WordCamp Ottawa 2014

Meagan Hanes is a designer of digital things, photographer, blogger and all around creative gal living in Ottawa. Thorough her company Love Digimedia, she enjoys creating easy-to-use websites and technology solutions for artists, entrepreneurs and other creatives around the world. When not giving back to the community, you’ll find her behind a laptop or smartphone screen. @mhanes

Meagan is presenting: To the Word and Beyond! Extending WordPress Past a Simple Blog

1) Why do you like using WordPress?
WordPress is the perfect combination of functionality, usability, and extendability. Like a plant, a website needs to be taken care of and spruced up regularly, so why not use one of the best tools around to do so?

2) Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Ottawa?
Ottawa is my hometown, there’s no way I couldn’t share the Word over here 🙂

3) What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?
I want people to walk away with inspiration and curiosity about the true potential of WordPress. It’s far more than a simple website tool (although a great one at that!). I hope to spark people’s imaginations with the possibilities.

4) What is your favourite WordPress plugin or theme? Why?
Tough question! There are so many plugins and themes available. My favourite plugin is the one that solves the problem the website is having, and my favourite theme is anything that looks fantastic and new on mobile, because that’s where a lot of people (myself included) are spending their time!

Taylor is a core contributor, plugin contributor, and plugin author. He works for 10up as a Senior Strategic Engineer. He has a BS in Computer Science and builds enterprise level websites with WordPress!

Taylor is presenting: Saving Time with WP-CLI

1) Why do you like using WordPress?
I like using WordPress because it is a beautiful framework for building feature rich websites. I love WordPress because I believe strongly in usability and have a passion for open source.

2) Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Ottawa?
I haven’t been to Ottawa, and I live meeting new people in the WordPress community.

3) What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?
I’d like people to learn at least one WP-CLI command that they can use to save them time on their website.

4) What is your favourite WordPress plugin or theme? Why?
My favorite WordPress plugin is probably WP-CLI (surprised?). I also love all the developer plugins – Debug Bar, Debug Bar Extender, Rewrite Rule Inspector, etc.

Scott Walkinshaw is a full-stack developer from Toronto. He’s one of the main developers of the Roots theme (http://roots.io) and creator of the Bedrock WordPress Stack (https://github.com/roots/bedrock). Scott’s mission is to help WordPress developers modernize their workflow by using the best tools and practices.

Scott is presenting: Modern WordPress Development

1) Why do you like using WordPress?
Like most people I started using WordPress because its lets you get things done quickly. Lately I’ve been staying with it because I see a lot of opportunities to improve it and help others out.

2) Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Ottawa?
I’ve been advocating better development workflows for a while now online, and WordCamp Ottawa is just another opportunity to get the word out and help developers learn some new tools and techniques that have helped myself and others improve their WordPress experiences.

3) What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?
Although my talk may include a lot of new tools and terms, the take away isn’t about the specific tools themselves. It’s about always learning and trying out new ways to improve your development workflow.

4) What is your favourite WordPress plugin or theme? Why?
One of the most recent plugins that caught my eye was Stream by X-Team (https://github.com/x-team/wp-stream). WordPress can be a black box that’s hard to track changes and activities and Stream gives you visibilities into everything.

Richard is presenting: WordPress Themes and Frameworks Explained

1) Why do you like using WordPress?

1. A great community that provides easy access to themes, plugins, resources, and support.
2. The backward compatibility protects my investment in the sites I develop.
3. The platform is very scalable.
4. WordPress is not only a full content management system, it is the best blogging platform out there.

2) Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Ottawa?
I have been working with WordPress for several years. I have made mistakes and made good moves. I have learned. I want to share that learning with others.

3) What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?
Confidence that they can make a good decision regarding the next WordPress theme they select.

4) What is your favourite WordPress plugin or theme? Why?
Recently, I have been using Gravity Forms. I am super impressed with that product.

As a biochemist turned freelance web designer and developer at Molecularcode, Alex now uses WordPress to create fun and interesting websites, frequently perusing the WordPress Plugin repository in search of those little nuggets of gold. Having been so well supported by the WordPress community at the beginning of her new career, she enjoys sharing the knowledge she has acquired with other people passionate about populating the web with clean, functional websites. Alex is also a huge 3D Printing enthusiast and enjoys sharing her love of the technology with anyone who will listen.

Alex is presenting:  There’s a Plugin for that!

1) Why do you like using WordPress?
As a framework it’s hugely flexible and can be adapted to build almost any kind of website using the same knowledge base and skills.  And the community around the software is so extensive, varied and supportive that expanding the functionality of a WordPress website to suit my specific needs is entirely doable.

2) Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Ottawa?
I have long benefited from the knowledge and enthusiasm of WordCamp speakers and felt I now had something useful to give back to the community.

3) What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?
The ability to look in the WordPress plugin repository and evaluate for themselves the merit, and drawbacks, of a particular plugin.

