Category Archives: Speakers

Jake Spurlock — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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Jake is a former Utah native now living in California and working for MAKE magazine. “The big site that I work on all day is makezine.com but there are a few others too like MakerFaire.com and others…When I started working at MAKE, we did a lot of incremental updates, about six months ago, I got to do an overhaul, and with a blank slate, every line of code on the site is new, and written by me.” Jake got his start with WordPress in 2005 when he was building a podcasting network in iWeb. “I quickly grew beyond that software and used WordPress, knowing that I could have category-specific RSS feeds. Boom! Haven’t turned back since.”

Jake’s favorite thing(s) about WordPress came in list form:

List of favorite functions/classes/APIs/things:

1. WP_QUERY
2. register_post_type()
3. Transients API
4. update_post_meta()
5. WordPress VIP program
6. Awesome community

Jake will be talking about responsive development with the Twitter Bootstrap framework. “In the last nine months I have been using Bootstrap for a variety of projects at work. It’s been a fun platform to build on top of, and as a form of evangelism, I wanted to share the good news of the project.”

When he isn’t working at MAKE, Jake loves the outdoors. “Cycling, mountain biking, rock climbing and camping. Been working on my Jeep for the last six months or so turning it into a rock climbing rig.” While Jake doesn’t listen to jazz most of the time, he does dig some Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

Joe Boydston — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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This is our last speaker profile. I sincerely hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about our speakers, and I encourage you to visit our schedule if you haven’t had a chance to learn about everyone and what they are presenting. There’s an awesome bunch of folks coming to this years WordCamp SLC and we’re excited to have them.

Joe works for small newspapers in California and is responsible for all aspects of technology and digital publishing. “My goal there is to replace as [many] of the legacy computer systems as possible with WordPress.” He started with a home-brew PHP-based CMS built “the hard way” and switched to WordPress in 2010. Joe’s favorite thing about WordPress is the community. “Without the type of people who make and attend WordCamps, WordPress would not be what it is. I credit @mitcho and @nacin for inspiring me to get involved.”

Joe’s favorite project that he’s been involved with was for The Davis Enterprise. “Forward looking newspaper design, not just the aesthetics but the business logic behind the design. In my un-humble opinion, this is a model for the future of local news publishing.”

Joe’s presentation is about WordPress’ profound effect on journalism. “I hope people will think differently about what WordPress can do as a application platform, specifically it’s use by the publishing industry. My dreams would come true if someone used this technology to help other newspapers evolve and grow.”

When he’s not working with WordPress, Joe loves outdoor activities (“the more extreme the better”) and spending time with his family. While it isn’t what he listens to most, his favorite jazz musician is Sonny Rollins.

Dustin Nay — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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Dustin NayDustin works at SEO.com where he does SEO all day as his career, and hack WordPress sites at night and on weekends. “I’m an entrepreneur by nature, and enjoy coming up with business ideas.”

Dustin knew about WordPress but had always considered it “blogging software”. “When I started working with a friend on some projects in early 2010, he turned me on to WordPress despite my resistance. After we worked on a joint project for a client, I bought dustinnay.com and started building a blog. Later that year I attended my first WordCamp, founded the WP Meetup SLC group, and just kept learning and experimenting.”

Dustin wanted to share his story and insight to share the resources he’s found and show that everyone can learn WordPress. “I think a lot of people feel overwhelmed when they first start with WordPress, particularly non-developers (like me!).” Tolkien fans may have already picked up on the sly reference to The Hobbit in his presentation’s title, and warns that the presentation “will be peppered with references to Middle Earth, and possibly other geeky things.”

Though jazz isn’t what he listens to most of the time, Dustin’s favorite jazz performer is Tommy Flanagan. You can find him blogging on his new home at Oh Wise Geek.

Laura Moncur — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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Laura is a full-time writer and contributor to multiple blogs who writes every day. Before she used WordPress, she ran her blogs on a homebrew software that was a NIGHTMARE to maintain and use. “I love that I have the power to add HTML code whenever I want. As much as everyone loves WYSIWYG, I prefer to have the freedom to add whatever code I need and see it.”

Her favorite blog that she contributes to is Starling Travel. “I’m proud of all of my blogs, but Starling Travel is my favorite because it’s where I go to dream about my next vacation. I think a lot of people are chained at work, wishing they could escape. I like to imagine that Starling Travel gives them that chance to escape.”

