Michele Butcher –

Michele will be presenting Intro to Jetpack on Friday in the Foundation Friday 201 track

Michele is a full time blogger, designer, and all around awesome person. Michele started her love for WordPress back in 2010 when she got her feet wet working with Bit51 as a content creator and support ninja until its merger with iThemes.

Michele is also the Organizer for the Southern Illinois WordPress Meetup. She is also the newest member of the WP Security Lock team in April of this year. When not in front of a screen, Michele enjoys life with her family and friends.

Interview:

Continue reading Interview with Michele Butcher →

Kyle Maurer –

Kyle will be presenting Shortcode Shenanigans on Friday in the Foundation Friday 201 track

Kyle Maurer is the co-founder of and lead developer for Real Big Marketing. He has been developing websites since 2009 and is passionate about WordPress as a CMS and development platform.

Working with WordPress multisite, developing plugins, creating complicated websites for small businesses and attending WordPress Meetups and WordCamps are among Kyle’s favorite things. Bacon is also nice.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
I use WordPress because I haven’t encountered a website related project yet that I can’t handle with it, because it has a thriving user base and is very well supported, because the WP community is the freaking bomb, and most of all because people pay me for doing this.

For a more eloquent explanation, refer to my origin story on my wordpress.org profile.

What would you say to convince someone to attend a WordCamp?
If you come to this WordCamp I’ll give you a bazillion dollars and I won’t kidnap your dog.

What is your favorite WordPress project you have worked on recently?
Nothing beats the plugin projects. Unfortunately my true favorites are not quite complete yet. Hopefully some of them will be ready to go live by the time WordCamp Chicago rolls around.

Other than that, I published a couple little plugins last fall for things like enhancing Google Adwords campaigns and showing Christmas song lyrics in the wp-admin. Plus I’ve made tons of websites.

Do you have any advice for someone looking to start or grow a WordPress based business?
Try not to think of code as a four letter word but rather something that can really empower you. As much as you don’t want to mess with code, your clients want to even less and will pay you well to do it for them. Embrace this reality. Learn to do it right.

Also, follow coding best practices, study the codex, attend WordCamps, focus on quality, raise your prices, don’t hire anyone you’d have a hard time firing, use contracts with every client, don’t do drugs, wear your seat belt at all times, listen to Bob Marley, help out on the .org support forums

Don’t fear the code.
Don’t settle for mediocrity.
Immerse yourself in WP.
Say yes to things you have no clue how to do.
Vote for Pedro.
Wear your seat belts.
Eat more bacon.
Talk to Chris Lema.
Buy a really comfortable office chair.

What is your favorite WordPress-related resource?
Do I have to choose just one? Yes? How about no? Ok. I’m gonna just ignore that.

The codex
make.wordpress.org
ManageWP.org
ChrisLema.com
CSS-Tricks.com
PippinsPlugins.com
Twitter
Local meetups

Tell us something awesome about yourself that is not WordPress related
I play guitar. Does anything else really matter? If you walked up to me and said “Hey, Kyle. You want some of this free beer?” I would most likely say “Yes”.

Zac Gordon –

Zac will be presenting Why Setting Up Themes is a Niche in Itself, What to Know on Friday
in the Foundation Friday 201 track

Zac is the WordPress teacher at Treehouse, an amazing online learning site. Before Treehouse, Zac taught WordPress and web development at the high school and college level.

In addition to teaching WordPress, Zac also runs Web Hosting for Students, a hosting company dedicated to students and teachers of the web.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
I use it as a blogger because I love it’s interface, ease of use and extendability. I use it as a developer because of it’s large community of users and developers as well as how easy it is to code custom templates.

What would you say to convince someone to attend a WordCamp?
No, really you should go.

What is your favorite WordPress project you have worked on recently?
I have been working on a large BuddyPress project. I wouldn’t say I’ve enjoyed it, but it’s taught me a lot about the inner workings of BuddyPress.

Do you have any advice for someone looking to start or grow a WordPress based business?
Definitely attend a WordCamp to network, have patience, and keep at it!

