There will be three tracks at WordCamp Kansas City, 2012:
Designer
Elements of Design as it pertains to WordPress. Theme development, Responsive design, and Usability; perfect for new designers or continuing education.
Developer
A more advanced group of users. BuddyPress set up, Plug In creation, and Mobile WordPress; this is for people unafraid to manipulate code and doing heavy customization.
Publisher
What you do after a site launch. Content creation, Project management, and Analytics; ideal for business owners and community leaders.
Reverse Engineering Themes
Using in-browser developer tools to gain insight into how to recreate elements on your own.
Sensational CSS: How to Show Off Your Super Sweet Skills!
Using the fantastic Custom CSS editor made by the folks at WordPress.com to transform a theme step by step. We’ll take a tour of the WordPress.com and WordPress.org theme showcases and explore the amazing possibilities of what you can do.
Ask Me Anything (The Power of Support)
A quick overview of the WordPress.org support forums, some tips and tricks for using them most effectively, and Otto (a six-year WordPress support forum veteran and code hacker for WordPress.org itself) answering any questions you can think of, on any topic whatsoever.
WordPress and Measurement
A few case studies of how organizations should be architecting their WordPress website content and design into defined conversion paths / funnels that can then be tracked, analyzed and improved through Google
WordPress End User Training
Understanding the true power of WordPress is the key to a successful blog. In this presentation I will demonstrate six powerful techniques that you can do today to make your WordPress blog an Internet powerhouse.
Linkbuilding for WordPress
Every website needs linkbuilding. Doing it right is more important than ever. WordPress has plugins, widgets, and characteristics that can help. Learn how to plan your strategy and make it work.
Responsive Design
Join me as we discuss the importance of making your sites accessible for users of mobile devices. With use of mobile devices doubling over the last year alone, the need of device friendly sites continues to grow.
Key Points:
- Mobile Usage Statistics
- What is Responsive Design?
- Should I use a separate mobile site?
- Responding to the needs of your visitors.
WordPress and Education
WordPress offers a variety of features that when applied well, can change a boring classroom lecture into an interactive lesson. This proposed session would examine the development of an interactive web site, which can be used to create in class interaction in any type of classroom setting.
The session would focus on the best usage of WordPress in the classroom, custom theme development using custom fields and conditionals to control what students see, and lastly a list of plugins that can offer added interactivity to the site.
Project Management
I would like to host a session discussing the entire workflow of setting up a WordPress site for a client from collecting vital site information from the client (ie. what questions you should ask), implementation of the theme and functions, design musts, and the final touch ups of the prototype and going live migration.
Using WordPress as a CMS
Calvin will share his story and what he has done to help organizations use WordPress as a CMS. Using WordPress can be used to develop a intuitive, feature rich CMS, capable of integrating with a variety of communication tools that clients use for day-to-day business activities.
WordPress and Mobile
Chris will describe and show the best ways to make your site very mobile friendly
Typography
Typography For WordPress Users
I will go over some guidelines about typography from both the web developer and user standpoint, examples of typography used on the web, and a couple ways to implement cool fonts into your WordPress site.
I will let you know ahead of time, there will be a little bit of code, but it will not be scary. If you do not get it in the presentation, it will be posted online for you to take a look at in some comprehensive tutorials I have written for you to easily follow along.
Simplifying Theme Functionality
Simplifying Theme Functionality
This session will focus on ways to simplify Theme functionality when forking a Theme or creating a Child Theme. Often, forked Themes and Child Themes needlessly replicate functionality, leave behind unneeded files and resources. Similarly, custom Themes add functionality inefficiently, or implement a glut of Theme options. This session will help developers make their Themes much more easy to maintain, to update, and to support – and maybe even a bit lighter and faster to load. Some topics covered include: reducing unnecessary Theme options, eliminating unneeded callbacks and custom functions, proper filtering of content, and general cleanup of Theme files.
WordPress and Ajax
Riding on Handlebars: Leveraging WordPress and Ajax
Learn to create a custom Twitter client, complete with user profiles and in-app tweeting. WordPress provides an excellent way to handle Ajax requests, interact with a database, and create/store content. WordPress combined with Handlebars.js provide a simple way to display data at the user’s request and without slowing down their overall experience with your app.
Creation of Plugins A-Z
This session will discuss the principles involved in taking your plugin from idea to “done.”
Part One: Solve your own problems
Part Two: Put your idea on a diet
Part Three: Plan and Execute!
Part Four: Share (or Sell)
Part Five: Iterate
WordPress as a Dynamic Platform
WordPress if often just considered only blogging platform and basic CMS. As full fledged CMS Jason Petersen at Turbine Interactive will explore and discuss using WordPress as a fully robust enterprise level CMS using or various front end user experiences, in mobile, tablet, digital signage,and even applications of Responsive Design etc.
Jason L. Petersen Biography:
Upon receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2000, Jason founded a marketing firm with core services in branding, identity development, web design, advertising and media that grew to over 20 employees and 500 clients in 20 different states. He then sold his company in 2008 and worked with two other Nebraska agencies in an executive leadership capacity, until the Spring of 2010, when he co-founded and formed Turbine Interactive, a digital marketing firm specializing in interactive technology, social media consulting, video production and web development. Jason and his team have over 50 years of combined experience and their unique approach to interactive solutions -fusing strategy, creativity and technology have positioned them as a premier interactive partner. To date, Jason has over 15 years of interactive and web production experience and 1000+ sitesand 200 branding projects to his credit along with over 100 industry interactive awards, 2005 Lincoln Business Journal 40 under 40 recipient and the 2006 Better Business Bureau integrity award as CEO of aijalon.
Jason lives in Lincoln, NE with his wife Holly, their daughter – Lydia, son – Trevor and their two Shelties – Sunny and Chester.
Custom Theme Creation
PSD to WordPress: Turning Any Design Into a Custom WordPress Theme. The session would be geared towards tips & tricks for custom theming from a PSD. I’ve used the techniques on projects for TOMS, MoMA, and others. I pretty much solely work with WordPress now, but before I used to code straight HTML sites and I know what helped me transition into coding themes so hopefully others would find the information helpful, as well.
UX Principles & User Experience Design
You’ve probably heard phrases like “easy to use”, “user friendly”, and “intuitive”. Usability is everywhere around us and the less you notice it the more effective it is. As developers, we are often forced to play the designer role in our projects whether we like it or not. This presentation will teach you how to design and develop effectively while keeping the user in mind. We’ll cover everything from layout and navigation to good button design and interface feedback. You’ll leave this presentation with a sense that even the simplest user enhancements can make an impact and positive impression on your clients and users.
Building a Better Brand Online in 49 Easy Steps
It’s as many steps as there are states!*
After discussing branding, we’ll walk through ways to differentiate yourself creatively as a business and as an online brand, especially within the WP framework. From there we’ll move to a live audit of several sites created on the WP platform and discuss their efficacy and accomplishments from a brand perspective. From there we’ll re-approach ways to create and feature branded content on your site, keeping budgets and client capabilities in mind.
*As a native North Carolinian, I don’t recognize South Carolina as a real state
Developing Modular Plugins
This session will focusing on developing WordPress plugins that are easily extendable by other developers. The idea is to build plugins that not only allow you (the original developer) to add-on and extend the plugin, but also to allow other developers to create extensions and modifications for the plugin without ever modifying the core source code of the plugin.