Sponsor Spotlight: For Dummies (Wiley Publishing)

March 20, 2009 by Heather Acton • Comments Off on Sponsor Spotlight: For Dummies (Wiley Publishing)

For Dummies, Wiley Publishing, WordCamp ChicagoWiley Publishing is the powerhouse publishing company behind the wildly popular “For Dummies” series of books.  Have you ever noticed that there is a “Dummies” book for almost every single thing?  I was in the store the other day and saw a Dummies book for baking the perfect chocolate chip cookie!  Now THAT is a book I could have written – – just the testing and research alone would have make the effort completely worth it!

The folks at Dummies.com, and Wiley Publishing, are one of our generous sponsors of WordCamp Chicago and I want ot take this opportunity to give them a big shout out and THANKS!  The sponsors of WordCamp Chicago, including the “For Dummies” folks at Wiley Publishing, are the driving force behind organizing an event like this.  Their generosity helps pay for things like the venue, equipment, catering, set up, name badges and any other cool stuff that we are able to feature at the WordCamp Chicago event.

Wiley Publishing has recently, completely, revamped the Dummies.com website and you’ll want to check it out!  Much like their “Dummies” books, their website is just full of helpful information and resources – everything from articles and videos about working with Microsoft Excel, How to fix holes in your drywall, Putting out kitchen fires to all sorts of information regarding your time spent on the internet – including some relevant information to WordCamp folks like:

As per their usual method, the Dummies.com site is geared towards everyone from novice level on up and (successfully) puts their instructions and terminology in ‘everyday’ language that everyone can understand and learn from.

Small disclaimer here – Wiley Publishing is the company behind my own book:  WordPress For Dummies – 1st and 2nd edition.  I can tell you from personal experience in working with Wiley that they are greatly invested and have embraced the entire web experience. You’ll find them writing blogs, conversing on Twitter, participating on Facebook and overall taking full advantage of what the internet has to offer a successful publishing company.

Big thanks to Wiley, and Dummies.com, for helping us sponsor WordCamp Chicago!  Wiley has a nice little surprise for WordCamp Chicago attendees once you get there – – you just have to get there!

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Who is attending WordCamp Chicago – are you on the list?

March 19, 2009 by Heather Acton • 1 Comment

Tonight I put together a short, but sweet, listing of the folks who have already secured their place at WordCamp Chicago.  Have a look at the registered attendees list we’ve got going so far.  Pair that with the speakers list – and we’ve got ourselves a pretty hot place to be on June 6th and 7th 2009 in the Windy City.

Due to the venue location – we needed to cap attenance at 200.  Those pesky fire codes!  There are only 77 days left until WordCamp Chicago – are you coming?  We’d love to see you there!

Posted in Announcements, Blog, Registration, Sponsors, WCChicago 2009 | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Speaker Spotlight: Liz Strauss

March 19, 2009 by Heather Acton • 2 Comments

I’m excited to have Liz Strauss speaking at WordCamp Chicago in June!  As many of you know, Liz is the owner/author of her popular Successful Blogs site and is the organizer of SOBCon – Biz School for Bloggers – another fantastic Chicago affair involving the blogging community.

Liz’s topic for WordCamp Chicago is:  “How a WordPress blog took me out of the gutter and made me what I am today …” and I know I am really looking foward to hearing her speak, as she is a very recognizable face, and voice, in the world of blogging and social communities.  Follow @LizStrauss on Twitter – you won’t be sorry you did!

Liz Strauss

Liz Strauss

(photo credit: SOBCon)

From Liz’s bio at SOBCon:

Liz is known as a relationship geek, a person who answers every comment, and someone who never sleeps. If you ask her about it, she’ll tell you she lives inside your computer. Some folks have started to believe that. She believes blogging is about the people and, as part of her B.A.D. Blogger program, Liz calls a blogger a day to find out more about the folks who blog.

Liz Strauss has worked in print, software, and online publishing with small companies and corporate giants such as Pearson, Reed Elsevier, and Wolters Kluwer. She conceived and drove the reader-centered strategy that turned around a sharply declining company, taking it from $9M to sell for $35M in 3 years. Her presentations are known for being fun, insightful, and packed with quality content.

Liz is an influencer in the blogging and social networking community and we are very excited to have Liz participate in WordCamp Chicago!

Posted in Blog, Speakers, WCChicago 2009 | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Location, location, location!

March 5, 2009 by Heather Acton • 6 Comments

We have location! I have updated the WordCamp Chicago registration page with the registration information and map – – I’ll add it here, too… what’s a little overkill between friends, hey? 😀

WordCamp Chicago
June 6-7, 2009

UBS Tower Conference Center
One North Wacker Drive
Michigan Ballroom, Second Floor
Chicago, Ill 60606


View Larger Map

I will be posting hotel information on our FAQ page shortly. I am working with area hotels to try and obtain special room rates for WordCamp Chicago attendees, so bear with me while I gather all of that information for you. I have been told by a few hotel sales managers that there are at least THREE Starbucks between the hotels and the UBS Tower – – all within walking distance. Whew – that was a HUGE relief, for me at least!

One last story that needs to be told here – – the UBS Tower has a capacity for a max. of 200 attendees, so I’ve had to cap ticket registrations at 200. If you have not registered already, please take this opportunity to do so.

