2008 content ideas

If you're interested in speaking on any of these subjects:

• Add you name and contact details after the relevant subject below

• If it's a new subject add it below along with your details

Science and Technology using WordPress

How is WordPress being used/exploited/advanced in the realm of Science and Technology?

• I host a not for profit weekly audio blog on amateur astronomy AstrotalkUK I can host a panel session to illustrate how WP is being used in science/technology arena. Bloggers in the science/technology area who want to join the panel - drop me a line. Gurbir Singh

Business blogs using WordPress

How blogging for your business can be a very effective marketing tool

• Small business owners to use a blog to boost their business, I started a Wordpress blog for my travel business in October 2006 (http://www.europealacarte.co.uk/blog)
• Mark McGuinness: Blogging as a business tool, as opposed to blogging as a business - based on my experience of using blogging to promote my coaching/consulting business: http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/blog
• Benjamin Ellis: Using blogs to connect with customers and focus your business.

Getting involved with WordPress

Development, themes, plugins, codex, testing

• Getting Involved with WordPress - Discussion on how to get involved with development/documentation/testing etc. - Peter Westwood

WordPress is not a blog

Alternative uses - podcasting, vlogging, galleries, CMS

• Possible speaker: Jonnya - I have been creating websites with WordPress for over 3 years and have some good commercial examples of how to use WordPress as a CMS. In addition to this I recently launched a site dedicated to helping people use WordPress as a CMS WordPress CMS Modifications. I would be happy to do around a 30-45min presentation on this subject with good supporting examples etc. I am leasing with Simon Dickson (also offered to present on this subject) on this by email to ensure our individual presentations cover different subject matter within the context of this subject.

• Possible speaker: Simon Dickson - I run a web consultancy which specialises in government work, and now concentrates almost exclusively on building stuff in WordPress, with or without blog elements. Got a few sites to demo / talk through, including one or two which will be big news.

Writing for blogs

Content, style, attracting and connecting with readers

Blogging and journalism

Differences, similarities, citizen journalism, bloggers learning from journalism and vice versa Benjamin Ellis: Dealing with the press and PR. What to do when they come knocking at your inbox.

WordPress wishlist

Future features, changes

Living from your blog

Advertising, professional blogging, offering WP support and services, platform for job

• Possible speaker: Chris Garrett - If no-one else is already lined up, and I understand this topic correctly, this would be about making a living and earning money from blogging,? I could talk about this as I write and speak about creating a niche profile to sell products and services at my blog chrisg.com and wrote about direct/indirect monetization with Darren Rowse in the ProBlogger Book

Blog design

Usability, web standards, microformats, SEO, themes

• Possible Speaker: Michael Martin - I write solely about blog design on my blog (Click the name to visit), and I would talk about things like what makes a design good, how to create a design from scratch, and common pitfalls for blog designs. NB Michael can't get to this year's WordCamp UK.

Open Source

WordPress and the Open Source movement, future of Wordpress and Open Source, Open Source software counterparts, proprietary vs GPL themes and plugins

Choosing web hosting

UK based or cheap US hosting, Fantastico, 'unlimited' bandwidth caps, best hosting deals.

Walking with WordPress

WordPress & mobile technology, adapting to a mobile audience, microblogging, mobile phone integration, live video

• Possible speaker: Richard Williams - I'm doing the Wainwright inspired Coast-to-Coast Walk (192 miles in 12 days) mid-June this year with two friends. We'll be using mobile technology and WordPress to keep family, friends and colleagues up to date with our progress.

WordPress in education

Blogging SE and HE, Wordpress as a VLE or or platform for informal learning, Wordpress and outreach.

Use of Specific Plugins :-

...to work with Google calenders for the various departments in a school such as a PE department displaying afer school events etc / and Google docs for staff and admin to store, share, proof read and liaise with parents , video broadcasting and screen-casting to back up learning at home, Numerous plugins that secure and enable child friendly social networking,live / pre-recorded video homework sessions and ability listen again to a lesson via a podcast etc. Potential future plugins could be :- Report Writing on to a secure server enabling staff to add / comments online, Grades recording and publishing.

Ease of use!!

The need for Teachers / educators to add / edit content quickly is a key component to the success of a school website and wordpress does this gracefully without complication. Communication with all the parties concerned in running a school is key and the extendibility of WP makes it ideal. Wordpress can co-exist along side school VLE's and similar as a blogging platform to a great effect. Due to wordpress' extendibility it could be easily be coded to work with a schools VLE (eg Moodle)or similar system in relation to users and passwords.

Issues such as cost of hosting broad / pod casts can be countered with the use of affiliate associations with reputable companies such as Amazon and alike to raise funds . This could be easily generated using recommended plugins to display content and communicate with the schools community and family through rss feeds and email alerts etc.

A lot of the above features can be achieved with other systems however WP makes it so much easier and gives more power to the school to control their own site without paying ridiculous amounts some companies charging schools for a bespoke VLE or the setting up of one -Moodle etc!!

Wordpress needs to compete and compare with systems like moodle etc to give it a chance to be recognised as a VLE and with the right plugins / systems and possible mash-ups in place it could be !!!

