WordCamp Nashville 2014 Tickets Available Now!

Tickets for WordCamp Nashville 2014 on May 3 are available. For reals.

Hop over to the ticketing page and get your WordCamp Nashville ticket. A scant $20 gets you:

wordpress-logo-notext-rgbAdmission to a full day packed with all things WordPress
A totally awesome t-shirt
Lunch – six options that include vegan and vegetarian fare
Admission to the event after-party

This is the third WordCamp Nashville and, like last year, it will be held at the Nashville School of Law. Each year we add new sessions, new speakers, more capacity and still sell out.

Kate O’Neill, principal of KO Insights, consultant, entrepreneur and former CEO of [meta]marketer, will be the keynote speaker. Kate, who is on the board of both the Nashville Technology Council and Evolve Women, is an eloquent advocate for Nashville as a growing tech sector, as well as women in technology and leadership.

Speaker Kate O'Neill

Kate O’Neill – Consultant, Author and WordCamp Nashville 2014 Keynote Speaker

And we’ve added a fourth “track,” a day-long Q&A and Help Desk that is available to everyone, regardless of skill level or experience. We are calling it Track 0, only because we already had a Track 1.

We’ll ask you to select Track 1, 2, or 3 when buying your ticket but please remember – WordCampers can attend any session, regardless of track. Move around. If a session doesn’t meet your needs, find another one. We just like a general idea for planning purposes. The tracks:

Track 1: New Users
Track 2: Intermediate Users
Track 3: Developers

The full speaker line-up will be available next week but go ahead – buy WordCamp Nashville 2014 tickets. Now.

What is Track 0?

During WordCamp Nashville 2013, an impromptu Help Desk was created by some willing and able volunteers who saw a need. For 2014, we hope to build on last year’s hectic but successful Help Desk by offering it as a special track…Track 0.

Joel Norris Help Desk WordCamp Nashville 2013

Track 0 will be unlike the other three tracks for beginner, intermediate, and developer WordPress users. For one, there are no formal sessions or speakers. The setting will be informal, and you’ll be able to come and go as you please throughout the entire day (except for a brief lunch break).

But best of all, Track 0 isn’t just for beginners, intermediates, or developers – it’s for everyone.

In the morning, from about 9 a.m. to about noon, we will host a 3-hour general Q&A session. We will have leaders from the Nashville WordPress community answering (ideally) any and every question you can think of regarding WordPress.

Don’t have a question? Come anyways – you’ll probably have one after hearing everyone discuss a topic for a few minutes. And you might just get an answer to a problem you haven’t had yet. Remember, come and go as you please, and if you’re lucky enough to be the only one in the room, you’ll get special attention.

During lunch, we will have volunteers taking names for afternoon 1-on-1 sessions across a range of WordPress experience levels. That’s right – you’ll have the opportunity to get one-on-one attention from experts in the field. We’ll even try to match your specific question up with someone who is an expert in that particular topic (no guarantees!).

These 30-minute sessions are first-come, first-serve, so you may want to sign up before grabbing your lunch. Room space and volunteers permitting, we’ll continue a smaller version of the morning Q&A.

The Help Desk doesn’t stop at the end of WordCamp! Join our meetup.com group – http://www.meetup.com/NashvilleWordpress/ – to get direct access to Nashville’s WordPress community. If you want to get a headstart on your questions, this group will host a preliminary Help Desk at the next meetup on Monday, April 2 at 7 p.m.

FACES OF WORDPRESS: Noe Lopez

Noe Lopez

Noe Lopez was quick to enter the WordPress fold. In 2011 as a Web Design and Interactive Media student at the Art Institute of Tennessee here in Nashville, Noe was tasked to create a website requiring audio functionality.

Here, a musician is usually a stone’s throw away, and his neighbor just happened to need a WordPress site for his band. Noe completed his assignment and was on his new career path – a big change from being a supply manager in the Marine Corps.

Noe, then and now, loves WordPress for its ease-of-use. Clients used to have to contact him directly to make even the smallest of changes – now they can make those changes on their own, leaving Noe free to take a client’s big idea and “bring it to life using code.”

To new developers, he suggests two things:

  1. Learn PHP
  2. Don’t be afraid to break a website (as long as you back up the site beforehand!)

Noe graduated this past December and now works for AhSo Designs where he was previously an intern. WordPress was more than a career change for Noe; it was a life change. Actively involved in the Nashville WordPress community, he is very passionate about what he does and loves sharing his experience with others. You can see his WordCamp 2013 talk “My First 3 Months Working with WordPress” on WordPress.tv.

