Call For Volunteers

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With WordCamp Brisbane less than a month away (And tickets selling fast!), it’s time for us to make a call out to the community, yes that’s right – we need your help!

WordCamps are volunteer efforts, the organisers and speakers are not paid in any way, we do it out of the kindness of our hearts to spread more WordPress Knowledge to everyone.
But between the six organisers, we can’t do everything – we need you to step up and help us run the day. We need a bunch of volunteers to help with all aspects of the WordCamp, including (but not limited to – I’ll have forgotten something!)

  • Registration desk – Can you imagine the six of us hanging out 300 badges in half an hour while also setting up the rooms? I certainly can’t!
  • Room MC – We need people who enjoy talking to large groups of people to introduce speakers, let attendee’s know what is coming up next, deliver important information about lunch and other such details!
  • Mic Runners – Did you know most presentations will have a Q&A Session? Yeah, we’ll need someone to get a microphone to each question asker in all 28 sessions!
  • Audio/Visual – Have you ever operated a camera? What about live broadcasts? We’ll need a handful of experienced people to help record all the sessions. Training will be provided on the hardware/software we’re using in advance.
  • Photography – We love photos! Help record WordCamp Brisbane for those who can’t make it, or those of us who will look back with fond memories in a few years.
  • Everything Else! – Have you attended a conference and wished that there was someone at the food table telling you what everything actually was? What about someone who you could turn to and who would be able to give directions or tell you what’s on next? How about being able to find a sober person at the after party? We need people to fill those spots too, and a bunch more too! If you can think of it, chances are we need it.

If you’re interested in volunteering some of your day to help make the event run smoothly, apply to be a volunteer today!

We don’t expect you to work 24/7, a few hours from a bunch of people over the WordCamp will make hard work easy for everyone – and you’ll forever have our appreciation. If you still need a ticket to WordCamp and it’s sold out, we’ll help sort that out too. We may even have a special volunteering shirt and other perks.

Speaker Announcements: Round 4

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It’s that time of the day again – time for more presentation announcements! If you’ve been following along at home, this makes it 14 announced presenters, which is exactly half of our lined up speakers!

James Banks

Through his agency, Web3, James Banks specialises in generating more revenue for businesses through online lead generation and websites built to convert traffic into profit.

Over the last half decade, he has helped hundreds of local, national and international organisations succeed with their online strategy.

James has spoken at WordCamps all over Australia and is passionate about helping people in getting the most out of WordPress. He also loves working together with other online marketing and WordPress consultants to deliver excellent results.

Presenting: From One To Many: How To Scale Your WordPress Consulting Business

In this presentation, James is going to teach us:

  1. The power of process – how to reclaim your time through effective procedure creation delegation and management
  2. Building your Team – How to plug your skills gaps by finding, recruiting and retaining talent.
  3. Lead acquisition and sales process that consultants can use to go from having to do all the work, to being able to afford a team to do it instead.

Peter Bui

Peter Bui has been building websites since early 2000 and has never looked back. Working closely with other partners, he and his team at PB Web Development have created and supported a ridiculous number of websites over the last decade.

Peter previously use to be a WordPress Meetup organiser in Sydney, and WordCamp organiser. Also a podcast presenter and previous Community Leadership Team member for the Joomla project. He isn’t afraid to say the word Joomla at a WordCamp.

Presenting: Working with off shore developers to help grow your business

We all get those emails and phone calls. Well at least Peter does, just about every single day of the week.

This presentation is about how you can actually make them work for you. He’s been travelling back and forth between Australia and South East Asia for the last two years on what people seem to thing is a really long vacation (Just take a peak at his Instagram feed), but in reality, He’s been working with his off shore development team, training them up, getting to know them better, understanding how they best work so that they all get the best outcome possible in regards to leveraging the skills of developers from South East Asia.

This presentation will go through how to find a developer, how to set up processes to get them working, how to transition yourself from being a solo business person to having a great team around you helping you grow your business.

Anthony Hortin

Anthony runs a small design & development studio in the South-East suburbs of Melbourne. Maddison Designs works with a wide range of clients, from micro businesses through to large corporates, specialising in custom WordPress sites and WooCommerce stores.

