Lightning Talks: WordPress in Context John Eckman, Rachel Baker, Jeremy Felt

Notes from 3 “Lightning Talks” on the topic of “WordPress in Context“

Learning From the Other 78% by John Eckman

• Official description: Many of us in the WordPress community focus exclusively on the platform. But what can we learn from those who, for a variety of reasons, aren’t (or aren’t yet) using WordPress? What can those outside our community teach us about how to make WordPress better?
• 78% sites are not using WP
• 2008 started to focus on Open Source (SC)
• Little overlap between suits guy and OS world
• He organized first Wordcamp and other OS camps and cons
• 23% comes from W3C, but they have a disclaimer that it may be wrong
• 62% of sites is “none”, not one of the big CMS
• Lots of people building websites with other tools
• From “not-invented-here” to “proudly-found-elsewhere” (came from HP through Drupal)
• Try out other platforms, learn from there, listen and learn
• It gives you perspective.
• Try teaching it someone if you feel you are an expert. That will show you how others feel/understand it

Taking WordPress to Corporate America by Rachel Baker

• Official description: After building WordPress sites for many small and medium sized businesses, I thought it would be “fun” to pitch WordPress as a solution for some corporate web projects. I have since built over a dozen websites using WordPress for Corporate America. I learned that the benefits of WordPress seen by corporate clients are different than smaller business clients. Here I will share what it is about WordPress that Corporate America with the goal of growing the permeation of WordPress in the enterprise CMS market.
• How they use it?
• Sharing tips with customers
  • Onstar share vehicle and product info
  • Babble: share parenting tips
• Publish news:
  • Target, Xerox and Microsoft
• Social engagement:
  • Ford: users shares pictures, stories, videos
• Publish policies:
  • Honda
• Expand into new global markets:
  • Coca Cole (France), Public Storage (Canada)
• Quick one-of sites:
  • Walmart for e-commerce
  • Toyota Hybrid racing team
  • Best Buy for mobile
• Macrosites (corporate sites):
  • Anheuser Busch
• Why do they use WordPress
  • They want to own their data
  • Installation requirements
  • Backwards compatibility
  • Flexibility to integrate data form other applications
  • Reduce costs
• Corporate wishlist:
  • Multilingual support
  • Improve multisite workflow
  • More granular import-export
  • Core JSON APO

Public Universities and Open Source Software by Jeremy Felt

• Official description: Open source software is a natural fit for public institutions. Because of their open nature, universities must be leaders in fostering an open and accessible web.
  The primary reason I moved to Washington State University just over a year ago was the promise that everything we created would be open source or contributed back to the community in some way. The experience I’ve had has shaped me in many ways. I have more of an appreciation of higher education than I did before and I’m now more inspired that open source projects like WordPress can have an impact on how higher education operates.
  So much good work is done at universities and while that work is often done with open source software, it can also be a forgotten tool. Promoting the usefulness of open source software and the responsibility of universities to contribute back to open source projects can only help the community as a whole.
• The Social Phase of agricultural education in 1904
• CSREES
• Democratization of truth
• Democratization of publication
• Teaching, research and service
• How do we encourage sharing within the community and make it easy to share when ready?
• What will stop another researcher to publish without me?
• How do we make it easier to share work while also protecting the final results.
• The four freedoms: run the program, study, redistribute copies, distribute modified versions to others.
• The most precious of all public domains is our knowledge of the world that surrounds us