WordCamp Chicago 2012

Announcement: WordCamp Chicago Schedule

August 13, 2012 by Heather Acton • Comments Off

The long-awaited WordCamp Chicago 2012 Schedule for 8/25 & 8/26 is up and we can’t wait for you to ogle at its goodness!

We have sessions for designers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, beginning developers, and advanced developers.

Check it out!

There will also be a Happiness Bar all day on both Saturday and Sunday, where you can get FREE help from a WordPress expert with your WordPress site.

And, a first for WordCamp Chicago, we’ll also have a Newbie Workshop all day on Sunday for those new to using WordPress. Tickets for that workshop must be reserved separately from the main WordCamp, but are free. They are also extremely limited at only 25 tickets, so that we can give all attendees at this workshop personal help and attention. You must hold a General Admission ticket to WordCamp Chicago 2012 to reserve a free ticket to this workshop. Register here.

Posted in Announcements | Comments Off

Now Presenting: Your speakers for #WCCHI 2012

July 31, 2012 by Aaron Holbrook • 3 Comments

In no particular order, here’s a glimpse at our current speaker line up:

Samuel Wood (otto)
Helen Hou-Sandi
Mika Epstein
Rachel Baker
Andy Stratton
Jason McCreary
Aaron Holbrook
Trafton Esler
Vid Luther
Bob Dunn
Heather Acton
Brad Parbs
Tony Perez
Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Thomas Griffin
Pippin Williamson
Zack Tollman
Scott Offord
Becky Davis
Joe Boydston
Mary DuQuaine
Tom Carney
Jake Caputo
John Sexton
Samer Sultan
Mert Sahinoglu
David Tufts
Erick Hitter
Josh Alexander
Andy Nathan
Jesse Friedman
Dan Pastori
Eric Marden

We’ll have speaker bios, session descriptions and a preliminary schedule going up later this week or early next week. If you haven’t done so already you should grab a ticket before we sell out!

Posted in Announcements, Speakers | 3 Comments

Volunteers Make Everything Great

July 16, 2012 by Heather Acton • 7 Comments

Attending WordCamp Chicago and wish you could be more involved than the average attendee? Volunteers — whether you’re signing on to be responsible for a whole area of event operations or pitching in for an hour or two — are the foundation of every WordCamp, and volunteering is a great way to meet more of the community and give something back.

There are a variety of volunteer opportunities, each with different time commitments, experience requirements, and logistics. There are two requirements for ALL volunteers, regardless of the job or duration: be reliable and be friendly. 🙂

Look over the list to see if anything strikes a chord, then if you’d like to volunteer, fill out the volunteer application form to express your interest in volunteering. Our volunteer coordinator will get back to you closer to the event with where you fit in to the overall volunteer schedule.

Registration – Check in registered attendees and hand out name tags. Being really awesome with alphabetical order helps here.

Happiness Bar (formerly called Genius Bar) – Answer questions and help WordPress users fix problems with their sites. Must be able to show level of expertise to be selected for this gig.

Emcees – Introduce speakers/sessions and keep things running on time. Keep an eye on the clock and give speakers a heads up when they are down to 10 and 5 minutes, and let them know when their time is up. Brevity and wit a must.

Room Runners – Work with the emcees, video people, speakers, and everyone else working in the room to keep things running smoothly. Make sure there’s water for speakers, and provide support as needed for other event staff.

Casual Runners – Unexpected things always happen at events. It’s good to have a handful of people on hand to help take care of whatever crops up.

Setup – Helping to get badges ready, shirts organized, carrying things, etc.

Cleanup – Making sure we don’t leave a trace at DePaul after the event.

Event Help Desk – Be ready for questions from “where is the washroom” to “where is lunch” to “I lost my pen”.

So if you’d like to volunteer, fill in the form and let us know!

The volunteer coordinator will review applications each day to figure out when/where you’d fit best in the schedule. Expect an email or phone call from her to confirm your interest and determine when it makes sense for you to volunteer your time. Thanks!

Posted in Announcements | 7 Comments

Last Call for speakers!

July 13, 2012 by Aaron Holbrook • Comments Off

Have something interesting or awesome to share?

Apply to speak!

Deadline is July 16th, so do it now!

Posted in Announcements | Comments Off

Sponsor Highlight – WP Engine

July 9, 2012 by Heather Acton • 2 Comments

Hey Chicago! You know what’s better than the Cubs winning the World Series?

Almost nothing.

But somewhere in a close second would be WP Engine coming to hang out with you at WordCamp Chicago. We’ll have T-Shirts, Lanyards, and Stickers to give away, and be looking to hang out with you guys and talk all things WordPress.

