Welcome Back To A Special Sponsor: SiteGround

SiteGround has been a long-time supporter of WordCamp Miami and we proud to have them back in 2016. Make sure to visit their booth at the event to learn more about their services.


SiteGround

SiteGround, with over 11 years in the business, provides managed WordPress hosting that does not miss a thing! Their servers, available in 4 different data centers across the world, are optimized for ultimate WordPress speed and security and they provide many goodies for the WordPress fans – automatic updates for the core WordPress and its plugins, WordPress SuperCacher for ultimate speed acceleration, staging tool for the coders and unique WordPress autoinstaller for the starting users – all crafted in-house by the SiteGround team. And still they do not forget the importance of the good old standard hosting features like the domain name registration, the email service, control panel and the reasonable pricing. They also have a support team that is not only available 24/7 by phone, chat and ticketing, but consists of WordPress enthusiasts who will help you with specific WordPress issues. SiteGround has been actively involved with the community speaking, supporting and attending various WordCamps around the world and by sponsoring WordCamp Miami, they want to further contribute to the amazing WordPress community.

Fifth Round of WordCamp Speakers Announced

speakers_fifth_round

WordCamp Miami is happy to announce the fifth wave of approved and confirmed speakers for WordCamp Miami 2016.

Pascal Depuhl

Pascal Depuhl is a visual content creator at Photography by Depuhl, a Miami based production company. He’s been capturing still images for over 25 years and even though he got into video only 5 years ago, you’ll find his award winning and mind changing videos on National Geographic, Netflix, the BBC and many of his clients websites. It’s common to find him in the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of South America and it’s just as common to walk away from one of his short documentary style films with your mind blown.

Marc Benzakein

“Marc Benzakein has been working online since the mid 90s, starting as a Network Administrator for a small, independent ISP in Southern California and has been involved in almost all aspects of technology. In 2009, he started developing in WordPress, first for his own purposes and then for clients. In early 2013, he got involved with ServerPress, LLC, makers of DesktopServer, a local development tool created for WordPress designers and developers.

Marc lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his wife, Jessica and a gaggle of children currently ranging in age from a few months to 13 years old.”

Patrick Alexander

Patrick Alexander is the CEO and founder of WPBICO, an all in one WordPress solutions company specializing in covering all the website needs from bloggers, small businesses to corporations. An avid WordPress enthusiast and lover of all things tech, Patrick has devoted himself to the tech industry for over 15 years gaining extensive experience in Programming, Web Development, System Administration and Technician; and a resume with related positions in the U.S Air Force, Florida International University and several Internet Start Ups.

Rocío Valdivia

Rocío Valdivia is a Spanish Computer Engineer in love with Open Source, technology, travelling and personal challenges. She enjoys working every day as a Community Wrangler at WordCamp Central for Automattic. Rocío has experience as a WordPress & BuddyPress consultant and specialist developer since 2009.

Part of the Spanish translation team at GlotPress, and Spanish WordPress and BuddyPress forums administrator. Co-organiser of WordCamp Sevilla and WordCamp Europe 2015 and 2016, and co-author of “WordPress para Dummies” (2012). Lecturer at conferences and seminars. Find Rocío on Twitter: @rociovaldi.

Alex Oliveira

As a hands on leader of multiple successful companies, Brazilian-born and South Florida-raised Alex Oliveira has helped clients advance their businesses and brands by building and executing interactive marketing campaigns for over 15 years.
With a heavy emphasis on Lead Gen, Alex has created a name for himself as a well-respected marketing technologist and entrepreneur. From small to Mid-sized companies to non-profits and Fortune 500 brands like Ford and Allstate, Alex enjoys a diverse portfolio of clientele.
Alex’s other passions include adventuring with his wife and 3 kids, giving back to the local community and having his morning coffee with a side of NPR.

Steven Alig

Steven Alig spends his days planning applications and web projects with WordPress. He has been developing and designing websites since 1997. In 2004 he started his own agency. South Florida Web Studio has changed and adapted many times over the years since its inception and it continues to deliver quality web projects for a variety of clients. Since 2010 WordPress is the exclusive platform of choice for Steven and his agency.
He is a community volunteer serving on various Web advisory committees for Broward College and Broward Schools, as well as an organizer for Creative Mornings Fort Lauderdale, and WordCamp Miami. Steven also coaches soccer for both his daughters’ recreational league teams.

Jean Felisme

Jean Felisme has been a builder of things on the web for 10 plus years, as a freelancer and entrepreneur. He fell into WordPress back in 2008 and has never looked back. Now, he is a co-founder of RateMyBarber.com and a teacher of web development skills to students of all ages.

Father of two sugar filled girls and husband of a very forgiving wife. Best friend to the Stewmister, Miniature Schnauzer, that always has his back. He is also a big Football fan and music lover.

Shayla Price

Shayla Price creates and promotes content. She lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology and social responsibility. Originally from Louisiana, Shayla lives in the Fort Lauderdale area. Connect with her on Twitter: @shaylaprice

Workshop & Weekend Schedule Is Up!

