WordCamp Denver 2009

Speakers

Gil Asakawa (MediaNews Group)

I’m currently Manager of Audience Development for MediaNews Group Interactive, the online side of the company that owns The Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News, Detroit News and St. Paul Pioneer Press, among many others. I analyze traffic to MediaNews Group websites and recommend and implement action based on Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing best practices to increase traffic and interaction; train newsroom staff and interactive content producers on best practices for their sites to grow traffic; help to develop and execute new sites.

Micah Baldwin (Lijit)

Micah is the VP of Business Development and chief evangelist for Lijit Networks, a Boulder, CO based startup focused on providing publishers with flexible search tools that help drive pageviews, reader engagement and revenue. Having sold his agency in 2007, he writes about entrepreneurship and startups on his blog LearnToDuck and is working on a novel about past experiences. Over the past 15+ years, Micah has either started businesses or helped others understand the wonderful world of startups. A frequent speaker, his favorite topics include: branding and evangelism, search engine optimization, startups, his two dogs and three cats, and reputation management.

Jon Fox (Intense Debate)

Jon has a B.S. in Math and Computer Science with a desire for technology and programming that started at a very young age. He also has a passion for business and entrepreneurship adding a wide range of skills to the team. He’s currently taking time off working on his Masters in Computer Science at Washington University in St. Louis to pursue this business venture.

Jeremy Harrington (crawlspace|media)

Jeremy Harrington has a love for creating compelling and attractive experiences for users. Jeremy has spent more than twelve years designing digital experiences. He has spent eight years as a senior user experience and visual design lead for a major enterprise software company. He also shares his passion for design with the team at Crowd Favorite designing and developing custom WordPress and web application interfaces.

Joe Hildebrand (Cisco)

Ben Huh (Pet Holdings)

Ben Huh is the CEO of the company that runs FAIL Blog, I Can Has Cheezburger?, GraphJam and other Interweb time sinks. He lives in a strange alternate-universe where people make a living from memes, viral humor and crowd-sourced content. Ben and his team of 11 employees run one of the largest blog networks in the world from a teeny tiny office under the Space Needle, serving up hundreds of millions of pictures a month and making people happy for 5 minutes a day. And it’s a lot of fun. I Can Has Cheezburger? (the book) spent 13 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. Ben’s working on 3 more blog-to-book deals — among other ways to make a business out of being a blogger.

Alex King (Crowd Favorite)

A web developer living in Denver, Colorado, having moved from the Bay Area in 2004, Alex is the founder of Crowd Favorite, a web development company that specializes in WordPress development (including themes and implementation) and web-based applications. Alex also haS a number of development projects.

Kevin Menzie (Slice of Lime)

Kevin is the CEO of Slice of Lime, an online strategy, design, and development company in Boulder, Colorado. Kevin has spent his career exploring the relationship between design and code and practicing “results-oriented design.” He has grown Slice of Lime on this principal and focuses client work on start-ups, B2B, B2C, web-apps, and “experience” websites. When not at the office, Kevin teaches Adobe Illustrator, draws cartoons, plays piano, and takes his mountain bike for the occasional spin/crash.

Dave Moyer (WordCast, Ars Technica)

Dave is an internet personality in the Denver area, and is the founder and president of Bitwire Media, a digital media company that produces online and offline content on a wide variety of topics. Dave is also the producer and cohost of Bitwire’s popular podcast devoted to WordPress and blogging, WordCast, and covers open source technology for Ars Technica.

Matt Mullenweg (Automattic)

Named one of PC World’s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc.com’s 30 under 30, and Business Week’s 25 Most Influential People on the Web, Matt is the founding developer of WordPress.

Steve O’Grady (RedMonk)

i’m an industry analyst with redmonk. james and i founded the firm in november of 2002, and i’ve been doing that ever since. previously, i worked for keane, dialogos (now defunct), blue hammock, and illuminata.

i have a ba in history from williams college.

Shawn Parker (Crowd Favorite)

Shawn “Wookiee” Parker earned his bachelor’s degree in visual arts with an emphasis in photography from the University of Northern Colorado. After graduating, he moved to southern Colorado and began his career as a photojournalist, where he won a first-place award from the Associated Press for general news photography. Later, he relocated to Denver and started working in pre-press and graphic design while also teaching himself web development. A self-taught programmer, Shawn eventually earned a job as a web designer and developer for a computer hardware and software distributor before joining Crowd Favorite. He now has more than 10 years of experience in graphic design and more than five in web development.

The son of a naval officer, Shawn spent much of his childhood living oversees in England and Holland. Today, he lives in Denver, Colorado. When he’s not obsessing over his Mac, his camera, the Subaru or a piece of cheesecake, he spends his time doting on his wife and two dogs. He also does his part for the environment and rides his bicycle to work every day.

Josh Pigford (Sabotage Media, The Apple Blog)

Josh Pigford, founder and editor of TheAppleBlog, is a writer and interactive designer. In addition to immersing himself in all things Apple, he designs and develops interactive products for companies large and small around the globe.

A native of the Dirty South, Josh now lives in Denver with his wife, two pugs, and a baby on the way.

Joseph Scott (Automattic)

Joseph is a California native, living in Utah with his wife and two daughters. He got hooked on email when it meant dialing into a BBS with a 2400 baud modem and ended up memorizing way too much of the AT command set. Access to the Internet changed all that and going to work for an ISP cemented that shift. It also exposed to him to the world of open source, starting with FreeBSD in 1996. From there he spent a number of years in IT doing a little bit of everything.

Jake Spurlock, Petomundo

Jake Spurlock, Social Media Manager for Petomundo! is a writer, designer, developer, and has been known to do a little bit of skiing too. He lives near Salt Lake City, Utah where he evangelizes WordPress, takes a lot of pictures, and promotes animal related causes with Petomundo, a social network for pet people.

Aside from a few plane layovers, this is Jake’s first time to Denver. The fun part is waiting to see when his wife’s baby is going to be born… It is due the 26th, so let’s hope that it comes a few days early in time for WordCamp!

Jim Turner (One By One Media)

Jim Turner is the founder of the One By One Media and it was his vision that began the business in 2004. Jim is a well-respected professional blogger, mentoring others to become professional bloggers and leading companies through successful online strategies. Jim is a leader in the new industry of social media and business blogging, and is well connected in advertising, public relations, marketing and other business circles. Jim has experience in management and leadership from working in the law for more than 20 years and is taking those skills to the social media arena and making companies successful as they enter into the Web 2.0 business space. Jim lives in Colorado with his wife and four children.

Brian Warren (Be Good Not Bad)

My passion for art and design only grew throughout the years. It’s grown to include web design, marketing and even some programming. I strongly believe in developing partnerships with fellow designers, working together to help us specialize in what we do best. I’ve done that through Method Arts, a group of fellow freelancers who are the best out there and a good group of people.

Whether it’s designing a site, rocking the CSS or brewing a batch of homemade beer, I do it with passion. Life is too short to not make opportunities to do what you enjoy. I’m a blessed person to be able to do just that. I enjoy design and helping people.