Join us at the Contributor Day

Contributor Day at WordCamp US will be held Sunday, December 4. Lots of people have already indicated interest in attending when purchasing a WCUS ticket, so if that’s you … keep reading for details!

What is a contributor day?

A contributor day is an event dedicated to giving back to the WordPress project, often paired with a WordCamp. It’s for both seasoned contributors and people making their first foray into getting involved.

We had 334 contributors at the inaugural WordCamp US contributor day and anticipate easily surpassing that this year.

What: WordCamp US Contributor Day

When: Sunday, December 4. Doors open at 9am for a 10am start. Lunch will be provided, and we’ll finish up at 5:00 p.m.

Where: Pennsylvania Convention Center

Here are some of the things you’ll be able to do:

  • Contribute your first patch to core
  • Fix bugs
  • User testing
  • Translate WordPress or WordPress plugins or themes
  • Write documentation
  • Help out on the support forums or IRC
  • Get involved with accessibility
  • Review themes
  • And more!

Teams

We will have 12 different teams represented at Contributor Day this year: Accessibility, Community, Core, Design, Docs, Flow, Marketing, Meta, Polyglots, Support, Theme Review, and Training.

To find out more about each team, including early set up information and team leaders, check out the Contributor Day page.

If you’re new to contributing to WordPress, we’ll send out information soon about how to get set up for each team, so you can hit the ground running on the day of. Some initial setup done in advance lets us spend more time actually contributing!

Sign up, pick your team, or edit your previous selection!

Screenshot of WordCamp US ticket confirmation email with edit link

You can edit your team selection to attend (or not) by following the link in your WCUS ticket confirmation email.  (A WCUS ticket is required to attend Contributor Day.) If you want to attend and have already purchased your ticket, please go to the link in your ticket confirmation email and select which team you want to join.

You must select a team to confirm your attendance at Contributor Day.

What’s next?

If you plan to attend, check out the Contributor Day page for descriptions of the participating teams and their respective leads. Once you’ve chosen a team and updated your ticket, stay tuned for details on how to get set up in advance. And if you haven’t already, join us on the Making WordPress Slack in the #wcus-contributor-day channel.

A WCUS ticket is required to attend, so be sure to get your ticket now!

Check out the schedule!

In the past few weeks we’ve brought you our speaker announcements in part one, part two, part three, part four, and part five. And now it’s time to sew them all together into one action-packed and incredible schedule.

We’re really excited to bring you 52 amazing sessions, including morning Yoga and the ever-anticipated State of The Word with Matt Mullenweg.

Now’s the time to go ahead and start planning your days. There are a lot of fantastic talks given by some of the most dedicated folks from the WordPress community and beyond.

Don’t have your ticket, yet? You don’t want to miss this.

Friday, December 2nd

Time Independence – Room 121 Full-length Talks Liberty Bell – Room 120 Full-length Talks Kite & Key – Room 119 Lightning Talks
8:00 am
Registration
8:15 am
9:00 am
Opening Remarks
9:30 am
9:45 am
10:30 am
10:45 am
11:30 am
11:45 am
12:15 pm
Lunch
1:15 pm
2:15 pm
2:30 pm
3:15 pm
3:30 pm
4:15 pm
4:30 pm
5:15 pm
5:30 pm

Saturday, December 3rd

Time Independence – Room 121 Full-length Talks Liberty Bell – Room 120 Full-length Talks Kite & Key – Room 119 Lightning Talks
8:00 am
Registration
8:15 am
9:30 am
9:45 am
10:30 am
10:45 am
11:30 am
11:45 am
12:15 pm
Lunch
1:45 pm
2:45 pm
3:00 pm
3:45 pm
State of The Word Matt Mullenweg

Introducing the WCUS Speakers – Part 5

We’ve shared so many great speakers so far, in the first four posts, and today we’re at it again! Here are six more speakers to round out the list:

DorisDoris Chen

Dr. Doris Chen is a Senior Technology Evangelist at Microsoft for the Western region of the United States, specialized in web technologies (mobile web, HTML5, JavaScript, and Java).
Doris has over 18 years of experience in the software industry working in several open source web tier technologies, Java platform, .NET and distributed computing technologies.

TroyTroy Dean

Troy Dean is co-founder of WP Elevation, the largest business community for WordPress consultants. His background is as a WordPress developer working with clients such as Quickbooks, F1 Grand Prix and The Ashes Cricket. Troy has spoken at several WordCamps, including Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Chicago, New York, Boston and Phoenix.

