Speaker’s Presentation Slides

For your convenience, here are the presentation slides that were sent in to us by the speakers. We will keep this list updated as any more are sent in.

Keynote: Connections by Carrie Dils

All Users

Essential SEO for Bloggers and Content Developers by Leah Quintal
Optimizing Your Images to Improve Site Performance and SEO by Steve Mortiboy
Monsters of WordPress by Kyle Bondo
Staying Connected: Securing Your WordPress Website by Ray Mitchell
Supercharge Your WordPress Site with Jetpack by Chase Livingston
The Goldilocks Zone: Finding the Perfect Length for Blog Posts by Sarah Giavedoni and Jim MacKenzie
Avoid Embarrassing and Costly WordPress Mistakes by Charlie Sasser
See One Do One Teach One: Making Videos with iPad by Judi Knight

Business

SEO goes Local by Rich Owings
A Look Behind the Curtain by Boomer Sassmann
Customer Service and the Freelancer by Adam Sewell
Resources and Lessons for using WordPress in your business by Steven Slack
Online Writing Best Practices by Mark Bloom
Moving Up the Food Chain: Finding and Landing Big Projects by Bill Gadless
How to Optimize Contact Forms by Kimberly Daggerhart

Design & Front-End

Website Design with UX in Mind by Melissa Eggleston
Make WordPress Your Own With Child Themes by Taylor Bare
Demystifying Accessible WordPress Websites by Nancy Thanki
A Need For Speed: Performance Driven Front End Development by Allen Moore
Listen to your users — Your data pipeline by Jeff Bowen
Technical Support For Graphic Designers by Bill and Rhonda Sterrett
Responsive Images in WordPress by Adam Smith
WordPress Theme Building Blocks by Jonathan Ross

Developer

Debugging in PHP by Micah Wood
Put a little Backbone in your WordPress by Adam Silverstein
Turn Your Code Into A Plugin by Michael Hull
Emphatic WordPress Development by Kyle Evans
Using WordPress as a SaaS Platform by Thomas Griffin

Team WordCamp Does It Again

We’re still hearing from everyone how much you enjoyed WordCamp this year, and we love all of the stories of business and personal connections that were made all surrounding our love of WordPress. This makes all the work that goes into WordCamp worth every minute.

Speaking of work, we really need to thank all of the people that made this conference happen. We’re grateful to our organizers and volunteers who made this event possible.

The Organizer Committee is:
Lydia Roberts (our fearless leader!)
Julien Melissas
Steven Slack
Boomer Sassmann
Corey Bullman
Lisa McAlpine
Denise Wilson
Jeff Bowen
Alicia Murray
Rich Owings
John Dorner.

Read more about the organizers here!

WordCamp Organizing team waving at you

And, a shout out to all of our amazing volunteers who sacrificed their time and talents to pitch in anywhere it was needed. We had volunteers design our logo and banners, reach out through social media, moderate speaker’s presentations, staff the registration table, navigate parking, help at the Happiness Bar — you name it, we had a volunteer for it.  THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS! We are so grateful for your humble service.

Our volunteers:

Ethan Shepherd
Donna Donnelly
Tracey Rabjohns
Elizabeth Banks
Ann-Marie McBride
Gary Heisey
Sally Guerard
Noah Hall
Janice Lierz
Audra Gaiziunas
Matt Hoyle
Lewis Dahm
Steffi Rausch
Jason Johnson
Jamie King
Shantanu Suman
Marisa Falcigno
Chris Sparks
Michael Hull
Laurel Scherer
Sarah Benoit
Daryl Houston
Alicia Kryworuka
Kevin Koehler

2015-WordCamp-Asheville---General-(hi-res)-6074 2015-WordCamp-Asheville---General-(hi-res)-6077 2015-WordCamp-Asheville---General-(hi-res)-6634 2015-WordCamp-Asheville---General-(hi-res)-8164

We are so lucky to have such an enthusiastic, dedicated group. Thanks again to everyone for making WordCamp Asheville a success!

Great First Day!

Day one of WordCamp Asheville 2015 is a wrap!

2015 WordCamp Asheville (sm)Look at all of these amazing people who came out to meet new friends, make business connections, and learn how to grow their businesses using WordPress.

Bring on day two!

Thank You, Sponsors!

We’re so excited to have sold out this year and want to thank our sponsors, without whom, we couldn’t put on such an amazing conference. Be sure to visit their links to check out what they have to offer to our amazing WordPress community!

Platinum & Outstanding Sponsors

Pantheon



Gold Sponsors


Superb Sponsors

Splendid Sponsors


Bronze Sponsors


In-Kind Sponsors


Small Business Sponsors

Cake Websites and More
Creative Original
JB Media Group
Open Door Design Studio
Status Forward
Treetop Interactive

Thank You, Pantheon – Our Platinum Sponsor!

We want to give a special thank you to our partners at Pantheon for being this year’s Platinum Sponsor! They are a big part in what has made this amazing conference possible for so many people!

Be sure to visit their site and learn more about their website management platform services.

