Author: Joseph Dickson

Welcome to WordCamp Riverside 2018

Here is a complete list of what to expect

Location: The event will be held at SolarMax Technology, the leading solar panel installation company in Southern California, located at 3080 12th Street Riverside, CA 92507.

Parking: When you arrive at the venue you will immediately recognize that the setup for parking is convenient and efficient.  The parking provided by SolarMax at WordCamp Riverside is free of charge, There is ample disabled parking spaces available near the entrance, there is even a port to charge an EV nearby.

Check-in: Visit the the check-in table inside the main entrance. to get your “official” WordCamp Riverside 2018 – Looking Back to Move Forward BADGE. I know, I know… “I don’t need no stinking badge,” but you do if you want to hang out here. Pick up a copy of the schedule which will show you session times and room names.

Don’t have a ticket? Purchase one now. Tickets will not be sold at the door.

Now What? Let WordCamp Riverside 2018 Begin

Network: Find someone, smile, and shake their hand and tell them you are glad to see them. I think know the rest…

Opening and Closing Ceremonies: Each day will start and end as a group to make sure we provide you with the best information possible to make WordCamp Riverside 2018 your success story.

Swagger Time: Get your WordCamp Riverside 2018 T-Shirt and other SWAG -@ the SWAG table  (look for a crowd).

Support our Sponsors: Visit the Sponsor tables and engage with them. Find out what advantages they can provide for you. They may have a solution for your business or website – make the match. 

Go Engage our Speakers: Review the schedule and select the speakers you want to interact with and then go listen, learn and engage at the appropriate times.

Snacks and Drinks: When your stomach starts to growl find yourself over to the snack and beverage station.

Lunch: Just like snacks but bigger? This will be some good stuff.  We want you awake for our afternoon sessions. There will be signs listing the selections and help to guide you as needed. Also, if you made a special selection be sure you get the right food, just ask.

Saturday’s Lunch: Panera Bread

Sunday’s Lunch: Taco Bar

Sessions: There are over overlapping Sessions both days. Each one being recorded so you don’t have to worry about missing anything. They’ll be posted later to WordPress.tv 

Sessions will be held in the Big Hair Band room and the John Hughes High room Saturday and Sunday. Check Schedule for more details.

Questions: Ask an WordCamp Riverside organizer or volunteer in Red WordCamp shirts. We’re here to help.

Word Camp Riverside 2018 is right around the corner, so it is time to bust a move to your Facebook page and get you badge on. There is one for everyone: Attendees, Speakers, Sponsors and Volunteers!

So, if you’re attending, speaking, sponsoring or volunteering for WordCamp Riverside feel free add a badge on your Facebook Profile, Twitter or wherever. It will look totally rad and give you a chance to show your camp pride.

Best of all it is easy to add; for Facebook here is what you do:

1. Go to your Facebook Page (I don’t think I had to tell you that)
2. Near your Profile Picture select “Update Profile Picture”
3. Select “Add Frame”, then search for “WordCamp Riverside”
4. Select the Frame that matches you and SAVE.

• I’M ATTENDING
• I’M SPONSORING
• I’M SPEAKING
• I’M VOLUNTEERING

That’s it, this cool WordCamp Riverside 2018 frame will magically disappear after the event. No extra work to remove the frame, just a fun way to tell others you are totally into WordCamp Riverside 2018!  

Not on Facebook? That’s okay we totally understand. Simply download your badge here and adapt it for your favorite platform or your WordPress site. 🙂

William Bay

William Bay is the Chief Flaunteprener at FlauntYourSite.com. He’s studied all kinds of SEO goodness, and what makes great web site design. On a typical day, he’ll be immersed in code, or dissecting rankings, or sneaking in a quick yoga session between client calls.
When he’s not photographing, SEO’ing, or designing, he’s dreaming about surfing the perfect peeling reef breaks in the Mentawai Islands.

