Brad Williams Blog» WordCamp

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 Survived WordCamp Philly 2011!

Brad — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:10:31 +0000

Last weekend was WordCamp Philly 2011, the second WordCamp to be held in the City of Brotherly Love!

I had the pleasure of organizing the event this year with Doug Stewart, Reed Gustow, and Anthony Bubel. The event was a huge success!

Saturday we had an amazing lineup of speakers covering four tracks and a classroom with all sorts of awesome WordPress related topics. Saturday ended with an epic after party at National Mechanics. Sunday we held a Developer Day with more hands on hacking, which is always a fun time!

Overall it was an awesome event and one I am extremely proud to have been a part of. The Philly WordPress Community really stepped up and helped put on an amazing event.

I gave a classroom style presentation titled “Creating Your First WordPress Plugin”. The slides are embedded below:

Be sure to check out the other great presentations on the official WordCamp Philly 2011 SlideShare group.

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! :)

Summer WordCamps 2011

Brad — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:47:48 +0000

It’s summer and that means time for summer WordCamps! I’ll be hitting two WordCamps this summer: WordCamp Boston and WordCamp San Francisco.

WordCamp Boston will be held on July 23rd-24th in Boston, MA. This year’s event looks to be jam packed with great speakers and sessions. The event will feature three tracks each day. On Saturday the speaker tracks will range from Development to Education and How-To. On Sunday the tracks will range from Advanced Development to Strategy and even some Design sessions.

WordCamp San Francisco will be held on August 12th-14th in San Francisco, CA. WordCamp SF really is the essential WordCamp of the year. The original WordCamp was held in SF in 2006 and has grown ever since. I had a blast last year and can’t wait to see all of my community friends again this year. I can only hope a dance off breaks out again at the after party!

I actually won’t be speaking at either event, which will be a change for me. I’m going to hang up my speaker hat until WordCamp Philly 2011 later this year. I do, however, plan on helping out at the Happiness Bar at both events.

If you plan on attending either event make sure you track me down and say hi! :)

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.

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!

WordCamp San Francisco 2010 Recap

Brad — Sun, 30 May 2010 22:00:09 +0000

WordCamp San Francisco has come and gone and here I am a month later writing a recap about it. I had an awesome time in San Francisco, not only for WordCamp, but also hanging out in California for a week!

WordCamp Day 1 was held at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. The location was really nice and had plenty of room for all 700+ attendees at the event. I attended a few sessions throughout the day, but spent most of my time (as I usually do) chatting with fellow WordPress junkies in the hallways and outside.

For lunch we had an amazing BBQ buffet and some live jazz to enjoy while we ate outside. At the end of the day Matt Mullenweg gave his annual State of the Word address. However the best part was yet to come, and that was the afterparty!

The WordCamp after party was held at the Automattic lounge on Pier 38. After passing through security (yes security) we were treated to an open bar and a nice assortment of snacks including fresh made crepes! I knew we were in trouble when the drinks were being made at about a 90% alcohol and 10% mixer ratio.

I would share all of the photos from that night, but it would look more like the credits from The Hangover, so instead I picked my favorites of the bunch to share:

Photo credits to Chris Cochran