WordCamp London Lightning Talks

We had a fantastic session of lightning talks at the last WordCamp London, and this year we’re going to have even more. We’ve split the lightning talks up across three tracks on Sunday – they were a really popular sessions last year and we hope you enjoy them just as much in 2015.

Here are our 2015 lightning talkers:

Design

  • Dave Redfern is a digital designer at iWeb and co-founder of the Staffs web meetup.
  • Julio Potier is a security consultant and developer of the WP Rocket plugin.
  • Scott Evans is a designer at Automattic.
  • Lance Willett is a WordPress core committer for the default themes.

Development

  • John Blackbourn was release lead for WordPress 4.1.
  • Kirsty Burgoine runs a web design studio based in Shropshire
  • Tom Nowell is a developer at Automattic.
  • Miles Stewart is a developer specialising in WordPress and PHP.
  • Mark Wilkinson is a freelance WordPress developer.

Business

  • Tom Greenwood is the Managing Director of Wholegrain Digital.
  • Annabel Kaye is the founder of Irenicon.
  • Michael Killen is the founder of Sell your Service.
  • Rachel McCollin is a WordPress developer and author.
  • Franz Vitulli is a Product Marking Specialist for Human Made.

 

Welcome to our next group of speakers!

Excited about WordCamp London yet? We are! In just a couple of months we’ll be running around like crazy people, trying to keep things running smoothly while you listen to some amazing speakers from across the WordPress community and beyond. Say hello to some more of them:

  • Helen Hou-Sandi is a WordPress core committer and Director of Platform Experience at 10up. She was release lead for WordPress 4.0.
  • Laura Kalbag is a designer with a thing for the web. She works at Ind.ie.
  • Simon Dickson a Director of Platform Services at WordPress.com VIP.
  • Adrian Restantia is Art Director for Moove, a London-based WordPress agency.
  • Daniel Westall is a web developer and co-founder of webmatics.
  • Davide Casali is an experience director and startup advisor working in Automattic with 11+ years of experience.
  • Jo Petty is a freelance copywriter who has worked in the industry since 2010, specialising in content strategy and crafting copy for websites and blogs.
  • Jessica Rose is a self taught programmer and general tech enthusiast. Focuses include SEO, community education initiates for technical skills, technical writing and planning hacks.
  • Corinne Welsh runs a small training and development company specialising in free and open source software.
  • Graham Armfield is a Web Accessibility Consultant with his own company Coolfields Consulting and member of the WordPress accessibility team.

Watch this space for more announcements soon!

Call for Speakers

WordCamp London is happening March 20th – 22nd 2015, and we’re looking for speakers to make it happen.

WordCamp London is a community event that brings together designers, bloggers, developers, bloggers, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and educators from all across London. WordCamp London represents the passion, talent, and diversity of that community, and we want you to be a part of it!

Interested? Head on over to the application form!

Format

  • Full-length sessions will be 25 minutes long with 10 additional minutes for questions from audience.
  • We will also be running sessions of 5 minute lightning talks throughout the weekend. These lightning talks will give you an opportunity to get one point across really really fast.

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for talks, presentations, or panels about WordPress, or topics that you think would be interesting to our audience of WordPress users, developers, and anyone in-between.

WordCamp presentations are best when they tell a story, or when they dig deeply into a very specific area. It’s better to focus on something very narrow and give the audience something to go home with, rather than try to cover a broad topic in a short space of time. Examples of areas we’re interested in are:

  • Advanced developer: working with Backbone.js in WordPress, using the WP JSON REST API, making the most of wp_query, server setup
  • Design: better typography, multi-device theme design, UX in WordPress
  • Theme Development: using the theme customiser, building your first child theme, introduction to template tags
  • Business: raising your rates, dealing with clients, building enterprise sites
  • User: securing your WordPress website, WordPress productivity hacks
  • Content: content strategy, finding a voice, raising your profile with a blog

These topics are just for inspiration – they’re not exhaustive. If you want to discuss your idea ahead of submission you can email us at london@wordcamp.org.

Remember, you don’t need to be an expert at all to share your thoughts at WordCamp! We have a peer mentorship program which you can subscribe to when you put in your application.

Not-for-profit track

This year, WordCamp London will have a Saturday track focused on not-for-profit organisations using WordPress. The track is open to anyone working in the third sector, NGOs, charities, social enterprises, voluntary organisations, neighbourhood or community groups, hyper-local and micro-enterprise websites.

We’re running the track in association with our venue, London Metropolitan University who have a strong record of research and course provision in social entrepreneurship, community and international development – as well as in computer science and web development.

We’re looking for presentations focused on not-for-profit organisations use of WordPress. If you work for a charity or build websites for third-sector organisations we’d love you to share your knowledge and experience with the WordCamp audience.

Examples of presentations that would fit well in the track might include:

  • How to deliver sustainable web strategies for not-for-profit organisations
  • Using WordPress to create platforms for hyper-local and community business models
  • How NGOs are using WordPress as part of their approach to information management
  • Raising your social enterprise’s profile with a blog 
  • Using WordPress in a particular segment of the not-for-profit sector – e.g. in arts organisations
  • The benefits and costs for not-for-profit organisations using open source software
  • How our campaign went from no website at all to a web presence
  • A case study on how my not-for-profit organisation uses WordPress

If you’ve got a story to tell or knowledge to share we want to hear from you.

Just select “not-for-profit” on the signup form question “Who is your intended audience?”

Talk Submission

  • Please complete this form below to propose a talk.
  • If you have more than one idea, submit them all, we’ll pick our favourite. Please send one submission per talk.
  • The closing date is the 20th December.
  • All talks are recorded and posted to WordPress.tv. Speakers will need to sign an A/V release form prior to giving their presentation.
  • Lightning talk slides need to be submitted by 9th March
  • Full-length talk slides need to be submitted by 12th March
  • As a non-profit, community event, we are unable to pay for travel and accommodation

The Call for Speakers deadline is 20th December 2014 —don’t wait until it’s too late!

Application form here!

If you’ve any questions feel free to leave a comment below, or send us an email at london@wordcamp.org.

Save the Date: WordCamp London 20th – 22nd March 2015

We’re really excited to announce that the next WordCamp London will be held from 20th – 22nd March 2015 at London Metropolitan University!! The event will break down as follows:

  • 20th March: Contributor Day (for all things contributing to WordPress)
  • 21st – 22nd March: Conference (for all things WordPress)

The next WordCamp London is going to be even bigger than the last, with three tracks packed with everything the discerning WordPress developer, designer, blogger, contributor, business owner, and general aficionado might need. We’re hugely grateful to London Metropolitan University, who will be hosting us this year. We’ve got some exciting plans this year that we think will make our WordCamp really special.

But…uhh…. what about WordCamp London 2014?

We had every intention of holding WordCamp London this year. However, the room that we fell in love with is being renovated until the end of the year. Rather than having a festive Christmas WordCamp or pushing it just to January, we thought March would be a great alternative. This means that there’s a slim chance that the English weather will be nice to us and send rays of sunshine to warm up our WordCamp.

You shan’t be starved of WordPress, however. The WPLDN meetup group continues as usual, and there’ll be a WP Contributor Day in London later this year! Watch the meetup group for information.

What’s Next?

Over the coming months we’ll be making the usual announcements: call for speakers, call for sponsors, call for volunteers, ticketing, contributor day signups, and all of the other goodies you’ve come to expect from your WordCamp.

See you in March!

WordCamp London 2015 is over. Check out the next edition!