IT’S HAPPENING! It’s the moment that many have been waiting for and we are proud to announce that our schedule is now live on our site. Over 65 speakers and 3 days of tracks, workshops, panels, and lightning talks:

http://2016.miami.wordcamp.org/schedule

This schedule covers our workshops and the full weekend. The schedule is still in “beta” which means we are adding some final speakers and the schedule might be tweaked slightly.

Highlights include:

  • Our three workshops on February 19th: Developers/BuddyCamp, Beginner’s Workshop, and our new Freelancers Workshop.
  • Our “How To” Track on Saturday includes many topics our local community have been requesting. This plus the “Content & Design” track is perfect for WordPress users, designers, content creators, and marketers.
  • Developers track includes great talks, including speakers from the local PHP community.
  • Business track on Sunday is targeted toward business professional and we will be announcing our business panels and panelists shortly. Some special guests will be showing up!
  • Developers will be happy to learn we’ve devoted Sunday to “Learning JavaScript Deeply”. Not only are we bringing in experts in the WordPress community, but also adding speakers from the JS community.
  • Our kid’s panel on Sunday, which follows a full-day of activities planned for young ones, will be our first and we are still looking for nominations for <18yr old men/women to join.
  • Don’t forget that your ticket covers lunch, swag, and snacks (including our famous ice cream on Sunday).

Check out our speaker page too for details on those coming to Miami:

http://2016.miami.wordcamp.org/speakers

Cain & Obenland In The (Sunday) Morning!

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On Sunday, February 21st grab a cup of coffee and start off the final day of WordCamp Miami on the right foot with Automatticians Konstantin Obenland and Michael Cain in their morning show-style WordCamp talk! The session is broken into three segments, two that will cover any number of WordPress topics – theming, design, development, best practices, worst practices, future trends, you name it – and a special guest interview with a big name from the WordPress world. There will be laughter (hopefully?), there will be tears (regrettably?), there will even be some awkward silences (definitely). But most importantly, there will be plenty of that whole-grained, balanced-diet WordPress that you just can’t get enough of.

Here’s some information about our two wild and crazy hosts:

Michael Cain

Michael is a Portland, Maine-based “Classical Mechanic” for Automattic‘s Gravity team. He spends his days developing, testing, and improving the new user theme experience on WordPress.com, his evenings blogging about food and travel on mapandmenu.com, and his nights dreaming about how to make tomorrow’s WordPress blogs and sites even better.

Konstantin Obenland

Konstantin is a WordPress aficionado, and Core Developer based in Southern California. You might remember him from projects like WordPress 4.3 or the new WordPress.org Theme Directory. At Automattic he’s is part of a team that contributes to Core and WordPress.org full time. He enjoys bourbons, craft beers, and good food — sometimes so much that he blogs about it.

Fourth Round of WordCamp Speakers Announced

speakers_third_round

WordCamp Miami is happy to announce the fourth wave of approved and confirmed speakers for WordCamp Miami 2016.

Stephanie Brinley

With a life-long passion for art and a BFA in Graphic Design, Stephanie is a web designer with an emphasis on design. She started freelancing as a print designer many years ago, but found the transition to web design a natural progression. Shortly thereafter, Stephanie and her husband began experimenting with WordPress around version 2.0.2 and built a thriving company around it. In 2011 they moved their family to Jacksonville, FL and rebranded as Flightless. Stephanie has been involved with the Florida WordPress community since 2014 and got her start speaking at WordCamp Miami. Since then she has been honored to share her knowledge at WordCamps Tampa, Orlando, and US. Most weeks you will find her attempting to balance web design and homeschooling, exploring the world of flavors she can invent in her kitchen, and sometimes on Twitter @sjbrinley.

Devin Walker

Devin Walker is the founder of WordImpress, a San Diego based WordPress development company. He and the WordImpress team also serve as WordPress Community Consultants for Media Temple. Walker has extensive experience creating free, premium, and commercial WordPress plugins and themes. Popular plugins include Give, a highly rated WordPress Donations Plugin, Google Maps Builder, Yelp Widget Pro and WooCommerce Quick Checkout. In total, his plugins have more than 100,000 active installs.

Outside of the WordPress world, Devin enjoys traveling, going to concerts, and playing a leisurely round of disc golf.

Dustin Meza

“Dustin Meza is the Director of Customer Experience Operations at WP Engine. He has been in the hosting industry for 7 years and has been with WP Engine for almost 3 years. At WP Engine, Dustin oversees many aspects of the WordPress platform including WordPress upgrades for over 100,000 WordPress installs and 40,000 customers.

Outside of WordPress, Dustin loves being outdoors in Nashville with his wife Megan, and black lab, Maddy. He enjoys all kinds of sports, both watching and playing, and has been known to play some video games when time allows. If you really want to get him talking, just bring up your favorite movie.”

Syed Balkhi

Syed Balkhi is an award winning young entrepreneur with several 7 figure online businesses. He was recognized as the top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by United Nations. His work has been featured in Forbes, Inc, Washington Post, FoxBusiness, Entrepreneur, Wired, and many top publications. In 2009, he created WPBeginner which is now one of the largest free WordPress resource site on the web. In 2011, he created a site called List25, an extremely popular site that within 3 months of launch was receiving 5 million page views per month. List25 has over 1.8 million subscribers and 340 Million video views on Youtube. In 2013, he launched OptinMonster, the best lead generation software that helps businesses grow their email list. Every month, OptinMonster forms are viewed billions of times and help convert millions of abandoning visitors into subscribers. Aside from these, Syed is also the founder of ThemeLab, Soliloquy, and Envira Gallery.

