Speakers

Syed Balkhi

Syed Balkhi is a WordPress designer / developer and the founder of a WordPress resource site known as WPBeginner. Syed has 7 years of experience working in the web industry and has been working with WordPress for over 3 years. Syed has worked with businesses and individuals on all different levels. He is mostly known for his agressive marketing skills, creative designs, and expertise in SEO.

Aaron Brazell

Aaron is a WordPress developer and consultant and the author of the upcoming WordPress Bible from Wiley publishing. Aaron has been developing in WordPress for more than 4 years and has spoken at numerous events including WordCamps. He is a lead organizer of WordCamp Mid-Atlantic and an advocate for resource sharing among communities. He resides outside of Washington, D.C. He is often controversial but rarely wrong.

Dougal Campbell

Dougal Campbell was one of the original WordPress developers, contributing features such as XML-RPC API support, Post Custom Fields, and Conditional GET support for feeds.

He has contributed several plugins to the WordPress ecosystem over the years, including Fancybox Gallery, Easy Gravatars, and a filter for Talk Like a Pirate Day which has been subsequently adapted for numerous other systems including Drupal and Joomla.

Sara Cannon

Sara holds the position of designer/interactive at Scout Branding Company (scoutbrand.com). She loves all things interactive and web. Sara is deeply committed to excellence in using the latest web technology, user experience, and design. She loves to push the boundaries on web typography and see good ideas come to life. She is also an avid WordPress guru and loves making sites run on the platform, while still making them look like a million bucks.

Originally from outside of Boston, Massachusetts, she came to the South and graduated with a BS from Samford University in Graphic Design. She is a member of the Internet Society of Alabama (IPSA) and is a founding member of the Birmingham Art Collective (thebirminghamartcollective.com). In her spare time, (if she has any), Sara loves to make art and collaborate with other community artists.

Mitch Canter

Mitch is a WordPress developer / designer living in Franklin, TN. He is currently the “Chief Creative Mercenary” of his own company, studionashvegas. He works with both design and development, and has worked with some of the best minds in Social Media, such as Jeremiah Owyang and C.C. Chapman, as well as small to medium businesses across Middle Tennessee and coast-to-coast.
Mitch also travels within driving distance to speak on WordPress, new media, technology, and how staying on the cutting edge of today’s new technology will allow you to thrive, even in a down economy such as this.

Amani Channel

Amani Channel is an award-winning producer, journalist, trainer, and speaker. He’s worked at news stations around the country and currently works at Public Broadcasting Atlanta as the Community Manager for www.lensonatlanta.org. He’s a video blogging expert having produced more than 170 video podcasts for his blog My Urban Report. He specializes in video production mobile video, content innovation, and social media.

Joe Chernov

Joe is a fifteen-year communications veteran, who has lectured on marketing innovation at top b-schools and international conferences. He runs public relations, analyst relations and social media for marketing automation leader Eloqua and co-chairs the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s member ethics panel. He led PR and marketing for word-of-mouth media firm BzzAgent, and in that role twice presented to the FTC about the Commission’s recently issued “Endorsement Guidelines.” His thoughts on PR, marketing, social media, Dobermans and craft beer can be found at jchernov.posterous.com or by following @jchernov.

Maurice Cherry

Maurice is a new media consultant and entrepreneur in Atlanta, GA. A graduate of Morehouse College, Cherry also works as a freelance web designer and electronic media consultant, working with entrepreneurs and businesses on leveraging blogs, podcasts and other online technologies for their marketing and public relations needs. In 2009, Cherry was the New Media Director for the Borders for Atlanta Campaign, overseeing their social media, website, and e-mail newsletter operations. Cherry is also the creator behind the Black Weblog Awards and runs his own design company, 3eighteen media.

Scott Kingsley Clark

Web Developing since the age of 15, Scott has worked on hundreds of website projects. Scott specializes in WordPress and Pods CMS Framework development using PHP, MySQL, and AJAX/Javascript. Outside of work, Scott focuses on spending as much time as possible with his fiancee, Cassidy and his music project titled Soft Charisma.

Dave Coustan

Dave is a Web culture (but not boating) enthusiast and content and engagement strategist based in Atlanta, GA.  He has over 10 years’ experience developing and executing successful online entertainment, ecommerce, communications, and marketing projects with people and brands including HowStuffWorks, Georgia-Pacific, and the American Legacy Foundation’s TheTruth.com. He has led online communications programs on the agency side as VP and head of Digital Strategy for Edelman PR Southeast, and on the client side as a corporate blogger and social media strategist for EarthLink. Dave’s entrepreneurial ventures include creating and launching Tiny Envelope, an online stationery boutique, and co-founding Giantheads, a Web entertainment and interactive development agency. All of his stuff can be found at or via his site, Extraface.