Laura’s presentation is about blogging and how to get your mojo back. “I feel so grateful to the WordPress community for making my life easier. WordPress lets me WRITE instead of worrying about HTML code or security holes. I created this presentation as a way to give back to the community that has helped me so much.”

When she’s not writing, Laura loves to camp, and when she can’t camp, she’s restoring trailers to camp in. Laura does not listen to jazz; she prefers electronica and pop.

Bryan Petty — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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Bryan Petty works full-time developing WordPress core for Bluehost. “I don’t actually have any specific WordPress-powered sites I’m in charge of building and maintaining anymore. This leaves me with the full day every day to address tickets in the WordPress issue tracker, help improve project infrastructure, and help build new features into WordPress.” Bryan found WordPress around 2.1 – 2.3; before that he built a few sites on TextPattern and NewsPHP. His favorite part of WordPress is “definitely custom post types.”

One of the projects that he’s worked on that he’s most proud of is for the Cole Holland Training Center. “The Cole Holland Training Center was the first website that really expanded my experience with custom post types and taxonomies. This site turned around my entire perspective on what WordPress is, and what it can be used for…and opened up a lot of possibilities for features I could add to every new site I built after that.”

Bryan’s presentation is a highly technical session on plugin testing. “The WordPress team has worked especially hard on the unit tests system in the last few months, and nearly all the the main system built around the tests themselves has actually been completely rewritten…I feel like it’s important that plugin authors get in the habit of writing unit tests for their plugins…I wanted to take the time to get a presentation out there on how they can do this quickly and easily, and take advantage of the new unit test framework built for WordPress.”

When he’s not hacking on WordPress core, Bryan loves taking trips to southern Utah during the summer, and during the winter, he heads up to Snowbird with his snowboard. He responded with a solid “no” on the jazz topic, preferring, instead, electronic artists like Infected Mushroom, C-Mon & Kypski, Shpongle, and Radiohead.

George Ortiz — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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George Ortiz is the founder of PressTrends, a WordPress theme and plugin analytics platform. He got his start in WordPress on 2.7 after being introduced to it by Matt Jones. Shortly thereafter, they started posting themes on Themeforest and eventually launched Storefront Themes.

George launched PressTrends to tackle the massive amount of data being produced by WordPress and try to make it valuable for everyone. Since then, PressTrends has amassed a significant data set of metrics. “The integration between the API and WordPress core has been tricky, but working through it has been the most rewarding.” Like many other users and developers, his favorite part of WordPress is the ease of use leading to WordPress supporting almost 17% of the entire web. “It’s a truly amazing platform and the continued focus on the end user experience will continue to drive that percentage up. From the New York Times to that student publishing their first post with WordPress, it’s awesome.”

George’s presentation is about best practices for WordPress plugin development. “My goal is to share some development best practices…and encourage people to develop and design better themes and plugins.”

When not working on WordPress, George spends enjoys travelling and the outdoors. “I love experiencing new cultures and ways of life.” George’s favorite jazz musician is John Coltrane.

Mike Payne — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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Mike is a junior partner and Development Director at Punchline Advertising where he builds custom CMSs for his clients based on WordPress using custom post types and fields. He also spends time as a WordPress consultant, helping companies and individuals better understand how to utilize open source projects for long term scalable platforms.

Mike got his start on WordPress 2.6 while in high school at the Academy of Information Technology. When he first started web developing, he was coding every page by hand in HTML/CSS. “I wasn’t very enthusiastic about the career path until I started using PHP to make my sites more dynamic, and understanding how to move sections of the site into templated files. Suddenly everything became way easier! WordPress cranks that ease of use and excitement to 11!”

His favorite part of WordPress is the community of developers and users. “With so many people continuously looking for easier ways to make a free piece of software do what they want, it is becoming easier and easier to find solutions that used to be impossible.” One of his recent projects that he’s proud of is Salt City Glass. “I built that site from the ground up. I took product photography, built out the ecommerce solutions, developed the site branding and feel, and helped the client to understand how to easily input new products and zone in on SEO friendly content.”

Mike’s presentation topic is the Psychology of Web Design. “I’ve always been intrigued by the psychology of interaction. Salesmen learn basic psychologic techniques to persuade customers into not only buying from them, but upselling them toward more expensive products. Your website is your best — and sometimes only — salesman. By understanding your visitors intentions you can funnel them to specific content, persuade them into believing, wanting, and buying.”

