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
Suzette Franck is the WordPress Evangelist at (mt) Media Temple, where she educates and advocates for WordPress and the WordPress Community. She typically attends 2-3 WordPress Meetups a week, and has spoken/is speaking at 6 WordCamps so far his year: Phoenix, San Diego, Miami, Reno, Orange County, and Seattle. She blogs frequently at suzettefranck.com about WordPress and is a regular contributor on WPWatercooler.com.
She enjoys teaching about the wonders of WordPress and finding better ways to do things with it. She loves learning about web development and digging into code, which she has been doing for over 18 years. She discovered WordPress 5 years ago and has used it to create over 200 websites with a variety of designs and requirements, mostly with hand-coded custom themes, and is showing no signs of stopping.
She will be leading two introductory sessions in the 101 track on Foundation Friday, “Domains & Hosting” and “Resources For Reaching Your WordPress Potential.”
Interview with Suzette: 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.
Mika Ariela Epstein is better known as Ipstenu, the Half-Elf Support Rogue. Working for DreamHost, she solves any WordPress problem that comes up, and still finds time to slash unasnwered WordPress.org forum threads by night and wrangle plugins by day. A self-taught guru on Multisite and .htaccess, she has a passion for writing and technology and blogs about them on her own site, as well as for DreamHost.
Mika’s session on Sunday was titled Why Your Website Isn’t ‘Set it and Forget it’.
You can view her slides online here: https://speakerdeck.com/ipstenu/why-wordpress-is-not-set-it-and-forget-it
Interview with Mika:
Why do you use WordPress?
I use WordPress because I enjoy using it to manage my sites. I keep using it because it rocks.
What do you like best about WordCamps?
The social aspect. Meeting people to talk about WordPress teaches me almost as much as debugging!
What is your favorite tip or resource for a new WordPress user?
Just breath! Everything is scary when you look at it all for the first time. Take it all one bite and a time, and you’ll eat the elephant just fine.
What is a common problem you see in WordPress sites, and how would you avoid it?
Too many sites try to do everything they can just because they can. Limit yourself. Start reasonable and build up!
How do you stay up to date with new information about WordPress?
I get emails for every trac comment and commit, as well as follow all the make/wordpress sites, and a ton of other WordPress sites.
Do you have any advice for a person who’s building a business around WordPress design/development?
Don’t be afraid to fire your customers!
Zack Tollman – Residing in Portland, Oregon, Zack longs for the cold, snowy days of his Alaskan youth. He enjoys strumming his guitar, playing hockey, and spending time with his fiancée and dog. Otherwise, you’ll find him at his computer meticulously spinning lines of clean WordPress code as a developer at The Theme Foundry.
He will be presenting “Enhancing Developer Creativity with Git” on Sunday.
Interview with Zack:
Continue reading
Tobias Bäthge is a PhD student in the field of “Control Theory and Engineering Cybernetics” from Magdeburg, Germany. He has been working with WordPress since 2006 and is the developer of two popular WordPress plugins. When he’s not on the computer, coding or supporting his plugins, he’s probably somewhere out on the baseball field, practicing with his team.
Tobias spoke on Saturday morning about his “Tales of a Plugin Developer, or Don’t repeat my mistakes, please!”
Here are his slides:
Interview with Tobias: Continue reading
Tom is a Software Engineer at the Nerdery in Kansas City. He has been working with the WordPress platform since 2007 beginning as a theme developer and then moving to primarily plugin development.
With a work history that spans from freelancing, to agency management, to agency owner, the breadth and scope of his projects has been greatly varied. Ranging from the simple Mom and Pop Storefront to a Social Network built upon BuddyPress for a national sports franchise.
For fun if you can’t find him at the nearest movie theater, you’ll find him with the wind in his hair as he enjoys hitting the open road on his Harley.
Tom will be speaking Sunday morning on “Plugin Unit Testing for WordPress” in the developer track.
I’m proud to announce our first round of confirmed speakers for this years WordCamp Chicago!
Andy is a freelance WordPress developer, founding principal of WordPress agency Sizeable Interactive, and founder of WordPress maintenance and support service WP Maintainer.
When he’s not busy perfecting websites, Andy is often found exercising his dog, learning about fitness and training at the gym and enjoying animals, art, film, music and philosophy. He fancies peanut butter and jelly more than he should.
Matt Medeiros is the co-founder of SlocumStudio.com and inteviews WordPress entrepreneurs on MattReport.com
Chris Lema is the VP of Software Engineering at Emphasys Software, where he manages high performers and oversees product development and innovation. He’s also a blogger, ebook author and runs a WordPress meetup in North County San Diego.
Matthew Boynes is a lead developer at Alley Interactive. The only thing Matt loves more than developing on WordPress is helping others develop and solve complex problems using WordPress. When he’s not coding, you’ll often find Matt engaged in some outdoor activity like hiking or skiing.
