Here are our incredible speakers!
Bill Robbins
Bill is a WordPress theme developer from here in Birmingham. He’s been selling themes at Organized Themes for 3 years now and absolutely can’t believe he gets to do this for a living. When he’s not developing, you can usually find him chasing his three little boys at the park.
Bill will be speaking on: Using a Network Installation to Distribute Content to a Family of Sites
Brian Krogsgard
Brian is a WordPress fanatic. He lives in Birmingham, AL, where he’s the lead WordPress developer for Infomedia. He is also a contributing editor at WPCandy, a popular blog about WordPress. He even blogs occasionally about WordPress and web development at krogsgard.com and tweets as @krogsgard.
Brian will be speaking on: “WordPress for Beginners“
Carol Shepherd
Carol Shepherd, principal consultant at Tech Zest Advisors, excels at transforming concepts into working software. She has a zeal for working with both technology and people. Using a variety of creative techniques, she helps others to think creatively through software development challenges. Her communication, information design, and prototyping skills empower her to transition easily from an over arching strategy and design into technical architecture and software construction concerns. – occasionally “code happens” at the end of the process.
A self confessed plugin nut — compulsive about finding, categorizing, and evaluating them – she recently helped to usher three new plugins into the WordPress repository. Currently, she is designing and building an iPad application for preschoolers.
Found a new plugin? Tweet Carol @techzestadvisor.
Carol will be speaking on: “3rd Party Plugin Integrations and Signup: How can we improve the user experience“
Christopher Reding
Christopher was born and raised in the great state of Alabama. He is intensely curious which is what led him to his first Wordcamp 3 years ago where he caught the WP_Fever. Since then Chris has been involved in several WordPress projects ranging from simple to overly complex. He passionately seeks new methods of interacting with WordPress expanding the possibilities of what can be created or accomplished.
When not making awesome on the internet Chris likes to spend time with his wife, the amazing Julie Reding, and their new baby, Kellen Christopher Reding. You can find Chris in most social communities ( including Twitter, Facebook, Github, etc. ) under the creding username.
Christopher will be speaking on: “Beyond the browser: Creating a restful webservice with WordPress to power an app or act as an API”
Cliff Seal
Cliff lives in Atlanta, GA, working mostly with NPO’s and small businesses to create effective, creative online media through his company Logos Creative, LLC and full-time at Mt. Bethel UMC. Since discovering WordPress several years ago, he’s become an evangelist for its extensibility and user-friendliness. These days, you can find him using WordPress to build sites clients rave about (and continue to love) or to make useful tools like MusicGrid.me. Follow Cliff at cliffseal.com or @cliffseal
Cliff will be speaking on: Empowering NPO’s With WordPress
Dan Gavin
Dan hails from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He spent most of his childhood and high school years playing soccer and drawing.
Dan loves interactive and exploring the possibilities of WordPress. He also enjoys designing for print projects and is fascinated with newsprint. While not working at Scout Branding Company, Dan enjoys fixed gear bikes, short walks on the beach, and typography.
Dan will be speaking on: “Responsive Web Design“
Dougal Campbell
Dougal was one of the original WordPress developers, contributing features such as XML-RPCAPI support, Post Custom Fields, mass re-enabling of plugins, and Conditional GET support for feeds.
He has contributed several plugins to the WordPress ecosystem over the years, including Fancybox Gallery, Easy Gravatars, and a filter for Talk Like a Pirate Day which has been subsequently adapted for numerous other systems including Drupal and Joomla.
Dougal will be presenting on: “CSI: WordPress — Getting Into the Guts“
George Ortiz
George Ortiz (@grgortiz) is a part-time developer and full-time startup junkie from the silicon slopes of Salt Lake City, Utah where he builds PressTrends, Storefront Themes, Explorer.io, and advises startups throughout the rockies.
