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Speaker Spotlight: Jonathan Perlman

Jonathan Perlman is an experienced web developer and teacher that works for Dawson College in Montreal, Quebec. He builds custom web solutions for the students, faculty and staff. Recently he’s been leveraging WordPress more and more to do the heavy lifting while focusing on the needs of the institution with custom themes and plugins. Some of his sites have been built for a select few whereas others are visited by 12,000+ applicants. Jonathan is also an instructor for Dawson’s Centre for Training and Development specializing in web technologies such as HTML & CSS, PHP and WordPress.

Jonathan will be giving a talk titled “The Dawson Way of Doing Things: A Study of Our Path Using WordPress“.

What is your favorite improvement to WordPress this past year?

My favorite improvement would have to be customizer. I routinely try to give users the ability to add and remove widgets to change their site. While customizer is not perfect, it really beats having to go back and forth between front and backend to make changes.

Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Montreal?

I work in education and I teach, therefore I believe in spreading knowledge, experience and giving back to the community.

What is your talk going to be about?

Dawson College has had it’s fair share of success and failures using WordPress over 6 or so years. We’re going to see how Dawson chose it’s main publishing platform to be WordPress, what went right and wrong, and how we’ve built some of our high traffic and high profile sites.

What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?

Use WordPress multi-site for the right reason!

Who in the WordPress community inspires you? Who do you follow?

Morten Rand-Hendriksen inspires me to never stop learning. I follow David Bisset @dimensionmedia cause he always tweeting about interesting things.

What new feature would you like to see in the future?

Multi-language baked into core.

The Happiness Bar Needs You!

Are you a WordPress expert? Do you like helping others and contributing to the open source community? Well here’s your chance!

What is the Happiness Bar?
The Happiness Bar is a special activity at WordCamp where local and visiting WordPress experts offer help and advice to other attendees who come up to the “bar” with their questions. Help a beginners just starting out, solve a tricky configuration problem or a plugin issue, or help an enterprise figure out how WordPress can fit into their plans.

How much time do I have to commit to?
As a Happiness Bar volunteer you need to commit to one-hour blocks of time. Choose one block or many!

What are the benefits?
It’s a lot of fun and a great way to meet new people and show them how much you know (maybe they’ll hire you!). Happiness Bar volunteers don’t get free attendance because it’s a fun and rewarding activity on it’s own. It’s also a great way to give back to the open source community.

How can I get involved?
If you’re better at answering questions than asking please come to the bar and help out! You can sign up to be an official happiness barista on the volunteering page.

Be a WordCamp Microsponsor

Are you a freelancer or a small company or partnership using WordPress? Are you looking for a way to give back to the WordPress community? As in previous years, WordCamp Montreal is offering microsponsorships.

WordPress is a world where you don’t need to be a big company to be a professional and we want to give the smaller players a chance to contribute as well. To this end we are offering a limited number of microsponsorships at $200 each.

Note: Only individuals and tiny companies should purchase microsponsorships. We hope that larger organizations will find our other sponsorship levels interesting.

Microsponsors won’t have big logos on the site or merch but will have text links accompanying various sponsor listings. You will also be given opportunities during the event to address attendees with a promotional message about you and whatever WordPress-related services you offer.

By limiting the number of these available we hope to make each microsponsor a rockstar at the event itself.

We usually sell Micro-sponsorships as a form of really expensive ticket to simplify the process of signing up.

Get your microsponsor ticket today!

Schedule Available

We’ve confirmed all our speakers and we’ve just released the tentative schedule for WordCamp Montreal 2016. You can read all about our sessions and speakers and start planning your WordCamp weekend. If you don’t have your ticket yet, there is still time!

How Our Talks Are Organized

This year our talks are divided into several streams: code, general, marketing, design, and hands-on workshops. We hope there will be something for everyone. All our speakers have provided prerequisites for their talks, so please read these if you want to know if a particular talk is geared towards beginners or a more advanced crowd.

About Our Workshops

This year we are organizing a number of special hands-on workshops the week before WordCamp. A special ticket to each workshop is required, in addition to your general WordCamp ticket. Space is limited and all workshops will be posted soon.

Some workshops are for beginners and others are for very advanced users. Be sure to read the prerequisites for each workshop carefully. You will be required to bring your own laptop, and have any required software installed before arriving.

Registering for Workshops

Workshop tickets will be available shortly. Please do not register for workshops unless you have already purchased a WordCamp Montreal ticket. Otherwise, your registration will be cancelled and your spot given to someone else.

Please note that the schedule is subject to change. Please double check the schedule the day of the event.

Call for Volunteers

 

Volunteer at WordCamp and get in for free!

Our volunteers make WordCamp possible, so we decided to offer free entry to any volunteer who gives 4 hours or more.

The volunteer tasks are:

  • General Assistance – (assist participants finding facilities and locations, answer general questions)
  • Outdoor Directions – (direct lost looking participants to the registration desk or speaker rooms)
  • Registration Desk – (register participants and offer general help and assistance)
  • Advance Setup on Friday
  • Cleanup on Saturday/Sunday Afternoon
  • Room Volunteer – assist the speaker and attendees as necessary and oversee the room during the presentation
  • Video – potentially record the presentations
  • Translation into sign language
  • Mobility helper

Happiness Bar

The Happiness Bar is a special activity at WordCamp where WordPress experts offer help and advice to WordCamp attendees. It’s a lot of fun and a great way to meet new people and show them how much you know (maybe they’ll hire you!).

Happiness Bar volunteers do not get free admission because it’s a fun and rewarding activity on its own. Please sign up using the normal volunteer application form, just make sure you check the “Happiness Bar” box. (Regular volunteers are also encouraged to help at the Happiness Bar!)

APPLY TO BE A VOLUNTEER

Call for Speakers

We are looking for people excited about WordPress who can engage our attendees while teaching them about it. Submit a proposal for a talk, a workshop, or an unconference session. Not sure what we mean? Find out more about being a speaker here.

Presenting at WordCamp takes some work but is very rewarding. You get to show off how smart you are, convince people you’re worth hiring and help everyone learn about WordPress, all at the same time. Speakers also receive free admission to WordCamp!

APPLY TO BE A SPEAKER

Deadline: Monday, May 30, 2016. Speakers will be notified the week of June 6.

Photo: Mimi Zhou

WordCamp Montreal 2016 is over. Check out the next edition!