Category Archives: Speakers

Brian Rogers — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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Brian RogersBrian spends his days playing Tetris on his work computer and eating Cheetos and his current aspiration is to remove one of his cubicle walls. Before taking a job at Bluehost in 2007, he was completely new to web hosting and development but he now loves how open WordPress is.

Brian built and writes on DitoForge and he’s most happy with making it look Android-themed. When he’s not working on WordPress, he likes doing “front-end stuff. That is evolving into a beast of its own.”

Brian’s presentation is on WordPress plugin development. “I like to try to simplify every day processes,” he says, and he’s hoping people will see plugin development “in a new light.”

Brian admits to not listening to much jazz, but his favorite jazz musician is Frank Sinatra.

Patrick Cox — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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Patrick CoxBy day Patrick is a UI developer for an enterprise event management software company, Active Network, where he customizes and brands mobile applications. By night (instead of sleeping) he spends his time working on freelance, consulting and personal web projects.

Patrick started working with WordPress in 2009 with WordPress 2.7. “I really just found WordPress online from design and development blogs. Everybody was talking about it and so I figured I’d give it a shot.” He started with a WordPress.com blog before discovering the power of WordPress.org. Before using WordPress he worked mostly with Drupal but dropped everything altogether with the release of Custom Post Types. He says his favorite part of WP is the simplicity and scalability of it. “It’s really only as complicated as you want to make it…A non-coding designer can easily build a very professional and functional website or a hard core developer can use it right out of the box without losing any power of flexibility.”

When Patrick isn’t coding or writing about coding, he enjoys spending time with his family and doing things outdoors like mountain biking, playing golf (horribly) and snowboarding, “all of it performed to a punk rock soundtrack” (though he admits to appreciating Frank Sinatra — if Sinatra can be considered jazz). He also loves pizza.

Patrick will be talking about tools that you can and should be using in WordPress development. “When I first started out I really didn’t know the best tools to use. I sort of discovered them over time through other developers or blogs.” He hopes that people can learn about some new ideas or resources that will help people develop more efficiently and effectively.

Jared Smith — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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Jared SmithJared gets paid to make the world a better place. No, really, his job is to give money and resources and time to open source communities. “It’s the best job in the world!”

Jared’s been using WordPress for so long he doesn’t remember when he first discovered it. He loves how easy it is for newcomers to get started and build a fantastic website in very little time.

Economic Impact of Open Source on Small BusinessJared will be speaking about the WordPress economy. “I want people to understand just how important WordPress is — and what an impact it’s made on the economy for small businesses across the country,” he says. He will be sharing some of the findings of a research paper recently published with O’Reilly Media on the economic impact of open source.

When he’s not saving the world, Jared likes to read, do programming and hike in Shenandoah National Park. He says he’s also really gotten into photography this year. His favorite jazz musician is John Coltrane, but that’s not what he listens to most of the time.

Matt Jones — WCSLC Speaker Profile

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Matt JonesMatt is the founder of Storefront Themes, a premium WordPress theme development shop that started on Themeforest before venturing out on its own. Storefront focuses on e-commerce and hooks into most of the major e-commerce WordPress plugins (WooCommerce, Jigoshop, WP e-Commerce). Lately, he’s been working on his new theme framework, Skematik, which is based on Twitter Bootstrap.

Storefront ThemesMatt first discovered WordPress around 2.1, after he had built his own content management system and was frustrated with it. His favorite part of WordPress is the ability to create custom functions and have them run whenever he wants in the system. The WordPress project he’s proudest of is (of course) the Storefront Themes site, which was built from scratch. He says he’s most happy with the responsive nature of the site and the members area to access their purchases.

When he’s not writing themes, Matt loves playing golf and basketball, and spending time with his family & friends. Matt is not a jazz fan, preferring, instead the music of Jason Mraz, Jack Johnson and 90’s R&B.

Matt’s presentation is based on his work on Storefront. He said he “feels the need to give back” because he had an employer who “basically paid me to learn this [e-commerce] stuff”. Matt would like to help people “achieve their dreams” by showing them how to set up their own e-commerce shops on WordPress.

2012 WordCamp SLC Call for Speakers

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It’s that time of year again…

If you are passionate about WordPress and love to talk about it, you’d be perfect to speak at this year’s WordCamp SLC.  We love hearing from people from all areas of expertise;  hardcore hackers and core contributors, innovative entrepreneurs and businesses owners, and users, bloggers and WordPress zealots.  Now’s your chance to get on your soapbox and share your story with a roomful of fellow WP fanatics!

So, how do you sign up?  I’m glad you asked.  Head over here to our speaker submission form and give us all the details on what you’re planning to talk about.  Make sure that the email address you submit has a Gravatar associated with it, as we’ll be using that on our speakers page.

We’re open to all topics, but here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Developers
    • theme development/CSS/JavaScript
    • plugin development
    • contributing to core
    • system administration and site optimization
  • Users
    • introduction to… (blogging, SEO, the dashboard, etc)
    • using WordPress as… (a scrapbook, an event management solution, a blog, a business, a portfolio)
    • WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com
    • finding a good webhost
    • the GPL (what it is, what it means to you, etc)

Want to get involved but don’t want to speak in front of a bunch of people?  Let us know you’d like to be a volunteer on our contact page.

There isn’t a hard deadline for speaker submissions at this time, but the sooner you get your submission in, the more likely you are to get a slot, so do it now!