Session Submission Deadline Looms!

We’ve had a great response so far with sessions submitted for WordCamp Nashville 2014 – from both the Nashville community and beyond! The day is shaping up to be a great one, but we still need YOU to submit your session idea!WordCamp Nashville speaker deadline

To date, we have a lot of how-to sessions submitted, ranging from the very basic, beginner topics to developer-level topics, but we’d love to see more sessions submitted about what fun/interesting/cool things you’ve been doing with WordPress lately. Sessions where you tell us how you learned something, failed at something, built something, struggled with something, or succeeded at something WordPress-related are always a big hit!

You don’t have to be an expert to tell the community about your WordPress experience – you will always be a great resource for people who are newer to the platform than you are, and there will always be something for you to learn from the experience.

We want to see the entire Middle Tennessee WordPress community involved in making this year’s WordCamp happen; preference will be given to Nashville-area or Tennessee proposals because we know this community’s talent runs deep. If you’re unsure of what you’d like to talk about, or unsure about how to take your idea for a topic and turn it into a session, you can always email the planning team with your questions.

You can use the form over here to submit your session idea. You’ve only got until March 25 to submit, and we’ll have the schedule set by April 3… but you’ll have until May 3 to prepare – so don’t be intimidated or overwhelmed! Submit your session ideas and we’ll go from there.

We can’t wait to see what y’all have in store for us this year. So go forth and submit!

FACES OF WORDPRESS: Barry Cantrell

barry-cantrell

  • Barry Cantrell
  • WordPressing since 2009
  • WP Level: Developer
  • lookatbarry.com

Like many in the WordPress community, Barry is a self-proclaimed Jack of All Trades. At any give time, you can find him working on projects involving branding, design, animation or development.

When it comes to web development projects, though, WordPress is his platform of choice.

His first introduction to WordPress came in 2007, with version 2.2. The relationship did not flourish and Barry, for a time, moved on.

“It was so clunky back then that I tried it for a couple websites that I dropped it for a couple of years. I came back around WordPress 2.7 or 2.8, in 2009, when image uploads were really beefed up, and that’s when I fell in love with it,” Barry says. “I’ve been using it pretty religiously ever since. There are very few constraints to what it can do.”

Barry’s use of WordPress was all client-driven.

“I needed a content management system better than what I was using… I had been doing my own PHP/MySQL stuff. WordPress in comparison is so easy to get up and going, and allows for such great flexibility for the end user. Not having to go through HTML editing with each client – I love that.”

Working with a platform that is accessible and flexible is important for Barry, whose web development projects typically involve basic business and informational sites. The platform’s continual evolution keeps him coming back.

“I already enjoyed working with PHP, but when WordPress added the featured image option, that got me excited as a developer because of what I could do with it. Meta boxes and custom post-types have made my sites flourish, whereas before I was using categories. Custom post types have been a huge deal to me, and, of course, the ability to write plugins and widgets. It’s those steps forward that keeps me excited for WordPress.”

“The natural progression of WordPress is really cool.”

You can find Barry on twitter at @barrycantrell

As part of the build-up to WordCamp Nashville 2014 Faces of WordPress will highlight members of Middle Tennessee’s great – and growing – WordPress community. We will feature WP users at all levels, newbies to advanced developers. And mark your calendar. This year’s Big Event is May 3, 2014.

FACES OF WORDPRESS: MaAnna Stephenson

MaAnna Stephenson

  • MaAnna Stephenson
  • WordPressing since 2006
  • WP Level: Expert User, WordCamp Nashville 2013 Speaker
  • BlogAid

MaAnna Stephenson found WordPress when she needed to create a blog for her book site, which she had built in static HTML.

Within two years, she launched BlogAid, offering classes and consulting to help non-Geeks learn the ways of WordPress. She’s created a vast video tutorial library, her “Tips Tuesday” podcast is hugely popular and, if Google+ means anything to you, more than 3,600 people have MaAnna in their “circles.” Among them are other well-known WordPress and G+ experts.

“Learning WordPress changed everything about my business. I moved away from being a coder and into the User and management side of owning a site,” she says. “I change my business model at least once a year to keep up with the changes in tech, online business trends, and WordPress itself.”

She built BlogAid while working fulltime as a field service electronics engineer. As WordPress grew up, so did BlogAid and earlier this year MaAnna left the “day job” to devote all her attention to her own business.

