If you build or sell websites and you want to take your skills to the next level then EEConf 2020 is perfect for you

No, I’m Not the Secretary

What people think of me doesn’t matter nearly as much as what I think of myself. Whether you call it imposter syndrome or lack of confidence, I’ve found it sneaks up on all of us. Sometimes we have to look past what we perceive and realize that how we project confidence and how we perceive ourselves does affect how others treat us. 

Bio

Joanna Bergdoll
Director of Operations, Immerge

Joanna Bergdoll is a people and relationship-centered person who brings over 15 years of diverse and extensive experience to her role as Director of Operations. She began her career in technology as a technical writer, teaching herself the systems for the training that she developed. Her years of experience with customers has made her an empathetic leader who focuses on relationships. Joanna lives in Virginia with her husband and two children.

Practical Indispensable Project Management Tips for Delivering Successful ExpressionEngine Project

This talk will not only be limited to the tools and processes of being Scrum-master but also the HARD lessons that I have learned in my 18 years of professional career working with multiple team size and various technologies.

It might cover the things about recognising our privileges as project managers and team members, how to deal with variety of people involved in the project, how to deal with imperfect project briefs, measure and filtering out what matters to us during the project, how to handle bad news we receiving amid the project life cycle, celebrating small victories on long term projects, how to establish culture to help other team members and make their life easy, AND last but not the LEAST how to take care of yourself as a project manager / key accountable person for the project.

Bio

Kandarp Bhatt
Founder & CEO, ZealousWeb

Kandarp is a technocrat by heart. Technology excites and fuels his endeavour. In 18 years of his professional life, he has devoted a major part of his professional life in building ZealousWeb (A full service Web & Digital Marketing Agency) from one man army to team of 140+ professionals. Since the outset, it has been his burning zeal to straddle the technology space, to exist at the cutting edge and to deliver unprecedented value to their valued customer which spreads across 25 countries today covering the US, UK, Europe & Middle East.

The Mystery In The Models: The Basics of Adding a Model to your EE Add-on

The model portion of EE Add-ons have always felt like a mystery. The goal of this talk is to take a high-level overview of models in EE, and see what it takes to add one to an add-on. We’ll take an existing add-on (based on upvoting and downvoting content) with some old logic, and create models to manage the data in and out.

This would include some “live” coding (showing how the code changes and evolves, not truly coding on screen), as well as a Github repo with the actual code and step-by-step process of what was changed.

Bio

Doug Black
tripleNERDscore

I’m Doug! I’m a developer and founder at tripleNERDscore, focused on creating opportunity for partners through websites, apps, and supporting development teams. I have been programming since I had a TRS-80 and saved programs on cassette tapes, and am a huge fan of, and core contributor to, ExpressionEngine! I also build in Laravel and Vue and whatever I can get my hands dirty with.

When not guzzling coffee and yelling at the keyboard (some call it programming), I am spending time with my amazing wife and girls, exploring abandoned places, listening to metal and Wu Tang, and working to bring some good to the world. Come talk nerdy to me!

Where is all of the ExpressionEngine work?

ExpressionEngine is good. ExpressionEngine is bad. PHP is good. PHP is bad. Flavors of opinions fluctuate almost daily in this industry, but that doesn’t change what works and what doesn’t. ExpressionEngine has faced ups and downs in its popularity among developers; and has faced challenges to the assertion that it’s a good choice for web project building. 

As a historically independent developer, Caroline has witnessed ExpressionEngine; and its use, growth, and community since 2008. She will identify key niche’s for ExpressionEngine website development and explain how to find work there. She will identify ExpressionEngine’s advantages and explain how to determine if ExpressionEngine is right for a project. Most importantly, she will address add-on and future development and suggest experience-backed ways for developers to take ExpressionEngine into the future.

