Category Archives: Announcements

Last minute notes on the After Party (and Community Day)

Posted on by

For those of you going to the after party.  If you’re taking the metrolink downtown, get off at the stadium stop.  If you’re driving, Ballpark Village offers 3 hours of free parking before 9pm with validation or street parking is free after 7pm.  Of course Uber is always an option too.

And regardless of whether or not you’re able to attend tonight we really hope that you will join us tomorrow for more WordCamp, we’re going to have some more speakers, contributors day, kids camp, our second keynote from Aaron Jorbin, and an Open Discussion/AMA on WordPress.  Not to mention a delicious lunch from Pi Pizza and Fitz’s Root Beer!

WordCamp St. Louis: Happiness Bar

Posted on by

Happiness Bar has been a long time feature of many WordCamps, especially WordCamp St. Louis. No, it’s not a bar with beer (lol.) It is a help desk where you can ask WordPress experts your questions.

WordCamp St. Louis will have plenty of professionals in the WordPress world that can answer just about any questions, whether it is design, development, blogging, SEO, marketing, podcasting, social media, or anything in between, that is related to WordPress.

This is an opportunity for one-on-one time. Some issues can be worked on right there, so make sure to bring your laptop so you can show our Happiness Bar helper what’s going on. We’re also going to be encouraging our speakers to send you to the Happiness Bar after their talk in case you have more questions, but had no more time to ask within their session.

If you’re new to WordPress, we can certainly help lead you in the right direction to starting it.

Our Happiness Bar will be marked, and we’ll make sure to remind you of this opportunity. Please don’t forget that on Day 2, we also have the Casual AMA (Ask Me Anything), so you can ask questions in an open forum type setting.

Don’t miss out! Buy your ticket today!

#WCSTL Feature: The Job Board

Posted on by

We’ve added another feature to WordCamp St. Louis, a Job board. We’ll be placing whiteboards out at the event for both job seekers, and for employers.

wcstl-job-board-600x315

The reason we’ve brought the job board idea in, is that we realize that there are a lot of businesses and freelancers that will show up. Some of the biggest questions I’ve heard at WordCamps, when it comes to business, is finding new talent that specialize in WordPress, or for freelancers looking to get a job or their next gig.

Please feel free to utilize the job board. We will be monitoring the job board, so please keep it focused on it’s true intention. It’s not for building a MLM (multi-level marketing) business, or gaining affiliates. It’s purely for getting people connected with a job that they are skilled in.

We want to thank Chris Koerner for bringing in this idea for the event, and hope it helps you, whether you’re a business seeking new talent, or a freelancer looking for work.

Aside from the job board, take advantage of networking if you happen to catch yourself in the hallways during the conference. There are lots of great business people to talk, as well as other freelancers that could prove to be perfect for collaborating.

Take advantage of this and all the awesome talks at WordCamp St. Louis by attending. Get your ticket today!

Meet the Business Panel

Posted on by

At 10AM on May 15th, we’ll be holding a special panel for business owners, entrepreneurs, and freelancers. Our panel consists of company owners, agency professionals, and entrepreneurs. They also have wide knowledge in various areas of business and WordPress.

In this panel, you can ask questions about how to get started in your own WordPress business, how to maintain and grow your business, and how to keep a positive image. We’ll start off with some prepared questions, and then open the questions to the room, so have your questions ready!

 

wcstl-meet-the-business-panel-600x315

Our Business Panel

(in Alphabetical order)

Michele Butcher

A self-styled, proud graduate of the University of Inspect Element — aren’t we all? — Michele is a triple threat in the WordPress world:

  • Accounts Coordinator for Valet.
  • Support Guru for Give.
  • Support Engineer for Yoast.

Hailing from Carbondale, Illinois (the other, prettier part of Illinois), she’s also the lead organizer of the Southern Illinois WordPress Meetup and teaches beginners’ WordPress at John A. Logan College.

Twitter: @Michele_Butcher

Site: Can’t Speak Geek.

