Wrapping Up WordCamp Kent 2019

With two days of learning and connecting with the speakers, volunteers, and attendees, WordCamp Kent 2019 went by quickly. With a ’90s theme, an emphasis on building healthy communities, and many thoughtful insights shared between WordPress users, it was a memorable weekend!

Our keynote speaker Michelle Ames, head of Customer Success at GiveWP.com, set the feel-good tone for the event on Saturday morning with her session, The Care and Feeding of the WordPress Community: Me, You & Us. She stressed the importance of self-care and practical ways to care for others in the WordPress community and the community as a whole. It was a candid and genuine reminder that we need to ensure our own wellbeing before we can throw ourselves into our work and into helping others.

Our Keynote Speaker Michelle Ames

After that, the event broke into three tracks — WordPress 101, Freelancers, and Developers. Joe Querin led the WordPress 101 sessions for the day which included an overview of WordPress, the differences between themes and plugins, and a dive into Gutenberg. 

In the Freelancer track, Rene Morozowich’s Freelancer Finances 101 gave us tips and simple strategies to keep our business’s finances organized. Nathan Ingram, Host at iThemes Training, shared personal examples of mistakes that freelancers make and how to prevent them. After lunch, the Freelancer sessions continued with empowering and helpful sessions for running your business from Lee Drozak, Paul Oyler, and Chris Edwards

In the Developer track, Steve Grunwell shed light on PHP namespaces and how to incorporate them into plugins and themes. Later that day, he also discussed how developers can test their plugins and themes. Jeremy Ward introduced us to Composer to help with project workflow and Seth Alling offered his expertise on managing plugin dependencies. Steve, Jeremy, and Seth held an informal panel on professional development to wrap up the day for the developer track.

That evening, we ventured to MADCAP BREW CO. for some fun, food from the The Pierogi Lady, and connecting with other attendees, speakers, and volunteers. There’s no better way to unwind after a full conference day than a game of giant Jenga!

Everyone was ready to roll on Sunday morning after a few words from lead organizer Megan Rose. The day’s agenda was broken into tracks for power users and business owners, developers, and SEO/Marketing. 

Each session in the Users/Business track tackled a different aspect of business building and strategizing. Michael Temple of Web2Gold shared his insights for developing a value-based pricing system. Nathan Ingram followed with a game-ified presentation that provided a step-by-step approach to dealing with problem clients.

Nathan Ingram on how to deal with difficult clients

For lunch on Sunday, we broke into smaller groups that each ventured to a nearby restaurant. This was a welcome chance to network and get to know our fellow WordCampers a bit better!

Our SEO/Marketing group headed to lunch

In the Users/Business track afternoon sessions, we heard George J. Mount’s advice for scaling how you network and how to expand on traditional networking tactics. Bill Rice shared his practical tips for improving lead generation through website content and design. To close out the day, we dove into the world of podcasting with Dave Jackson of the School of Podcasting.

Sunday’s Developer sessions covered everything from developing a design system with Tim McKenna to WordPress security tactics with John Aron. Abby Buzon showed us how to create anything in WordPress using Beaver Themer and Pods. Accessibility was also a focus, with sessions from Mason Arnold and Eric Malcolm on designing and developing websites that are friendly for all users.

In the marketing and SEO track, our speakers shared their knowledge on how to enhance a website’s presence. In a “what not to do” fashion, William Bergmann discussed the key elements in the planning and development of a WordPress site. Angela Bergmann and Josh Gellock provided a solid foundation for understanding and implementing SEO. Stoney deGeyter brought his years of digital marketing experience to his session on long-term success on the web. Sandro Galindo added his marketing expertise in his overview of Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

All of the speakers deserve another round of applause and thank-you. We truly appreciate their time in preparing and presenting, and in answering all of our questions. Thank you to our generous sponsors — WooCommerce, Jetpack, Bluehost, Liquid Web, A2 Hosting, GoDaddy, Green Geeks, DreamHost, KHM Travel Group, StickerGiant, Xplore, Unity Lab and Travel eSolutions. They allow us to put together a high-value event at an amazing venue for just $40/ticket. 