Georgina Lewis

Georgina is from Jacksonville, Fl where she co-founded Shazzam Media, a national social media marketing and website design firm helping businesses grow their business brands and marketing channels with Simple Social Solutions. She has been developing WordPress solutions since 2009. Before starting Shazzam Media, Georgina was a mainframe programmer and founder of an IBM VAR business. She developed leading edge MRP & MPS software solutions for automating manufacturing companies around the world.

In her free time, Georgina is a social ecosystem speaker at emerging leader organizations and sports conferences. She is an agent to several professional golfers (of which her oldest child is a LPGA pro), mother to 4 assertive children, and wife to an understanding husband.

Mike Hansen

Mike has been working with WordPress since 2007. He has experience as a custom theme and plugin developer and has been a contributor to WordPress core since version 3.5. When not coding Mike enjoys making it out to local WordPress meetups and helping others to learn and share his passion for WordPress. Mike works on the Open Source team at Bluehost. He is also the author of the MOJO Marketplace plugin.

David Yarde

David Yarde is the co-founder of Sevenality, a Branding firm that specializes in design, and user experience with the aim of building better communities by helping build better brands. When David isn’t working on Sevenality or volunteering, he’s busy being Batman and spending time with his family and occasionally sharing tweets via @dsmy.

Tony Perez

Tony is one of the Co-Founders, and CEO at Sucuri; a globally recognized website security firm specializing in cleaning and protecting websites. Tony has spent the better part of 5 years building an organization designed to provide value to website owners when they need it most. He has worked with 100’s of thousands of websites, helping them navigate their online security challenges, has spoken at events and conferences around the world, and is adamant in the power of education and awareness. He actively writes and shares his thoughts on both business and security on his personal web properties.

He is a former US Marine, holds his undergraduate degree in Technology Management, and is an active Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner and competitor.

Announcing: “Learn JavaScript Deeply” Track

Screenshot 2016-01-06 12.49.31During his “State of the Word”, Matt Mullenweg (CEO of Auttomatic) gave the WordPress community “homework” to “learn JavaScript deeply” (click here to watch the video – the mention is 59:00 minutes into the video) Matt claimed that it’s the future of the web, and WordCamp Miami believes that as well. To that end, WordCamp Miami is devoting it’s entire developer’s track on Sunday to JavaScript education.

This track is for any and all developers who want to improve their JavaScript knowledge. This track is great for those who are just starting to get a handle on JavaScript. There is also material for more advanced developers who have a solid knowledge, but need to know how to move forward. The track will cover everything from basic developer tools to advanced JavaScript concepts to JS frameworks to how to apply more advanced concepts to WordPress development. Although WordPress is discussed in a few talks, the track contains mountains of knowledge and tips for any JavaScript developers regardless if you use WordPress or not.

The “Learn JavaScript Deeply” track will be on Sunday, February 21st. It is a full-day track.

Although we haven’t yet posted our weekend schedule, we are proud to showcase the following planned speakers and the talks they will be covering.

Camden Segal

Camden is a developer at WebDevStudios where he is the resident Javascript guru and is pretty good at WordPress too I guess. Camden began his career as a developer at the age of 7, aiming to debut on the AOL Kids Only Games section. The sting of rejection failed to deter Camden – he went on to sell over $1500 in weapons on Second Life when he was in middle school. Eventually, Camden came to his senses and majored in Studio Arts at Bard College, and has utilized his degree extensively in his postgraduate career. In his free time Camden is an independent game designer and helps run the Philly Game Forge, a co-working space for game developers.

Talk: “Modern Javascript Workflows for WordPress”: The modern JavaScript ecosystem is evolving at an incredible pace. Every day there are new frameworks, tools, and ideas that push JavaScript development a little further.

Josh will walk you through the concepts behind tools like NPM, Browserify, ES2015, and Babel, their basic usage. If you are a WordPress developer we will show how to best integrate them with WordPress’s built in systems. Even if you aren’t a WordPress developer, this talk will introduce you to tools that you should be using for your JavaScript development.

Nizar Khalife Iglesias

Hi, I’m Nizar. I’m the Lead Instructor at IronHack Miami and have been a Web developer for over 8 years. I teach people what coding is and how to code. I also write software for the server, command-line and browser, usually in my preferred language: JavaScript. I love learning and speaking about code and I try to stay active in developer meetups in South Florida.
Aside from that, I’m from Puerto Rico and I enjoy video games, film and cookies. I try to say funny things and often fail.

Talk: “Advanced Topics of JavaScript”: If you’ve done even a little bit of JavaScript, you know that its has it’s fair share of quirks. In particular, functions in JavaScript do a lot of strange things. Rather than be a victim of the bizarre history of the Web, Nizar is here cut through the metaphorical jungle of the JavaScript function.

In this hands on workshop, you will learn about the nuances of functions in JavaScript. We will discuss what it means for functions to be first-class citizens in a language, what function scope is, the mysterious “this” keyword and some of the implications of all these things. Don’t forget your machete.