Chris Flannagan

Raised in South Alabama, I started toying with computers at a very young age. By 12 I was building geocities websites and the rest is history. I picked up on WordPress in the mid 2000’s and really got serious about it a few years ago. I’ve been the Webmaster for Sarasota Memorial Hospital and University of South Florida (I won bid to bring first WP Campus to our school this July!) since living in Sarasota. I’ve developed plugins available at WordPress.org and been featured in blogs such as WordImpress! Shiny New Toys.

Website: http://whoischris.com

James Hipkin

James is an accomplished, forward-thinking marketing professional with 25+ years of multi-disciplinary experience in marketing and marketing communications companies serving high-profile, global brands and B2C clients in consumer packaged goods, durables, transportation, telecommunications and financial services.

He has been involved in digital for more than ten years, first as President of a direct marketing agency in San Francisco, where he led the evolution of the agency from traditional direct marketing to digital. Clients included Apple and Wells Fargo online bank. And then as the head of a mid sized agency’s interactive group, with Toyota as the main client. He joined Red8 Interactive, a long term vendor, as an owner and managing director, five years ago.

Shelly Peacock

Shelly Peacock, AKA @Spinbird, has been in sales and graphic design since 2001, moving focus to include Social Media Management and Digital Marketing in 2007. She built her first WordPress site in 2009- as a way to make her designs “do stuff”, and as a portfolio for her art business. Shucked it all to run The SpinBird Group, a WordPress consulting and design business. She likes short walks on the beach, cabanas, and shooting opossums off her back deck with her shotgun. Daily Mantra: Life is short- GET #FIERCE WITH IT.

Our Moderator: Chris Lema

chrislemaChris Lema is a storyteller – and a storytelling evangelist.

You heard that right.

He tells stories about the importance of storytelling.

Until mid-April the CTO and Chief Strategist at Crowd Favorite, Chris has spent the last two decades managing high-performing teams who build software products. (Largely, by telling them stories.)

Usually, that’s been SaaS products across a variety of B2B vertical markets. But the description also applies to his coaching practice, as he’s helped startups – in recent years primarily WordPress startups – develop more viable products and take them to market faster. You can find his blog at ChrisLema.com. Follow him on Twitter at @chrislema.

 

Don’t miss out on all the awesome information that this panel will unleash, buy your WordCamp St. Louis ticket now!

Meet The Blogger Panel

Posted on by

At 4PM on May 14th, we’ll be holding a special panel for bloggers and content creators. Our panel consists of bloggers with a lot of knowledge and experience. They also have wide knowledge in various niche.

In this panel, you can ask questions about how to make money with your blog, SEO, and anything dealing with blogging. We’ll start off with some prepared questions, and then open the questions to the room, so have your questions ready!

 

wcstl-meet-the-blogger-panel-600x315

Our Blogger Panel

(in Alphabetical order)

Michele Butcher

michele-butcherA self-styled, proud graduate of the University of Inspect Element — aren’t we all? — Michele is a triple threat in the WordPress world:

  • Accounts Coordinator for Valet.
  • Support Guru for GiveWP.
  • Support Engineer for Yoast.

Hailing from Carbondale, Illinois (the other, prettier part of Illinois), she’s also the lead organizer of the Southern Illinois WordPress Meetup and teaches beginners’ WordPress at John A. Logan College.

You can follow her blog at CantSpeakGeek.com, and on Twitter at @Michele_Butcher.

Nile Flores

10371583_10202981429234451_7549174180863520095_nNile Flores is a long time WordPress designer and Developer. While she grew up a military brat, she eventually settled in the St. Louis metro east region. Nile blogs at Blondish.net, where she covers topics on WordPress, Blogging, SEO, Social Media, and Web Design.

She also loves contributing to WordPress, and that includes speaking at WordCamps across the United States. She loves helping people and supporting Open Source projects.

In other news, Nile is a proud support member at Team Yoast. She also runs a 8,000 member Facebook group dedicated to helping WordPressers, called All About WordPress. Nile is also the 2014 and 2015 Community Choice Winner at the Small Business Influencer Awards, hosted by Small Business Trends. When Nile isn’t knee deep in coding and design, she’s spending time with her son, who is also a WordPress user.

