Announcing Freelance Workshop Lineup

WordCamp Miami had it’s first freelance workshop last year and it was a huge success (the first workshop to sell out – over 140 people purchased a ticket). This year we brought back this full day workshop with more focused topics, and a great diversity of speakers.

If you are a freelancer, want to become one, or want to be better at business this is DEFINITELY the workshop to be at.

The “Freelancer” Workshop will be on Friday, March 24th. It is a single full-day track.

We have posted speakers and session information on our schedule page.

Jason Mazier

Jason Mazier is the President of Mazier Media, a marketing agency based in Fort Lauderdale. Jason was born and raised in New York City. In his 17-year career, Jason worked on multi-channel marketing campaigns for such clients as Boyce Technologies, LLERO Magazine, Broward Center for the Performing Arts, LiveNation, Holy Cross Hospital, Huntington National Bank, and JPMorgan Chase Bank. Jason is also the founder and host of devLatino – Digital Empowerment Voyage, a podcast highlighting Latinos in technology and the digital space. Follow him on Twitter at @jasonmazier

Talk: “Tools of the Trade (for Freelancer/Small Business Owner)”: In this talk, you will learn about desktop/web apps, mobile apps, and other hacks that will make you run your business professionally and efficiently, while not breaking the bank.

Jodie Ricelli

A graduate of Millersville University, Jodie brings 15 years of sales and marketing experience to WebDevStudios. Entrepreneurs in the real estate, music, technology and education industries have recognized her marketing expertise and ability to restructure and systemize businesses. A self-proclaimed foodie and music aficionado, she now lends her creativity to create unique web strategies and solutions for clients.

Talk: “Talking to Clients About Scope and Specs (Using Wapuu)”: You may have seen the amazing stuffed Wapuus at WordCamp US in Philadelphia. Although the final version was adorable, it took months of working with the factory and many prototypes to get to the perfect final product! This talk will tell the story of how Wapuu can teach you to see scoping through a client’s perspective and more importantly, refine your scoping process for future clients.

Krystal Galewski & Leah Halbina

Tara Claeys, of Design TLC and Nice Work, LLC, provides custom website and graphic design services, with a focus on creating effective, clean and personalized communication platforms for small to medium businesses. Tara has a marketing background, combined with several years working with WordPress, helping her find solutions for complex marketing communication and website functionality challenges.

Talk: “From the Front Lines: Finding and Closing the Right Clients”: This talk is for anyone who is out there trying to find and win new business. Applying these steps and principles to your business can help you grow if you’re ready to get out there and make the change. Every company’s biggest challenge is finding and closing sales.

This joint talk will dive into and provide guidance on this common struggle for big companies, small companies and freelancers alike. Strategies and tactics are constantly changing, but making it about your prospect (and not completely about you and your business) can go a long way in a world of standardized sales emails and boilerplate proposals.

Louise Treadwell

Louise is an eternal web development geek and social media junkie. She’s a native of Metro Detroit and an alumnae of the University of Michigan. She learned about the human side of computer science while earning a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science and has fined tuned her web developer skills over the course of a 20+ year career building, breaking, and fixing sites for a multitude of startups.

Talk: “Pricing Your Services: Are You Selling Yourself Short?”: When one freelancer prices themselves incorrectly, it makes your fellow service providers look dishonest and it sets up unrealistic expectations for customers. In short, poor pricing strategies hurt everyone! Remove yourself from the clearance rack and come learn how to develop a competitive and profitable pricing strategy. (Bring your calculators!)

Pascal Depuhl

Pascal Depuhl is a visual content creator at Photography by Depuhl, a Miami-based production company. He’s been capturing still images for over 25 years and even though he got into video only 5 years ago, you’ll find his award-winning and mind changing videos on National Geographic, Netflix, the BBC and many of his clients’ websites. It’s common to find him in the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of South America and it’s just as common to walk away from one of his short documentary style films with your mind blown.

Talk: “How To Be A More Productive Freelancer”: This talk would focus on how to use online services, like SalesForce, Evernote, Google and others and combine them with apps like Scannable, Expensify, ect.; automating tasks via IFTTT or Zapier so you can automatically create digital assets, input expense and contact data and track events and tasks to make a small business a productivity take off.

Allie Nimmons

Allie is a self-taught freelance web designer and internet marketer. After attending WCMIA in 2015 and being blown away, she vowed that one day she would be a speaker at a WordCamp conference. She designs and builds sites using WordPress and focuses on SEO rich sites for small businesses and brands who may not be able to afford a custom site from an agency.

