Category: Events

Your First 90 Days: ProductCon

This is a talk I delivered for ProductCon September 2021 about balancing change and continuity, titled “Your First 90 Days: Listen, Learn & Act.”

When facing change, how to make your first 90 days matter by staying alert and ready to listen, learn, and act. Working to find the gaps and fill them to find success from day one.

Download the slides:

Description: Change is inevitable! Product leaders often deal with change and uncertainty in our jobs and across our careers. A constant feedback loop of learning and action.

How you start matters. The best of the best build on basics when taking on a new role or stepping up to lead a key project.

  • Establish trust and credibility, identify and fill gaps in knowledge, and kick start change
  • Get started better: activate teams, organize your work, communicate clearly, and build success from day one.

Books mentioned: The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins; Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan; and A Sense of Urgency by John Kotter.

Event details: Thank you to Product School for the invitation to share this important topic with an active community of learners. The virtual conference platform used Hopin with 4,000+ live viewers at a given time for the sessions (around 20,000 total).

Want more? Watch all the videos from ProductCon September 2021.

Related:

  1. Book: Every Product Manager’s First 90 Days by John Franck.
  2. Blog post: Make the First 90 Days Count: A Simple 30-60-90 Day Plan by Deb Liu, CEO of Ancestry.com (shared in Women in Product community); via Evelyn Chou.

ReactJS Introduction Workshop (Tucson)

On Saturday May 7, 2016 join Rincon Strategies—a Tucson, Arizona based web development shop and Tucson ReactJS organizers—for an in-depth workshop to learn how to build web applications with the popular JavaScript library React. (React is the main library running the new, open-source WordPress.com.)

Details and signup on Eventbrite. Hope to see you there.

SupConf

SupConf—a conference for folks who want to build a career in support—is coming in May 2016.

It’s time we think about support as more than just an entry-level job. Support is a career, a craft, and something to be proud of.

Pretty cool to see this type of focused conference come together around the craft of customer support.

Speaking at ThemeConf

Update: see my slides and notes here, and a full text write-up here.

I’m thrilled to announce my part in ThemeConf, an exciting new conference “for developers and designers who make themes,” organized by Automattic and set in the beautiful landscape of the Lake District (Keswick, UK on September 2–4, 2015).

Recognizing the fact that I don’t make WordPress themes any more, I’m honored to attend, speak, and share a bit of a retrospective on my career in web design and development, including a few stories about how my career in WordPress themes kicked off in 2010.

On a sunny summer day in Winnipeg I sit in The Forks dining area eating delicious fish and chips, the proper way, straight from the newspaper cone. I’m here for the first ever meeting of the Automattic Theme Team.

I’ll talk about my journey of theme craftsmanship—the ups, the downs, the unexpected results. From meeting Ian Stewart for the first time on that hot and humid August day in Manitoba, to my first theme launch on WordPress.com, getting a premium theme marketplace off the ground, shepherding default themes for WordPress.org, to building a team of 30 people strong.

A journey of adventure and learning where my skills have expanded beyond what I’d expected—not just the technical path from web designer and developer to “front-end expert” and WordPress themer—but also writing, speaking, and leading.

I’ll share how in 2015 I’ve now become an apprentice again, in the field of software quality and testing. Working hard at finding tools, skills, patterns, workflow, and process in my new craft. Discovering myself, my passion, my community, and opportunities to learn.

Screen Shot 2015-08-25 at 12.11.33

A special discount for my readers: use code lancetheme for 25% off the ThemeConf registration cost—which at only £49 for the conference and £99 with the workshop is quite a bargain!

WordCamp Buenos Aires 2015

I gave a talk at WordCamp Buenos Aires in May 2015 on finding and choosing the perfect theme.

Slides (in Spanish) are available here: Encontrar el diseño perfecto para tu sitio WordPress. For similar information in English, check out these Jumpstart resources on ThemeShaper.

It was a great event! Well organized and well attended; I was also impressed with the quality level of the presentations: from project management to extending the Customizer to web development psychology. Met a few people I’d emailed or seen online a bit in the WordPress.org community, and I’m very happy to see the WordPress community in South America growing and strong, and it was great to connect with the Argentinean open source community a bit more.

To see more about the event, here’s the #wcba15 hashtag on Twitter and the official WordCampBsAs stream.

(Photo credit: Zulema Ayala.)

WordCamp Las Peñitas: A 1000-Hour Head Start with Underscores

I presented at WordCamp Las Peñitas in May 2014 on the _s WordPress starter theme; how it gives theme designers and developers a thousand-hour head start.

Slides (in Spanish) are available here: Ahorra 1000 horas con Underscores. For information on _s in English, check out these Underscores articles on ThemeShaper.

It was a fun and impactful event! I’m happy to see the WordPress community in Latin America growing and strong, and it was great to connect with the Nicaraguan open source community. Maybe next year we’ll see a WordCamp, somewhere like Guatemala?

A big, fried fish.
Presenting on Underscores starter theme.
How Shredder become “El Tiburón.”
On the bus to León.
Mike “El Tiburón” Schroder (aka Shredder) presenting on WP-CLI.
WordCampers!
Jepser Bernardino with a cool t-shirt.
Karen presenting on awesome WordPress support tips and tricks.
Leo with his cool t-shirt.
A beautiful beach location, Suyapa Beach Hotel in Las Peñitas.
Damián presenting on the WordPress.com REST API.
Karen showing the fried fish!
On the beach.

To see more photos from the event, here’s the #WordCampNI hashtag on Twitter and the official WordCampNI stream.

Gangplank Tucson Reopens Downtown

You’re invited to Gangplank Tucson’s grand reopening May 22nd, 2013. The new space is smack-dab in the middle of downtown Tucson, across from the Main Library, at 100 N Stone Ave, Suite 110. (Previously in southern Tucson, near the airport, in the Bookman’s warehouse building.)

I’m excited! The local incarnation of the flagship Gangplank in Chandler, Arizona has even more potential now—in this central location—to be the hub for all things open web in Tucson.

What is Gangplank?

Gangplank is a non-profit, collaborative workspace without physical or financial barriers providing resources and education for local entrepreneurs and businesses. Focused on economic and community development, we seek to unite the creative class, bringing together diverse minds to create something greater than the individual and drive entrepreneurship and civic engagement.

WordCamp San Francisco 2012

I attended WordCamp San Francisco this year—my third time in a row. Thoroughly enjoyed the speakers and sessions, networking with partners and friends—plus meeting new folks. Following the main conference, on Sunday, I was part of a very productive Dev Day where 17 (seventeen!) of us hacked on the new default theme for WordPress, Twenty Twelve.

Here are a few photos from the weekend.

If you haven’t been to a WordCamp—I highly suggest it, find here a list of upcoming WordCamps.