Brad Williams Blog» Speaking

I’m Speaking at WordCamp Las Vegas 2011!

Brad — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:00:27 +0000

This weekend I will be speaking at WordCamp Las Vegas!

I’ll be giving a WordPress for Beginners presentation, showing new WP users just how easy it is to write and manage content in WordPress. I’m also going to cover basic plugin and theme installation and recommendations.

This will be my first time attending this WordCamp, but I’ve heard great things about it. The event is being organized by one of my good WordPress friends John Hawkins. I’m really looking forward to seeing a lot of my West Coast WordPress friends this weekend!

If you plan on attending make sure to track me down and say hi!

I’m Speaking at WordCamp San Francisco 2011 This Weekend!

Brad — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:30:32 +0000

This weekend I’m attending, and speaking at, WordCamp San Francisco 2011!

I’ll be a part of the Security Showdown panel with Mark Jaquith and Jon Cave. We’ll be performing live plugin security audits on submitted plugins and discussing best practices for securing your plugins and themes.

WordCamp SF is the biggest WordCamp of the year. It’s literally a who’s who of the WordPress Community and I can’t wait to be back this year!

If you plan on attending make sure you track me down and say hi, I might even have a couple items to give away! :)

WordCamp Phoenix 2011 Recap

Brad — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:30:34 +0000

Last weekend I attended one of the best WordCamps I have ever been to, WordCamp Phoenix 2011! I was joined by April, Brian, and Scott of WebDevStudios. The event was hosted in the beautiful town of Chandler, AZ by some amazing organizers.

During our time in Phoenix I had the opportunity to check out Gangplank. I can’t speak highly enough about the amazing setup they have and was truly inspired. Gangplank is a collaborative coworking space with a major twist, there are no fees to work. Just show up, plug in and start working.

At the event I gave a presentation on WordPress End-User Security with Dre Armeda. Dre is the co-founder of Sucuri.net and truly passionate about security so it was great to collaborate with him on the presentation. Check out the slides from our presentation below:

WordPress End-User Security

I also had the pleasure of doing a video interview with Ryan Imel of WPCandy.com. We discussed WebDevStudios, working with WordPress, my new plugin development book, and more! Check out the interview below:

The event was a huge success and I couldn’t believe how many of my friends in the WordPress community attended. Attendees included Lisa Sabin-Wilson, Dre Armeda and Toni Perez of CubicTwo, Ptah Dunbar, Matt Danner and Cory Miller of iThemes, Amanda Blum, Michael Torbert, Steve Mortiboy, Josh and Sally Strebel of Page.ly, the 9seeds crew of John Hawkins, Shayne Sanderson, and Todd Huesh, Grant and Clay Griffiths of Headway, Boone Gorges, John James Jacoby, Ryan and Crystal Duff, Matt Martz, Mark Jaquith, Andrew Nacin, Pete Mall, Danielle Morrill, Jonathan Davis of the Shopp plugin, Ryan Imel of WPCandy.com, Stephanie Leary, Brandon Dove, Andrew Norcross, and many more I’m sure I forgot.

I had an amazing time at WordCamp Phoenix, hung out with some great WordPress addicts like myself, and enjoyed the sweet January Phoenix weather. This will certainly be an event I plan on attending again in the future!

And now for the chaos:

WordCamp Philly 2010 Was A Huge Success!

Brad — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:02:50 +0000

WordCamp Philly 2010, the inaugural Philadelphia WordCamp, was last Saturday and was a huge success! I was lucky enough to be one of the organizers, along with Anthony Bubel and Marilyn Moran, and couldn’t be happier with how the event turned out.

We had an amazing lineup of speakers and topics for the event. We also had some awesome sponsors step up and help making this event a great success.

The event was held at Alter Hall in the Fox School of Business building. This building was absolutely amazing! The technology in each room was superb and made for a flawless day of presentations, slides, and even the official WordCamp Philly soundtrack!

The entire WebDevStudios crew almost attended (we were missing Scotty B), but the rest of the team was in attendence and myself, Brian Messenlehner, Chris Cochran, and Ronald Huereca all gave presentations.

There were also many of my WordPress friends in attendance including Ptah Dundar, Hal Stern, Michael Torbert, Steve Mortiboy, Jane Wells, Andrew Nacin, Doug Stewart, Jayvie Canono, Ryan Duff, Ted Mann, and many others I’m sure I am forgetting.

Check out pictures from the event below (photo credit to @tweetsfromchris):

WordCamp Philly is Tomorrow!

Brad — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:00:48 +0000

Tomorrow is the inaugural WordCamp Philly! I’m co-organizing the event and can’t wait to kick it off!

We have an amazing lineup of speakers for the event including Ronald Huereca of WDS giving a presentation on WordPress and Ajax. I’m giving a presentation with Brian Messenlehner, the other co-founder of WDS, on Spooky WordPress: Disturbingly Brilliant Uses of WP.