William will be presenting the Session: SEO Simplified

Marc Benzakein

Marc Benzakein is the Operations Manager at ServerPress.com, the company behind DesktopServer.  Marc started programing at the age of ten when he was given access to the main frame at the university in which is father worked. In the mid 90s he caught the internet bug and helped to start up and build a small, independent ISP in Southern California working as a network administrator designing and building the network from the ground up. It quickly became one of the fastest growing regional ISPs in California. He has been involved in almost every aspect of technology throughout. In 2009, he discovered WordPress Development; first for his own purposes and then for clients.

Marc will be presenting the Session:  From v1.0 to Infinity (and Beyond)
and will be a part of our Panel:  Building your WordPress Focused Business

Sam Jadali

Sam is the Founder & CEO of Host Duplex and the CIO at Mandala, a digital asset exchange. As a cybersecurity researcher and crypto activist, Sam’s dedication and passion in the cloud space was alive well before the term cloud was born. He has spent the last 20 years in the hosting industry and he founded Host Duplex 9 years ago. His clients include some of the most visited WordPress sites on the internet including MacRumors and AppShopper. With his depth of knowledge in security and compliance regulations, he continually advises his clients on how to be preemptive with security while maintaining the performance they expect. An avid Big 10 fan (Go Hawkeyes), Sam escaped the Iowa cold and moved to Southern California
8 years ago. He currently resides in downtown San Diego and is learning the ropes of raising a new puppy.

Sam will be presenting the Session:  Firewalls & Data Privacy begin with audits.

Taylor Waldon

Taylor Waldon is a content writer for GiveWP, a popular WordPress plugin that allows people to accept donations on thier site.

Taylor will be presenting the Session:  Start Your SEO Strong with 4 Key Pieces of Content

Matt Kopala

Geek, engineer, world traveler, passionate developer, and father to a little girl and a little dog. Founder of @SiteDistrict and @TaskBump.

Mike will be presenting the Session:  Stop Guessing: Diagnosing & Fixing WordPress Performance

Bridget Willard

Bridget Willard is a marketing consultant who brings her teaching and accounting background together to help small businesses. She began her marketing career in construction, then worked in franchise development, nonprofits, and tech. She is especially known for her brand building for Riggins Construction and GiveWP. Bridget co-hosts WPblab with Jason Tucker — a podcast and live YouTube show on the WPwatercooler network.

Bridget will be presenting the Session:  Relationship Marketing on Twitter: Your Clients are Your Community

This group will join our other speakers for 2 days of sessions on November 3rd and 4th. We hope you’ll join us for their sessions. View the Full Schedule Here & Get your ticket today!

WordPress is more than a platform for building websites. It provides the tools you need to target your audience and build a brand.

Loxley Browne

You built your website now what!?! How will you set it apart from the 1.8 billion others?

Loxley leads Marketing and Communications for Jusk Media where they pinpoint a client’s niche and help build their online brand.

Session: You Built a Website… Now What!?! How to Publicize Your Brand

Bill Dalessi

What good is your new website if no one sees it? Bill will provide tips and methods for  WordPress developers for building organic traffic to your site.

Anyone can pay for advertising. Why not learn how to get the search engines to work with you?

Bill is an SEO Analyst with twenty years of experience and owns WebsitePromoters

Session: SEO for WordPress developers

Amy Hall

MailChimp is the most popular email marketing service and WordPress the most popular platform for building websites.

Amy will show you how to integrate both platforms and generate leads.

Amy is an designer, developer and MailChimp expert. She’s also a WordPress educator at MiraCosta College.

Session: WordPress and MailChimp go together like Peanut Butter and Bananas

Geno Quiroz

Blogging plays a crucial role in bringing value to your website. Geno will present the benefits of blogging for authority and provide tips for getting the most out of each post.

Geno is the owner of Monterey Premier and builds Divi tutorials at Quiroz.co

Session: Reaping the Benefits of Blogging for Brand Authority, SEO, Exposure, and more

Check back soon for the next round of speaker announcements! While you’re at it, purchase a ticket to WordCamp Riverside 2018 if you haven’t already.

This group will join our other speakers for 2 days of sessions on November 3rd and 4th. We hope you’ll join us for their sessions. View the Full Schedule Here & Get your ticket today!

Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada.