Jane Wells
Jane, a Georgia resident living in Tybee Island, is the UI/UX lead for WordPress, and manages the open source project. She’s worked with web design and usability for a dozen years, and has been employed with Automattic for the last three. In addition to speaking at WordCamp Birmingham, Jane will be there to represent WordCamp Central, the WordPress Foundation, and the WordPress core team, so if you have any questions for her she’d love for you to introduce yourself at WCBHM .
Check out more from Jane at jane.wordpress.com
Follow Jane on Twitter @janeforshort
Jane will be doing a full conference session titled: “WordPress Bingo with Jane!”
Joel Norris
joel r norris has been troubleshooting code since his dad brought home a vic-20 in 1983. He got his first taste of the internet in 1996 when a friend coaxed him into taking an information technologies class, and he’s been hooked on pushing information thru wires ever since. He has a Degree in Interactive Media Design from the Art Institute of Nashville and has been on board with WordPress since version 2.7. When he’s not sifting through error logs or prodding bits of DOM about with jQuery, he’s probably chasing the kids around the house as Bowser…
Joel will be speaking on “Using Theme Frameworks for rapid development and sustainability“
John Housholder
John Housholder is a Nashville, TN based WordPress designer and developer who develops sites mostly on the Genesis platform. He also runs Ah So which specializes in responsive theme designs and WordPress ecommerce and teaches web development at the Art Institute of Tennessee. You can follow his business ramblings at @ahsodesigns or personal insight on jorts, the web, and his dog Dunn at @jhous1.
John will be speaking on: WordPress Ecommerce: Not so scary anymore!
Judi Knight
Judi Knight is a successful entrepreneur who has recreated herself several times over: a Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist, CEO of a Medical Records Software Company, and an innovative Real Estate Developer. Six Years ago, Judi fell for WordPress and her passion grew into the creation of her WordPress web design company, New Tricks. Judi is the coordinator of the Atlanta WordPress Meetup Group with over 800 members and is the co-organizer of WordCamp Atlanta Feb 3-4 2012.
Judi will be speaking on: “Oh My, So Many to Choose From.. . How to Pick a Theme“
Karla Archer
Karla Archer is a local web and print designer, technophile, writer and idea generator.
For web design, WordPress and the Genesis framework are her weapons of choice. (and dark chocolate and coffee are her fuel.)
Prior to joining Archer Creative, Karla ran Fruition Designs, an online graphic design boutique. Originally specializing in print design, her leap into blogging in 2005 made the decision to learn web design and coding an easy one.
When not designing and writing for others, she blogs at KarlaArcher.com and LivingTheLifeFantastic.com. She, only half-jokingly, refers to them as “the cobbler’s children” because both are desperately awaiting new makeovers and blog posts of their own.
And yes: she really did find love on Twitter (@KarlaArcher)
Karla will be speaking on: “Blogging and Dating: Not so Different. What your business or brand needs to know for attracting visitors.“
Kelly Housholder
Kelly Housholder is the founder of From Scratch Design, a graphic design collaborative. She designs for both print and web and is passionate about typography, usability, details and organization. You can see her work at fromscratchdesign.com. Kelly considers herself a free radical and enjoys sharing her love of freelancing with those aspiring to go out on their own. She loves WordPress(!), starts each morning with a cup of hot chocolate and would not get anything done without her office manager The Binks.
Kelly will be speaking on: “Running Your Freelance Business: a workshop“
Marna Friedman
Marna Friedman is a Business Strategist using WordPress as the platform of choice for her clients. Over the past two years, she has increased her education in WordPress and likes to share what she learns with others. She thinks outside the box, and frequently pushes the envelope to find unique ways to implement functionality into WordPress sites. One of her websites A Plugin For That, focuses completely on WordPress and what’s possible. Besides WordPress, Marna works with clients on business strategies including events, social media and self-publishing, and frequently can be found teaching and speaking on these topics.
