Monte Martin –

As digital marketing consultant I spend most of my time glued to my laptop, but when I get a free minute I usually spend it on my bike. I love cyclocross, mountain biking, my wife, and my jack russell, (not necessarily in that order).

He will be presenting a session titled “Optimizing your site for (business) performance” on Saturday. 

Interview with Monte:

Why do you use WordPress?
It both easy to use and extensible. You can start with a small site and WordPress will easily grow with you.

What do you like best about WordCamps?
The variety of attendees. It attracts all types of nerds, from the creative recluse to mathematical geniuses, and average business users still feel right at home in the mix.

What is your favorite tip or resource for a new WordPress user?
Be very careful when selecting the peripherals that support your site, ESPECIALLY your theme. There are lot of really great themes out their. There are just as many, if not more, that I wouldn’t wish on my direct competitor. Look for something that is lightweight and add functionality via plugins. Don’t look for a theme that does everything you want and more.

How do you stay up to date with new information about WordPress?
Code Poet Newsletters and Twitter. I don’t do enough development these days to actively stay on top of all the latest stuff.

Do you have any advice for a person who’s building a business around WordPress design/development?
Make sure your clients can measure the success of what you do for them, and measure what matters to them. If you don’t know how, don’t miss my talk!

Brian Richards –

Brian is a developer with WebDevStudios, creator of the StartBox Theme Framework, and is currently pioneering WPSessions.com.

He will be presenting as part of the  Commercial Themes & Plugins Panel  on 6/29/2013.

Interview with Brian:

Why do you use WordPress?
WordPress is the most attractive CMS to me because it has the largest and most flourishing community, in my experience anyway. I really enjoy using it to build seemingly complex systems (think application famework) that magically become quite simple thanks to all of WP’s robust APIs.

What do you like best about WordCamps?
WordCamps are my favorite event of the year, bar none. I truly enjoy meeting and interacting with the people whom I typically only converse with online. Bonus: learning great techniques from my peers.

What is your favorite tip or resource for a new WordPress user?
Immerse yourself in our supportive community. Find a few people who seem to know more than you and ask them where they learned what they know. Connect with a local meetup group, scour WordPress.tv, follow other WP users and devs on Twitter, and grab a well-liked WordPress book.

How do you stay up to date with new information about WordPress?
All of my WP news comes through my highly curated list of people I follow on Twitter. If you want a shorcut to great content, just follow most of these people: https://twitter.com/rzen/following

Share an example of a really great (creative, cool, unusual) use of WordPress you’ve seen recently.
The projects I’ve been working on with WDS have really blown my hair back as to what is possible with WordPress. Two of my favorites are Web Apps for YMCA in New York called Y-MVP and a similar solution for the Dallas Museum of Art called DMA Friends.  Both of these are powered by a WP Plugin we helped write and release for Cred.ly called BadgeOS.

Do you have any advice for a person who’s building a business around WordPress design/development?
Connect with as many local developers as you can, and follow as many WP developers on twitter as you can stand. I’m constantly turning down work and see so many people looking for help. Also, read Jarrod Pyper’s interview for more great advice!

Gene Hammett –

Gene Hammett is fiercely committed to working with web designers and developers to expand the size, scope and billings of their projects (in weeks, not months). As the managing director of Core Elevation, Inc., Gene helps them transform from broke, busted and disgusted to thriving, growing, and loving every project they touch.

He will be presenting a session titled “Designers and Developers: Creating New Revenue Streams using WordPress” on Sunday,

Interview with Gene:

Why do you use WordPress?
Easy of use, lots of plugins available that can make the website very powerful…and the cool people use WordPress.

What do you like best about WordCamps?
Meeting new people and seeing friends from previous WordCamps.

What is your favorite tip or resource for a new WordPress user?
If you are new to WordPress, learn the INs and OUTs of researching plugins before you just install them.

What is a common problem you see in WordPress sites, and how would you avoid it?
Sliders are OUT! I don’t use sliders.

How do you stay up to date with new information about WordPress?
WordCamp and interacting with friends and clients.

Share an example of a really great (creative, cool, unusual) use of WordPress you’ve seen recently.
RestaurantEngine.com by Brian Casel. This website has extended wordpress to build an industry specific solution that is powerful and quick for the customer to develop their own wordpress site.

Do you have any advice for a person who’s building a business around WordPress design/development?
Well this is the basis of my work as I am a Business Coach to Web Designers and Developers. I help them build their businesses with focus and purpose. One tip…find a real target market to serve (hint: small business is not a target market). Find me to get more about it.

