Sessions

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Developers: Getting Involved With BuddyPress

What This Session Is About:

In this session we will take a look at how developers can get involved with BuddyPress, and how this differs from contirbuing to WordPress.


John James Jacoby

Project lead for BuddyPress and bbPress. WordPress contributor, BackPress supporter. Cranky driver. Puppy whisperer. Naps required. Currently the Director of Web Engineering at 10up.

Open Q&A And Closing Remarks

bbPress 101

BuddyPress Theme Dos/Donts

The Best Of BuddyPress Plugins

What This Session Is About:

In this session we will take a look at different BuddyPress plugins and discuss their features and functions so that you can build a community that people enjoy using. We will discuss what turns a BuddyPress site into a community and talk about different ways that you can recruit members via social media channels without being a nuisance. This session is intended for those new to BuddyPress and for those who might already have a BuddyPress website but are looking to add to the core functionality. Get ready to learn how to create a rocking community!

1. rtMedia for WordPress, BuddyPress and bbPress
2. Social Auth WordPress Plugin (Premium)
3. BuddyPress Social
4. iFlyChat – Real Time WordPress Chat Plugin
5. BuddyPress Group Email Subscription
6. BuddyPress Profiles Statistics (Premium)
7. Eyes Only: User Access Shortcode
8. WangGuard
9. BP Profile Search
10.Private BP Pages


Karla Campos

Karla Campos is the CEO of Social Media Sass a company specializing in digital marketing training and education. Social Media Sass has trained individuals in topics like WordPress, Joomla, social media, crowdfunding, blogging, content and SEO to name a few. Karla is a speaker, the winner of a Small Business Influencer award for 2013 and the author of Chronicles of a Social Media Addict. On her spare time Karla likes to build websites for her startup ideas and writes for different blogs. Karla holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Technical Management.

Building Mobile Apps With BuddyPress

What This Session Is About:

In this session we will take a look at how BuddyPress might be used in building a mobile app.


Brian Messenlehner

Brian is the co-founder of WebDevStudios.com, a web development company that specializes in building all things WordPress. He is also the co-founder of AppPresser.com, a WordPress based framework for building iOS and Android Apps.

Brian started his career as a software developer for the U.S. Marines with a focus on building web applications and relational databases for the Marine Corps Logistics Command. After the Marines, and prior to WebDevStudios he worked at a law firm in New Jersey building custom web applications to identify and track insurance and healthcare fraud for clients such as Allstate and Encompass.

Brian loves WordPress in his spare time! He is the co-author of the book ”Building Web Apps with WordPress” by O’Reilly Media, which is about leveraging WordPress as an Application Framework and he is the organizer of the New Jersey WordPress Meetup Group.

Brian enjoys learning about new technology and believes open source software like WordPress is the key to successful cost effective web solutions in any situation.

Follow Brian on Twitter at: @bmess, @webdevstudios, @apppresser, and @bwawwp

Scaling BuddyPress

What This Session Is About:

Can your BuddyPress site handle a high volume of traffic? Yes! I will teach you how to scale a BuddyPress site, covering best practices, ideal server setup, caching, content delivery, and more.


Michael Eisenwasser

Michael Eisenwasser is the driving force behind BuddyBoss, an incredibly popular and well-supported BuddyPress theme. He previously managed the development and growth of SongLyrics.com, one of the most highly-trafficked websites in the world with over 100 million annual visitors. Michael is a knowledgeable and fun speaker, leaving audiences at WordPress events and major universities in total awe. His personal achievements are also mesmerizing.

BuddyPress 2.0 And Beyond

What This Session Is About:

We will be covering the current features of BuddyPress 2.0, the state of BuddyPress in general, and what is coming in the near future for BuddyPress.


John James Jacoby

Project lead for BuddyPress and bbPress. WordPress contributor, BackPress supporter. Cranky driver. Puppy whisperer. Naps required. Currently the Director of Web Engineering at 10up.

BuddyPress 101

General WordPress Q&A

Troubleshooting WordPress

Plugins

All About WordPress Themes

Getting Started with WP

Installation and Setup

Buying Domain Names / Selecting Hosting / WordPress .ORG vs .COM

WordCamp For Kids

During this special session, we will walk kids and their parents through the process of setting up a new WordPress.com account and how to get started blogging and publishing content to the Internet.

This class is geared towards 8-12 year olds, however, any age is welcome to attend (space permitting). Parents must be present for children under 13 and all attendees must bring a laptop. Children under the age of 18 can attend without charge with a paid adult (parent) ticket. You must signup to attend this event.

This is designed to be an interactive class, so participation and questions are welcomed and required. After the workshop, they can stay for lunch, and if they are up for it they are welcomed to go to the other sessions in the afternoon if you are supervising them.

Because it’s Mother’s Day, the first post the kid’s write on their blog will be dedicated to their moms or significant others. We can’t think of a better geeky way to celebrate Mother’s Day.

If you are interested, please signup as soon as possible.

Thanks to Our Kids Workshop Sponsor: Dreamhost!

