All posts by Emily Barney

Interview with George Stephanis

Interview, Speakers

George Stephanis – twitter dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com facebook dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com LinkedIn dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com Google+ dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com

George will be presenting Moving your Plugin to GitHub: Trials, Tribulations, and Testing on Saturday in the Development track

George Stephanis works for Automattic (makers of WordPress.com) as Team Lead for the Jetpack Pit Crew, helping self-hosted WordPress sites take advantage of the WordPress.com cloud.

He is also a frequent core contributor to the WordPress open-source project, a community organizer, regularly presents at WordCamps, and guests on podcasts like the WPWatercooler and the WP Girlie Show.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
It’s free, both in speech and in beer. The ability of anyone to use WordPress as a fulcrum to launch their content into the world is a tremendous win for the open web and democratizing content across the world.

What would you say to convince someone to attend a WordCamp?
If you use WordPress, it’ll be one of your best weekends all year long. If you don’t use WordPress, come. You’ll be one of us soon enough. 🙂

What is your favorite WordPress project you have worked on recently?
Jetpack or Core. Either one will do.

What is your favorite WordPress-related resource?
I hear Google’s pretty awesome.

Tell us something awesome about yourself that is not WordPress related
When not on the computer, I’m a bit of a luddite. I enjoy letterpress printing, carpentry, and pipes.

Interview with Aaron Campbell and Brian Krogsgard

Interview, Speakers

Aaron and Brian will be presenting Do Big Things With A Small Team on Saturday in the Business/Project Management track along with Pete Mall and Sara Cannon.

Aaron Campbell – twitter dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com

Aaron is CTO and a Partner at Range. Aaron has more than ten years of web development experience and has been a regular contributor to WordPress for the last five years.

He has experience writing quality code that is both fast and scalable, and has a knack for translating ideas and goals into functional sites. He’s been called both a coffee snob and a beer snob, but considers both to be compliments.

Brian Krogsgard – twitter dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com facebook dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com

Brian is a Junior Partner at Range, a boutique web development and design agency. Range is also a WordPress.com VIP development partner.

Brian also runs Post Status, a blog dedicated to news and resources for WordPress professionals and enthusiasts.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
Aaron: It’s flexible and extensible.

Brian: WordPress is powerful, flexible, and easy to use. I don’t know what else I would use.

What would you say to convince someone to attend a WordCamp?
Brian:  WordCamps are cheap and give direct access to some of the leaders in the WordPress community. It’s a great time to learn, but even better, a great time to get to know like-minded folks.

What is your favorite WordPress project you have worked on recently?
Aaron: The new Flickr blog has been fun. It hasn’t launched yet, but should have by the time the event happens.

Brian:  Ping me in a about a week 😉

Do you have any advice for someone looking to start or grow a WordPress based business?
Aaron: Work with the community not against it. It sounds so simple, and yet it makes a HUGE difference.

Brian: Follow those who are doing what you want to be doing, see how their doing it, and try to emulate it. Over time, you’ll develop your own styles and opinions.

Also, progress > process. Good processes are great. But don’t get overwhelmed by the new and shiny. This is the web and it evolves fast. Stay aware but don’t get distracted by tools. Re-think your process and tools when it’s smart, not when you first see them

What is your favorite WordPress-related resource?
Aaron: Honestly, it’s the code. That’s where I go to figure out most things.

Brian: Post Status, of course 🙂 I hope it’s yours too.

Tell us something awesome about yourself that is not WordPress related
Brian: My wife and I have a Great Dane named Lucy May. She’s blue, big, and spoiled rotten. I’d say you should follow me on Instagram, but if you do, it’ll just be a bunch of pictures of her or the craft beers I’m enjoying at any particular time (typically quite hoppy varieties).

Interview with Aaron Jorbin

Interview, Speakers

Aaron Jorbin – twitter dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com Flickr dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com

Aaron will be presenting Color Theory for Web Developers on Saturday in the Design track

Aaron is a Polyhistoric man of the web. Currently Technical Architect on the Conde Nast Platform Team and a WordPress contributor, he works to improve developer happiness and is dedicated to making internet usable and enjoyable by everyone.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
The GPL and the community.

What would you say to convince someone to attend a WordCamp?
WordCamps are some of the best value web conferences you can attend. Where as many other conferences cost a few hundred dollar, a WordCamp costs under $100 and features speakers just as interesting and informational.

