Looks like many people coming to WordCamp Miami are people looking for work (freelance, contract, and full-time). It also looks like there are people looking for potential hires as well, so to encourage both groups to meet and network at the event we are planning two things:

=== Fill Out Our Form ===

If you are looking for work or to hire, please fill out this form as soon as possible:

http://eepurl.com/wUR6P

This will allow us to compile this information and distribute it at WordCamp Miami on Saturday, April 6th. We will also provide a way for you to advertise any new availabilities and positions at the event, but having this information ahead of time gives us the chance to get it already printed and in the hands of potential employers and employees.

You can fill out the form more than once if you are looking for different hires and positions (if you are looking for work, please only fill it out once). But you must fill out the form by March 31st.

=== Networking ===

WordCamp Miami is a networking event. There are 450 attendees, and making connections should be a goal for anyone attending (for many reasons!). This year, we have extended times in the morning, during lunch, and in the afternoon for you to take a break and talk to fellow attendees. Meet new people – the next person you meet might be a new contact, friend, employee, or employer. We are also having a dedicated networking after party on April 6th. There will be food and fun, but also a great chance to relax and talk with your fellow attendances in a relaxed atmosphere.

https://2013.miami.wordcamp.org/2013/02/22/after-party-location-finnegans-river/

There is NO ticket or charge to come to this networking event. It’s open to ALL. But please remember to bring your lanyard and badge for a chance to win some giveaways from our sponsors.

Thanks and see you soon at WordCamp Miami!

Just a brief note that as of March 15th, WordCamp Miami 2013 is officially sold out. We are planning on posting a waiting list shortly on the site and will update this post when we do so.

We are very excited at breaking a new record in time to a sell-out AND the number of tickets sold. Expect to see over 470 of your fellow WordCampers April 5-7th. 🙂

Brian Breslin @brianbreslin

Brian is a long time WordPress user and developer. His company Infinimedia, has been building custom WordPress themes and plugins for 5 years. They currently produce a WordPress backup plugin called PressBackup which is used by thousands of blogs world wide. Brian is also heavily involved in the local technology community in South Florida. He blogs extensively about tech and community at http://brianbreslin.com. Follow him on Twitter @brianbreslin.

Stay tuned for our last speaker announcements in March!

Joshua Hansen

Joshua is the Manager of the Customer Security Products team at Godaddy. He is passionate about security and the Open Source community. As a kid he used to take apart toasters, which taught him two things: 1) He really likes to figure out how things work 2) He does not like putting toasters back together

He previously spoke at WordCamp Phoenix regarding several vulnerabilities found in plugins and themes, and how they can be prevented.

Stay tuned for our last speaker announcements in March!

Just a quick note that we have published our Saturday (April 6th) and Sunday (April 7th) schedule. This schedule is subject to change slightly, so please check it at least once a few days before the event. But go forth and plan, WordCamp attendees!

David Parsons @david_j_parsons

David Parsons, a Computer Science major at the University of Central Florida, has been working with WordPress for over five years now. His passion for the web originally started by making a simple website with WordPress, but over the years he has been branched out with responsive design, web apps, SEO, theme & plugin development, and even Compass & SASS enhanced stylesheets. Recently David has been spending a lot of his spare time speaking at local events such as WordCamp Orlando, the Orlando WordPress Meetup Group, and BarCamp Tampa.

Stay tuned for our last speaker announcements in March!

Blanca Stella Mejia @miamishines

Blanca Stella Mejia is the founder of Vizred.com, an agency focused on delivering online digital solutions to the small to mid-sized businesses with expertise in mobile marketing, website development, local search, social media consulting and reputation management. She has been blogging for five years and is also the founder of MiCaminar.com, which means My Walk. This bilingual blog won the award of Best Inspirational Blogger by Latism.

Blanca is on the board of Social Media Club South Florida and was one of the speakers at the first Ignite Miami. To capture the spirit and activities of the South Florida grassroots social media community, she blogged for several years on Blancastella.com sharing many videos and pictures.

Stay tuned for our last speaker announcements in March!

Ernie Hsiung @ErnieAtLYD

Ernie Hsiung is Principal of LYD Labs, a small business focused on front-end development for community based websites, many of which are powered by WordPress. Along with his development work, Ernie is a well-known blogger: He’s the founder of 8Asians.com, a community blog for Asian Americans and for over ten years blogged about his personal life on his award-winning weblog, Little Yellow Different. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, he relocated to Miami in February, 2012 where he created the Front-End Developers of Miami MeetUp group as well as MiamiWiki.org.

Stay tuned for our last speaker announcements in March!

Alex de Car­valho @alexdc

Alex is the co-founder of Feynlabs, which teaches programming concepts for kids. He also consults to companies and individuals on social media strategy and implementation. He is an adjunct pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of Miami’s School of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and recently co-authored “Secur­ing the Clicks: Net­work Secu­rity in the Age of Social Media,” pub­lished by McGraw-Hill.

Alex has helped unite South Florida’s tech com­mu­nity by found­ing Social Media Club, Bar­Camp, Ignite, Social Media Day, The Startup Forum, and Mobile Mon­day events for South Florida new media pro­fes­sion­als; he is also a found­ing mem­ber of Refresh­Mi­ami. Over the past six years, these orga­ni­za­tions have hosted events for over 10,000 tech and busi­ness pro­fes­sion­als, lead­ing to new con­nec­tions, employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, and startup ideas.

Alex’s Session: “Top 20 Plugins That You Can’t Live Without”

If you’re self-hosting your WordPress website, you’ll want to extend its functionality with plugins. However, there are more than 23.500 free plugins in the WP library. You can of course visit WordPress’ Most Popular Plugin Directory, but it’s a potential time sink and you’ll miss many great ones by not digging deeper. So, we’ve shaken down the interwebs for you to come up with this list of must-have plugins you won’t know how you survived without.

Stay tuned for our last speaker announcements in March!

Very happy to announce that Bluehost – one of our Gold Sponsors – is also exclusively sponsoring both WordCamp Miami beginner’s workshops. What this means is that we will be talking more about how you can use hosting companies like Bluehost in setting up your WordPress site. You can grab an exclusive WordCamp discount with them now to get started by clicking here.

If you are new to WordPress, then you want to make sure you attend one of our two beginner’s workshops. And as our beginner workshops are quite popular, we wanted to share with you some information before they sell out.

Registration will start at 8am, and a full day’s schedule is planned (9am to 5pm).

View the Full Schedule Here

Here are the locations of our two beginner’s workshops. BOTH ARE IDENTICAL. Just pick the most convenient one:

Beginners WordPress Workshop (April 5th) – Held in Miami, FL on April 5th at the Miami Shared location. This workshop is recommended for those who live in the Miami Area.

Lunch will be provided, so just bring yourself (and a laptop, tablet, or something to take notes with) and get ready for a full day of getting up to speed with WordPress. After this workshop you’ll be ready for Saturday and Sunday (April 6-7) for even more WordPress knowledge.