Steven Cooper

It’s time for another speaker announcement. This talks for the developers! Steven will be talking about how you can integrate WordPress with external APIs. This will be done with the help of a creatively written story and with the help of actors who will play the part of the various stages of the API calls from retrieving the token from a server to the transaction and even the nasty old chargeback. Steven will be using the PayPal and Braintree API’s as his example API’s.

Steven’s talk will be entertainment from the very beginning, engaging young and old alike and suitable for all ages. Actors in a talk, who’d have thunk it!? Quite often developers use API’s via SDKs and don’t understand the interactions that are happening so Steven thought this would be a light hearted way to make the journey entertaining!

Steven’s talk will cover some of the following topics:

• The benefits of using the WordPress HTTP API.
• How to use the WordPress HTTP API.
• Token based authentication with an API.
• Debugging and testing APIs.

Steven Cooper is responsible for working with the strong developer community within Asia-Pacific, to develop and nurture the healthy start-up culture that continues to flourish across the region.

Over the last 20 years, Steven has worked as a senior developer for a host of start-ups and as a developer analyst for more than 10 years with Sensis. Before joining PayPal, he configured and spec’d mass production technology hardware for the likes of Virgin, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Visa, St. George and Westpac.

In his current role, Steven hopes to align businesses with the most appropriate PayPal solutions – products that deliver efficiency, flexibility and enable scalability.

You can follow Steven on Twitter.

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Meryl McCay

We have another speaker announcement for WordCamp Brisbane. This is another great talk for the WordPress users. Selina will be giving you the run down on WordPress plugins and our next speaker Meryl McCay will be giving you the low down on WordPress themes so you’ll have all aspects of WordPress covered.

There are so many themes out there; how do you choose? Especially if you’re not a coder, so building one from the ground up is not an option. Or your CSS skills are more like “What on earth is CSS?” Where can you find quality themes? Meryl will introduce you to several sources of WordPress themes and some of the pitfalls for the unwary beginner, such as “I’ve installed the theme but it doesn’t look anything like the demo!” Plus, Meryl’s got a couple of favourite themes she’d like to share with you.

Meryl’s talk will cover the following topics:

• Introduction
• Sources of themes (e.g. ThemeForest, WooThemes, StudioPress, Elegant Themes, etc)
• Why doesn’t it look like the demo; There’s more to implementing a theme than just installing it!
• Pitfalls for the unwary (e.g. image sizes, theme option panels, support, etc)
• Tweaking CSS for the novice – where do you start? (including a look at Firebug and the CSS Hero plugin)
• A few of my favourite themes (Canvas by WooThemes, Divi by Elegant Themes, KingSize from ThemeForest)
• Questions

Meryl has been using WordPress since 2011, but still considers herself to be a novice. Having seen the list of august speakers coming to the WordCamp, people with serious dev skills, entrepreneurs and the like, she has some trepidation about volunteering to present; however, we all had to start somewhere and if she can inspire another newbie to think “Hey, I can do that too”, then the anxiety will have been worth it!

As a non-coder she finds the WordPress platform perfectly suited to the skills she can bring to the table. With over 20 years’ experience as an Information Professional (aka a Librarian), helping small businesses and not-for-profit organisations to create well-structured websites, with quality content, that they are able to manage themselves (to a large degree) is something she finds very satisfying.

Being programmatically challenged, Meryl uses quality commercial themes to do the heavy lifting and has begun to delve into the mysteries of CSS in order to tweak the design to suit the client. Still unsure about whether this fascination with WordPress can actually generate an income, she has nonetheless taken the plunge and finally got a business card. ☺

You can follow Meryl on Twitter.

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Jamie Madden

What’s that? You want MOAR speakers announcements! Sure thing! 🙂 This speaker announcement is going to appeal to developers and command line junkies. Jamie Madden will be talking about using WP-CLI.

Being able to build and maintain WordPress installations from the command line has many advantages. You can automate the setup and installation of a base site template including all your settings, plugins and users preconfigured and ready to go.

WP-CLI provides a command line interface to your WordPress site for the install, update of plugins, import and modification of data and more, all without the need of a web browser.

Jamie’s talk will go through the basics of WP-CLI along with a demo of some of the available commands. He will share a script he uses to quickly build a development environments for plugin and theme development.

• The talk will start with what WP-CLI is.
• Advantages of using the command line.
• Basic Commands.
• Demo: Install core and base plugins.
• Demo: Import demo content.
• Advanced commands.
• Demo: Creating a script to automate the previous.

Jamie has spent over 15 years as a systems administrator and developer. He is interested in all areas of technology both on and offline. Jamie has always aimed to automate his environments wherever possible. Starting in the early days with shell scripts and moving through to tools like Chef.

Jamie has been a WordPress user and developer since the early days of version 1.5. He has utilised WordPress for all levels of products including basic websites, blogs, e-commerce, auctions, helpdesk systems and more. He is the lead developer of WC Vendors a free Multi Vendor WooCommerce plugin.

Outside of the IT world Jamie enjoys a variety of music and photography and tries to combine the two whenever possible.

You can follow Jamie on Twitter.

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Dan Petrovic

More often than not, if you announce an SEO speaker for a tech event, attendees might not get excited. However, we only deliver the best speakers around, so we’ve locked in Australia’s #1 SEO expert! Dan is a not only the #1 SEO in Australia, he’s also a worldwide SEO industry leader, innovator, science geek, father and an amazing business man!

