I have a passion for sharing my knowledge and experience, and often do so at conferences and internal company meetups.
Here I’ll share my past and upcoming speaking engagements, along with links to where you can find out more about each.
Would you be interested in having me speak at your event? Contact me.
My Bio
By day, David Artiss works as a Support Engineer and hiring lead on the WordPress VIP team at Automattic. His over thirty years of experience in IT support roles has given him the chance to cultivate the art of truly taking care of people and writing so anyone can understand.
David has been active in the WordPress community since 2009, first as a plugin author, then as a speaker and volunteer at various WordCamps, as well as contributing to Core, Support, Documentation, Translations, and WordPress.TV, amongst others.
By night, David has performed in musicals and concerts since 2001, so is no stranger to the stage. He also writes for the straight-talking technology site The Big Tech Question.
He lives in Nottingham, England, with his wife, two daughters, and a room full of Lego.
Read more about my talk writing process.
Upcoming Events
There are, currently, no upcoming talks.
Cancelled Events
Thanks to COVID-19, some events, at which I was supposed to speak, were cancelled.
WordCamp Bucharest 2020 – “Remote working: How to make it work for you.”
WordCamp Plovdiv 2020 – “It’s David, not Dave. Why using a name correctly is more important than you may think.”
Past Events
10 Things All WordPress Plugin Developers Should Avoid
🌍WordCamp Europe 2023
📅 9th June, 2023
📼Video
📽 Slides
A technical talk about WordPress plugins and the pitfalls to avoid.
Light-hearted in places, based on both developer and user experience, this will guide developers, of any level, through a list of the things that should be avoided to ensure a pleasant user experience.
Each example will be punctuated with demonstrations of the “why”, along with relevant anecdotes from the speaker’s 30 year experience working within Support.
It was fun and informative. Easy to understand. i really liked it
Samuel Mente
Support automation: how to make it work for your customers
🌍WordPress Leeds
📅 22nd September, 2020
📽Video
📝 Transcript / Slides / Sources
📣 Social mentions / Blog post
Providing automated responses to customers can save a lot of time in what would otherwise be repeated effort. But should we be reconsidering our use of auto-responders, bots, and the like? What impact does obvious automation have on your customer’s perception of your service?
Highlighting the benefits and the, rarely talked about, downsides of increased automation, this talk will offer alternative solutions to what is a rarely discussed side of this topic.
Remote working: How to make it work for you
🌍WordCamp Philly 2020
📅 26th September, 2020
📽Video
📝 Transcript / Slides / Sources
📣 Social mentions / Blog post
Many WordCamp attendees are remote employees. Most will tell you how great remote working is and that it works incredibly well for a lot of businesses. But let’s be honest, it’s not for everyone.
While several large companies have tried it and failed, in this talk, we’ll reveal what often gets forgotten: what a business needs to do to make it work. Further, how individuals can decide if remote work really is the future of working for them.
Support automation: how to make it work for your customers
🌍WordCamp Virginia Beach
📅 19th September, 2020
📽Video
📝 Transcript / Slides / Sources
📣 Social mentions / Blog post
Providing automated responses to customers can save a lot of time in what would otherwise be repeated effort. But should we be reconsidering our use of auto-responders, bots, and the like? What impact does obvious automation have on your customer’s perception of your service?
Highlighting the benefits and the, rarely talked about, downsides of increased automation, this talk will offer alternative solutions to what is a rarely discussed side of this topic.
Everything you ever wanted to know about WordPress Transients. In 10 minutes.
🌍WordCamp Europe 2020
📅 5th June, 2020
📽Video
📝 Transcript / Slides / Sources
📣 Social mentions / Blog post
WordPress has a native database caching system called the Transients API. This simple wrapper can be used for caching database queries, remote data, or other expensive routines.
In this technical talk you will discover how to best use the API and the pitfalls to avoid (content which is neither documented nor generally available, so this will be a genuine eye-opener for developers).
Remote working: How to make it work for you
🌍WordCamp Glasgow 2020
📅 8th February, 2020
📽 Video
📝 Transcript / Slides / Sources
Many WordCamp attendees are remote employees. Most will tell you how great remote working is and that it works incredibly well for a lot of businesses. But let’s be honest, it’s not for everyone.
While several large companies have tried it and failed, in this talk, we’ll reveal what often gets forgotten: what a business needs to do to make it work. Further, how individuals can decide if remote work really is the future of working for them.
Talking support: small discoveries from a long career providing customer support
🌍WordCamp London 2019
📅 5th – 7th April, 2019
📣 Social mentions / Blog post
Backup speaker (talk never delivered)
With nearly 30 years of experience working within support, I’ll share a number of simple discoveries that I’ve made about how it can be improved – from taking time to make sure you get a customer’s name correct to ensuring you use more inclusive language.
How I became a core contributor and an expert on WordPress transients – A Developer’s Story
🌍WordCamp Edinburgh 2018
📅 17th November, 2018
📽Video
📝 Transcript / Slides / Sources
📣 Social mentions / Blog post
A technical talk about WordPress transients – how to best use them and the pitfalls to avoid. Includes content which is not documented this will be a genuine eye-opener for developers.
Told, via a number of stories, about how the speaker got involved in the subject and ended up contributing to core as a result, this will also appeal to anyone wanting to get more involved with the WordPress community.