You can follow Nile on Twitter at @blondishnet.

(Nile started off as a hobby blogger over 14 years ago.)

Chris Lema

chrislemaChris Lema is a storyteller – and a storytelling evangelist.

You heard that right.

He tells stories about the importance of storytelling.

Until mid-April the CTO and Chief Strategist at Crowd Favorite, Chris has spent the last two decades managing high-performing teams who build software products. (Largely, by telling them stories.)

Usually, that’s been SaaS products across a variety of B2B vertical markets. But the description also applies to his coaching practice, as he’s helped startups – in recent years primarily WordPress startups – develop more viable products and take them to market faster. You can find his blog at ChrisLema.com. Follow him on Twitter at @chrislema.

Andrew Nathan

andynathaIn the last five years, Andy Nathan has worked with hundreds of clients in more than 75 different industries, helping them improve their blogging and social media.

In that short period, he’s also personally written more than 4,000 articles for clients and his own projects.

That level of productivity has drawn Andy a lot of attention from news organizations of every size, including some major players: on the national level, Fox News and WGN have interviewed him about his approach to content. Closer to home, AM 560 the WIND, and many more have brought Andy’s story to their audiences.

You can find Andy on Twitter at @andynathan.

Our Moderator: Chris Miller

chrismillerChris Miller is the founder of . He’s a social network and app reviewer, a videocaster/podcaster, and a constant link giver.

You can follow him on Twitter at @idonotes

 

 

 

Don’t miss out on all the awesome information that this panel will unleash, buy your WordCamp St. Louis ticket now!

New Feature of WordCamp St. Louis: Casual AMA (Ask Me Anything)

Posted on by

This year, at WordCamp St. Louis, we’ve added a session called the Casual AMA (Ask Me Anything), or the Open Discussion. We’ve kind of mulled around some ideas for names like “Ask Me Anything”, and Open Forum, but it doesn’t matter. It’s all the same. 🙂

wcstl-speaker-casual-ama-600x315
The Casual AMA is where we start with a prompted topic, and then discuss it. After that topic is done, we have will allow the audience to ask questions. While most of our speakers and sponsors will be there, this is an opportunity to ask questions, answer questions, and anyone can do either. The goal is to not just get your questions answered, but also include everyone, and above all, add value to your WordCamp St. Louis experience.

This session was inspired by the open discussion session started with Russell Aaron, at the 2015 WordCamp Las Vegas conference. I spoke at WordCamp Las Vegas, and attended that session. I remember seeing how people felt that their questions were answered, and that even after the event, if they had more questions, they knew where they could go to get help.

The problem that I often see with WordCamps, and I’ve been to nearly 3 dozen over the last 6 years, is that there are people still walking away with questions they need answered. And as a side note, this isn’t just an issue at WordCamp, but an issue I’ve observed at other conferences outside the WordPress realm. We have new WordPress users trying to make heads or tails about how they can use WordPress, or make money with it. We’ve got experienced WordPress users wanting to know how to get over some plateau that their website has reached. We even have designers and developers wondering how to properly price their work, and even how to find work.

This is your opportunity to get your questions filled. It’s also your opportunity to answer what you know. The St. Louis WordPress community holds a wide variety of skills, and this session is here to showcase that.

In case you’re an introvert, and don’t want to ask your questions there, you can approach one of the organizers and hand us your questions, OR you can visit the Happiness Bar for some one-on-one help. You are even welcome to add your questions to the comments in this post.

Don’t miss out on sessions like the Casual AMA. It’s at 2PM on May 15th. Get your WordCamp St. Louis ticket today!

What To Bring to WordCamp St. Louis

Posted on by

When you attend WordCamp St. Louis, you may want to make sure to bring along a few things. It’s not much, but we get a a lot of questions about what to bring to the event. Below is a list of what to bring to WordCamp St. Louis.