EricaErica Varlese

By day, Erica Varlese works at Automattic. She spends her time on the Happiness Hiring team, welcoming folks passionate about support into the Automattic family. Outside of work, she has a dog, Francis, who she thinks should be the official mascot of her home state, New Jersey. Her background in social work and communications is what drew her to WordPress, but it’s the welcoming, creative, and brilliant community that has inspired her to stick around.

EvertonÉverton Rosário

Facebook Partner Engineer and Main commiter for SDK and one of the most active in Instant Articles open source community. Co-author of the Facebook Instant Articles WordPress plugin.

MalieMaile Ohye

Joining Google in 2005, Maile works on Google Search as a Developer Programs Tech Lead. A few of Maile’s projects include rel=”canonical” (co-author of the IETF RFC), and rel=”next” and rel=”prev” for paginated content. Prior to Google, Maile was a systems integrator specializing in content management systems for organizations including AT&T and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. She earned a B.A. in Cognitive Science with a Computer Science emphasis from the University of California at Berkeley.

SakinSakin Shrestha

Sakin Shrestha is a technology entrepreneur and an avid WordPresser from Kathmandu, Nepal. He is the owner of Catch Internet Pvt. Ltd. and co-founder of Acclaim Technology. He is also a co-owner at ThemeReview.co.


Great lineup, right? Grab a ticket so you can see them speak in person and hang out with a bunch of WordPressers!

WordCamp US live stream

Wanting to be a part of WordCamp US but won’t be able to join us in Philly this year? Great! We have a live stream for that! WordCamp US will once again be live streamed so that you can be a part of all the WordPress goodness without ever leaving home. But this year there’s one big change.

We’re delighted to say that this year the WordCamp US live stream ticket will be free!

In the past there was an option to purchase your live stream ticket as a stand alone or purchase a live stream ticket with a commemorative WordCamp US t-shirt. We haven’t forgotten about you folks who want a little piece of swag from the event. After WordCamp US our t-shirts will be on sale in the swag store (more details to come).

Once you’ve registered for a free live stream ticket to WordCamp US, you’re in for a real treat! Enjoying WordCamp from the comfort of your living room, dining room table, or backyard is pretty fantastic. Haven’t picked up a free ticket yet? There’s still time: you can even get a live stream ticket during the event.

The stream will start at 9:00am Eastern on Friday, December 2nd, and 9:00am Eastern on Saturday, December 3rd, and will be available at our Live Stream page. In order to view the stream, you’ll need to enter the e-mail address that you used to register for your ticket.

Please make sure you test that your computer can view the stream before the conference starts.

If you’d like to join in the conversation via Twitter, the event hashtag is #wcus.

If you miss any of the sessions on the live stream, don’t worry! All of the sessions will be recorded, and we’ll start posting them to WordPress.tv soon after the event.

Enjoy the event, and we’ll see you in the stream!

Introducing the WCUS Speakers – Part 4

Last week we revealed lots of fantastic WordCamp US speakers in parts one, two, and three of our speaker post series. Today we’ve got more to share:

NancyNancy Thanki

Nancy Thanki is a photographer, filmmaker, and Happiness Engineer. Whether she is tinkering on the web or editing a film, she’s enjoys introducing users and storytellers to visual design and how to avoid the pitfalls of “en vogue” to create products that can withstand the test of rising and falling fashions in typography, photography, moving images, and design.

PippinPippin Williamson

Pippin Williamson is a WordPress plugin developer from Hutchinson, KS. He runs PippinsPlugins.com and is the founder and lead developer of Restrict Content Pro, Easy Digital Downloads, AffiliateWP and many more WordPress plugins. Beyond WordPress, Pippin has a love for sour beer, home brewing, and is an avid cyclist.

svetaSvetlana Kouznetsova

Svetlana (Sveta) Kouznetsova is a founder of Audio Accessibility who consults and trains businesses on how to make their aural information accessible via quality captioning and other types of communication access. She is also a public speaker and an author of a book, Sound Is Not Enough: Captioning as Universal Design.

scottScott Taylor

Scott Taylor is a Senior Software Engineer at The New York Times on the Interactive News Team. He is a Core Developer of WordPress and was the Release Lead for WordPress 4.4. Scott lives in Williamsburg (Brooklyn, not Colonial) with his wife, Allie, and their 3 cats: Waffles, Willa, and Feline Dion.

