Making the Most of the Happiness Bar

happinessWordCamp US is going to be loaded with amazing talks, workshops, and experiences. It’s a place to exchange ideas, learn new things, and connect with different members of the WordPress Community. And to add to those experiences WordCamp US, like most WordCamps, will have a Happiness Bar!

For those not in the know a WordCamp Happiness Bar is great place to get hands on help and answers to your pressing WordPress questions. It’s not where we hand out stickers and swag. It’s not the place where we serve refreshments, though it is just a stone’s throw from the coffee and tea. It’s the place for you to get the WordPress solutions you need from people who genuinely want to help.

One of my favorite things about the WordPress Community is how we help each other. We volunteer our time to help new users setup a site, design cool themes that we give away, help out with questions about web hosting, create a great plugin that anyone can use for free, and so much more. At many WordCamps, the Happiness Bar is the place to get hands on help for your WordPress site. It’s an opportunity to sit down with WordPress experts to discuss challenges, troubleshoot problems, and learn about cool WordPress tips and tricks. WordCamp US will have dozens of volunteers staffing this year’s Happiness Bar. The volunteers themselves are as diverse as the WordPress Community, with backgrounds in: blogging, technical support, photography, WordPress plugin development, WordPress theme development, web design, teaching, and more. With their combined skills we’ll be available to assist every attendee of WordCamp US on December 4th and 5th in need of some WordPress help.

If you plan to come see us at the Happiness Bar this year, here are some tips to help you make the most of your experience:

It is totally cool to bring your laptop, tablet, or mobile device of your choice. We like to be hands on and walk you through issues as we work on them.

In fact, we recommend bringing your laptop, tablet, or smartphone when you come to the Happiness Bar. Volunteers will be hands on, potentially walking you through different settings on your site, or showing your articles to resolve your issue. But if you don’t have access to a mobile device don’t worry, we’ll have pen and paper available at the bar if you’d like to take notes.

There is no such thing as a “dumb question.”

You should feel comfortable asking any question you like at the Happiness Bar, as long as the question is WordPress related. We cater to users of all skill levels. If you have a question about your site that you do not know how to solve, don’t hesitate to ask us for help! At the Happiness Bar, there is no such thing as a dumb question.

We may not have all the answers, but we know someone who does.

Not every member of the Happiness Bar will have all the answers, but we know how to tap each other on the shoulder to ask for help. We’re comfortable combining our expertise to find that tough solution. Many of the volunteers also know a lot of people within the WordPress Community, and we aren’t above chasing people down to get you some outside help (unless they are in the middle of a talk, then we may let them finish).

Don’t hesitate to share your story.

My favorite thing about volunteering at the Happiness Bar is hearing how different people use WordPress. Hearing how you use WordPress can sometimes help us better understand your question or problem, so please share!

Bring your friends.

If you overhear someone at the WordCamp talking about problems with their site or questions they have about WordPress, refer them to us! You may not have any questions yourself, but maybe you have someone who needs help, but is too afraid to ask. Drag them to The Happiness Bar so they can get some help!

No problem is too small, but some solutions may be too big.

Some problems can only be solved with long term solutions, i.e. developing a new site, changing the design of your site, etc. While you can get some great advice from the bar, and we will be as hands on as possible, the Happiness Bar isn’t a good place for new design or development. It also may not be the best place for an urgent issue. For example if your site is down it might be a simple fix, but there might be more involved than our volunteers can fix then and there. But if you need assistance with a long-term solution and we can’t fix it, we will do our best to connect you with someone who can help.

Let us know in comments if you have any questions about the Happiness Bar, and we sure are looking forward to seeing all of you at WordCamp!

 

Let’s talk about t-shirt sizes!

It’s widely known that as far as conference t-shirt sizing goes there is no standard. It can make it downright impossible to get a shirt that fits the way you want. While we can’t work miracles on the t-shirt front, we can do our best to provide you with the information needed to make an educated decision when it comes to selecting your t-shirt size.

Following the excellent example set forth by WordCamp SF 2014, we’re offering three shirt styles this year. For women there are two options: a Bella slim cut and a Bella “Missy” cut. And the men’s and unisex option is the Canvas “Unisex” Tee.

Decide which style and size are right for you and update your registration by Sunday!

Join us for the WordCamp US Contributor Day

Many many many of you indicated when purchasing tickets that you’d be interested in participating in the Contributor Day at WordCamp US, which is well on its way to becoming the largest contributor day ever held at a WordCamp!

So what is a contributor day?

