What is Contributor Day?

WordCamp KC News

Contributor Day is an opportunity for you to make your own, well, contribution to WordPress. We’re looking forward to having tons of great WordPress users in town for WordCamp Kansas City. Since the community is what makes WordPress so great, why not take advantage of our proximity and get together to add to the awesomeness?

Whether you’re a designer, developer, systems/support specialist, or writer, there’s a way for you to contribute:

  • If you’re a programmer, contribute code directly to core!*
  • Write or update WordPress documentation and tutorials
  • Create visual mockups of new features, or those being modified
  • Help out with your knowledge of accessibility or other relevant standards
  • Mobile developer? Help out with the apps!
  • Answer questions on the forums and help other users or people who are new to WordPress
  • Work on the wordpress.org website itself, including the plugin and theme repositories

People who come to Contributor Day will be 1000% focused on contributing to or learning to contribute to the WordPress project — although we have fun, this is a working event. If you’ve been looking for an opening to add your contribution to WordPress, this is the perfect opportunity!

We’ll make sure the WiFi stays strong  and you make sure WordPress stays strong. See you at the there!

What to bring:

  • A laptop or tablet is the only thing you really need.
  • If you want to bring a power strip and extension cord that could come in handy, but we’ll have some already there too.
  • A pair of headphones, if you plan to subtitle WordPress.tv videos.
  • If you plan to work on code, you can get a head start by setting up Varying Vagrant Vagrants and the WordPress Meta Environment for a local development environment.
  • *CODE CONTRIBUTORS If you’re planning on helping out with WordPress core code (writing patches, testing bugs on trunk, etc), then you’ll need to get set up with a few things. To save time on the day, we strongly recommend that you set WordPress up locally on your laptop (and bring it!). You’ll need to install a local web server and check out a copy of WordPress from Subversion.

BE A PART OF SOMETHING BIG!

Contributor Day takes place on Sunday, 10:30am – 4pm at Sprint Accelerator.
210 West 19th Terrace, Kansas City, MO → Map

Speaker Spotlight: Frankie Jarrett

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Frankie JarrettFrankie is a regular WordCamp speaker in both his native Kansas City and elsewhere. He’s a lifelong learner and excellent educator. Read on to learn more!

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: I started building static websites for clients in 2002 under the guise of “web designer” based on a handful of self-taught Photoshop, HTML and CSS stills. Eventually I was introduced to WordPress in 2007, started working with jQuery and PHP, and in 2009 my career had evolved into “web developer”. Since then I’ve owned my own theme shop, helped build high-end WordPress websites for WordPress.com VIP and released a lot of WordPress plugins.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: In 2010 when 3.0 introduced custom post types and multisite as part of core I made the decision to work exclusively with WordPress full time.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: Keep it simple. Ship code faster. Iterate on feedback. Only be a perfectionist when it matters.

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: WordPress is a product people love. In this session we will examine how to build WordPress plugins that people will love too – it’s not just about best practices for our code, it’s about giving users incredible experiences they won’t forget.

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Developers of any skill level. Especially those who want to start creating WordPress plugins or already do.

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!

Speaker Spotlight: Brent Schultz

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Brent SchultzBrent is a full-time developer at 10up and a Kansas City local. We’re happy to welcome this perennial favorite back to WordCampKC 2015!

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: A hobby blog led to freelance which led to more freelance which led to agency work and here I am today as a full stack WP dev, though primarily a backend dev.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: There have been several along the way but the biggest one I encountered was simply looking at the entire WP Query object on any given page which helped me understand a bit more about the inner workings of WordPress and really made it make a lot more sense.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: Read the Codex. Don’t just check it out as you do some good searches for the things you’re trying to accomplish. Read it, understand it, tinker with it.

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: Timber is a framework that isn’t actually much of a framework but it brings a fresh take to the concept. The reason Timber is important with WordPress and it’s future is it brings a Twig templating engine to clean up markup files to make the presentation layer a bit more friendly for front-end developers not familiar with PHP or WordPress.