Bio

Caroline Blaker
Principal, Petroglyph Creative

Caroline C. Blaker is a 12-year ExpressionEngine veteran who has been “going it alone” for most of that time. She is now at the head of the business she founded, Petroglyph Creative, which has become a small agency specializing in high-value PHP CMS work, while also contending with surrounding technologies. She has her BFA in Fine Art from Washington University in St. Louis, and has spoken about her experience with Imposter Syndrome (ExpressionEngine Conference 2018) and about Web Design in a professional development setting at the University of Texas, El Paso. She considers herself to be in the business of service, led by a desire to do good.

Caroline is the mother of Mahlon (7) and Mehera (1), is a skier, loves chocolate cake and blueberries (but not together.) She can make a pizza to rival any commercial parlor despite her residential-grade oven. Caroline is open for sharing on business, ExpressionEngine, a host of highly-personal topics you can probably catch her about on Twitter.

3 Key Things to Level Up the Marketing For Any Business

A lot of great companies never earn the revenue they should because they fail to execute on a marketing plan. If you knew what to do differently, you would—but you don’t, and so you feel stuck. Good news! It doesn’t have to be that way. I will cover the common mistakes that most businesses make and share principles to apply to your messaging, website, and sales funnel to engage customers and grow your business.

Bio

Michael Coogan
Managing Partner, MC2 Design Group

Embracing Utility First CSS

Highlighting the pros (and cons) of Tailwind CSS. How to embrace the cons, which can lead to a better site architecture overall. Why it still allows for unique creative expression. And how it shaves hours off of developers time.

Bio

Kyle Cotter
Author Experience Lead, Happy Cog

Based right outside of Washington, D.C., Kyle Cotter has been making websites since middle school. He’s been involved with various PHP based CMS communities for the bulk of that time.

After more than a decade of self-employment, he is currently the Author Experience Lead at Happy Cog. His job is to standardize the entire CMS process at Happy Cog. This encompasses all things that affect a content editor on a CMS project. From the structuring of content to thinking about the Author Experience, an area that is typically neglected, Kyle has involvement in all CMS projects at Happy Cog. He values consistency and an attention to detail — both critical pieces of a successful CMS build.

Outside of the world of CMSes, Kyle enjoys good food and drink with his wife, puppy, and kittens.

Maximize Agency Profitability using Labor Efficiency Concepts

Greg Crabtree will discuss how his experience has led him to the conclusion that labor productivity is the most essential ingredient to a profitable business. Correctly measuring your labor productivity as gross profit per labor dollar will help you walk the tightrope of the right labor at the right time at the right price so you can hit your profit target, measure productivity, and hold your team accountable.

Bio

Greg Crabtree

With over 40 years of in-depth experience, Greg is recognized for being a public speaker, author, and entrepreneur. He is known for working with his clients on cash flow planning, business consultations, strategic planning facilitation, success planning, and transaction advisory services.

Greg is the author of “Simply Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits” and “Simply Numbers 2.0: Rules for Smart Scaling.” He has also contributed to Verne Harnish’s book, “Scaling Up.” Greg chairs the EO@Wharton Executive Education program and the Functional Finance for Entrepreneurs program.

Getting Things Done – Remotely

Working remotely requires strong focus and organization. It’s easy to lose your motivation and work too little or too much if you don’t have the right systems in place to optimize and organize your life.

“Getting Things Done” is a productivity philosophy popularized by David Allen. It has changed many lives for the better, including mine, by enabling adherents to achieve a more peaceful, focused, and harmonious existence. It goes way beyond being more effective at work and helps you create the life you wish to lead.

For remote workers this kind of methodology is so important. At my studio, Cantilever, I‘ve seen GTD and its principles dramatically improve the quality of service we can provide for clients. I think more people who work remotely need to know about it, and popularizing it as a tool for remote teams will enable more people to work remotely than otherwise could have the mental fortitude.

