Speakers | WordCamp Whistler

Speakers

We’re in the process of accepting proposals for speakers. If you’re interested in giving a talk, please fill out the speaker submission form.

As we confirm speakers, we’ll slowly update this page and add the appropriate biographies.

Keynote Speaker

Lorelle VanFossen

Topic: WordPress Power User Tips

We’re very thrilled to be having Lorelle VanFossen as our keynote speaker. The name Lorelle is practically synonymous with the term WordPress, and she’s a valued voice in the WordPress community.

Lorelle will be making the trek up from Portland, Oregon, and will be helping to open the very first WordCamp Whistler.

BIO: Lorelle VanFossen, of Lorelle on WordPress, is known as a “blog evangelist” and number one fan of WordPress. A public speaker, instructor, writer, and consultant on web strategies, content generation, community building, web design, and blogging, she’s known for her dynamic presentations that deliver the facts in a “kick-ass” fashion.

She is an outspoken leader of web standards, accessibility standards and usability, and travels extensively to consult and present programs and workshops as a program leader, teacher and public speaker on web design, standards, blogging, and writing. Recently, Lorelle presented keynotes and programs at WordCamp 2007, WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco, WordCamp Portland in Oregon, Podcamp and WordCamp Hawaii, WordCamp Dallas, WordCamp Israel in Tel Aviv (English) (you can read some of the WordPress Tips presented at the program), SOBCon - the Successful and Outstanding Blogger Conference in Chicago in 2007 and 2008 (and 2009), and many other blogging conferences.

Blogging and web publishing since 1994, Lorelle shows businesses and educational institutions how they can tweak and focus their technology to make their business more efficient, more profitable, and more user-friendly.

Photos by Donncha.

WordCamp Speakers

Andy Peatling

Topic: BuddyPress

Andy will be speaking about BuddyPress, the first open-source social network built on top of WordPress. Andy was the primary developer of BuddyPress, and this will be his first major talk after officially releasing BuddyPress to the world in mid-December.

BIO: Originally from the UK, Andy had no trouble adapting to the rain soaked life of Vancouver, BC where he now resides. Andy likes to hop between coding and designing, sometimes mixing the two together and making his code look “pretty.” He has been tinkering with WordPress for a number of years both in theme design and plugin development. When away from his screen, Andy loves to watch and play all kinds of sports. Being in Canada, hockey holds a special place in his heart.

Dave Olson

Topic: Are you Worthy?

The mighty power of web publishing should not be taken lightly. Traditionally, for stories to reach an audience required navigating layers levels or publishers, printers, editors, distributors but with Wordpress, anyone can spread stories to a worldwide audience, instantly, for almost free. Awesome! But do you deserve this power? Of course you do - as long as you make something remarkable.

To make your work rise to the top requires diligent honing of your craft - from writing to photography. Writer and documentarian Dave Olson (AKA uncleweed) will offer reasons to push yourself to create art, as well as share practical methods for finding inspiration and following through to publication.

By exploring other forms of grassroots publishing, and exploring real-life WP examples, you’ll leave with a keen sense of your place in the history of personal expression, and a renewed vigor for making your best stuff ever.

BIO: Poet, podcaster, pundit, and chronic documentarian, Dave Thorvald Olson enjoys making arts and crafts, listening to vinyl albums, wandering in the forest, and soaking in hot springs.

Dave has traveled to 22 countries, worked as a mushroom farmer, fire juggler, and submarine tour guide, followed the Grateful Dead, and made a feature-length documentary film called HempenRoad. After stints at Raincity Studios, happyfrog and Elastic Path, Dave joined MovieSet.com to help create new ways to connect film fans and film-makers

Published in numerous magazines, journals, and books, Dave is most proud of his handmade poetry chapbooks, static montage art, and international audio hi-jinks. He publishes podcasts, poetry, and ephemera at a variety of sites - you can find them, if you are worthy.

Photo by Jeremy Crowle

Dale Mugford

Topic: WordPress On The Go

Dale will be talking about all things mobile and WordPress, including the past, present, and future outlook on delivering content to mobile visitors and taking WordPress with you on the go easily.

Dale Mugford is a co-founder of BraveNewCode, a new web design and development company, but has been working with the web on and off for nearly 15 years. He first starting crafting websites at the tender age of 14, including pioneering web-based radio broadcasting with Real Networks. He co-created the most popular mobile WordPress plugin, WPtouch with event co-ordinator Duane Storey, while his work with BraveNewCode continues to collect a wide variety of clientele ranging from artists and authors to major media companies. BraveNewCode was recently nominated for its work on up and coming Country artist Jessie Farrell’s website.

John Biehler

Topic: How To Sex Up Your Blog With Photos And Video

We’re going to demonstrate a number of interesting ways of integrating various forms of media into your WordPress site. Using a number of different plugins and theme edits, John will show you how to add a Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo and other forms of media content to your site beyond simply embedding the links in a post. During the talk, a fresh WordPress site will be built from the ground up incorporating the items discussed.

BIO: John Biehler has been blogging in one form or another since the mid-nineties when he first wrote about building a homemade video arcade cabinet on the balcony of his West End apartment. He’s been interested in photography and filmmaking since high school and has been dabbling with them both ever since when he’s not messing with his iPhone or some other fancy piece of technology.

Quentin Muhlert

Topic: WordPress and Search Engine Optimization - Bringing Traffic To Your Blog

Quentin will be sharing some of his experiences implementing SEO campaigns on a multitude of CMS and blogging systems. He’ll also be going over some of the features that make wordpress uniquely well-suited to quick and easy implementation of SEO best-practices, and some of the plugins and tools anyone can use to help their site function and rank well. 6Smarketing.com was also recently migrated from Expression Engine to the Wordpress platform and Quentin will be talking about why this move was made, and the lessons learned in the process from a marketing and admin standpoint. There will also be a brief Q and A session after the talk.

BIO: Quentin Muhlert is the lead Search Engine Optimization (SEO) researcher for 6S Marketing Inc, a Vancouver based Internet Marketing firm.

Morten Rand-Hendriksen

Topic: Using WordPress In Alternate Configurations

Morten is an expert in all things WordPress, and will be talking about various ways to use WordPress in alternate configurations.

Born and raised in Norway, Morten moved to Vancouver in 2002 and founded Pink & Yellow Media – a design company providing services to small business and broadcasters. Since 2007 he has been working almost exclusively with WordPress as the CMS for his client sites and he is currently working on a series of articles as well as a foundation theme (with the humble working title “The God Theme”) to make the process of using WordPress as a CMS available and accessible for people with limited programming skills.

Morten is the author of Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Expression Web 2 in 24 Hours, a regular contributor to the Microsoft Expression Newsletter and a 2009 Microsoft MVP. He writes extensively on WordPress, CSS and Expression Web on his blog Design Is Philosophy (www.designisphilosophy.com).

Tris Hussey

Topic: Using WordPress as a Generic Content Management system (CMS)

Tris will be speaking about how to use WordPress as a generic content management system.

Long-time blogger and social media expert, Tris got his start in tech running laboratories and doing tech support. After years of launching websites for the pharmaceutical industry, Tris jumped into blogging on a whim and hasn’t stopped yet. One of Canada’s first professional bloggers and recognized as a leading expert in both social media and business blogging, Tris continues to charge ahead pushing the edges of social media with whatever new technology catches his eye. Tris is sought after as a guest blogger on leading blogs including ZDNet and is writing an introduction to blogging book due out in mid-2009.

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