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Developers and Designers.

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!

Speaker Spotlight: Chris Koerner

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Chris KoernerChris is a WordPress community contributor from St Louis who has a way of discussing complex WordPress solutions in a simple way. He’ll be talking about the importance of updating your site, so we asked him a little about how got where he is.

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: I started working with WordPress back in the early 1.x days. I had a terrible flash+HTML site I built and was looking for something that made it easier to update. WordPress fit the bill and it’s been a pretty good relationship ever since.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: Custom Post Types and Custom Fields. A lightbulb went off when I realized the customization and organization of information would be limitless.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: Relax. The WordPress community is filled with super knowledgeable and experienced people who could put something amazing together in a weekend. That sounds intimidating at first. Over time I realized those same people are some of the most caring and giving folks I’ve ever met. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and put your stuff out there.

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: Updates good. Not updating, bad. I’ll help you.

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Anyone using WordPress that has a notification in the Dashboard letting them know of an update.

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!

Speaker Spotlight: Heather Physioc

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Heather PhysiocHeather is a long-time SEO professional and well rounded digital marketer. She works at one of the largest marketing firms in Kansas City, but will be talking to us about the entrepreneurs she’s helped over the years. We caught up with her to get a bit more information about her history and her presentation.

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: Truthfully, my career in digital marketing started when I was 13 years old and created my first Geocities website, ha! It ultimately evolved into an online magazine called Heavy Frequency, which covered bands, musicians, and the music community in the Kansas City area.

I got my degree in Strategic Communications (Advertising) from the University of Missouri Journalism School. From there, I went on to work at agencies of all sizes (PlattForm, Fleishman Hillard, VML), specializing in search engine optimization and content marketing, among other digital marketing disciplines.

I was an SEO freelancer for several years, as well. As my clients’ interest and needs evolved, and they needed even more help to grow their small businesses, it ultimately led to the creation of Tentacle Inbound.

Now, I lead the SEO practice at VML and Red Fuse serving some of the world’s largest brands, and then on a smaller local scale, I own and operate Tentacle Inbound to serve small businesses.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: My eyes were really opened to WordPress when my clients kept coming to me for digital marketing services, but found themselves trapped by their hard-coded website builds that they didn’t understand or have access to, or clunky CMSs that simply didn’t get the job done. We couldn’t do our best work for them because they simply didn’t have the tools.

My clients needed a powerful website solution that was simple out-of-the-box, but could be customized to a great degree for each of their unique business needs. We’ve got clients that have a variety of needs, including e-commerce needs, hospitality booking, lead generation, community building, and so much more. WordPress can successfully meet the needs of all these clients with one simple, incredible platform.

In addition to my clients benefiting from the many perks of WordPress, my own business has been able to be flexible and grow without having to completely start from scratch on the website every time we’ve had to pivot over the years. The website has changed and grown with us, but the foundation has always stayed the same – thanks to WordPress.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: Stop, and take the time to make a (flexible) plan. Start by defining goals first, then determining the strategy, then outlining tactics – not the other way around.

This seemingly simple approach applies to so many things in the professional world, from starting our own businesses, to pitching new clients, to building websites, to digital marketing strategies, to facing a conflict in the office, and so much more.

It’s easy to want to just dive in at the tactical level, but taking a little time to step back and think more strategically makes a world of difference for efficiency, effectiveness, and your own sanity.

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: Many small business owners find themselves trapped with outdated websites they can’t use, in an intimidating environment completely outside their comfort zones. Instead of having a valuable tool to grow with them and their businesses, they end up feeling held hostage by their websites. In my talk, I will share true stories of real clients who escaped captivity with the help of WordPress, and paved the path to better digital marketing, even on bootstrapper budgets.

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Entrepreneurs and digital marketers will find this talk especially useful and relevant, but really, anyone who is selling their own WordPress services can benefit from understanding clients’ website pain points, and how WordPress solves those problems for them.

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!