Gloria Antonelli –

Gloria Antonelli is a WordPress consultant, trainer and developer since 2006. She started teaching and presenting about the web in 1996. Rolling 17 years of consultant into a holistic approach of web development, her expertise spans WordPress, UX, IA, SEO, Social Media, Web Standards, CSS, Content and Documentation Strategies.

Gloria’s clients include advertising agencies, universities, corporations and startups. She has been presenting for over 10 years at local/national conferences and workshops including WordCamp Chicago, WordCamp Detroit and WordCamp Milwaukee. Happiness for Gloria includes researching the latest tech trends, stacks of coding books, and 3 day tech conferences.

She will be presenting two sessions for Foundation Friday: “Text Widget for the Non Coder” and “Create Great User Documents”

Interview with Gloria:

Why do you use WordPress?

I first learned of WordPress in 2006 from Peter Merholz during Adaptive Path’s “Beyond Usability 2.0” workshop. That is when I began learning and developing with WordPress and never looked back. I use it for many reasons – flexible, extensible, SEO friendly, and the community.

What do you like best about WordCamps?
I must really like them because I attended 5 last year. You would find me in the dev track at Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, Grand Rapids, and Detroit learning the latest best practices. What better place to learn then from the best WordPress community has to offer! Plus making new friends with a common bond.

What is your favorite tip or resource for a new WordPress user?
I have presented at many web design/development events in the last 10 years. I usually pick a topic based on my need to know or my clients pain points. I am focused on user experience, information architecture and best practices to help the WordPress long tail of new users. Tip: do your pre-website needs assessment, stretch to learn more about WordPress before you start and know your coding limitations. Then do research on picking a theme that meets your needs. Don’t judge a theme just on its visual appeal. Try to look behind the curtain.

What is a common problem you see in WordPress sites, and how would you avoid it?
Some problems in sites are caused by designers/developers and some by the users. Poor coding standards tops my list. So much time wasted trying to get a poorly coded site to work with top grade plugins. Users have a hard time evaluating a quality theme from behind a walled garden of documentation and support forums. Their skill set is limited. If there is quality docs, they may not understand or even read them. WordPress.org is working hard at evaluating themes and improving the .org docs. I also see improvement on the commercial side providing a good knowledge base for users.  I think any user who wants to build their site on their own could spend more time learning about web development in general.

How do you stay up to date with new information about WordPress?
Staying up to date! It is like a carrot on a stick dangled just out of my reach. Okay it does take a lot of work keeping up. So many variable come into play, what is the next release, what new plugins are good, what development style just fell out of grace, Oh my! Thank god I have an iPad. I play shows like WP Water cooler when I am cooking, watch WordPress.tv when I wash the dishes and I read eBooks in bed. I confess to being a learn-aholic and like knowing the latest stuff. I also go to WordPress meetups.

Do you have any advice for a person who’s building a business around WordPress design/development?
First know your stuff, not just WordPress and PHP but study user experience, user testing, information architecture and SEO. If your business model is client-centric, educate your clients on the importance of focusing on the business needs before coding and design and have someone dedicated to producing content. If your business model is providing Themes and Plugins, I can’t stress how important it is to provide an effective learning channel for your users. Start here docs, step by step tutorials and videos. Don’t just have a forum.

Heather Acton –

I’m the founder of and developer at Helio Interactive, a fresh WordPress development shop in Chicago, IL. We specialize in custom themes and user experience, and pride ourselves in providing unparalleled client services. When I’m not brainstorming with a client or building a site, I’m likely cuddling with my kiddos, sipping a craft beer, or at a Dave Matthews Band concert.

She will be a part of the WordPress Business Owners Panel on Sunday.

Interview with Heather:

Why do you use WordPress?
I use WordPress to feed my family, improve myself, and build others’ businesses.

What do you like best about WordCamps?
I love catching up with all of my friends in the community. Typically we’re all holed up in our offices and rarely get the opportunity to spend a whole weekend talking and learning about our favorite CMS.

What is your favorite tip or resource for a new WordPress user?
Backup all the things! Update them too!

What is a common problem you see in WordPress sites, and how would you avoid it?
Too many plugins! I coach clients to not pimp out their site too much. For newer developers, I coach them to not use plugins that can easily be replaced with a few lines of custom code.

Do you have any advice for a person who’s building a business around WordPress design/development?
1) Do great work over and over again. 2) Always be a joy to work with. 3) Be patient while repeating 1 & 2 over and over, and great things will come to you and your business.