Category Archives: speakers

Get to Know Your Speakers: Cameron Barrett

speakers, The More You Know, , ,

1) What do you do for a living (company you work for, official title, daily responsibilities, etc.)
I’ve has been blogging since you were in grade school (well, some of you). I pioneered the blog format in the late 1990s and remember an eager, bright-eyed young man named Ma.tt being excited to meet one of the “founding fathers of blogging” in 2003.
I have designed and built web sites for presidential candidates, the U.S. Army, the World Economic Forum, Teach for America and I lead the migration of 70+ web sites from a terrifically-bad, proprietary SaaS to WordPress Multisite for New Jersey’s largest public school district.

I hail from Northern Michigan, but grew up internationally, and currently live in Northern NJ with my family. I am leading the charge for embracing “WordPress in Schools” and my goal is to eventually have all 14,000+ public school districts in this country using WordPress in some way through a services-based company called SchoolPress.

2) How did you get into WordPress?
Now, this is a story about how my site got flipped-turned upside down. I’ll take a minute to just sit right here and tell you how I came to use WordPress. I was born and raised in West Philadelphia where I spent most of my days chilling out online. But then I got all mixed up with 4chan and some guys who were up to no good. They started to make trouble in my online neighborhood. I got into one little Internet fight and my mom got scared. She said, “You’re moving with your aunt and uncle to California.”

I begged and pleaded with her day after day but she packed up my  MacBook Air and sent me on my way. She gave me a kiss and gave me my ticket. I put on my earbuds and said, “I might as well switch it up.” I flew first class, orange juice out of a champagne glass and all. Is this what living in California is going to be like? All right.

Well, the plane landed and when I came out there was a due who looked like a cop standing there with my name on a card. I wasn’t sure what to do, I just got here, so I hightailed it out of there and whistled for a cab. The license plate said Ma.tt and it had dice in the mirror. If anything, I could say this cab was rare. But I thought, “California, take me and my MacBook Air.”

We pulled up to a house around 7 or 8pm and I yelled to the cabbie, “Yo Ma.tt, see ya later.” I looked at my kingdom. I was finally there. To sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel-Air.

3) What’s a great experience you had at a WordCamp?
I especially appreciate the willingness and eagerness of WordCamp attendees to help others out, no matter their level of expertise. I spend a lot of time at very technical conferences and the technical vs non-technical cliques are very obvious. WordCamps span the gap quite well.

4) What are your non-WordPress, non-Computer related hobbies?
Biking, hiking and travel. About 15 years ago I came very close to starting an adventure travel company in Siberia but the funding fell through and the local Russian mafia advised me against it.

5) If you could be any fictional character, who would you be and why?
Wapuu. It’s not every day that you get to be the mascot for every WordCamp in the world.

Get to Know Your Speakers: George Stephanis

speakers, The More You Know, , ,

George Stephanis1) What do you do for a living (company you work for, official title, daily responsibilities, etc.)

I work for Automattic, leading the team that builds the Jetpack plugin! 🙂

2) How did you get into WordPress?

I got into WordPress in depth around 2011 while freelancing — I was looking for a way to give back to the community and software project that had made my life so much easier.

3) What’s a great experience you had at a WordCamp?

While at the contributor day following WordCamp Philly 2011 — my very first WordCamp — Nacin merged in my first changeset to core, which I think was converting three sequential periods `…` into an ellipses `…` entity.

4) What are your non-WordPress, non-Computer related hobbies?

I enjoy woodworking and letterpress printing.

5) If you could be any fictional character, who would you be and why?

Probably Gilad Pellaeon, from the old Star Wars Extended Universe.  While he was an officer in the Imperial Navy and later the Imperial Remnants, he wasn’t evil, but rather an advocate for order, peace, and providing as best as could be managed for all the citizens under his purview.

Yes, I’m picking a Star Wars character, and no, this decision was in no way influenced by Joe.

Getting to Know Your Speakers: Dustin Meza

speakers, The More You Know, , ,

Dustin Meza1) What do you do for a living (company you work for, official title, daily responsibilities, etc.)

I’m the Director of Customer Experience Operations at WP Engine. While my world changes every single day, the goal of the Customer Experience Operations team is to enable WP Engine to scale and maintain a world class experience for our customers. This is done by constantly innovating and providing tools, knowledge, resources, and more to our Support team, our Customers, and the Community.

2) How did you get into WordPress?

I joined WP Engine about two and a half years ago and hadn’t used WordPress before that, slowly but surely I grew my knowledge with a goal of being so knowledgeable I could handle customer tickets. When I got married last year I created our wedding site in WordPress which became my first venture into building a complete site, it was a lot of fun! I now want to give back to the community and am speaking at 3 WordCamps in July!

3) What’s a great experience you had at a WordCamp?

My first ever WordCamp was in Chicago, and it was a blast! Meeting so many people, making so many friends. My favorite part was on the last day a big group of us went on a river architecture tour and then went and watched the San Antonio Spurs win the NBA Championship, it was a night I’ll never forget!

4) What are your non-WordPress, non-Computer related hobbies?

Sports, I’ll basically play or watch any sport. Soccer is my favorite, and I’ve been watching all the Women’s World Cup matches currently going on. GO USA!

5) If you could be any fictional character, who would you be and why?

James Bond, specifically from the Daniel Craig movies. I’m a huge fan of the new Bond movies and I feel they’re doing such an awesome job of making Bond more human, showing his flaws, having him struggle with real world problems. But all the while gallivanting across the world and fighting evil!