All of the above are ideas and notions that I have been working on and in development with select schools in the Yorkshire region . My experience so far has been very positive with live environments using WP as a full CMS (be it in major development as i write this) . Some of these ideas are not new but I thought they were worth pointing out ! There are a lot more ideas from my 8 years teaching Technology in SE and if needed I could share them further maybe at the event. All the best, Graham Hallas - WebActif

Wordpress MU

Blog networks, development, as a community building platform, future

• Brenda Burrell - currently teaching a network of artists WP/blogging as an aid to collaboration, scaling and resource development.

Spam

Defeating spam, spam prevention, new spam cultures, spam tasting

Theme and plugin security

Why it matters where you get your themes & plugins from, and what you can do about it if you're not code savvy.

Bifurcation

What sort of bifurcation is going to take place between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org and how it could impact businesses who use WordPress as a platform.

Scaling WordPress

Ways to deal with high traffic websites, how to scale a WordPress implementation.

• Possible speaker: James Turnbull - Could talk or workshop about the issues of scaling high traffic wordpress site Google Sightseeing, covering WP-Cache, memcached, nginx, Xcache, Cache:Lite, MySQL & Apache tweaks, etc, etc.

Large companies

How developers should deal with approaches from large companies who are taking an interest in WP, having previously mostly dealt with SMEs and similar.

• Possible speaker: Simon Dickson My company does almost all its work for central government, and almost all on WordPress these days. Some of it obviously 'blog', some not. Happy to talk about my experiences 'selling' WP-based work. Might be better in the 'non-blog' stream, but I'm happy to be flexible, or even do two slots.

Hiring a WordPress professional

How to hire a WordPress professional, what to avoid, and what to look for.

Plugins

Dealing with pluginitus (the syndrome of attaching every damn plugin available to a WP site!)

Code Surgery Session

• A WP Code Surgery session might be good. It should feature people with experience and informed opinion on how to write good PHP/XML/XHTML/CSS _and_ knowledge of the WP API. The aim should be to do what the forum/codex does, but face to face, for all those problems that don't get sorted because (often) the user doesn't know how to ask the question until they know the answer. To check out the Code Surgeons, please see the Running order, on Sunday at 14:30
  • Please us know your questions.

bbPress/WordPress integration and the future of bbPress

• I hope to talk about or demonstrate bbPress/WordPress integration, and talk a little about it's future directions etc. Sambauers 16:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Plugin development

• I quite fancy a 'build a plugin' breakout group - something that could be going on alongside the sessions, drop-in and out. Come up with ideas, see if we can see it through over the weekend. I'm not a crash hot coder, but I think it could be good, and really help with understanding the WP codex. Jon Bounds
• I'd like to present my approach to developing large sites with WordPress, covering theme customisation, site deployment, code versioning and more fun stuff! Leading from my experience developing various largish sites (Royal Navy blog, Children & the Arts)- Simon Wheatley
• Beyond posting - an intro to how WordPress fits together: what are plugins? what are themes? what can you do with filters? what's this API business? is it all as scary as it sounds (no!)? - Simon Wheatley

SEO for wordpress

I've built a 350k unique user a month wordpress blog and it gets about 70% of its traffic from search engines. I'm also successful with affiliate marketing and so I'd like to share my knowledge with you on this, giving some practical advice on how to get ranked and make money through your wordpress blog. Nick Garner

CSS and HTML for WordPress Beginners

If we want to appeal to those just starting out, we need at least one session that can address the very basics of CSS and HTML for those who want to branch out from a stock theme and make some of their own changes. This session would not assume any prior programming knowledge. Holly

Blogging in the local community

An open discussion on how blogging / wordpress can be utilised within local communities. Adult education / informal learning / worklessness & unemployment / family learning / other social / community realted issues. Prompted by the NBSE project.

Managing blog upgrades using Subversion

Recent changes to WordPress allow "clean" Subversion checkouts. I would like to present how this can be utilised by any administrator to keep their blog up to date and to even store their own changes in their own Subversion repository. Sambauers 23:54, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

WordPress Question Time

A small (5?) panel answers questions put by other attendees. The session will broadly follow the format of the long running BBC TV series Question Time, with a session chair leading in a David Dimbleby-type fashion!

Some questions:

1 With such a potential already in place for audio, video, chat and more. Why are so many WP bloggers still "text heavy"?

2 Is WP exploiting the mobile telecommunication possibilities adequately?

3 WP has a remarkably huge grassroots support. Can this be channelled to address modern social challenges - environmental pollution, renewable energy, poverty and hunger?

4 Does WP take security seriously.. enough?

5 Can Wordpress be a force for democracy?

6 What's the future of Wordpress - Plugins, Widgets, and Themes?

Gurbir Singh

Corporate and press blogging

The use of blogging in corporate and press envioroments. Benjamin http://redcatco.com/ Will include a representative from Express & Star if available.

What's New in Wordpress 2.5 / 2.6

Given the imminent release of Wordpress 2.6 (scheduled for the 14th of July now), and the recent release of 2.5 (a milestone in terms of Wordpress' Admin interface and other functionality), it might be worth having a session on the benefits of these two new versions: What's new? What's fixed? What's (potentially) broken? Short demonstrations of each of the new features could be included (post revisions, PressThis, Gears Support, etc). Daniel Woolstencroft

Essential plugins

I could do a session on plugins I consider should be part of a standard WP installation - at least they’re always part of my standard installations. Could create good debate! Richard Williams