Talk: “How to Train Clients to Use Their WordPress Site”: In this presentation specially designed for freelance web designers and developers, you’ll learn how and why to educate your clients on using and updating their WordPress site after launch. You’ll walk away knowing how a focus in education throughout the whole process can benefit both you and your client, as well as how to actually go about training the client on a one-on-one basis.

Melanie Adcock

Melanie Adcock has been designing websites for more than fifteen years and has been using WordPress exclusively for the past six years. Her current clients include several small businesses, continuing care retirement communities, churches, and faith-based ministries. Melanie also mentors and consults with other WordPress enthusiasts. Twitter: @mgacreative

Talk: “Upping Your Freelance Game”: Are you a freelancer? Or thinking of taking the plunge? I want to share with you the processes I now use to win clients and the process of taking a client from a lead to project delivery. We will touch on incoming leads, client meetings, onboarding, delivery, and more.

Shelly Peacock

Shelly Peacock is the founder of the Spinbird Group, a WordPress Consulting and Design Group. She has a “full-stack” professional background of over 15 years which includes sales, marketing, and social media training. An active member of the WordPress community, she has traveled and spoken at WordCamps both nationally and internationally. Her favorite things? Hole-in-the-wall eateries that rock and creating artwork … with blowtorches and with code.

Talk: “The NO Badger Zone: How to Get New Business Without The Hard Sell”: If the thought of marketing and selling to new clients terrifies you and makes you just want to lock yourself in a closet.. this talk is for you. As techies, we are about 75% introverts, some more than others. You will learn 6 keys to closing without “Badgering”, and clever ways to “beef up” your bottom line.

We plan to have a Q&A session at the end of the workshop to cover as many questions as possible.

Grab your weekend ticket now to make sure you can attend. Developers should also come to our Learn JavaScript Depply workshop on Sunday, March 26th!

Announcing: “Ask The Expert” Sessions

Haven’t you wished you could ask any question to an “expert” at WordCamp? Problem is that many talks have short Q&A sessions – and while we encourage speakers to visit the Happiness Bar after the talks, it’s still difficult to ask sometimes. Also there could be someone ELSE in the room that has a great answer, or would love to bond over the subject you’re interested in.

This is part of the reason why we are bringing “Ask The Expert” sessions to WordCamp Miami this year. In a nutshell:

  • One person knowledgable in a particular field
  • No slides, no prepared presentations
  • Approx 20 min of that person answering as many questions as possible

Think of this as a mini-town hall or a Reddit “AMA”. It’s kind of on a trial basis – if we get good feedback we will bring it back next year.

Got a question about WordPress security? We have a person for that.
Got a question that touches on development? We have two people for that.

Although you can ask any legit question, we tend to suggest topics to help guide the conversation.

There are six “Ask The Expert” spots and they are all on Saturday, March 25th. We are updating our schedule page with the last of those as soon as they are confirmed. However we want to share with you three of the six experts we have lined up so far.

Mason James


Mason James is a native Floridian who got his start volunteering for WordPress support in various forums in 2008. After freelancing and working for various other companies, in 2012, he started WP Valet. With a focus on first-class customer service and iterative, measurable improvements, Valet quickly gained a reputation for being a trusted partner to their clients. Today, Valet provides development, insights, and peace of mind to WordPress site owners around the world.

Suggested Questions And Topics: Mason is passionate about remote work culture and measuring support effectiveness. Mason manages customer expectations, troubleshooting, and consulting work with the same criteria – education to increase success.

Andrew Norcross

Andrew (or Norcross, as most know him) is the founder and lead developer of Reaktiv Studios, an agency focused on solving complex problems with killer WordPress solutions. After quite a few years in the finance industry, Norcross switched to coding and hasn’t looked back. He’s got skin in both the service game — Reaktiv Studios is a WordPress VIP Featured Partner, helping top-tier clients with their WordPress development— and the product game, with Reaktiv’s flagship plugin, Design Palette Pro, continually being developed and supported. An organizer for WordCamp Tampa, Norcross loves to keep giving back to the WordPress community with free plugins, education talks at conferences, and core contribution to WordPress. Norcross lives in Tampa, Florida with his amazing son and a rescue dog that believes he’s a human.

Suggested Questions And Topics: Andrew is not only an accomplished developer but also runs Reaktiv Studios. So developers who have questions related to plugins or perhaps have a question regarding having a business around WordPress plugins might want to see Andrew on March 25th.

Victor Santoyo

Technology enthusiast and Technical Engineer for Sucuri, Victor previously worked as a desktop publisher and information analyst for several local organizations in Miami, FL. He is constantly researching the role of online security in open-source CMS platforms. When away from the keyboard, going out for long runs or watching sports with his wife and son.