A contributor day is an event dedicated to giving back to the WordPress project, often paired with a WordCamp. It’s for both seasoned contributors and people making their first foray into getting involved.

What: WordCamp US Contributor Day

When: Sunday, December 6. Doors open at 9:00 a.m. for a 10:00 a.m. start.

Where: Pennsylvania Convention Center

Change your mind? If you indicated you’d be attending in error or have changed your mind or you didn’t sign up to attend but now you want to give back, you can opt in or out by following the link in your ticket confirmation email. If you’re not sure if you signed up to attend Contributor Day you can check on the Contributor Day Attendees page.

Here are some of the things you’ll be able to do:

  • Contribute your first patch to core
  • Fix bugs
  • User testing
  • Translate WordPress or WordPress plugins or themes
  • Write documentation
  • Help out on the support forums or IRC
  • Get involved with accessibility
  • Review themes
  • And more!

For those of you who are new to contributing to WordPress, we’ll be sending out information soon about how to get set up for each team. The hope is to start the ramp-up process in advance so we can all spend more time actually contributing!

Stay tuned for more information on who will be leading teams at the WordCamp US Contributor Day, and if you haven’t already, join us on the “Making WordPress” Slack in the #wcus-contributor-day channel.

Tell the world!

Are you attending WordCamp US? You should tell everyone that you’re coming! Grab one or many of the awesome site badges below and add them to your site or blog. (We love dedicated posts about WordCamp US, but they’ll also work in your sidebar.)

To use them on your site, right click the image that you’d like and choose to Save it. Then upload it to your favorite site and spread the word!

 

WCUS-Site-Badge-Attendees WCUS-Site-Badge-Volunteer WCUS-Site-Badge-Sponsor WCUS-Site-Badge-Speaker

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not coming to WCUS? Well why not? Tickets are still available. If you’re unable to make it to Philly you can join us virtually with a Livestream ticket!

Once you’re done writing your blog post about how awesome WordCamp US will be, be sure to let us know on Twitter and Facebook and use the hashtag #wcus

Announcing the WordCamp US, 2015 Schedule!

Here it is, folks! The moment that you’ve all been waiting for! We’re pleased to present the full schedule and sessions for WordCamp US, 2015!

We have so many amazing sessions lined up, with something for every interest and skill level! Our incredible speakers are nothing short of top notch. We couldn’t be more excited about what they have planned to share with us.

Without further ado, here is the full listing: https://2015.us.wordcamp.org/schedule/

Go on! Take a look and let us know via Twitter what you’re most excited about.

Introducing the WordCamp US speakers – Part 5

Wow! What a speaker list we’ve published so far. You’ve met 60 of our amazing speakers in Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four of our speaker post series. Now onto the rest!

Part Five

Curtiss GrymalaCurtiss Grymala

Curtiss Grymala is the Senior Web Technologist at the University of Mary Washington. While he’s at UMW, he spends the majority of his time managing the WordPress installations that power the UMW websites. When he’s not working on the UMW website or hanging out with his family, he also runs a small freelance agency called Ten-321 Enterprises, where he builds websites for non-profits and small businesses, and consults with clients in higher ed. He is also the founder of WPHighEd and is currently co-organizing WPCampus, a conference & community for people using WordPress in higher ed. He is a WordPress evangelist, an accessibility advocate and an open-source & open-standards fanatic.

Gary PendergastGary Pendergast

Gary is a WordPress, web and music geek who writes poetry with Automattic. He’s been know to commit random things to WordPress Core, just to see what would happen. He can be observed in his natural habitat at pento.net, or usually in Melbourne, Australia.

 

Andrea ForteAndrea Forte

Andrea is a professor at Drexel University whose passions are to make and think about technologies that help people do things they couldn’t do before.

 

Allen MooreAllen Moore

Allen is a Front-End Engineer at 10up, a full service digital agency that makes web publishing and content management simple and fun. He has over 12 years of professional web development experience, and now focuses on crafting amazing User Experience’s for the amazing clients of 10up. He’s a musician, writer, and husband to his beautiful wife Karoline. He enjoys a good book, cup of coffee, pint of local beer, and cigars & scotch.

Adam SilversteinAdam Silverstein

Adam started programming in assembly code and learned Java when Netscape Navigator ruled the web – eventually embracing WordPress as his platform of choice. He is a contributing developer to WordPress and a Senior Web Engineer at 10up. Adam loves long rafting trips, playing mbira, travel, taking walks and tending his over-sized garden.

Mel ChoyceMel Choyce

Mel Choyce is a Design Engineer at Automattic, WordPress core contributor, and co-organizer for the Boston WordPress community. She loves big typography, cold brew coffee, and teaching people about WordPress. You can find her on twitter @melchoyce.
 

