Uncategorized – Chris Van Patten

Notes from WordCamp for Publishers 2018

This week, I’m attending/speaking at WordCamp for Publishers 2018 in Chicago. It’s my first time in Chicago and my first time at an “enterprise-level” WordCamp, so I am beyond excited.

My talk was titled “Decisions, not Options” in the Age of Gutenberg, which covered some general design principles for building block UIs. As part of the talk I also open-sourced a new project: Gutenberg Human Interface Guidelines (HIG). These guidelines should help block developers and designers build more consistent and usable interfaces.

Below, you’ll find my slides from the talk, and I’ll post the video from WordPress.tv when it goes live.

Slides

If I missed any links, please let me know in the comments, and be sure to follow me on Twitter for more Gutenberg fun!

Notes from WordCamp Toronto 2014

I was so happy to make my final WordCamp of 2014 WordCamp Toronto! I last spoke at WordCamp Toronto in 2012 and had a blast, even though I was fighting a nasty cold. This time was much better personal health-wise, and I hope you loved my talk!

The slides from my talk, Project Management 101, are embedded below. Please feel free to send me questions, comments, and notes.

Fall Speaking Tour

WordPress is fantastic blogging software that works just as well for podcasting.

Hey all! It seems that I only post here about my speaking events… sorry for that!

That said, I do happen to have a lot of speaking events coming up. Here’s where you can find me over the next few weeks/months:

WordCamp Maine

I’m SO excited to be speaking at WordCamp Maine on August 15th and 16th. On the 15th, I’ll be giving a class about content creation. I have a lot of opinions on the idea of “content” as well as how to do it right (and wrong), and this is a great opportunity to get some hands-on instruction.

On the 16th, I’ll be debuting a brand new talk on content marketing, outsourcing, and related topics.

WordCamp Boston

A week after my talk in Maine, I’m heading to WordCamp Boston on August 23rd! I attended last year and had a great time, and I’m especially looking forward to speaking this year. I’ll be giving a new-and-improved version of my WordCamp Philly talk, which explains some of the tools and techniques we use at Van Patten Media to make sites easier for clients to manage.

WordCamp Buffalo

Finally, I’ll be shuffling off to Buffalo for the third WordCamp Buffalo. I’ll be reprising my content marketing talk from WordCamp Maine, undoubtedly with many tweaks and improvements. I always love visiting Buffalo, and I’m very excited to be joining a great speaker line-up full of awesome friends!

And more!

In addition to the talks above, I’m tentatively planning a trip to a few more autumn WordCamps. As the details get locked down, I’ll be sure to share here.

Conversations with customers

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I spent this weekend doing something a little out of the ordinary for me. Instead of being a code monkey/entrepreneur behind the keyboard, I spent a few days near Plattsburgh, NY helping to run wine tastings at a vineyard.

No, I haven’t changed careers (although the abundance of freely available wine is pretty tempting). This was just a one-time gig, helping close family friends get through a wine tour. Even though it seemed like a totally unrelated job, I found that running the wine tastings had a lot to teach me about communicating with customers.

Continue reading Conversations with customers