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Working With a Pesky Host

What This Session Is About:

Many of us have jumped back and forth from host to host for several years trying to find the perfect solution. Some of us have found our perfect solution and others of us are still struggling. In many cases though, we don’t have a choice on what host we get to use. This usually ends up in hours of extra work for many of us. In this talk, we will explore methods on how to reduce your troubleshooting time with those unique off-the-wall hosts and how to work in your clients in these unique situations.


David Parsons

David Parsons, a Computer Science major at the University of Central Florida, has been working with WordPress for over six years now. His passion for the web originally started by making a simple website with WordPress. Over the years he has been branched out his skill set with responsive design, web apps, SEO, theme development, plugin development and Compass & SASS enhanced stylesheets. Recently David has been spending a lot of his spare time speaking at local events such as the local Orlando WordPress Meetup Group, BarCamp Orlando, BarCamp Tampa and more recently WordCamp Miami.

WordPress Beginner’s Q&A

What This Session Is About:

This session is reserved for anyone to ask our panel of speakers about any topic or question related to using WordPress. Wondering what the best plugin is for your site? Or maybe you want to learn more about WordPress multisite? This is your final chance at WordCamp Miami 2014 to get some of your WordPress questions answered!


Topic & Speaker TBA

WordPress Themes And Plugins

What This Session Is About:

This session will cover concepts that every WordPress user should know. You’ll learn what WordPress themes and plugins are, places where you safely download or purchase them, and how to activate them on your WordPress site. If you weren’t able to make it to a beginner’s workshop, this session would be perfect for you.


Hector Torres

Hector Torres is the Founder of WP-MONITOR, a WordPress monthly maintenance service. He’s also the Founder of Idealocity.com, a WordPress Website Design company. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and is a WordPress aficionado.

Web Development Trends for 2014

What This Session Is About:

This session will cover concepts and ideas that most aren’t familar with. We will be covering some more popular topics such as flat design and single page sites, as well as newer development ideas, including mobile-first, content-first and device-agnostic development. We also touch on topics such as designing in the browser. You don’t have to be a designer to appreciate this session – if you are looking to build a site or have a site built, this session will help you become familiar with the trends that might be using on your own site.


David Laietta

David Laietta is a WordPress theme and plugin developer, as well as community organizer. He leads the WordPress Orlando Meetup, as well as WordCamp Orlando.

David is also a long-time supporter of WordCamp Miami, and among other areas, will be speaking at the WordCamp Miami beginner’s workshop on May 9th.

Podcasting with WordPress

So Obvious, You Miss It!

What This Session Is About:

You know they’re there. You ignore them. You see them every day. You ignore them. You know they’re useful. You still ignore them! Come see the not invisible, not even hidden yet so in your face you miss them parts of WordPress and learn a few dos and don’ts about editing posts, editing plugins, editing themes and adding code excerpts along the way.


Blanca Stella Mejia

Blanca has been blogging for six years and is also the founder of an award winning bilingual blog MiCaminar.com, (My Walk), where she shares doses of inspiration, leadership and motivation. She gets geek and blogs about Social Media at BlancaStella.com and also the founder of a Web Development agency VizRED.

She works full time as a Social Media Consultant and is one of the Community Managers for Microsoft Research’s creative social network project by FUSE Labs, Socl.. She was named by Latina Magazine as one of the top 25 Women Who Shine In Technology. Her motto is “Make Authentic Connections Through Social Media Platforms”, and her passion has been doing just that. She is very involved in the local grassroots Social Media community and is the Co-Director of Latism South Florida which is a chapter of the largest non-profit Hispanic online voice. Blanca is also invited to speak about Social Media, Blogging, Reputation Management, WordPress, and Local Search at various conferences.

Tips for Better Website Conversion

What This Session Is About:

In this talk, those attending will learn:

-Content Marketing Strategy for WordPress
-Top Plugins to use for Social Sharing
-Blog Writing Strategy for Creating a Loyal Community
-Top Plugins to Use for Call to Actions
-Typical User Interaction on WordPress Sites: How to Set up Your Site to Convert
-How to Manage Your Site Better with ManageWP
-Top Blog Commenting Plugins to Use


Jackie Jimenez

Jackie Jimenez is an ambitious and Innovative Marketing Consultant, focusing on the big picture with integrated marketing communications. She co-organizes the WordPress South Florida group and WordCamp Miami 2013, staying in-the-know and ahead of the game. Some clients that she’s worked with are University of Central Florida, Marriott Vacation Club, and world-renowned hairstylist Peter Coppola. She often speaks about Social Media and Internet Marketing at conferences.

Lead Generation With WordPress

What This Session Is About:

Most businesses and publishers know that email subscribers drive traffic and delivers profitable prospects for your business. But only a handful of your visitors are signing up. Why does getting your readers to subscribe to your email list grow harder every day and what can you do about it?

During this presentation, we look at why email is so great for your bottom line, we will focus on how to boost your list building, and the many ways to use landing pages. We will explore the hidden tools and techniques for better lead generation and prospect qualification in WordPress.


Rosie Taylor

Rosie’s passion is writing, marketing and teaching. She regularly presents live workshops and webinars on marketing and web topics especially as an Authorized Local Expert for Constant Contact. Known for creativity mixed with business acumen, Rosie is a solid public relations and online marketing strategist. As a Certified Duct Tape Marketing consultant she offers proven strategies for small business success.