Anthony has been developing for the web since the late 90’s. His love for WordPress was realised back in 2005 and he’s been happily using & coding for it ever since. He’s passionate about giving back to the WordPress community and has contributed to both the WordPress Theme and Plugin Directories, was a co-organiser for WordCamp Melbourne back in 2013, and each month he helps organise the WordPress Melbourne meetups.

Presenting: Developing for the WordPress Customizer

The WordPress Customizer allows you to update various WordPress settings and theme options, all while providing you with a Live Preview of your changes.

Anthony plans to show you how you can add Customizer functionality into your theme (or plugin). He’ll cover creating Customizer Panels, Sections, Settings and Controls, including making use of the default Core Controls, and also creating your own Custom Controls.

He’ll also show the various ways in which you can update the Live Preview for your Customizer settings, and lastly, how to make use of your Customizer settings in your theme.

 

Get your tickets now

There’s less than a month remaining until WordCamp Brisbane, and just over 100 tickets remaining (We’ve sold nearly 200!) – that means WordCamp Brisbane is going to sell out, if you’ve been putting off buying a ticket get it soon before it’s too late!

Purchase tickets

Speaker Announcements: Round 3

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We’re excited to announce another group of speakers for WordCamp Brisbane 2017!

We’ve been impressed by the wide range of topics presented by our speakers and there’s none better to highlight it than this next group of speakers.

Harley Oliver

Hailing from Geelong, Harley is a web developer specialising in custom WordPress solutions.

He has been working in WordPress for a little over 5 years, starting off editing child themes to now building customised solutions from the ground up.

Presenting: The roller coaster journey of WordPress Development

A brief insight into how I started developing with WordPress, from editing child themes with next to no idea about what I was doing, covering all the way up to the way I develop with WordPress today.

Covering the pitfalls and ‘ah-ha’ moments that I’ve experienced learning about how WordPress works, and what resources I’ve used to learn more about WP development over the last 5 years. This includes build tools, IDEs and coding standards, learning that doing work without a local dev environment is a terrible idea and how the WordPress community can help immensely.

Also looking into the future for WordPress and how the REST API opens doors for more than just WordPress development, and what it means for current developers looking to up their skillset but aren’t sure where to start.

 

Geoff Powell

Geoff a web designer, photographer, and teacher from Noosa on the Sunshine Coast. He is one of the organisers of the Sunshine Coast WordPress meetup Group and spends his time, building and maintaining WordPress sites for small business, shooting and teaching photography, and learning how to be an online entrepreneur.

Presenting: Creating Online Courses with WordPress

In this talk, Geoff Powell will be talking about the rapidly growing world of e-learning and online courses, and the tools and approaches you can take using WordPress as the platform.

 

Kate Toon

Kate is the founder of The Clever Copywriting School and The Recipe for SEO Success eCourse, as well as co-host on the Hot Copy Podcast and presents the Write for Business show for the Dale Beaumont’s Business Blueprint channel.

She has worked with big brands such as eHarmony, Curash and Kmart. And she’s helped countless small businesses produce great content and improve their copywriting and SEO.

Presenting: How To Make Google Love Your WordPress Site

In this presentation, Kate will tell you the tips, techniques and tactics that she uses to help make sites 100% Google lovable, including:

  • The impact of hosting and domain choice
  • Integral set up steps that boost SEO friendliness
  • My top 10 Plugins to improve SEO
  • Easy peasy content formatting
  • What to consider when offering on going SEO packages

 

Melanie Surplice

Melanie has gained more than 15 years international marketing and communications experience in the technology, media, publishing, health and wellness sectors; in global public companies, SMEs and start-ups, including Dow Jones, TechnologyOne and Endeavour College of Natural Health.

Melanie has been blogging since 2005, developing her own self-hosted WordPress sites for the last three years. Passionate about natural health and sparkly rocks, she is also a shamanic crystal healing and Reiki practitioner. In early 2016, she left full time corporate life to start her online crystal retailing and healing business, A Surplice of Spirit. Since then, she has built a thriving community of crystal lovers around Australia, and now has customers in Europe and the US.

Presenting: How I created my online business and a community of 20k crystal lovers with WooCommerce and Facebook

In this presentation, Melanie will discuss how she built her online retailing and healing business, A Surplice of Spirit, using the powerful combination of WordPress, WooCommerce and Facebook. Since its launch in January 2016, A Surplice of Spirit has grown from zero to thousands of dollars in sales each month, driven almost entirely by their Facebook page.

