Speakers

Follow all of our speakers on Twitter via our WordCamp Orange County 2011 Speakers list. Follow WCOC Speaker Twitter List

Beau Lebens

Beau is a web developer who hails from Australia, but lives in San Francisco. He’s been working on the web since about 1996 and developing PHP/MySQL systems since 2000. He has been involved in a variety of technical enterprises ranging from an exclusively-online division at a University to a niche Search Engine Marketing firm, with a short stint building an online scrapbooking network for parents. Interested in all things social, tech and web-related, Beau holds a degree in online community, culture and governance, and spends most of his time these days hacking WordPress and related web apps for Automattic.

Loren Nason

Loren Nason is a technology consultant and owner of Your Local Tech. Loren’s expertise is helping make technology work for businesses and people – from tech savvy to tech newbie. He teaches people the tips and tricks of technology and other Internet tools to help boost efficiency and productivity in order to garner results. Loren also provides instructions and strategies for small businesses to create, maintain and maximize blogs, then integrating the power of blogs with other social media platforms.. Your Local Tech provides technology implementation and management as well as a growing WordPress Design and management service.

Adam Ware

Adam is self-declared “web veteran” with a rich web analytics background and extensive digital marketing experience. He is the CEO at SwellPath, an analytics consulting and digital marketing agency based in Portland. He is a WordPress fanatic, and a hardcore user since 2006. He has extensive experience with an array of analytics applications and platforms, and has hacked and plugged-in most of them into WordPress. A developer in the early years of his career, he now codes just enough to distract himself for hours with analytics and WordPress.

Jonathan Davis

Jonathan is the original author and lead developer of the Shopp e-commerce plugin for WordPress and founder of Ingenesis Limited. With almost 15 years of design and development on the web and he still can’t make up his mind whether he’s a designer or a developer. In 2005 he started using WordPress exclusively for his clients and never looked back.

Jim Marks

Jim Marks calls himself an Internet Anthropologist, he enjoys appraising, evaluating, discovering, recounting and comparing different internet entities and how they evolve and connect. His remarkable ability to create effective strategies that no one else has even considered, his obsession with a cause (your website), and his amazing detective skills (knowing what the client wants & needs and how to get it) have earned him that title. An enthusiastic and engaging speaker, he has spent his career studying the habits and expectations of the Internet Consumer. Between long hours in dark rooms staring at spreadsheets and cardboard cutouts of Internet families to learn their every click habit… and his frequent trips to Starbucks strictly for demographic studies, Jim has learned what it takes to dominate on the internet.

Dre Armeda

Dre is a 12 year Navy veteran with experience in multiple technical disciplines. He’s a WordPress fanatic with a love for security. Dre created his first WordPress theme in 2005 and has since contributed to WordPress core, and is organizing the first WordCamp San Diego. After his Navy days, Dre held various leadership positions in the tech start-up world including companies such as Applied Watch Technologies, and Secure-i Inc.

Robert W. Price

Robert W. Price is the Executive Director of the Global Entrepreneurship Institute. Robert enjoys world renown as an expert in the field of entrepreneurial capitalism. He has nearly 30 years of entrepreneurial experience. He is a strategist, innovative thought leader, public speaker, creative educator, and prolific author. As the Executive Director as the Global Entrepreneurship Institute (GEI) he has written or edited more than a dozen books.

Chris Lema

Chris Lema started working on web sites in 1994 and has been leveraging the magic of WordPress since 2005. A native of Orange County, he’s just moved back to Southern California after twenty years in the Bay Area where he started & sold two startups, turned two more around, and coached a series of entrepreneurs. In almost every case he used WordPress as his secret weapon, until he mistakenly spilled the beans on how easy it was to use. Today he’s fast approaching 10,000 hours on the platform he uses every day for work, personal projects, and fun.

Lisa Borodkin

Lisa Borodkin is passionate about popularizing technology and simplifying the law. She has a private law practice in Los Angeles focused on technology, law and media. Her practice has evolved with the Internet, from meta tag infringement, cybersquatting, and Napster, to technology IPOs, file-sharing litigation, Web 2.0, reputation rating websites and advising technology startups. She has represented AOL, Network Solutions, Dr. Dre, Metallica and negotiated with film and television studios and online web television distributors. Her IP litigation focuses on impact Internet law cases. She is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Interactive Peer Group and is a reviewer and Law topic admin on Quora.com. She is a regular contributor to California Lawyer Magazine on legal ethics in the social media age. She has appeared as a guest on Denise Howell’s “This Week in Law” on the TWiT network and guest lectured at USC Gould School of Law and USC’s Annenberg School. She is the co-author with Jack Lerner of “We, the Users – Facebook Users’ Bill of Rights,” an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle in May 2010. She has practiced Internet law since 1998, and has previously been a keynote speaker at BlogWorld and a panelist at South by Southwest Interactive. She received an A.B. from Harvard College, a Master’s degree from the University of London and a J.D. from Columbia University.

Tim McMahan

By day Tim McMahan is a freelance graphic designer, or as his clients think of him, a Graphic Design Hero. By night he and his wife transform themselves into the hosts of the popular “Foster Parenting Podcast”. Since 2007 they’ve been sharing their lives with friends, family and anyone who wants to listen about the ins and outs of foster parenting. With little time for technical administration they’ve been relying on WordPress from the very start.

