๐Ÿ“ฃ Speaking

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.

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 – Itโ€™s David, not Dave. Why using a name correctly is more important than you may think.

Past Events

Support automation: how to make it work for your customers

๐ŸŒWordPress Leeds
๐Ÿ“… 22nd September, 2020
๐Ÿ“ฝVideo
๐Ÿ“ Transcript / Slides / Sources

๐Ÿ“ฃ 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 customerโ€™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

๐ŸŒWordCamp Philly 2020
๐Ÿ“… 26th September, 2020
๐Ÿ“ฝVideo
๐Ÿ“ Transcript / Slides / Sources

๐Ÿ“ฃ 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 letโ€™s be honest, itโ€™s not for everyone. 

While several large companies have tried it and failed, in this talk, weโ€™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

๐ŸŒWordCamp Virginia Beach
๐Ÿ“… 19th September, 2020
๐Ÿ“ฝVideo
๐Ÿ“ Transcript / Slides / Sources

๐Ÿ“ฃ 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 customerโ€™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.


This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is WordCamp-Europe.jpeg

Everything you ever wanted to know about WordPress Transients. In 10 minutes.

๐ŸŒWordCamp Europe 2020
๐Ÿ“… 5th June, 2020
๐Ÿ“ฝVideo
๐Ÿ“ Transcript / Slides / Sources

๐Ÿ“ฃ 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

๐ŸŒWordCamp Glasgow 2020
๐Ÿ“… 8th February, 2020
๐Ÿ“ฝ Video
๐Ÿ“ Transcript / Slides / Sources

๐Ÿ“ฃ 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 letโ€™s be honest, itโ€™s not for everyone. 

While several large companies have tried it and failed, in this talk, weโ€™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

๐ŸŒWordCamp London 2019
๐Ÿ“… 5th – 7th April, 2019

๐Ÿ“ฃ Social mentions / Blog post

Backup speaker (talk never delivered)

With nearly 30 years of experience working within support, Iโ€™ll share a number of simple discoveries that Iโ€™ve made about how it can be improved – from taking time to make sure you get a customerโ€™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

๐ŸŒWordCamp Edinburgh 2018
๐Ÿ“… 17th November, 2018
๐Ÿ“ฝVideo
๐Ÿ“ Transcript / Slides / Sources

๐Ÿ“ฃ 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.