Speaker Spotlight: Kristin Falkner

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Kristin FalknerLike many of us, Kristin is a self-taught developer using WordPress. She was previously a WordCampKC organizer, so we are happy to welcome her back to our stage. Read on to learn more about her!

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: I started teaching myself web development when I was a teenager. I would find sites that I liked and look at the code and try to piece together what was making what happen on the page. It was just something I pursued on the side for a long time before it became my main focus about seven years ago. WordPress has been my primary focus the past five years.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: There is not a “one size fits all” approach to WordPress development that is going to work for everyone. I did regular web development before WordPress theming so I found building my own starter theme initially made it click a bit more for me than trying to decode some of the frameworks that felt heavily laced with their own hooks and seemed so much less familiar to the HTML/CSS that I already knew. So one approach to custom theming can make you go “ah ha!” while another can just make you go “ahhhhhh!” Seek out what starts to make it click for you and just build from there.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: I think in the beginning I relied pretty heavily on the bad habit of copying and pasting solutions to whatever issue I was troubleshooting without always making an attempt to understand what the code was doing. I’m not saying it’s bad to research issues or use code already written that solves an issue. We’ve all thrown up a prayer to the Google gods as we’ve sought help on a frustrating issue. No one learns via copy and paste, though, so my advice to Beginner Me would be to always make a solid effort to understand the solution.

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: Custom fields are a key component to many custom themes. If you can utilize them effectively, you can be an unstoppable theming machine. Advanced Custom Fields is an incredibly powerful tool to help you do just that so let me introduce you to it, if you don’t already know its magic!

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Developers

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!

Speaker Spotlight: Melissa Roberts

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Melissa RobertsMelissa is a new and enthusiastic WordPress user who used the CMS as a tool to rebrand and rebuild a complex site. She’s a fixture of the startup community in Kansas City, so we wanted to get a little bit of her background for you!

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: After starting off in politics, I fell into the non-profit world. Something that’s always been important to me–whether I’m working on a political campaign or in a non-profit role–is feeling like I’m working toward a goal that’s bigger than just completing daily tasks. These days, helping connect entrepreneurs with the resources they need to grow is what gets me up in the morning.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: To be honest, I’m still learning a lot about WordPress. I’ve managed many WordPress websites over the years, but I hadn’t built one until recently. My “ah ha” moment–the point where I felt I could really control the structure of a website–was when I first figured out how to make the landing page I had created actually display as the landing page for my domain. I’d been struggling to find out how to replace that “Hello World” blog page with the shiny landing page I has created. When I made that change and my first real landing page popped up–that’s when I felt like I could learn to build anything.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: Ask people for help before you ask the Internet. I can spend all day digging through help forums and sometimes I find what I’m looking for, sometimes I don’t. I think the typical developer ethic is to try to find information on your own or try, try again until you fix a problem. But I’m not cut from that cloth and I learn differently. I found a handful of people who were always willing to give great advice and help me tackle problems. I think the lesson there is, don’t feel like because you’re learning to code or build websites, that you have to learn the way other people have learned or have the same mindset. Blaze a trail and find a system that works for you.

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: Enterprise Center in Johnson County is one of the oldest entrepreneurial support organizations in KC, and our website looked like it. I managed a rebrand and website rebuild process that changed our most public-facing asset to reflect a modern look. WordPress was the tool that made the process possible and affordable.

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Those who should attend my talk are beginners or people who are looking to build an attractive website on the cheap. Or those interested in hearing a design and UX based discussion. Or people who are willing to to make jokes during the Q&A session. I appreciate a good pun.

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!

Speaker Spotlight: Eric Huber

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Eric HuberEric Huber is a teacher at heart and a regular presenter for tech conferences in Northwest Arkansas. We talked to Eric about his background in design and how he started working with WordPress.