Totally Optimized Image Management with Imgix & Lazysizes

The latest web technologies make it easier than ever to manage images, but substantial challenges still remain. Ensuring that a given image is only ever served at the exact right size and quality level, and only loaded when it will be needed, is a challenging task. Add in art direction and focus management and it becomes even trickier. At Cantilever we accomplish this goal using a specialized image CDN called Imgix, along with the well-known Lazysizes plugin.

We have used this method for around a dozen websites and found it invaluable in delivering top notch performance. I will outline the current state of image management on the web, how common CMS deal with images, and the inherent flaws in the current standard approach. I will then illustrate how those challenges are solved with the combination of Imgix and Lazysizes. Finally I will show some advanced techniques for responsive image management using the finicky `` element.

This talk is for any developers who are interested in improving frontend performance and in optimizing their sites to work well for a wide audience.

Bio

Ty Fujimura
Cantilever

Ty Fujimura is the CEO of Cantilever, a web design and development consultancy. They’ve worked with a diverse range of clients including IBM, NYU, and Esquire. His career purpose is to unite business and creativity. He has written on design for the Huffington Post and has been interviewed for CNN.com, VIBE Magazine, and radio. Outside of Cantilever, he co-hosts a US soccer podcast called We The People. He lives in Fair Lawn, NJ with his wife and two young children who love crashing video conference calls. Ty loves the USMNT, GTD, and M:TG, and other acronyms.

Conversations for Results - 5 keys to success

Every success and failure you’ve ever experienced when working with others can be traced back to one thing. It’s the quality of conversations that led to the agreements you made. There are 5 elements to coordinating with others that are invisible to the eye but stronger than gravity to predicting your results. Master these and you can identify problems sooner, reduce breakdowns, recover faster, produce greater satisfaction, and advance your career. In the digital world with ever-growing written communication, these elements are critical to understanding the difference between doing what was asked and actually producing satisfaction with your clients and staff.

WARNING: Once you understand these elements, you will see them everywhere from business to home and your world will change forever.

Bio

Ashley Guberman
Primary Goals

I’ve seen more project breakdowns than I can count, each of them like a slow-motíon train-wreck. When I learned the framework I’m going to present, every single breakdown made sense. Yes, every - single - one.  I’m committed to drastically reducing your learning curve when you coordinate with teams.

My name is Ashley Guberman, and I run PrimaryGoals.com. I’m a professional copywriter and business coach with certifications from StoryBrand, Infusionsoft, and Digital Marketer. I have a Masters in Behavioral Science, specializing in coaching and consulting within organizations. I also worked with the Institute for Generative Leadership for 3 years.

For fun, I jump off of mountains in a paraglider, raise my grade-school twins, and write web software.  

My biggest project was writing the analytics that drove the Wounded Warrior Project from spending $5K/month in advertising to over $5MM/month. This was based on demonstrating positive results while under the constraints of government regulations for non-profit organizations.

Keynote

Full description coming soon!

Bio

Tom Jaeger
ExpressionEngine

TBD

Full description coming soon!

Bio

Matt Johnson
ExpressionEngine

Matt Johnson is a software developer at EEHarbor / Packet Tide. He majored in Computer Science with a minor in Math and Music Performance: Classical Guitar. He has a passion for Cyber Security, which he specialized in, serving as the president of the Cyber Defense Club.

He has been working for EEHarbor / Packet Tide for the past 5 years, where he primarily worked on Laravel applications and transitioned into full-time ExpressionEngine add-on development. He helped build the foundation for EEHarbor’s unified add-on system that brings compatibility to older add-ons to work across ExpressionEngine versions. Using his expertise in add-on development, he became the project lead for ExpressionEngine and third-party add-on upgrades. He has been upgrading ExpressionEngine websites of all sizes and challenges, as well as continuing to help develop and maintain custom add-ons for the past few years.

When not working in software, he enjoys hiking, rock climbing, photography, and performing music. He aspires to hike to the highest point of every state, and so far has summited 24 states. He and his wife both play and sing in a band with Madison Vandenburg, the second runner up on American Idol 2019.