Lisa MLisa Melegari

Hailing from Orlando, Florida, Lisa’s first passion was video games, but when that didn’t pan out as a career, she chose to devote herself to content writing on the Internet. A fateful invitation from fellow nerd, David Laietta, led her to the hallowed grounds of WordPress and the WPOrlando community.

John GJohn Gamboa

John is a Technical Success Manager at WP Engine facilitating the success of its largest enterprise customers. He worked more than two years on its support team in a variety of capacities helping customers with a wide-range of issues.

sonjaSonja Leix

Sonja is a location-independent WordPress designer and Digital Strategist. She’s an active member of the WordPress community, contributes to the Polyglots and design teams, and helps out with community events such as WordCamp New York and Europe.

bethBeth Soderberg

Beth Soderberg is an independent developer and digital communications strategist based out of Washington, DC. She focuses on building thoughtfully architected websites that enable her clients to optimize their online presence while being empowered in managing their content.

hugoHugo Baeta

Portuguese designer in San Francisco, with 13+ years experience in art direction, brand design, interaction design, and front-end development. Been involved with WordPress for about 10 years, since version 2.0.

tacoTaco Verdonschot

Taco works at Yoast as Community Manager. In this role, he’s responsible for the distributed support team, the Yoast Translate project, WordPress Meetup Nijmegen and NijmegenPHP. He’s also heavily involved in testing the Yoast products and loves to find bugs in anyone’s software.

tinaTina Kesova

Tina is the VP of Strategic Partnerships at SiteGround web hosting company. In her role she is primarily responsible for growing the company client base through partnerships. She oversees the events and affiliates marketing teams through which SiteGround currently recruits the majority of their partners.

Michael AMichael Arestad

Michael is a designer at Automattic. He may be a tad obsessed with CSS (especially Sass) and beautiful typography. Michael is currently working on some pretty neato WordPress projects.

GaryGary Pendergast

Gary is a WordPress, web and music geek who writes poetry with Automattic. He’s been know to commit random things to WordPress Core, just to see what would happen. He can be observed in his natural habitat at pento.net, or usually in Melbourne, Australia.

JoeJoe Dolson

Joe Dolson is an active contributor to the WordPress accessibility team, and provides ongoing support to the Theme Review team by performing accessibility audits on themes submitted for the accessibility-ready tag. He’s been developing for WordPress since 2007.


Do you have your ticket yet?

Introducing the WCUS Speakers – Part 3

We’ve revealed 24 WordCamp US speakers so far in parts one and two of our speaker post series. How about 12 more?

John MJohn Maeda

Global Head, Computational Design and Inclusion of Automattic. Formerly Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, President of Rhode Island School of Design, Professor at the MIT Media Laboratory.

PetyaPetya Raykovska

Petya is a Senior Project Manager at Human Made where she helps large projects across big publishers and enterprise succeed. She is a huge WordPress enthusiast, active member of the WordPress community and is one of the WordPress Polyglots team leads.

SalSal Ferrarello

Sal is a WordPress developer with a focus on the Genesis theme framework and Bootstrap front-end framework. He is a contributor to the Genesis framework, author of the Bootstrap Genesis Theme, and author of the Stop Emails plugin available on WordPress.org.

WinstinaWinstina Hughes

Winstina Hughes is concluding the Master of City and Regional Planning degree program at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. She received a B.A. from Rutgers. She’s written about real estate development and transportation for hyper local news, and maintains her own WordPress.com blog on suburban planning and community engagement in the town she lives.

AndrewAndrew Nacin

Andrew Nacin is a Lead Developer of WordPress. He’s led major releases, mentored contributors, and spearheaded new development. He has strong feelings about the core philosophies of WordPress, among them “decisions, not options” — software should be opinionated in lieu of burdening the user with too many options.

Courtney OCourtney OCallaghan

Courtney is a professional listener, vegetarian mom, animal caretaker, people watcher, culture enthusiast, off-hours feminist, book hoarder, designer/coder/other, Chief Digital Officer at Freer and Sackler Galleries, CA native, proud DC resident always in search of an ocean.

DennisDennis Hong

By day, Dennis engineers happiness at WordPress.com. By night, he is a relationships and comedy writer, which can be redundant or an oxymoron, depending on your perspective.

AndreaAndrea Zoellner

Andrea is a freelance copywriter and content consultant at Automattic. She loves wordplay, coffee shop hopping, and blogging about how to pack the ultimate carry-on.