Make sure you come find us, because we’ll also be giving out FREE HOSTING FOR LIFE to everyone at the WordCamp. Everyone who wants it will get our Personal Plan, free for life.

And now, WP Engine wants to give a big thanks to organizers behind the scenes who are putting the event together. A big event like this one takes a ton of prep work, and we’re grateful that they’ve put the hours in so we can all be here.

WP Engine is sending a couple of really awesome folks to the OC for the WordCamp. Look for us behind a wall of T-Shirts and helping the organizers keep the event running well.

All our representatives will have free accounts for life to give out, along with T-Shirts and the lanyards for everyone who can track them down.

This is the part where we talk about how awesome WP Engine is, so prepare yourself for a full-frontal attack of marketing that no mere mortal can withstand:

You’ve heard the rumors of pages being delivered in milliseconds, blogs scaling instantly when they get featured in the New York Times, and top-tier security. The rumors are TRUE. And the legend of WP Engine is reaching Mike Ditka epic status. Come see if we live up to the hype and test it yourself.

This is WP Engine – the premier, managed WordPress hosting company. WP Engine serves hundreds of millions of requests daily, each one carefully and continuously tuned for speed, scalability, and security. As a hosting company, WP Engine is beloved by hundreds of bloggers from huge, popular sites like Atlassian, SoundCloud, and VM Ware, down to small company home pages who care about their SEO ranking and their users’ experience. Perhaps best of all is their tech support. Only WordPress experts answer questions and solve support tickets, with a first response usually within 30 minutes.

Don’t take our word for it though. Test how much faster your WordPress could be at speed.wpengine.com and let us prove it to you.

Now, here’s a picture of a LolCat.

Posted in Sponsor Posts | 2 Comments

Call for speakers now live!

June 21, 2012 by Aaron Holbrook • 1 Comment

WordCamp Chicago brings together designers, developers, bloggers, small business owners, entrepreneurs and educators from all across the midwest. What can you share with this community? We’re looking to build an awesome program which reflects the diversity of the greater Chicagoland WordPress community, and we want you to be a part of it!

Call for Speakers deadline is July 16th! So don’t wait til its too late!

What we look for

We ask that your talk be…

directly related to WordPress, or be immediately applicable and relevant to our audience
one or more of the following: skill-building, thought-provoking, novel, unique, entertaining, passionate, relaxed, educational, hands-on, challenging, mind-blowing, caffeinating, fresh, interactive, hilarious, niche-specific, general-interest, multi-media, comforting, polished, beautiful, delicious…
respectful of the WordPress community and the GPL
above all, awesome!

Details

Most talks will be approximately 30 minutes to 45 minutes each depending on how long you want to leave for questions, so propose a topic you can cover passionately in that duration.

Talks will be on Saturday August 25th or Sunday August 26th. If you are only available for one day but not the other, please note this in your application.

We plan to record video of all talks for posting to WordPress.tv.

Speakers will be offered free admission to WordCamp Chicago, but will not be otherwise compensated.

As a disclaimer, all sessions will be video taped. You will need to sign and return an A/V form prior to the conference. All submissions without a signed disclaimer will not be approved.

Apply to speak!

Posted in Announcements | 1 Comment

WordCamp Chicago Tickets on Sale June 1, 2012

May 30, 2012 by Heather Acton • 2 Comments

To the WordCamp Clan:

You’ve waited in yearning long enough. Tickets for WordCamp Chicago 2012 will go on sale this Friday, June 1 at 9am. Tickets will be $30 for the full weekend of sessions.

Tell Siri to set your reminder now, lest you miss this important assignment.

Sponsorships are now being accepted for the event. Download the WordCamp Chicago Media Kit for Sponsors 2012 and contact us at chicago@wordcamp.org when you are ready to help make this thing happen.

-The Godfather

Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments

WordCamp Chicago 2012 : Save the (NEW) Date!

March 12, 2012 by Heather Acton • 1 Comment

Hey WordCampers! Can you believe it’s already time to start thinking about this summer’s WordCamp Chicago? Us either!

We’ve already started planning, and have set the date for ~~July 28 & 29, 2012~~ August 25 & 26, 2012 and the location will be the same as last year – the DePaul University Student Center in Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, IL.

Registration is coming soon along with the final website design provided by Aaron Holbrook of A7 Web.

We can’t wait to blow your socks off this year. If there’s any topic or speaker you are dying to see, shoot a note to chicago@wordcamp.org and we’ll put it on the list.