Suggested Questions And Topics: Victor is from one of the best WordPress security companies out there – Sucuri. Questions related to security – especially to security of WordPress sites – would be recommended.

Mark Jaquith

Mark Jaquith has been working with and contributing to WordPress since 2004. He is one of the lead developers of the WordPress core and offers freelance WordPress consulting services through Covered Web Services with a focus on scaling, security, and custom functionality. Mark likes patches that have more red than green, and his favorite WordPress features are the ones that you’re not even aware of. He eagerly looks forward to shooting down your feature suggestions with, “No, but it would make a great plugin!”

Suggested Questions And Topics: Mark is a lead developer of WordPress core – not to mention a developer who has covered advanced topics in both freelancing and other WordCamp talks. Got a deep development question? Mark might be the guy to either give some advice or point you to someone who might have the answer you’re looking for.


More “Experts” and Surprises To Come!

Speakers are being confirmed now in the above lineup and they’ll be announced in a few days, and we’ll have updated information right up until the conference.

Grab your weekend ticket now to make sure you can attend.

Seventh Round of WordCamp Miami Speakers Announced

WordCamp Miami is happy to announce the seventh wave of approved and confirmed speakers for WordCamp Miami 2017.

Pascal Depuhl

Pascal Depuhl is a visual content creator at Photography by Depuhl, a Miami-based production company. He’s been capturing still images for over 25 years and even though he got into video only 5 years ago, you’ll find his award-winning and mind changing videos on National Geographic, Netflix, the BBC and many of his clients websites. It’s common to find him in the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of South America and it’s just as common to walk away from one of his short documentary style films with your mind blown.

Rachel Lucas

Rachel Lucas is the co-founder of WPBICO, an All-In-One WordPress platform which provides every tool (domain names, business email, premium themes & plugins, hosting and training) needed for a professional WP website at an affordable price. A techie at heart, Rachel brought to web development a sophisticated level of creativity inspired by her design background.

As a female minority in tech, Rachel strives to serve as an inspiration for other young ladies in her demographic to find the joys of coding. Always traveling but currently based in the beautiful city of Miami, Rachel has merged her love of crochet and web design to create a platform that teaches young girls to explore their creativity through the timeless art of crochet.

Hristo Pandjarov

Hristo is a WordPress enthusiast who’s done it all: supported WordPress clients, built websites, designed WordPress themes, wrote tutorials, dug deeper into SEO and developed his own WordPress SEO plugin. He’s been fortunate to have his passion for all things WordPress and his job overlap at SiteGround, where he develops and implements various in-house performance boost solutions to help make WordPress websites faster and more secure.

Shayla Price

Shayla Price creates and promotes content. She lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology and social responsibility. Originally from Louisiana, Shayla lives in the Fort Lauderdale area. Connect with her on Twitter: @shaylaprice

Paul Gilzow

Paul Gilzow is the lead programmer for the Division of Marketing and Communications at the University of Missouri, where he has worked as a Web applications programmer since 2005. Certified by the SANS Institute in Web application security, Paul frequently works with campus IT security to deliver presentations to fellow developers and assists in triaging and cleaning up compromised sites on campus. He is also heavily involved with his local OWASP chapter and teaches classes on secure coding practices to local areas businesses and organizations.

Karla Campos

Karla Campos is the CEO of Social Media Sass a company specializing in digital marketing training and education. Social Media Sass has trained individuals in topics like WordPress, Joomla, social media, crowdfunding, blogging, content marketing, and SEO to name a few.

Karla is a speaker, the winner of a Small Business Influencer award for 2013. Karla has been featured on Entrepreneur.com, T51, NBC6, Social Media Today, and the Sun Sentinel. Karla is the author of Social Media Fame.

Nizar Khalife Iglesias

Nizar Khalife is the Lead Instructor at Ironhack in Miami and has been a Web developer for over 9 years. He teaches tech-literacy and the craft of coding. Nizar also writes software for the Web, usually in his preferred language: JavaScript.

Aside from that, Nizar is from Puerto Rico and enjoys video games, film and cookies.

Jonathan Brinley

Jonathan began tinkering with WordPress websites and plugins eleven years ago, taking the plunge into full-time freelancing shortly thereafter. He has collaborated with the distributed team at Modern Tribe for six years, and currently leads a team of developers to build delightful and creative solutions on top of the WordPress platform. When he’s not coding, Jonathan is busy homeschooling his two children and enjoying the beautiful weather of Northeast Florida.

 

Sixth Round of WordCamp Miami Speakers Announced

WordCamp Miami is happy to announce the sixth wave of approved and confirmed speakers for WordCamp Miami 2017.

