Speakers
The following are confirmed speakers for WordCamp 2010.
There will also be concurrent facilitated workshop sessions on various topics.
Rebecca Bollwitt
Miss604.com
Topic: Plugins Every Blogger Should Use
Rebecca Bollwitt has been blogging about life in BC since 2004 on Miss604.com, and she has been podcasting since 2005.
Listed among Vancouver’s most visible on the web, Miss604.com was voted “Best Vancouver Blog” by the Georgia Straight for 2009, “Best Local Blog” by The Westender in 2010 and has been ranked within the top ten blogs in Canada. Rebecca co-founded sixty4media, a WordPress website development firm, and has co-authored the book, Blogging to Drive Business.
Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega
Hummingbird604.com
Topic: WordPress for Professional and Personal Blogging: Two Approaches, One Site Building Platform
Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega is a Vancouver-based specialist in environment and public policy who uses social media as a tool to support his research, teaching and consulting activities. In the realm of new media, Dr. Pacheco-Vega often speaks and consults about social media strategies to build online communities and creating durable relationships using social networking sites. As a WordPress enthusiast, Raul has built several websites and has spoken previously at WordCamp Vancouver and WordCamp Fraser Valley on topics that range from why you should switch to WordPress to how to accessorize your blog and make it more attractive to readers.
George Plumley
Topic: Converting Existing Sites to WordPress
George Plumley is the author of WordPress 24-Hour Trainer
Lorraine Murphy
Raincoaster Media
Topic: Comments and Community Management
Lorraine “raincoaster” Murphy is a professional blogger and social media consultant at raincoaster media in Vancouver. Blogging daily to five sites on a wide variety of platforms and active on eleven social media platforms, she brings a uniquely informed perspective and attitude to online communication.
Christine Wood
Communications Director, Social Media and Online Communications, Province of British Columbia
Topic: Social Media and Government: Sharing What Matters
Christine is a seasoned communications specialist with more than 12 years experience in the private sector and 6 years in the public sector. Christine is passionate about strategic communications, collaboration and innovation. As the director for Social Media and Online Communications for the provincial government she now leads the development of strategic engagement using new media. At present, she is a member of a cross-government working group developing best practices for social media (web 2.0) and is implementing these strategies in her current role.
She will be presenting on how the BC government is using social media to engage with the public, including lessons learned from the most recent campaign for the 2010 Winter Games “You Gotta Be Here.” The provincial government uses WordPress for blogging.
Tris Hussey
A View from the Isle
Topic: WordPress 3 SEO
Tris Hussey is a long-time technologist, blogger, and writer, who started off as an academic and tech much more to his liking. After picking up blogging on a whim in 2004, he quickly became both a professional blogger and a leading expert in business blogging. He has been a part of several Web 2.0 startups from blogging software to blogging agencies and continues to write, blog, teach, and consult.
In addition to giving workshops and speaking at conferences, Tris also teaches social media, blogging, podcasting, and WordPress at UBC, BCIT, and elsewhere. His first book Creating Your First Blog: 6 Easy Blogging Projects to Start Blogging Like a Pro was published January, 2010 and his second book, Using WordPress, is due out July, 2010. Currently Tris is a consultant on to companies on social media and the social media concierge for Media2o Productions.
You can find his posts on trishussey.com, VancouverObserver.com, and the Future Shop Community Tech Blog.
Mike Vardy
The Mike Vardy
Topic: Knowing & Knurturing Your Kniche Blog: Starting & Running A Successful Niche Blog in WordPress
Mike Vardy is a Victoria-based writer/comedian who is the creator of the satirical productivity blog Eventualism in February 2008. The site demonstrates a Stephen Colbert-esque take on the world of productivity and lifehacking, and has interviewed many experts (and not-so-experts) as he attempts to preach the ideology of eventual productivity to the world. This has led him to become a contributor for ACTUAL productivity blogs, including WorkAwesome and the signature blog for the founder of Getting Things Done, David Allen’s GTD Times. You can also regularly find his humourous take on the world of productivity in the online/print publication Productive! Magazine.