What did you love about WordCamp Kent 2019? Let us know! If you haven’t filled out the post-event feedback survey yet, you can still can! If you need the link to the survey, please let us know via the contact form

We hope to see everyone at an upcoming Meetup, but please also stay in touch via Twitter, Slack, or Facebook.

See you for our 2020 WordCamp!

What to Know About Attending WordCamp Kent 2019

WordCamp Kent is this weekend, June 15th – 16th, at the Kent State University Hotel and Conference Center. Here’s everything you need to know before heading to Kent this weekend.

Wifi

Feel free to bring your laptops, tablets and anything else to Wordcamp Kent! Wifi will be available during both days of the conference free of charge.
Connect to: KSUBallroom
Password: conference2017

Weather

The forecast is predicting rain on Saturday and Sunday in the Kent area. Please plan and pack accordingly. An umbrella is probably a good idea!

Parking

We recommend parking at the Kent Central Gateway Parking Deck located across from the hotel & conference center on South Depeyster Street
$10 per day – for Registered Hotel Guests (in-and-out privileges)
Metered street parking may also be available around the Hotel and Conference Center.

Lunch

Lunch Saturday Noon: Taco bar lunch provided at the venue
Lunch Sunday at Noon: We will be splitting into networking groups broken out by topics (development, design, blogging, etc). The restaurant options will be:
Bricco – 62 ft. from Conference Center – Wheelchair accessible, Indoor/Outdoor seating
Panini’s – 0.1 mile from Conference Center – Wheelchair accessible, Indoor/Outdoor seating
Buffalo Wild Wings – 0.1 mi from Conference Center – Wheelchair accessible – Indoor seating only
Twisted MELTZ – 0.1 mi – Wheelchair accessible* – Indoor/Outdoor seating*

*If you have someone in the group that needs wheelchair/ramp access, please walk your group north on Depeyster to Burbick Way to get to Acorn Alley. There are steps at the Acorn Alley entrance on Erie St.

After Party

All WordCamp Kent attendees are invited to the WordCamp Kent After Party Saturday at 6 pm.

MADCAP BREW CO.
1422 Mogadore Road
Kent, OH 44240
(330) 548-9654

Each attendee will receive two tickets that can be redeemed for beer, non-alcoholic beverages, or pierogies, which will be provided by The Pierogi Lady food truck!

We will have 6 picnic tables reserved in the back of MADCAP’s event space, and there are also plenty of games on site like corn hole, pinball, ski ball and giant Jenga! There is plenty of parking on site.

So don’t miss out on this opportunity to have some fun and hang out with your fellow WordCampers, speakers, organizers and volunteers this Saturday night.

See you then and don’t forget to bring your WordCamp Kent Badge for entry.

Schedule

Expect to learn a lot during your time at Wordcamp Kent 2019. WordCamps are “un-conferences,” meaning you can feel free to leave a session or move to another if you realize the content isn’t relevant to you.

Sessions are each 45 minutes long with 15 minute breaks in between. We also encourage you to participate in the “hallway track,” networking in the hallways in between your sessions.

On Saturday, we will have three tracks: WordPress 101, Freelancers, and Developers.

On Sunday, we’ll have Users/Business tracks, Developers, and Marketing/SEO.

See a full list of sessions and entire schedule here.

We’re looking forward to seeing you at WordCamp Kent 2019! If you haven’t gotten your ticket yet, they are still available.

Our In-Kind Sponsors for 2019

This year, we’ve been extremely fortunate in the support of our WordCamp through In-Kind sponsorships. Sponsoring In-Kind for an event means getting to see exactly where your money is going.

We are incredibly grateful for our In-Kind sponsors:

Unity Lab

Unity Lab, a student-run design agency at Lorain County Community College, provided sponsorship through their students volunteering to record and edit the video for our WordCamp to be published on WordPress.tv.