Josh Pollock

Josh, is a WordPress plugin developer, educator and entrepreneur. He is the owner of CalderaWP, makers of Caldera Forms, and a co-founder of Ingot, the easiest A/B testing solution for WordPress. In addition he is a contributor to WordPress core, the WordPress REST API, and plugins by Foo Plugins, Postmatic, Pods, Aesop Interactive, WordImpress, GravityView and more.

One of Josh’s favorite things to do is to share what he has learned about WordPress plugin development, business and community. He writes regularly for Torque Magazine and has contributed to other top WordPress tutorial sites including, Smashing Magazine, Tuts+, and WPBeginner. He is also the author of the book The Ultimate Guide to the WordPress REST API.

Talk: “Intro to AngularJS”: AngularJS is a wonderful tool, extending the conventions of HTML5 that we all know and love, for building dynamic web applications. This beginner talk will provide you with a basic understanding of Angular templates, controllers, directives and factories. It will prepare you to get started with Angular and use it to build awesome interfaces connected to a RESTful API, such as the WordPress REST API.

Zac Gordon

Zac Gordon is currently preparing the JavaScript for WordPress Master Course. Previously, Zac taught WordPress for Treehouse, the online technology school. Zac has years of experience teaching WordPress and JavaScript at the high school and college level. In addition to teaching, Zac also runs Web Hosting for Students.

Talk: “Use Cases for JavaScript Frameworks”: In this talk, WordPress educator Zac Gordon goes over many of the popular JavaScript libraries and frameworks (jQuery, Backbone, Ember, Angular and React) and discusses various use cases for each one. Of course, the talk also includes emphasis on some vanilla JS knowledge a WordPress dev should have.

Bruno Cunha

Bruno Cunha is a self-taught front-end developer working at EarlyShares, where he helps build platforms for crowdfunding commercial real estate. A Miami native, Bruno likes contributing to the local tech community – most recently, he gave a talk for the Miami Ruby Brigade on JavaScript for Rails Developers, as well as a two-part talk for the Front-End Developers of Miami on mob programming using TDD and JavaScript. He loves building modern and performant interfaces and happily welcomes any challengers to a battle in Super Smash Bros.

Talk: “Intro to React”: React is a popular JavaScript library by Facebook for building dynamic user interfaces. In this introduction, we’ll cover component-based application structure, React basics, and next steps. A basic understanding of JavaScript is recommended so you can follow along as we live code our first React Component!

Kevin Stover

Kevin is the co-founder and CTO of WP Ninjas, the creators of the Ninja Forms plugin. He’s been working in WordPress for over six years and studied desktop development before jumping into developing for the web. He has a wife, a one year old daughter, and a Master’s Degree, and nearly a PhD, in Roman Military history from the University of Liverpool.

Talk: “My Experience Converting a WordPress Plugin to a Backbone App”: It starts out innocently enough; you need to hide a div in your plugin admin screen, so you go to Google and type something like: jQuery hide element. Then, you realize that you also need to change the text of one of your h3 tags when the user selects a specific option. You keep telling yourself that this is the last time, but you’ve already done it. You’ve created a big heaping mess of jQuery spaghetti. Your JS file is now hundreds of lines of code snippets that show and hide elements, change HTML text, swap out input values, and anything else that you need to make your plugin admin “dynamic.” We’ve all been there; there’s no shame in admitting it. In WordPress, often the JS that drives our interfaces is an after thought. I’ve cooked up jQuery spaghetti more times than I care to say.

In this session, I’ll share my experiences in converting a popular WordPress plugin, Ninja Forms, from a PHP/HTML plugin to a mostly JS application. We’ll talk about the tools and technologies that we’ve used to avoid the dreaded pasta of bad code, along with how we overcame some WordPress-specific challenges. We’ll cover how we to plan and build a data-driven user interaction, rather than a reactive, snippet-driven mess.


More Speakers and Surprises To Come!

Speakers are being added to the above lineup and they’ll be announced in a few days along with our weekend schedule.

Speakers will be sharing all the code online. For this unique and exclusive rack, there will also be a Q&A at the end of the day for those with questions. It’s a perfect time to get the feedback and suggestions from a group of experienced developers. No question is too basic or small! There will also be a section of the schedule dedicated to speakers sharing the best resources so you can continue your education after the conference. A Slack channel (click here to signup) will be provided exclusively for developers at the conference so you can virtually meet developers before the conference… and follow up with them after the conference as well.

More information and surprises concerning WordCamp Miami’s “Learn JavaScript Deeply” track will be announced the closer we get to the conference. We are looking forward to educating the local community and hope this starts a trend of knowledgable workshops and tracks in future WordCamps in 2016!

Grab your weekend ticket now to make sure you can attend. Developers should also come to our BuddyCamp Developers workshop on Friday, Feb. 19th!

Third Round of WordCamp Speakers Announced

speakers_third_round

WordCamp Miami is happy to announce the third wave of approved and confirmed speakers for WordCamp Miami 2016.