Business Q&A Panel

What This Session Is About:

As the final session of the Business Track at WordCamp Miami, we have brought all the speakers together for you to ask questions directly to them. Perhaps you would like to know a secret for successful freelancing or knowing how to price your customers? Any business or freelance questions are fair game as our experienced speakers close out the conference giving personal advice.


Crush your Marketing Fears and Grow An Audience

What This Session Is About:

In this talk I cover the reasons and strategies behind growing an audience for your business. Platforms such as podcasting, web shows, and niche communities are great vehicles for networking. Crush your fear of marketing and sales pitches by cultivating a dedicated following while providing immense value to your audience.


Matt Medeiros

Matt Medeiros is co-founder of Slocum Studio a custom development and theme shop. He is the founder of WPMentor.org a website dedicated to helping WordPress people find mentorships. Matt hosts the popular podcast Matt Report which aims to help new WordPress freelancers and agencies grow their business.

Successes and Failures of A Large Free Plugin

What This Session Is About:

Getting any plugin on the WordPress.org forum can be a lot of work. Taking a plugin like iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security) to more than 1.8 million downloads when it isn’t your full-time job can seem nearly impossible. This talk will discuss how I built iThemes Security to one of the largest plugins on WordPress.org including what I have done right and what I haven’t done as well at. Specific tips will involve handling support, marketing the plugin and squashing bugs when you wear all the hats (developer, marketer, teacher, project manager, etc). This session will help to equip you with the tools you will need to not just get your plugin out there but also to make sure it is successful.


Chris Wiegman

Chris is the developer of iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security) and has been working on WordPress security for over 5 years. Previously a captain for a small airline, Chris’ interest in security began on his first day as an employed pilot, 9/11 and gradually evolved over the years to helping individuals and smaller organizations protect their websites from many of the common methods attackers use to compromise their victims. When not coding Chris loves to teach and has taught computer security for St. Edward’s University as well as other courses ranging from computers to aviation.”

Pricing Your Development Projects

What This Session Is About:

Pricing your development projects isn’t easy. On the one hand you don’t want to lose your shirt, but on the other, you don’t want to lose the potential work. Come hear some strategies for pricing projects in a helpful way.


Chris Lema

For twenty years Chris has been managing high performers and overseeing new product development. He’s a daily blogger, an ebook author, a public speaker and works as the VP of Engineering for Emphasys Software. In his spare time he helps companies leverage WordPress, and WordPress companies find leverage.

10 Things We’ve Learned Building a Product Business

What This Session Is About:

Over the course of 3 years, key businesses such as IgnitionDeck has gone from a fledgling beta plugin with zero revenue to a product business that earns enough revenue to support a small team of founders and engineers. Join Nathan as he shares the 10 most important (and valuable) lessons the company has learned throughout the process. This talk is best suited for any present and future entrepreneurs who want insight, tips and best practices.


Nathan Hangen

Nathan is a co-founder of Virtuous Giant, where he serves as the business and development lead for IgnitionDeck, an eCommerce suite for WordPress. When he’s not shipping product, Nathan enjoys competing in triathlons, playing soccer, and coaching youth sports. In a past life, he served as a Psychological Operations Sergeant in the US Army, where he deployed to Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

The Business of WordPress

There are all sorts of challenges to building a WordPress business. Come hear the “behind the scenes” stories and lessons learned as the brilliant entrepreneurs behind Crowd Favorite, WPBeginner, Gravity Forms and iThemes answer questions in this business panel moderated by the famous Chris Lema.

We are proud to have these insightful speakers – all of which have created blogs and plugins that many thousands of WordPress users work with EVERY DAY – with us this year at WordCamp Miami.

Syed Balkhi

He is the founder of WPBeginner (the largest free WordPress resource site) and List25 an extremely popular entertainment site with over 725,000 subscribers and 90 Million video views. Syed’s work has been featured in NYTimes, HuffingtonPost, Yahoo Small Business, Wired, Mashable, and countless other well-reputed online magazines. Syed has worked with some of the largest brands in the industry including but not limited to WarnerBros, Webs, Mercer, and more.

Cory Miller

Cory is a former newspaper journalist turned full-time web entrepreneur. In January 2008, he founded iThemes in his home, fulfilling a lifelong dream of running his own company. Now iThemes has grown to over 20+ team members, hundreds of products and thousands of customers worldwide.

Carl Hancock

Carl Hancock is one of the co-founders of Rocketgenius, Inc. A premier provider of WordPress plugin solutions and the creators of one one of the most successful commercial WordPress plugins: Gravity Forms. He loves building innovative solutions for WordPress, and is a devoted father, loving husband, amateur photographer, startup founder and travel addict.

Karim Marucchi

Karim is the CEO of Crowd Favorite, a VeloMedia Group company, which delivers enterprise-level professional services to clients like Disney, National Geographic, Lexus and DirecTV. With offices across the US and Europe, it’s uniquely positioned to deliver large-scale client projects. We focus on both WordPress and WordPress integration projects.