Marna will be speaking on: “There’s a Plugin for That“
Micah Wood
Micah Wood is a WordPress ninja. Literally. He has 17 years of martial arts experience in four different styles and can write some “killer” code. Starting as a WordPress white belt at version 2.9, he quickly worked his way up the ranks to become the professional WordPress developer he is today. He is currently working with Mike Schinkel of NewClarity LLC to develop Sunrise, an open-source platform based on WordPress that targets the needs of professional site builders. Being stealthy in nature, Micah also works as a ghost-SEO for a firm in Australia. When he allows himself to be seen, it is usually with his wife Megan and two beautiful children, Ady and Chloe.
Micah will be presenting on: “Doing Ajax in WordPress“
Michael Fields
Michael Fields is a Theme Wrangler for Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. He makes awesome stuff for awesome people every day. When he’s not wrangling themes, he likes to drink beer and make art. You can also find him on Twitter @_mfields
Michael Fields will be speaking on: “Extendable Extensions”
Mike Schinkel
Mike is from Atlanta, GA and is a serial entrepreneur whose guilty pleasure is developing WordPress plugins. His company NewClarity LLC builds OEM/white-labeled WordPress-based CMS for SaaS companies and vertical-market software vendors with a global team. In 2010 Mike co-hosted “The Business Of WordPress Conference” in Atlanta, and he is now working with his team to develop Sunrise, an open-source platform based on WordPress that targets the needs of professional site builders.
Mike Schinkel will be speaking on: “Hardcore Custom Post Types“
Mitcho
mitcho (Michael 芳貴 Erlewine) is a linguist, coder, and teacher in Cambridge, MA. He is the developer of the popular Yet Another Related Posts Plugin and HookPress, developed ShrimpTest with Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com), has spoken at WordCamps around the world, and is a founding organizer of WordCamp Boston. He has previously worked at Mozilla and has been a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan. He is currently a PhD student in linguistics at MIT.
Mitcho is speaking on: “Relate all the things!“
Nathan Ingram
Nathan Ingram is the owner of Brilliant Web Media, a web development group based in Alabaster, Alabama. He began professional web site development in 1995 and has since built sites big and small and lived through clients good and bad. After many years building custom web sites in Dreamweaver, Nathan found WordPress and has never looked back.
As a writer, Nathan produces tutorials and eBooks for WordPress Developers at WebDesign.com, where he serves as Technical Editor. He is also the Technology Columnist for Shelbyco Magazine, the Business and Lifestyle Magazine of Shelby County, Alabama.
Nathan will be speaking on “How to WorryProof WordPress: Backup Strategies for Your Web Site.”
Ryan Imel
Ryan Imel is a web developer and entrepreneur living in the US Midwest. He’s also the Editor-in-Chief of WPCandy, a blog all about WordPress. You can follow him on Twitter @ryanimel.
Ryan will be speaking on: “100 Plugins You Need In Your Life“
Ryan Roenigk
Ryan and his family live in Carrollton, Georgia. He founded Roenigk Digital Craft in 2003 in Birmingham and loves to deliver good work in Alabama, Georgia and beyond. Ryan’s company tries to break something every day in the name of helping clients make progress. Before starting his own company, Ryan was a consultant with Arthur Andersen (150,000 employees) in Washington, D.C., a project manager with iXL (3,300 employees) in New York and a director with Outweb (100 employees) in Atlanta. He was on a course toward smaller teams with greater focus when Kelly Housholder introduced him to WordPress in 2007… and the rest is history.
Ryan will be speaking on: “5 Tips for Success When the Project Team Involves More Than Just You“
Samuel “Otto” Wood
Samuel Wood, better known to the WordPress community as “Otto”, lives in Memphis, Tennessee, the Birthplace of Rock and Roll. Otto is a Tech Ninja at Audrey Capital, Matt Mullenweg’s investment and research company. When not hacking away at WordPress or the WordPress.org website, he spends his time homebrewing or scuba diving or searching out the best BBQ he can find, which he will always say is in Memphis.