Shawn Hooper

Shawn is the Director of IT at Actionable.co, and lives in Ottawa, Canada. His current mandate is the development of the distributed company’s internal business systems and processes, which rely heavily on the integration of various services’ APIs (including WordPress REST) to automate regular processes for this distributed company. Shawn has over 20 years of experience as a web application developer, and has been working with WordPress since 2009.

Robert McFrazier

Robert McFrazier has been in the software industry in the Seattle area for over 15 years in many different roles including LAMP engineer, software developer, technical trainer, architect, technical support, and manager. I have been on the technical review team for two Cassandra books: Learning Cassandra for Administrators and Cassandra Data Modeling and Analysis. Robert enjoys learning new things and working on strong teams. He spends his free time with wife and son trying to stay dry in the pacific northwest.

Alex Oliveira

As a hands on leader of multiple successful companies, Brazilian-born and South Florida-raised Alex Oliveira has helped clients advance their businesses and brands by building and executing interactive marketing campaigns for over 15 years.

With a heavy emphasis on Lead Gen, Alex has created a name for himself as a well-respected marketing technologist and entrepreneur. From small to Mid-sized companies to non-profits and Fortune 500 brands like Ford and Allstate, Alex enjoys a diverse portfolio of clientele.

Alex’s other passions include adventuring with his wife and 3 kids, giving back to the local community and having his morning coffee with a side of NPR.

Auston Bunson

Auston is a self-taught programmer, polyglot (PHP, Ruby, Python, JS) & 2x CTO. He’s currently the head instructor at Wyncode Academy, where he helps people develop and refine programming abilities over 10 weeks.

Dr. Anthony Miyazaki

Dr. Anthony Miyazaki leads the Department of Marketing in the College of Business at Florida International University and directs the Master of Science in Marketing program. Over the past several years, he has worked with his team of faculty and administrative staff to reinvent processes so that they are sensible, effective, and efficient by (1) combining innovation with analytics, (2) developing synergies between employees’ professional brands and the organization’s brands, and (3) enhancing the social media influence of his team members. He teaches Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy, and Marketing Management at both graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as an undergraduate Marketing Yourself (Personal Branding) course.

Dr. Nancy Richmond

Dr. Nancy Richmond is a professor and leading speaker in social media, personal branding and marketing. Her passion is to empower and train leaders in effectively leveraging social media for their careers and business. She teaches social media classes for the College of Business and is the co-founder of the Social Media Association at Florida International University

Dr. Richmond has worked with leading universities including MIT, Harvard University, Florida International University and Northeastern University.

Nancy has a passion for social media with over 80,000+ followers on Twitter, 5,000+ connections on LinkedIn and 7,000+ followers on Instagram. Nancy’s most recent project and research #LeadersGetSocial explores how leaders can use social media to succeed in their careers and organizations.

Joseph Van

Joseph has been designing and developing websites for over eight years, specializing in UX and UI for both front-end and back-end users. Working with major brands and companies such as Alamo, Dell, DHL, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Intuit, Kabaam and Norwegian Cruise Line – he has developed many different websites ranging from Landing Pages, to Microsites and Single Page Web Apps. Twitter: @joedajigalo

Amanda Giles

Amanda Giles is WordPress Evangelist and Enthusiast who loves converting people to WordPress. She’s been developing websites since 1994 and has been building WordPress themes since 2009. She hails from New Hampshire where she founded the Seacoast NH WordPress meetup in 2011. She works as an independent consultant and also as part of Spark Development, a small agency focusing on WordPress web development. You can often locate Amanda by her loud sneezes and it’s likely because of these sneezes that she leads such a blessed life. Find her on Twitter @AmandaGilesNH or @SparkDevs

Fifth Round of WordCamp Miami Speakers Announced

WordCamp Miami is happy to announce the fifth wave of approved and confirmed speakers for WordCamp Miami 2017.

Shelly Peacock

Shelly Peacock is the founder of the Spinbird Group, a WordPress Consulting and Design Group. She has a “full-stack” professional background of over 15 years which includes sales, marketing, and training social media. An active member of the WordPress community, she has traveled and spoken at WordCamps both nationally and internationally. Her favorite things? Hole-in-the-wall eateries that rock and creating artwork … with blowtorches and with code.

Tanner Moushey

Tanner is a web developer and entrepreneur located in the small town of Granite Falls, Wa. He’s passionate about using technology to promote community. When he’s not tracking down new leads or coding, he loves playing music and spending time with his wife and 4 (soon to be 5) kids.