Travel eSolutions

Ron and Claudiu from Travel eSolutions paid for all our event t-shirts. Their support is appreciated and we were happy to be able to provide higher quality shirts this year because of their generosity!

KHM Travel Group

KHM Travel Group is a repeat sponsor, but this year they purchased our AMAZING enamel Wapuu pins. (Check out https://wapu.us/ for more pins! Thanks for the design, James!)

Xplore

Drew from Xplore supported WordCamp Kent by paying for our printing costs. This includes everything from your badge to the directional signage and the schedules outside the room.

StickerGiant

StickerGiant provided us with the awesome sticker sheets to show off your WordCamp Kent pride!

Gold Level Sponsor Spotlight: Liquid Web

Liquid Web Logo

This post was submitted by Liquid Web, a WordCamp Kent sponsor.

For over 20 years, Liquid Web has been delivering products, services and support designed specifically for mission-critical sites, stores and applications. Known for our high-performance services and exceptional customer support, we own and manage our own core data centers and provide a diverse range of fully managed hosting offerings, including Managed WordPress, and Managed WooCommerce Hosting. Our recent acquisition of iThemes continues to evolve our service offerings to meet the ever-changing needs of our web-reliant, professional customers.

Liquid Web has a dedicated team of WordPress professionals who have been actively involved in the community for years. Beyond contributing code to the WordPress project, they’ve also been speaking at WordCamps, participating in WordPress-related groups and meetups, and creating open-sourced plugins that are used by WordPress users around the globe.

As an industry leader in customer loyalty, we’re known for our secure, reliable, fast, hassle-free hosting, backed by the Most Helpful Humans in Hosting™ (24x7x365 by phone, chat or ticket). At Liquid Web, we power content, commerce and potential for SMB entrepreneurs and the designers, developers and digital agencies who create for them. Everything we do is about being that partner you can trust.

For more information, please visit www.liquidweb.com, or subscribe to our Blog at www.liquidweb.com/blog.

Gold Level Sponsor Spotlight: GreenGeeks

GreenGeeks Logo

This post was submitted by GreenGeeks, a WordCamp Kent sponsor.

GreenGeeks is an independently owned and operated hosting provider.

Our specially engineered platform offers WordPress users web hosting that is designed for the fastest, most secure and scalable hosting available in multiple data centers. Our WordPress hosting makes deploying and managing WordPress websites easy with automatic 1-click install, managed updates, real-time security protection, SSD RAID-10 storage arrays, PowerCacher and expert 24/7 support to make for the best web hosting experience.

Since our launch in 2008, GreenGeeks has been the industry’s leading eco-friendly web hosting provider putting back 3 times the power we consume into the grid in the form of renewable energy. We are based out of Los Angeles, California with a global workforce that provides a better web hosting experience to customers from over 150 countries.

GreenGeeks is actively engaged within the WordPress community and is a proud sponsor to various WordCamps around the world.

Gold Level Sponsor Spotlight: GoDaddy

GoDaddy Logo

This post was submitted by GoDaddy, a WordCamp Kent sponsor.

GoDaddy Pro offers a robust suite of free tools to web developers & designers to help them save time managing all their clients and sites. With GoDaddy Pro, you can easily shop for your client, monitor their sites, and manage all their WordPress websites from one place. Exclusive time-saving tools let you update WordPress core, plugins and themes with one click, as well as automate WordPress backups, cloning and migrations. Get real-time performance, security and uptime monitoring across all your websites. Additionally, your free membership includes advanced 24/7 technical support.

When you pair GoDaddy Pro with GoDaddy hosting products, the benefits are even greater.

Check out the Free Tools

Gold Level Sponsor Spotlight: Bluehost

Bluehost Logo

This post was submitted by Bluehost, a WordCamp Kent sponsor.

