Category: Uncategorized

Sponsor Highlight: Pantheon

Pantheon_Tag_Color_clearThe website management platform for Drupal & WordPress, Pantheon provides web teams with the hosting, cloud-based developer tools, and scalable infrastructure needed to run awesome websites.

According to their website, Pantheon started in 2010 with a small team from their consulting businesses, and is now a team of 70 of the world’s experts in building, launching, and managing WordPress and Drupal websites.

Pantheon now powers more than 100,000 sites, serving billions of pageviews a month. They funded by the backers of Heroku, ExactTarget, and SendGrid.

Pantheon’s container-based infrastructure allows you to launch websites faster, without worrying about traffic spikes, security or performance. It’s free in development.

Thank you to Pantheon for being an “Editor” level sponsor of WordCamp Fayetteville!

Sponsor highlight: Jetpack

jetpack-horizontal-white-bgIf you’re a self-hosted WordPress user, gone are the days of needing a plugin to provide each function you need. With Jetpack, users gain access to all of the most powerful and popular WordPress.com features.

According to the Jetpack website, Jetpack allows you to:

  • Install more two dozen popular plugins with one click (and update them all the same way).
  • Engage millions of WordPress.com users, allowing them to interact with your site.
  • Boost your site’s performance by taking the load of these features off your servers.
  • Count on regular updates, enhancements, and troubleshooting from the same folks who build WordPress.com.

Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin that simplifies managing your sites. This single plugin enables Photon (a global CDN for images), uptime monitoring, brute force protection, traffic-boosting tools, single sign on, multiple-site management, and automatic or bulk plugin updates. Additionally, Jetpack includes several features that help you customize the look and feel of your site without installing other tools.

Thank you to Jetpack for being an “Admin” level sponsor of WordCamp Fayetteville!

Sponsor highlight: WooCommerce

woocommerce_logoWooCommerce is the fastest growing eCommerce software/platform, powering more than 30% of all eCommerce stores with more than 1 million active installations. Built to integrate seamlessly with WordPress, it is a fantastic eCommerce choice for existing WordPress users and connects you to the fast-growing WordPress ecosystem which now powers more than 25% of all websites on the internet.

What started in 2008 as three WordPress enthusiasts from different countries sharing ideas over email is now an international team of designers, developers, support ninjas and marketing people, catering for a passionate and constantly growing community of hundreds of thousands of users in 19 countries.

In July 2015, WooCommerce was acquired by Automattic, the creators of WordPress.com, which serves more than 15.8 billion pages a month and also the creators of other popular WordPress services including Akismet, Jetpack, and VaultPress.

With WooCommerce, WordPress users can start with all the basic tools that any small business would need to start selling online, including product setup, payments, shipping options, and sales reports and as your business grows choose from over 300 premium add-ons available including additional payment processors, shipping methods, inventory systems and marketing tools anyone to sell anything, anywhere from real products and digital downloads to subscriptions, content and even your time.

Thank you to WooCommerce for being an “Admin” level Sponsor of WordCamp Fayetteville.

5 Ways to Prepare for WordCamp

 

You don’t really have to prepare for WordCamp. You can just show up. Get to the Reynold’s Center on the U of A campus around 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 23rd. Friendly people will help you register, there’ll be coffee, and you can just prowl around and find a session that interests you. Meet new people, have fun at the parties, and get back to work refreshed on Monday.

If that’s not your style, here are some things you can do to get ready:

  1. Get business cards, stickers, or other small items with your name, logo and contact information. Put them where you’ll be able to find them quickly. When you meet people, you’ll want to be able to exchange info easily.
  2. Sharpen up your elevator pitch. There are actual elevators at the Reynold’s Center, so you’ll want to be ready when someone asks, “So, what do you do with WordPress?” Something simple like, “I build custom plugins” or “I’m converting my town’s 19th century newspapers into blog posts to create a lasting record of our history” will get the conversation off to a good start.
  3. Figure out how you’ll collect and store information. The slides from the talks will be posted, but you’ll need a way to record the things you particularly want to remember, as well as your thoughts. WordCamp can give you overwhelming amounts of information, so capturing it all for later use is a good plan. Maybe tweeting with hashtag #WCFay will be enough, or maybe you’ll be bringing your hand-tooled leather notebook and vintage fountain pen.
  4. Charge your phone, your laptop, your tablet, and anything else you’re bringing along. Bring a charger, too. With your electronic devices all ready and comfy, think about your own comfort, too. Bring a water bottle, a jacket if you tend to get cold in conference spaces, a snack if you have special needs or preferences.
  5. Get your mind ready. If you have specific questions you know you’ll want to ask, check out the speaker bios and see who might be able to answer that question. If you’re an introvert, set yourself a goal of talking to 10 new people and get psyched up to do it. Take a tour of your website and think about the skills that will take you to the next step. Knowing what you want to learn or develop can help you focus on that learning at WordCamp. Even if there are no specific sessions planned on that topic, there are bound to be people you can learn from.

10 Reasons Business Owners Belong at WordCamp

Business owners of Northwest Arkansas, are you thinking that you don’t belong at WordCamp? Are you imagining that this is a tech conference that won’t be useful for you?

Think again.

Here are 10 reasons to get your ticket for WordCamp Fayetteville 2016.

  1. You’ll be able to make an informed decision about the best content management system for your business website. We think it’s WordPress, but you may have a different impression. A day with the Wordcampers will help you decide with confidence.
  2. You’ll get some inspiration from entrepreneurs, marketers, and other businesspeople.
  3. If you have a WordPress website, you’ll get a better grasp of what it can do and how you can use it.
  4. If you want more control over your website, you’ll learn how you can have that. Just figuring out where everything is can be half the challenge.
  5. You may also learn that you don’t want more control. That’s okay, too.
  6. You can learn how to make your website more secure. You can share that information with your web team.
  7. You can learn about legal issues you may face when you use influencer marketing. You can also learn what that is.
  8. You can learn some best practices for websites in SEO, design, and content.
  9. You can learn how to track and measure your website’s success.
  10. You might want to make a blog or podcast of your own some day, outside of your business.

WordCamp is a great networking opportunity, and a fun and accepting place to learn. Join us!

Swag from Misty Slavens at Mystic Style

 

Misty Slavens provides web graphics and she can also convert non-digital graphics for the web. In fact, Misty does lots of digital support and design!

We’re delighted to welcome Misty to WordCamp! She’ll be sharing swag, so be sure to come by the table while you enjoy your coffee.

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Connect with Misty at LinkedIn.

Check out Mystic Style’s Facebook page.

WordCamp Fayetteville is over. Check out the next edition!