Winstina HughesWinstina Hughes

Winstina Hughes is a Master of City and Regional Planning candidate at Rutgers University. She received a B.A. in Planning and Public Policy from Rutgers. Her focus is transit-oriented development (TOD). She’s written about real estate development and transportation for hyper local news, and maintains her own WordPress.com blog on suburban planning and community engagement in the town she lives. Winstina bleeds scarlet, loves hip-hop, and adores WordPress software.
 

Beth SoderbergBeth Soderberg

Beth Soderberg a developer who is obsessive about clean code, solid design execution, and empowering the user. Her happy place is where code and design intersect and therefore also loves dabbling in user experience and design work. By day, Beth works as a web developer at CHIEF and by night is a co-representative of the WordPress Training Team, a co-organizer of the WordPress DC Meetup, and a Hack for Good organizer with the DCFemTech coalition in Washington, DC.

Andrew NacinAndrew Nacin

Nacin is a lead developer of WordPress. He’s wrangled contributions, developed new features, and tried to fix more bugs than he created. He led a number of major releases, including 3.5’s overhaul of media management and 3.7’s automatic background updates. He currently works for the U.S. Digital Service, a team dedicated to tackling some of government’s most pressing problems.

Scott TaylorScott Taylor

Scott Taylor is a Senior Software Engineer at The New York Times on the Interactive News Team. He is a Core Developer of WordPress and the Release Lead for WordPress 4.4. Scott lives in Williamsburg (Brooklyn, not Colonial) and really likes Mexican food. He is mainly a musician, but also finds time to code and has contributed in small and big ways to the last 10 releases of WordPress.

Mark LlobreraMark Llobrera

Mark Llobrera (@dirtystylus) is the Technology Director for Bluecadet in Philadelphia, where he and his team build websites, native iOS/Android applications, and touchscreen applications for museums and non-profits. He specializes in CMSes built with WordPress and Drupal.

matt cheney Matt Cheney

Matt is a long time web developer is excited about decoupled CMS solutions using AngularJS and Backbone. He is also the co-founder of Pantheon which provides WordPress and Drupal hosting.

 

Linda DanielsLinda Daniels

Linda Daniels is a Design Thinker, Experience Architect and Educator with over 20 years experience leading interactive and traditional teams for Fortune 500 companies such as Merck Pharmaceuticals, M&M Mars and now Comcast University. She specializes in the strategic direction and design of projects for internal and external organizations, creating inspirational user experiences to maximize results for corporate, consumer and educational initiatives. To find out more about Linda you can find her here: @ldaniels_design.

Taylor LovettTaylor Lovett

Taylor Lovett is the Director of Engineering at 10up, one of the biggest WordPress centric agencies in the world. Having been involved with WordPress since 2007, he has contributed to WordPress core, authored popular plugins (downloaded hundreds of thousands of times), and spoken at many conferences across multiple continents. He is a lover of all things open-source. Other than developing web applications, Taylor is a lover of music. He enjoys listening to blues and jazz music as well as playing acoustic fingerstyle guitar.

Tony PerezTony Perez

Tony is one of the Co-Founders, and CEO at Sucuri; a globally recognized website security firm specializing in cleaning and protecting websites. Tony has spent the better part of 5 years building an organization designed to provide value to website owners when they need it most. He has worked with 100’s of thousands of websites, helping them navigate their online security challenges, has spoken at dozens of events and conferences around the world, and is adamant in the power of education and awareness. He actively writes and shares his thoughts on both business and security on his personal website. He is a former US Marine, holds his undergraduate degree in Technology Management, and is an active Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner and competitor.

Joe SchaffnerJoe Schaffner

As a Courseware Support Librarian, Joe Schaffner works with faculty, students, and staff who use Canvas, the University’s learning management system. Joe belongs to a team of librarians who plan and lead training sessions to help users see the system’s potential for attaining their teaching and learning goals. Additionally, Joe designs documentation for Canvas and other educational technology tools, and he also provides direct user support. Joe holds a B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from Rutgers University and an M.S. in Library and Information Science from Drexel University.

Dennis Snell Dennis Snell

Dennis is a Code Wrangler at Automattic, Inc. and spends his days reticulating splines, working on backend APIs, refactoring code, and thinking. As an engineer, he tends to ramble about code performance, signal processing, and how to play well with others. As a digital nomad, he owns very few things and enjoys living simply with his most wonderful wife. He loves cooking, engineering, photography, and his Christian faith.