Bluehost has been a WordPress partner since 2005 and powers over 1 million WordPress sites worldwide. Their objective is to help customers, whether novice or pro, create a thriving online presence at an affordable price. With a team of in-house tech experts available 24/7, Bluehost dedicates time and resources to providing the best support and services in the industry. Join millions of other site owners and see what Bluehost can do for you and your online presence.

Call for Volunteers – Closed!

Update, May 14 – We are very grateful to everyone that submitted a volunteer application. We have filled all of our volunteer positions and our call for volunteers is closed. If you are still interested in attending WordCamp Kent this year, tickets are available here.

Are you interested in attending WordCamp Kent for free? Are you interested in giving back to the WordPress community?

We’d love it to have you be a part of the Wordcamp Kent team! We’re currently taking applications for volunteers to help during the event.

A sample of the types of volunteers we’re looking for:

  • Registration – Check in registered attendees and hand out name tags
  • Greeter – In the mornings only, greet people at the entrances
  • Video/Cameras – Help setting up cameras and mics for WordCamp and throughout event.
  • Photographer – Take pictures throughout the event of speakers and attendees
  • Room Runners – Work with the emcees, video staff, speakers, and everyone else working in the room to keep things running smoothly
  • Miscellaneous Prep
  • Emcee / Speaker Helper – Helps Speaker setup. Introduce speakers/sessions, keep track of time.
  • Video Post Production – Help edit session videos to be uploaded to WordPress.tv

Interested? Fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch! Please hold off on purchasing your ticket to the event. Once we finalize the volunteer list, those helping with get a coupon code for a free ticket.

Meet the WordCamp Kent Speakers, Part IV

We’re thrilled to announce our lineup of speakers for WordCamp Kent 2019! Our speakers have volunteered their time to share their knowledge and expertise to the WordPress community.

Learn more about them in our Meet the Speakers series and meet them in person by joining us at WordCamp Kent, June 15-16, 2019.

Rene Morozowich

Rene is a Pittsburgh-based WordPress freelancer working with agencies and small businesses to deliver amazing websites. She loves traveling, reading, talking about money and roller skating.

Steve Grunwell

Steve Grunwell is a Senior Software Engineer at Liquid Web, working primarily on the Managed WordPress and WooCommerce platforms. Specializing in WordPress and web application development, he has a passion for teaching and contributing back to the development community through speaking, blogging, and open-source work.

When he’s not writing tests or finding new ways to automate the world around him, Steve is off spending time with his family, enjoying a fine cup of coffee, playing guitar, or otherwise getting away from the keyboard.

Nathan Ingram

Nathan is the Host at iThemes Training where he teaches WordPress and freelance business development topics via live webinar. He is also the host of the WP Business Podcast, which offers news, tools, and insights for people who build websites for clients using WordPress.

As the founder of >ADVANCE Coaching, Nathan works with WordPress solopreneurs and business owners individually and in groups to help them become more successful in their businesses.

Nathan has been a freelance web developer since 1995, and is based in Birmingham, Alabama where he has been an organizer for WordCamp Birmingham for several years. You can learn more about Nathan at nathaningram.com.

Thomas Cottrill

Owner and Founder of Ignitro, a mostly WordPress based development firm in Canton, OH, Thomas is passionate about WordPress from all angles. He loves the community that rises around it, the technology that it’s built upon, the content it can deliver, and the people it can empower.

Chris Edwards

Chris is co-owner of Data Driven Labs, a WordPress Maintenance and Marketing agency. He is a 19-year Internet marketing veteran with experience in web design & development, search engine optimization, online marketing, social media marketing, and mobile development.

Chris specializes in WordPress custom development utilizing either the Genesis Framework or underscores and is very active in the WordPress Orlando community. Chris has held development and Internet marketing positions in some of Orlando’s top technology companies.

Stoney deGeyter

TL;DR: Writer, speaker, digital marketer, dad, husband, sci-fi geek, 63% robot.