Shawn Hooper

Shawn Hooper is the CTO at Actionable Books, where he enjoys combining code and data to build intelligent tools for teams and leaders. Hailing from Ottawa, Canada, Shawn has been building web applications since the late 90s, with a focus on WordPress since 2011. As a freelance developer, he has built sites for clients in the public and private sectors in both Canada and United States. He loves making use of great 3rd party APIs, promoting web accessibility and secure coding practices.

John Bloch

John P Bloch is a Lead Web Engineer at 10up where he spends his time helping clients with large and complex WordPress sites. John started working with WordPress as a self-taught English-major-turned-developer in 2008 and hasn’t stopped since. John lives near Dallas, Texas where he enjoys the warm nights and slow-cooked barbecue.

Michelle Schulp

Michelle is an independent graphic designer in Minneapolis (formerly Chicago). Her formal education is in design, including print, branding, packaging, etc., plus studies in Psychology and Sociology. Together, this resulted in a love of How To Solve Problems. Lately she has been specializing in WordPress theme development and high-end presentations for her clients. She loves the open source community and speaks/volunteers/organizes at WordCamps and other events around the country.

Ernie Hsiung

Ernie is a front-end developer, writer, speaker, designer and community organizer with an interest in how technology interacts with communities. Born and raised in the Bay Area and living in Miami, he is an internet industry veteran spanning 15 years, including running 8Asians, a community blog for Asian Americans, and being Developer Evangelist at Ning. He most recently served as a 2015 Code for America Fellow working with Miami-Dade County and is currently a software engineer at RackSpace.

Louise Treadwell

Louise is an eternal web development geek and social media junkie. She’s a native of Metro Detroit and an alumnae of the University of Michigan. She learned about the human side of computer science while earning a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science and has fined tuned her web developer skills over the course of a 20+ year career building, breaking, and fixing sites for a multitude of startups. She’s never had a “real” job and thus is quite well-versed on the realities of being a successful freelancer and small business owner. Louise loves coffee, is full of useless facts, and is eagerly waiting for her shot on Jeopardy. She lives in South Florida with her three bouncing boys and her husband.

Matt Medeiros

Matt Medeiros is the host of popular WordPress podcast, The Matt Report. The show discusses the challenges and highlights of running a digital agency while standing in the crossroads of product development.

He is the co-founder of a digital agency, Slocum Studio and the product mind behind Conductor Plugin.

Nile Flores

Nile Flores is a long time WordPress designer and Developer. Nile blogs at Blondish.net, where she covers topics on WordPress, Blogging, SEO, Social Media, and Web Design.She also loves contributing to WordPress, and that includes speaking at WordCamps across the United States. She loves helping people and supporting Open Source projects. She is a proud support member at Team Yoast. She also runs a 7,000 member Facebook roup dedicated to helping WordPressers, called All About WordPress. When Nile isn’t knee deep in coding and design, she’s spending time with her son, who is also a WordPress user.

Catalina Valenzuela

Catalina is a content geek who has written different kind of content about economics, politics, policies, food, education and technology. She is a partner and contributor to TECHcetera a digital media platform aiming to help its Spanish speaking audience to make the most of the technology conversation..At TECHcetera, she writes about the use (and abuse) of technology in educational settings. Catalina is particularly interested in discussing how access to technological tools can reduce the knowledge gaps. She is a networker by nature and is part of local networks promoting women’s inclusion particularly in the tech scene. She had worked in different organizations including the London equivalent of a charter school where she began to understand the power that technology can have in learning and teaching environments. She grew up in Bogotá, Colombia where she attended the French school and obtained a BA in Economics. She lived in London for eight years where she got a Masters degree in international relations from the London School of Economics and qualified as a teacher. Catalina is a compulsive reader and avid cook. She lives in Miami with her family. Twitter: @cavalenzu.

Announcing Our Freelance Workshop (February 19th)

Screenshot 2016-01-03 17.26.24

Are you currently a freelancer? Are you hoping to become a freelancer or do some projects on the side? Then WordCamp Miami has the workshop for you, regardless if you currently use WordPress or not. Along with our Beginner’s Workshop and our developers/BuddyCamp Miami workshop, we are proud to offer a full-day workshop on February 19th dedicated to giving valuable advice and knowledge uniquely targeted to those who are “on their own” (even perhaps working out of their home).

The following topics will be covered by experienced speakers:

Sales And Pricing Strategies
Client Relations
How To HandOff Projects
How To Fire A Client
Branding
Giving Great Support to Angry Customers
How To Handle Change Orders From Clients

…and more. This workshop will start at 9am on Friday February 19th and end around 4:30pm with an hour long lunch break. Schedule will be released soon with speaker information and planned times of the talks (as long as location of venue).

Screenshot 2016-01-03 17.24.49

Is This Class Just For New Freelancers?

While those new to freelancing will greatly benefit, any freelancer or small business would benefit from the knowledge and reminds from these talks. Plus you’ll have the ability to network within a knowledge but smaller group before the much bigger WordCamp Miami weekend.

Why Buy Your Tickets Now?

