In 2018, we focused on Taking Back the Open Web at WordCamp for Publishers:

WordPress is at the heart of the open web, powering upwards of 30% of websites. The open web, especially for the publishing and media industries, is under stress from proprietary formats which enforce limits and restraints. How are you and/or your organization using WordPress to tackle these challenges? How could WordPress be used to help take back the open web?

These were challenging questions to answer, but we learned so much from the publishers and technical partners trying to offer solutions. As we get excited for this year’s conference, here’s a look back at some of the incredible content from 2018:

Don’t miss out on seeing the talks from our fantastic speakers this year! Here are just a few highlights:

• A hands-on workshop on security training in newsrooms
• Two sessions on bringing Gutenberg to editorial teams
• An in-depth guide to creating robust newsletters
• Lightning presentations on Newspack, managing site networks, and paywalls

You can take a look at our full schedule here and buy your tickets now.

There are more ways to be involved with WordCamp for Publishers 2019 than just our main track sessions and workshops!

Mentorship Day

Since WCPUB has a different crowd from most WordCamps, we’re replacing Contributor Day with Mentorship day! This is an opportunity for you to gain expertise and learn from our talented attendees. We’ll be grouping folks by topic and introducing speed mentorship rounds for attendees to connect with each other. Doors open at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, and we’ll have several rounds of mentorship hours.

Birds of a Feather

If you didn’t have time to submit a talk proposal or if a conversation at WCPUB 2019 inspires you to lead a larger discussion, we’ll have tables set up during lunch on Wednesday and Thursday with topics for group discussion. More information will be available at registration!

If you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, what are you waiting for! To be guaranteed a spot at all of our events and this year’s event swag, please buy your tickets by July 15th. Your $50 ticket to WordCamp for Publishers 2019 includes:

• Two days of amazing sessions and workshops
• Games and conversations groups at Two Dollar Radio Headquarters on Wednesday night
• After Party at Wolf’s Ridge Brewing on Thursday night
• Mentorship day on Friday
• A Columbus Clippers baseball game on Friday night

You’ll be able to buy tickets right up until the day of the event, but we have to make some assumptions on attendees for booking venues, tickets, food, and swag by next week.

Thanks and hope to see you in Columbus on August 7th!

Check out the full schedule for WordCamp for Publishers 2019 and see what’s in store for this year. Some more surprise additions may be coming soon so stay tuned!

Don’t wait to get your tickets before we sell out. See you in Columbus on August 7th!

We’re excited to announce our third group sessions for WordCamp for Publishers 2019. We expect to post our final sessions and the full schedule soon. Don’t forget to get your tickets today!

Conquering Lighthouse to Provide a Better User Experience

Seth Alling, Mediavine

Last year, Google incorporated the Lighthouse tool into its PageSpeed Insights API for mobile. This tool checks a web page to determine how optimal the mobile experience is a for a visitor. As more than half of Internet traffic comes through mobile devices, these are the visitors that need to be prioritized.

Earlier this year Mediavine began developing a WordPress theme framework built for speed. The goal was to achieve a perfect score on Lighthouse, while maintaining all of the basic WordPress content creation functionality.

This session focuses on the individual aspects Lighthouse analyzes, and how Mediavine was able to optimize that framework for each of those areas during the development of a theme. The purpose of this presentation will be to supply insight on how organizations can achieve a higher Lighthouse score and improve their own search engine ranking, while providing an optimal experience for their readers.

Building a Sensible Publishing Architecture with WordPress

Ben May, The Code Company

We know WordPress is a great foundation for most publishers, but the modern web is becoming more and more demanding of our publishing platforms. Building more dynamic and complex web experiences are putting pressure on WordPress to deliver, especially at scale.

In this talk, Ben will discuss and feature some work The Code Company are doing to build best of breed WordPress publishing platforms for their clients. Specifically, how their team work in a microservice architecture approach, native within WordPress, while resisting the urge to introduce additional technologies.

At the end of this talk, you’ll go away with some different ideas around how to architect and build more advanced services for high traffic WordPress sites without going over the top and some examples of what can go wrong.

We’re excited to announce more sessions for WordCamp for Publishers 2019. Get your tickets today!

Top Cases in Internet Publishing

Lucia Walinchus

The open web often conflicts with the proprietary one, and courts have been behind on things to say the least.

This talk will look at the big decisions that have affected publishers over the last year, and highlight some key cases still under review that could affect publishers.

Beyond the Metabox: How Gutenberg Can Bring the Editorial Experience to Life

Kevin Fodness, Alley

The pre-Gutenberg editorial experience in WordPress leaves much to be desired. There is the ostensibly what-you-see-is-what-you-get content editor that is invariably augmented with metaboxes to collect additional information about how the post should be displayed, including content that appears above or below the post body, or in a sidebar, or inserted into the post’s metadata. There are two primary problems with this approach—it is necessarily non-visual, and relies heavily on using post previews to understand what the published post will look like; and it is rigid, because PHP templates control what appears where outside of the freeform content editor. Gutenberg, properly utilized, solves both of these problems by bringing content into the primary editor flow as blocks which can be fully visualized and re-ordered, allowing content editors to see and understand what a post will look like and how it will behave before publishing, without needing to continually refresh a post preview.