Often clients come to BlogAid after going it alone. MaAnna trains other people to create and run successful websites, which includes learning to harness the power of WordPress itself, SEO, content marketing, and conversion.

“There is no other field of endeavor where folks think they can make money overnight without having some idea of how to do it. It costs way more, in both time and money, to try to do things on the cheap and figure it out as you go. Those that invest in their online business make more money than those that don’t. That’s the bottom line.

The old coder in MaAnna relishes getting early looks at WordPress updates as a beta tester and appreciates that the WP team develops at a plugin level first before adding new functionality to the core.

“I believe that will be the future of WordPress and give it the ability to grow in different directions for different business models,” she says.

As part of the build-up to WordCamp Nashville 2014 Faces of WordPress will highlight members of Middle Tennessee’s great – and growing – WordPress community. We will feature WP users at all levels, newbies to advanced developers. And mark your calendar. This year’s Big Event is May 3, 2014.

FACES OF WORDPRESS: James Ashenhurst

James Ashenhurst

  • James Ashenhurst
  • WordPressing since 2010
  • WP Level: Intermediate User, WordCamp Nashville 2013 Speaker
  • Master Organic Chemistry

For James Ashenhurst, WordPress is most definitely his bread and butter, though he is not a developer.

He’s pulled off what many WordPress users dream of – monetizing his knowledge and expertise. James now runs a full-time membership site devoted to teaching organic chemistry, offering study guides, exam tips and other material.

After earning his PhD in Organic Chemistry from McGill and doing a post-doctoral fellowship at MIT, James struggled to find a job as a professor. So, in 2010, he started a blog on WordPress.com to teach anyway. As the project grew so, too, did his relationship with WordPress.

“WordPress is essential to my business but I am not particularly technically skilled with it,” says James.

The thing about WordPress, though, is that regardless of skill level, the help available on the Internet and from the Nashville WordPress community make it much less intimidating than other platforms.

“There’s a huge community of users that you can fall back on to help you solve pretty much any problem you encounter,” says James. “I never feel like I’m dealing with a problem nobody has seen before.”

What WordPress has allowed James to do is both easily share his content and earn money from it, essentially becoming a paid professor with none of the constraints of time or place – freedom most professors never imagine.

James got involved with the Nashville WordPress MeetUp in 2011 for support as he continued to build his site and spoke at WordCamp Nashville 2013. He wasn’t sure he had enough to talk about at first, but because he knew the audience would be friendly and supportive, he took the plunge. His story definitely caught the interest of the Nashville WordPress community – you can hear James tell his story on MaAnna Stephenson’s BlogAid Podcast.

For those on the fence about speaking, James can relate. “I wasn’t sure if I had a ‘good enough’ story to tell,” says James, “but the talk went over very well. It was a perfect environment for telling my blog’s story before actively seeking out things like online interviews.”

As part of the build-up to WordCamp Nashville 2014 Faces of WordPress will highlight members of Middle Tennessee’s great – and growing – WordPress community. We will feature WP users at all levels, newbies to advanced developers. And mark your calendar. This year’s Big Event is May 3, 2014.

FACES OF WORDPRESS: Nathaniel Schweinberg

Nathaniel Schweinberg

  • Nathaniel Schweinberg
  • WordPressing since 2009
  • WP Level: Developer, WordCamp Nashville 2013 Speaker
  • Fight the Current

When other developers ask Nathaniel Schweinberg “why on Earth” he would develop with WordPress, he has a ready answer.

“Why not is a better question,” he says. “WordPress is what got me into development in the first place. Using WordPress doesn’t make be a bad developer. It’s inspired me to become a better one.”

Nathaniel was introduced to WordPress in 2009 while at Florida State (though not as part of any class) and developed his first custom theme for an artist who needed a website with a portfolio of paintings and sculptures.

He moved to Nashville the following year to intern with a video company that did environmental projection and continued to work in WordPress. Clients would ask for a new feature and Nathaniel would figure out how to make it happen and ask members of the vast and supportive WordPress community for help if he couldn’t.

And now?

Nate has migrated from building WordPress sites to building custom plugins and now is using WordPress to build web applications. One project in the works is creating a 25-user social app for an art school in California. He talked about what he’s up to in a recent blog post:

I’m researching how to effectively develop an API, how to fully utilize Object Oriented Programming within the context of PHP, learning new server side languages, and better utilizing dependency management. I’ve learned how to use HTML and CSS preprocessors, version control systems, picked up a few extra languages, and how to manage my own server.