What is your favorite WordPress project you have worked on recently?
https://github.com/aaronjorbin/grunt-patch-wordpress

Do you have any advice for someone looking to start or grow a WordPress based business?
Align yourself with the WordPress Philosophies. Make decisions, not options. Embrace the GPL.

What is your favorite WordPress-related resource?
The source code of WordPress.

Tell us something awesome about yourself that is not WordPress related
I spend my free time volunteering with American Model United Nations as a simulation director planning and running a multi-day simulation of the United Nations Security Council for college students.

Interview with Andy Christian

Interview, Speakers

Andy Christian – twitter dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com

Andy will be presenting Choosing and customizing WordPress themes (no code required!) on Friday in the Foundation Friday 101 track

Andy has been involved in the WordPress community in New York for five years. He is an active member of the WordPress.org Community Contributor group, and has volunteered or spoken at more than a dozen WordCamps around the USA. Andy also volunteers at the monthly WordPress NYC Meetup.

Andy is a co-founder of Tadpole Collective, a web development firm specializing in WordPress and CiviCRM integration. At Tadpole, Andy provides technical support to clients and develops documentation and training for various projects. Andy also provides customer support for WordPress themes at CyberChimps. He blogs about his travels at Andy Was Here.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
WordPress makes expressing yourself on the web easy and accessible. I’m a strong believer in democratizing the web, which just happens to be the main mission of WordPress.

What would you say to convince someone to attend a WordCamp?
Everything is awesome! Seriously, WordCamps are a great place to learn about WordPress, meet other awesome people, and just

What is your favorite WordPress project you have worked on recently?
The site for WordCamp NYC 2014. 🙂

Do you have any advice for someone looking to start or grow a WordPress based business?
Don’t go it alone. A team, even a team of two, is exponentially more productive and supported than a single freelancer. Even if you freelance alone, build a support network of other developers, designers, financial gurus, etc., to rely on when things get overwhelming.

What is your favorite WordPress-related resource?
http://plan.wordcamp.org/

Tell us something awesome about yourself that is not WordPress related
I was a member of a Beatles tribute band for about a year and a half. I played woodwinds (clarinet/flute) and hand percussion, and sang backup vocals.

Interview with Heather Acton

Interview, Speakers

Heather Acton – twitter dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com facebook dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com LinkedIn dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com Google+ dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com

Heather will be presenting Introduction to Custom Theming on Friday in the Foundation Friday 301 track

Heather Acton is the founder and lead WordPress developer at Helio Interactive, a boutique digital agency in Chicago, IL.

She’s passionate about good practices, mentoring others, and drinking craft beer with colleagues and friends.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
I use WordPress for two main reasons. The first is because it is the right tool to use for most of my clients’ projects. Of all website frameworks available, it is the easiest for them to use, is the most well-supported, and it is the most likely to still be well-supported in the next 5-10 years. Continue reading Interview with Heather Acton →

Interview with Mel Choyce

Interview, Speakers

Mel Choyce – twitter dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com

Mel will be presenting Getting the Most out of WordPress.com in the 101 Foundation Friday track.

Mel is a Design Engineer at Automattic. She loves big type, cold brew coffee, and printmaking.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
I love how easy it is! You don’t need to be an expert developer to get a beautiful site up and running.

What would you say to convince someone to attend a WordCamp?
WordPress has an incredibly vibrant, diverse, and welcoming community. Attending a WordCamp is like hanging out with a bunch of friends, even if you’ve never met anyone before. There’s always something interesting going on, and you’ll learn so many new things. Continue reading Interview with Mel Choyce →

Interview with Suzette Franck

Interview, Speakers

Suzette Franck – twitter dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com facebook dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com LinkedIn dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com Google+ dark blue jeans social media icons designed by icons.mysitemyway.com

Suzette will be presenting WordPress Wizardry Without Code on Friday
in the Foundation Friday 201 track

Suzette Franck is the WordPress Evangelist at (mt) Media Temple in Culver City, California, where she educates and advocates for WordPress and the WordPress Community.

In 2013, she attended 80 WordPress meetups where she presented at 25 of them, spoke at 12 WordCamps in 8 different states and two countries, as well as presented online at WordSesh #2 with Natalie MacLees. Suzette has 7 published talks that can be found on WordPress.tv. Continue reading Interview with Suzette Franck →