This talk will discuss how developers can support content editors and publishers by moving away from metaboxes to custom blocks and post-level metadata. I will explain how to think Gutenberg-first during design and development, and showcase examples of these approaches in practice.

We’re excited to announce more sessions for WordCamp for Publishers 2019. Get your tickets today!

Defining Fast: The Hardest Problem in Performance Engineering

Zack Tollman, Condé Nast

We all want fast sites, but what is fast? What is performant? We may know it when we see; yet quantifying and communicating about web performance effectively is still a challenge. In this talk, we will discuss our ever-evolving set of standards for what comprises a fast site. With special attention to the problems that ads and analytics present for publishers, we will discuss how antiquated notions of web performance are a ripe environment for abuses by 3rd party code. Finally, we will discuss techniques for improving performance monitoring as a tool for institutional change.

Creating a Better Editorial Experience with Gutenberg

Jon Heller, Upstatement

For a long time, the ability to create powerful and dynamic web experiences rested in the hands of developers. Even something as simple as adding a call to action in the middle of an article could be a confusing process.

The recent release of the Gutenberg editor for WordPress, however, blows wide open the capability for editors themselves to create engaging content without needing to rely on unintuitive menus or painful workflows. At this talk, we will look at a few projects we’ve built using Gutenberg and discuss both the advantages and challenges of this new editor.

Making WP-CLI Your Own: Extending a command line tool for your own needs

Dwayne McDaniel, Pantheon

WordPress’ command line interface, WP-CLI is a robust, easy to understand administrative that can help anyone with a WordPress site speed up workflows and automate a lot of complex tasks.

Over time, every developer finds themselves chaining together multiple commands and building bash aliases to accomplish repeated tasks. One of the most powerful aspects of an Open Source tool is GPL Freedom ‘to change the software to suit your needs’. This session will take you through the process of examining the code and building your first WP-CLI command.

It is easier than you think and the same core principles can be applied to any open source tool you use.

Walk away with:
– A new appreciation for the customizability command line.
– The desire to script ‘all the things’ to save time.
– Ideas about how to automate your processes to be more productive

We are pleased to announce our first confirmed presentation for WordCamp for Publishers, Columbus!

Davis Shaver is a software engineer at Alley Interactive and the creator of two local news sites in Pennsylvania.

Davis will be introducing attendees to the practical reality of launching a news site in 2019. His talk will include a technological census of local digital-first startup publishers, a few case studies of real-life publishers, and a survey of emerging solutions in the space. Audience members will walk away with an introduction to new avenues of collaboration and possible strategic areas for growth.

We hope to see you soon in Columbus! Purchase your WordCamp for Publishers tickets today.

In-person events like WordCamp for Publishers are a great way to build skills and connect with people who truly understand the projects and problems you’re working on every day. But we know that conference travel costs can be a burden, particularly for people just starting out in publishing or working for an organization where training dollars are scarce. So we’re excited to announce our 2019 scholarship program, designed to help you join us in Columbus this August.

WordCamp for Publishers is a community-organized event, and it works best when our entire community is represented. If travel support would help you attend, we hope you’ll apply for a scholarship — and we hope everyone will help us spread the word to colleagues and friends who should be there.

What we’re offering

We have a small number of scholarships that provide $500 toward the costs of attending WordCamp for Publishers, this August 7-9th in Columbus. You can use these funds in whatever way best fits your needs: ticket and registration, lodging, meals, airfare and transit, or any other travel costs. 

When applications are open

Our applications are open now through 11:59 PM EDT on Friday, June 14th. We’ll notify all applicants by Wednesday, June 19th.

How you can describe this event to your organization

WordCamp for Publishers is a community-organized event that brings together people who use WordPress to manage publications, big or small. It coaches participants on best practices, and encourages collaboration in building open-source tools for publishers. Here are some of the sessions we had last year. Stay tuned and subscribe for more news on our schedule this year.

Who should apply

• Anyone who is part of the publishing and technology community, whether your work is primarily technical, editorial, or somewhere in between.
• People working at smaller or regional publishers, who are looking to build skills and bring new resources back to their organizations.
• Students working in college publishing, or preparing for a career in digital publishing.
• Developers and allies interested in open-source software and protecting the open web.
• People of color, women, and other underrepresented groups in publishing and technology are strongly encouraged to apply.

What happens after you apply

WordCamp for Publishers will review all applications, and all applicants will hear back from us by June 14.

We are thrilled to announce our first confirmed workshop for WordCamp for Publishers, Columbus!

Joseph Lichterman (The Lenfest Institute for Journalism) and Emily Roseman (Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School), along with other speakers will host a hands-on workshop to help publishers take their newsletters to the next level.

This workshop is based on the Newsletter Guide, a resource created by Shorenstein, Lenfest, and Yellow Brim to help publishers engage readers with well-crafted newsletters. Topics covered will include types of newsletters, workflows, growing lists, monetization, and evaluating success.

Our call for speakers closes tonight, so get your application in!