Josepha HadenJosepha Haden

Josepha comes from a long line of writers and was raised to be a life-long learner. She has a passion for language and storycrafting, a skill she practices on starsandthemoon.com. She is experienced at using SEO, data analysis, and content marketing to bring success and visibility to clients all over the world. Since 2010 she’s been working in her hometown of Kansas City to increase digital literacy and get more women in technology. Josepha works at Automattic as a community organizer for the WordPress open source project .

Introducing the WordCamp US speakers – Part 4

We’re on a roll announcing speakers, so we figured that we’d bring you another batch! You’ve already seen 36 of our speakers in Part One, Part Two, and Part Three of our speaker post series. Here are 24 more for your viewing pleasure!

Part Four

AAron-BrazellAAron Brazell

Aaron is a Sr. Web Engineer for 10up and has been actively working with WordPress since 2004. He is the author of the WordPress Bible, has done WordPress consulting for large and small clients, before joining 10up in an engineering and DevOps role. He lives in Baltimore where he religiously follows football and soccer, samples beer and practices his photography.

Courtney-OCallaghanCourtney OCallaghan

Courtney OCallaghan is Chief Digital Officer for the Freer and Sackler Galleries at the Smithsonian. She has been obsessed with WordPress since building Ms. magazine’s blog in 2010. She is a professional listener, amateur teacher, vegetarian mom, animal caretaker, people watcher, culture enthusiast, off-hours feminist, book hoarder, designer/coder/other, CA native, proud DC resident, always in search of an ocean.

Frederick-MeyerFrederick Meyer

Fred Meyer is co-editor of WPShout (wpshout.com), which offers weekly WordPress tech tutorials, and co-author of Up and Running (upandrunningwp.com), a multimedia guide to WordPress development. Fred also operates a boutique web agency, Press Up (pressupinc.com), that specializes in WordPress projects.

Judi-KnightJudi Knight

Judi Knight is the founder and chief at New Tricks. When she’s not working with businesses to help them spread their goodness online, she’s probably checking people into the Urban Oasis Bed and Breakfast, planning WordPress events or hanging out with her husband and three Basset Hounds.

Chris WiegmanChris Wiegman

Chris is a Senior Web Engineer for 10up and has been working on WordPress since 2008. Before joining 10up Chris built one of the largest security plugins in the WordPress community as well as numerous other plugins and solutions. When not coding Chris loves to teach and has presented at numerous WordCamps and other conferences as well as taught computer security for St. Edward’s University and other University courses ranging from computers to aviation.

Anthony BubelAnthony Bubel

A proud (suburban) Philadelphia native, Anthony has been at Automattic for the past seven years and currently leads the Akismet team as it fights its way through the world of web spam. He’s been a faithful WordPress user since 2007 and was one of the founding organizers of WordCamp Philly back in 2010.

Brian KrogsgardBrian Krogsgard

Brian is a web developer, writer, and consultant based in Birmingham, Alabama. He’s the editor of Post Status, a news and information website for WordPress professionals. It’s a community-centric project with around 500 members doing incredible things with WordPress.

Timmy CrawfordTimmy Crawford

Right now, in the middle of Oregon, in the outdoor mecca of Bend – Timmy is likely shredding the gnar, wrangling the codes, throwing hooks covered in feathers and thread at trout, chasing around his daughters, running with his bearded dog, or sharing a rare moment of peace with his lovely wife. All the while he is thrilled to be a JavaScript Wrangler at Automattic.

Stephanie BrinleyStephanie Brinley

With a life-long passion for art and a BFA in Graphic Design, Stephanie is a web designer with an emphasis on design. She started freelancing as a print designer many years ago, but found the transition to web design a natural progression. Shortly thereafter, Stephanie and her husband began experimenting with WordPress around version 2.0.2 and built a thriving company around it. In 2011 they moved their family to Jacksonville, FL and rebranded as Flightless. Stephanie has been involved with the Florida WordPress community since 2014 and recently started finding herself on the opposite side of the audience at WordCamps. Most weeks you will find her attempting to balance web design and homeschooling, exploring the world of flavors she can invent in her kitchen, and sometimes on Twitter @sjbrinley.

Ryan RudolphRyan Rudolph

Ryan Rudolph started building websites while attending La Salle University. Shortly after graduation, he became Partner, and CTO at GetPhound, a digital marketing agency located right outside of Philadelphia. Ryan loves the challenge of crafting clean and professional websites for clients.

