Speakers

Adam Weart

Adam is an Inbound Marketing Certified Professional, has received the “Carnival of Real Estate Blogging Honors,” and is an instructor for various Continuing Education Courses on Social Media and Technology in the Real Estate Industry.

He co-authored the book, “Champions: Knockout Strategies For Health, Wealth and Success From Today’s Leading Experts” which features top advice from some of the most successful experts from around the world.

Adam continues to extend his leadership and marketing creativity in real estate technology by leveraging all aspects of Social Media Marketing and Web Usability Design as a key leader at WebSocial.ly.

Al Davis

Al Davis has more than 15 years’ experience working with small business owners, helping them get their business online. As a Hosting Product Manager for a number of different service providers, Al has seen the good, the bad, and the (very) ugly when small businesses leap from website idea to website reality. He has stood witness as business owners, both large and small, make the same avoidable mistakes again and again.

More recently, Al has focused his attention on WordPress and the Open Source community. As a speaker at several WordCamps and one of the organizers of WordCamp Toronto, Al has become an active member of the WordPress community.

You can find Al on Twitter ( adavis3105), at his personal website (aldavis.org), or, beginning Jan 2012 at his new project: wpteach.com

Bret Phillips

Bret is a a musician, web developer, promoter, swim instructor, and quite a few other things. During the day he works exclusively with WordPress, building websites and doing search engine optimization for small businesses through his company Web Devils. Bret also promotes, writes for, puts on shows with, and more with the Hijacking Music collective of which he is a co-founder.

Follow Bret on Twitter @bretwp

Brett Bumeter

Brett Bumeter ll.m. (@brettbum) of Softduit Media helps people setup websites to do useful things.

After a life in intelligence, corporate sales, corporate finance, and a stint as a federal corporate whistle blower, he worked as a web developer and blogger since 2006.  He has helped hundreds of people start designing WP themes.  In 2011, he helped over 150 charities get started in ecommerce.

He works on a WiFi dock-office on a lake where he hid out on the lamb before making it his home.   He runs in toe shoes, is an aspiring comedic cyberpunk author, and a WordCamp junkie.

Carol Shepherd

Carol Shepherd, principal consultant at Tech Zest Advisors, excels at transforming concepts into working software.  She has a zeal for working with both technology and people.  Her clients depend on her to ask questions that prompt a “oh, I never thought of that response”.  This was previously known as “software analysis and design”. A self-confessed plugin nut –  compulsive about finding, categorizing, and evaluating them – she recently helped to usher three new plugins into the WordPress repository.
Currently, she is designing and building an iPad application for preschoolers.

Found a new plugin? Tweet Carol @techzestadvisor

Daryl Houston

A literature nerd by training and inclination, Daryl has been working
in computers for over a decade, has used WordPress since its
beginnings, and has absurdly low WordPress.com user and blog IDs. He
works for Automattic with the whimsical job title “Happiness Gardener”
and in that capacity provides developer support to the tiny team of
Happiness Engineers who take care of the roughly 30 million users who
write a half a million blog posts per day on WordPress.com.

David Carroll

I am the proud father of 4 energetic amazing children, husband to a wife I don’t deserve, and a software developer looking for new ways to innovate with technology.

Although I’ve only been working with PHP and WordPress for the past year, I’ve been designing and developing software with Java, C#.NET, and a wide range of enterprise and web technologies for the past 15 years.

In 2007, I founded softRealty.com, a tech startup providing Property Search for real estate professionals. Our newest product, a WordPress Powered Platform called WebSocial.ly – Building Socially Optimized Websites will launch in early 2012.

David Vogelpohl

David Vogelpohl is the founder and CEO of Marketing Clique, an online marketing and web development agency which helps clients build websites, create web applications, develop mobile applications and manage online marketing campaigns.  Marketing Clique is a well established WordPress development provider assisting clients with a mix of WordPress centric solutions.

David has 15 years of web development and online marketing experience, including the development of a variety of web technologies and online marketing channels.  David is a published author in Feed Front Magazine, speaker at major online-marketing conference Pubcon and veteran of the web hosting business since 1996.

David’s site is www.marketingclique.com and you can follow him on Twitter @davidvmc

Dougal Campbell

Dougal was one of the original WordPress developers, contributing features such as XML-RPC API support, Post Custom Fields, mass re-enabling of plugins, and Conditional GET support for feeds.