ZachZach LeBar

Zach is a designer at heart and developer by trade. He’s been working on the Web for 7 years. Currently a freelancer, specializing in graphic design (including logos, branding, and illustration work) as well as custom WordPress theme development.

SaraSara Cannon

Sara Cannon is an entrepreneur, creative director, and artist. She is the Managing Partner and Creative Director at Range and is the Founder of Spruce Planner, an up and coming planning and goal setting app for women.

KathrynKathryn Presner

Kathryn Presner thrives on helping people get the most out of WordPress. She’s currently Theme Whisperer on the Automattic Theme Team, where she helps folks with customization, configuration, and troubleshooting.

KariKari Leigh Marucchi

Recently Kari Leigh provided photography services to a WordCamp for the 16th time in as many months, and since departing the office-bound lifestyle has done work along the way as Found Art Photography.

 


The speaker lineup is really shaping up to be a reason to get a ticket, if we do say so ourselves. We’d love to see you in Philly!

Introducing the WCUS Speakers – Part 2

We shared part one of the WordCamp US lineup yesterday, and we’re back today with more! Check out this next batch of speakers:

MikaMika Epstein

Mika Ariela Epstein is better known as Ipstenu, the Half-Elf Rogue. Working for DreamHost, specializing in WordPress hosting (aka ‘WordPress Guru’), Mika helps make WordPress and hosting better for everyone.

Chris LChris Lema

Chris Lema coaches companies building commercial products in the WordPress ecosystem. He’s also a daily blogger, a public speaker, and product strategist.

InesInes van Essen

Ines van Essen has been working with WordPress for a number of years, of which the past 5 years have been primarily focused on user support. For her own clients at first, and later as a freelance support engineer for WordPress plugin developers.

LaurenLauren Comito

Lauren Comito is a cape wearing, ukulele playing, tech training, job search helping, activist librarian in NYC. She helps people to fold technology into their daily lives and break down the walls that keep them from being fully employed.

marcMarc Coleman

Marc is the founder and president of The Tactile Group. Trained in electrical engineering at Princeton University and architecture at Temple University, he brings over two decades experience in creative direction, design, business entrepreneurship, and client relations.

Lisa SLisa Sabin-Wilson

Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at WebDevStudios. Author: WordPress For Dummies

MelMel Choyce

Mel is a Boston-based Product Designer and a WordPress core contributor. She loves big type, cold brew coffee, and printmaking.

KarlKarl Kevilus

Karl’s been using WordPress since 2.1 for multiple unique applications — from helping the FBI capture bank robbers, to working with H-E-B/Central Market to revolutionize grocery shopping in Texas with WordPress and WooCommerce.

ShaydaShayda Torabi

From the people to the platform, Shayda’s been using WordPress since 2004 and hasn’t looked back. Working at WP Engine as part of their Marketing team, Shayda focuses on building authentic relationships with the amazing people who make up the WordPress community.

MichelleMichele Mizejewski

Michele is a User Experience Designer at the University of California, San Francisco. A longtime WordPress enthusiast, she believes that websites should be beautiful, simple, and intuitive. When not curating, creating, or consuming web content, she can be found forest bathing or seeking narratives.

Chris HChristopher Hinds

Towards the end of 2015, after over a decade in the hospitality industry, Chris collaborated with his wife Amber to launch Road Warrior Creative, a digital agency based in Fort Collins, Colorado.

NicoleNicole Kohler

Nicole Kohler is the content manager for WooCommerce at Automattic. With a background in eCommerce site management, content strategy, and customer service, she spends her time crafting blog posts and other resources designed to help store owners learn important tips and skills about selling online.


WordCamp US is going to be fantastic. Get your ticket!

Introducing the WCUS Speakers – Part 1

After reviewing hundreds of speaker applications, we’re thrilled to start introducing you to the 40+ fantastic speakers who will take the stage this year at WordCamp US!

Without further ado, let’s greet the first round of WCUS speakers:

joostJoost de Valk

Joost is the founder and CEO of Yoast, a geek by background having built his first website in 1994 at 12 years old, he became a marketeer by trade. At Yoast he combined the two, leading to the very successful Yoast SEO plugin which is now available on several platforms.

TammieTammie Lister

Tammie works at Automattic as a UX Designer within the theme team. She has a varied background including psychology, design, front end development and UX. She is a contributor to WordPress both for design and themes.

