WordCamp Miami Speakers: Round Three

Chris is a full time Back End Developer for Modern Tribe.  Chris has dreamed of working with Tribe for a couple years so he pushed myself to reach the level needed to work there.  Now he can confidently and proudly say he loves his job, and his co-workers and the work he does.  WooCommerce has been his specialty for a three years and he works with it daily at Tribe.

Sandy Edwards has been working in the online marketing space for over 7 years. She started at a niche firm that utilized WordPress to create sites quickly utilizing several options frameworks. Today, she owns Data Driven Labs to bring analytics to all size companies. 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 2018 will bring to the tech space in Florida!

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 or worked in a real office and thus is quite well-versed on the realities of being a successful freelancer, remote contractor, 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.

Carole is a former Luxembourgish government agent on a four-year sabbatical to take care of her health and to find new professionally enjoyable challenges. She lives in the German Eifel since 2014 together with her husband and three French bulldogs.

The magic of WordCamp Europe 2016 in Vienna made her become a true WordPress Community-Junkie. Through several WordCamps as a passionate volunteer, she got involved in the organization of WordCamps without even having used WordPress before. Meanwhile, she works as a WordPress Community Manager for Plesk.

Raquel Landefeld* is a serial volunteer with a young soul. In 2010 she co-founded Mode Effect, a Phoenix-based WordPress agency that specializes in WooCommerce integration. Intentional about community building, she believes that wherever her feet are is where the building happens. Currently she is active in several communities from tech to government to neighborhoods and more. You can usually find her organizing a WordCamp or volunteering pretty much anywhere.

On the personal side of her life she is a wife & mum, an active dancer, a music lover, an amateur photographer, and has a 20-year-curated Wonder Woman collection.

*Loves doing cartwheels

John Maeda is an American executive spearheading a new convergence across the design + technology industries. He joined Automattic in 2016 as Global Head of Computational Design + Inclusion and previously served as Design Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a world-leading venture capital firm and was the 16th President of the Rhode Island School of Design.

His books include The Laws of Simplicity, Creative Code and Redesigning Leadership. He holds degrees in Electrical Engineering + Computer Science from MIT, an MBA from Arizona State U, and a PhD from University of Tsukuba in Japan. Maeda was the recipient of the White House’s National Design Award, the Tribeca Film Festival’s Disruptive Innovation Award for STEM to STEAM, the Blouin Foundation’s Creative Leadership Award, the AIGA Medal, the Raymond Loewy Foundation Prize, the Mainichi Design Prize, the Tokyo Type Director’s Club Prize, and induction into the Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame.

Based in Arlington, Virginia, Tara Claeys is the owner of Design TLC, and a co-founder of Nice Work, LLC, producing custom websites for small and medium businesses. Tara’s focus is on private school and non profit websites, although she has also worked on business-to-business, restaurant, e-commerce and real estate projects. She works closely with her clients to create effective, clean and personal communication platforms.

Tara is obsessed with digital efficiency and productivity tools and techniques.

In addition to running her own companies, she is a regular attendee at the WordPress DC Meetup and runs the Arlington/NoVa WordPress branch of this Meetup. Tara is also a co-host of the podcast Hallway Chats.

WordPress. BuddyPress. bbPress. Sandhills. Co-host WordPress Weekly. East Troy, WI Village Trustee. Conquistador de la Web.