The Design of ExpressionEngine 6

ExpressionEngine 6 introduces a refreshed control panel design and we can’t wait to show it off! Join us as we walk through some of thinking and decisions behind these improvements.

Bio

Andy Johnson
Shaping the Page

Andy is a UI/UX designer from Columbus, Ohio. He’s been involved with the ExpressionEngine community since the pMachine days, and enjoys helping clients with interface design via his studio Shaping the Page. Andy is also the co-founder of Harpoon, the next generation time-tracking and billing software for freelancers and creative teams. When not staring at a monitor you’ll find Andy hiking with his family, or racing BMX and mountain bikes with their two kids.

Developer Round Table

Full description coming soon!

Bio

Brian Litzinger
Owner, BoldMinded

Brian is originally from Kentucky, but his home is in Minneapolis with his wife, Collette. He has been building websites since 2000, and using ExpressionEngine since 2008. He currently works at Jamf and sells add-ons at boldminded.com.

Opening Remarks

Opening remarks from Andy McCormick, one of the conference organizers.

EE6 Round Table and Open Discussion

Join us for an open discussion about EE6!

Closing Remarks

Full description coming soon!

Bio

Andy McCormick
Project Manager, ExpressionEngine

I live in Lexington, SC (just outside Columbia). As Director of Operations and Development, I’m responsible for all of our front and back-end development as well as operations at Dubose Web Group. I love spending time with my family (my Bride, and two sons [6 & 3]).

Upgrading EE addons for v6

In this presentation you’ll discover new cool features for add-on developers in EE6 and also learn how to upgrade your custom add-ons to work in v6.

Bio

Yuri Salimovskiy
ExpressionEngine

Yuri joined ExpressionEngine team to participate in work on version 6 earlier this year but it hasn’t been the beginning of his journey with the CMS.

Yuri has been pursuing web development for the better part of two decades. He began working with ExpressionEngine v1.6 back in 2007 when ExpressionEngine’s Multiple Site Manager was the perfect solution for a set of websites he needed to build for a financial company. It must have been love at first site as he quickly began to dive deeper into add-on development for EE and soon after started intoEEtive.com.

Yuri’s contribution for EE community over the years is including many recognizable addons such as Threaded Comments, Protected Links, Social Login, Social Update, and Member Categories. In total, Yuri has over 100 addons in his portfolio ranging from simple to very complex.

Yuri lives in Ukraine with his wife and two sons (9 and 3yrs old). When he’s not working on EE Core, he enjoys woodworking and relaxing in his eco-built house.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do - Splitting Up a Multi-Site Setup

One of ExpressionEngine’s more attractive features is the idea that you can run multiple sites based on just one codebase installation. Called Multi-Site Manager (MSM), this allows you to share and reuse templates, entries, variables, member accounts and more, which in theory can save you development time and make it easier to maintain a network of websites.

But if those sites end up growing in different directions, if they need their own servers to handle their own traffic, or if you simply decide to separate them “for personal reasons”, you may find that detangling them is not nearly as easy as it was starting up the MS sites in the first place.

Never fear: We’ll walk you through how to safely and efficiently split 1 MSM into 2 or more strong, independent sites without any lingering reminders of their time spent together.

Bio

Travis Smith
President, Hop Studios

Travis F. Smith founded Hop Studios, a web design and development company that focuses on helping progressive social enterprises to have modern, robust and efficient online tools. He has been building content-rich, elegant Web sites since 1994, when he was one of the original creators of the Los Angeles Times website. He’s also been the editor of Variety.com, a lecturer at the University of Southern California, and now serves on the board of OpenMedia.ca, working to keep the Internet open, affordable, and surveillance-free. He lives in Calgary, Canada, and in his free(ish) time, he plays many flying disc sports.

