Speaker Profile: Michael Fields

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Josh Harrison

Michael Fields will be speaking in the Theming Track right after lunch at 1:05pm in the Olympic Room. His presentation is titled “Theming for the Masses”.

This is a great topic. Michael will be talking about his experience of creating a theme and then releasing it on the WordPress theme directory. Here are the points he will be covering:

It’s all about the users!
Why did he make a theme.
What a theme should do.
Helpful resources for theme development.
How template hierarchy became his BFF.
Including customer service directly in your theme.
Child themes as a development tool.
What functionality is best included in a theme.

Michael is a freelance web developer based in Portland Oregon.

Speaker Profile: Ariz Jacinto

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Josh Harrison

Ariz Jacinto will be speaking at WordCamp Seattle at 1:05 pm in the N. Cascade room. His topic is Strategies for Using and Integrating WordPress CMS to PHP MVC Frameworks.

In his presentation, Ariz will discuss various user-experience and framework strategies for using WordPress CMS to manage and scale thousands of pages. This will be a great topic that you don’t want to miss.

Ariz currently works at Clearwire, where he has had the task of managing WordPress that the company uses as a CMS. He is a Zend-Certified Engineer and I have been a resource speaker multiple times at PHP-Seattle regarding Design Patterns, PHPUnit and Sphinx Search.

Speaker Profile: Justin Sainton

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Josh Harrison

Justin Sainton will be speaking to us at 10:10am in the Olympic room. He will be speaking on WordPress E-Commerce & Group Deals.

Justin will be speaking on a few topics that are very relevant to many people. First he will be discussing creating an ecommerce site using WordPress from a user perspective – not the developer. He will also be speaking on using WordPress to create a Groupon-like site.

Justin has spoke at many WordCamps, including the upcoming WordCamp Developers taking place in Vancouver (Canada) next month. He is the founder of Zao Web Design, LLC in Portland Oregon and is core developer for the WordPress E-Commerce plugin and the founding developer for the forthcoming Group Deals plugin.

What is WordPress.com?

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Josh Harrison

What is WordPress.com? How is it different than WordPress.org? If you’ve worked with WordPress or even researched what it is, you’ve at least asked yourself this question or have been asked by somebody else.

We all should know that WordPress.com is not the creator of WordPress. WordPress is made by a large community of individuals, mostly volunteers. WordPress.com is a major contributor to the WordPress software.

Scott Berkun of Automattic will be sharing with us how how they work on WordPress.com, such as how they work with .org and how new features are developed. It will also be great to hear how a completely distributed team functions so effectively. He will be speaking at 9am in the main ballroom. Make sure you don’t miss this!

Scott is interested in knowing what your questions are regarding WordPress.com. Please post any question you may have in the comments and he will do what he can to work them in his presentation.

Speaker Profile: Chris Molitor

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Josh Harrison

Chris Molitor is going to address a topic that I know a lot of people would like more information on. He will be giving those who are interested Advice on Selling Your Theme. Chris will be speaking as part of the Theming track and will be speaking at 2pm in the Olympic Room.

Though Chris sells primarily on ThemeForest, he will address things that you need to think about no matter on which marketplace you release your theme. He’ll cover how to get your theme noticed, and issues such as marketing and support.

Chris is a theme developer from the Seattle area. He creates and sells themes on ThemeForest. Chris has released some great themes. He also spoke in our 2009 Ignite session.

Win a Logitech Revue with Google TV in our Raffle

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Calvin Freitas

Dish Networks will be giving away one Logitech Revue with Google TV at WordCamp Seattle.

At WordCamp Seattle 2011, we’re giving away prizes to attendees at the event. One of our lucky raffle winners will receive a Logitech Revue courtesy of Dish Network.

Logitech Revue comes with an easy-to-set-up companion box and an intuitive companion keyboard controller. Simply connect your TV and cable or satellite set-top box via HDMI and your high speed Internet connection via Ethernet or Wi-Fi to the Logitech Revue, and you’ve got Google TV.

Logitech Revue

The prize winner will be selected randomly. Speakers, sponsors, and organizers are not eligible. The winner must provide a valid shipping address. Dish Network will ship the Logitech Revue to the winner.

Dean Becker of Ruby Willow Providing Video Services

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Josh Harrison

We are pleased to announce that Dean Becker of Ruby Willow will be providing video services for the theming track in the Olympic room. He will also provide post-production for the videos to later upload to WordPress.tv. Dean does great work and we are excited to have his help with WordCamp Seattle.

Dean leads Ruby Willow, a recently established photography, cinematography, and audio production company. Dean has over 15 years of experience doing photography and audio/video production. Though currently specializing in portrait photography, Ruby Willow can produce commercials, music videos, documentaries, YouTube videos, and more.

While Dean is providing the service, pinch/zoom will be providing the equipment to make this possible. pinch/zoom provides amazing mobile experiences that people love.

WordCamp Seattle Will be Live Streamed

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Josh Harrison

We are happy to announce that WordCamp Seattle will be live streamed. While we do prefer that everybody actually show up to the event in person, we do know that for some that will not be possible.

Blaze Streaming Media is working with us to provide an excellent stream for those who are unable to attend. They do an awesome job of streaming and recording WordCamps.

Two of our tracks will be streamed live:

Unfortunately, we were unable to fit in our budget a live stream for the Theming track but all sessions will be recorded and put on wordpress.tv.

Premium Sponsor: Sustainable Websites

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Calvin Freitas

Sustainable Websites has offices located in Seattle, WA. They actively participate in the Seattle WordPress Meetup and Seattle PHP Meetup groups.

Sustainable Websites’ green web hosting is energy and water efficient, powered by the wind, and carbon neutral. It’s a professional webmaster’s choice for green web hosting. Automatically install popular website software including WordPress.

Thanks to Sustainable Websites for supporting WordCamp Seattle 2011!

Speaker Profile: Heather Gold

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Josh Harrison

What is tummeling? Scott Rosenberg explains what tummeling is: the art of breaking the ice for a crowd, warming people up to one another so that a comfortable conversation can flow.

Heather Gold is on a mission to show people how to engage in conversations, both in the real world and online. She even does workshops that help people become more engaging and memorable.

UnPresenting comes ”highly recommended” by past participants like Matt Mullenweg and Scott Rosenberg (Salon co-founder). It helps people be really comfortable being themselves in public and be able to turn a pitch, meeting or presentation into a really engaged conversation. It’s a way of making live experiences as interactive as good sites and also offers some insight to designing sites / environments that help increase engagement between people.

The day after WordCamp, Heather will be holding one of her Workshops here in Seattle. If you are interested, tickets are still available. She has offered a discount code for WordCamp folks: password > L7Seattle

Heather will also be speaking at WordCamp Seattle at 10:10am in the S. Cascade room. The title of her presentation is “Tools for Tummeling: How and Why”. I’m sure we’ll here some valuable insights on how to converse with our users in a much better way.