Managing Yourself, Projects and Clients

What This Session Is About:

As the demands for WordPress talent continue to grow, it becomes increasingly important to develop the skills, strategies and techniques to be as productive as possible, contribute to team efforts, and manage clients and projects. The ideas discussed can apply to anyone from content creators to developers.


Diane Kinney

Diane Kinney is the Creative Director and co-founder of The Versatility Group, a full service firm providing websites and other online solutions for 15 years. She is an award winning designer focused on WordPress design and development, graphic design, and marketing services. In her previous corporate life, she led large scale application development projects, managed multi-disciplinary teams, and oversaw Operations including marketing, customer service, and business development. She gets excited about applying the lessons from her diverse background to web and marketing projects.

Topic & Speaker TBA

Database Deployment Strategy: Avoid Merging

What This Session Is About:

Merging two databases that have diverged is often very time consuming, painful, and can lead to data corruption, data loss, and bugs. In this talk, we take a look at a strategy to avoid merging databases and decrease the likelihood of our deployment going sideways.


Brad Touesnard

Developer, host of the Apply Filters podcast, and founder of Delicious Brains Inc., the company behind WP Migrate DB Pro.

Building Web and Mobile Apps with WordPress

What This Session Is About:

Despite starting out as a blogging platform and currently existing primarily as a content management system, WordPress is powerful enough and flexible enough to run any type of web application and/or hybrid mobile application. Wether you’re a novice WordPress user or an experienced web developer you can leverage WordPress in many non-traditional ways. We will go over how to rapidly build scalable and secure applications and how to save time and money doing so. We will also showcase some really cool web and mobile applications built with WordPress and AppPresser.


Speaker: Brian Messenlehner

Brian is the co-founder of WebDevStudios.com, a web development company that specializes in building all things WordPress. He is also the co-founder of AppPresser.com, a WordPress based framework for building iOS and Android Apps.

Playing Nicely with Other Plugins

What This Session Is About:

This presentation will go into detail about how plugin developers can “play nice” with other plugins by taking the behavior, features, and compatibility of other plugins into account during development.


Pippin Williamson

If you are a WordPress plugin developer, you probably have used or seen one of Pippin’s plugins. He’s written more than 100 plugins (we are looking to see if he has a social life) He has spent a long time working on improving community involvement on projects by developers / designers. Not to mention contributing to the WordPress core and WordPress Codex.

Designing Web Applications

What This Session Is About:

In this session, Noel will show all skill levels how to get the most out of customizing WordPress admin for clients and beyond. If you want to increase your rates and create more beautiful solutions for your clients, don’t miss out!


Noel Tock

Noel is Swiss web guy that enjoys building solutions online. He is a Partner at Human Made, a top tier WordPress agency (and VIP Partner). As Chief Product Officer, he oversees the product portfolio and acts as liaison for the Swiss client market.

He’s a jack of all trades, master of none, usually bouncing between project management and front-end development. The projects he enjoys working most on target small businesses and the long tail, democratizing opportunity so that smaller players have a shot at being successful online (happytables & Clickbank Powered both being excellent examples).

Cool Things To Do With Rarely Used Templates

What This Session Is About:

In this talk, Zac will go over a number of the less commonly used template tags and show some creative ways they can be used in your sites. In addition to looking at the templates themselves, we will also explore the related template tags that go along with the different templates. The talk is aimed for new and intermediate level WordPress theme developers.


Zac Gordon

Zac Gordon teaches WordPress for the amazing online education company, Treehouse. Before that he taught WordPress, web design and development at the high school and college level. In addition to teaching, Zac runs a web design company that builds $975 templated WordPress sites for small businesses.

I don’t hate you, I just hate your code

What This Session Is About:

This presentation is for anyone who aspires to write clean, functional code. Whether you’re just getting started, or you’ve been programming for years, you’ll leave better equipped and inspired to write beautiful & useful code than when you entered.


Speaker: Brian Richards

Brian is a developer with WebDevStudios.com and the creator of WPSessions.com, a resource where developers and site-owners alike can learn directly from WordPress experts. He loves being immersed community and is a lifelong learner and collector of trivial knowledge.

Building Themes in 2016

What This Session Is About:

In 2016, it’s likely that WordPress 4.5 will be released. What will themes look like then? What will the code behind them look like? Instead of looking at what is possible now, let’s start thinking about the future. What does a theme built in 2016 look like? What does the build process look like? What tools and libraries are at the heart of it?

This talk is for theme Builders of all levels and developers of all levels. We will some slightly radical ideas along with some moderate/advanced developer topics but will include very little code.


Aaron Jorbin

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 the internet usable and enjoyable by everyone. In the past he worked at AddThis and Privia Health.

Writing Testable WordPress Plugins

What This Session Is About:

Automated tests are great, but some code is hard to test. Go beyond the basics of automated testing and learn how to write better, more testable code.