Otto will be speaking on: “Fun with Integration: Using WordPress APIs to connect sites to everything else.“
Sheri Bigelow
Sheri fills her days by helping people make beautiful WordPress.com websites. When not taking apart CSS, she can be found breaking nginx, optimizing WordPress, shooting photography, skiing in the Rockies, or paddling in the Adirondacks. She splits time between Saratoga Springs, NY and wherever her travels lead. In a past life, she earned a Bachelor’s in Business and a Chemistry minor from the University of Utah and spent eight years managing websites for Myriad Genetics in Salt Lake City. DesignSimply.com
Sheri will be presenting on: “Crackerjack CSS: Basics & Best Practices“
Stephanie True Moss
Stephanie is an Atlanta area WordPress, Web and Creative QR Code Designer. She helps clients understand QR Codes, how to create them, their proper use, tracking and analytics, and most importantly whether or not to use them! Her blog QRmedia.us is a repository of all things QR Code. Look for Stephanie Sunday evenings on Twitter where she co-moderates the #QRchat as @truemc. She has been invited to speak about QR Codes and the mobile web at many conferences around the country. Stephanie grew up in Birmingham, but left kicking and screaming when her family moved to Athens, Georgia the week before her senior year at Berry High School. She returns whenever possible even attending last year’s WordCamp Birmingham.
Stephanie will be speaking on: “Scan it! Incorporating QR codes into WordPress”
Stephen Burge
Stephen Burge grew up in and around Portsmouth in southern England. He comes from a long line of teachers and soon became one himself. Teaching never made him rich, but it did pay the bills during years living abroad in Wales, Mexico, Japan, Australia, and the United States.
During his travels he dabbled with building Web sites and in 2003 discovered Mambo, the predecessor to Joomla.Three years later, his evening job as a web designer was making him more money than this day job as a teacher. So, now living in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States, he founded Alledia.com, a company dedicated to building open source web sites.
After a few years and few dozen web sites, Stephen started to feel the urge to teach again. A friend asked him to teach a class in Chicago: He tried it and loved it. The reintroduction to teaching lead to more classes in Atlanta, New York,Washington, and other cities.They went well enough that Stephen ended up combing his two careers and became a full-time open source teacher. He now runs OSTraining.com which teaches thousands of people online and live every year. OSTraining clients include Apple, Pfizer and the U.S. Departments of Energy, Education and Commerce.
Steve will be speaking on: “How to Make Great Tutorial WordPress Videos“
Tammy Hart
Tammy Hart is a local Web Designer and WordPress developer that specializes in creating custom blogs and websites. She has spoken at several WordPress and Technology conferences and blogs on those topics at Tammy Hart Designs. She is currently developing a fully supported WordPress plugin for easily adding recipes to your blog posts called ReciPress. Tammy is passionate about a clean User Interface and a great User Experience. When it comes to the technical side of blogging, she has all the right moves.
Tammy will be speaking on: “Enqueues, Includes, and Defines, Oh my! The foundations of plugin and theme development”
Vid Luther
Vid is currently the CEO and Founder of ZippyKid – The best WordPress Hosting company. According to briggs-meyers he’s an INTJ, so this speaking gig is especially hard on him, but not as hard as writing this bio. He’s been on the internet since Gopher, he remembers having to pay for a web browser, and configuring SLIP connections. Having worked in NYC during the dot com bubble, he has the experience and perspective that can help break down technology and trends into a language humans can understand. In addition to running ZippyKid, he’s also a mentor in the Techstars Incubator network, where he gets to share his experience and knowledge with other up and coming entrepreneurs, and hope that they don’t launch the next pets.com.
Vid will be speaking on: “WordPress for Business – You have an SEO’d website that’s fast, now what?“
Wade Kwon
Communications consultant and Birmingham Blogging Academy founder Wade Kwon has written thousands of blog posts and created blogs big and small. He loves to tell stories, in person and in print and online as Birmingham’s Best Blogger. The Poynter Institute selected Kwon as one of 35 Influential People in Social Media. Birmingham Magazine readers selected him as Best Tweeter 2 years running in the Best of B’ham 2010 and 2011 online polls. Twitter: @WadeOnTweets
Wade will be speaking on: “How to Win Awards and Influence Readers in 439 Days and 668 Posts“
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