CoryCory Miller

Cory Miller is a former newspaper journalist turned full-time entrepreneur. In 2008, he started iThemes, which builds web design software and offers cutting-edge web design training for thousands of customers around the globe.

JoesphaJosepha Haden

Josepha comes from a long line of writers and was raised to be a life-long learner. She has a passion for language and storycrafting, a skill she practices on starsandthemoon.com. Josepha has over a decade of experience using SEO, data analysis, and content marketing to bring success and visibility to clients all over the world.

KellyKelly Dwan

Kelly Dwan is a Cambridge-based Code Wrangler at Automattic. She has worked on everything from small business websites, to higher education, to enterprise and big media. In her spare time, Kelly develops WordPress themes and contributes to the WordPress community.

MikeMike Schroder

Mike Schroder, known as Shredder to many, is a cross-cultural kid, coffee-drinking sailor, and lover of Open Source. He’s a WordPress Core Committer, was Release Lead for WordPress 4.5, and works as WordPress Platform Lead at DreamHost. You can find him blogging on geeky things at getsource.net.

Courtney WCourtney Wilburn

Courtney is a full-stack web developer with O3 World. A native of Memphis, TN, and graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she found her way to web development via an unusual path, and can probably say that she may be the only person who is both a certified phlebotomist and Aikido black belt attending the conference.

TopherTopher DeRosia

Topher has been a web developer for over 20 years, working exclusively with WordPress since 2010. He is currently a full time WordPress developer for Modern Tribe and also curates HeroPress.com.

Lisa YLisa Yoder

Lisa Yoder is an independent front-end developer based in Lancaster, PA, though she still spends time in Philly. She has BA degrees in English and Spanish, and prior to joining the tech world, she worked as a teacher, proofreader, and an editor of a small town newspaper.

EliseÉlise Desaulniers

Élise rediscovered the pleasure of writing thanks to WordPress and has been blogging (in French!) for seven years. She is a founding partner at Desaulniers Simard, a boutique consulting firm based in Montréal, Québec, Canada, where she’s trained hundreds of people to use WordPress and developed dozens of sites.

RyanRyan Markel

Ryan engineers happiness for WordPress.com VIP from St. Louis. He’s been blogging in some form or another since the turn of the millennium, eventually learning and loving WordPress. He enjoys the study of games and helping his wife (try to) control his five children.

TessaTessa Needham Synnott

Tessa is a designer and teacher who empowers small business owners to take control of their WordPress websites at wpsupergeek.com. She also has a background in performance, video, design, photography and writing. She is Australian, but currently lives in the Bay Area, CA, with her husband, two sons, and cat.


Check back soon for the next round of speaker announcements! And if you haven’t yet, get a ticket to WordCamp US!

The WCUS After-Party is a Night at the Museum!

The WCUS after-party is going to be epic! It’s at The Academy of Natural Sciences! Bring your WCUS badge to the door and you’re in!

Dino Hall! Photo by Will Klein.

Dino Hall! Photo by Will Klein.

We’ll have the entire place to ourselves, so feel free to roam and check out the exhibits, meet some live animals (!!!), hang in the Butterfly Room, show off your singing skills at karaoke, or find a nice quiet spot in the library, if you prefer. (Shhh!)

Light appetizers and dessert, plus beer, wine, and cider will be provided.

Location & Time

Academy of Natural Sciences
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway (map)
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Saturday, December 3 from 8 to 11pm

Tickets

So, how do you get an invite to this awesome after-party?

Buy a ticket to WordCamp US and your badge will get you in! 
Note: Badges do not include a plus one. Anyone who wants into the party will need their own badge.

Quick Overview of the WCUS Schedule

The WordCamp US Organizing Team is hard at work selecting speakers and finalizing the schedule for this year. While we’re not quite ready to announce the full details yet, the basic outline of how each day follows to help as you make your plans.

Friday, December 2

8am: Doors open, registration starts.
9am – 5:30pm: Sessions.

Saturday, December 3

8am: Doors open.
9am – 5:30pm: Sessions.
8pm – 11pm: After Party! (Details here. It’s going to be fantastic.)

Sunday, December 4

9am: Doors open and check-in.
10am – 5pm: Contributor Day
*Note: Space is limited. This requires an additional sign up, beyond your WCUS ticket. More information coming soon.

Stay tuned for the full, detailed schedule! Be sure to subscribe to this site to receive email updates, or follow on Twitter or Facebook so you know as soon as it’s up.

Reserve your spot at WCUS while you still can: Get a ticket now!