Jonathan Brinley

After taking the plunge into full-time freelancing in 2009, Jonathan took advantage of his freedom and “retired” to Jacksonville, Fla. He’s busy enjoying the sun and the beaches with his wife (Stephanie) and two kids (Titus and Tirzah). But too often, he has to pull himself away from the sand and get down to business: writing WordPress plugins for fun and profit. When he’s not collaborating with the fine folks at Modern Tribe, Jonathan likes to create open source libraries that help make the plugin developers’ jobs a little easier. http://xplus3.net/ https://github.com/jbrinley

First There Was The Command Line

What This Session Is About:

cPanel & are OK for most things, but the command line is better! We will cover a few commands that will help you quickly diagnose errors and triage your site after a hack. This talk is for any developer responsible for deploying and maintaining WordPress sites on Unix & Linux based webhosts.


Adrian Cardenas

Cuban born Adrian Cardenas spent 8 months in a refugee camp prior to arriving in the U.S. as a child. Though self-taught, he has partially earned his degree in Computer Science and Computational Math, which he strives to finish one day. He has been a PHP developer for 4 years and a Systems Administrator for several before that. He is currently making awesome things in both front & back end at ServerGrove, a local hosting company. Over the years, Adrian has developed several WordPress sites, both single and multi, many of them interfacing with other systems such as MediaWiki & custom solutions. At ServerGrove he has also been witness several hundred WordPress installations and some of the “gotchas” that developers can face.

WordPress Podcasting: The Panel

This year we are proud to be hosting a unique and a WordCamp-first panel this year at WordCamp Miami on May 10th (Saturday). We will be hosting a “Podcasting And WordPress” panel, with some of the biggest and most popular WordPress podcasters all in one room. One *physical* room. They will be telling us how they do what they do, what mistakes they’ve learned, and how they run a successful podcast. Plus a special surprise which we won’t tell them about yet.

If you will be attending this panel, we suggest you check out and listen to these WordPress podcasts:

Here’s the dirt on the speakers on this panel, guaranteed to knock your socks off (so bring extra socks):

Dre Armeda

Dre is the Co-Founder of Sucuri Security. Dre is a Harley enthusiast, and a Chargers fan. he wears many hats, and love tacos. He is infatuated with WordPress, web design, and web security. Dre hopes to make the internet a safer place! Dre presents at various WordCamps and other events every year. Dre is a proud WordPress contributor and was the lead organizer that brought WordCamp to San Diego. Dre can also be found attending local WordPress meetups at the Inland Empire WordPress Meetup and the WordPress San Diego (North County) Meetup. Dre is the Co-Host of the DradCast on Wednesday nights. Pressing all the words!

Brad Williams

Brad is the co-founder of WebDevStudios.com, a co-host on the DradCast podcast, and the co-author of Professional WordPress (1E & 2E) and Professional WordPress Plugin Development. Brad is also one of the organizers of the Philadelphia WordPress Meetup Group and WordCamp Philly. Brad blogs at http://strangework.com and tweets at @williamsba.

Suzette Franck

Suzette Franck is a WordPress Evangelist at (mt) Media Temple, a Los Angeles-based company providing premium web hosting and cloud services to web designers, web developers, digital innovators and entrepreneurs since 1998. An established member of the WordPress community and one of today’s most prolific female WordPress speakers, Suzette joined Media Temple in 2012 and has, since then, been building on the company’s early involvement with the WordPress and Open Source communities. She advocates and educates for WordPress by actively participating in WordCamp conferences country-wide and WordPress meetups in Southern California.

As passionate about front-end coding as she is about increasing awareness of the wonders of WordPress, she also co-hosts Media Temple’s weekly educational podcast, WP Unicorn Project, with WordPress Unicorn Rockstar Natalie MacLees, which addresses all things WordPress and web development with a variety of WordPress professionals including designers, developers, and entrepreneurs. Suzette blogs about WordPress at suzettefranck.com, and she is a repeated guest on the popular WPWatercooler video podcast (over 5 million views). When she is not “WordPressing”, Suzette, who resides in North Hollywood, CA, paints and collects art.

Jeff Chandler

Jeff is the man behind WPTavern.com. On WPTavern, you’ll find reviews, news, screencasts, guest blog posts from some great WordPress community members and much more.

Matt Medeiros

Matt Medeiros is co-founder of Slocum Studio a custom development and theme shop. He is the founder of WPMentor.org a website dedicated to helping WordPress people find mentorships. Matt hosts the popular podcast Matt Report which aims to help new WordPress freelancers and agencies grow their business.

Pippin Williamson

If you are a WordPress plugin developer, you probably have used or seen one of Pippin’s plugins. He’s written more than 100 plugins (we are looking to see if he has a social life) He has spent a long time working on improving community involvement on projects by developers / designers. Not to mention contributing to the WordPress core and WordPress Codex.

I Can’t JavaScript, and So Can You!

I have a confession: I’m not that good at JavaScript. If JavaScript is the zombie apocalypse, I’m the person stumbling backwards, sweating, running low on ammo, but who somehow manages to make it to the CDC without being infected. My goal isn’t to make you a hardened script-slinging sharpshooter — I just want you to to survive.

