Category Archives: Conferences & Speaking

A Web Community

Yesterday I was witness to something very special indeed…

I went to UpFront Conf in Manchester, and while it was utterly awesome in its own right, there was one very specific highlight that surpasses anything I’ve ever seen at a conference before. And that was Eric Meyer’s video address to the conference at the end of the day.

Eric sent an extremely moving video to Upfront. He talked about the loss of his daughter Rebecca and how the web industry showed their support by adopting the colour purple on social media, and even some websites changing their colour scheme for a day.

This resulted in the proposal to get the named colour ‘rebeccapurple’ added to the CSS specification and was approved by the CSS WG in June 2014.

Eric’s message to Upfront about this was:

“We are not a web industry we are a web community”

This.

This is such an important message and encapsulates everything I love about working in this industry.

It is why I go to conferences, it is why I go to meetups, it is why I have organised conferences, it is why I still organise meetups. It is all about supporting and growing this amazing community.

It doesn’t matter what framework you use or what CMS system, whether you’re a full stack developer or digital marketer, it doesn’t matter. Our community makes it possible for us to learn together, push each other to do better work, support each other in good and bad times and create a better web for the generations to follow.

It is a phenomenal thing to be a part of and not something I believe other industries have the opportunity to experience to the same degree.

Well done us 🙂

Lightning Talk at FrontEnd North 2016

On Friday September 30th I was lucky enough to be included in the lineup for Frontend North in Sheffield. For those fo you that don’t know what Frontend North is, it is a full day conference held in Sheffield full of frontend goodness! Full details can be found on their website here: http://frontendnorth.com/

I spoke about some of the basics of Flexbox and how awesome it is during the first session of lightning talks (which I have to say, I was relieved about as it got it out of the way so I could enjoy the rest of the day).

It was a really very awesome day. I’m immensely honoured to have been invited to speak and I learnt absolutely loads. A huge thank you to Kimb, Dave and Matt for organising it.

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WordCamp London 2016

With all the buzz around the release of the REST API with WordPress version 4.4, I thought I’d talk about something completely different. Cos you know, I don’t like to follow trends… 😉

My talk, this year, will cover the new support for responsive images that has also been implemented in version 4.4. How srcset works and how it will change the way we develop themes.

I’m really excited to be a part of WordCamp London again. WordCamps are an integral part of what makes the WordPress community so great. Previous years have been amazing and to be a part of that for the second year in a row is truly [awesome]awesome![/awesome] I hope to see you all there!

Regular Sponsor of WordPress Birmingham Meetup

WordPress Meetup in full swing

WordPress Meetup in full swing with Johnny Allbut giving a talk

As many of you know, I’m a huge supporter of grass roots events, especially within the web and tech industries. Not only do I attend regularly, but I’ve also organised a fair few conferences and meetups in Shropshire over the years myself (see ShropGeek for more about whats going on in Shropshire).

So I’m really very excited to announce that as of December 2015 I am a regular sponsor of the WordPress Birmingham Monthly Meetup!

These meetups are casual evening events, usually run on the second Wednesday of each month. The format is relaxed with 1 – 2 speakers and the opportunity to network afterwards. The talks cover a wide range of topics, some tech orientated and some not, making them perfect for anyone who has an interest in WordPress. No matter whether you are a business owner, blogger, designer or developer there is always something to learn.

Why am I sponsoring?

Part of what I like about working with WordPress is the huge community that has evolved around it and thats partly because of events like these. But without regular sponsorship these events could not happen. I have learnt so much from meetups and WordCamps over the years (and still continue to do so) and also met so many really [awesome]awesome[/awesome] people, I decided it was time to give something back.

If you would like to find out more about these meetups or come along to the next one, (they are free to attend) check out their page on meetup.com or tweet them at @WPBhamUK.