Orange County WordCamp

Video from our WordCamp on WordPress.tv

Jeff — Fri, 21 May 2010 21:49:47 +0000

Our videos are starting to appear on WordPress.tv! The videos we were streaming from WordCamp OC are slowly trickling in on WordPress.tv. So, if you missed any talks (or the whole show like a few of our stellar volunteers), now you can see what else was going on.

Watch Videos on WordPress.tv

And our thanks to Joe and Peter from Blaze Streaming (@blazeit) for doing such a great job with the video.

We Survived!

Jeff — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:01:06 +0000

We had such a great time putting on OC WordCamp. We can’t thank everyone enough. Sponsors, speakers, volunteers, attendees, caterers, friends and family, thank you. We met lots of new people, caught up with friends, exchanged ideas, got inspired…it was awesome. Even when Brandon and I were breaking down the venue we were already talking about next year.

Videos of the speakers are coming soon and we’ll post again when they are ready. And we’ll have a proper wrap-up post after we organize our thoughts better. In the meantime, enjoy some of the pics I took while scooting around the event.

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How to Speak Geek – Hiring and Managing a Developer

szehngut — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 05:01:54 +0000

What’s the biggest problem facing anyone working with a developer? Communication.

This is as true of WordPress blog developers as it is any other kind of developer. And it’s really nobody’s fault. Developers speak one kind of language. The average business person speaks another. If you want the development process to go more smoothly, you have to understand how developers think and learn enough of their language to properly communicate exactly what you want. Trust me, no developer really wants to deliver a product that misses the mark.

This session is designed to get you started on the road to better communication with your WordPress developer.

Austin Passy

Brandon — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:57:12 +0000

Austin Passy is a freelance web designer and WordPress developer. Austin built a WP centric site “WPCult” and sold it this year, he’s also been known to build a few plugins. He was the Organizer of SoCal’s first WordCamp: WordCampLA 2009, and is getting ready to start planning for 2010.

Let’s Share the Love

Brandon — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:45:57 +0000

The countdown begins. We’re less than a week away from Orange County WordCamp and we’re stoked about all the stuff we have for you.

But, we want to go bigger.

A lot of you are coming to Orange County WordCamp, but there are people all across the world who can’t make it to the conference due to the sheer distance they’d have to travel to get here. We have no doubt that WordPress fans around the world would also benefit from the presentations you’re going to experience first hand this weekend. So, we got to thinking…why should we limit our audience to those who can make it in person? Why shouldn’t we try to spread the WordPress love all around the world?

We started talking to Joe Christensen of Blaze Streaming Media. They’ve streamed other WordCamps live in the past, so they know what to expect. The other benefit of having them in Orange County is that they’ll be able to archive our presentations on WordPress.tv so that you can go back and use these presentations as a reference.

There’s only one problem…and it’s a big one.

It’s a bit out of our budget to bring these guys to the event. We haven’t gotten as great a response to our call for sponsors as we’d hoped and we’re already over budget. If you have it in your wallet, or you work for a company that does, please help us bring Joe and his crew to OC WordCamp. Any amount of donation you can make will help to make this happen.

Beginning Plugin Development

jhawkins — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 08:22:23 +0000

Wow, can you believe we are only a week away from WordCamp Orange County?!? I’m very excited to be a presenter and I’m looking forward to sharing my presentation on Beginning Plugin Development. Though, I really hope you aren’t looking forward to a PowerPoint presentation… I just don’t roll like that.

Instead, during the session we’ll be working in a text editor, walking through the process of creating a simple WordPress plugin. We’ll start with a quick intro to some tools you can use to create your plugin, but then we’ll jump right in with how to:

modify content
add an admin options page
add a sidebar widget
add a shortcode
add a dashboard widget

You’ll be surprised at just how easy is!

Don’t be shy. If you have any questions during the presentation, just ask.

See you all on Saturday!

Unconference/Ignite Sessions

Brandon — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 21:57:09 +0000

@Mac_Boy mentioned a sort of niche topic in a comment on the CMS talk teaser post. It got me thinking…Is anyone interested in giving some short informal talks during lunchtime? We have the rooms all day, so we might as well use them. The topics can be anything you’re comfortable presenting on (hopefully WordPress/blogging/Internet related) and that you think people would be interested in.

Leave a comment on this post if you’d like to hear a presentation on a specific topic, or if you have a topic you’d like to present on and we can get a list going.

Lucy Beer

Brandon — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 20:25:55 +0000

Lucy Beer of Web Training Wheels is an online marketing professional of 8+ years. She has a background in constructing and executing online marketing campaigns for small business, entertainment and art clients.

These days she loves to teach small businesses and entrepreneurs how to develop their online marketing strategies. She has been using WordPress since around 2004 and has never looked back In addition to marketing consulting she provides WordPress training through one-on-one or small group sessions to help businesses build a solid online foundation for their marketing.

Your WordPress Plugin Idea Built Live

szehngut — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 05:03:20 +0000

During this session, I will be creating a new plugin from scratch. And with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back. Not really, but that would be way cooler!

My goal is to provide real insight into the plugin creation process. Together, we’ll walk through the planning process, basic documentation and then we’ll write some actual code. (And the crowd goes… ooooohhhh.)

This process starts right now. I would like to start gathering ideas here. Right now. Please post your plugin suggestions in the comments section of this post.

I’ll review the suggestions on Saturday morning and (with your help) finalize the plugin concept by lunchtime. This will give me a few hours to do some brainstorming, planning, and documentation.

I look forward to your suggestions. This should be fun!

5 Lucky Attendees

Brandon — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 04:26:09 +0000

Thanks to Wiley (@WileyTech), publisher of all kinds of awesome WordPress books, five lucky attendees will be walking away from Orange County WordCamp with one of the fine titles shown below.