Okay now that I’ve got your attention with an needlessly obscure and campy 80’s sci-fi reference here’s round three of our WordCamp Riverside 2018 speakers.

Chris Aldrich

With the increasing toxicity on Twitter, Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, algorithmic feeds, and a myriad of other problems. Walled gardens have trapped us with the promise of a “free” while addicting us to their products at the cost of our happiness, sense of self, sanity, and privacy.

Chris uses IndieWeb technologies in conjunction with WordPress as a replacement for his social presence while still allowing easy interaction with friends, family, and colleagues online. Allowing him to democratize social media.

Chris is a a biomedical engineer and strong advocate of the IndieWeb movement.

Session: The web is my social network: How I use WordPress to create the social platform I want (and you can too!)

Amber Hewitt

There are thousands of WordPress themes out there and finding the right one for your website can be difficult. Is a free theme any good? Is it worth buying a premium theme? Will it work?

Amber talks about what to look for and what to avoid in your search for a good quality theme. The right one will display your content beautifully, be responsive, load quickly, and have the features you need for your site.

Amber is a graphic designer, web developer and photographer with over 15 years of entrepreneurship experience with her company Graphicgoo.

Session: Perfect Match: Choosing a Theme for your WordPress Website

Alicia St Rose

We’ve all been there. Maybe it was a live group setting or a video conference. Someone drops a term, everyone else nods knowingly, your anxiety rises as you realize you’ve NEVER heard of this thing, that you SHOULD have heard of before! Everyone keeps nodding as the speaker rambles on about this term. You nod, too. You feel like a fraud, an imposter.

Alicia will deconstruct Imposters Syndrome and give you a new mindset to try out, The Dunno Doctrine.

Alicia is passionate about WordPress and inspiring those who use it. You’ll find her attending or speaking at many Southern California WordCamps and co-organizing the South Central Coast WordPress Adventure Group.

Session: Assassinate the Imposter: Eliminating Imposters Syndrome once and for all!

Leo Postovoit with David Nuon

On the quest to share content creation’s history, we also decided to make something. Something that was extremely accessible for both people and machines. Here’s our weird, wild journey of our attempt to create the “Most Compatible Thing ,” built for legacy support by design. Yes, there will be GIFs.

Powered by the magic of WordPress and Gutenberg, Leo and David used lots of pixelcraft and a custom web server to create paired experiences for each media. From modern headless future-facing web technologies to the GOPHER protocol, from Twitter bots to TTYs, from phone calls to a snail mail service, we’ve got a story to share that we hope will last and be preserved. All you gotta do is look for it.

Session: Rendering Gutenberg Content in Native Experiences, from Faxes to Virtual Reality

Check back soon for the next round of speaker announcements! While you’re at it, purchase a ticket to WordCamp Riverside 2018 if you haven’t already.

After attending my first conference at WordCamp Orange County in 2014 and watching the volunteer speakers passion for design, business, and web development I craved sharing my own experiences, but my fear of public speaking always kept me from submitting a talk.

I faced them head on at WordCamp Riverside 2017 and it turned out to be the perfect venue. I chose a topic that I knew very deeply and spoke conversationally. It was exactly like chatting among a group of friends.

“Public speaking is adjacent to Papyrus as one of my greatest fears.”

Joseph Dickson

My tips for creating a successful session

Choose a WordPress related topic you already know deeply and could chat about informally over coffee. Prepare your talk by creating a timeline or loose script. I like to draw up a simple outline a month ahead and chat into a webcam for thirty minutes then re-watch while taking notes for refinement.

Prepare your slide presentation only after you’ve tested an outline in front of a camera or mirror. I always find that I try to cram too much into my slides only to toss half of them out after a few rehearsals.

Run though your finished presentation a few times about a week before WordCamp. You’ll be surprised how easily everything starts to flow almost automatically from start to finish.

Remember you’re among friends

• WordCamp attendees know speakers are volunteers and don’t expect perfection.
• WordCamp is an informal affair. Business attire is optional.
• You’re speaking among professionals like yourself.
• Most importantly, a session is only 30-45 minutes long.

Interested in speaking at WordCamp Riverside? Submit a presentation topic.