Pantheon

Pantheon includes all of the tools professional developers need to build best-practice sites—like staging environments, version control, backups and workflow. Powering 80,000+ sites with hundreds of millions of page views, Pantheon’s container-based infrastructure allows you to launch websites faster, without worrying about traffic spikes, security or performance. It’s free in development. You can scale in software on the same infrastructure from day one, and never touch a server again.

Important Details for Attendees

WordCamp is coming up fast! Attendees: The following are all the nitty gritty details you need to know about getting here, parking, the after-party, and other details!

Location

The Highsmith Student Union is on the UNC Asheville campus located in North Asheville. Check out our Location page for specific directions on how to approach the parking lots. You will park on Founders Drive off of W.T. Weaver Blvd. A volunteer will be on site to show you how to enter Highsmith Student Union after you park.
View detailed directions and a campus map »

Registration – 8am Saturday

The registration desk is located on the lower level of Highsmith Student Union. Give your name at the desk and you’ll be given your badge and t-shirt. 

A breakfast snack will be available during this time, so grab some food and that all-important cup of coffee!

 WiFi

Please allow a few extra minutes in the morning to get set up on UNCA’s WiFi network. You can save time by getting the WiFi password in advance. Check your email for directions that we’ve created for you. If you have trouble with these directions, please go to the Happiness Bar in the open food court area for help.

After Party!icon-2015-beer

Following each day’s sessions will be a casual gathering at The Wedge in the River Arts District. The Wedge is frequented by food trucks so you should be able to get a snack or dinner here as well.
Get Directions to the Wedge »

Things to Do In Asheville

Asheville
Summer is a great time to be in Asheville! We’ve put together a list of things to do for those of you who aren’t familiar with the town we live in, work in, and LOVE.

Come to Asheville because of WordCamp, stay in Asheville because of the the people, the lifestyle, and of course, the mountains!

If you have some extra time surrounding your visit for WordCamp, here are some top things to do:

Beer

You can’t come to Asheville without hearing about (and tasting!) beer. Here’s a great video explaining the South Slope with an interview from AshVegas’ Jason Sanford.

Nightlife

While we’re going to have a few kickin’ after parties, if you can’t make them, or have extra time to spend in Asheville, check out all that our nightlife scene has to offer.

Food

It’s best to come hungry to Asheville as it’s definitely a foodie paradise. There are tons of options and many restaurants use locally sourced food. Explore Asheville’s Foodtopia site is a great source for information about where to eat — or use this guide to search based on cuisine or neighborhood.

The Biltmore House

Visitors young and old love the Biltmore House.  This stately mansion boasts 250 rooms (34 family and guest bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces) and is home to some of the best views in Asheville. There’s the house, the grounds and gardens, and a winery all on site.  (WordCamp attendees are getting a coupon code for discounted admission!)

Watering Holes

Asheville (and the surrounding area) has tons of places to cool off on a hot day. Check out this list of awesome area swimming holes.

Shopping

There are plenty of places to shop including many eclectic stores right in downtown Asheville and there is a brand new outlet mall that opened up — complete with a store that sells only beef jerky!

Here are some great local websites if you want to know more about Asheville:
AshVegas.com
MountainXpress
Asheville Tourism Website
Asheville Citizen-Times

Schedule is Live

The official schedule is live and lists an impressive lineup of topics from talented presenters who love WordPress.

Here’s a quick reminder of how WordCamp Asheville is set up:

Friday, July 24 is PreCamp Beginner’s Day (requires that you purchased the PreCamp + WordCamp ticket)
Saturday and Sunday, July 25-26 are WordCamp session days and after parties (more details on the after parties to come)

The schedule is broken down by track, so you can easily see what’s available, but don’t feel like you have to stay in one track. We encourage people to go to any session they like.

We’re really excited about the sessions this year and the speakers are gearing up for some great conversations!


See the Schedule Now


Sold out!

It took just under two weeks, but all tickets for PreCamp and WordCamp are SOLD. We’re thrilled that the Asheville WordPress community responded so quickly. We’re putting together a great conference, have amazing speakers lined up, and now we have YOU to connect with at the end of July.

If you missed out on a ticket, sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Twitter and Facebook so you don’t miss our future announcements. You can also check out our social wall to follow along. And, all sessions are being videoed and will be shared for free on WordPress.tv after the conference. If you’re in the area, please join us at our local meetup group too!

Keynote Speaker: Carrie Dils

carrie-dils-headshotWe’re thrilled to announce Carrie Dils as our keynote speaker this year. Carrie is a familiar voice to the WordPress community: she regularly speaks, blogs, and podcasts about website development. Her openness and commitment to sharing knowledge freely with others caught our eye as the perfect person to open this year’s conference.

Hailing from Fort Worth, Texas, Carrie is a WordPress-loving freelance developer. She’s been helping businesses craft online identities since 1998 and enjoys creating sites that look great on the outside and work well on the inside. The daughter of an educator and computer scientist, Carrie is always about the business of learning more and teaching others as she goes. She blogs regularly about WordPress and the business of freelancing at carriedils.com. When she’s not behind a computer, she’s likely reading a book, running after her dogs, or enjoying a tasty dish with her husband.

Join us this year for WordCamp and meet Carrie!