conferences

  • October 14, 2021

    We Need to Talk About Speakers and Virtual Events

    Have you ever had a friend ask you for a favor, only to ask you for like 5 more while performing that favor? “Hey can you help me move? Oh also, I’m out of coffee; can you pick some up? Also I need to stop at the realtor’s office to get the key,” and so on. It might be an innocent mistake, but sometimes it feels like your generosity is being taken advantage of. And it’s kind of annoying.

    That’s how it’s felt over the last few years with the emergence of virtual events. I’ve spoken at several, and many of them follow the same format of putting a lot of the onus on the speaker while reaping all of the benefits.

    Now, a few caveats:

    • I’m not talking to any one event organizer, and I’m not mad at anyone. This is true for most virtual events and I think we’d all benefit from a few changes.
    • I’ve been considering hosting/organizing a virtual event myself, so this serves as a way to outline how I envision such an event going1
    • I also know that planning any event is a lot of work. I don’t think event organizers are undeserving of the benefits, financial or otherwise.

    That said, I think we need to rethink our approach to having speakers at our virtual events. In my opinion, the speaker has one job: to deliver a great talk.

  • March 13, 2020

    Use Podcasting To Release Your Learning Material

    Last night I gave what will probably be my last in-person talk for a while. Between COVID-19, social distancing, and my son being born in July, I won’t be doing much (if any) traveling for the rest of 2020. I’ll probably record and release the talk I gave to the National English Honors Society of my alma mater, Burke Catholic High School.

    But this got me thinking about all of the conferences, meetups, and classes being cancelled. Lots of great content with no one to hear it…at least not in-person. Thankfully It’s easier than ever to publish your message. And I think podcasting is a fantastic avenue to do it.

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  • October 24, 2019

    3 Ways to Make the Most of Your WordCamp US Experience

    WordCamp US 2019 is next week and I’m getting excited. It’s the biggest US-based conference for people in the WordPress community and at this point, it feels a lot like a college reunion to me. But there are also goals I’d like to accomplish while I’m there. If you’re spending your own money to get there, you’ll likely want to make the most of your WordCamp experience too. While it can be overwhelming, there are a few simple things you can do to make sure you maximize your conference weekend.

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  • February 6, 2019

    Tying ROI to Conferences

    As I start to plan my travel for 2019 (something I should have done in December), I’m thinking a lot about where I want to spend my time and money, and what will be the best for my bottom line. In general I try to tie real, tangible dollars to the conference I go to (in most cases). Because I’m using my own money, while education is a good metric for attending a conference, my goal is to recoup at least some of the cost. Here’s how I do that.

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  • October 19, 2018

    What I Learned at CaboPress 2018

    I am back from another CaboPress, and I am much more energized this time than I was last time. If you’ll remember, last year, I wrote a blog post about how CaboPress was the business conference that I needed. It turns out the timing was right again this year. I was going through a few things over the summer with my business, “Am I taking it in the right direction, and why are things so slow?” And then CaboPress happened.

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  • May 17, 2018

    My Summer Travel Schedule for 2018

    One of my favorite things to do is travel and speak at conferences, and summer is prime time to do that. Not only is it nice most places in the summer, but lots of great events happen – especially in July. Here’s where I’ll be traveling and/or speaking. If you’ll be at any of these places, be sure to say hello!

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  • October 4, 2013

    Speaking: NEPABlogCon and Beyond!

    Though I haven’t officially announced it yet, I have been talking for a while about a new book I’m working on called Responsive Design with WordPress. We are a couple of months out from release but things are going well! In the time running up to the release I’ll be out there speaking quite a bit to promote it.

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