Author Archives: Andy McIlwain

About Andy McIlwain

Andy wrangles content at GoDaddy and co-organizes WordPress meetups & WordCamps in Toronto. Find him on Twitter and his personal site.

Sponsor Spotlight: Sucuri, Inc.

Our Sponsor Spotlight series showcases the people and organizations who are supporting WordCamp Toronto 2015 through financial or in-kind contributions. Learn more about this year’s sponsors.

SucuriWhat is Sucuri?

“Sucuri gives website owners peace of mind with solutions that prevent hackers from abusing websites, and professional response services to those compromised. Sucuri is dedicated to researching the latest and emerging threats affecting websites like yours.

Website security should be attainable for all website owners; we focus on making that a reality. Get back to running awesome WordPress websites. Our services are built around three principles – People. Process. Technology.”

Why WordPress?

“Simply stated, WordPress is easy to use. The wide-spread use of the WP platform confirms this fact. WordPress includes an applicable solution for beginners, developers and anyone between.

That flexibility resonates with our core focus. Sucuri has enjoyed a long history within the WordPress community and many of our organizational roots trace back to WordPress. We highly respect the community and have sought to both participate in and support a variety of WordCamp events over the years.”

Featured Speaker: Scott Grant

“Hello! I’m a software developer based out of Kingston, Ontario, with a lovely wife, two wonderful boys, and a cat who likes having showers. I spent four years writing code in Silicon Valley, spent a few years on faculty at Queen’s University, and now spend my days building software with WordPress.”

Presentation: Systematic Unit Testing

“I’m a huge fan of unit testing for a wide range of reasons. However, tests can be misleading. For example, what does it mean to have ten-thousand tests? Is that enough? Too many? What exactly are the tests covering? A systematic approach helps inform where new tests are needed and gives a way of thinking about when a test suite is complete.” Continue reading →

Featured Speaker: Brian Rotsztein

“I’m an Internet marketer, consultant, entrepreneur, author, and speaker. As the CEO of Uniseo, I work with clients to achieve their online objectives in a realistic manner. I’m also involved in many other projects, including my work as a photographer, and more.”

Presentation: Grow Your Ideal Audience with Content Marketing

“I wrote the book on content marketing and want to share my experience and knowledge with those in attendance.” Continue reading →

Sponsor Spotlight: WP Engine

Our Sponsor Spotlight series showcases the people and organizations who are supporting WordCamp Toronto 2015 through financial or in-kind contributions. Learn more about this year’s sponsors.

WP EngineWhat is WP Engine?

“WP Engine is a leading SaaS content management platform for websites and applications built on WordPress. The company powers thousands of websites and apps built on the WordPress platform delivering a fast, reliable and secure web experience.

All levels of users including bloggers, marketers, SMBs and large corporations rely on WP Engine’s platform to keep their websites up and running. The company’s exceptional customer service team specializes in quickly solving technical problems, and creating a world-class customer experience ensuring that each user’s WordPress site continues to perform at its full potential.

Founded in 2010, WP Engine is headquartered in Austin, Texas and has offices in San Francisco, California, San Antonio, Texas and London, England.”

Why WordPress?

“The community. WordPress is backed by a thriving community; a group of people who care for each other and who constantly strive to make WordPress better. This sets WordPress apart and makes it unique, and we are proud to help brands that use WordPress win online.”

Continue reading →

Featured Speaker: David Mackey

David Mackey is a Digital Marketing Consultant based in Kanata. He has 25+ years of experience building and supporting multi-tiered server applications and telecommunication systems. His recent programming and consulting experience includes four years of working with WordPress. He is excited to share what he has learned about Digital Marketing, and how you can transform your vanilla WordPress website into a persuasion platform.

Presentation: Digital Marketing with WordPress

“Installing WordPress is a quick and easy way to obtain a web presence, but there’s much more required in order to turn your site into a full digital marketing platform.

In this presentation, I want to share a template for a digital marketing architecture based on WordPress, and show how they can build one on their own using WordPress Plugins.”

Continue reading →

Sponsor Spotlight: Trew Knowledge

Our Sponsor Spotlight series showcases the people and organizations who are supporting WordCamp Toronto 2015 through financial or in-kind contributions. Learn more about this year’s sponsors.

Trew KnowledgeWhat is Trew Knowledge?

“Trew Knowledge is an award winning digital marketing agency located in Toronto. We deliver solutions that leverage our innovative vision, technical prowess, and unmatched customer service.

Specializing in large-scale WordPress websites, our team of experts can assist you with custom-built themes, plugins, code review, content migration, and consultation.

As the first and only Canadian based WordPress.com VIP Featured Partner, we have exclusive access to the WordPress VIP collaboration and support team that allows us to provide unparalleled value and exceptional development expertise for our clients.”

Continue reading →

Featured Speaker: Jamie Schmid

“I’m a Web Architect at OhmzTech, a Milwaukee-based app and website development firm. I’ve got a background in Information Architecture, Web Development and UX design, but my true love is planning and organizing and writing things on paper. I love showing others the exciting world of WordPress content types. I love working with clients and helping them to truly understand their content…. and love WordPress over whatever they were using before.”

Presentation: Content Doesn’t Grow on Trees – An Introduction to Content Strategy

“When I discovered Content Strategy it was like the sky opened up and a rainbow of light shined down with an angel’s chorus singing “no more late nights spent sorting through horrible content” and I was sold.” Continue reading →