He has contributed several plugins to the WordPress ecosystem over the years, including Fancybox Gallery, Easy Gravatars, and a filter for Talk Like a Pirate Day which has been subsequently adapted for numerous other systems including Drupal and Joomla. He has also tried his hand at creating a theme, named Formattd, which you can find on GitHub.

Follow Dougal @dougal

Dre Armeda

Andres “Dre” Armeda, CISSP is a web designer with a security habit. Dre is the Co-Founder of Sucuri Security.

Sucuri is a security company that concentrates on being the leader in web integrity monitoring and web malware removal. Sucuri offers web integrity monitoring and alerting capabilities to small, large, and enterprise web networks.

Dre build his first WordPress theme in late 2004, and has since become a core contributor, has assisted the Theme Review Team. Dre has had the opportunity to speak about security various WordCamps across the states, and is also the Lead Organizer for WordCamp San Diego.

Follow @dremeda on Twitter, or say hi at dre.im.

Erik Wolf

Erik Wolf is a small business marketing expert and co-author of the award winning book Marketing: Unmasked – Insider’s Tips + Tricks for Success in Small Business Marketing. He is also the founder of Zero-G Creative, an online marketing agency serving small (and growing!) business clients exclusively. Erik has been featured by The Huffington Post and Atlanta Business Radio among other media and has spoken at conferences such as South by Southwest (SXSW), The Business of WordPress Conference, Product Camp, Social Media Atlanta and Digital Atlanta. In 2009, Erik was honored as North Fulton Community Charities Business Partner of the Year. He lives in Johns Creek, Georgia with his wife and two children.

Evan Mullins

I’ve been using WordPress for as long as I’ve been doing web design, just over 5 years. After studying digital media at UGA and being involved with web startups,  small business sites,  large agencies, and small design shops in the industry, I’m always looking to make interactive projects smarter. Putting dozens of WordPress sites together, while each one is unique, I’ve found there are some techniques that make every site you build much easier, faster and stronger. The best part of the internet is that it allows me to work on fun projects & provide a living for my growing family!
Find Evan on circlecube.com
Follow on Twitter @circlecube

J Cornelius

J has been making websites and software for the web since 1998, and has been credited with creating several software features web designers and developers take for granted today. He’s currently the VP of Operations at CoffeeCup Software and President of the Atlanta Web Design Group.

Jane Wells

Jane, a Georgia resident living in Tybee Island,  is the UI/UX lead for WordPress, and manages the open source project. She’s worked with web design and usability for a dozen years, and has been employed with Automattic for the last three. In addition to speaking at WordCamp Atlanta, Jane will be there to represent WordCamp Central, the WordPress Foundation, and the WordPress core team, so if you have any questions for her she’d love for you to introduce yourself at WCATL .

Check out more from Jane at jane.wordpress.com
Follow Jane on Twitter @janeforshort

Jeff Cohan

I’ve been designing and building systems since 1983 and Web sites and Web applications since 1994. I started working with WordPress in 2007 – initially to integrate WordPress blogs with clients’ sites I had custom designed and built. I was promptly struck by the power of WordPress as a platform for full-blown Web sites, and I soon began offering WordPress-based sites as an alternative to full-lifecycle, custom Web-site development. Forever grateful to whatever muse steered me to PHP and MySQL years ago, I am nerdily thrilled that WordPress’ extensibility is virtually unlimited.

More about me at nSiteful.com, and you can follow me on Twitter @jdcohan

Jenny Munn

Jenny Munn is a freelance Atlanta Copywriter who specializes in SEO and content strategy. She helps clients promote their products and services and execute their marketing, communications and PR strategies—online and offline. Jenny has had the privilege of writing copy for The Home Depot, Georgia Pacific, The Real Chow Baby, SunGard, and many other SMBs, agencies and solopreneurs. Through a DIY SEO strategy, Jenny generates 50% of her business through a well-optimized WordPress website. Jenny loves blogging, speaking on marketing topics, all things WordPress, and working with driven, passionate people. For more information visit her blog at www.JennyMunn.com/blog.

Judi Knight

Organizer of the Atlanta WordPress Users Meetup Group with almost 900 members and co-organizer of WordCamp Atlanta.  My checkered past includes having a Ph.D. in Clinical/Community Psychology, Founding running and selling a Medical Records Software Startup, and converting Atlanta Warehouses into Lofts. Six years ago, fell in love with WordPress and my passion grew into the creation of New Tricks, a WordPress web design and social media company. At New Tricks we believe “It’s Never too Late” …to have a great website, start a new business or do whatever it is that you have been dreaming about!

