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The final ‘formal’ WordPress London Meetup of 2017.  We’ll be looking at the discovery stage, our favourite plugins & scaling WordPress.

Missed a #wpldn recently?  Catch up at wpldn.uk

Winning at Discovery

That phase of any project that, if not pinned down and given the attention it needs, can trip us up big time. The Discovery process needs to be as thorough as it can possibly be.

Discovering just what the client expects and all the things around being able to make that happen. That’s what we want to do.

The thing is, we all know this. Some include this already in their process and from this they have become successful (surely!!). Each of us has a horror story of the client’s expectations not being met because we did not understand quite what they had in mind; there was a mismatch and the client holds us accountable for that. Or what they want and expect is just not possible on their hosting. Or the client’s data needs significant translation to be usable.

Being clear at the start is essential. If we do this, document it, get the client to confirm that this document is what they want and understand they’re paying for, then we’re winning and so are they.

Presented by Barbara Saul.  Working with the Internet for nearly 20 years now and wrangling web design clients for at least 15, Barbara has learned many things about keeping customers happy, how to handle a customer always being right, and mostly learning from when she gets it wrong... Follow her @babssaul.

Plugins Uncovered 

We all have our favourite go-to plugins, often using them repeatedly on our client projects.  We may have plugins we’ve used for years, or sometimes we come across handy plugins by chance.

Let’s spread the word about these great little plugins available to us.  Let’s find those hero plugins that will get us hooked!

In this session, Mike Pead will demonstrate two plugins he regularly uses, which are useful for all levels of abilities.  He’ll also open the session to the floor, so if you have any favourite plugins that could be useful to others, please share your suggestions!.

Presented by Mike Pead. Mike runs Primary Image, based in Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex, and designs, supports and hosts WordPress websites for clients.  Primary Image specialises in the transport sector, with Mike creating websites for Transport for London, National Express and Network Rail, amongst many others. Follow him at @mikepead.

Scaling WordPress with containers

With the REST API in full swing, SPAs (Single Page Apps) are popping up all over the place, built using <insert JS framework here>. In this presentation, I will show you how to get a simple site using the WordPress REST API from local development, through to production on Kubernetes (with a demo, or two mixed in), that scales.

Presented by Craig Willis.  Craig is a Full-Stack Developer working on internal and external products for Ayima, Digital Marketing Agency in London. He is also the co-organiser of PHP London. https://www.meetup.com/phplondon/. Follow him @craigwillis85.

Running Order (STC):

18:30 – Arrive for networking and refreshments
19:00 – Opening remarks
19:10 – First Speaker – Barbra Saul
19:50 – Plugins Uncovered – Mike Pead
20:05 – Break
20:15 – Third speaker – Craig Willis
20:50 – Closing remarks
21:00 – Social

Follow #wpldn on Twitter for all the latest and join the Facebook Group to take the conversation further.  Have a talk you’d like to present?  We’d love to hear from you. 

The WordPress London meetup is supported by a team of volunteers: Annabelle, Dan and Gary.