When Mike isn’t working on WordPress, he loves robots, motorcycles and video games. He recently built an arcade cabinet from scratch with his brother, wiring the controls to a computer from which they can play thousands of emulated arcade games from one machine. His favorite jazz musician is Miles Davis, though he doesn’t listen to jazz most frequently.

John Levandowski — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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John LevandowskiJohn does Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing at the University of Utah. His responsibilities include: project planning, gathering requirements, dimensional modeling, development, solution deployment, and support. John started using WordPress at version 1.5 — so long ago that he’s forgotten how he came across it. Before WordPress he was hand-coding HTML in Notepad.

His first commercial application of WordPress was the Financial and Business Services website for the University of Utah which was originally built on WordPress 1.5 as a blog to deliver internal campus news. Since then it has turned into a full fledged CMS for the Financial and Business Services division at the University of Utah with hundreds of pages and posts. His favorite things about WordPress are the ease of use and the WordPress community. He also likes how easy it is to extend and customize via plugins and themes.

John will be speaking about WordPress performance optimization. He chose this topic as a way to give back to the community. “I want to get everyone up to speed on the basics of optimizing a WordPress site for performance. I see too many websites out there that don’t even do the basics. This will be a discussion for beginners and those who have never thought about performance optimization.”

When John is not working with WordPress, what he does for fun can be summed up by three things: Road Cycling, Good Beer, and Blackjack. While he does appreciate jazz music, it’s not what he listens to most and he doesn’t have a favorite jazz performer.

Jason Gill — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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Jason GillJason is a veteran web developer with over 12 years of experience and is currently working with the Department of Veteran Affairs. Before he was introduced to WordPress by a co-worker, he was using Mephisto. “Mephisto was horrible, but it was much better than the blog I tried programming myself from the ground up.” Once he started working with WordPress, however he “never looked back.”

One of the projects Jason has worked on that he’s most proud of is Utah UPSTART which he developed the theme for as well as the bilingual functionality. When asked about his favorite part of WordPress, his response is “Plugins. Plugins. Plugins.”

At WordCamp SLC 2012, Jason will be talking about WordPress multisite. “Having implemented WordPress multisite at an enterprise level more than once, I know it can be daunting.” He hopes to share how easy it is to get started and the awesomeness of managing multiple WordPress powered-sites.

When not building WordPress-powered sites, Jason admits to staying up “way too late” playing Modern Warfare 3 on the XBox. Occasionally he ventures outside to stay up way too late longboarding. Jason would rather listen to rock than jazz.

Chris Reynolds — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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Chris ReynoldsI am a project manager, developer and support monkey for the premium WordPress event management plugin, Event Espresso. I’m also a WordPress theme and plugin developer and I launched a web design studio in 2007 with my wife, called Arcane Palette Creative Design. In 2010 we debuted Museum Themes, a premium WordPress theme shop. I volunteered to help with the WCSLC preparations this year, and have been working on the web site, content, and the theme (which uses _s).

To the best of my knowledge, I started on WordPress 2.1. Before that I was using a software called Sblog, but I was frustrated by the lack of updates. Before that I maintained a web-log the old-fashioned way, with HTML and manual FTP updates. I used to say that my favorite part of WordPress was its ease-of-use, but lately my answer has changed to how easy it is to develop for it. A few years ago I would never have considered myself a developer. I have since dived into code — for custom themes, plugins, for Event Espresso, as well as plugins (and one theme) in the WordPress.org repositories — and am constantly amazed at the wealth of tools and documentation at my disposal.

When I’m not doing things related to WordPress, I’m an avid gamer. I love gaming on the computer, but even more than that, I love tabletop gaming. Castle Panic, Settlers of Catan, Munchkin and Forbidden Island are some of my current favorites.

A project I’m most proud of right now is the new Event Espresso website. I did a lot of little, back-end things, custom plugins, and a lot of the initial development for what’s now the product system. I’ve also done quite a bit with the bbPress forums which have received significant amount of hacking. The site is also using 2 of my plugins: WordPress Wiki That Doesn’t Suck (used for the Documentation pages) and my Progress Bar plugin (used on various pages on the site).

My presentation at this year’s WordCamp will build off of what I presented last year, which was an introduction to the idea of doing theme development and/or light theme modifications. This presentation is going to get into the nitty gritty of theme development and is largely informed by my own experience getting my theme, Museum Core, added to the WordPress.org repository, and what I learned through the theme review process.

While I don’t listen to jazz all the time, I do listen to some, and my favorite jazz musician is John Coltrane.