 

WordCamp Brisbane 2017 is expected to sell out, if you are hoping to attend we encourage you to get tickets as soon as possible.

Purchase tickets

Announcing Our Second Round Of Speakers

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We are pleased to present our next group of speakers for WordCamp Brisbane 2017.

We would like to extend a big thank you to everyone who submitted a speaker application. Applications have now closed. We were inundated with more than 70 applications and are currently still deciding on the last of the sessions to fill, such has been the high calibre of applications.

Without further adieu, here are our newest speakers to join us for WordCamp!

Dee Teal

Dee has been using WordPress for nearly 10 years, starting out as a blogger before moving into web development. She has recently joined Human Made as a project manager working with enterprise clients.

Dee is a WordCamp veteran, travelling all over the world from New Zealand to Austria.

Presenting: Project Management Principles to improve Life, Work, and your Mental Health

There are some great principles in Project Management that can be applied not only in the workplace for any scale of product/project development but in ordinary life to make delivery of the things you or need to do a much smoother process. This talk will deliver some easy to implement principles you can use in across the board facilitating more efficient, transparent, delivery of your ‘projects’, whatever they may be.

Vladimir Roudakov

Vladimir is technical lead, software developer and web educator. He also works on various web projects as well as contributing to education, testing and rapid prototyping research.

He is also heavily involved in the Drupal community, regularly presenting at meetups and has been an organiser of recent Drupal conferences.

Presenting: Testing any day: guide to end to end test driven WordPress projects

Do you get notified if some crucial functionality on your website was changed or broken? Is automated testing part of your daily routine or deployment process? If not, then you are risking of losing parts of your website or even entire project. Testing is no longer developers realm and everybody should get involved and get the benefits of test driven development.

Luke Carbis

Luke leads Product at XWP. He works with some of the world’s leading WordPress developers to innovate the future of publishing.

Presenting: WordPress Best Practices in 2017

WordPress development has changed quite a lot over the last few releases! The WordPress REST API prompted us to rethink the way we use AJAX in our themes and plugins. The Twenty Seventeen theme reminded us to take advantage of the latest Customiser updates. Improvements to the way WordPress handles language has had a big impact on the way we implement internationalisation. This talk will look at these examples, and propose some updated Best Practices for the modern WordPress developer.

Mel Kettle

Mel Kettle is a communication and social media expert, speaker, author, trainer and mentor. She works closely with CEOs, thought leaders, associations and businesses to help them communicate effectively and authentically so they attract, retain and engage their customers and clients.

Mel has over 20 years’ professional experience, a Master of Business (Marketing), a Master of Public Health, and she is a past Board member of the International Association of Business Communicators (Queensland) and The Queensland Choir.

Presenting: Creating compelling content that cuts through the clutter

With the average attention span shorter than that of a goldfish, it’s important we know how to cut through the cluttered social media space of today. Mel will show you how to create compelling and useful social media content that cuts through in a crowded market.

Tickets are flying out the door, make sure you get yours before it’s too late if you want to see these outstanding speakers and more.

Purchase tickets

Announcing Our First Speakers

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We’re pleased to announce that our first two speakers for WordCamp Brisbane 2017 have been chosen!

While speaker submissions are still open until the 28th, we felt that these two presentations offer a unique insight that we’re proud to include in our lineup. We’ve still got another two dozen (or so) schedule slots to fill, so get your submissions in and look out for the upcoming speaker announcements soon!

We’re happy to announce that our first two speakers are none other than Anna Harrison, and Peter Wilson. Both Anna and Peter are well known amongst their respective WordPress communities and we’re happy to have them on board!

Anna Harrison

Anna Harrison is an award winning speaker, author and designer. She currently leads User Experience design at Ephox, makers of the world’s most popular Web editing products including Textbox.io and TinyMCE (the editor inside WordPress that you all know and love).

Presenting: 7 Common UX testing mistakes and how to avoid them
Anna will look at seven of the most common mistakes made in user testing, and how to avoid them. The presentation will be packed with examples and footage from real user tests, and is ideal for those new to user testing or in need of a refresher.

Peter Wilson

Peter Wilson is a web engineer with over twenty years experience and a healthy obsession with front-end code, back-end code and keeping the web fast. He works at Human Made where he helps make websites that scale and is a WordPress core guest committer.