Lastly, I really want to give a big thanks to Tim Frick and Andres Armeda (Dre) for reaching out and providing some assistance in hunting down venue locations in the Chicago area! An out of towner, like me, needs all the help she can get!

We’re really excited about WordCamp Chicago! Have you seen the Speakers List and the growing schedule of events yet? Brian Gardner has really done a fantastic job of putting together a great list of some major players (can I use the word rockstars?) in the WordPress community who are bringing their A-game to make this an event worth attending.

Hope to see you there!

Posted in Announcements, Blog, Registration, Speakers, Venue and Location, WCChicago 2009 | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Movin’ right along…

February 23, 2009 by Heather Acton • 2 Comments

I’m still on target for announcing our venue for WordCamp Chicago next week – it’s been narrowed down to a few and confirmation will take place over the next few days, so stay tuned!

I’ve also been updating our Sponsors Page with information on the companies who are helping sponsor WordCamp Chicago by making monetary contributions to help us cover the expenses involved in hosting an event like this. I have a few more sponsors to list there over the next week, as well. I want to give a shout out to Wiley Publishing, of Dummies.com for their generous sponsorship of the event! As many of you may know, Wiley is the publisher for my WordPress For Dummies book – – they are also being generous to give discount codes to every WordCamp attendee for Dummies.com products.

Another big shout to my friends over at ServerBeach, who just confirmed as a sponsor today! ServerBeach was launched to serve the market’s thirst for self-managed servers equipped with powerful hardware, fast and reliable bandwidth, convenient automation tools, and first-class support – all at an affordable price. Self-managed servers are not an afterthought at the Beach, it’s our business. And we do whatever we can to satisfy the needs of our core customers, the “Geeks” – people like you.

E.Webscapes and BlogsAbout Hosting are both my own companies and are kicking in to sponsor WordCamp Chicago. Brian Gardner’s StudioPress is also a generous sponsor for the event. We are getting there, but still in need of more sponsorship – so if you, your company, or anyone you know is interested in sponsoring WordCamp Chicago – get in touch with me and we can talk about how we can help one another.

Brian has also been hard at work recruiting and scheduling some fantastic speakers for your educational pleasure – – I’m really excited about some of the names he has on the line-up so far:

  • Matt Mullenweg, founder of our favorite blog/CMS platform, WordPress
  • Brian Clark, copywriting guru and owner of the very popular blog Copyblogger
  • Jeremy Wright, CEO of one of the largest global new media blog networks, b5media
  • Sarah James, uber-cool mommy blogger of popular sites Whoorl and Hair Thursday
  • Erin Blaskie, CEO of global internet marketing strategy consultancy, Business Services, ETC
  • Mark Ghosh, owner/blogger of a great WordPress resource site, Weblog Tools Collection
  • Micah Baldwin, VP of business development of search-powered web application, Lijit
  • Tim Frick, who creates design-driven communication solutions with his company, Mightybites
  • Doug Hanna, head honcho of running the day-to-day operations of the WordPress showcase

If you haven’t already signed up – why not??

Posted in Announcements, Blog, Speakers, Sponsors | 2 Comments

WordCamp Chicago Registration Open

January 14, 2009 by Heather Acton • 16 Comments

The GOOD news is that we’ve opened registration for WordCamp Chicago. I’ve been working pretty hard at securing a venue and have several options available for the event. The venues are all in the downtown Chicago area – however; the venue we choose all depends on the number of people attending. Since the venues give us restrictions on capacity – we need a pretty good estimate on numbers before we confirm.

But there is time! We have opened registration for WordCamp and will plan to confirm the venue by March 1, when we have a better picture of the numbers. I have four venues on hold right now that can handle between 100 – 400 people. Because we want to open this event up to as many people that are interested – we’re leaving the venue confirmation open, for the moment. You’ll just have to trust us that we know what we’re doing over here 😉

Each of the venue locations will also provide us with decent hotel room discounts for the WordCamp group, and those details will also be announced when we’ve secured the location.

In the meantime – go sign up! Brian Gardner has already confirmed some great speakers such as: Matt Mullenweg, Jeremy Wright, Mark Ghosh and Sarah James and I happen to know he’s hard at work organizing more, as I write this. Brian and I hopped on the phone today and are planning some great stuff for WordCamp Chicago and we’re pretty excited about bringing WordCamp to the Windy City.

Volunteers? Absolutely! Contact us – we’re currently looking for some folks happy to assist us with organizing at the event with things such as:

  • Manning the registration table
  • Handing out name badges and schwag bags
  • Anyone with video talents interested in helping us screencast some WordCamp Chicago highlights? Drop us a line!
  • Likewise – any podcast shows or internet radio shows interested in doing on-the-spot interviews and grabbing some cool audio snippets from WordCamp Chicago? Now’s the time to get in touch

I suppose you’d like to know where you can register? That’s easy:

We are also looking for interested sponsors to help us sponsor the event and cover the costs associated with bringing WordCamp to Chicago – – contact me directly here: sponsorships AT wordcampchicago DOT com and let’s discuss!

Posted in Announcements, Blog, Registration, WCChicago 2009, WordPress | 16 Comments