4) What is your favourite WordPress plugin or theme? Why?
WooCommerce is fast becoming my favourite. Out of the box it’s intuitive, looks great on the front-end and has all the basic features included. It’s also open-source and highly extensible. No matter how specific my client’s e-commerce requests have been, thus far I’ve been able to adapt WooCommerce to meet them.

A direct response copywriter and marketing consultant for the better part of 25 years, Michel Fortin is also an expert trainer, web designer, WordPress geek, and serial entrepreneur. He was instrumental in selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of products and services for his clients in a wide variety of industries, which included some of the most successful marketing campaigns on the Internet. For example, over a decade ago, Michel was the copywriter behind the first online training product launch in history to have sold over a million dollars in its first day. Together with his wife Sylvie Fortin, Michel is the co-founder of The Licorice Group, an online training and publishing company, that shows you how to build, manage, staff, and grow online businesses. He is the author of “Power Positioning: How to Position Yourself For Internet Success.” Today, he is an in-demand public speaker and highly sought-after consultant around the world.

Michel is presenting: Internet Business-Building, Marketing, and Selling Tips and Strategies For WordPress Websites That Sell or Promote Goods and Services Online.

1) Why do you like using WordPress?
As a direct response copywriter, I’ve always been keen on providing design and layout advice to maximize response, and even provided response elements with my copy that have been rigorously split-tested usability for boosting conversion. Part of this includes online design and web elements. Because of this, I’ve coded, designed, and developed many websites in concert with my copywriting services and conversion consulting. Ever since B2, I’ve been a fan of using WordPress not as a blog platform but as a content delivery system specifically to help incorporate those elements that maximize my clients’ results.

2) Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Ottawa?
We own several online businesses and 100s of websites that are income properties, all of which use the WordPress as a platform. When I attended WordCamp Ottawa last year, all I saw were talks on using the platform for blogging, publishing, and marketing. No talks were given on the “business” of WordPress. Granted, one was about social media (which I liked) and the other was a speaker’s panel at the end on using WordPress to promote one’s business. However, it wasn’t about using WordPress as a business model or a sales channel. Specifically, I was expecting some discussion about using WordPress to market, sell, and deliver goods and services online. So I felt I could contribute in that area.

3) What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?
How to look at WordPress as a tool to reach markets, boost traffic, and sell goods and services online through the help of tools, plugins, and strategies.

4) What is your favourite WordPress plugin or theme? Why?
I’ve always been a big fan and supporter of WooThemes (including WooCommerce plugin) because it’s an easy-to-work-with framework that clients can easily take over once I’ve done the work for them. Almost all my sites are customizations of themes from WooThemes.

Lucas Cherkewski designs websites and plays with typography in tea-serving establishments all over Waterloo. He believes that humans are people, too, and that we move so quickly we forget that nowadays.

Lucas is presenting:  Be the Perfect Client: A Guide to Working with Developers

1) Why do you like using WordPress?
WordPress’ philosophy as a publishing platform is really attractive to me. I’ve got a passion for the publishing process as a whole, from writing to editing to layouting to distribution. WordPress has the ability to combine all these steps into one, disrupting a model that is often siloed in traditional publishing. This philosophy is one I share, and using and supporting a tool which is built with the same philosophy as mine is a pleasure every day.

2) Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Ottawa?
For the great city and its wonderful people, of course! Beyond that, I want to be an example to other young people interested in working with WordPress or, on a larger scale, the web, showing them that the best way to put yourself forward in those fields is to get involved with them.

3) What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?
That learning to work with your web team is an investment which will pay off not only in saved money, but one which will lead to happier results on both sides of the table in the end.

4) What is your favourite WordPress plugin or theme? Why?
Underscores continues to be my favourite theme. It’s built to showcase the best way to go about working with WordPress, making it a great learning tool, and it’s my goto for new projects.

Laurie M. Rauch wants to live in a world where code is pretty and well-written, proper grammar isn’t a lost art, and chocolate cures everything.

A WordPress-loving front-end web developer, Laurie runs Code Diva, which specializes in WordPress theme development, customizations, and coaching.

When she’s not playing with code, you can find her trying to add a little pretty to her home, unashamedly watching more tv than anyone possibly should, and playing soccer with her dachshund, Oscar.

Laurie is presenting: How to create a child theme – Workshop

1) Why do you like using WordPress?
There are so many reasons – I love that WordPress lets me empower my clients to maintain and control their own websites on their own, without needing to learn code. I love that WordPress has such a wonderful and sharing community. I love that WordPress is so flexible and adaptable that I can snazz it up to be just about anything.

2) Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Ottawa?
I love being part of the WordPress community and speaking at WordCamp Ottawa not only lets me give back, but I get a chance to drive across the province and spend some time in the capital.

3) What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?
I want people to walk away feeling that child themes aren’t nearly as scary as they sound and more confident that they can take control of their own sites.

4) What is your favourite WordPress plugin or theme? Why?
I love _S (Underscores). It’s a great jumping off point for all theme development – I used it to create my own base theme – and it’s got just enough documentation that it’s a great teaching tool.