Robert JollyRobert Jolly

An accessibility-focused Project Manager with nearly 20 years in the industry, Robert has worked on award winning sites for teams including Happy Cog, Simply Accessible, Seven Heads Design, SuperFriendly, and Big Medium. Past clients include Zappos, Georgetown University, Nintendo, Time Inc., RealSimple, ESPN, American Airlines, JetBlue, and many others. When not online, Robert may be found with his family, riding his bike, or at a nearby Waffle House.

Morten Rand-HendriksenMorten Rand-Hendriksen

Morten Rand-Hendriksen built his first website in 1997 and has used the web to further communication between people ever since. He’s a senior staff author at lynda.com, a LinkedIn Company, where he has published 60+ courses on WordPress and front-end development reaching hundreds of thousands of learners world wide. He also teaches web design and development at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. In his spare time he co-organizes the Vancouver WordPress Meetup Group, contributes to WordPress core, and wears out his shoes on a ballroom dance floor.

Michael ArestadMichael Arestad

Michael is a designer at Automattic. He may be a tad obsessed with CSS (especially Sass) and beautiful typography. Michael is currently working at Automattic on some pretty neato WordPress projects.

 

nancy.thankiNancy Thanki

Nancy Thanki is a photographer, filmmaker, and Happiness Engineer. Whether she is tinkering on the web or editing a film, she’s enjoys introducing users and storytellers to visual design and how to avoid the pitfalls of “en vogue” to create products that can withstand the test of rising and falling fashions in typography, photography, moving images, and design.

 

RC LationsRC Lations

RC is the lead developer for the Control Center plugin and works at WetPaint, building marketing tools for WordPress sites. His passion for data and automation fuels his curiosity to connect WordPress to the internet of things and build meaningful experiences where the two intersect.

Luke WoodwardLuke Woodward

Luke Woodward is an engineering manager with 10up, a freaking amazing web agency. He has been working in the WordPress space for 4 years. While he enjoys code and difficult software engineering problems, his real passion is continuous learning. If he has some down time, you’ll likely find Luke listening to podcasts, reading, or writing about a variety of topics ranging from leadership and business to software and graphic design. This passion for learning has pushed Luke to share his knowledge. It’s absolutely true that the best way to learn something is by teaching it. Working through problems with others is the hallmark of a good day for him. Luke can sometimes be a little shy, but he works hard to make everyone know they matter.

Kyle MaurerKyle Maurer

Kyle is the co-founder of a Jackson, Michigan based agency called Real Big Marketing which specializes in using WordPress to solve complicated problems for businesses. He is also the author of and a contributor to dozens of WordPress plugins, is the co-organizer of the Jackson WP meetup, is a co-organizer of WordCamp Ann Arbor, plays in a band and is an aspiring beer snob.

Evan VolgasEvan Volgas

Licensed Caffeine Therapist and Data Geek. Huge lover of dogs, tea, coffee, and cantaloupe. Wanders on purpose. Often gets lost a lot while driving.

 

David MurphyDavid Murphy

Prior to joining Automattic as a code wrangler a year ago David was a engineering manager for Canonical for over seven years, and has over 20 years experience in the industry. He has authored two technical books, numerous articles, and participated in various projects over the years. As a husband, a father of four, and helping to run two schools as a Governor, he is also well practiced at time management!

Gregory CorneliusGregory Cornelius

Gregory Cornelius is a software engineer at HubSpot and WordPress core contributor who brings his passion and thoughtfulness from years of writing and performing music to the craft of web development. Before joining HubSpot, he worked at Automattic on a complete revamp of the WordPress.com dashboard. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife and daughter.

HelenHelen Hou-Sandí

Helen is a lead developer of WordPress and the Director of Platform Experience at 10up, where she contributes to the WordPress open source software project full-time. As a lead developer, she writes and reviews patches and supports community contributors, with special focuses on UI development and pain points commonly experienced in large-scale client work. Having been a professional musician in a previous life, Helen believes in the value of the intersection of technique and artistry in all aspects of life, including software.

Michael ToppaMichael Toppa

Mike Toppa has been coding for the web since the days of HTML 1.0, and he caught the WordPress bug when he wrote his first plugin in 2007. He’s the CTO for Poka Yoke Design, a web consulting firm specializing in WordPress and Ruby on Rails. Mike was previously the Director of Development for WebDevStudios, and he’s also worked at U Penn, Stanford, Georgetown, Ask Jeeves, and E-Trade. Outside of work you will most likely find Mike embroiled in a Nerf gun battle with his two young boys.

Dennis HongDennis Hong

By day, Dennis engineers happiness at WordPress.com. By night, he is a relationships and comedy writer, which can be redundant or an oxymoron, depending on your perspective. Dennis’s experiences as a WordPress user led him to his current job at Automattic, and he’s excited to share everything he’s learned about both the craft and the technical aspects of maintaining a blog.