 

wcstl-speaker-what-to-bring-to-wordcamp-stlouis-600x315

  • Pen and notepad – You will have a lot of notes to take. You may not catch them all, but you’ll certainly want to make some reminder notes so you can look for presenter’s slides. Also, it’s not a bad idea to use the notepad at the Happiness Bar (Help desk.) You may receive some really useful advice there.
  • Laptop (optional) – It’s not a requirement to bring your laptop, but if you prefer laptop to pen and notepad, then it will be ideal. Also, if you’re going to be needing help at the Happiness Bar, and need us to look at the backend of your WordPress website, you will need to have one. Please respect that our volunteer WordPress Happiness Bar experts are not obligated to log into your website, using their own equipment. This is mostly due to security reasons, especially if you’re bring a security issue to our attention.
  • VPN (optional) – If you’re concerned about using the WIFI at Washington University, and need something a little more secure, you may want to have a VPN (Virtual Private Network.) A VPN is not expensive, and allows you to surf a little more safely at events.
  • Cell Phone – You’ll want to keep it on silent, but you can certainly take pics of your friends, speakers, presentation slides for your own notes, or tweeting about the event.
  • Your Questions – Don’t be shy. Use that pen and notepad to write some of those WordPress questions that you’ve been wanting to know. It could be developing, blogging, marketing, SEO, or anything between. We’ve made sure to bring in people knowledgeable in many areas. Let us help you!

We may have extra pen and paper at the event, just in case you forget to bring the first item on this list. If you have any questions about items you want to bring, and wonder if they are permitted, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us and ask.

In the mean time, don’t forget to buy your WordCamp St. Louis ticket!

Special Guest John A. Russo

Posted on by

WordCamp St. Louis is always trying to make the Camp as exciting and interesting as possible for everyone involved and this year we’ve gone above and beyond.  We’re super excited to announce that we have a very special guest joining one of our sessions. Director and screenwriter John A. Russo will join our own Danielle Tillis during her session for a live interview.

image

Mr. Russo is most widely known for the 1968 horror classic film Night of the Living Dead. He has performed multiple roles as an actor, most notably the first ghoul who is stabbed in the head in Night of the Living Dead, as well as cameos in There’s Always Vanilla and House of Frankenstein 1997.  You can see his full list of accomplishments on his IMDB page.

He is definitely not a typical WordCamp guest, and we’re honored for John to join us in our adventures. We hope you can join us in what is probably the first celebrity interview live from a WordCamp. Mr. Russo will also have memorabilia available for purchase and be available to sign autographs before and after his interview.

After Party Announcement

Posted on by

We’re excited to announce that this year’s WordCamp St. Louis after party will be held from 7-9 p.m. at Fox Sports Midwest Live! at Ballpark Village in downtown St. Louis. According to Ballpark Village’s website:

FOX Sports Midwest Live! is the central gathering place and entertainment plaza of Ballpark Village with two levels and 20,000 square feet of entertainment market space. With a world-class audio and video presentation spanning over 1,200 sq ft of HDTV, including a 40 foot LED, St. Louis sports fans get one of the best sports-viewing experiences in the country. This is the place to be year round with a 100 foot long retractable glass roof, one of the largest of its kind in the country, fans can enjoy the nice weather during warmer months. The venue includes, a stage for live concerts and performances, LED ribbon boards circling the entire space, a 200 seat restaurant and VIP lounge area.

There will be drinks, networking and good times to be had by all. Check back for more information as it becomes available. We hope to see you there!

WordPress is for all ages – get excited for Kids Camp!

Posted on by

This year the second day of WordCamp is our community day. One of the sessions we’re proud to bring is our Kids Camp. WordCamp attendees are encouraged to bring the young people in their lives to learn about WordPress and publishing on the web. We’ll spend the morning covering the basics of WordPress, free and open source software, copyright, and what it means to be public on the web.

We’ll end the morning with lunch  and our community day keynote!

It will be a relaxed affair. Come as you are, but be sure to bring a laptop! For more information check out the Kids Camp session on the schedule and get your tickets today! (Note, only one adult ticket is needed if you’re bringing multiple kids. Sweet!)