Graduating high school at the age of 16, Stoney has always had an entrepreneur spirit. In 1998 he founded Pole Position Marketing, one of the longest-running digital marketing agencies before being acquired by The Karcher Group in 2019. Stoney authored The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period! which is the perfect desk-reference for digital marketers and managers of all skill levels. He’s also been published on Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, Search Engine Journal, as well as having written thousands of blog posts and dozens of ebooks. Over the past twenty-plus years, Stoney has become a leader in the digital marketing space, helping hundreds of businesses grow their online authority through strategic and effective digital marketing strategies.

And if that’s not enough, Stoney frequently teaches digital marketing at conferences nationwide, including PubCon, Search Marketing Expo (SMX), Affiliate Summit, and can also be hired to provide in-house training to help your in-house digital marketing team.

You can reach Stoney at stoney@tkg.com or 330-493-5756 to request him to speak at your conference, seminar or workshop.

Please Note: The speakers are listed in no particular order.

Meet the WordCamp Kent 2019 Speakers, Part III

We’re thrilled to announce our lineup of speakers for WordCamp Kent 2019! Our speakers have volunteered their time to share their knowledge and expertise to the WordPress community.

Learn more about them in our Meet the Speakers series and meet them in person by joining us at WordCamp Kent, June 15-16, 2019.

Sandro Galindo

Sandro Galindo is a digital marketer focusing on search engine marketing & optimization. He just celebrated his 12th Twitterversary and was named by WKYC in 2009 as one of the 10 Most Interesting Twitterers in NE Ohio (though he’s pretty sure his mom stuffed the ballot).

He started in digital marketing by handling social media marketing for small businesses and eventually expanded into event marketing and finally search. He is the co-host of Liz & Sandro’s Marketing Podcast now in its 4th year, founder of SouperBowl CLE, a soup crawl and competition and co-founder of a nachos & margarita festival coming later this year.  

Bill Rice

Bill Rice is the Founder/CEO of Kaleidico, a digital agency focused on lead generation. Bill regularly writes and speaks about designing lead generation systems and platforms that deliver consistent sales growth.

Kaleidico’s specialty practice areas include Banking (Lending & Wealth Management), Legal (Personal Injury & Mergers and Acquisitions), Emerging Technology, and Senior Living.

Angela Bergmann

Angela Bergmann is the Lead SEO Strategist at Advance Local. She has 15+ years of experience in digital marketing, with a specific focus on SEO. She views a win based on conversion and organic growth, not increasing keyword rankings. Beyond SEO she is passionate about advocacy work, gaming, dogs, WordPress, and accessibility.

William Bergmann

William is a 38-year old semi-pro WordPress user who has been on many sides of the table: including WordPress developer, content creator, and as a Project Manager overseeing WordPress development. He is passionate about helping people leverage technology to maximize their potential, and about using WordPress as a means to democratize publishing/human expression.

Paul Oyler

Paul Oyler, the owner of Oyler Creative, builds and manages websites for small businesses, churches, organizations, and racetracks, as well as artists and bloggers.

Public speaking is important to Paul because he believes in educating others. He’s spoken on why people should care about the WordPress community, the necessity of having an emergency readiness plan, and has appeared on several podcasts.

When Paul isn’t working with clients, you can find him spending quality time with his family, reading, enjoying and listening to music, or rooting for the Buffalo Bills and Sabres, as well as the Pittsburgh Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins.

Say hi to him on Twitter at @PappyOyler and check out his website at oylercreative.com.

Jeremy Ward

A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Jeremy first got his start in web development as a hobby, when he learned to build static websites for his bands and friends. This part-time curiosity blossomed into interests in database queries and server-side languages, and by 2013, he began a full-time career in computer programming.

Today, Jeremy works as a Senior Backend Engineer at WebDevStudios, where he’s passionate about software architecture, modular design, sussing out acceptance criteria for website features, and promoting the merits of the hottest new board games.

Please Note: The speakers are listed in no particular order.

WordCamp Kent 2019 is over. Check out the next edition!