WordPress for Authors, Saturday, January 19th

by Betsy Cohen

Winston Churchill once said,

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

Great for Winston Churchill, but what about you? In the digital age bristling with social networks, blogs, and Twitter, you can rarely control what is said about you and your work.

So what can you do? While you can’t control the conversation, you can influence it. A good author web site can serve you in this effort — helping you establish your brand, and putting out into the world the image and the story of yourself that you want people to know.

But, just as people judge a book by its cover, they will judge your work by your website.

In Saturday’s session WordPress for Authors, we will discuss the process of designing and building a web site that represents you as a professional and reflects your author brand. Some of the topics include:

– Structuring a site to reflect your goals
– Identifying your audience
– Incorporating your personal identity
– What to look for in a Theme
– Content
– Plugins and post types

We’ll also touch on ways to use your site once it’s built as part of a broader author platform to help you launch your next book.

These topics are relevant to anyone who writes or works with authors, but they can easily be applied to any professional or creative individual with a web site.

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Session Announcement: WP_Image_Editor for 3.5

Presentation by: Mike Schroder

Image manipulation in WordPress was an alchemy of mixing GD functions and WordPress functions together to (hopefully) turn out the desired result. Now, as of WordPress 3.5, GD is abstracted out, and a new class, WP_Image_Editor, allows easy manipulation of image files. This lets you perform simple resizing, crops, flips, rotates, and real-time streaming of those results using Imagick or GD. But, that’s not all! You can also easily extend WordPress’ classes to add your own functions, or replace the entire engine with your own.

I’m Mike Schroder, otherwise known as DH-Shredder. I work on WordPress at DreamHost, and had the pleasure of co-authoring the new WP_Image_Editor class with Marko Heijnen, Cristi Burcă (scribu), and other contributors for WordPress 3.5.

This session will walk through what’s changed for image manipulation in 3.5, and explain ways you can take advantage of the new APIs, both through using them directly and extending them for plugins of your own.

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Wait…Who moved my WaterCooler?

by: Chris Lema

I don’t know if you’ve caught an episode of WPwatercooler on youtube, heard the podcast from iTunes, or visited their site (www.wpwatercooler.com) after one of their live 30 minute shows, but if you have you know that it’s a fast-paced WordPress-specific livestream using Google+ Hangouts hosted by Jason Tucker.

Every Monday he gathers a group of mostly Southern California WordPress talent to riff on a WP-specific topic. And even though the show has only been on for just over three months, they’ve managed almost 500 subscribers and about three quarters of a million views.

So you can imagine our excitement when Jason Tucker offered to share his insights on the show, the behind-the-scenes tips and tricks that we’d all love to know.

But we went further. We asked if he would host a WordCamp-specific special show right here live from our event on Saturday. So even if you can’t or won’t be making it to his Sunday session, we’re proud to let you see how he does his thing on Saturday from the lobby of the Chandler Center for the Arts.

And don’t just watch him do the show! We’re going to have him run a few scheduled shows where you can jump in and participate. So if you’ve always wanted to see your name in lights (or at least in text at the bottom of a Google hangout), this is going to be your chance!

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VeloMedia silver sponsor

VeloMedia is a micro-multinational of distributed offices specializing in technical web development using WordPress. What does that even mean? Put simply, we have diverse talent across the globe under a single combined workflow and project management umbrella. VeloMedia provides both regional and international scalability that allows for an array of vantage points to best serve our clients’ needs. We partner with full-service agencies and PR firms, to provide digital production for internal marketing and IT departments of major brands. You come up with the blueprint and we build your story.

We’re always looking to interface with top WordPress talent. We know that with the right minds and hard work, the WordPress core is limitless. We’ll see you at WordCamp Phoenix.

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Advanced Actions and Filters

Presented by: Alison Barrett

As a WordPress developer, you’ve probably been using actions and filters for a while in your plugins and themes. Being able to affect the way core works without actually changing core code is what makes WordPress so extendable and customizable.

When you assign a function to an action, what actually happens behind the scenes? How does WordPress know which functions are hooked where? In this session, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at how actions and filters work in WordPress core.

We’ll also examine a few particular hooks in detail, to demonstrate some more complex implementations of actions and filters in core.

Lastly, we’ll cover how to make your own actions and filters, and you’ll learn when and why to make them in the first place.

