Month: October 2018

Topic: Rapid Application Development with the PODS Framework

Nick Batik Chief Technical Officer, Senior WordPress Back-end Developer & Information Architect Nick Batik co-founded Pleiades Publishing Services in 1992, has been building websites since 1994 and has been a WordPress consultant and developer since 2007. A WordPress Evangelist, and a Co-organizer of the Austin WordPress Meetup, he has presented technical WordPress classes at numerous meetups, PodCamps and WordCamps. Nick specializes in the system design and implementation of custom, often complex WordPress-based solutions that address client data management issues. As the back-end developer, he creates the core computational logic of the website or information system to implement the customized functionality. Nick has dedicated his professional career to information architecture and information design.

How did you get involved in WordPress?

I had been creating static HTML websites since 1994 and was frustrated with the whole process. Around 2007 I was going to give up web development, but an associate of mine, Chris Sherrod, suggested I try WordPress. I had already learned dozens of programs and I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn another one, I tried it and liked it. It’s been one of my primary tools ever since.

What do you do with WordPress?

Uh… make websites?

I’m sure there’s an answer here that’s a little more specific: I design themes, write plugins, manage databases.

What has your experience with the WordPress community been like?

When I started I didn’t know that there was a community. Because I am a programmer, I looked at WordPress, especially the includes directory, and modified it to make my website look the way I wanted. Everything was fine until I installed the first update, then all my changes got overwritten. In frustration, I looked around for some help and found the Austin WordPress Meetup and Pat Ramsey. His support was invaluable, as was his insistence on an ethos of giving back.

Why did you want to speak at WordCamp DFW?

I like Scott, Carrie, and Mark and want to support them in any way I can.

Why did you decide to speak on your topic?

I wanted a topic that was advanced enough to be interesting, but not so abstract the people wouldn’t know how to use it.

What do you hope the audience gets from your talk?

One of the growing challenges in web development today is the growing pressure to do more with them.

This adds to the complexity and the time to complete, with the very real risk that any misunderstanding at the beginning of a project can have expensive and devastating consequences if the final product misses the mark.

I want to give the audience something that gives them a better chance of success – a way to make working, visual prototypes that clarify what the client will get, and that highlights development areas will be technically challenging.

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 10-11. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

Topic: Maintaining a HEART Healthy WordPress Database

David serves as a Customer Experience Data Analyst and in-house WordPress Database Subject Matter Expert (SME) for WP Engine. He has an MBA from Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA majoring in Management Information Systems and Bachelor’s in Applied Behavioral Sciences from Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, LA. He has worked as a freelance database design consultant and has been supporting WordPress for 5 years.

How did you get involved in WordPress?

I began working with WordPress in 2013 as a support technician for Hostgator. In 2016, I joined the WP Engine team as a Level 1 Support Technician and soon assumed the role of Database Subject Matter Expert. After two years in our Support organization, I’ve progressed to Level 2 Support Technician and Senior Level 2 Support, and I have now assumed the role of Customer Experience Data Analyst.

What do you do with WordPress?

I currently have a professional profile page for myself and develop sites for local non-profits addressing the needs of marginalized populations (i.e, human trafficking awareness, etc).

What has your experience with the WordPress community been like?

I have thoroughly enjoyed learning from other WordPress users and developers and have relished the opportunity to give back to the WordPress community through talks, as well as support development and training.

Why did you want to speak at WordCamp DFW?

I wanted to take the opportunity to give back to the WordPress community in Texas and surrounding areas in a way that provides actionable information to improve site performance with WordPress on an often misunderstood or neglected topic.

Why did you decide to speak on your topic?

The WordPress database is a unique creature in terms of the relational model and is often neglected in regular site maintenance. From my experience and the best data available, approximately 2/3 of slow sites I have worked with have been diagnosed as having significant problems with the database, ranging from data bloat to data fragmentation.

What do you hope the audience gets from your talk?

It is my hope that developers and business managers come away from this talk with a better perspective on the importance of having a regular database maintenance plan and I will be providing a proven framework that can be utilized within their own regular development and maintenance workflows.