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: In 1997, I attended a design conference in Little Rock, Arkansas where I wanted to enhance my skills in the old program, Quark XPress. Within a short time, I realized I knew more than the instructor. During a break, I found a class titled “World Wide Web.” After a decade of print design work, I discovered I could avoid reprinting ten thousand brochures when a typo occurred and found I could simply edit something called “HTML” and the error would be gone. The company I worked for began selling websites but couldn’t make it fit their printing strategy and dropped it. That year, I launched my first business with my sister that ran for six years. I went corporate for a few years at Tyson Foods and gained some organizational skills and left to launch Blue Zoo Creative with my business partner, Collin Condray.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: In my first business, the biggest desire of clients was access to update and control their own site. This was expensive and time consuming. When we launched Blue Zoo Creative, we were actually working on a product to automatically generate websites much like SquareSpace and other services. During the process, my wife introduced me to WordPress and the concept of Open Source. With a little research, we completely revamped the system and we never looked back.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: I think the biggest thing I’ve learned over time and would share with myself would be to accept the help of others even if you don’t know how to repay them. They are offering for their own reasons. Be grateful, thankful, and if you can’t pay them back, pay it forward.

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: My talk: How to Stop the Robot Apocalypse: Put Your Site to Work! will be a combination of information, history, practical application and, hopefully, some humor. By marrying my experience in graphic design, research, advertising, marketing and WordPress, we’ll cover methods and reasons that drive people to engage. The end goal is to give folks information on how to keep their sites busy generating leads with words, images and plugins.

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Beginning to intermediate designers and site managers.

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!

Speaker Spotlight: Brian Goldstein

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Brian Goldstein

Brian Goldstein hails from St Louis on the other side of our humble state. He works in a shop of three, loves all the work he does there, and is something of a sports fan. Keep reading to find out more about his work and the presentation he’s giving in June!

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: A railcar wheel nearly crushed me! I still work with my dad on railcar parts and scrap metal brokerage through my company, Gateway Railroad Dismantling (www.gatewayrailroad.com), but after that experiment I began looking for other ways to make a living. I discovered Team Treehouse and spent a few months just learning WordPress and other front end technology before landing an agency job. After about 5 months there I moved on to freelancing and have been doing so ever since.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: On my first job, when I had to handle a few legacy projects in other CMS. They got the job done but were so much more difficult to adapt, maintain, or train clients to use for themselves. The number one reason I continue to use WordPress as my platform of choice is that it is bar none the simplest CMS to empower clients to take on a site for themselves.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: Be Patient and remain coachable. I largely succeeded at the second, but becoming great at anything takes time and repetition. Oh! and go to WordCamps sooner!

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A: We have to remember that, as designers, we’re not really making products for clients – we’re making products that the client’s customers will use. The fact that the device landscape is changing and how pervasive WordPress is puts a special burden on us as WordPress designers, devs, and users to make sure what we make serves those people well. In my talk I’ll share approaches and techniques that make that easier.

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Broadly – anyone can attend. I think beginner developers can level up, more advanced developers can learn different approaches to these problems, and designers can gain an appreciation of how their designs impact what we make.

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!

Speaker Spotlight: Rebecca Haden

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Rebecca HadenRebecca Haden will be joining us again this year to talk about SEO, content, and collaborating in a distributed company using WordPress. We asked her a few questions about her work and her presentation so that you could get to know her better!

Q: How did you get started in your current field?
A: I started writing for the web in the 20th century, worked as an in-house SEO, went freelance, and now own Haden Interactive, where we build, optimize, and write for WordPress websites.

Q: Describe your ‘ah ha’ moment about WordPress?
A: We used to be platform agnostic, but we began to see that WordPress was better for our clients. It also allows us to provide the bells and whistles they want in a cost-effective manner.

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
A: Relax. It’s not as hard as you think.

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.
A:  For Saturday, Get Out of Your SEO Time Machine: practical, ethical SEO for WordPress, with data, not just tips. For Sunday, World Domination — ahem, remote worker collaboration with WP, including the most useful plugins.

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?
A: Site owners, publishers, and entrepreneurs who use WordPress.

This post is part of a multi-day series featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015. Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!