Jason Mazier

Jason Mazier is the President of Mazier Media, a marketing agency based in Fort Lauderdale. Jason was born and raised in New York City. In his 17-year career, Jason worked on multi-channel marketing campaigns for such clients as Boyce Technologies, LLERO Magazine, Broward Center for the Performing Arts, LiveNation, Holy Cross Hospital, Huntington National Bank, and JPMorgan Chase Bank. Jason is also the founder and host of devLatino – Digital Empowerment Voyage, a podcast highlighting Latinos in technology and the digital space. Follow him @jasonmazier

Michelle Schulp

Michelle is an independent graphic designer and frontend developer in Minneapolis. Prior to beginning her career, she studied Visual Communications, with minors in Psychology and Sociology. As her work progressed, she also branched into front-end development and user experience design to round out her skillset.

This combination of disciplines led her to adopt a strategy-based approach to design, focused on solving tangible problems and achieving real goals based on how people think. She loves the open source community, and when she is not working on projects she speaks/volunteers/organizes at events and workshops around the country. Her passions are communication and empowerment, and she believes in the power of “Why?”

Sandy Edwards

Sandy Edwards has been working in the online marketing space for over 5 years. She started at a niche firm that utilized WordPress to create sites quickly utilizing several options frameworks. Today, she owns CESquared a WordPress focused Agency that engages in SEO, Project Management and Development. She loves to give back by teaching kids about coding, WordPress, and other technical skills. Sandy is very active in the Orlando WordPress community and is excited to see what changes are coming to the tech space in Florida!

Krystal Galewski

Krystal works hand-in- hand with emagine’s Sales and Marketing teams to identify qualified clients in the company’s core sectors, establish connections and maintain relationships with prospective clients. Krystal served in the U.S. Navy for more than 8 years, traveling the World on aircraft carriers. Upon entering civilian life, she received her Business Marketing degree from Bridgewater State University. Outside of the office, Krystal enjoys catching up on her latest business podcast or book and getting some sun with her 6-pound Chihuahua, Jessie.

Leah Halbina

As a Web Strategist and Account Manager, Leah partners with emagine’s clients across the healthcare, biotech, pharmaceutical and medical device sectors to explore opportunities to enhance their online presence with activities such as web design and development, SEO, PPC, social media, content management solutions in WordPress. After attending the University at Buffalo and New York University, Leah began her career in digital strategy working with pharmaceutical companies on their digital strategies. In her spare time, you can find Leah at Orange Theory Fitness or Instagramming her 1 ½ year old Cavapoo, Stella Wayne Rose and 1-year old Cockapoo, Carter James.

Meagan Hanes

Meagan Hanes is a WordPress expert based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, with over 20 years creating websites by hand and over 10 years using WordPress. She creates elegant, high-performance, mobile-optimized web solutions – front-end, back-end, and everything in between. You may have seen her present talks across a variety of WordPress subjects. She gives back to local communities through organizing WordCamp Ottawa 2016 and 2017, running meetups such as the Ottawa WordPress Community, and teaching others to code via Ladies Learning Code. Meagan is a part of the OTGS family, makers of the WPML and Toolset plugins.

Kids And Parents Invited To WordCamp Miami!

KID’S TICKETS HAVE SOLD OUT

Kids Invited To WordCamp Miami

WordCamp parents can now usher in the next generation of WordPress builders at our annual KidsCamp! Last year we expanded our kid’s workshops to TWO days. And it was awesome! Check out the videos below:

This year, we are once again encouraging parents and guardians to bring their kids to WordCamp Miami! Parents and guardians can now grab a ticket for their children ages 6 to 14 on the ticket page. We are finalizing plans and some surprises now. Here’s what you can expect:

– On Saturday (March 25th) and Sunday (March 26th) registered kids ages 6 to 14 can get their own “Child Theme” version of an attendee bag. It will hold some nice surprises and gifts especially for the kids.

– On Saturday, if your child is new to publishing on the web we will have a workshop devoted to teaching children w/ their parents how to safely and securely publish content on the web with WordPress (we will update this page with a link to more information on this workshop shortly). If your child attended last year we are offering a more advanced segment that will get your child learning more how to customize their site and publish from their mobile devices.

– Sunday is devoted to introducing coding to the young ones, starting with basic concepts with the goal of allowing them to edit their WordPress site/blog.

– Sunday afternoon children are welcome to join us for ice cream (and not just ANY ice cream – nitrogen frozen ice cream, just like last year).

– Also on Sunday: children and parents (along with the rest of our attendees) will be invited to hear our second kid’s panel. If your child blogs with WordPress and would like to talk about it, then please nominate them to be a part of the panel. Here’s our panel from last year:

Lunch both days will be provided, however if your child has a special diet please bring something just in case.