Michelle is a graphic designer and co-founder of Marktime Media, a multimedia design and video production company based in Chicagoland that helps small-to-mid sized businesses effectively utilize digital media. She was formally schooled in many aspects of design including print, branding, packaging, etc., with additional education in Psychology and Sociology, all tying together in a love of How People Think. Lately she has been specializing in WordPress websites, infographics, and high-end presentations for my clients. She is a lover of WordCamps and the WordPress community, a WordCamp Chicago organizer, and loves meeting people who feel the same way.
Josh Broton is the Interactive Design Lead and front-end developer at VistaComm in Sioux Falls, SD. He has a passion for making things both beautiful and usable, and his work has been described as “perfect” and “the cleanest code I’ve ever seen.” At any given time, you’ll find him tinkering with JavaScript, working on his responsive WordPress theme boilerplate, Twitter-ranting at @joshbroton, and speaking at various conferences.
P.J. Onori is a partner at Waybury and design technologist with nine years of professional experience. He has worked for companies such as Adaptive Path, Method and Current TV and worked with clients including the United Nations, Samsung, Adobe, TED.com and Foodspotting. P.J. is a vocal advocate of open source and its important role in society. He blogs about design and technology at somerandomdude.com
Residing in Portland, Oregon, Zack longs for the cold, snowy days of his Alaskan youth. He enjoys strumming his guitar, playing hockey, and spending time with his fiancée and dog. Otherwise, you’ll find him at his computer meticulously spinning lines of clean WordPress code as a developer at The Theme Foundry.
Master of Alliteration at Automattic.
Vince Glortho of WordPress.com VIP.
Bee Keeper of BuddyPress and bbPress.
Father and friend to Paul the Puppy.
Cutter of Records; Shifter of Gears.
We have an amazing list of talent – both local and national and even international coming to share knowledge this year. We are confirming additional speakers right now and will be showcasing more speakers in the coming days. If you haven’t yet, make sure you get on the WordCamp Chicago mailing list or follow @wordcampchicago on Twitter.
And if you haven’t already done so, go register! Tickets are going fast!!
Here at WordCamp Chicago, we’re all about giving back to the community and fact is, we wouldn’t be able to do that successfully were it not for the commitment and support of our amazing WordCamp volunteers. Please accept our sincere gratitude in advance to all you would-be volunteers!
So you’re planning on attending WordCamp Chicago 2013 in June. Awesome! Maybe you’re a veteran and this is your 20th WordCamp but you love them so much you can’t stay away. Or maybe you’re a “newbie” but would love the opportunity to roll up your sleeves and get a “behind the scenes” look at what it takes to create a great WordCamp! The only prerequisite to volunteering here at WordCamp Chicago is you are #1 reliable and #2 friendly! Easy peasy!
I can confidently say that volunteering your time and services to the WordCamp Chicago event will prove to be one of the smartest and rewarding decisions you’ll make. As in any non-profit organization, volunteers are the foundation of the community. WordCamp volunteers continue to volunteer because:
Bottom line is that volunteering at WordCamp Chicago is like the gift that keeps on giving. There are always new things going on in the WordPress community. Simply by participating, you’ll have a great opportunity to learn even more about this dynamic group of people, establish solid relationships, stay up to date on future WordPress developments and become part of the diverse publishing culture that is WordPress.
Obviously volunteering for WordCamp Chicago is a win/win situation but we sincerely appreciate your time and commitment. As an expression of our gratitude we are extending a $20.00 coupon code to those that go above and beyond the call of duty. If you work more than 6 hours we will give you $20 off the regular ticket price.*
A volunteer coordinator will be contacting you with more details following receipt of application.
So what are the volunteer needs and time commitments and where do you sign up?
Thank you again and we look forward to seeing you in the trenches!
Sylvia Lima
WordCamp Chicago 2013
Volunteer Coordinator
* Please note that we are not able to refund the $20.00 in the event your ticket is purchased prior to volunteering. Make sure to hold off on registering for your ticket until you hear from our Volunteer Coordinator!
** Additionally, if you are planning to volunteer for Friday, please only register using the General Admission ticket. If you are planning to attend the tracks and not volunteer on Friday, then simply choose which track you want to attend (this helps us keep our capacity in check).
WordCamp Chicago 2013 is happening at the luxurious University Center Conference Chicago from June 28th, 29th and 30th. We couldn’t be more thrilled to announce that tickets are now available and are sold on a first-come, first-served basis.
Tickets are priced at $60 for the entire weekend and $40 for just Saturday and Sunday. The full weekend ticket includes Foundation Friday classes, which is a day of solid groundwork to help you get the most out of the rest of the weekend. NOTE: Each Foundation Friday track lasts all day (8am-5pm), so you only need to register for one!
Saturday and Sunday will be the main event with a whole host of amazing speakers as well as a very cool After Party and a free WordCamp Chicago 2013 T-Shirt!
Foundation Friday starts at 8am and goes until 5pm.
Saturday sessions start at 9am and goes until 5pm.
Sunday sessions start at 10am and goes until 4:30pm.
Please do note that tickets are limited and will sell out quickly, so make sure to get your tickets TODAY!
For this type of WordPress learning and conference experience you’d typically have to pay hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars, which is even more of a reason to buy your tickets today before they sell out!
Hope to see you there!
WordCamp Chicago 2013 is over. Check out the next edition!