Speaker Spotlight – Page 3 – WordCamp Orange County 2016

Speaker Spotlight: Why your site is ineffective with Mike “Judah” Baker

Do you ever feel like your small business website is not working for you the way it should? Even if you made a substantial initial investment into your site, there may be issues that still need to be resolved before it can become an effective sales tool for you.

In his workshop “6 Reasons Your Website Is Not Working For You,” Mike “Judah” Baker will go over the most common reasons websites do not perform the way small business owners expect them to, and what to do to fix it. Each issue that is presented will have an actionable item you can take with you to solve the problem. If you have not built your website yet, you will be given sound direction to make sure your website is built to perform.

This workshop is designed to help small business owners grasp the importance of holistic web design and the importance of a well-rounded web presence. Find out how to make your business’ website work harder for you at 10:40 AM on July 9 in The Comet.

Mike worked for years in the fast-paced world of IT. He holds dual degrees in Network Engineering & Management and Website Design & Development. As a person who loves to give back, Mike was a Microsoft Certified Trainer for a time and even taught evening courses in Network Engineering & website design.

In the past, Mike has held IT career positions ranging from Director of Networking & Telecom to freelance website designer. A few years ago, he decided move away from freelance work and open his own company, Real Time Web Marketing. As part of his new role, he enjoys championing small businesses and conducting workshops whenever he can.

Speaker Spotlight: Jess Boctor and WordPress Organizational Tools

“These spreadsheets are killing me” was a complaint Jess heard about a year ago. Since then, she has been working with her client to build an internal tool that can standardize their sales quoting process, replace their current CRM process, and remove operational bottlenecks that prevent the business from scaling. Her presentation “Stop Maurauding Excel Sheets” covers the of development of the tool with WordPress, concerns in the process, and tools utilized.

WordPress has been evolving from a blogging platform into a full-fledged CMS for quite some time. However, most of the emphasis is still on customer and public facing websites. This session is about what can be built for internal purposes to help businesses succeed in operational avenues as well as marketing and content. Come get the scoop from Jess at 11:40 AM on July 10 in the Dwarf Star.

Jess is a loud introvert extraordinaire, a consultant at Rimoht Consulting & Services, artist at Phantom Blonde and WordPress Nerd.

Speaker Spotlight: Jerrett Farmer and WordPress for Beginners

How do you quickly get a WordPress site up and running with a minimal amount of effort?

Jerrett Farmer of InMotion Hosting will present an overview of core plugins, page builders, and themes, as well as the latest cutting edge software to help even the unmotivated get a high quality WordPress Site up and running.

He will also reveal with humor the pitfalls of taking shortcuts and more. Check out his talk at 9 AM on July 9 in the Dwarf Star for tips aimed at beginners to quickly get up and running using best practices. He might even bring a special guest!

Jerrett is the Marketing Production Manager at InMotion Hosting. He oversees the creation and maintenance of the company’s main websites and WordPress blogs. He’s been previously employed as a Producer, Project Manager, Software Architect, Programmer, 2D/3D Production Artist, Art Director, and Lead Technical Artist.

Speaker Spotlight: Russell Aaron and WordPress Theme Demonstrations

One of the awesome parts about buying a product always includes the test drive or the free sample. The same goes for themes and plugins. However, are theme demonstrations being completely honest when it comes to showing off the goods?

In this session, Russell Aaron of WebDevStudios will discuss the pros and cons of coding standards when it comes to building themes and plugins. He’ll also be taking a deep dive into three WordPress theme demonstrations to show what they are really selling you on.

If you’re a beginner navigating the wild world of WordPress theme and plugin marketplaces, don’t miss Russ’s talk at 9:50 AM on July 9 in the Dwarf Star.

Russell got his start coding by building MySpace band layouts and using the blog feature on MySpace to share triumphs and failures. After writing 50 blog posts, a friend of mine showed him WordPress.com. After his next 50 blog posts, the same friend showed him how to install WordPress on his own website. Since that day, he’s spent every minute of every waking hour learning WordPress.

Speaker Spotlight: Dustin Meza and WordPress Upgrades

Do you fear pressing that “Update All” button in your WordPress dashboard, knowing that either everything will be fine or your entire site could break? Dustin Meza of WP Engine has some strategies to help combat this anxiety and allow you to update with ease.

Dustin’s high energy presentation will teach you the importance of keeping WordPress upgraded, a simple 5 step test plan to ensure your site is ready to upgrade, and how to test your sites on beta and release candidates to provide feedback to the community (it’s the open source way!).

Don’t miss his talk on Saturday, July 9 at 10:40 AM in the Nebula.

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 3 years. At WP Engine, Dustin oversees many aspects of the WordPress platform including WordPress upgrades for over 100,000 WordPress installs. 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.