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 10-11. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

Topic: Our 6 months journey around AMP, WordPress & AMP Stories

Pratik Ghela has been working on WordPress since 2011 and has worked on 500+ WordPress projects for clients across the world. His core interest has now focused to Customer Satisfaction. Apart from just working as a bridge between his Dev Team and Clients, he regularly keeps an eye over upcoming technologies. Currently, he is working exclusively on Google AMP based projects and developing a product MakeStories for building web based stories

How did you get involved in WordPress?

I got involved with WordPress way back in 2011. Prior to using WordPress, I was doing a lot of Joomla sites. It was in 2011 when I was introduced to WordPress by a student of mine. I always thought of WordPress as a blogging tool before using it and never thought that it can be used as a CMS. But, when I started using WordPress and building themes, I fount out that it is really cool . I left Joomla in 2011 and then was completely dedicated to WordPress. The learning curve is pretty easy when you compare WordPress with any other Open Source CMS. It’s been 7 yrs and there is no looking back.

What do you do with WordPress?

I run a PSD To WordPress company called PSD To Manythings where we convert PSD / Sketch files to custom WordPress Themes. This is our primary WordPress service. But lately, we have been doing a lot WordPress Development stuff like integrating 3rd party APIs , building plugins and much more. Last year, I launched a WordPress Maintenance service called “PressMate”. Also, my obsession for speed has pushed me into using almost every other hosting company on the globe. I seldom take up challenging jobs where I bring down the page load speed to 2s. We are moving slowly and gradually. But, we are now a full service WordPress Dev Shop. This year, I am also launching 2SHosting where we sell custom WordPress Hosting plans that guarantees a load time of 2 seconds.

What has your experience with the WordPress community been like?

I am an organizer of New York WooCommerce meet up group and I have been to couple of WordPress Meet Up groups in the States. One thing that I love about WordPress community is that it’s inclusive. You can find people of all age groups with the same spirit who want to make sure that everyone gets the best out of WordPress. Even though WordPress is an open source project, with community support, you can build an amazing career. I think the WordPress community is a major reason behind WordPress’s success.

Why did you want to speak at WordCamp DFW?

I have been dealing exclusively with Americans since past 6 Yrs and it is my dream to visit every WordCamp in the USA. I have heard a lot about Texas and always wanted to visit Austin & Dallas as these cities are the Technology Centers. So, while I was looking out for WordCamps happening in USA while I visit and I saw Texas, I said there we go and applied.

Why did you decide to speak on your topic?

I am talking about “Our 6 months journey around AMP, WordPress & AMP Stories”. Well, I must change it to 9 months now . I did knew about AMP in early 2016 while talking to one of my clients. Initially , i didn’t pay much attention to it. But, in 2017, I saw that AMP is being adopted by big media houses and has a potential of being a web standard. However, building native AMP is not that easy and has a steep learning curve. Due to this, there are lots of misconceptions about AMP. I wish to clear this misconceptions from people’s mind and story tell our journey from not knowing anything about AMP to developing our own software for building AMP Stories.

What do you hope the audience gets from your talk?

I hope that people make more informed decisions and not stay biased about AMP. We, as developers have a habit of using a lot of JS libraries and make things super simple for us to build. But, all of this adds up to the page load time. This is exactly what AMP doesn’t want us to. And a lot of restrictions being placed while developing AMP pages has divided the hole developer community into With AMP Vs Against AMP. AMP uses lots of techniques like asynchronous loading, caching to make your site load faster. I want people to understand that AMP is not equal to page speed , neither it is a ranking factor for SEO. I believe that after this talk, people will have a more clear understanding of when to use AMP and if they want to, then how to?

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 10-11. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

We’re happy to have Beaver Builder as one of our Silver sponsors for this year’s WordCamp DFW. You can learn more about what Beaver Builder does on their website.

What is Beaver Builder all about?

Beaver Builder is a flexible drag and drop page builder that works on the front end of your WordPress website. Whether you’re a beginner or a professional, you’re going to love taking control of your website. Stop writing HTML or wrestling with confusing shortcodes. With Beaver Builder, building beautiful, professional WordPress pages is as easy as dragging and dropping.

Beaver Themer, our Add-On for Beaver Builder, allows you to take full control over your site’s headers, footers, archive layouts and more with the same ease and friendliness of editing page content with Page Builder.

