Speakers

Jamie Smith

Jamie Smith of Jamie’s Notebook gives companies and organizations “a voice with the written word.” Her mission is to help businesses and organizations discover and express their passion and purpose through the content they produce.

Jamie has become well-known in Northwest Arkansas for her ability to create content that informs, inspires and enlightens. Her business and writing expertise is often sought through one-on-one consulting, as well as when she leads seminars for various organizations.

Brandee Segraves

Director of Social Engagement at Significance Media and Founder of e[bs] Engaging Brand Solutions, Brandee has worked with clients as a copywriter, social media strategist and manager for an eclectic range of businesses to help them develop brand loyalty outside of the “rules” of marketing. She also works with business as a consultant and has been featured on Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network Podcast.

Brandee is an avid fan of “nerd culture,” would get star-struck meeting Seth Godin over Beyoncé, is married to her best friend and together they are raising two boys to believe they CAN grow up to be superheroes.

Eric Huber

Eric Huber, Chief Operations Officer and co-founder of Blue Zoo Creative, has the distinguished honor of telling people when their website and design sucks… and then constructively and creatively finds solutions to create an image that matches their vision and passion.

Alisha McFarland

Hello! My name is Alisha McFarland. I have been helping people make websites for 16 years. By helping, I mean I talk with them, learn who they are, what they do and how they do it differently than anyone else in the world. I then transform that information into something that people can see online, from any device, so they can determine if it is something that is a potential solution to their problem.

If it is, I make sure that there is a way they can connect, do business with each other and provide that produce or service all through the website. So, what I really do is make sure people feel understood, so they can find the people they need and continue to do what they love. All through the magic of technology, but mostly through great conversations.

So if you, or someone you know, may need help with a website, I would love to get that conversation started. You can reach me through my website at alishamcfarland.com, via Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest at @alishawordpress or reach out directly to me at alisha@alishamcfarland.com.

Konstantin Obenland

Konstantin is a WordPress aficionado, and Core Developer based in Southern California.

You might remember him from projects like WordPress 4.3 or the new WordPress.org Plugin Directory. At Automattic he’s is part of a team that contributes to Core and WordPress.org full time.

He enjoys home improvements, bourbons, and good food — sometimes so much that he blogs about it.

Travis Pflanz

Travis Pflanz is a search engine optimization strategist and owner of WebWorks of KC. Travis specializes in SEO for small businesses who target local customers and clients.
Travis is also a co-organizer of WordPress KC – the Kansas City area WordPress enthusiasts Meetup group – and has been on the WordCamp Kansas City organizing team since 2014, serving as Lead Organizer in 2015 & 2016.
When not building WordPress websites and creating SEO strategies, Travis volunteers at Wayside Waifs Humane Society, Spay & Neuter KC and organizes the Kansas City Dog Club – a social club for dog lovers and their pooches.

Ben Pollock

Ben Pollock is an 11-year WordPress enthusiast, with an emphasis on content and ease of navigation. The longtime journalist now is Digital Media Specialist for the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas. Ben has been managing national and area websites that he set up on WordPress. Find his own at benpollock.com with a blog at benpollock.com/brick. He lives in Fayetteville with his wife and their critters.

Dave Navarro Jr

I am a paid WordPress Geek. I work for a large media broadcasting company as a WordPress developer where I write custom plugins and child themes for over 400 websites operated by our company. I am a photographer and multimedia geek. I have the most amazing fiancee in the world that I do not deserve. I am a father of three amazing young ladies and the grandfather of three even more amazing young girls.

Haley Allgood

Haley is passionate about the entrepreneurial community in Northwest Arkansas. Strengths in the following areas: coaching, mentoring, engineering, commercialization, analysis, statistics, STEM program development, entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial ecosystem development. Career interests include entrepreneurship, innovation, and venture finance.

She holds an MBA from the Walton College at the University of Arkansas with a 4.0 GPA. Honors graduate from University of Arkansas Chemical Engineering program.

Rachel Korpella

As a freelance designer for over 10 years, Rachel has spent a lot of time talking to business owners about improving their image through design. Rachel’s passion is in creating marketing materials that help empower local businesses. She values strong branding, and works to educate her clients about how they can improve their representation through quality, consistent design. When she isn’t creating powerful branding, Rachel loves spending time with her husband and their four sons.

Micah Sparrow

As a newcomer to blogging, the WordPress community has been welcoming and gracious. I would love to help others take the leap into blogging and website creation with WordPress.

I’m a busy mother and schoolteacher. My sons claim that the line between those two roles is often blurred. My boys and I call northwest Arkansas home and enjoy everything it has to offer. We spend our time riding the bicycle trails, kayaking, and hanging out at places with art and great food.

I enjoy dining out and exploring to find great food and also creating great food at home. Cooking is a creative outlet for me. I love spending time in the kitchen; however, I don’t always have that time. That’s why I developed my food blog to share my time-saving tips for cooking great food at home and spending less time waiting in the drive-through line.

