Jack Lenox is a Design Engineer on the Theme Generation team at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. He has been building websites since 1998, and building them with WordPress since 2008. In 2011 he set up writing community jottify.com, powered by WordPress. He lives in the north of England where he enjoys mountain biking, skiing, visiting Roman ruins, appreciating great design and drinking good coffee.

Company: Automattic

Website:  jacklenox.com

Talk Title Building themes with the WP REST API

Talk Summary:  With the REST API shortly due to be merged into WordPress core, it’s about time developers started thinking about building themes that use it. The REST API allows developers to create much more engaging user experiences. This will be a talk that covers the challenges one faces when working with the REST API, how to extend the REST API itself from within your theme, and suggested ways that themes can be built to use it.

What do you love most about WordPress?  I would say that my favourite thing about WordPress is its versatility. I think this is why it has become so popular and ubiquitous. You can do almost anything with WordPress and I still enjoy showing dumbfounded onlookers a site or app that, against their expectations, is powered by WordPress.

Project Manager of Maui’s own Hawaii Web Group (@maui), Chris has admittedly been riding the internet roller coaster with some success and much failure.  Providing exposure for Hawaii businesses to visitors before arriving on island, Hawaii Web Group builds and promotes their own high-traffic websites and concentrates on community development and social media engagement.  Largely due to viral posts, last year their sites reached over 1 million users and enjoyed over 156 million impressions socially.

Company: Hawaii Web Group

Website: http://www.hawaiiwebgroup.com/

Talk Title: Viral Blogging Tactics and Outreach

Talk Summary: Having a blog post pick up the kind of speed only viral sharing can produce is something most bloggers dream of.  And though there are no magic bullets, steps can be made to ensure the largest audience finds your post and are encouraged to share it.  Chris will share his company’s personal successes and failures from years of low-budget web marketing, along with their experiences with SEO, social media, and crafting content which drives converting traffic.

WordPress Love:  I’ve spent years fighting the urge to use WordPress (after having been hacked in early years), and I’m now a disciple.  I love the ability to grab plugins/themes and use an existing community of great minds and products.

Kimanzi Constable is a former bread delivery guy who self-published two books that have sold over 82,000 copies. He is a published author and business coach. He is a speaker who has spoken at 13 WordCamp conferences all over the world. He is a contributing writer for the Huffington Post, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Mind Body Green. He is a weekly columnist, and editor at The Good Men Project. His mission is to help men and women create true freedom in life. Join him at KimanziConstable.com and on Facebook at Kimanzi Constable.

Company:  Chaotic Organization Inc.

Website: http://kimanziconstable.com/<

Talk title:  How to Start and Market an Online Business Through WordPress

Talk Summary:  Everyday there are 2.5 billion people online. If you were looking to start or grow a business and find customers, the Internet is the best place to find them. There is however, a ton of competition talking about the same topics. This session will teach you how to take a simple WordPress website and build a profitable location independent online business. It will teach you how to get traffic, what products and services to create, how to market them and how to scale. It will teach you how I’ve used these strategies to build a business that supported our family’s move from Wisconsin to Maui!

What do you love about WordPress? I love how versatile WordPress is without being confusing. I’m not technical, but I was able to figure out how to set up my business and business through WordPress. I love the idea of people all over the world working to make WordPress better.