Chris Harrison

Chris Harrison is an Augusta GA-based freelance designer/developer. He’s been working with Wordpress for over 4 years. He’s publicly released two themes with plans to release many more, and has implemented dozens of custom themes for clients. He’s an Adobe Influencer, member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, and the founder of RefreshAugusta.

Tammy Hart

Tammy is a successful, self-taught, freelance designer who has leveraged trial, error, and observation to become a WordPress expert. She loves to talk about deep customization of WordPress content and templates. While specializing in WordPress themes and CMS development, she also does all levels of Web Design and XHTML/CSS Coding. You can find her website at Tammy Hart Designs.

Jason Hoch

Jason is the VP, Product Development for Discovery Communications’ collection of digital properties, including Discovery.com, TLC.com, AnimalPlanet.com and HowStuffWorks.com. He is laser focused on continually improving user experience for the world’s number one non-fiction media company.
A digital native, prior to his current post, Jason served as VP of Internet Operations for Imaginova where he coordinated and executed strategy across content and commerce for the company’s leading science sites, SPACE.com, LiveScience.com, Aviation.com and commerce sites, OrionTelescopes.com, LiveScienceStore.com and StarryNight.com.
Jason is constantly driven to introduce new and innovative experiences that are useful, informative and always fun.

Ryan Imel

Ryan runs his development shop aspiringindie out of the midwest, where he works with designers and businesses building cool things with WordPress. He is particularly interested in what MU and BuddyPress mean for the social web. He blogs at Theme Playground, all about WordPress..

Mark Jaquith

Mark has been working with and contributing to WordPress since 2004. He is one of the lead developers of the WordPress core and offers freelance WordPress consulting services through Covered Web Services with a focus on scaling, security, and custom functionality. Mark likes patches that have more red than green, and his favorite WordPress features are the ones that you’re not even aware of. He eagerly looks forward to shooting down your complicated feature suggestions with, “No, but it would make a great plugin!”

Wade Kwon

Wade, founder of Birmingham Blogging Academy, has written thousands of blog posts and created blogs big and small. He loves to tell stories, in person and in print and online. A Birmingham, Ala., native, he started his award-winning blog Wade on Birmingham in 2005, and has worked with Time Inc. and Scripps-Howard on blogging and new media. His most recent talk was in Las Vegas as a featured speaker at BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s largest social media conference.

Chad Parizman

After Chad started his career as a Microsoft developer, he left the programming side of the house for the greener pastures of web analytics. After a short stint as a intrepreneur (entrepreneur working from inside of a big company) Chad is currently the Director of Community Management for Scripps Networks’ shelter sites, which includes include overseeing strategy for our on-site community platform, including our 10+ WordPress powered blogs.

Adria Richards

Adria is an Organic Technology Consultant who helps business owners generate more revenue in less time. She’s been using Wordpress for 3 years and has experience in other CMS (Content Management Systems) like Joomla as well as 10 years of IT experience. She launched Freshworkshops.com this year which offers live, hands-on training on web technologies like Wordpress, SEO and social media. Adria holds MCSA, MCDST and A+ certifications and is currently pursing her Comptia Certified Technical Trainer. She also blogs at But You’re A Girl and hosts a weekly ustream show at Ask Adria.

John Saddington

John is a Social Computing Strategist and Web Technologist. After developing apps and leading teams for a number of Fortune 50 businesses he started working in the non profit sector, joining North Point Ministries as their Creative Web Director where I have the incredible opportunity to turn organizational goals into practical, strategic, and effective solutions. John is also the Creative Engineer @ M!lk Engine, a web-experience architectural collective group.

Chris Scott

Chris is a lead developer for Voce Communications focusing on custom WordPress solutions for some high profile and interesting clients including Sony Playstation, Discovery Channel, and eBay. He works daily within projects running on WordPress.com’s VIP service which means he has the added bonus of Automattic’s team scrutinizing his code. His most proud accomplishment, however, might just be the creation of http://bacolicio.us, a site which sadly has nothing to do with WordPress, but everything to do with bacon.

Rusty Tanton

Rusty is technical lead for the New Site Products and Enhancements team at WebMD, focusing on usability testing with a heavy emphasis on Omniture integration and jQuery. He has also been developing Wordpress themes since before there was a built-in theming system, and currently develop Wordpress themes and plugins for clients.
Rusty has been blogging since 2003, co-founding the Georgia Podcast Network with Amber Rhea in 2006, and helped organizing PodCamp Atlanta in 2007. His blog is at rustytanton.com and is on Facebook and Twitter under rustytanton.

Jane Wells

Jane is the user experience lead for WordPress, and has worked in the web industry for 10 years. Though she’s currently based in Middle Georgia, she spends much of her time traveling to WordCamps and meeting WordPress users to incorporate their feedback into each new version.