Presented by Charles Alexander in Boot Camp.

WordPress is now the de facto web site standard for musicians, artists and record labels. We present some must have plug-ins that can help with discovery, fan acquisition, fan engagement and fan conversion. Coupled with commonly used digital music tools, WordPress provides a robust and effective music centric marketing platform.

Presented by Nathaniel Schweinberg in Dev Ops.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t run away from bugs, errors, and output that you don’t understand. We’ll be running the gamut in this talk on how best to debug your project using tools like Debug Bar and Chrome Developer Tools.

Presented by Chris Wilcoxson in Dev Ops.

Learn how to get started developing with WordPress by building the simplest type of plugin: a widget. Learn how to extend the widget class and all the basic parts needed to build your own widget. The starter code for the widget will be posted online before the session so everyone can download it and start building their own.

Presented by Pamela Coyle, Alex Patin, Ross Jones, Joel Norris in Specialization Training.

The most important aspect of your WordPress website is the theme you choose, and unless you have the inside track it’s a massive and confusing market. We’ve put together a panel of local Pressers with a variety of perspectives from SEO, Content Management, Design and Coder. We can guarantee that you walk with your hands full of Themes to choose from. Better yet you’ll know why their worth choosing as well.

Presented by Michael Toppa in Dev Ops.

We want code that is easy to understand, re-usable, and flexible. But we are always up against deadlines, so we rush, and end up with code that is messy, buggy, hard to maintain, and makes us go slower even though we’re trying to go faster.

What is clean code? In this talk I’ll provide some answers to this question, and introduce you to some good habits that will help keep your code clean, such as the use of meaningful names for your variables and functions, and the Single Responsibility Principle. I will even try to persuade you that using a lot of code comments is a sign that there are problems with your code. I’ll also discuss the particular challenges of applying some of these techniques to the WordPress environment.

Presented by Austin Smith in Dev Ops.

In this session I’ll introduce Fieldmanager, demonstrate what we did for KFF, and show how to get started using Fieldmanager on your own.

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s new website, scheduled to launch in mid-March, features more than thirty custom content types, almost all of which require extra fields. At the outset of the project, we identified this requirement and decided to build an abstract system for adding metaboxes full of fields, and the result is Fieldmanager, a new system for adding custom fields to content types.

Because this system had to be compatible with the requirements of WordPress.com VIP, where KFF’s new site will be hosted, we started basically from scratch on this project. The resulting toolkit has the following fields, and more:

• Rich text area
• Media uploader
• Spreadsheet editor, which powers the most dynamic features for KFF
• Post autocomplete
• Tag selector which can write to WordPress’s core taxonomy tables (we replaced the category and tag widgets for KFF entirely)

Presented by Randy Hicks, John Housholder in Boot Camp, Dev Ops, Specialization Training.

John and Randy who will present on the future of WordPress in Nashville. They will address the areas of growth in the Nashville Meetup, WP Nashville, and future business opportunities within the WordPress community in Nashville.

Target Audience: WordPress Newcomers, Content Writers/Publishers, Developers, Designers

This talk will be held in the user track space and will be streamed into the other rooms. Randy Hicks will moderate the developer track discussion and elaborate on plans for the WordPress developer meetup.

Presented by Ross Jones in Specialization Training.

Forget using multiple plugins from different developers for SEO. Let the WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast do the heavy lifting so you can spend your time on creating awesome content for your readers. In this session, Ross Jones of 2 the Top Web Design will step you through how to properly use the Yoast SEO plugin to get maximum exposure for your WordPress website.

Presented by Judy Wilson in Specialization Training.

Got security? You’re proud of your self-installed WordPress.org site but you can be sure that the hackers are already at the door, testing for vulnerabilities. With millions of WordPress.org sites in operation hackers have a gigantic, soft target for their redirects, downloads, backdoors and other sinister malware. And research shows that most WordPress site owners aren’t even aware they’ve been hacked — until the damage is done and evident. Join WordPress maven Judy Wilson to learn how to protect your site with solid, best-pratice safeguards. And start relaxing.

Presented by Noe Lopez in Specialization Training.

Noe will share his experience during his first three months working at Ahso Designs as a developer. Discussion topics will include the best practices for blending into a good workflow, how to prepare for your first developer job, and the expectation vs reality about working with a team.

Presented by Todd O’Neill in Specialization Training.

So, you start planning your website…WAIT! We don’t need no stinkin’ plan! We’re building a website! Uh-huh. And then you “redesign” it and “massage” it and pull your hair out because if your visitors would only understand what you’re trying to say! THEY’RE SO STUPID!
You’d never build a house without a plan, right? Creating a content strategy before you create pages and add plugins should be part of your project. Even if you are a company of One. We’ll show you how to make your mistakes on paper or simple desktop and online tools before you commit to a server. Fast, Good, Cheap; Choose two. Do it Good and on the Cheap. It may take a little longer but it will be Right.

Presented by D’nelle Dowis in Boot Camp.

If you’re feeling restless within the confines of your plain-jane WordPress site, you’re not alone. There’s a whole world of customizations out there. This session will walk you through some basic customizations like uploading images & galleries through the new Media Manager, using widget areas to publish all kinds of content, how to install & customize a theme, and ending with a discussion on how to choose a theme that’s right for you.

Presented by Kelly Henderson in Boot Camp.

You’ve installed WordPress, now its time to populate your site. This session will walk you through organizing content through posts and pages, best practices for making your content reader friendly and a few tips to make life simpler for you on WordPress.

Presented by MaAnna Stephenson in Boot Camp.

A staggering 85% of WordPress users don’t know the fundamentals. That includes folks who have been blogging for two years or more.

Stop suffering from what you don’t know. Get you and your site on a solid foundation with a how-to tour. We’ll cover customizing the Dashboard, global settings, custom menus, and more. Plus, you’ll get tips on little known settings that affect your SEO.

Presented by James Ashenhurst in Boot Camp.

In this talk I’ll tell the story of how masterorganicchemistry.com went from 300 pageviews in March of 2010 to about 200,000 pageviews in March of 2013. Many challenges were encountered along the way, such as finding my blogging “voice”, moving from wordpress hosted to self-hosted, integrating the site with e-commerce, and dealing with problems of scale

Presented by Steve Wilkison in Specialization Training.

This would be a session for folks new to creating themes. I go over the basics for creating your own theme. I keep it simple and to the point, so it is easy for everyone to follow and understand. Just the basics, an introduction to creating custom themes. Would cover going from Photoshop to HTML to a WordPress theme.

Presented by Chip Bennett in Specialization Training.

Custom Layouts Without Using Page Templates Often, Themes use custom page templates to add layout options for static pages; but custom page templates are actually intended to be used for custom content, rather than for custom layouts. And by using custom page templates to define custom layouts, custom layouts are limited to static pages. Single blog posts don’t feel the love. This session will show you how to use custom post meta data and the body_class filter to define custom layouts for both static pages and single blog posts. As a bonus, this session will show you how to use custom post metaboxes, rather than forcing users to deal with custom fields.