Hello WordPress friends and blogging neighbors! I (Morgan Senkal) am thrilled to take over the fabulous work that Aaron Hockley has done with WordCamp here in Portland. My two goals for this event are:
Make WordCamp Portland 2010 as fabulous as last year
Make it even better, if that is even possible!
I decided that the very first [...]
We have a couple changes to announce for our Saturday lineup of speakers at WordCamp Portland. Unfortunately Micah Baldwin will be unable to attend, but I’m excited to announce that Shayne Sanderson will now be a featured presenter.
Shayne is owner of S-Tastic Designs where he offers WordPress-related support, design and consulting services. He also works for Instinct Entertainment (makers of WP Ecommerce) providing support and custom modifications. He has presented at several WordCamps this year including Las Vegas, Raleigh and Los Angeles.
Shayne will be presenting on WPMU and Ecommerce.
Saturday’s schedule and order of speakers has changed a bit; see the agenda page for the updated schedule.
We have a great addition to our lineup of presenters at WordCamp Portand; WordPress founding developer Matt Mullenweg will be here to lead a “Town Hall” style Q&A discussion about all things WordPress.
I’m sure the topics will go in a variety of directions once the ideas start flowing, but we’d love to have a few starter questions to kick things off. If you’ve got a question you’ve been dying to ask the man behind WordPress, leave it as a comment here. We’ll pick out a few to start the discussion (and anything that doesn’t get chosen is fair game to be asked from the audience).
We only have a few seats left for WordCamp Portland… if you were thinking of waiting until the last minute, that time would be now. Go sign up. Then continue reading this post to see what else we’ll have for you.
Some other WordCamps have a talk on SEO, but that wouldn’t be good enough for Portland…. no, we have the SEO Smackdown panel!
We’ll have a couple SEO professionals who think that SEO is very important for every blogger (Scott Hendison and Amber Case), along with a couple bloggers who think that SEO is overrated (Dawn Foster and Rick Turoczy). Moderator Nate DiNiro will ask some pointed questions to our panel along with fielding responses from the audience.
Speaking of interesting speakers… WordPress guru Lorelle VanFossen will join us and present Tags and Categories: Are You Uncategorized? – a look at how tags and categories can be used to both aid blog readers and also drive and maintain traffic on your blog.
I’m excited to announce two more great speakers for WordCamp Portland:
Cami, the host and creator of tech podcast Strange Love Live, is a tattooed, boot wearing, twitter obsessed blogger from Portland, OR. Mike (Dr. Normal), producer and co-creator of Strange Love Live, has created digital media and worked in the high tech industry for over 20 years. Follow Cami and Mike on Twitter.
Will Norris is a software engineer specializing in identity related protocols such as OpenID, OAuth, and SAML. As a developer on the DiSo Project, he maintains a number of WordPress plugins which implement many of these technologies and seek to enable social interaction between distributed blogs. He lives with his wife in Portland, and can be found online at http://willnorris.com.
Will Norris photo by Scott Kveton, used under Creative Commons
I’m excited to announce a couple more speakers for WordCamp Portland.
John Hawkins has worked in every aspect of the internet marketing field for over 15 years and is the Director of Online Marketing for Las Vegas-based PartnerWeekly.com. A WordPress evangelist, plugin hacker and self-proclaimed geek, John is the organizer of WordCamp:Las Vegas 2009. In his spare, time he blogs at JohnHawkinsUnrated.com, is an avid Twitterer, talks WordPress at a weekly Beer and Blog meetup, enjoys photography and spending time with his wife and two teenagers. John’s website, Twitter.
Garron is a real estate agent turned web developer that became obsessed with interactive maps and now WordPress. His projects include complex and informative geotagging projects that use WordPress and BuddyPress as the infrastructure. To find out more, follow him on Twitter. Garron’s website, Twitter.
I’m excited to announce the first group of speakers for WordCamp Portland 2009. We’ve got a great lineup of folks with expertise in a variety of areas. There will be other speakers announced prior to the event, along with all sorts of unconference sessions throughout the weekend. Stay tuned!
Micah is VP and Chief Evangelist for Lijit Networks, a Boulder, CO startup which provides publishers a robust search and stats tool. Lijit is Micah’s sixth startup, (having sold his last startup, Current Wisdom, in the beginning of 2007). A frequent speaker, you can read more about Micah’s philosophy of success through failure at his blog, Learn To Duck. Micah’s website, Twitter.
Jason was one of the project leads on the Obama iPhone Application and helped design the user inferface for the Wall Street Journal’s Blackberry application. He founded and organizes Mobile Portland, a local mobile development user group. He has spent the last 11 years building web sites professionally before being bitten by the mobile bug prompting him to throw caution to the wind and start a new company (Cloud Four) focused on mobile and web development. Jason’s website, Twitter.
Scott Porad is the Cheezburger Technology Officer of Pet Holdings, Inc., the company behind I Can Has Cheezburger? and Failblog.org. The Cheezburger Network is a collection of web sites where everyday millions of people share moments of joy through the humor and wonder of LOL. Previously, Scott focused on online retailing at drugstore.com, and online media and content management systems for ESPN.com at Paul Allen’s Starwave. Scott’s website, Twitter.
Tyler Sticka is a designer, artist, speaker and educator specializing in identity-driven new media. He has created web sites, branding, iconography and illustration for clients large and small since 2002. In addition to speaking at events like WebVisions and Refresh Portland, Tyler crafts experiences at McAfee Design Studio and teaches a web standards course at the Art Institute of Portland. His love for WordPress is only exceeded by his love for comic books and rock n’ roll. Tyler’s website, Twitter
Duane Storey is a Vancouver (BC) based blogger and the co-founder of BraveNewCode, a WordPress design and development company based in Canada. He has co-developed and open-sourced approximately ten WordPress plugins, including the WordTwit twitter plugin and the WPtouch iPhone theme for WordPress — both of which were recently announced as two of the top three WordPress plugins during WordCamp San Francisco. Duane’s website, Twitter
Additional speakers will be announced in the coming weeks; registration is expected to open in mid-July.
Overheard