Charlie ReisingerCharlie Reisinger

Charlie Reisinger is the IT Director at Penn Manor School District in beautiful Lancaster County Pennsylvania. He leads instructional technology programs and school enterprise technical operations. An impassioned advocate for open education and empowering students through technology, Charlie and his team deeply integrate a free and open source philosophy into classroom teaching and learning. He recently launched Pennsylvania’s largest high school 1:1 student laptop learning program using Linux and open source software exclusively.

Introducing the WordCamp US speakers – Part 3

If you’ve been following along at home then you’ve already learned the identities of 24 of our speakers in Part One and Part Two of our speaker post series. Without further ado here are our next 12 featured speakers!

Part Three

 

scott_clarkScott Clark

Scott is a Senior Web Engineer at 10up, Lead Developer of the Pods Framework, and all-around hooked on contributing to WordPress core and other open source projects. He’s happily married and has two beautiful daughters, but in his “free time” he likes to write and play music for his solo project “Soft Charisma”.

david_kennedyDavid Kennedy

David A. Kennedy works as a Theminator at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and many other fine web products. He wrangles themes for WordPress.com, making them the best they can be and ensuring everyone can find a theme they love. He’s also an accessibility evangelist who loves the open web and open source code. He contributes to WordPress Core, the WordPress Accessibility Team and the Underscores starter theme.

Tina_KTina Kesova

Tina is the VP of Strategic Partnerships at SiteGround web hosting company. In her role she is primarily responsible for growing the company client base through partnerships. She oversees the events and affiliates marketing teams through which SiteGround currently recruits the majority of their partners. She has attended numerous WordCamps and other industry events and thanks to her and her team efforts the company has managed to grow their client base and build the successful brand that SiteGround is today.

Morgan_EMorgan Estes

Veteran, family man, coffee enthusiast, and open source contributor; Morgan works with the Core and Documentation teams to patch and enhance WordPress. By day, he’s a Web Engineer with 10up, where he uses WordPress to help make publishing easy (and maybe even fun) for clients, and ElasticPress to help them find it afterwards.

Aaron_EAaron Edwards

CTO of WPMU DEV (140+ premium plugins and support) and Edublogs (hosting 3 million+ education blogs) with a team of 26 developers around the globe. WordPress plugin developer specializing in Multisite for 6 years, working from home in Dallas. Proud father of 3 and a world travel nut.

Kim_SKim Shivler

Kimberly (Kim) Shivler, M.Ed. has been a technical trainer and writer for over 20 years. She learned HTML in 1995 building help files as a UNIX system administrator and opened her first web development company in 1996. Since then, Kim has worked as a business owner and employee in a variety of fields including a few years as part of an IBM worldwide team. Between 2008 and 2012, she worked with a variety of Content Management Systems and ran an online membership site for skincare professionals using Drupal. In 2012, Kim found WordPress and never looked back at any other CMS. She has been creating online courses in WordPress since 2013 and currently combines her background in education, years of business experience, and WordPress experience to teach others how to build online courses and membership websites.

Eric_MEric Mann

Eric Mann is a seasoned web developer with experience in languages from JavaScript to Ruby to C#. He has been building websites of all shapes and sizes for the better part of a decade and continues to experiment with new technologies and techniques. Eric is a Lead Web Engineer at 10up (http://10up.com) where he focuses on developing high-end web solutions powered by WordPress.

Anthony_d_pAnthony D. Paul

I help build great digital experiences and software through usability research, IA concepts, and prototypes. Outside the office, you’ll find me spread across regional meetups and conferences—evangelizing IA/UX, accessibility, and a variety of open source dev projects. When I’m not doing responsible adult things, I grow the world’s hottest chili peppers and bottle my own hot sauce. I’d divulge something funny from my past, but these days the Internet does a better job of surfacing our embarrassing moments; find me anywhere by Googling “anthonydpaul”.

Andrea_RAndrea Rennick

When you think of quilting grandmothers, you probably don’t think of Andrea. And yet – she is a grandma to three, creates WordPress tshirt quilts, and is a Customer Tech Support Lead for Rainmaker Digital. Excessively friendly, Andrea has been a long term volunteer, recovering freelancer, author and all around community evangelist. Make sure you introduce yourself!