Mark Jaquith

Mark Jaquith has been working with and contributing to WordPress since 2004. He is one of the lead developers of the WordPress core and offers freelance WordPress consulting services through Covered Web Services with a focus on scaling, security, and custom functionality. Mark likes patches that have more red than green, and his favorite WordPress features are the ones that you’re not even aware of. He eagerly looks forward to shooting down your feature suggestions with, “No, but it would make a great plugin!”

Getting Comfortable With Child Themes

What This Session Is About:

Child themes are a simple but powerful way to customize a pre-made theme. Learning how to use them properly means you’ll never risk losing all your modifications when the developer releases a new version and you update the theme. Using easy-to-follow language, I’ll walk you through the steps to set up a child theme and we’ll get started making some tweaks – from CSS look-and-feel adjustments to more substantial changes in functionality.

Suitable for those who’ve used pre-made themes or starter themes but haven’t made a child theme yet. Basic PHP knowledge helpful but not necessary.


Kathryn Presner

Kathryn thrives on helping people get the most out of WordPress. After a career designing and building websites for clients, she joined Automattic as a Happiness Engineer in 2012 and is currently embedded with the Theme Team, where she help folks with all types of theme-related issues on both WordPress.com and self-hosted sites. She enjoys spreading her passion for WordPress at WordCamps, Girl Geek Dinners, Podcamps, and other grassroots events. Non-WordPress hours are spent collecting vintage Pyrex mixing bowls, growing organic garlic, and cavorting with her four felines.

Get Your Site Built Without Getting Burned

What This Session Is About:

When you work on a house, you understand that there are multiple parties involved, each of them with a specific job: an architect, a land surveyor, a plumber, an electrician. Once its built, there’s alarm systems, and landscapers. No one expects a plumber to design a house. Yet, when we hire for websites, we expect a jack of all trades approach, hiring a designer or a developer. To best ensure positive outcome, understand the roles people play in building a website: information architect, server administration, design, UI, UX, development, plugins, security, SEO, SEM, content, and ongoing testing and analytics. Being the contractor of your website is just as hard as being the contractor on your house.

This session will cover:

1. How to determine how much site you need, can afford and manage
2. How to determine the people you’ll want to hire to do the job and manage them
3. How to set good expectations and outcomes for everyone.


Amanda Blum

Amanda Blum has been speaking at, organizing and cursing at WordCamps/Meetups since 2009. As Strategist for Etch Software in Portland, Oregon, she helps organizations leverage technology for better processes and digital marketing. When not Pressing, she makes pickles, knits scarves and manages her batshit crazy doberman Clementine. She has never visited Miami and is impressed that all the WordCamp Organizers have promised to have a flock of flamingos sing happy birthday to her.

User Experience, WordPress, and the Future

What This Session Is About:

No matter how well you develop your website it has to make sense for your client or customer. They matter the most and have to be considered from the very start of your project planning. This session will focus on UX and how to help you create better UX experiences with your website.


Cody Landefeld

Cody Landefeld is founder and director at Mode Effect, a WordPress design and development consultancy. A user experience problem solver by nature and have over 10 years of experience in the creative field, we are passionate to help businesses succeed using their websites as their marketing hub.

Create a Killer Video for Your Blog

What This Session Is About:

Video is an important part of any website today. Learn how to create better videos on your (and your clients) blog. You’ll learn how to make video better no matter if you’re using you built in computers camera and mic, if you have a separate camera and mic to record your video or if you’re creating videos for your clients using professional video gear or filmmakers.


Speaker: Pascal Depuhl

Pascal Depuhl has been telling stories with pictures for his clients as an advertising photographer for over 20 years. Seeing that video is quickly becoming the online language of choice, he began to learn filmmaking. In the winter of 2012 he found himself filming in Afghanistan, telling the story of what a flight service does. Pascal’s first documentary, “On Wings of Hope”, has gone on to win Best of ASMP 2013 and just was selected to be screened at the Palm Beach International Film Festival.

He grew up in Germany and Chicago and now lives in Miami with his wife and 2 daughters.

A Website Is Not A Poster: Designing Successfully For The Web

What This Session Is About:

In the world of print, designers have control over every point and pica, but with all the variables inherent to the web, that same desire for control leads to headaches, frustration, and bad practices. You will learn specific guidelines to let go of that control and design more effectively for the web, as well as how to collaborate with developers to ensure a successful project without all the usual struggles.


Michelle Schulp

Michelle is a graphic designer and co-founder of Marktime Media, a multimedia design and video production company based in Chicagoland. She was formally schooled in many aspects of design including print, branding, packaging, etc., with additional education in Psychology and Sociology, all tying together in a love of How To Solve Problems. Lately she has been specializing in WordPress websites, infographics, and high-end presentations for her clients. She is a lover of WordCamps and the WordPress community, a Meetup junkie, @3themes contributor, and WordCamp Chicago lead organizer.

Responsify All the Things!

What This Session Is About:

In our new web multiverse, it’s more important than ever to make your valuable content available to all users, regardless of how they access your site. In this talk, we’ll cover how Responsive Web Design came about, the latest RWD news and trends, and some basic (and not so basic) techniques you can use to make your next WordPress theme a _responsive_ one. Intended for developers and designers who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty with a little code.