How do y’all use WordPress?

Our team is made up of people who all build sites with WordPress and that led us to create Beaver Builder. Now we get to help others build their sites and make a career out of creating for the web with WordPress.

Why did you want to sponsor WordCamp DFW?

We like to sponsor camps, especially ones some of our team will be attending or we know we have users attending. We’d like to help make sure camps like this continue to happen!

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 10-11. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

Topic: WP Local SEO Basics: How to Get Your WordPress Powered Website Listed in Google’s Local Map Pack

Doug Stewart is a former tech salesperson turned SEO professional. Doug started what is now DSC Web Services, Inc. in 1999. Doug taught a class helping small business owners get found online at Tulsa Tech. He also spoke at several Social Media Tulsa conferences and a 140 Characters Conference.

How did you get involved in WordPress?

I had a blog called “Power to Fight the Big Boys.” It was on Blogger first. Then I moved it to WordPress. After that, I started moving my web design clients to WordPress. This was in 2007 or 2008.

What do you do with WordPress?

I own DSC Web Services, Inc. We build websites mainly for family owned, local businesses. SEO has always been a major part of what we do. WordPress is search engine friendly. That’s why almost everything we do is on WordPress.

What has your experience with the WordPress community been like?

The WordPress community is filled with smart, geeky professionals. Professionals who generously give of their knowledge and experience. I like that a lot. Gotta love geeks hanging out and talking about the work they’re passionate about. Right?

Why did you want to speak at WordCamp DFW?

I live in the Tulsa area. We don’t have a strong WordPress community. I’ve been impressed with this D/FW group and want to be more involved in the community. I also have several clients in the D/FW area.

Why did you decide to speak on your topic?

It’s what I work with every day. My brain is always thinking about local SEO. I eat, sleep and breathe this stuff.

What do you hope the audience gets from your talk?

I hope after my session (or even during my session), someone will get out their laptop. Login to WordPress and implement something they learned.

I hope they earn one of the 3 top spots in Google’s map pack because they implemented quickly.

This is important: you probably won’t rank for an extremely competitive search term after a 45-minute talk. But you might rank for a keyword that’s important to you; one that’s less competitive.

I also hope someone has an “Ah-Ha” moment. I want people to walk away with a better understanding of “why” the local SEO best practices I’m sharing work.

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 10-11. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

Topic: Deploying WordPress with Git and Continuous Integration (CI)

Ben Word is the founder of Roots and been creating WordPress sites since 2004. He loves dogs, climbing, and yoga, and is passionate about helping people build awesome things on the web.

How did you get involved in WordPress?

My first WordPress site was a blog in 2004, and by 2009 I was building most of my sites with WordPress. I ended up creating a WordPress starter theme (now called Sage) at an agency where I was sometimes making multiple themes a day.

What do you do with WordPress?

I work on open-source tools for WordPress along with my team at Roots, create educational content, and build out client sites and apps with WordPress.

What has your experience with the WordPress community been like?

I’ve met a lot of people through the WordPress community who are just as passionate as I am about building/doing good things 🙂

Why did you want to speak at WordCamp DFW?

Even though Colorado is now my home, I was born and raised in the Dallas area. It’s always nice to have an excuse to come and visit! Do y’all understand what it’s like to not be able to go to Whataburger?

Why did you decide to speak on your topic?

I feel that implementing CI to deploy my WordPress sites is the biggest improvements to my workflow over the last few years.

What do you hope the audience gets from your talk?

I’d love for others to see how deploying WordPress with Git can make their life easier as a developer.

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 10-11. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

Topic: Keeping Your Themes and Plugins Separate

Writing. Web Development. Storytelling. These are a few of my favorite things. I first loved writing stories, specifically sports stories, and it eventually became my major in college. But along the way, I began to fall for web development, and finding ways to help others tell their stories through websites. I’ve created a couple of WordPress plugins and themes and currently work with Faith Growth, Inc., and as a freelancer.

How did you get involved in WordPress?

I first got started in WordPress in 2009 when I joined my high school’s newspaper staff. That year we went from printing one issue every six weeks to fully online with a WordPress website. Naturally, I became interested in how it all worked.