Presenting: Impostor syndrome: Make it while you fake it
Peter will remove his own mask of confidence and share his experiences of imposter syndrome, making an attempt to separate the real from the imagined. He’ll talk about objective success and reveal how his own internal monologue undermines it at every turn. Peter will share his techniques for getting over his own impostor syndrome as it recurs in his day-to-day job. What works, what doesn’t and how sometimes they can sometimes be the same thing.

WCBNE Badges

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Want to help make this the best WordCamp ever? Whether you’re attending, speaking or sponsoring, we’ve made some badges you can stick on your website and let everyone know about it!

Get a Badge

Call for Sponsors!

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WordCamp Brisbane is happy to announce that we’ve put together our sponsorship prospectus.
WordCamp Brisbane is the only WordCamp currently scheduled for 2017 in Australia and is shaping up to be even bigger than WordCamp Brisbane 2015 and WordCamp Sunshine Coast 2016.
We’re inviting any companies interested in supporting WordCamp Brisbane, and by extension, the WordPress community in Australia, to support this fantastic event!

WordCamps are hailed worldwide as one of the best value for money conferences on the planet, and with WordPress now powering in excess of 27% of the web, they attract a large and diverse audience from the technology sector, from bloggers, designers and all the way up to the leaders of the web community.

WordCamps keep ticket prices extremely low and normally occur on the weekend to help ensure that people of all walks of life can make the event – no matter their profession or background. In order to keep the ticket prices so low, we rely upon the generosity of our sponsors to cover the majority of the cost of the event – while also keeping the costs of our suppliers as low as possible to allow us to accept sponsorship from businesses small and large.

If WordPress helps your business thrive, you build on top of WordPress, or you just want to help support the Australian WordPress community we’d welcome your interest in sponsoring WordCamp Brisbane.

Please check out our Sponsorship Prospectus to see if any of our packages suit your company and get in touch through the sponsorship contact form.

Guide to attending your first WordCamp

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So first things first, what is WordCamp?

wapuunder wordcamp brisbane 2015

WapuUnder

WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. The first WordCamp was held back in 2006, in San Fransico and the first WordCamp Australia was not long after that in Melbourne 2007. There have been 11 WordCamps down under since then in Melbourne, Sydney, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. Seems Queensland is the place for WordCamps and Brisbane will be holding it’s second this coming July.

Although I have been using WordPress for over 5 years, in one way or another, and developing full time for almost 4 years now, I attended my first WordCamp in 2016. Being someone who does not like to do things by halves, I also spoke at this WordCamp as well. So far I have attended two WordCamps and have been a speaker at both and believe nothing has had more of a positive impact on my knowledge and, most importantly, confidence as WordPress consultant/developer than these events. If you are thinking about simply attending, stop thinking and click the “Purchase Ticket” button and if you think you have something to share, then Apply to Speak.  Here is how to prepare for your first WordCamp.

Pack the Essentials

wapoolaba wordcamp sunshine coast 2016

Wapoolaba

However, you like to take notes, Laptop, iPad, good old pen and paper, make sure you have everything you need. All your cords, chargers, spare pens/pencils and prepare a backup. If you use your laptop most of the time, make sure you have a backup method as there is a good chance you will run it flat. There will be camera’s in the events and each session will be recorded, with the speakers making their slides available at the end. You will also have plenty of chances to talk with speakers during the event and at the social after-party on Saturday.

Get your Social Media sorted

social media is used heavily during the event, twitter, facebook, snapshot, Instagram etc. It’s a great way to ask questions and share what you have learnt during the day or during a session. It’s also a great way to connect with each other and make new connections in the community.

Ask questions, talk to everyone if you can.

At some point in time, we all needed to know something more or perhaps, share an idea and see others think. I believe confidence is the greatest barrier to progressing in any profession, the dreaded “imposter syndrome”.  I suffered from it for a long time and I can safely say there is no more welcoming community than WordPress, it’s all about sharing and I know love nothing more helping people learn more and sharing my ideas. I always follow one simple rule, never BS. If you don’t know, say you don’t know and you will most likely have someone recommended who does know.

Most Important, Have FUN!