Speaker: Tracy Rotton

Tracy Rotton is a lead web developer for RP3, an advertising agency in Bethesda, Maryland. In 2012, she discovered responsive web design, and became obsessed. Since then, she’s built responsive websites for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Norfolk Southern Corporation, FrontPoint Security, and Long and Foster Real Estate, the latter two on WordPress. Deciding to combine her passions for responsive websites and WordPress, she’s writing a book all about responsive WordPress theming.

Staying Productive & Sane Working From Home

What This Session Is About:

Do you often find yourself lurking on Twitter a little too long? How about constant distractions from significant others, children, or the four-legged varieties? Clients and vendors calling at all hours of the day? Check your email as soon as it says Inbox(1)? Working more in the evenings and weekends just to catch up on work? If this even remotely sounds like you, come make a lifestyle change with these tips and helpful advice.


Alison Foxall

Alison Foxall is a founding partner and lead designer of Gobble Logic; a web design, development, and marketing firm located in Tampa, FL. She has a traditional background in design, but has been a front-end web developer since the early 2000’s. Alison has been using WordPress since 2004, and developing for it since 2006. With her leadership, her team has created custom plugins, themes, and application platforms all with WordPress. When she isn’t running the business, Alison is learning Japanese, reading books or periodicals, and being active in political groups and discussions.

Intro to Theming with SASS

What This Session Is About:

Why SASS will improve your WordPress theme development workflow and how to use it on your next project. For developers who are curious about SASS and developing modern front-end practices.


Josh Eaton

Josh is a senior developer at Reaktiv Studios, with a focus on modern front-end development, custom themes and plugins. A former management consultant, he taught himself web development and continually enjoys laughing at code he wrote 6 months ago. When not wrangling code, Josh travels the world, plays guitar and loves craft coffee and fine whiskey.

Upcoming Trends in Branding and Digital Content Creation

What This Session Is About:

In the newer digital world creating content and making a great brand are difficult to achieve. One of the reasons for this are things are constantly changing. Join me for a peek into the future of where marketing, content, and brand are going.

The talk will cover four main areas:
1. What to do now that organic reach is lowering on social (facebook, twitter)
2. When you create great WordPress content how do you accelerate it being shared
3. What will brands do to limit the lessening of their voice as social grows
4. Question and Answer session


Tomas Puig

Tomas Puig is the Director of Marketing for WP Engine who currently lives and works in San Francisco. Tomas’ career started at NASA Ames research center where he worked on computer security and web development. However he quickly moved to the entertainment and branding side starting in music production with recording such artists as Jack Johnson, Clay McClinton, and Laura Cash. In Advertising after his award winning FuseTV, IFC, and Namco campaigns Tomas was recruited by Studio One Films (Part of the A.G. Nadiadwala Group) to become their head of technical / creative in Bollywood. Where he launched major USA based brands in India and directed music videos.

WordPress and Journalism

What This Session Is About:

WordPress is a powerful tool for storytelling, and the pros know it. Journalism organizations large and small are using our favorite platform for all types of projects and products. We’ll look at some innovative ideas from the WordPress-powered media world and discuss great tools and options for professional journalism.


Rebekah Monson

Rebekah Monson is a journalist, designer and dork. She’s the communications manager at the University of Miami School of Communication and cofounder of whereby.us, a creative organization that helps curious locals explore, celebrate and improve Miami through events, journalism and community protoyping. She cofounded Hacks/Hackers Miami, a group that brings together journalists and technologists, and Code for Miami, Florida’s first Code for America civic hacking brigade. She loves people, dogs, coffee, Miami, stories and technology — so long as servers are up, traffic is decent and no one pees on the rug.

How to Keep Your WordPress Site Running

What This Session Is About:

Getting started with WordPress is easy! Unfortunately, managing a site with plugin and theme choices, keeping up with all updates, tracking backups and being your own admin is not without its pitfalls. Using real life examples and more than one #FAIL we’ll discover best practices for keeping WordPress happy and (hopefully) keep our sanity.


Speaker: Mason James

Mason is the Co-Founder and CEO of WP Valet where he’s made an art of making people happy with their WordPress experience. He has a passion for creating solutions and truly loves it when a plan comes together. When not connected to a computer he’s probably playing music, video games, or with his puppy, Penny (photos available on request).

E-commerce and WordPress with WooCommerce

What This Session Is About:

How to use WordPress to build a E-Commerce site. Brief discussion on the most popular plugins and how to use WooCommerce and its extensions. For audience in all levels, but beginners and immediate might find it more helpful.


Speaker: Sze Liu

Sze Liu is the CEO and Founder of 852 Creative Marketing & Design. Originally from Hong Kong, Sze has always loved branding, marketing and technology and has been involved in the field throughout her career. She has managed online and offline marketing for start-ups and major corporations (Manpower, Inc. and Ryder System, Inc.). She also has experience in global business development, including projects based in China.

Sze has lived in South Florida for more than 20 years and holds a B.S. in marketing and international business from Florida Atlantic University, as well as an MBA from University of Miami. As co-founder of Wiredin Women, she also helps support a community of women who wish to learn, share ideas and become successful in online business.