Getting Started with Digital Accessibility

Creating digital products that are accessible for all users is no longer optional. Compliance standards such as Federal Section 508 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are raising the bar for organizations to better serve their users and avoid potential litigation. In this session, we’ll explain WCAG standards and outline steps to begin incorporating accessibility strategy into your design and development processes.

Bio

Beth Somerfield
Anthro-tech

Beth makes complex digital services accessible, concise, understandable, and polished. She believes effective digital experiences —whether it’s an app, a project proposal, or an interactive data visualization— are derived from understanding audiences, setting focused business goals, designing for inclusion, and building strong communication with diverse stakeholders.

As a digital accessibility analyst at Anthro-Tech, Beth works to make it easier for all people to be connected and get the things they need.

Beth holds her Bachelor of Politics from Oberlin College and Master of Urban Planning from Portland State University. As an urban planner, she saw the challenges people faced when trying to connect with the government. She also saw the potential for digital engagement to breach some of those divides. This drove her focus on accessibility and user experience in the public sector and nonprofits. When she’s not at the office, Beth supports (or some days just keeps up with) her daughter’s boundless enthusiasm. You can often find Beth curled up in front of a fire with her elderly cat.

Intro to ExpressionEngine 1: Laying Your Site’s Foundations

This workshop is for the absolute beginners. It’s an in-depth exploration of the underlying architecture used in building an ExpressionEngine site. We’ll take an HTML site template and build out the necessary foundation elements for creating a working website. Focus will be on field types (how to use them and how to choose them) and templating basics (how URLs work, how they interact with tags and how to build navigation based on that). We’ll start from installation and end with a logically structured backend that’s ready for a shiny coat of design to finish it off.

Your ‘website assignment’ will be available a week before the workshop itself and we’ll have a private Slack chat room where you can ask questions during the run-up to the workshop. The course can be as hands on as you like, so if you prefer to observe, that’s fine too.

Intro to ExpressionEngine 2: Bringing Design to Life (1.5 hours)

Taking a static HTML template and turning it into a dynamic ExpressionEngine powered site is one of the most rewarding aspects of building a website. This workshop will lead you through  the process, focusing on ExpressionEngine’s templating tools.  Expect a heavy emphasis on layouts, tags, and template variables. This workshop will use the same HTML template used in the ‘Intro to ExpressionEngine 1’ workshop, and when it’s done, you should have a fully functioning website.

Your ‘website assignment’ will be available a week before the workshop itself and we’ll have a private Slack chat room where you can ask questions during the run-up to the workshop. The course can be as hands on as you like, so if you prefer to observe, that’s fine too.

Bio

Robin Sowell
Development Liaison, ExpressionEngine

Robin got involved with EllisLab products in 2002, using pMachine Pro to build a personal site.  Since then, her casual interest in web development has grown into an obsession.  She’s now a fair hand at PHP and MySQL and enjoys nothing more than seeing what new tricks ExpressionEngine can be coaxed into performing.

Make Your Life Easier with Simple Custom Addons

Every project has that ONE THING that can’t be done easily with existing EE functionality or addons. Learn how to make custom addons for your projects and how to use them to do simple text processing for shortcodes, custom sorting and grouping of entries, and a few other neat tricks. I’ll demonstrate how to solve some specific problems but also how to generalize the idea to allow developers to solve their own ultra-specific use cases.

You don’t need a background in addon development to get value out of this! It’s aimed at folks who have used EE a lot, and know a little PHP, but haven’t done any addon development.

Bio

Adrienne Travis
Freelancer, Utilitarienne

I wear a lot of hats—(X)HTML/CSS/JS engineer, ExpressionEngine and CraftCMS expert, SQL consultant, technology evangelist, and geek-of-all-trades. I’ve been working with EE since version 1.0, way back in 2004! It sounds dorky, I know, but I genuinely love helping clients create solid CMS-backed sites to solve their problems and transform their thinking about what can be done with a website.