Articles FROM

Track 2

  • Opening Remarks

    Troy Chaplin Avatar
    Troy Chaplin

  • Break

    Troy Chaplin Avatar
    Troy Chaplin

  • Lunch

    Troy Chaplin Avatar
    Troy Chaplin

  • Break

    Troy Chaplin Avatar
    Troy Chaplin

  • From Canada to the World: 10 Lessons From Working With 50 Countries

    Troy Chaplin Avatar
    Troy Chaplin

    What happens when you have a local WordPress workshop in Vancouver and scale it to the whole global WordPress community? The human factor. It turns out scaling to a much larger community has a lot more to do with people than it does with systems. 

    In this candid and personal talk, Jill shares the stories of 10 lessons learned over 5 years while facilitating WordPress public speaking workshops for 50 countries.

    These aren’t lessons from textbooks. They’re hard-earned insights gained from real-world experience and real interactions. Mixing humour and gravity, Jill tells about the triumphs and missteps of being a polite Canadian navigating culture, identity, language, and emotion on the global stage alongside real people with real challenges and very real hearts.

    You’ll leave with practical insights and surprising truths about collaborating thoughtfully across cultures and handling the unexpected in any community. Learn about popcorn words, poster conundrums, and how to say “Sorry, eh” in a global way.

  • From Overwhelmed to Augmented: How Everyday Creators Can Use AI Without Losing the Plot

    Alycia Leno Avatar
    Alycia Leno

    AI isn’t just for coders and tech bros—it’s becoming an essential tool for creators who want to work smarter, not harder. In this session, Alycia will cover best practices, safety, and live demos (gasp!) of the AI tools shaping content creation. You’ll get practical tips including how to use AI for productivity, faster first drafts, offloading tedious tasks, and avoiding burnout—without sacrificing your voice or values.

    Alycia will also explore what’s coming next, including Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and Agentic AI, and what they mean for creatives, marketers, and makers. Whether you’re curious, skeptical, or already experimenting, this session will help you work with AI – not just use it.

  • How Edutopia is leveraging AI to power a hyper-personalized recommendation engine.

    Anthony Moore Avatar
    Anthony Moore

    What if you could show content to users based on their past behaviour, or even the behevior of their peers? In this talk, we will showcase how we leverage WordPress, AWS, Neo4j, and AI to power a recommendation engine that provides personalized content based on site activity and user engagement. We will break down how data flows between each system, the power of a Graph Database, and what this all looks like for the end user.

  • From Blog to Book: How I turned a Blogging Gig into a Published Book

    Michelle Frechette Avatar
    Michelle Frechette

    Once upon a time, I was envious of a friend’s freshly-published book. I told her I was happy for her, and that it was also a goal of mine to publish a book, but I wasn’t sure what I would write about. Her reply: “well, you practically have it written already!”

    I had been a blogger for the Rochester, New York newspaper’s business section. I wrote tips, ideas, and how attention to small things could turn into good marketing. It was published online (and often added to the print edition). She suggested I take those posts and turn them into chapters.

    So I did. My book, “A Good Firm Handshake (and other essential business tips)” was born. It wasn’t necessarily easy, but it wasn’t too difficult either. And most importantly, if I could do it, you could too.

    Want to learn my process? Join this session for tips on writing, gap-filling, cover design, evaluation, editing, and publishing.

    Then you, too, can be a published author.

  • Cultural Algorithms: The Innovation Multiplier

    Dee Teal Avatar
    Dee Teal

    The Core Concept: Every culture develops problem-solving patterns over centuries. These cultural algorithms are like behavioral code – efficient, repeatable processes that run on people instead of computers and get passed down through shared experience.

    The core message of this talk is to encourage leaders to view their teams not just from what their skills and career highlights, job descriptions, and even their outward personalities bring to the workplace.

    Instead, Dee suggests that we look deeper at the inherent, unique cultural contexts contributors bring to the table that may jolt us out of our own ingrained ‘ways of working’ to novel paths to innovative solutions.

  • Intro to WordPress-ActivityPub: What it is, & how to use it!

    Django Avatar
    Django

    I’ll make a business case for using your WordPress site with ActivityPub to boost engagement. I’ll also explore the current possibilities of the plugin.

  • The Real Cost of Staying Open: WordPress Strategies for Freelancers and Business Owners

    Mary Job Avatar
    Mary Job

    In today’s digital world, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. Closed platforms, big tech, social media, and e-commerce systems are tightening their grip. But WordPress? It offers freelancers and small business owners like us a pathway to independence. And that is why many of us are here today.

    But here is the truth: that freedom comes with a price. Hidden costs, technical, operational, and financial, that can catch you off guard if you are not prepared. In this session, I will break down the realities of managing a WordPress-based web presence. I will show you how to minimize risks with smart plugin choices, secure practices, and streamlined operations.

    Whether you are a freelancer looking to serve clients better or a small business owner wanting to control your digital future, this talk will give you the strategies you need to thrive without being locked in. Together, we will explore how to stay nimble, keep control, and unlock the full potential of WordPress in a rapidly changing digital landscape.

  • Shipping WordPress Without Shipping Code: How Project Managers Can Lead Releases

    Jeffrey Paul Avatar
    Jeffrey Paul

    What does it take to lead a WordPress release or any major open-source initiative without writing a single line of code? In this talk, I’ll walk through how I’ve helped shape and ship multiple WordPress releases by leaning on product thinking, project management skills, and “glue work”.

    You’ll hear the story of a contributor who moved from helper to release deputy to AI team lead all without commit access. Along the way, we’ll explore the often-invisible roles that keep WordPress moving: coordinating feedback, managing timelines, nudging consensus across Slack and GitHub, and motivating volunteers across time zones. I’ll share practical tools, patterns, and gotchas for leading distributed contributor teams, with a focus on how you can lead even if you’re not an engineer.

    Whether you’re a project manager, designer, or just someone who makes things happen, this session will help you: Recognize what leadership looks like outside the code, Understand the real impact of “glue work” in open source, Find your place in the WordPress project and level up your contributions, Leave with clear ways to get involved in releases, roadmap work, or contributor organizing.