Kickstart Your Non-Profit or Small Business with WordPress

What This Session Is About:

If you are a startup business, especially a non-profit, you are probably struggling for funding. This talk will demonstrate how we used WordPress in some creative ways to do a lot more than just run our website. Strategy, trade-offs and favorite plugins will also be discussed.


Speaker: Rick Tuttle

Rick Tuttle is a longtime WordCamp Miami supporter and lives in Miami with his wife and two daughters who all use WordPress. He is employed as a .NET web developer and also actively uses WordPress to help with community causes as a volunteer. Follow on Twitter @ricktuttle.

The Next Generation of Bloggers

What This Session Is About:

Get a teenager’s perspective on how and why someone from her generation would want to use WordPress. “Why would I use WordPress when I’ve already got Tumblr and Instagram?” This talk may also be beneficial for someone who is starting out with WordPress to understand the possibilities.


Speaker: Anna Tuttle

Anna Tuttle is a 13-year-old girl who writes a blog about her life at annatuttle.com and has been writing reviews for restaurants and attractions in Miami since she was 8 yrs old as a kid reporter at Miami Fun Guide. She also enjoys cooking, baking, playing guitar, singing and watching or reading her favorite movies and books.

Real WordPress Security – Kill the Noise

What This Session Is About:

Ever wonder if your site, your visitors, or business is safe on the internet? In this session I will show a demo on how quickly your site can be hacked, and your reputation put on the line. I’ll cover various scenarios that can affect your website like Pharma Hack, SEO Poisoning, and malicious redirects. I’ll then aid you by providing some tips to help reduce risk now and forever. Information Security is everyone’s responsibility, and should be a consideration on any web project, beginning to end.


Dre Armeda

Dre is the Co-Founder of Sucuri Security. Dre is a Harley enthusiast, and a Chargers fan. he wears many hats, and love tacos. He is infatuated with WordPress, web design, and web security. Dre hopes to make the internet a safer place! Dre presents at various WordCamps and other events every year. Dre is a proud WordPress contributor and was the lead organizer that brought WordCamp to San Diego. Dre can also be found attending local WordPress meetups at the Inland Empire WordPress Meetup and the WordPress San Diego (North County) Meetup. Dre is the Co-Host of the DradCast on Wednesday nights. Pressing all the words!

Homeschooler to Hero

What This Session Is About:

You love WordPress and want to do it all the time, but you can’t code your way out of a paper bag? We’re not all super psycho awesome coders, and we don’t HAVE to be. But just because the idea of database hacking makes your blood run cold doesn’t mean you can never have a successful career in WordPress. Mika was a banking software tech with a fansite. Today she is a support master for a multisite and hosting company because she had one skill: She could explain what they saw to other people. That’s it! That one skill landed her careers in WordPress Support, and while she don’t write the brand new features like the media uploader, she is an integral part of WordPress development.


Mika Epstein

Mika Ariela Epstein is better known as Ipstenu, the Half-Elf Support Rogue. Working for DreamHost, she solves any WordPress problem that comes up, and still finds time to slash unanswered WordPress.org forum threads by night and wrangle plugins by day. A self-taught guru on Multisite and .htaccess, she has a passion for writing and technology and blogs about them on her own site, as well as for DreamHost.

Content is NOT King … It’s Core!

What This Session Is About:

With the mass quantities of online content created every single day and with so much of it covering the same topics, it takes so much more than great content to be successful online. Great content needs to be surrounded by layers of optimization, socialization and promotion to have a chance at success. Learn how to add these layers to your content in this session.


John Carcutt

John is an SEO & Social Media veteran and recognized industry thought leader with 13+ years of expertise in both agency and in-house search engine optimization. He is a regular speaker and teacher at the top national SEO and Social Media marketing conferences including SES, SMX, PubCon, and is a published author on the topic of SEO in iMedia, Search Engine Journal, and WebProNews . As an original pioneer of modern search optimization, John co-hosts one of the most popular search related radio shows online: the SEO 101 show at webmasterradio.fm.

His digital marketing, search and social media experience ranges from the largest Fortune 50 companies all the way to local businesses, and includes clients like Turner Broadcasting, The Miami Herald, Discover, Sandals & Beaches Resorts, Cotton Inc., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Stanley.

John is Director of Search & Social Media for Advance Digital, a division of Advance Publications Inc- the parent company of Conde Nast.

Be the Peacock: Online Branding For New Bloggers

What This Session Is About:

The internet has grown so great, that it is difficult to stand out and make yourself distinguishable. To attract and capture a solid audience, you have to be the peacock. You have to be bold and colorful. This session will teach you how to find your inner peacock, so that you can strut like no one has ever seen you strut before.


Rebecca Gill

Rebecca Gill is founder of Michigan based Web Savvy Marketing – where graphic designers, WordPress coders, and SEO consultants are all rolled up into one. From stock Genesis themes and custom WordPress design to full blown website development with organic SEO, Rebecca and her team deliver websites fantastic web sites to satisifed clients.

Celebrating Our 5th Anniversary (May 9-11, 2014)

WordCamp Miami 2014 is over. Check out the next edition!