I’ve been staying busy and have lots of exciting plans for things in the future. Let’s start with what’s coming up!
Upcoming Events
Small Nonprofit Websites Webinar: September 5, 2018
I’m excited to announce that I’ll present a new webinar for Washington Nonprofits specifically for small nonprofits. The content will focus on concrete tips for building a manageable website for even the smallest organization. Free registration is open now!
Anatomy of a Website Redesign Online Course: October 10, 2018
If you’ve missed it before, I’ll again be teaching this course for NTEN. You can view the course description and register now. In the webinar portion of the course, I use the arc of a full website redesign project to help people prepare themselves and their organization to get the most from the process. The course includes pre-readings and homework which I give personal feedback on.
I’ve heard from many people who took the course that it was a valuable first step toward a new website that helped them gain valuable knowledge and a new perspective.
WordCamp Seattle 2018: November 10-11, 2018
I’m not helping organize this year, but that doesn’t mean I’m not excited to attend (and hopefully present!) at WordCamp Seattle 2018. The website is live and you can sign up now for updates on volunteering and tickets.
Speaker applications for WordCamp are being accepted from now until August 17.
NTC19: March 13-15, 2019
After attending in 2017 and missing NTC18 earlier this year, I expect to be in Portland, Oregon for the 2019 Nonprofit Technology Conference run by NTEN. Excitingly, I’m a member of the Session Advisory Committee working to identify important topics for the conference and help select the sessions for the conference.
Coincidentally, speaker applications for NTC are being accepted from now until August 17.
Japan Vacation
I spent two weeks in Japan traveling all over the country. In order, I visited Tokyo, Nara, Kyoto, Kito/Naka-cho (a small town in the mountains on Shikoku), an unplanned day in Tokushima, the town of Omuta on Kyushu, an afternoon in Hiroshima, and back to Tokyo again.
Due to the tragic and historic rains, the middle of the trip went a little wonky, stranding my partner and I on the island of Shikoku and briefly having us pondering our safety as the dam warning alert blared out in the mountains at 2am one night. But overall, it was a fabulous trip full of beautiful and bizarre (to me) sights, delicious food, amazing public transit, and time with family and friends who live there.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk9kBGEHAyo/?taken-by=rootwiley
Nonprofit WP
After launching my free WordPress guide for nonprofits a few years ago, I’ve been thrilled to see people using and benefiting from Nonprofit WP. Beyond the guide itself that walks through the complete process from planning to maintaining a website, I continue to post articles to the blog. Those would have ended up on this blog in the past, so here are some of my favorites from the last year:
- “Get Your Nonprofit’s WordPress Website on HTTPS”
- “The Best Practice Blog-Driven Newsletter Formula”
- “How to Reduce Your Nonprofit Website’s Bus Factor”
- “Get the Most Out of a WordCamp for Your Nonprofit”
- “WordPress is Perfect for Nonprofit Microsites!”
Check out the one that looks the most interesting!
Busy with WordPress
Belated Site Launch Announcements
My portfolio focuses on large custom sites, leaving me little room to announce the launches of smaller websites or projects. Let’s catch up on those.
In the last couple years (let’s get really caught up), I’ve launched websites for the Nonprofit Assistance Center, JustLead Washington, Puget Soundkeeper, Northwest Lymphedema Center, Columbia City Gallery, and Mmofra Foundation (for a second time!) among others.
Beyond those full site launches, I was thrilled to get the opportunity to collaborate with Jesse Snyder of Rasika Consulting and a number of volunteers on a new version of the Washington Trails Association’s hike finder map. Specifically, I lead the implementation of the designs, ensuring they were easy to use and looked good on any size of device. It was a challenging project that I think came out great! I was pleased that with some minimal and informal user testing, we greatly improved on some of the initial user confusions.
Presentation: Better WordCamp Websites with a Modern Technology
In April, I presented at the Seattle WordPress meetup’s Dev Meetup on a proposal to improve WordCamp websites using a new layout technology.
There’s been some progress made on this and I’m optimistic it will eventually get used on every WordCamp site!
Successful Gutenberg Feedback
The Gutenberg project is working on redoing the edit screen of WordPress (likely launching sometime later this year). I published a review of an early beta version last year. Given that it’s the first of a series of major changes to WordPress, I’ve done my best to monitor progress and provide feedback when necessary.
I was absolutely thrilled that after a year of lobbying by me and others, a seemingly minor feature that I think will greatly improve the editor for both developers and users made it into the new editor and should be there when its first released. It’s complicated to explain fully, but, in short, the editor newly allows developers to make it easier for users to customize the visual appearance of content.
Onward!
I look forward to reporting back on these upcoming events and announcing new sites more frequently. If all goes well, there should be one or two major ones to announce before the end of the year!