What is your favorite WordPress-related resource?
The Codex for me is a daily go to, but I also like wphierarchy.com 🙂

Tell us something awesome about yourself that is not WordPress related
I love to practice and teach Kundalini WordPress

Gloria Antonelli –

Gloria will be presenting Information Architecture Strategy Session on in the Foundation Friday 201 track.

Gloria Antonelli fits the current definition of a UX Unicorn – a web designer/developer with UX chops. Gloria attended her first UX workshop “Elements of User Experience” in 2004. Now an advocate of Lean UX, Gloria infuses her skills in rapid prototyping, front end development, user testing, and ideation within the WordPress design process. Her expertise also spans CSS, IA, Content and Documentation Strategies.

Gloria started presenting about the web in 1996 at local and national conferences and workshops. She began working with WordPress in 2006 and has been delighted to share her knowledge at WordCamps in Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids and Milwaukee. Happiness for Gloria besides researching UX trends, Mobile and App development is scuba diving in exotic locations.

Gloria became the new organizer of the inactive Chicago Suburbs WordPress Meetup Group. Currently she is looking for a new home and more advance focus for the group.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
I remember the exact day I learned about WordPress. Peter Merholz, credited with coining the word ‘blog’ talked about WordPress during his 2 day “Designing the Complete User Experience” workshop in 2006. WordPress was a little funky back then but I continued to add it to my clients sites. I began teaching WordPress to advertising agencies and web designer in Chicago. It was much easier that developing from scratch. During teaching web dev classes, I found myself saying you can do this much easier in WordPress by downloading a theme or adding a plugin. WordPress just gets better and better with each iteration.

What would you say to convince someone to attend a WordCamp?
WordCamp is a mystical place where knowledge and friendships develop. You can come and be welcomed into a place that speaks to your level of web development at a unbelievable rock bottom price. Especially at WordCamp Chicago where much effort is given to designing learning paths for all levels. Speaker are chosen from all over the country who give of their expertise with no compensation but a free ticket to the event. We love it and want you to come and experience it too. It is the Burning Man of WordPress. A community and knowledge exchange gathered annually for a weekend to share their stories around a common ideas and experiences. There is no actual burning of anything but the cultural exchange bringing together designers, developers, coders, business owners and bloggers. It has a thriving year-round culture both online and in smaller community MeetUps. To truly understand a WordCamp, one must participate. It is pretty cool!

What is your favorite WordPress project you have worked on recently?
I am all about User Experience. For many years I focused on teaching web development and WordPress. I experienced an issue that caused myself, my students and client much grief. “How to use a theme or plugging without pull out your hair.” Issues of poor documentation was the topic of many of my first WordCamp presentations. I am working on a personal project to create guidelines for theme and plugin developers to create effective documentation and address different WordPress learners. It focus on the what I coined back in 2011 – “Long tail of WordPress Users”. The project also includes effective Persona development.

Do you have any advice for someone looking to start or grow a WordPress based business?
I would look both in the WordPress community and the StartUp community mashing together a plan with a focus on who is your target audience and does your hypothesis of their needs match up with their actual needs. Basically embrace the Lean StartUp and Lean UX movement.

What is your favorite WordPress-related resource?
I am a big fan of WPSessions.com. Brian Richards is the host of series of quality presentations from experts in the WordPress Community. It is mini WordCamp quality sessions on more advanced topics without leaving home. It is fee based but many presentations are free.

Tell us something awesome about yourself that is not WordPress related
I like to chase tropical fish in their natural habitat. I am an Advanced Open Water scuba diver assisting my husband develop his professional underwater photography business. James, diving since college on Oahu, needed a dive buddy. Tropical beaches, warm water, and global travel was a no brainer. I herd schools of fish in James’ direction, pose near coral to create composition and show scale of marine environments. I began my certification in 2013 racking up over 100 dives so far. Our goal is to photograph the rich marine life of the Philippines.

Suzette Franck –

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 →