George Spake

George Spake is the lead organizer of the WordPress Memphis User Group and an avid WordPress fan, developer, and evangelist. As a member of the web services team at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, George has tested the limits of WordPress’s awesomeness and hasn’t been let down yet.

Josepha Haden

Josepha comes from a long line of writers and was raised to be a life-long learner. She has a passion for language and storycrafting, a skill she practices on josepha.blog. Josepha has over a decade of experience using SEO, data analysis, and content marketing to bring success and visibility to clients all over the world. Since 2010, she’s been working in her hometown of Kansas City to increase digital literacy and get more women in tech. Josepha works at Automattic as a community organizer for the WordPress open source project and can be found on Twitter as @josephahaden.

Aaron D. Campbell

Aaron is the WordPress Core Security Team lead, has been a regular contributor to WordPress for more than ten years, and is currently funded by GoDaddy to work full time on the WordPress open source project. He has over seventeen years of web development experience and worked with clients ranging from small local businesses to Google, Yahoo, Disney, and Harvard. He’s been called both a coffee snob and a beer snob, but considers both to be compliments. When not buried in code, he enjoys spending time with his wife and son, riding his motorcycle, and reading sci-fi/fantasy books.

Danny Santoro

Danny Santoro is a late twenty-something (believe it or not) Cincinnati native who has been working with WordPress for around five years now. Out of school, he ran marketing and web strategy for some global e-commerce brands before leaving to start his own freelance company, which continues to today.

For the past three years, he’s been working at WooThemes and then Automattic for their WooCommerce division. Aside from code, he went to school to make movies (which he still likes to do, if anyone has a connection to Spielberg) and has a few small side businesses and projects to keep himself busier than he probably should be.

Wolf Bishop

I have worked with WordPress for more than 10 years and I operate a WordPress centric business. I also work as Tech Support at A2 Hosting. I believe WordPress is the best web design platform available today. I am married to the most amazing Woman in the world, and have the three most amazing children in the world.

Rebecca Haden

Rebecca is the Founder and Creative Director of Haden Interactive, a content-focused WordPress web firm based in Fayetteville, AR. She holds a BA in Linguistics from UC San Diego and an MA in Linguistics from San Diego State University, and taught college writing for many years.
Rebecca has been writing for the web since the 20th century. Featured in the Wall Street Journal in 2009, Rebecca serves clients on four continents with web content, blogging, SEO strategy, and inbound marketing, helping organizations large and small establish thought leadership online.

Shane Purnell (keynote)

Shane Purnell is a full-time Software Product Manager who speaks part-time at special events and conferences. He blogs about public speaking, personal branding and platform building. His current project is PlatformGiant.com, a WordPress site that provides professionals and entrepreneurs with tools and resources for building their platforms so they can rise above the noise and get noticed.

He has a degree in Speech Communication from the University of Missouri and has spent the last 18 years studying how to use the internet to communicate more effectively.

Katharine Trauger

Katharine Trauger is a retired educator and a women’s counselor.
She has spent 25 years managing a home and school for children who would otherwise have been homeless, and has worked 15 years as contributor and/or columnist for several small professional print magazines, with over 60 published articles. She has blogged seven years about the rising popularity of “being at home” from a sun room on a wooded hilltop in the Deep South at: katharinetrauger.wordpress.com (Home’s Cool!) and http://The ConqueringMom.com and tweets at Katharine Trauger (@KathaTrau). She has presented workshops annually for the Arkansas Education Alliance and for an annual camp event in the Ouachitas. Her online portfolio lives at: https://katharinetrauger.contently.com/ .

David Bernstein

As long as he can remember, people called him nosey and prying.  He calls himself naturally curious. Whatever you call it, David Bernstein has been intrigued by how things work and why people behave the way they do.  It’s no wonder then that he began his career after leaving Syracuse University as a journalist with CNN in Atlanta and later at radio stations around his home state of New York.  An MBA from the State University of New York at Binghamton propelled him into the world of marketing and marketing research.  For more than 30 years, David has worked directly in marketing everything from public broadcasting radio and television stations, banking products and services, custom computer software, telephone directories, internet-based search engines, and 6-degree of motion hydraulic platforms.  He was worked for such Fortune 25 companies as CNN, GTE, Verizon, and Sam’s Club.  Bernstein is currently the Chapter Chair for Northwest Arkansas SCORE leading a team of volunteers providing free mentoring services and seminars to aspiring entrepreneurs.  He also maintains his private marketing firm known as The Bernstein Agency.

Robert Simmons

Robert began his career working as a web designer for a firm specializing in e-commerce websites. The firm grew so quickly, Robert was pulled to help them with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and SEO until they “found a replacement.” He became so good at both, he became the replacement, doubling their PPC revenue. As director of SEO and PPC advertising at another firm, he increased his department’s monthly revenue by 25% in just nine months. Robert now runs his own full-service marketing firm, Hatmen Marketing, which offers marketing services to small to medium-sized businesses, as well as white-label marketing services for other agencies.

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