Have you ever wanted to know what it was like to build a custom theme? Yeah me too! I have worked on many themes and customizing them but never actually created my own theme. Very recently I thought I needed to learn more about it and I am happy to be here talking about what I have learned. This topic will cover just the basics. If you’re like me and always wondered what it’s like to start creating a custom theme, this topic is for you.

Getting Started with Custom Theme Building by Tyler Stokes

About the speaker:

I was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska but currently live in Omaha, Nebraska. I am a Happiness Engineer at Flywheel. I love helping people do their best work! I have an Associates Degree in Computer Information Technology from Southeast Community College. I am a big Husker fan, GO BIG RED! I have over 8 years of experience in making websites as a freelancer. In my free time, I enjoy watching the Huskers or Detroit Lions football games, spending time with my fiancé, Cortney, working on customer websites, development projects, or going to concerts.

April will take us through an introduction to good working practices for remote tech work – for employees as well as companies. Discussion will draw from personal experience working as a web designer designer, and cover topics such as finding remote jobs, staying sane and healthy, remote team work, and effective communication.

Remote Work – Effective Work Practices aka The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly by April Goettle

About the speaker:

April is a Web Designer at B2Interactive in Omaha, Nebraska, where she works primarily developing and designing WordPress sites. Currently, she works remotely about 75% of the time. She’s entering her senior year at UNO in the IT Innovation program, and is a current Do Space Women in Technology Fellow, working on a project – Remoter.tech – to promote remote tech jobs in the Midwest.

Learn what it’s like to make the jump from a design to a development career, where a keen eye for detail is essential for keeping creative clients happy.

Making the Jump from a Design to a Development Career by Chris Kelly

About the speaker:

Chris Kelly has 11 years of experience as a designer and art director in the Omaha area. Two years ago he made the switch to a development career with Plumb Web Strategy where he works as a front end developer with a focus on WordPress. His experience in the agency world has translated over to a keen understanding of his clients’ needs and expectations. Chris also teaches as an adjunct instructor where he shares his knowledge with his students at Metropolitan Community College.

New to WordPress? Then this session is for you! Get tips on how to build your first self-hosted WordPress site.

Zero to WordPress: Building Your First WordPress Site by Justice Anderson

About the speaker:

Justice is a former college professor who was tasked with selecting and teaching a content management system which brought him to WordPress. Justice has been working with WordPress on and off since 2009. After a brief time away Justice is reigniting his love affair with WordPress and plans to launch several new websites this summer and fall – stay tuned! Outside of technology Justice enjoys being the number one fan at his kids sporting events and learning about nutrition and fitness.

This session will discuss how you build your personal or professional brand to reflect your values, define your voice, and drive your business. Values based marketing can help you authentically connect to customers and allow you to share your unique perspective to grow your career.

Voice Your Value(s) by Andrea Garcia

About the speaker:

Andrea serves as the Chief Mind Officer and client lead for Mind + Matter. Andrea supports client digital strategy, business operations, and business development.

Andrea graduated from Northwest Missouri State University in 2007 with a B.S. in Industrial Psychology and in 2008 with a Master’s in Business Administration. 
Following a ten year tenure at Cerner in marketing, sales, and client management she moved to an account focused role in Associated Wholesale Grocers’ in-house agency. Andrea enjoys creating meaningful partnerships to help her clients express and achieve their goals. In addition to Mind + Matter and Teach for America – KC she serves on the Emerging Leaders Board for the Kansas City Sports Commission. 

When not at M+M Andrea can be found watching soccer, taking or teaching a yoga class, playing with her little beige puppy, or Instagramming her latest meal.

Many devs and content managers are handed the keys to HTML, CSS and other front-end layout technologies without really knowing exactly what to do with them, or how to best utilize them toward their website’s goals. This talk aims to give a quick crash-course on design for web developers and content creators to help them avoid the biggest mistakes in design and give their users the best experience possible.

How Not to Make a Crappy-Looking Site: a Crash Course on (Web) Design by Josh Collinsworth

About the speaker:

Josh Collinsworth is a graphic designer turned frontend web developer, who spends his days helping solve WordPress problems as a support lead at Flywheel. Passionate about good design and typography (especially on the web), cool front-end code, and making nifty things on CodePen.

The term “Managed WordPress Hosting” has been a buzz word in the WordPress community for some time now. What does it really mean? How do the well-known “Managed WordPress Hosting” companies stack up against each other?

More importantly, how can small WordPress agencies provide a much more robust service offering than these big companies and create a significant value-add for their current and future WordPress website development clients?

Travis Pflanz, of Search Centered Digital Marketing, will walk attendees through 20 feature-rich and SEO-focused points of service every WordPress professional should include in a monthly Managed WordPress Hosting & Maintenance Service for clients – or to use for their own website.

How to Truly Provide Managed WordPress Hosting & Maintenance Services for Your Clients (and Yourself) by Travis Pflanz

About the speaker:

Travis Pflanz is the founder of Search Centered Digital Marketing. Search Centered puts SEO at the center of every type of marketing campaign they create manage and implement for clients of all sizes – from WordPress SEO services to SEO managedWordPress hosting 

Travis has been an organizer of the WordPress KC Meetup since 2013 and an organizer of WordCamp KC since 2014.

When not SEOifying businesses online or creating WordPress websites, Travis can be found hiking through the woods while leading the pack at Kansas City Dog Club, training new Dog Socializer volunteers at Wayside Waifs, or helping run the pet food pantry at Spay & Neuter KC and serving as a member of their Advisory Council.

Using integration and automation can be a powerful way of doing more with the resources you already have. In this breakout session, Andy will share a client case study where WordPress was heavily integrated with third-party services to automate over 1,000,000 tasks each month. If you’re not currently automating your organization’s digital workflows…then you won’t want to miss this session!

How to Use Integration and Automation to Deliver “More” to Your Clients by Andy O’Neil

About the speaker:

Andy O’Neil is a WordPress developer and integration & automation specialist. Andy is invigorated when building new systems and processes with technology. When Andy’s not riding trails on his recumbent trike, he can be found spending time with his wife and 4 children.

Manually copying or moving a WordPress site seems so easy, but it has some pitfalls. Abby’s presentation and discussion will include the high-level concepts of why we need staging/testing sites, how to complete a migration, helpful (and unhelpful) plugins, various gotchas, and a short discussion of managed hosting services that include staging/migration features. All types of WP enthusiasts (developer, designer, webmaster, biz owner, etc) are welcome, and hopefully there’s a little something here for all levels of expertise from the beginners who don’t even have a WordPress site yet to the experts who have done many migrations already.

WP Staging and Migration by Abby Langner  

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Web developer, educator, mother, baker, bowler… WordPress saves this busy lady a lot of time and tedium as a front-end developer! Abby loves math, too, and as a former high school math teacher in Omaha, loves to create web resources for teachers to better engage students with the content.

Grow your marketing list (or your client’s) like a boss. Web design veteran, Mat Casner, will break down the power of marketing funnels and show you, step by step, how to build high-converting landing pages in WordPress using the DIVI page builder. He will show you how to connect your landing page directly to your email marketing provider, help you start attracting more clients and give you a powerful new skill to market to your customers. 

Funnel 101: Create high-converting landing pages with WordPress (and DIVI) by Mat Casner  

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Mat Casner is a creative business owner and freelance entrepreneur. He is a multi-disciplined creative and communication professional with over 20 years experience in web development (including WordPress), graphic design, video production and marketing. He also coaches and mentors other creatives and freelancers.