We aim to provide more information later this month. Please stay tuned and looking forward to seeing you next month!

Disclaimer: Interested WordPress parents or guardians will need to have a ticket for Saturday attendance purchased before signing up their junior creators. Parents will be responsible for staying with their child during KidsCamp, but may switch guardians during the course of the day if you are both attending. Each child will need his or her own laptop to work on. We are not providing daycare services at this time.

Fourth Round of WordCamp Miami Speakers Announced

WordCamp Miami is happy to announce the third wave of approved and confirmed speakers for WordCamp Miami 2017.

Kimberly Lipari

Kimberly Lipari is the CoFounder of Valet.io, a WordPress Managment team for Business. Kimberly, known to her team as ‘KimPossible’, has a background in Industrial Technology and has been working with WordPress for about 7 years. In recent years she has enjoyed writing for WordPress blogs, doing webinars, and participating in WordCamps across the country. Kimberly lives just outside of New Orleans with her husband and three daughters.

Louise Treadwell

Louise is an eternal web development geek and social media junkie. She’s a native of Metro Detroit and an alumna of the University of Michigan. She learned about the human side of computer science while earning a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science and has fined tuned her web developer skills over the course of a 20+ year career building, breaking, and fixing sites for a multitude of startups. She’s never had a “real” job and thus is quite well-versed on the realities of being a successful freelancer and small business owner. Louise loves coffee, is full of useless facts, and is eagerly waiting for her shot on Jeopardy. She lives in South Florida with her three bouncing boys and her husband.

Eduardo Carreiro

Eduardo Carreiro is a Brazilian web designer and social marketer. His first site was in 1998, for a pharmaceutical company. He lives in the USA since 2007, when a company hired him in Brazil to develop websites in Portuguese. Since then, he improved his skills, leading projects in WordPress websites for multinational companies and Digital Marketing strategies. Recently, he opened your own company.

Melanie G Adcock

Melanie Adcock has been designing websites for more than fifteen years and has been using WordPress exclusively for the past six years. Her current clients include several small businesses, continuing care retirement communities, churches, and faith-based ministries. Melanie also mentors and consults with other WordPress enthusiasts. Twitter: @mgacreative

Guil Hernandez

Guil is a designer, front end developer and full-time teacher at Treehouse, an online technology school. When he’s not recording courses or learning and writing about code, you’ll find him paddleboarding and exploring random places in South Florida with his wife and hyperactive Australian Shepherd.

David Johnson

David is a Growth Engineer, geek, podcaster, and serial entrepreneur who has trained thousands of small business owners and sales professionals on how to find and attract customers in a changing marketplace dominated by Google, Facebook and other 21st-Century phenomena. His clients include multinational conglomerates, Mom & Pops, and everything in between… even household names like Ziglar, Inc. In 1998, David founded Grow The Dream, a boutique marketing agency that helps businesses grow by providing marketing strategy, content marketing services and more. David has been actively using WordPress since 2006.

David Laietta

David Laietta is an organizer of WordPress Orlando and WordCamp Orlando. He has been using WordPress for nine years and builds custom themes and plugins for clients. In addition to WordPress, David is passionate about open source software, online freedoms, internet culture, and constantly learning about the world. He looks forward to chatting with you at WordCamp Miami or on Twitter @davidlaietta.

Andrew Taylor

Andrew currently works for Pantheon helping agencies and giving back to the WordPress community. As a former web developer, Andrew spent his time on large scale projects for clients such as AMC Networks, Frito Lay, National Van Lines and more. With over 8 years of web development experience, specializing in WordPress, he is a seasoned veteran.

Announcing BuddyCamp + REST API Workshop Lineup

WordCamp Miami has been the proud hosts of BuddyCamp for the past five years. This year we are turning up the awesome factor, especially for developers. While you can learn about BuddyPress during this year’s BuddyCamp – you’ll also be able how to learn a bit about the WordPress REST API and building mobile applications with WordPress/BuddyPress!

If you are a developer this is DEFINITELY the workshop to be at.

The “BuddyCamp + REST API” track will be on Friday, March 24th. It is a single full-day track.

Although we haven’t yet posted our weekend schedule, we are proud to showcase the following planned speakers and the talks they will be covering.

David Laietta

David Laietta is an organizer of WordPress Orlando and WordCamp Orlando. He has been using WordPress for nearly eight years now, and builds custom themes and plugins for clients. David is a co-founder of Dinosaur Iceberg, a creative agency based in Orlando. In addition to WordPress, David is passionate about open source software, online freedoms, internet culture, and constantly learning about the world. He looks forward to chatting with you at WordCamp Miami or on Twitter @davidlaietta.