Paul_SPaul Schreiber

Paul Schreiber has been building for the web since 1995. He spent eight years as an Mac OS X engineer at Apple, served as the founding CTO at TurboVote, codeveloped the 2008 Obama campaign’s voter registration tool and built Admitting Failure for Engineers Without Borders Canada. When he’s not making FiveThirtyEight hum, Paul can be found baking cakes, hosting house concerts, playing hockey and doing crossword puzzles in ink.

Dmitry_MDmitry Mayorov

Dmitry is a freelance web designer and developer. He builds custom themes and plugins for WordPress. Founder of a theme shop called ThemePatio. Loves meaningful typography, beautiful color schemes, maintainable code and the smell of a good coffee in the morning.

Shayda_TShayda Torabi

Shayda Torabi is a Product Marketer at WP Engine living in her hometown of Austin, Texas. She is a WordPress community advocate having been to over 30 WordCamps worldwide, and she’s never met a WordCamp she hasn’t had the time of her life at. In her spare time she can be found food blogging at www.DineWithShayda.com, hiking a national park, or hanging out on twitter @shaptora.

 

 

Philadelphia is ready for you!

Philadelphia SkylineWe are coming up on one of the most exciting weeks for Philadelphia—WordCamp US 2015! At about a month away we’re getting ready to make some big announcements! We’ve told you about the locations for WordCamp, Contributor Day, and the Community Summit. We’ve shared with you 24 of our amazing speakers (there are more to come tomorrow), and of course we’ve let you know where to stay and how to purchase tickets.

But there is so much more to come. In the next week we’ll roll out announcements about the rest of our phenomenal speakers followed by the full schedule. Leading up to the event there’ll be posts about our generous sponsors, food recommendations, coffee recommendations, a list of must see places, the unveiling of our after party location, and a few surprises.

Because Philadelphia is ready for you.

We’ve been prepping city officials, residents, and our many tech groups about the significance of holding the inaugural WordCamp US in Philadelphia and wow they are excited. I mean really excited. The city is ready to welcome you with open arms and full plates; because food. Have we mentioned the food yet? No matter what your preference, Philly has you covered. From James Beard award winning chefs to the famous Philly cheesesteak, you will fall in love with our food. Side note, you can totally run the Rocky stairs a few times if you want to burn off the extra calories.

The Pennsylvania Convention Center can’t wait to welcome us.

WordCamp US has a private entrance known as the Broad Street Atrium. Completed in in 2012, this section of the Convention Center is adorned with floor to ceiling windows at registration, a concourse full of sunlight, and state of the art A/V equipment. There will be yoga during registration, a quiet area if you need a break, a bar full of experts ready and willing to help you with your WordPress needs, and wonderful sponsors waiting to talk to you. And swag. There will be awesome stickers and swag.

The Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown Hotel is kind of a pseudo headquarters.

Most attendees in need of overnight accommodations will be staying there so the party won’t stop! The hotel will be teeming with speakers, sponsors, volunteers, and fellow attendees.  If you arrive the day before, you’ll be able to stop by our early registration table in the lobby to pick up your badge. That’s right, you could skip the lines at the Convention Center and stroll right in to a yoga class or opening remarks. Plus there’s a coffee shop for your morning pick me up and a great bar and restaurant to help wrap up your long day. Some of the rooms have crystal clear views of the Art Museum so you an watch your fellow WordCampers work off their cheesesteaks. From the Sheraton it’s a brief walk to the Convention Center, Community Summit, and After Party Venue.

The knowledge and friends you will gain are the perfect way to wind down 2015.

One thing that stands out above all at any WordCamp is the information you take with you. This event is specifically designed to cover all levels of WordPress abilities, from enthusiasts to advanced developers. Regardless of your comfort level, you are going to find sessions tailored to you. The only thing that can rival the benefit of knowledge gained is the camaraderie. Whether it’s the new people you meet or the friends you haven’t seen in a while you’ll, get to share your days with a bunch of folks who want to be there as much as you!

If you’ve been putting off buying tickets, booking your room, or making your travel plans now is the time. We look forward to seeing you in December!

Introducing the WordCamp US speakers – Part 2

It was only a few days ago that we brought you Part One of our speaker lineup, and we couldn’t be happier with it. Yet one round of speakers just won’t do. We have so many more speakers to announce. There’s going to be such incredible content at WordCamp US, you’re just not going to know what to do with yourself.

Welcome to Part Two

sarah-presslerSarah Pressler

I’ve been working with WordPress for the past 8 years, and directly in the field of Digital Project Management for the past 3 years. I’ve been working with the team at ServerPress.com for the past year, where I’m serving as Director of Steve, Marc, and Gregg. I get to manage fun, engaging, and exciting enterprise level WordPress builds over at PlainMade.com and CodeBrainMedia.com. I’ve also recently joined the team at WPDevelopersClub.com to assist with marketing and communications. I have been building communities and working online since the mid 90’s, and I live near Austin, TX.