Wapuura sydney wordcamp 2016

Wapuura

WordCamp is about learning and I guarantee you will come away with so many ideas and so energised, you will be looking for the next event as soon as you get home but don’t forget to enjoy yourself. There is a great social on Saturday night, usually held within walking distance of the event. This will be another great opportunity to ask questions, share ideas and make new connections. Make sure you have plenty of business cards to share around with all new friends and contacts, your phone is fully charged to enter in those details or you have a notepad handy as you will need it.

If you still have doubts, have a look for your nearest WordPress Meetup at https://www.meetup.com/. There are meetups all around Australia and as many as 5 WordPress meetups, at one time or another during the year, in south-east Queensland alone. They are not full of geeky code guys, not completely anyway, they are from all aspects of WordPress. From users to site administrators to front-end developers and social media experts all there for the same reason, to share what they know.

Tickets On Sale For WordCamp Brisbane 2017

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We are pleased to announce that tickets are now on sale for WordCamp Brisbane 2017! It will be held on July 22 & 23 at QUT Gardens Point. Our last WordCamp in 2015 sold out so make sure you get your tickets quick!

Buy tickets

What Do I Get With My Ticket?

Your ticket includes a number of awesome benefits including but not limited to:

  • 2 full days of speaker sessions! There will be two concurrent sessions during most time slots so that you can attend the most suitable session for your interests and/or skill level.
  • Networking opportunities! There will be hundreds of other attendees for you to collaborate with. WordCamps have a habit of producing new friendships, business opportunities and job offers so this will be a great opportunity to meet new people and make new friends.
  • Catering at the venue! We will have complimentary coffee available as well as lunch and afternoon tea provided both days.
  • Saturday night after party! As is customary for Australian WordCamps, we will be having an after party at a venue still to be determined (suggestions welcome!)
  • Free swag! Included in your ticket will be a lanyard and t-shirt, plus a number of sponsors who will be handing out their own free pens, notebooks, mugs, shirts or whatever else they can come up with.

How Much Do Tickets Cost?

Tickets only cost $50 each. Yes you read that correctly, all those awesome benefits for only $50.

For those generous types, we’re also offering a Community Sponsor ticket for $150 each. You’ll get good karma and a shoutout here on the website.

There Are Still Spaces Available For Speakers And Sponsors

Are you interested in sharing your knowledge with the WordPress community, or chipping in to help everything run smoothly? We’re still looking for speakers and sponsors, and successful applications will include a few other bonuses with their tickets.

We look forward to seeing you all at WordCamp Brisbane 2017!

Buy tickets

Call for Speakers

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WordCamp Brisbane is a community event that brings together designers, bloggers, developers, artists, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and educators from all across Queensland, as well as Australia and the rest of the world. It’s our mission to have WordCamp Brisbane represent the passion, talent and diversity of that community, and we want you to be a part of it!

Talks for all skill levels will be considered, and a presentation on things you learned setting up your very first website can be just as valuable as a technical walk-through of how user capabilities and roles are implemented within WordPress.

Please be aware that we do NOT require you to be famous, or “expert,” or a programmer, or specifically credentialed, or anything like that, and if you haven’t spoken at a conference before, don’t let that hold you back either! All we ask is that you be able to present your chosen topic passionately and respectfully.

We do have some general guidelines for talks, though, and here they are:

Your talk should be…

  • directly related to WordPress, or immediately applicable and relevant to our audience
  • respectful of the WordPress community, the WordCamp code of conduct, and the GPL
  • something that interests you, that you want to share!

Suggested topics include:

  • Design & development
  • Themes & plugins
  • SEO
  • Marketing
  • Social media
  • Open source code
  • The WordPress community
  • Translating WordPress (i18n)
  • Making WordPress accessible (a11y)

EVENT DETAILS

  • Talks will be a total of 45 minutes but expect to leave about 15 minutes for Q&A.
  • Talks will be on Saturday, July 22nd & Sunday, July 23rd at QUT garden Point campus.
  • We plan to record all talks and post the videos to WordPress.tv. Speakers will need to sign an A/V release form prior to giving their presentation.
  • Speakers will be offered free admission to WordCamp Brisbane, but will not be otherwise compensated.
  • The deadline to submit your speaker application is May 28th, but don’t worry if you have not got your talk worked out by this date, we just require an overview of your presentation for consideration and a title to display on our site if you are successful.

Apply To Speak