Talk: “BuddyPress 101: What You Need To Know”: This starts off the workshop for the benefit of those who aren’t familiar with BuddyPress and how they can use BuddyPress to build their social network. Live demos promised!

Tanner Moushey

Tanner is a web developer and entrepreneur located in the small town of Granite Falls, Wa. He’s passionate about using technology to promote community. When he’s not tracking down new leads or coding, he loves playing music and spending time with his wife and 4 (soon to be 5) kids.

Talk: “Taming BuddyPress”: While you can use BuddyPress to create a feature packed community site in mere minutes, it is often overwhelming for both administrators and users alike. Tanner will share some tools and techniques that you can use to build your BuddyPress community while maintaining your sanity.

Tara Claeys

Tara Claeys, of Design TLC and Nice Work, LLC, provides custom website and graphic design services, with a focus on creating effective, clean and personalized communication platforms for small to medium businesses. Tara has a marketing background, combined with several years working with WordPress, helping her find solutions for complex marketing communication and website functionality challenges.

Talk: “A BuddyPress Case Study”: This talk will describe the history of the development of an online game, beginning with Google Sheets on a simple WordPress website, to a more elaborate custom plugin that incorporates BuddyPress into the MemberPress on a new WordPress Multisite platform. If you are interested in how BuddyPress can be used in extended, creative ways, or if you are interested in fitness, nutrition and lifestyle improvements you will enjoy this talk!

Joseph Van

Joseph has been designing and developing websites for over eight years, specializing in UX and UI for both front-end and back-end users. Working with major brands and companies such as Alamo, Dell, DHL, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Intuit, Kabaam and Norwegian Cruise Line – he has developed many different websites ranging from Landing Pages, to Microsites and Single Page Web Apps. Twitter: @joedajigalo

Talk: “Working With The WordPress REST API”: Joseph will be covering the basics and then quickly diving into the WordPress REST API – how it works and how you can use it (with or without BuddyPress).

Brian Messenlehner

Brian, a former Marine Corps software developer is the Co-Founder of WebDevStudios.com, Co-Founder of AppPresser.com, Co-Author of Building Web Apps with WordPress and runs the New Jersey WordPress meet up group. Brian loves using WordPress as an application framework for building cool websites, e-commerce solutions, social networks and mobile applications. When he’s not working on WordPress he’s teaching his kids WordPress. WordPress! WordPress! WordPress!

Talk: “How To Build A WordPress/BuddyPress Mobile App”: Is building a true native mobile app possible? Yes it is. Brian will show you available options, and then focus on how to build your next social (or other) app with AppPresser using WordPress and BuddyPress.

John James Jacoby

Project lead for BuddyPress and bbPress. WordPress contributor, BackPress supporter. Cranky driver. Puppy whisperer. Naps required. Currently the Director of Web Engineering at 10up.

Talk: “The State of BuddyPress”: John is one of the lead contributors to BuddyPress, and will be closing out the day bringing everyone up to speed on where BuddyPress, it’s API, and WordPress is general is going for 2017 any beyond. John will also open the floor with questions along with the other developers for a closing Q&A.

More Speakers and Surprises To Come!

Speakers and talks are being added to the above lineup and they’ll be announced in a few days along with our weekend schedule.

More information and surprises concerning WordCamp Miami’s “BuddyCamp + REST API” track will be announced the closer we get to the conference. We are looking forward to educating the local community and hope this starts a trend of knowledgable workshops and tracks in future WordCamps in 2017!

Grab your weekend ticket now to make sure you can attend. Developers should also come to our Learn JavaScript Depply workshop on Sunday, March 26th!

Third Round of WordCamp Miami Speakers Announced

WordCamp Miami is happy to announce the third wave of approved and confirmed speakers for WordCamp Miami 2017.

Syed Balkhi

Syed Balkhi is an award winning young entrepreneur with several 7 figure online businesses. He was recognized as the top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by United Nations. His work has been featured in Forbes, Inc, Washington Post, FoxBusiness, Entrepreneur, Wired, and many top publications.

In 2009, he created WPBeginner which is now one of the largest free WordPress resource site on the web. In 2011, he created a site called List25, an extremely popular site that within 3 months of launch was receiving 5 million page views per month. List25 has over 2.1 million subscribers and 470 Million video views on Youtube.

Aside from these, Syed is also the founder of WPForms, MonsterInsights, Soliloquy, and Envira Gallery.

Adam Soucie

Adam Soucie is a WordPress developer based in Orlando, FL. For the past two years, he has run Impossibly Creative, a WordPress-focused creative agency that specializes in Accessibility. Adam has participated on the core WordPress Accessibility Team and is also a member of the WordPress Orlando & WordCamp Orlando organizing teams.

