Sessions

Presented by Thomas Patrick Levy in The Dwarf Star.

What I’ve learned, as a developer, about interacting and empathizing with those poor non-developers who have given me money for code I have written and now expect me to help them, teach them, and respect them despite their absurd questions with obvious answers.

Presented by Russell Aaron in The Dwarf Star.

One of the awesome parts about buying a product always includes the test drive or the free sample. The same goes for Themes and Plugins. However, are Theme demonstrations being completely honest when it comes to showing off the goods?

in this WordCamp Orange County Session, we’ll be discussing the pros and cons to not having any coding standards when it comes to building theme’s and plugins. We’ll also be taking a deep dive into three WordPress Theme Demonstrations to show what they are really selling you on.

Presented by Kronda Adair in The Asteroid Field.

WordPress is a great platform, but for non-technical users the array of choices, themes, plugins, and steps to get up and running can be overwhelming. Come and discuss paths to get up and running with your self hosted WordPress site in a way that will set you up to grow with your business.

Presented by Logan Kipp in The Comet.

Logan takes the audience through the structure of a WordPress site’s security posture, dispelling common misconceptions and elaborating on perceived security overlaps. The session explains the differences between plugin-based security and external solutions, as well as how they best work together. In easy-to-understand terms, Logan also touches on basic hosting configuration best practices and security control spheres. Whether just getting started in WordPress or a seasoned developer, this talk has something for every WordPresser.

Presented by Michelle Schulp in The Nebula.

We’re all enamored with the minimalist websites that employ only the most essential use of color, images, and space. But what happens when the volume of information can’t be boiled down to something that simple? We’ll explore how to use design principles to organize and display elaborate user experiences like mega-menus, massive news sites, high-information catalog pages, and multi-level interactions.

Presented by Adam Silver in The Asteroid Field.

Growing your business is about building trust and whats more trusting then your voice? Where writing a blog post may not come easy to people, speaking is very natural, and intimate. Podcasting is growing (once again) and it’s not that hard to do!

Presented by Scott Buscemi in The Comet.

Starting from an empty agency blog, I’ll be spending 50 days blogging and producing content to begin building an audience beyond my current customer base. In this talk, I will share my findings – what worked, what didn’t work, and what I would recommend for others who can take on this challenge.

Presented by Alicia St Rose in The Dwarf Star.

We’ve all heard something along the lines of this before from a potential client: “We want a simple website, 5 or 6 pages and 3 navigation tabs. A shopping cart and a contact form”. Hmm…Okay. Yeah, sure you can build that. Great. But are you offering solutions to this client’s colorful challenges online and offline? Probably not. Which means this website is doomed to fail.

A website does not stand isolated from the many aspects integral to good business planning: marketing, Company mission/message, target audience, social media, mailing list… Like a holistic practitioner takes into account all the Chakras, you should be addressing all your client’s business aspects to produce an online presence that is solid and effective. Just building a site does not solve your client’s challenges: which are ultimately to get more exposure, sell more products, save money, reduce wasted man hours or an infinite variety of problems. If you concentrate on offering SOLUTIONS for your clients’ CHALLENGES then you are more likely to see a web presence with measurable success and happier, enlightened clients!

In this session I will inspire you to elevate from just a website builder to the higher plane of “Solutionary”!

Get ready to clear some Chakras, yo!

Presented by Karim Marucchi in The Asteroid Field.

A discussion for every business. Protecting yourself and your client with clear contracts. Come and discuss the necessities and pitfalls of the most important project document.

Presented by Jeff Turner, Alex Vasquez, Chris Lema, Tami Heaton, Greg Douglas in The Nebula.

Description coming soon.

Presented by Mike Baker in The Comet.

Do you ever feel like your small business website is not working for you the way it should? Even if you made a substantial initial investment into your site, there may be issues that still need to be resolved before it can become an effective sales tool for you.

In this workshop, we will go over the most common reasons websites do not perform the way small business owners expect them to and what to do to fix it. Each issue that is presented will have an actionable item you can take with you to solve the problem. If you have not built your website yet, you will be given sound direction to make sure your website is built to perform.

Presented by Greg Taylor in The Dwarf Star.

We are all competing with not only each other, but will the big boys for attention. Good will never be good enough again, only Superb content will move the needle for your business goals and get you noticed.

Presented by Andy Fragen in The Dwarf Star.

Contribute, contribute, contribute. Forums, GitHub, or Core pick one or all. A brief overview of how to start contributing to WordPress.

Presented by Jen Miller in The Dwarf Star.

Introduces design, development and blogging app resources that allow WordPress users the freedom to manage a business, team, multiple websites and other assets while on the go.

Presented by Brianna Privett in The Dwarf Star.

Heroes? Pricing tables? THE GRID? Why DO all websites look like the same? Starting with a well-organized theme framework and a little SASS, this talk will cover how to identify user experience patterns and stories that guide your visitors where you want them to go, while giving you the freedom to create new designs that stand out from the sea of sameness prevalent in today’s websites. We also cover how curating your own pattern library enables you to hit the cornerstones of successful web design – Accessibility, Responsiveness, Usability, and Conversion.

Presented by Mika A. Epstein in The Dwarf Star.

We want our code to be fast, to work well, and look good. But do we really need all the bells and whistles? Understanding the burdens we place on end users when we code, such as large plugins and themes with stringent requirements, is just as important as security.

Presented by Andrew Behla in The Asteroid Field.

In 2008 Andrew embarked on a huge adventure and leap of faith. He tore down the house that he and his wife owned to rebuild it, acting as a general contractor with on the job training. Along the way he learned valuable and often challenging lessons in project management, working with teams, and making the right choices to stay on track and reach the goal of moving back in 6 months to their new home.

