studies and show the tools that my company uses to create, host, market and sell online courses for our clients.

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While folks think they are giving a client a wonderful content management system they can add content to themselves, what they really are giving them is the most popular website to hack. And unlike static html driven sites, this one has a sql backend that can have serious security implications.

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The incorporation of the REST API into core is bringing to the fore JavaScript as a key part of WordPress’ future. While there’s no shortage of JS frameworks out there for taking advantage of the API, the WP community seems to be gravitating toward React.js as the framework of choice — as typified by Calypso.

This session will provide a basic overview to React.js: what it is, what problems it’s built to solve, and how to get started working with it using simple examples. If you’ve mostly written PHP, or have written jQuery but not gone deeper into JS than that, this should be a good primer.

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The goal of this talk is not to downplay or shortchange the importance jQuery has and will continue to play in Web Development.

It is however a talk, which will cover some Javascript concepts every Web Developer should know.
Primarily:
-Higher Order Functions (Map, Filter, Reduce)
-Object Compositions vs. Classical Inheritance.
-Closures – Understanding Closure will unlock Javascript’s full power.

Lastly, we will bring it all together, and show some slightly more advanced examples of why Higher Order Functions, Composition, and Closures are so important to understand. Hint: Functional Composition, and partially applied functions.

For new developers, you will get a good sense of what Javascript can do for you. You will also learn some less technical Javascript concepts like:
-Functions are first class citizens
-What do multi-dimensional arrays look like in Javascript
-Why it seems like almost everything is an Object in Javascript.

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Your phone rings. A client informs you that a WordPress site YOU developed and maintain for them has been hacked. Where do you begin? What do you do? How will you prevent it from happening again?

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WP-CLI is a great tool when you don’t need a fancy UI, need to write scripts to perform regular maintenance, or to provide deeper functionality to your awesome plugin. Like WordPress, it’s free, open source, and far more powerful than some people give it credit for.

This session covers the components necessary to write great WP-CLI scripts; from structure to execution, arguments to output, attendees should leave the session with everything they need to know to implement WP-CLI commands in their next project.

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