Erica-varleseErica Varlese

Erica Varlese works at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, on the Happiness Hiring team. When she’s not glued to her laptop, she likes to practice photography, fawn over her dog, and espouse the various wonders of New Jersey.

David-BissetDavid Bisset

David is a full-time freelancer and WordPress developer living in South Florida (Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area). His work focuses on consulting businesses while building themes and plugins (and dabs in front-end development). Specializes in BuddyPress. David is also speaker at various conferences, helps run the local WordPress meetups, and is a conference organizer (has been involved with WordCamp Miami for over seven years). He is a father to twin 6yr. daughters and a 11yr. old daughter that already wants to be a coder. Oh yes… loves his wife too.

Luca-SartoniLuca Sartoni

Luca Sartoni is a media professional with more than a decade of technical and marketing expertise. Thanks to his extensive experience in business environments ranging from SMEs to large corporate projects, Luca helps companies scale up by implementing data-driven strategies. He does not believe in Santa Claus, magic spells and everything not backed by facts. Luca is a Growthketeer at Automattic.

Patrick-RaulandPatrick Rauland

Patrick lives in Denver Colorado and loves yoga, minimalism, running, & board games. He’s an author, poly, and the Product Manager for #WooCommerce at Automattic.

 

Lisa-MelegariLisa Melegari

Lisa Melegari is a web content writer, social media manager, and all-around web nerd, currently working at We Do Web Content, Inc. Her work passions include ghostwriting eBooks, fixing minor WordPress issues on her clients’ sites, creating infographics and any projects where her odd creativity can be put to use. Outside of work, she organizes the WordPress Orlando meetups and WordCamp Orlando, as well as advises her home chapter of the Alpha Phi Omega co-ed service fraternity at her alma mater, the University of Central Florida. She lives in Deltona, FL with 11 cats and enjoys traveling, Japanese things, video games, and cooking.

Sara-CannonSara Cannon

Sara Cannon is Partner and Creative Director at Range. She loves design, typography, user experience, and art. Sara loves giving talks around the globe on web design, responsive design, web typography, and more. A seasoned designer, Sara has done work for clients such as Disney Publishing and Flickr. She loves open source, her pets, traveling, and WordPress.

Andrea-BadgleyAndrea Badgley

Andrea Badgley is a writer and Happiness Engineer with Automattic. She has been blogging on her Butterfly Mind site for four years, and her writing appears in Southern Women’s Review, on the Brevity blog, and on WordPress.com’s Daily Post. She grew up on the coast of Georgia and now lives with her husband and two children in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia. You can also follow her writing at Andrea Reads America, where she chronicles her literary tour of the US, and on Twitter @andreabadgley.

Ryan-DuffRyan Duff

Ryan Duff has been working with WordPress since early 2004 and was the original author of the WordPress Contact Form plugin. As a long time community member, he enjoys exploring new ways to make use of WordPress. Making things simple for clients and pushing the envelope of what’s possible is at the core of that. Ryan is a developer by nature so he focuses primarily on back end architecture and less on design. He’s also an experienced linux sysadmin with a few years under his belt. Over the past couple of years he’s given various WordCamp talks highlighting these skills. He also runs the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania WordPress meetup group.

Sara-CopeSara Cope

Sara Cope is a project manager and developer with the U.S. federal government, operations guru at CSS-Tricks and co-founder & instructor for Girl Develop It Dayton. WordPress is her weapon of choice and digital gov is her passion. She is a lifelong midwesterner, working remote from Dayton, Ohio. When Sara isn’t immersed in all things web, she can be found playing tabletop games and supporting her local park system.

Tracy-RottonTracy Rotton

Tracy Rotton is the Front-End Architect for RP3 Agency and is passionate about creating responsive web experiences for their clients. She is also a WordPress core contributor, speaker, and instructor at General Assembly in Washington, D.C. Away from her computer, Tracy is obsessed with skiing, football, and her two children.

Carl-AlexanderCarl Alexander

Carl Alexander is a PHP developer that loves learning and teaching advanced technology topics. He publishes articles about them on his blog on a regular basis. It’s his way to help you with these hard-to-learn topics. Besides that, he’s been a WordPress Montréal organizer since 2010. He helps organize WordCamp Montréal and other WordPress events during the year. You can find him on Twitter and GitHub.

Please join us in congratulating our second round of speakers!