Modern infrastructure technologies like serverless computing and real-time databases offer a huge potential for new and improved online user experiences. In this session, we’ll go through a practical use case to find out how we can harness their power in the context of WordPress. We’ll build a Gutenberg block that shows status updates, to be incorporated into a status page. We’ll use serverless computing to allow adding status updates via a Slack command, and we’ll use a real-time database so that all visitors receive these updates in real-time without any impact on our WordPress server.

We explain what the WCAG 2.1 guidelines are and why they are so important to us as WordPress developers and agencies. Then we offer our easy and actionable steps that you can do to your website as soon as you get home to help you become compliant. We of course go through and explain each step we offer so you will understand clearly. Finally, we offer some resources and links to completely free plugins that you can use to test your websites Section 508 compliance and help your compliance instantly. Full presentation slides: https://2019.birmingham.wordcamp.org/files/2019/08/Accessibility-Made-Easy-no-gifs.pdf

The Internet was the promise of freedom of information, but it never promised the information would be truthful or objective. What was good for you yesterday, isn’t today. Fail fast, fail early, fail often, but filter the imperfections out of your Instagram. Cultivate your intuition, and fear nothing, but how can you be sure that your intuition isn’t a fight-or-flight response? Since the first time she was told she was ‘doing it wrong’, Jenny has been fascinated by the contradictions of ‘fact’ and ‘truth’ that shape how we view the world. Join her as she explores science, history, medicine, yoga, agile and more; and how these ideas affect us as individuals and as members of a rapidly growing community.

Marcel walked more than 700 kilometers to get to WordCamp Europe to raise funds for a good cause in the WordPress community. He will tell you about his preparation, the journey itself, people he met, and how he managed to step away from his company for a month to do it.

The Gutenberg block editor gives us new and exciting possibilities to create visually rich content in WordPress using block-based authoring tools. But what if we don’t know how our content is going to be displayed? Joe will take a look at what happens when we make assumptions about the visual presentation of our content, based on the tools we use to create that content. He will explore the advantages and tradeoffs that come from keeping the structure of your content distinct from the presentation of that content, and look at examples of how we can maintain this separation while providing compelling visual authoring experiences for people using our custom authoring tools.

Mistakes and failure are inevitable. Instead of being afraid of them, we should use them as lessons that help identify weak points in our organisations and systems. One way to do this is by writing blameless postmortems. Daniel details exactly how postmortems can help organisations and teams focus on improvement, and how that boosts work morale, makes products better, and strengthens your relationship with customers.

In early 2018, Peytz & Co started using Gutenberg to power a boilerplate theme on which they built custom websites. Kåre will talk about how Gutenberg helped better align sale pitch and client understanding of what is actually developed in a modular approach when looking at functionality and content, on a website that is bound to change over time.

Networking is a great tool to grow your business. It can help you find new ideas, new customers, new partners, and even a new job if you are looking for a career change. Networking comes naturally to some people but is dreaded by others. It can be hard if you are not an extrovert and it is time consuming. The good news is you can learn how to network! How do you get out of your comfort zone and push yourself to talk to potentially interesting people? How do you measure the return on investment? How do you find a good balance between schmoosing and getting down to business? Let’s find out together!

Whether you are selling a service or product, setting the right price for a globally diverse customer base is hard. Because WordPress is used by everyone from individuals to billion-dollar corporations, setting the price is even harder. So how do you master the art of pricing? Over 10 years, Rahul performed a number of experiments and learned lessons, sometimes the hard way. He will share his wisdom, the tactics he used, and real-life experience. Yes, all in 10 minutes!

Attention spans are diminishing online, so we need to get to the point with our landing pages. We should start by identifying the user problem, then promote just one solution in an uncluttered and direct manner. This allows the visitor to make a quick decision, rather than sending them to a bloated website with many options. Rob covers the essential things to include on your landing page while encouraging a minimalistic design approach.