By applying real world the lessons learned along the way to Behla Design, his Woodland Hills, CA based design and development agency, he was able to expand his business and make it more sustainable and successful. In this discussion he will share the real world lessons that have helped make his business more successful while achieving a better work-life balance.

Presented by Michelle Schulp, Chris Ford, Jacob Arriola in The Comet.

A panel presentation about the why of design. Design decisions should be based on real world needs. How does one translate into the other?

Presented by Chris Ford in The Nebula.

How to apply the lessons I learned in project management.

Presented by Aaron Holbrook in The Asteroid Field.

A discussion focusing on WordPress search and ways to improve it.

Presented by Erick Hitter in The Comet.

WordPress provides a lot of convenience functions, perhaps too many. All too often, new developers reinvent the wheel, as the cliche goes, when Core already has a function or utility to accomplish the same. Six years on and thinking back to when I started building WordPress plugins, I could’ve saved a lot of time and avoided a lot of anxiety if I’d known where to look.

Presented by Candice Gilliatt in The Dwarf Star.

As a website designer, you can drive yourself crazy with the on-again, off-again roller coaster of building websites. The opportunity for you to engage clients beyond the website build exists and can lead to long-term stability.

Here is some of what participants will learn:

• How SEO can to turn a one-time website build into a long term opportunity with their clients
• The critical point when you must introduce SEO in order to create happier clients and more referrals
• SEO secrets you can use right away to wow your clients and keep them coming back for more
• How to turn SEO into profits – whether you do it yourself or outsource it to an expert

Presented by Jacob Arriola in The Dwarf Star.

SVGs provide designers, developers and users with an array of benefits including performance, styling and animations. In this talk, theme developers will walk away with the benefits of using SVGs in their themes, understanding the different approaches to rendering SVGs, and adding some styles and animation to help bring sites and applications to life.

Presented by John Hawkins in The Nebula.

Prior to starting a full time job, John had an idea for a website that would earn a little money…and require zero day-to-day interaction to run smoothly. In his presentation, John will share the requirements he wanted to meet, how he went about building the site primarily through off-the-shelf plugins, and lessons he learned along the way. If you’re interested in finding out how to build a site that consistently brings in extra cash without having to put in daily work, this presentation will give you an idea on how to get started.

Presented by Zack Tollman in The Nebula.

You’ve decided to move your website to HTTPS. What now? In this session, you will learn how to manage the difficult aspects of an HTTPS migration using techniques that work for small to large sites. We will focus on practical, actionable tasks to ensure that your site is properly configured for a secure HTTPS delivery.

Presented by Tabitha Chapman in The Nebula.

Our fast moving technology means that kids are using gadgets way earlier each year. This discussion will discuss how children can utilize WordPress.

Presented in The Nebula.

Our second annual plugin competition. Watch teams talk about how they developed their plugin and why. Who will walk away with the prizes as the winners of Plugin-A-Palooza 2016???

Presented by Jess Boctor in The Dwarf Star.

“These spreadsheets are killing me” was a complaint said to me about a year ago. Since then, I have been partnered with my client to build an internal tool that can standardize their sales quoting process, replace their current CRM process, and remove operational bottlenecks that prevent the business from scaling. This presentation covers the of development of the tool with WordPress, concerns in the process, and tools utilized.

Presented by Nathan Tyler in The Dwarf Star.

There has been lots of discussion around using WordPress as an app framework. In this talk, we’ll take a detailed look at the ups and downs of using WordPress to build a web app (hireotto.com) with:

• WP REST API Endpoints
• OAuth Authentication with 3rd party services
• WP Cron & Job Queues
• 3rd Party API integrations
• Webhooks
• User Registration & Account Management
• Recurring Billing

An overview and look into how all these components work together, where WordPress saved development time, and where it caused headaches.

This talk is not an endorsement or condemnation of using WordPress as an app framework. Each project is different, and the goal is to openly discuss the tradeoffs so developers can make informed decisions for their own projects.

Presented by Jason Tucker in The Nebula.

oEmbed has been around for a while and most people take them for granted. Just typing or pasting a YouTube URL in your post results in an embedded video on their website but there is to this. In this talk we’ll be explaining how oEmbed works, how you can make one of changes or global changed that affect all embeds on your website.

Presented by Jerrett Farmer in The Dwarf Star.

What are some of the ways to quickly get a WordPress site up and running with a minimal amount of effort?

An over view of core plugins, page builders and themes as well as the latest cutting edge software to help even the unmotivated get a high quality WordPress Site up and running.

Also a tongue and cheek humorous presentation that reveals the pitfalls of shortcuts and the final assessment of what it takes to get a WP based site live.

Presented by Dustin Meza in The Nebula.

WordPress upgrades, they bring us new features, faster sites, and better security. But pushing that upgrade button can be a scary moment, unless you’ve ensured your site is ready and compatible. I’ll show you the best practices for ensuring your site is ready including a simple strategy that works whether you manage one site or hundreds.

Presented by Jon Brown in The Nebula.

Two years ago I did a well received talk on Work/Life Balance and remote work, the was more about setting work/lifestyle/travel goals and achieving them. This will be much more focused on trials and tribulations of remote work. I’ll share things learned along the way that will help both aspiring digital nomads as well as (hopefully) some for experienced remote workers as well.

Presented by Jamal Jackson in The Dwarf Star.

In this presentation I would like to go over how the WP rest API introduces a whole new world of possibilities for small business owners to keep their business thriving and introduce the new business avenues present.