Due to limited seating, tickets for our 2015 workshops sold out even faster than our weekend tickets. Very likely the same will happen this year. So instead of delaying and then being put on waiting list you should grab your workshop ticket AND weekend tickets NOW:

2016.miami.wordcamp.org/tickets

Search For Youths For Our First Kid’s Panel

kidsblogging

In addition to once again having our Kid’s Workshop, WordCamp Miami is aiming to have our first kid’s panel: “The Next Generation of WordPress Users”. We want to showcase how young people are using WordPress, how they view blogging, and what other technologies they are using to publish content on the Internet. The panel is meant to not only feature youths, but also educate those in attendance what the next generation’s motivations are.

Are you a parent or guardian of a child (age 18 or under) that uses WordPress (hosted version or WordPress.com)? Does the child have a blog, even if it’s NOT on WordPress? Then we would like to see them apply (w/ parent’s permission) to be a part of a 30 minute panel on Sunday (February 21st) afternoon.

Parents and guardians can simply email us directly at miami@wordcamp.org to nominate a child.

Where the Loca’s Go? – Attractions

Welcome to Miami!

Attractions Edition

For the people coming from out of town, we wanted to provide you a list of some of Miami’s attractions to visit. Once again, we only scratch the surface with this list but if you want to know of more places to see, taste, smell, hear and touch in Miami from Miamians join our Slack channel here.


Vizcaya
Museum and Gardens
(305) 250-9133
http://vizcaya.org/
3251 South Miami Avenue
Miami, Florida 33129

Wynwood
Art District – Outdoor/Indoor Art galleries, shows and events.
http://www.wynwoodmiami.com/
Between 36th St. & 20th St. Miami, Fl 33127

Shark Valley
Everglades National Park
(305) 221-8455
http://www.sharkvalleytramtours.com/
Shark Valley Loop Road
Miami, FL 33194

Robert Is Here
Farm Stand
(305) 246-1592
https://robertishere.com/
19200 SW 344 St.
Homestead, FL 33034

Fairchild Garden
Tropical Botanic Garden
(305) 667-1651
http://www.fairchildgarden.org/
10901 Old Cutler Road
Coral Gables, FL 33156

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park
Coral Reef State Park
(305) 451-6300
http://pennekamppark.com/
102601 Overseas Highway (MM 102.5)
Key Largo, FL 33037

Where the Loca’s Go? – Restaurants

Welcome to Miami!

Restaurants Edition

For the people coming from out of town, we wanted to provide you a list of Miami’s authentic restaurants to visit near FIU. Now we only scratch the surface with this list but if you want to know of more places to see, taste, smell, hear and touch in Miami from Miamians join our Slack channel here.


Las Palmeras Restaurante
Latin Seafood, Live Latin Band
Know for: Arroz Con Camaron (Shrimp & Rice)
(786) 558-5271
http://www.laspalmerasrestaurante.com/
2500 SW 107th Ave, Suite 1
Miami, FL 33165

Sarussi Subs
Best Cuban Sub Sandwich | “Miami Hot Spots” and “Man vs Food”
Know for: Cuban Sub – “Original Sandwich”
(305) 264-5464
http://sarussisubs.com/
6797 SW 8th Street
Miami, FL 33144

Olivos
Argentinean
Know for: Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Dates
(305) 718-9968
http://olivosrestaurant.com/
10455 NW 41st St.
Doral, FL 33178

Layali Miami
Lebanese Restaurant & Hookah Lounge | Best Belly & Fire Dancing Show
Know for: Hummus
(305) 403-0188
http://www.layalimiami.com/
11402 NW 41st St Ste 115
Doral, FL 33178

El Arepazo
Versailles Venezuelan
Know for: Anything, Seriously!
(786) 594-0726
http://www.elarepazomiami.com/
10191 NW 58TH ST.
DORAL, FL 33178

Baru
Latin Bar & Night Club with a real Latin American feel.
(305) 477-6022
http://barurbano.com/
11402 NW 41st Street
Doral, FL 33178

Second Round of WordCamp Speakers Announced

speakers_second_round

WordCamp Miami is happy to announce the second wave of approved and confirmed speakers for WordCamp Miami 2016.

James Laws

With over 14 years of experience in web design and development, internet marketing, business management, and public speaking, James has had his hands in every aspect of running successful and not so successful businesses. He has led everything from churches and charities to coffee shops and Web Development Shops.

Irina Blumenfeld

Irina Blumenfeld is an independent Front-End Developer. She has been creating websites for more than 10 years. Over time, she has branched out her skills with responsive design, theme development, and a passion for website performance.

Sarah Pressler

Sarah Pressler is the Project Manager at ServerPress.com, Project Manager at PlainMade.com, Co-Founder and Project Manager of CodeBrainMedia.com and Marketing Advisor to The WP Developer Club. She is a fully engaged Mom of Four, a reluctant blogger at SarahPressler.com, an enthusiastic speaker at tech conferences, and passionate about helping others find remote work. A fourth generation Texan, Sarah currently resides near Austin with her fiance and children.

Victor Santoyo

Technological enthusiast and Sales Engineer for Sucuri. Spends his spare time becoming familiar with several CMSs. When away from the keyboard, going out for long runs or watching sports with his wife.

