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.

Oh noes! Contact form fail!!

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The form on our Contact page was sending email to the wrong address for a couple of weeks. We’ve fixed it now and are responding to the emails that we missed, but if you sent something through the contact form recently and haven’t gotten a response, try again and we’ll be sure to reply this time. Sorry about that!

Information and levels for sponsors is now available!

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The Sponsors area of the site is now available with information about sponsoring WordCamp SLC. Sponsoring a WordCamp is a great way to expose other WordPress users to your unique product or service. It also helps us keep the cost of admission low, making it possible for just about anyone who wants to, to come out and participate. We especially love seeing local businesses as sponsors and learning about how local SLC businesses are using WordPress.

If you are interested in sponsoring either at one of the recommended levels, or in another context (by providing a service like Badges or t-shirts), please get in touch!

Early bird registration is now open for WCSLC 2012

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Registration is now open for WordCamp Salt Lake City 2012. Tickets are available for $17, so grab them now before they go up to $20 as we get closer to September. And if you’re interested in being a speaker or a volunteer, let us know!

September 22 is WordCamp SLC 2012

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The University of Utah will once again be host to a couple hundred bloggers, coders, WordPress evangelists and everyone and anyone in between on September 22nd.  We’re just starting to get things rolling, so we don’t have all parts of the site up just yet, but if you’re interested in speaking you can fill out our speaker submission form.  If you are interested in being a sponsor or have any other questions, let us know!  We’re working on the tickets and should be able to open early registration soon.  Stay tuned!

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!