We have four tracks (two beginner and two advanced) and an unconference room running ad hoc discussions and presentations. We’re giving away some amazing prizes and even have a costume contest (with prizes!) for the after party.

This is going to be an amazing WordCamp, and hopefully the start of an annual tradition in Philly. I’ll be sure to post a recap after the event with pictures.

BlogWorld Expo 2010 Recap! What Happens in Vegas…

Brad — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:18:56 +0000

Last week I attended BlogWorld Expo 2010 in beautiful (and warm!) Las Vegas with April, Brian, and Robin! This was my first visit to Las Vegas so I was very excited for the trip. My Company (WDS) redesigned the BlogWorld.com website and also sponsored the event.

I was lucky enough to record LIVE episodes of the SitePoint podcast at the event! Kevin Yank flew all the way from Sydney, Australia, along with Shayne Tilley and Luke Cuthbertson, to represent the launch of the new SitePoint venture Learnable! Patrick and Stephan, the other two hosts, were also there so we recorded a bunch of one-on-one interviews with attendees and also did a live recording with all four hosts! It was awesome hanging with sitepoint and podcast crew.

We also hung out with some great WordPress friends! Josh and Sally from Page.ly attended (and had a killer house party!). John Hawkins of 9seeds was the resident “local” giving us tips on places to check out and eat. Syed Balkhi of WPBeginner.com was also there and did a great interview with me. We also hung out with Andrew Powers and Adam Munns of PageLines.com

We had a WordPress dinner Saturday night with Lisa Sabin-Wilson and her husband Chris, Grant Griffiths and Clay from Headway Themes, Cory Miller and Matt Danner from iThemes, and I even met Brian Layman (who mentioned WDS in his presentation!), and Tracy Childers of Wishlist Member.

I was also invited to a few hotel suite parties by Darren Rowse of Problogger.com and SitePoint/Learnable. There is nothing quite like a Vegas hotel party!

Overall I had an amazing time! Can’t wait to attend next year! A photo gallery from the adventure is below:

Live SitePoint Podcast at BlogWorld Expo 2010!

Brad — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 13:56:47 +0000

Thursday kicks off BlogWorld Expo 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. This year the entire SitePoint Podcast team (including myself) will be doing a live show! The live show is scheduled for Friday, October 15th at 2:00PM Pacific Time. If you are attending BlogWorld make sure you stop by and say hi to the podcast team!

If you can’t attend BlogWorld this year, don’t worry! The show will be livestreamed on the SitePoint Podcast’s USTREAM channel. It will also be released in the podcast feed as usual next week.

I am also doing a book signing for Professional WordPress at the event!

WordCamp Mid-Atlantic 2010 Recap

Brad — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 17:01:24 +0000

Last weekend I attended WordCamp Mid-Atlantic 2010 in Baltimore, MD and had a blast! I was joined by Brian and Chris from WDS.

I attended some really amazing presentations. Jake Goldman gave a great talk on customizing the WordPress admin dashboard. I also enjoyed Andrew Nacin’s presentation on Advanced WordPress APIs. I even learned about a few WP functions I have never heard of.

One of the best moments was the last keynote by Jane Wells. Jane gave the keynote via Skype video while driving down the road ( Ryan Boren was driving ). Not only was it a great interview but it really demonstrated where technology is at these days. Amazing!

I had a great time hanging out with Cory Miller, Lisa Sabin-Wilson, Steve Mortiboy, Aaron Brazell, Ryan Duff, Andrew Nacin, Jake Goldman, Jayvie Canono, Joel Fisher, Scott K Clark, Scott Ellis, and many more I’m sure I am forgetting.

My presentation was on WordPress Security and can be found below:

WordCamp Mid-Atlantic WordPress Security

WordCamp Mid-Atlantic 2010 Here I Come!

Brad — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:00:24 +0000

I’m heading to WordCamp Mid-Atlantic today (Friday) in Baltimore! This WordCamp has a special place in my heart, as last year was the first WC I attended and presented at! It’s amazing how much has changed in just a year and a half. I’ll be attending with Brian Messenlehner and Chris Cochran.

I’m speaking on WordPress Security (surprise!) and have a few giveaways that might involve a book on WordPress! This is one presentation that I think should be given at every WordCamp, because it’s that important.

Security is a vital part of any website. I’ll cover the most current tips and tricks, top 10 WP security tips, recommended plugins, hosting consideration, and even an example of a popular hack and how it works.

If you’re attending make sure to track me down. I love talking WordPress as much as a cold beer!

Free WordPress Security Webinar Today!

Brad — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:00:32 +0000

Today I’m giving a free WordPress Security Webinar with Cory Miller and the WebDesign.com team. The live screencast starts at 12pm EDT (11am CDT).

I plan on demoing a hacked website to show what hacks are capable of. I will also be covering top security tips and plugins for your websites and blogs. And lastly we’ll talk about how to clean up your website after a hack occurs. I will also be giving away some copies of Professional WordPress!

If you run a WordPress powered website these tips are not to be missed!