In the summer after I graduated high school, I learned all of the web development basics and began to develop WordPress themes and plugins. The rest, as they say, is history.

What do you do with WordPress?

I currently work as a freelance developer. My primary gig is working with Faith Growth, Inc., building websites for churches.

What has your experience with the WordPress community been like?

My experience with the WordPress has been nothing short of amazing. I attended my first WordCamp DFW in 2016 and joined the Ft. Worth WordPress User’s Group Meetup shortly there after and I have always felt welcome in the space.

Why did you want to speak at WordCamp DFW?

I love this community and really wanted to give back to a community that has helped me a lot.

Why did you decide to speak on your topic?

As someone who has submitted themes and plugins into their respective WordPress directories and someone who had trouble when switching themes, I wanted to help people not make those same mistakes and/or understand some of the risks when using a theme that adds functionality it really shouldn’t.

What do you hope the audience gets from your talk?

I hope non-developers are able to better understand what themes and plugins really are and why that matters in WordPress so that they can make better decisions when picking the right theme. And for developers, I hope they make sure that they respect the difference between the two so that their products work for the user.

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 10-11. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

Topic: Automating Your Client Onboarding & Client Mangement Process For A High-End Customer Experience

Treva Marshall is the owner of Marshall Web Studio, where she uses her signature SMART Website System™ to help small businesses create a powerful website that’s not only beautiful but also search engine optimized (SEO) to bring them a steady flow of warm traffic to their business. Prior to starting her website design and technical support business, Treva spent over a decade in the IT industry as a Senior Software Developer for companies such as ExxonMobil and Atmos Energy. A teacher at heart, Treva’s passion lies in combining her technical skills with her love for helping small businesses thrive by teaching workshops both online and in person. Treva is also an Adjunct Professor in the Business College at Richland College and her work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Search Engine Journal, and more. When Treva isn’t geeking out on websites, SEO, and internet marketing, you can find her reading a classic period piece novel or planning out her family’s next road trip adventure.

How did you get involved in WordPress?

When I started my business, I researched various website platforms.

What do you do with WordPress?

I build SMART websites for small businesses.

What has your experience with the WordPress community been like?

The community is very informative and helpful.

Why did you want to speak at WordCamp DFW?

To help others understand the importance of having the total package (right platform – WordPress, right traffic for conversions – SEO, a means for tracking and monitoring – Google Analytics) in order for a website to be a valuable business asset.

I’m also passionate about systems. So I want to share my expertise on how to streamline the design and client intake process.

Why did you decide to speak on your topic?

It’s a topic that I’m passionate about.

What do you hope the audience gets from your talk?

Take-aways they can implement or have someone implement for them.

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 10-11. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

With WordCamp DFW just 22 days away, the organizing committee is ready to announce the second round of speakers for this year’s event.

So, without any further delay, here are the second round of confirmed speakers for WordCamp DFW 2018:

Sandi Batik

Topic: Keeping Scope Creep From Killing Your Schedule and Profit Margin

WordPress evangelist, consultant, trainer, curricula developer, author, unapologetic geek, unrepentant capitalist, and lucky enough to do what I love every day. I co-founded Pleiades Publishing Services in 1992 where I serve as Project Manager and support our Clients’ Project Discovery Sessions as a Business Process Analyst. I have served as an Austin WordPress Meetup co-organizer since 2010 and write about WordPress at https://handsonwp.com/. You can follow me @sandi.batik / @WPATX.

Keri Chesire

Topic: The Must Do‚’s Before Going Live

Keri spent about 10 years working in customer service in restaurants before she landed her first Account Management gig in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was there that she met 2 amazing women who took her under their wing to teach her WordPress — and she immediately fell in love. After about a year of that, she decided to move back to her hometown of San Antonio Texas to attended Codeup (a career accelerator for Web Development), and then fell back in love with customer service. Now she gets to do the two things that she loves on a daily basis — Help clients and work with WordPress. She couldn’t be happier 🙂

Ben Word

Topic: Deploying WordPress with Git and Continuous Integration (CI)

Ben Word is the founder of Roots and been creating WordPress sites since 2004. He loves dogs, climbing, and yoga, and is passionate about helping people build awesome things on the web.

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 10-11. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!