Speaker Spotlight: Tony Matthews

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Michael Torbert

Tony Matthews

Tony Matthews may have started his web site design career with Dreamweaver, but once he used WordPress for a website makeover, he recognized a truly powerful tool. “It’s an open source content management system so no software like Dreamweaver is needed. It’s highly extensible with a huge number of plug-ins for everything from contact forms to event registration, and it’s easy to teach someone how to edit the site.”, Tony says.

In Tony’s session, Creating Your Website with WordPress, you’ll learn how WordPress works from the ground up. Topics include:

1- Why WordPress and what is a CMS? /.com and .org differences

2- Installing WP (using Bluehost control panel on my Mac)

3- The admin page: overview of the Dashboard features such as Settings, Themes Pages, etc.

4- Editing photos for the web (if the audience needs that)

5- Creating pages and custom menus

6- Themes and Frameworks

7- Plug-ins: show how to install and configure a couple of common plug-ins like Contact Form 7 and NextGen

8- Resources for learning more such as w3schools, lynda.com

Spotlight Written by Kelly Phillips

Attend this session and get even more WordPress awesomeness at WordCamp Raleigh 2012 on Nov 3-4. Tickets are only $40 and you can register online now!

Speaker Spotlight: Syed Balkhi of WPBeginner

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Michael Torbert

Syed Balkhi

Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner. He is known for his aggressive marketing skills, creative designs, and expertise in SEO. Syed has been in the industry for over eight years, and he has worked with some of the top brands in the industry.

A serial online entrepreneur and professional blogger, Syed will share his practical tips and tricks that will help you create a passive income out of your blog in his session How to Monetize Your Blog (A Crash Course for Beginners). This presentation will go in-depth about the available tools and plug-ins for WordPress which can help a blogger generate a passive income through their blog.

“I think the user-interface of WordPress is fairly easy to use and understand. It is superior to anything else that exists,” says Syed. “Aside from ease of use, the WordPress community is the driving force for the fast growth of this platform. With tons of amazing plug-ins and more coming out every day, this is a platform of choice for us.”

Because it can cut so much of the development time in creating a website, Syed loves the amazing plug-ins that can be leveraged with WordPress.

“Attendees will get practical advice on how to monetize their blog or any other online business by using the best available tools and plug-ins.” Syed plans to share his own business tactics and how he has managed them successfully.

Attend this session and get even more WordPress awesomeness at WordCamp Raleigh 2012 on Nov 3-4. Tickets are only $40 and you can register online now!

Speaker Spotlight: Andy Stratton

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Michael Torbert

Andy Stratton, an animal and arts loving dude from Maryland, is an intense web builder who specializes in WordPress and other front-end developments. He has transformed a diverse variety of business sites into cutting-edge impressions on the web. In his presentation on 50 Shades of WordPress, Andy opens discussion on the dark truths of their product, zeros in on what issues can potentially arise, and gives advice on how to interact within the community.

WordPress is the best platform, says Andy because “[it] has the best community, hands down. Tons of eyes on every aspect: user-experience, security, design, functionality. It’s an extremely clean, basic piece of software that is focused on being extended by its community. It’s built to be flexible for its users. I can’t think of a project for which I wouldn’t use WordPress.”

One of Andy’s favorite aspects of WordPress is “being able to leverage the administrative UI to quickly build strong, stable, extendable custom features for my clients.” Says the web developer with an expert eye, “I’ve been able to use core API’s to quickly build and extend functionality with a better, more familiar experience than I could with any other software I’ve worked with.”

In his session on WordPress, Andy will reveal the different shades of its community/marketplace(s), some of which he says can be scary. He will then enlighten you on how to stay aware and to be loud within the growing world of WordPress.

Attend this session and get even more WordPress awesomeness at WordCamp Raleigh 2012 on Nov 3-4. Tickets are only $40 and you can register online now!

Written by Anna Pollack

Speaker Spotlight: Douglas Hanna of A Small Orange

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Michael Torbert

Douglas Hanna

If you’re in the market for a web hosting provider (or frustrated with your current one) don’t miss Douglas Hanna’s session, The Secrets of Web Hosting without the BS. A returning speaker to WordCamp Raleigh, Douglas knows the world of hosting. He’s the CEO of A Small Orange, a hosting company that makes customer service a priority.

Finding a good hosting provider is about more than just looking at their reviews online and picking someone who sounds good. It’s about understanding the goals for your site and how that provider can support you along the way. Douglas will cover topics like how to choose a quality host and choosing the right package to fit your needs. He’ll also demystify some industry jargon and dispel common myths about hosting.

When it comes to WordPress, Douglas likes the extensibility. “If WordPress core doesn’t do what you need, chances are there’s a plugin that does,” he said. “Very few platforms can combine the ease of use that WordPress offers out of the box with the tremendous extensibility that’s easily within reach.”

One of Douglas’ favorite WordPress features are the iPad and iPhone apps. “The blog I use the most is written by several different people, so I use the iPhone and iPad apps all the time to make quick edits to new posts published by others,” he said.

The most important thing you’ll get from attending Douglas’ session at WordCamp Raleigh is how to choose the right plan at the right web hosting company. Douglas feels that “A web host is essential to keeping your site online, and I want to help attendees make the right choice.”

Attend this session and get even more WordPress awesomeness at WordCamp Raleigh 2012 on Nov 3-4. Tickets are only $40 and you can register online now!

Written by Kelly Phillips

Speaker Spotlight: Tony Zeoli of Reese Felts Digital Newsroom

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Steve M

Tony joined University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in August 2010 as the lead developer in the Reese Felts Digital Newsroom. Previously, he worked as a consultant in the development of digital media applications for corporations and start-ups. He created digital products for Sony/BMG, Associated Press, Entertainment Media Works/StarStyle.com, Cablevision Systems Corp., Fuse, Smith Street Records, Zondervan, Pepsi-Cola and Melibee Global. In 2009, Tony launched Digital Strategy Works, a new media consulting company building web and mobile applications on WordPress for small businesses. A WordPress expert, Tony launched WordPress Westchester through a partnership with White Plains, N.Y.-based, The Journal News (a Gannett publication) to train Westchester, N.Y. web developers on the popular WordPress CMS. Tony has also presented on the topic of WordPress and multimedia at WordCamp NYC and Raleigh.

Tony will be presenting on the topic of WordPress & Social Media in the Power Users track. Here’s an extract from what you can expect to hear from Tony:

While SEO remains important to users searching for your content, social media has become a powerful way for users to find your blog posts upon the recommendation of friends and others who “Like,” “Buzz,” “Digg,” or “Share” or “Tweet” your posts into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, and other social media services.

In this presentation, Tony Zeoli, Lead Developer in the Reese Felts Digital Newsroom at UNC Chapel Hill, will present options to empower your blog with plugins and best practices to help you manage and track audience engagement when your posts go viral through social sharing.

He will share a number of plugins that will help you cross post to Twitter and Facebook profiles and pages, shorten and track your URL’s, and provide social sharing opportunities on your sites pages. And, he’ll discuss why global social commenting is important, how to use related posts services, post ratings engines, and other ways to ensure your audience engage with your posts and those posts go viral into the social media stratosphere.

So register today for WordCamp Raleigh 2011 and come meet Tony. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter – @tonyzeoli