Karen Dimmick

Karen Dimmick is currently based in Sarasota FL. She has run her own businesses since 1995. Her background for the last 10 years has been wrapped up in language, copywriting, NLP (neuro linguistic programming), hypnosis, archetypes, psychology, persuasion, design, levels of consciousness and everything to do with how people’s minds work and why they do things.
In 2011 Karen started working on a system for branding that takes into account all these disparate ideas in a way that hasn’t been done before. She founded Iconisense.com to get this system out into the world and help entrepreneurs create brands that will last and attract loyal followers.

David Laietta

David Laietta is an organizer of WordPress Orlando and WordCamp Orlando. He has been using WordPress for nearly eight years now, and builds custom themes and plugins for clients. David is a cofounder of Dinosaur Iceberg, a creative agency based in Orlando. In addition to WordPress, David is passionate about open source software, online freedoms, internet culture, and constantly learning about the world. He looks forward to chatting with you at WordCamp Miami or on Twitter @davidlaietta.

Steve Zehngut

Steve founded Zeek Interactive in 1995 and he has been the creative technologist behind the Huntington Beach based company since its inception. Under his direction, Zeek has grown from an apartment bedroom to one of Southern California’s leading development and consulting shops.

Steve is the organizer of the OC WordPress Meetup and has helped build the community to over 1100 members. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has taught interactive courses at UC Irvine, USC, the American Film Institute, and Cal State Long Beach. Steve has a BA in Film from Cal State Northridge.

Adam Soucie

Adam Soucie is a WordPress developer and the CEO at Dinosaur Iceberg, an Orlando-based digital creative agency. He is part of the WordPress Orlando and WordCamp Orlando organizing teams and recently joined the WordPress Accessibility Team.

First Round of WordCamp Miami Speakers Announced

WordCamp Miami is happy to announce the first wave of approved and confirmed speakers for WordCamp Miami 2016.

Chris Wiegman

Chris is a Senior Web Engineer for 10up and has been working on WordPress since 2008. Before joining 10up Chris built one of the largest security plugins in the WordPress community as well as numerous other plugins and solutions. When not coding Chris loves to teach and has presented at numerous WordCamps and other conferences as well as taught computer security for St. Edward’s University and other University courses ranging from computers to aviation.

 

Elisha Fernandez

Elisha is a homeschooled 13 year-old, and a passionate best-selling author, artist, kidpreneur, and speaker. She loves to write, read, draw, paint, and play the piano and guitar. She is proud to be a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Practitioner, trained by Jay Conrad Levinson himself. If Elisha had only 3 words to describe herself they would be creative, generous, and humorous. Elisha lives in Fort Worth, TX with her family and she loves spending time with them. She wrote I Love ME! at age ten, because she loves helping other kids become bully-proof, love themselves, and be the best they can be. Learn more about her at WhollyART.com

 

Elyssa Fernandez

Elyssa is 12 years old. She enjoys being an entrepreneur, best-selling author, speaker, artist, and coach. She is homeschooled, and her greatest coach and mentor is her mom, Elayna Fernandez. Elyssa plays the guitar and piano, and she loves to play with her sisters, draw, read, write stories, dance ballet, play tennis, and ride her bike. She’s fascinated with nature, especially animals, and to avoid hurting them, she became vegan at age 7. Elyssa teaches children to love themselves and have self-confidence through her books, blog posts, and artistic expressions. Elyssa would be thrilled to get to know you. Learn more about her at WhollyART.com

 

Elayna Fernandez

Recognized as the Best Latina Lifestyle Blogger of 2015 and named one of the Top 100 Latina Influencers in the USA, Elayna Fernandez, The Positive MOM, is a best-selling author, award winning success guide for moms, and international keynote speaker. She is a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Master Trainer, trained personally by Jay Conrad Levinson, The Father of Guerrilla Marketing, and creator of the Guerrilla Positioning System (GPS) for Mompreneurs. Elayna is a Certified Passion Test Facilitator, and Certified ‘The Success Principles’ Trainer. Her mission is to encourage, empower, and equip moms to have more influence at home, more impact in the world, and more income to make it happen. She guides moms in their journey to create Joy, Balance, and Success on their own terms without guilt, fear, or overwhelm. Her philosophy is “BE Positive and You’ll BE Powerful!”

 

Sandy Edwards

Sandy lives to help others build their business through WordPress and Marketing solutions.proficient in HTML5, CSS3, and WordPress.

She is also knowledgeable in local Search Engine Optimization(SEO), on page SEO, and SEO Rich Content Writing. She also loves to educate others.

 

Cal Evans

When not banging his head on his monitor, attempting a blood sacrifice to get a particular piece of code working, Cal enjoys building and managing development teams using his widely imitated but never patented management style of “management by wandering around”.

These days, when not working with PHP, Cal can be found working on a variety of projects like CoderFaire. He speaks at conferences around the world on topics ranging from technical talks to motivational talks for developers. If you happen to meet him at a conference, don’t be afraid to buy him a shot of Bourbon.

Cal is based in Jupiter, FL where he is happily married to wife 1.31, the lovely and talented Kathy. Together they have 2 wonderful kids who were both smart enough not to pursue a job in IT.

 

Scott Mann

Scott is from Orlando, FL where he founded Highforge, a digital services agency focused on solving complex business growth problems ranging from web design to Google strategy to balloon animal protection services. He’s been managing WordPress projects since 2006. In his free time he’s a marketing strategist, SEO and PPC guy. He loves to solve problems, make clients happy and help creatives achieve their destinies. He digs racquetball, backpacking, and a non-profit called Be the Match that helps save lives. Ask him why.