Mike has also contributed to CBC Radio, both as a writer (Definitely Not The Opera) and performer (So You Think You’re Funny). He was one of the founders of the sketch comedy troupe The 30 Cent Players, who have performed at festivals throughout North America including Vancouver, Calgary, Seattle, Washington (DC) and most notably as the opening act for Kid In The Hall Bruce McCulloch at San Francisco Sketchfest. During his time with the troupe he has written too many sketches to count. He is also the co-host of Dyscultured, a weekly podcast (with accompanying blog) that “dyscusses and dysects” pop culture of the past and present…all with a very Canadian flavo(u)r.
Jodie Gastel
In Jodie’s Brain
Topic: The Uber Newbie look at Theme Customization
Jodie Gastel has been a “Woman About Internet” for over a decade and has experienced it all. From experiments in micropayments to digital downloads, Jodie has made sure she’s been able to try as much as possible when it comes to conducting business online. For her efforts, Jodie has been mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, Inc Magazine, Fast Company and Entrepreneur Magazine and loves sharing her experiences so that others may learn. With most of her training coming from the school of hard knocks, this former Manager of the local Business Information Centre knows what it takes to keep things going.
Robin Heppell
Funeral Futurist
Topic: WordPress For Your Business Website
Robin Heppell is a fourth generation funeral director turned business and marketing consultant, author, and speaker who focuses on trends and technology affecting local businesses, especially funeral homes. His consultancy firm educates and offers clients online marketing solutions including Social Media strategies and websites powered by WordPress. Heppell received his Bachelor of Commerce degree from Royal Roads University.
John Overall
Fire Dragon Hosting
Topic: 10 Features To Maximize Your Self-Hosted WordPress Website
John Overall has been working online since 1995 since just before the introduction of the first web browser. In 1999, he opened his web design and hosting business, which by chance was the same year that Google came on the scene and the internet, was heating up. For the last 10 years, he has been doing web design and hosting and since 2009, he has been focusing on WordPress as a platform for people to deliver their messages to the world. After receiving numerous questions from clients about how to use WordPress, John developed introductory and advanced courses on how to use WordPress and teaches it at Shoreline Community School in Victoria.
Jordan Keats
Outpost Communication
Topic: Using Posterous as a Time Saving Tool for WordPress
Jordan Keats began blogging in 2004, while studying at Camosun College. Since graduating from Royal Roads University with a Degree in Professional Communications, Jordan has been volunteering to market, promote, and expand the social media presence of the Canadian College of Performing Arts, and the Victoria Taiji Academy.
In 2009, Jordan co-founded Outpost Communication with David Maguire, a web designer and fellow RRU graduate. Jordan is the head writer and strategist for Outpost Communications, as well as a part-time gardener, and a Tai Chi teacher.
Cathie Walker
UVic Marketing
Topic: Writing for the Web
Cathie Walker has worked online since 1994, and has gone from being a humour site producer to an online communication specialist. She’s worked with big names like Fox Interactive Media and Yahoo yet is still jealous that she didn’t invent lolcats.
Cathie is going to talk about how people read web pages, and how some small changes will make your site more readable. We’ll look at some good examples and mock some bad ones.
Dave Pettitt
WPwebmasters.com
Topic: E-Commerce For WordPress
Having gleefully exited morning show radio 2 years ago, Dave Pettitt now doles out his time between being a fulltime voice over artist and web entrepreneur. With a couple of mediocre html sites under his belt, the discovery of WordPress changed how Dave did everything online.
Dave’s first foray into e-commerce websites came January 2009 with an unlikely subject. Pumpkin Carving Stencils. After some research and careful planning, Dave and his team launched their site in March, ranked on Google’s Page 1 for their selected keyword phrases and sold more than 10,000 digital downloads in the month of October. Since then, he has built 3 more personal income earning sites and over 50 others for his clients.
Dave Zille
dazil.com Internet Services
Topic: WordPress 3.0 Custom Post Types: WordPress as a CMS
With a strong background in project management, teaching, and developing for the web, Dave brings years of experience and tremendous enthusiasm to his work as the principal of dazil Internet Services, a web development and hosting company, with a focus on developing and hosting WordPress based sites.
WordPress has been a highly successful platform for Dazil clients, as it is such an easy to use platform, and can be adapted to fit pretty much any type of website.
Dave will give an overview of a key new feature in soon-to-be released WordPress 3.0, Custom Post Types.