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Virtual Teams For The Win

Presented by: Chris Lema

Regardless of what role you find yourself in today, there is always some need to work with people that are not sitting in the same office you are. The rise of google+ hangouts (and skype before it) has made things easier, but there are still several questions that linger about collaborating with remote folks.

In our short session, we will look at the reasons why it makes sense to work in virtual and distributed settings. We will face the questions and doubts head on, and end with the things you have to get right. Then if you want, we can break off into another area and dig into practical discussions related to your specific situation.

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WordCamp for Kids Coming Soon

This is a true story — The other day I was driving with my 10 year old daughter and we pulled up right behind a Volkswagen. She saw the logo on the car and asked, “Mommy, is that a WordPress logo on that car?” I was busting at the seams with pride. I knew then that I was providing my daughter with a chance to learn, grow and thrive in a competitive world. So how did she learn about WordPress at such a young age? It all started with WordCamp for Kids in January of 2011.

WordCamp Phoenix 2013 is proud to carry on the tradition of WordCamp for Kids this January. Come join other parents who are giving their kids a powerful leg up in life by putting the power of internet publishing in their hands. If your child is able to type and use the keyboard, they are old enough to learn WordPress.

Sunday morning from 9:00 am to noon, Natalie MacLees will lead the 3rd Annual WordCamp for Kids.

Register for WordCamp for Kids

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Session Announcement: From URL to Query

Presented by: Erick Hitter

Ever wonder what process WordPress undertakes when someone visits your site? Or how it translates that nice permalink to the database query that ultimately delivers the content your visitors requested? Or what it takes to load the appropriate template from your site’s theme?

In this talk, I will walk through WordPress’ loading process and shed some light on the various APIs used. I will also discuss how these APIs work together to make the software function.

At many points throughout the talk, I will stop and recap what APIs have been loaded at that moment and what states those APIs are in. Doing so should help explain why it is that certain APIs must be manipulated at specific WordPress actions, and why failing to do so can lead to unexpected results. Understanding these constraints is key to effectively developing themes and plugins that are compatible with current and future WordPress releases. This awareness should also aid developers in choosing the appropriate place to hook into WordPress when multiple possibilities exist.

At the completion of this session, the process of parsing a request made to WordPress will be less mysterious than it often is for developers.

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Wine and Design — Show Us Your Stuff

Do you think your web design skills are the stuff of legend or at least pretty darn good? Why not put your skills to the test in a fun and festive environment – WordCamp 2013 is bringing back the popular Wine and Design Happy Hour.

Submit your best and most creative WordPress website design and we will feature the best of the bunch at our Wine and Design Happy Hour on Friday.

So submit your design and enjoy a glass of wine while doing so, come to Gangplank Friday Night from 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm.

Submit Your Design

Gangplank is located in Historic Downtown Chandler
260 South Arizona Avenue
Chandler, AZ 85225

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99 Problems, But Content Ain’t One

“If you’re having blog problems, I feel bad for you, son;
I’ve got 99 problems, but content ain’t one.” –(Not) Jay-Z

Many bloggers began their journey filled with jubilance and energy, but eventually they face the reality that it takes a lot of work to feed the content machine. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone! Whether you’re looking for fresh ideas or want to fine-tune your blogging plan, this session will give you a fresh perspective on content creation for your blog.

I can’t guarantee that Jay-Z will show up — in fact, I assure you that he probably won’t, but I can help you become more confident in creating content for your blog.

Several topics I’ll address include:

  • How to identify new, undiscovered content opportunities
  • Tips to take an idea and put your own twist on it
  • Affirming that you have permission to fail and try new things
  • Using online resources to stimulate your content creation interests

And more!

You’ll benefit from this whether you operate your blog for fun or profit. Even if you consider yourself a “blogging pro” or if you’re only getting started, you’ll walk away with actionable tips that will help you write your future blog posts.

This session will help you rediscover why you even got started in blogging and will reignite your content creation flame. Whether you blog for yourself or someone else, or assist others on content creation, you’ll be armed with a handful of great ideas by attending “99 Problems, But Content Ain’t One.”

See you there!

–Joseph Manna (@joemanna)
Sr. Content Strategist, Infusionsoft
blog.joemanna.com
blog.infusionsoft.com

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