 

Mindy Postoff

Currently based in Dunedin, Florida, Mindy Postoff is a WooCommerce Support Ninja at Automattic. She finds working in technical support extremely fulfilling, as it satisfies her fierce drive to help people, while also throwing in healthy levels of geekiness. Her superpower is being able to combine equal parts empathy with problem-solving skills.

 

Chris Lema

Chris Lema is the CTO and Chief Strategist at Crowd Favorite. He’s also a daily blogger, a public speaker, and product strategist. He helps companies leverage WordPress, and helps WordPress companies find leverage.

For twenty years Chris has developed and managed high performing engineers to build software products – particularly SaaS products in a variety of B2B vertical markets. He’s also spent the last ten years coaching startups on product development & marketing strategies.

 

First Round of Tickets Now On Sale!

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The time has finally arrived!

You can now purchase your tickets for WordCamp Miami!

We’re offering several ticket types:

  • A full weekend ticket, which covers sessions for both Saturday and Sunday (Feb 20/21). This will include lunch each day, glorious swag, an official t-shirt, and some surprises. All for only $35!
  • Beginner’s Workshop (which you can find more details about here – including a schedule) ticket for February 19th. This ticket includes lunch and gives you full access to the workshop.
  • Developer / BuddyCamp ticket for February 19th. It’s more than a second workshop on that day – it’s a tradition! If you are a developer or want to hear talks on BuddyPress and developer topics, this is your rally point!
  • Freelance Workshop ticket for February 19th. Our third and final workshop will have speakers give topics on how to be a better freelancer, how to deal with clients, and more. We will release the full schedule for this workshop soon.
  • Kid’s Workshop tickets for February 21st. If you have a child ages 8-13 then consider joining your child for our workshop on Sunday morning. We show kids how to publish using WordPress as parents watch them create their first blog posts! Bring your laptop or tablet!

If you applied to speak or volunteer and wondering if you need to buy a weekend ticket now – don’t worry. We are holding weekend tickets in reserve for speakers, sponsors, and volunteers. If you want to attend a workshop, you can grab your ticket now if you’re sure you want to attend that workshop and we will refund you if appropriate.

We’ll be posting information regarding speakers and schedules, so please be sure that you’re subscribed to our mailing list to get ticket updates via email. Or join us in our Slack channel. These are the best ways to be the first to be notified of future announcements.

WordPress Beginner’s Workshop – February 19th

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If you are new to WordPress, then you want to make sure you attend our beginner’s workshop. And as our beginner workshops are quite popular, we wanted to share with you some information before they sell out.

Our workshop is happening on February 19th at FIU. Our workshops worked out last year very well and sold out rather quickly. We limit our workshops to about 100 attendees, SO IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO GRAB A TICKET BEFORE OUR WORKSHOPS SELL OUT.

Registration will start at 8am, and a full day’s schedule is planned (9am to 4:30pm). Lunch will be provided, so just bring yourself (a laptop or tablet is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, or something to take notes with) and get ready for a full day of getting up to speed with WordPress. After this workshop you’ll be ready for WordCamp Miami weekend (Feb 20th and Feb 21st).

Schedule

Here’s what we cover in our beginner workshop (note that this schedule might be adjusted, and if so we’ll alert all ticket holders).

1. Decisions / Education (Selecting a domain, what hosting provider might be the best for you, comparing WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org, etc.)

2. Installation and Setup (Guiding through how to install WordPress and giving a tour of the general WordPress admin)

3. Getting Started with WordPress (Showcasing every day things that you do in WordPress such as creating and editing posts, pages, categories, tags, etc. Also we go into items like comment moderation)

4. WordPress Themes (Discussion about trusted sources of getting WordPress themes, best practices, widgets, menus, header images, background images, and more)

5. Trouble Shooting (Knowledge share on common WordPress problems, troubleshooting, customizing, importing/exporting, and more)

6. Plugins (Best practices for plugins, “must-have” plugins, and how to use WordPress beyond a blogging platform)


Our beginner workshops usually sellout, so if you want to learn more about using WordPress or want to review the basic concepts before the WordCamp Miami weekend, grab a ticket.

Sucuri

Sucuri Coming To WCMIA 2016!

When you have a discussion about security and website protection, Sucuri is a name that’s often spoken. And for good reason. Sucuri has had a strong presence in WordCamps across the country and the world – and when there’s a security warning that WordPress site owners need to pay attention to, Sucuri is right there providing great information and support.

So thanks to Sucuri for being a sponsor! Here’s a message from them to our WordCamp audience:


Sucuri

At Sucuri, our labs are dedicated to researching and thwarting the latest and emerging threats to websites like yours. Our team handles your website security needs, so that you can get back to what you’re best at: running your online presence. Passion is at the heart of everything we do, and we cut through the noise to provide you with complete security solutions. Our services are built around three defining principles – People. Process. Technology – the three founding elements of information security.

Team up with Sucuri and gain the peace you are looking for with your website security. We secure websites, so you don’t have to.