You can find more on Judi at New Tricks or follow her @judiknight

Kathy Drewien

My name is Kathy Drewien and I am a WordPress coach, consultant, and designer. I have been working with WordPress for many years on my clients’ and my own WordPress sites. When I speak about learning to use WordPress to build websites my eyes light up, my voice is strong and I can’t stop sharing what I have learned.

Clients enjoy working with me because I make them laugh when working with WordPress where others make their head spin. I communicate in plain English and don’t try to impress you with fancy geek-speak. My goal is to make you look like a WordPress genius!

My Website is http://AtlantaWPcoach.com and you can follow me on Twitter @kdrewien

 

Keith Ratner

I’ve been a professional designer for over 20 years within industries including non-profit, financial services and healthcare. A native New Yorker, I currently reside in Silicon Valley, teaching interactive design software at AcademyX in Santa Clara and DeAnza College in Cupertino, while managing design and information technology services for BayBio, a biotechnology trade association in South San Francisco, where I rely on WordPress to support event-specific websites. I’ve been running WordPress on my own site at skillzdesign.com since 2005 and my business is at http://keithratner.com .

Follow on Twitter @keithratner

Kristina McInerny

Kris McInerny is co-founder of Cobb Social Media, a local seminar series featuring local social media speakers and is also the owner of Notes From Kris, focusing on web business solutions.  She has over 20 years of IT experience and often brags about creating her first website in 1997 for Kennesaw State University’s SBDC where she accomplished her MBA as well as recently completing Project Management Certification in 2010.  She has played (because work should be fun) various roles as an Account Manager, Project Manager, Technical Writer, Technical Support and IRL Networker Extraordinaire.

Lisa Sabin Wilson

Lisa Sabin-Wilson is the founder of E.Webscapes Design Studio, a blog and web site design and development company specializing in premium WordPress themes, made to order to your specifications. She has designed and developed over 1,000 personal and professional WordPress web sites.  Lisa is also the founder of Allure Themes, a premium theme company catering primarily to women and the web sites that run them.

Lisa is the For Dummies brand (Wiley Pub) franchise author on all things WordPress; having worked with WordPress since 2003, she has extensive experience and knowledge on the platform and shares it in her several WordPress-related books. She is also a regular public speaker on topics such as: WordPress, blogging, design and social media. Follow Lisa on Twitter here: @LisaSabinWilson

Mark Jaquith

Mark is a Lead Developer on the WordPress core and a freelance WordPress consultant with a focus on security, scaling, and custom plugin development. He first used WordPress in 2003, and really didn’t care for it. But in 2004, he was won over, and has been developing on it ever since. Mark’s personal goal is to bring intuitive, low-cost web publishing to everyone who has anything to say.

Follow Mark on twitter @markjaquith

Mark Kelnar

Mark is a passionate software developer and engineer with a background in many programming languages and technologies.  He has lived and worked in Austin since 2000.

Joining the WP Engine team as the lead IT and PHP developer, he is making sure the servers and sites are running as fast as possible.  You might spot Mark out at a WordPress Austin Meetup.

Marna Friedman

Marna Friedman is a Business Strategist using WordPress as the platform of choice for her clients. Over the past two years, she has increased her education in WordPress and likes to share what she learns with others. (more…)

Mike Schinkel

Mike is from Atlanta, GA and is a serial entrepreneur whose guilty pleasure is developing WordPress plugins. His company NewClarity LLC builds OEM/white-labeled WordPress-based CMS for SaaS companies and vertical-market software vendors with a global team. In 2010 Mike co-hosted “The Business Of WordPress Conference” in Atlanta, and he is now working with his team to develop Sunrise, an open-source platform based on WordPress that targets the needs of professional site builders.