Marieke Hensel

Marieke is the owner of Branding Personality: the online marketing agency for consumer brands. Marieke does Search Engine Optimization since 1998, Online advertising since 2005 and social media since 2004. She lived and worked in Brazil, Romania and the US and is originally from The Netherlands. She moved here in 2007 with her husband and 3 children. She is an internationally published co-author of BusinessWise, a collaborative book for small companies with large ambitions. She is listed in the VIVA400 for 2009 & 2010 in the Netherlands, a ranking, like the Forbes500 that lists the 400 most successful women in the Netherlands, compiled by Viva magazine. She created her first WordPress blog in 2005 and has since switched all her clients over to WordPress because of its versatility, community building and search engine optimization benefits.

Luke Pilon

Luke is a software architect and entrepreneur with just over a decade in the San Diego tech start up scene. He’s the founding and managing partner of the development firm Mobiah, a group dedicated to extending WordPress to meet the demands of media management, mobile engagement and providing geographically centric experiences for users. With Mobiah’s platform in adoption on a few thousand websites, Luke has helped one person operations to public companies identify their tribes and craft strategies to energize them.

Jeff Hester

Jeff Hester is passionate about online communities and creating innovative web-based solutions that deliver value. A web developer since the early 90’s, he has been active in the WordPress community since attending his first WordCamp in 2007. Co-author of three books and engaging speaker, the combination of his engineering background and business acumen gives him a unique ability to bridge the gap between practice and theory in plain English.

Cory Landefeld

Cody Landefeld is the owner and CEO at codyL. He is a creative consultant, speaker, web strategist, and designer for the web. Beginning out of college in 2000, he began working for entertainment entities building interactive design projects and creating websites. In 2005 he launched codyL as a website and design agency focused on helping people build their projects and have success on the web. Currently focusing on consulting and helping clients engage their target audience on the web, codyL can provide the plan, development, team, and continued support in order to launch your project and see it become successful.

Josh Highland

Josh Highland is an internet aficionado entrepreneur, developer, community builder, and lover of all things tech. With a strong background in Computer Science, he believes in the power of WordPress and the community surrounding it. For several years he has been helping his clients make the switch to WordPress. Along with his WordPress, and social media obsession, Josh creates iPhone/iPad applications, and is the founder of NewLeaf Labs.

Kirsten Wright

Kirsten Wright received a degree in Rhetorical Communications from California State University, Long Beach in 2006 and soon after, found the world of social media and blogging. She launched her first WordPress site in 2007 and currently runs Wright Creativity, a successful web design and social strategy firm in Orange County. Her business is dedicated to taking the small business to the next level through individualized social strategies, custom WordPress designs and a complete understanding of communication marketing. She and has a passion for writing and helping others find their inner voice. In her free time, she lives in south Orange County with her husband, enjoys good food and wine, and loves taking their greyhound, Badger, for runs.

Kohl Crecelius

Kohl Crecelius is the CEO & Co-founder of Krochet Kids intl. Kohl and his team of close friends are on a journey to revolutionize what it means to do business and do good. In 2007 they foundedKrochet Kids intl. (KKi) – a non-profit lifestyle brand focused on empowering communities and engaging customers to make a sustainable impact on global poverty. KKi is a leader in producing and selling products made in Africa. They employ over 100 people in Northern Uganda through the production of their handmade headwear and fashion accessories, and have recently started a new program in Peru. Now spanning three continents, their work connects the producer with the customer through a hand-signed label that accompanies every product.

Marcy Massura

Based in Orange County, California, Marcy Massura is a Digital Community Manager at Weber Shandwick. In addition to developing social strategies for numerous high-profile clients this award-winning international agency represents, Marcy serves as the digital voice for Oscar Mayer and Lunchables within the social media space. Her love of writing inspired her to create Smartly, a network of regional websites showcasing essays from a national collective of writers. Additionally, Marcy is Co-Founder and President of the largest North American regional blogging organization, BlogCrush. She is also heavily involved in several other websites, where she contributes essays, photography and video on a weekly basis. She maintains her own popular humor website The Glamorous Life Association, and speaks as often as possible spreading her passion and joy for all things social. Her second book “How to Play with Words and Make Them Do (great) Things” is expected for Spring 2012.

Todd Huish

Todd was an unsuspecting IT guy until he stumbled across PHP and MySQL. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized what was missing from his life. He thinks they go together better than peanut butter and chocolate and spent the next decade proving it. He went to his first WordCamp in January ’09 and was bitten by the bug pretty bad. A self described WordCamp groupie, he’s been to over a dozen since that first fateful one. He co-founded 9seeds with John Hawkins and together they make WordPress do things no one knew it could in all kinds of inventive ways. He almost definitely colored his hair to coordinate with this event.

Suzette Franck

Suzette Franck, a California native, web developer at Kussner IT, and owner of Websmith Solutions, is passionate about fostering online collaboration over the Internet and is dedicated to making the power of web publishing accessible to the masses. Her goal is to teach BuddyPress to those interested in creating an online presence utilizing WordPress’ social networking tools for their small business, group, or club. Suzette has extensive experience in intranet development, training, and documentation spanning over 15 years including building an intranet at a 24/7 Computer Helpdesk at a Cedar’s Sinai Hospital and Intranet Manager at Xdrive Technologies. She has created and currently maintains over 100 WordPress sites and enjoys teaching others about plugins and building themes. In her spare time, Suzette is a purveyor of the new contemporary art scene and loves to assist artists in creating online portfolios to showcase their work.