Carrie Dils

Hailing from Fort Worth, Texas, Carrie Dils is a fixture in the WordPress community. In addition to helping organize her local WordCamp and meetups, Carrie enjoys attending and speaking at WordCamps around the US. For many years she’s provided consulting and front-end development services as a freelancer and she now teaches others how to do the same through her courses at Lynda.com and her book, Real World Freelancing.

Pete Nelson

Pete is a full-time senior web engineer with 10up. He’s been working with WordPress the past 5+ years, but has been doing web development professionally since the mid 90s, and is the creator of baconipsum.com.

Carl Alexander

Carl is a PHP developer from Montréal, Canada. He lives and breath advanced programming topics (and memes). He shares a lot of my passion for those topics on my website where I publish articles on a regular basis. He has been a WordPress Montréal organizer since 2010 and helps organize other WordPress events during the year.”

Patrick Rauland

Patrick Rauland is an e-commerce geek. He worked for WooCommerce as Product Manager and helped them to grow into the most popular e-commerce platform on the web. He now creates consults with WooCommerce as an e-commerce expert, he coaches companies on how to optimize their store, and he creates the e-commerce content for Lynda.com.

Christie Chirinos

Christie Chirinos is a Partner in & the Business Manager at Caldera Labs, a WordPress plugin company. Caldera is the company led by Josh Pollock behind Caldera Forms, a leading drag-and-drop form builder for WordPress, and a handful of other free and premium plugins. She has been selling online since 2007, having worked on ecommerce sites, monetized blogs, technology strategy for nonprofit organizations, and now, digital downloads. Christie received her Master of Business Administration degree with a specialization in information systems management from Florida State University, and is currently based out of New York City.

Scott Mann

Scott is the Creative Director and Founder of Highforge, a digital marketing agency founded in 2001 to build businesses online using WordPress, Drupal, and Shopify for professional services, technology and medical industries.

He’s an Emmy-winning commercial writer, an executive board member for a number of organizations in Orlando, an SEO specialist, a certified Google Adwords Partner (has been since 2002) and a community advocate in Orlando.

In high school he worked as a tour guide at Disney where he learned deeply about creating customer-driven experiences.

He’s a gamer, travel backpacker, chess player and he enjoys racquetball recklessly in his free time. He’d also like you to check out www.BeTheMatch.org, a non-profit organization that saves lives.

Why It’s Important For “Outside The Bubble” Perspectives At WordCamps

WordCamps are priceless in terms of education. Whether it’s learning how to modify a WordPress theme, selecting the right plugin, or even diving deeper into creating a successful business or agency. Alot of this knowledge comes from those in the WordPress community (local or not local) who griously donate their time (and very often their funds) to spreading this word.

And that’s the way it should be. But in terms of perspective it’s often beneficial to go outside the WordPress community – even to communities where, in one sense or another, are competitors to WordPress in certain spaces. This includes others that may work in open-source, but may use or work with a CMS that isn’t WordPress. Like Drupal or Joomla. Or might even build their own CMS, even if it doesn’t involve PHP.

We aren’t proposing learning how to build a blog with Drupal. But we do want to form a stronger bond with those in the open-source and PHP communities. It’s about looking at ideas and concepts that – because we spend alot of time with those in the WordPress world – we might not consider.

WordCamp Miami has therefore invited such ones in the last few years. This year we are proud to say some our speakers fit this idea. Particularly these speakers:


Mike Herchel

Mike Herchel is a front-end web developer at Lullabot and has worked on prominent projects such as the Syfy network, SpaceX, Principal Financial, and more. He’s been passionate about web development since creating his first website in 2001.

Mike started using Drupal in 2008, and has been involved in the Drupal community since 2010, and is one of the organizers for the annual Florida Drupalcamp conference. His talk title is “WordPress & Drupal: Community and Contribution Differences and Lessons”. Those in attendance are going to learn about what Drupal does differently (and similarly) when it comes to the community. What works, what still needs tuning. And comparing that to WordPress in a few key areas. Hopefully you walk away with some fresh thoughts and ideas.


Aleksander Kuczek

Aleksander is the CEO and a Joomla Extension Directory team member. He is a frequent speaker at WordCamps and Joomla Days around the world. He will be talking about Joomla and showing to WordPress developers how they handle plugin contributions.


WordCamp Miami is very focused on diversity – and this includes ideas from a variety of sources and backgrounds.

Don’t forget to grab your ticket so you can see these and OTHER “outside the bubble” speakers on March 24-26, 2017!

WordCamp Miami 2017 is over. Check out the next edition!