Dan will be giving a talk on Creative SEO tactics that go well beyond the usual technical SEO, keyword selection and link building. Dan will provide a practical session with actionable takeaways and is sure to inspire new ideas.

Dan talks will cover the following topics:

• Inside the Matrix: Tracking Google’s Algorithm.
• Guerrilla SEO: Outrageously different tactics.
• Big Stuff: Dealing with large scale research.
• Link Building is for Suckers: There’s a better way!

Dan Petrovic is Australia’s best-known name in the field of search engine optimisation and the director of DEJAN. His research and experiments have drawn attention of the worldwide community and major industry blogs. Dan is a frequent blogger and a speaker at all major Australian and select international search industry events. Conference delegates describe him as a passionate presenter with practical and actionable approach. Dan holds a multimedia degree from Griffith University in Brisbane, where he often presents as a guest lecturer and contributes to quality of teaching material as a member of the curriculum advisory board. Outside his day job Dan’s interests are in the field of science, education, research, technology, electronic music and futurism. The best way to connect with Dan is through Google+.

You can follow Dan on Twitter.

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More details and photos: http://dejanseo.com.au/dan-petrovic/

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Nicki Mckay

Nicki & Anna initially started ROOOAR magazine as a just for fun experiment to promote their own businesses by speaking directly to their target audience. Now into the start of their second year, the magazine has taken a mind of it’s own, with a thriving community, regular in person & online events and distribution on the Virgin Airlines inflight entertainment network.

During the talk Nicki will discuss the process of how they started the magazine, the technology they used, how they experienced high organic growth and how they continue to maintain the magazine whilst still running their separate full time businesses.

Nicki’s talk will cover the following:

• Why they started a digital magazine.

• Secrets to collaboration.

• Implementation.

• Growth.

• Maintenance.

• Monetisation.

Nicki Mckay is a wander lusting, garden loving Brisbane based creative. A freelance web designer, front-end developer, blogger, digital strategist and co-founder of ROOOAR magazine – a digital magazine for female entrepreneurs.

With over a decade of experience in the industry, Nicki has helped hundreds of clients bring their online vision to life. She has a passion for helping people not only build their online brand, but also help them to maintain sustainable businesses.

You can follow Nicki on Twitter.

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Tracey Porst

For years we’ve been hearing the phrase, “content is king” but producing great content is definitely an acquired skill. Our next speaker, Tracey Porst will give you industry insights into how you can prepare an effective content strategy for your business and/or your clients.

Tracey Porst will be discussing her process for designing, writing, producing and delivering interesting and engaging content for clients and target audiences, regardless of industry or development platform. 

Good content strategy focuses on planning, designing, producing, delivery, and organisation of content that is of interest to the target audience and creates a positive experience of the brand. Good content doesn’t just include the right words and images on a website, but also the interactive elements used. Ensuring your sites have useful and usable content, that’s well structured and is easily found is vital to improving the user experience of a website. 

Tracey will address sourcing and curating good content for not just websites, but also other digital marketing activities such as email newsletters, blogs and social media.

She’ll discuss how writing well for the web is more important than ever and words and well-chosen images contribute to the overall perception of a business.  How choosing the right image does speak a thousand words, as does typography, colour palettes and how the user interface supports the presentation and delivery of the message.

Tracey’s professional background is in digital media design and production.This includes many years designing and developing online and digital media, including using content management systems and other cross platform interactive experiences. Today, this includes content and digital media strategy development and user-centered design for engagement.

The healthcare technology space is of particular interest to Tracey and she is very active in this community in Brisbane, especially as a co-organiser of a successful and rapidly expanding meet up group called Healthtech Innovation QLD (http://www.meetup.com/Healthtech-Queensland-Meetup/events/220964056/) which has grown exponentially since it began in October last year.  

Tracey has managed and delivered content for international brands as well as small, local clients and her talk will cover some case studies in:

• Corporate communications – online, brand establishment and management, copywriting, visual communications.
• Instructional videos – motion graphics, combined with voice-over and video content.
• Information graphics – visual communication of complex data and concepts.
• Website advancement – design, build, content strategies and maintenance.
• User experience design – engagement, task focused outcomes, GUI design.
• Creative direction and brand management – guidance on target audience perception, branding guidance, social media etc.

You can follow Tracey on Twitter.

www.bespokeinteractive.com.au

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Wil Brown

Are you a master of themes? Are you ready to take the leap and start making your very first WordPress plugin? Well Wil Brown has the perfect talk for you. Wil will be teaching you how to code up your first custom WordPress plugin and he’ll even be teaching you how to get it on WordPress.org!

Wil’s talk will cover the following:

• Basic structure (files) required for plugin.
• Functions required to initialise, activate, deactivate and uninstall.
• Coding a simple shortcode plugin. Basic shortcode, then one with content, then one with inputs.
• Explaining filters and action hooks – some commonly used ones.
• Where to go to find out more (codex).
• Examples of things you can do with plugins to extend WordPress.
• How to get your plugin into the WordPress.org reposititory (covering GPL and subversion).

Wil is a professional web developer with a passion for leading edge technologies, security and server architecture. He spoke at WordCamp Sydney 2012, co-organizes the WordPress Sydney meetup, was lead organiser for WordCamp Sydney 2014 and contributes to the WordPress Core development. He likes pizza, sausages, chilies, beer, red wine and hyperdimensional physics.

You can follow Wil on Twitter.

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