Erik Wolf –

Erik Wolf is a small business marketer and author of two books, Blog For Business and the award winning Marketing: Unmasked. He is also the founder of ORBTR, the first marketing automation platform for WordPress and of Zero-G Creative, an online marketing agency serving small (and growing!) business clients exclusively.

Erik has been featured by The Huffington Post, NewYorkTimes.com and Atlanta Business Radio among other media outlets and has been a speaker at conferences such as South by Southwest (SXSW), Ignite Denver, Digital Atlanta and several WordCamps. Erik lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife and two children.

He will be presenting “Grow Your Business NOW: Maximize Marketing Efficiencies With WordPress” on Saturday.

Interview with Erik:

Why do you use WordPress?
I started using WordPress about 6 years ago when we were looking for an open source content management system to adopt for our clients. We chose WordPress primarily because, of all the systems we tested, it seemed the only one easy enough to use that we could easily teach it to our clients. In 2013, we still use WordPress, not only because of the ease of use but also because of the way the platform has evolved, the incredible growth of the community and the development of incredible business tools to go along with it.

What do you like best about WordCamps?
WordCamps are a great reminder about the incredible variety of people in our community including designers, developers, business owners, writers, creators, and complete novices. Getting in touch with a wide range of people and learning what they do with WordPress and what they need in resources is incredibly valuable.

Do you have any advice for a person who’s building a business around WordPress design/development?
Take the time to meet and really get to know other WordPress folks and how they work… It amazes me what I’ve learned and tips I’ve picked up from people I meet at WordCamps and other events even having sold WordPress services for six years.

Rose Fields –

As a kid, my dad called me the chief cook and bottle washer because I was the one in charge of the kitchen. Being in charge of website development, social media and support is a whole lot better than being in charge of the kitchen!

Social Web Dzine is the realization of my dream to be a work at home, single mom. I’ve spent the past 9 years refining my business goals and raising four children. Today I focus on creating customized websites for local business and non-profit organizations. When I’m not at my desk, you’ll find me vegging out to an NCIS marathon with my kids!

Rose will be presenting a session titled “Save Your Site – Stop Hackers at The Door” for Foundation Friday.  

Interview with Rose:

Why do you use WordPress?
It’s a beautiful, flexible way of creating websites that my customers love.

What do you like best about WordCamps?
I love the whole atmosphere of WordCamp. I’ve attended three WordCamps and have learned a lot of great information. But the networking and sharing information with other developers and attendees was just as important as the sessions.

What is your favorite tip or resource for a new WordPress user?
Backup your website… regularly! I use BackupBuddy and it’s an important aspect of my business.

How do you stay up to date with new information about WordPress?
Twitter – I follow a lot of people and they all seem to have a variety of sources for information.

Do you have any advice for a person who’s building a business around WordPress design/development?
Webdesign.com is a great resource for any new WordPress developers just starting out. Professor Benjamin shares a lot of knowledge on a weekly basis and has helped me grow my business a lot.

Jeremy Felt –

As Director of Web Engineering at 10up, Jeremy works every day with an amazingly talented team to create, deploy, and sustain some of the biggest WordPress sites on the web. He has been creating things on the Internet for well over 15 years and has constantly strove for better ways to publish and maintain user generated content. A native to the Chicagoland area, Jeremy now lives on the west coast in sunny Portland.

He will be presenting “Hi WordPress, Meet Vagrant” on Sunday.

Interview with Jeremy:

Why do you use WordPress?
I really buy into the principle that content creators should own their data. From my perspective, WordPress is the most approachable, extendable, and reliable way to accomplish this. On top of that, the community around WordPress is second to none. It really is a great example of what many people can do with open source software.

What do you like best about WordCamps?
Coming out from behind the Twitter handles and Web URLs to meet members of the community face to face.

What is your favorite tip or resource for a new WordPress user?
Look for a WordPress meetup and get involved with the local community. Having people to talk to about WordPress will advance the learning curve quickly.

How do you stay up to date with new information about WordPress?
I keep an eye on #wordpress-dev throughout the day and try not to miss any big blocks of time. When I see a ticket that interests me, I’ll bookmark it to check back in later. Our #team10up room will often fill in the blanks with anything WordPress related if it was exciting. And of course the WordPress crowd on Twitter does a great job of spreading the word.

Share an example of a really great (creative, cool, unusual) use of WordPress you’ve seen recently.
I’m a bit biased as we build creative, cool, and unusual uses of WordPress every day at 10up. Global News (http://globalnews.ca/) is one of the more recent 10up projects that really blew me away. The management of regionalized content and the various tools in place to break news are amazing behind the scenes. I’m also a big fan of Quartz (http://qz.com). A lot of interesting things were done with the interface and the mobile experience keeps me coming back more often than usual to look for new content.

Do you have any advice for a person who’s building a business around WordPress design/development?
Be involved with the community. If you’re siloed off by yourself, you’ll miss an extremely important perspective when building things with WordPress.

Cliff Seal –

I’m a UX Designer at Pardot, but I’ve been in WordPress every working day for at least the last four years. Personally, I’ve been designing and developing WordPress sites for years as Logos Creative, and have been working on awesome projects like MusicGrid.me. I live in Atlanta with my wife, April, where we do young urbanite-y things.

Cliff will be presenting a session titled “No one cares about your content (yet)” on Saturday.

Interview with Cliff:

Why do you use WordPress?
WordPress has the best combination of performance, extensibility, community, and intuitive design.

What do you like best about WordCamps?
I enjoy shaking the hands of people I’d previously only known through a computer screen.

What is your favorite tip or resource for a new WordPress user?
Start doing things you know you can’t do— eventually, you’ll be able to do them.

What is a common problem you see in WordPress sites, and how would you avoid it?
The biggest issue I see is, as a WordPress ‘expert’, showing users and first-time developers the possibilities of the platform while understanding that constraints and best practices are always needed.

How do you stay up to date with new information about WordPress?
WPDaily.co. I do write for ’em, but I get my news from there, too, for the most part. The rest comes from following core contributors on Twitter.

Share an example of a really great (creative, cool, unusual) use of WordPress you’ve seen recently.
Paul Clark’s presentation from WordCamp Phoenix this year stuck with me for sure:
How WordPress Saves Lives – Freedom, Hope and Custom Post Types.

On a far less important note, I’ve been doing some crazy stuff with WordPress for MusicGrid.me.

Do you have any advice for a person who’s building a business around WordPress design/development?
Always challenge your own knowledge and skills— there’s something new you can find out about WordPress every single day.

Brad Griffith –

Brad is a PHP developer for Delta Systems. Delta specializes in developing custom themes and plugins to expand the capabilities of WordPress for large projects. We’re currently working on an open source project called Dewdrop  that makes it easy to use Zend Framework components for WordPress plugin development.

Brad will be speaking on ECommerce Functionality on Friday and Writing high-quality WordPress plugins on Saturday.

Interview with Brad: Continue reading →

Drew Poland –

Drew is a WordPresss developer and entrepreneur from Baltimore, Maryland. Co-Founder of WP Maintainer and ZenFreelancing.com.

Interview with Drew:

Why do you use WordPress?
Beyond the obvious (quality of code, community, support, open source), it’s user friendly for my clients and infinitely extendable.

What do you like best about WordCamps?
My favorite part of WordCamps, is the interaction and meeting new people from all over.