WordPress allowed him to pace his learning, step by step, and ease into deeper levels of development. It also allowed him to be self-employed, straight out of college.

For new developers, Nathaniel recommends starting with the basics, html and css, then diving into the WordPress core to understand how the php works. From there, you can bend WordPress “to your will,” he says, and use it “in conjunction with other tools.”

“Don’t let the framework get in the way of what you’re seeking to accomplish. It’s ok to use the right tool for the job.”

As part of the build-up to WordCamp Nashville 2014 Faces of WordPress will highlight members of Middle Tennessee’s great – and growing – WordPress community. We will feature WP users at all levels, newbies to advanced developers. And mark your calendar. This year’s Big Event is May 3, 2014.

FACES OF WORDPRESS: Justin Near

Justin Near of Nashville

In 2012, while helping a local church with its new website (and unceasingly seeking the aid of a very gracious WordPress developer), Justin began her love/hate relationship with WordPress.

Coming from a pure HTML/CSS background, not knowing any PHP, and viewing things entirely through the eyes of a client, WordPress seemed so limited and out of her control. But as the year (and her relationship with WordPress) progressed, she changed jobs and now works almost entirely in WordPress, helping people who are in the exact same position she was in when she started.

Why the change of heart?

…because WordPress opens the doors of websites to everyone, not just coders. Most of our clients are non-profits, and they need WordPress to have a ‘pretty’ site while still maintaining the ability to control their content. The seeming ‘lack of control’ is to protect people, not to limit them. Once you add in the community of WordPress to that mix – from the local level to the international level – you’ve got one helluva platform.

Not quite a developer but not truly a newbie, Justin understands how
most WordPressers feel. The best advice she has to offer:

  • don’t get overly frustrated with WordPress, there is (almost) always a solution
  • get involved in the local WordPress community – someone will have answers
  • don’t be afraid to get your feet wet (or dive in completely!), it’s the best way to learn

    • Justin takes the learning and community part of WordPress seriously.

    She’s in charge of organizing what we’re calling “Track 0,” an expanded Help Desk that will include a combination of group sessions and one-on-one help for WordCamp Nashville 2014.

    As part of the build-up to WordCamp Nashville 2014 Faces of WordPress will highlight members of Middle Tennessee’s great – and growing – WordPress community. We will feature WP users at all levels, newbies to advanced developers. And mark your calendar. This year’s Big Event is May 3, 2014.

    FACES OF WORDPRESS: Mitch Canter

    Mitch Canter

    Mitch Canter’s career in WordPress began by fiddling around on some old-school platforms (remember Xanga and LiveJournal?) and not accepting their limitations. He actually “discovered” WordPress right here in Nashville, and it was love at first…code.

    “WordPress is simple enough that anyone can jump in and use it, but powerful enough to be able to handle what you can throw at it,” he says. “I’ve found very few things in my development career that WordPress couldn’t handle, and most could be done without having to ‘code outside the box.’”

    To say you could trust Mitch on this is an understatement. He started out solely as a WordPress designer. Since then, he’s developed WordPress sites, spoken about WordPress at conferences, edited WordPress books… And now?

    Mitch manages some extremely high traffic sites (150K+ a month), including a 4,000+ product WooCommerce-based site, and to “stay frosty” and keep his “edge,” he occasionally takes on freelance projects.

    Are you a budding developer? Want to change the world? Think you’re too old to give it a shot?

    Mitch has some advice just for you:

    It’s never too late to start. WordPress has a fantastic track record, and by joining the community you join a long list of users and developers who have changed the world by taking publishing into their own hands. If you’re a developer, don’t just learn PHP and be done with it – make sure you understand the basics: HTML, PHP, CSS, and jQuery. If you can at least read (and later write) those four languages, you can handle most of what the WordPress-driven web can throw at you.

    Still not convinced to love WordPress? Read more on Mitch’s website, Studio NashVegas.

    As part of the build-up to WordCamp Nashville 2014 Faces of WordPress will highlight members of Middle Tennessee’s great – and growing – WordPress community. We will feature WP users at all levels, newbies to advanced developers. And mark your calendar. This year’s Big Event is May 3, 2014.

    As part of the build-up to WordCamp Nashville 2014 Faces of WordPress will highlight members of Middle Tennessee’s great – and growing – WordPress community. We will feature WP users at all levels, newbies to advanced developers. And mark your calendar. This year’s Big Event is May 3, 2014.