Nic Rosental

Nic Rosental is the founder of  Epic Labs, where he develops websites and applications using a variety of technologies, including WordPress. He’s also a co-organizer of AtantaPHP and overall an active member of  the Atlanta web community. Follow Nic @nicdev

Nile Flores

Nile Flores is a sassy Southern Illinois mom who is a Professional Blogger as well as a WordPress Designer and Developer. She has been using WordPress since the b2 days and has a passion for helping others to be able to use their site to its greatest potential. It is not uncommon to see her speaking at WordCamps across the US on topics from user side, social media, design, and development. However, when she is not online being a code ninja or blogging, she practices Shoren Kempo Jutsu karate twice a week. Follow @blondishnet

Rachel Baker

Rachel (@rachelbaker) is a freelance Web Developer with over 15 years of technology experience, including web development, application development and systems administration. She builds custom WordPress themes and plugins for small businesses, agencies and nonprofit organizations through her firm Plugged In Consulting.

Rachel is passionate about responsive development, reading Hacker News, rooting for the Chicago Cubs, drinking Diet Coke (and beer!) and finding the best fried chicken and waffles in Atlanta. Her starter theme BootstrapWP based on Twitter Bootstrap, is available to be forked on Github.

Randy Barnes

Randy Barnes is the child of a perfect marriage; WordPress and Youtube. He’s very tall and old, and has been pestering the cool kids and tech geeks since the Intel 8088.   His skills are not always readily apparent, but he shares them freely and is usually polite. He  carries several video cameras  and will have you on the web before you know it.
He’s a WordPress user for 3 years and is involved in several Atlanta’ Meetup groups.  Randy also volunteered at the first Atlanta WordCamp.

Russell Fair

I am a freelance WordPress developer and was born and raised in Atlanta. I spend most of my working hours writing plugins and themes for client and my own pet projects. I’m an open source evangelist and use WordPress for just about everything I do.

In my spare time I enjoy doing stuff outside with my kids like playing soccer, camping and boating.

Samuel Wood

Samuel Wood, better known to the WordPress community as “Otto”, lives in Memphis, Tennessee, the Birthplace of Rock and Roll. Otto is a Tech Ninja at Audrey Capital, Matt Mullenweg’s investment and research company. When not hacking away at WordPress or the WordPress.org website, he spends his time homebrewing or scuba diving or searching out the best BBQ he can find, which he will always say is in Memphis.

Follow Otto on Twitter @otto42

Sara Cannon

Sara Cannon has a passion for art, design, and typography. She designs and develops websites out of Birmingham, AL, is a WordPress core contributor working with the UI group, organizes WordCamp Birmingham, loves open source, her dogs, and a good beer. You can find her tee-heeing on twitter @saracannon or writing on her blog sara-cannon.com.

“Life is short, art is long, typography is everything, code is poetry.”

Stephanie True Moss

Stephanie is an Atlanta area WordPress, Web and Creative QR Code Designer. She helps clients understand QR Codes, how to create them, their proper use, tracking and analytics, and most importantly whether or not to use them! Her blog QRmedia.us is a repository of all things QR Code. Look for Stephanie Sunday evenings on Twitter where she co-moderates the #QRchat as @truemc. She has been invited to speak about QR Codes and the mobile web at many conferences around the country. Stephanie’s first foray into web design was in 1996 for an award winning cattle breeder. She wishes she could have used WordPress on that site instead of HotDog v.1!

Stephanie is an active member of Atlanta WordPress Users Group MeetUp and NW Atlanta WordPress User Group.

Syed Balkhi

Syed Balkhi is often referred to as that crazy whiz kid who knows how to MAKE MONEY. He got started in the web world when he was 12 years old, since then he has done many things. Domaining, SEO, Web Designing and Development. Today, He is the founder of a web design and development firm, Uzzz Productions, and one of the largest WordPress resource sites, WPBeginner. He attends and speaks at many conferences on various blogging and social media topics. Through his company, he has consulted with many great folks as well as Fortune 500 companies . Follow Syed on Twitter @wpbeginner

Thomas Griffin

I’m a passionate WordPress developer who likes to tackle problems and come up with solid solutions. I work with WordPress 24/7 and spend the majority of my time doing custom theme and plugin development for clients. Beyond that, I’m a scratch golfer, play a mean guitar and am madly in love with my beautiful wife Laura. Follow @jthomasgriffin

Travis Smith

Travis is a WordPress Enthusiast whose passion is WordPress. By trade, training, education, and profession, he is anything other than a WordPress guy. Having climbed the rankings from blogger to WordPress.com to power blogger to developer, Travis loves to share what he’s learned with others. Travis develops websites using only WordPress and Genesis almost exclusively. Follow @ wp_smith