The year was 1776. In Bavaria, new ideals of rationalism, religious freedom and universal human rights competed with the Catholic church's heavy influence over public affairs. Adam Weishaupt, a law professor frustrated with the Church's ideology, decided to spread his ideas through a secret society: the Illuminati. Chip Berlet dives into the history, ideals and rituals of the infamous group. [Directed by Brett Underhill, narrated by Addison Anderson, music by Stephen LaRosa]

Stories help you make sense of your life -- but when these narratives are incomplete or misleading, they can keep you stuck instead of providing clarity. In an actionable talk, psychotherapist and advice columnist Lori Gottlieb shows how to break free from the stories you've been telling yourself by becoming your own editor and rewriting your narrative from a different point of view.

The cells in your body are like computer software: they're "programmed" to carry out specific functions at specific times. If we can better understand this process, we could unlock the ability to reprogram cells ourselves, says computational biologist Sara-Jane Dunn. In a talk from the cutting-edge of science, she explains how her team is studying embryonic stem cells to gain a new understanding of the biological programs that power life -- and develop "living software" that could transform medicine, agriculture and energy.

Regardless of how passionate we are about our niches, blog posts don’t always flow effortlessly out of our brains. Luckily, there are some great ways to get your readers to generate high-quality content for you. And WordPress has excellent tools to help you accomplish this. We’ll discuss different options for user-generated content, how to select an option that aligns with your goals for your website, and how to engage and encourage reader participation and contributions. We’ll look at examples of WordPress plugins for a few types of content.

It’s never been a more exciting time to be writing PHP in the WordPress ecosystem! WordPress core recently bumped the minimum-supported PHP version from 5.2 to 5.6 and plans to bump it again later this year all the way to 7.2! Whether that least sentence incites feelings of jubilation or anxiety in you, this talk has your back. We’ll take a deep dive into ways devs of all levels can breathe new life into their plugins and themes with modern PHP features and principles. We’ll cover back-compat gotchas, including how to deal with version-specific features and code partial plugin activation so you don’t break users’ sites with your upgrades. We’ll also go over modern principles such as using autoloaders and namespaces, setting up group aliasing, using return type declarations, leveraging traits, and more. Finally, we’ll talk about how to create a development plan for the short- and long-term so that continual and improvement and iteration can keep you up to date with modern PHP development. Full presentation slides: https://www.slideshare.net/DrewAPicture/wordpress-development-in-a-modern-php-world-162879124

Gabriel Mays explores the conditions of WordPress’ success (it’s not what most people think) and why that won’t work for us going forward to reach 50% and beyond. He will also explore the core elements he feels is holding WordPress back–complexity and fragmentation–and ways we could possibly resolve it.

WordPress now powers over one third of all websites on the internet. The decisions that the WordPress community makes ripple out and make an impact on the ways people use the web, how web developers and designers do their work, and influence future technologies and development. That’s a lot of power in our hands – are we using it wisely? We have a responsibility to lead by example. Natalie MacLees explores the influence our community is having on accessibility and inclusive design, the things we’re neglecting, the impact that our decisions are having on people across the globe, and what we could be doing better.

Successful consultants will always recommend the right tool for the job. This is how you elevate yourself from a vendor to a trusted partner. If we stay huddled within our own community, without paying attention to what is going on outside the WordPress community, we’ll be out of touch with customers and prospects. Knowing your preference (WordPress) is different than understanding all your options. Understanding the difference is critical to staying competitive in today’s industry. Steve Zenghut discusses the current landscape and the process a prospect goes through when evaluating a WordPress proposal, including a brief look at some of the competitors for content management, eCommerce and SaaS platforms.

WordPress でホームページを作って運用するときに、避けて通れないのがセキュリティです。 「うちは小さなホームページだから大丈夫」ということはありません。規模の大小に関わらずセキュリティが大事なのは変わりませんし、「攻撃者」も規模の大小だけで攻撃先を決めたりはしていません。 では、どうやったら『安全に』WordPress のホームページを運用できるのでしょうか？ このセッションでは、「セキュリティが大事なのはわかるけど、実際にどうやったらいいの？」という初心者にもわかりやすく、安心して WordPress のホームページを運用できるセキュリティのポイントをクイズ形式でお伝えします。 Full presentation slides: https://bit.ly/WCN2019security

With the Gutenberg release, a new Block based editor opens the door for developers to do some interesting things with it versus the traditional way WordPress handles content. In this talk, the basics of Blocks and the power of building custom blocks for special content. Join me in this talk geared towards developers and power […] Full presentation slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sYoBowlrL7YQC-lKR5gUdRI-p2UlZknsyckP5MtnLyQ/present?slide=id.g35f391192_00