Chris Lema Interview

Chris Lema
Chris Lema is speaking on Be Yoda Not Luke: A Content Strategy that Wins – for businesses and bloggers alike at WordCamp Minneapolis.

What inspired or motivated you to give this talk at WordCamp?

A lot of people hear the advice that they need to blog. What they follow up with, as a common question, is how to fill the blank page.

How do you “create intention” in your job, career, or life?

I start each day with a short list of three things I care about getting done for the day.

If you were a WordPress Plugin, what Plugin would you be and why?

Optin Monster – because I like being useful!

If you were not doing your current job, what profession would you be in and why?

I love the decision making that fire men demonstrate. That might be fun. Except for the risk and fire part.

What professional and/or research resource(s) can’t you live without?

Google.

The 2016 WordCamp Schedule Is Live!

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for!

We are extremely excited to present to you the 2016 WordCamp Minneapolis schedule for the weekend of May 20th-22nd. It is jam-packed with quality content from our speakers covering a wide range of topics, from development and design to content, marketing, and community involvement.

View The Schedule

Stay tuned for more details to come, but we’ve got information up there about our new Foundation Friday tracks (a hands-on deep learning experience to get you started with using, designing, or developing for WordPress), our popular social brunch with lightning talk presentations, and all of our weekend sessions.

WordCamp Minneapolis Schedule

Getting Started

WordCamps are exciting events filled with knowledge, but we have gotten feedback that they can sometimes be overwhelming, and it’s hard to know what tracks you should be attending. This is true whether you are a first-time attendee, or maybe just aren’t quite sure what you want to get out of it.

We heard your concerns, and created something for you! If you’re already comfortable with where you want to go, we’ll have some great talks for you to attend, but if you want some guidance, stick around in the main auditorium at 9am for Getting Started. We’ll provide you with a clear path for navigating WordCamps and introduce you to our tracks.

Each of the talks following (at 10am) will serve as a perfect introduction to that track and set the tone for the talks the rest of the day.

Haven’t got your tickets? Get them here! They’re selling quickly, so don’t delay, because we’d love to have you join us!

Get Tickets

Be A Part of the WordCamp Community

WordCamps are about community

People gather at WordCamps to share and increase their knowledge and experience around WordPress. Designers, developers, marketers, business owners, publishers, writers, and bloggers make up a growing and diverse community of people who use WordPress in their work and lives. Technology may be the impetus, but the outcome is much greater than that—and the best explanation would be to just watch what happens.

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WordCamps are not meant to be big, fancy, expensive conferences. WordCamps are local gatherings that are affordable, allowing people from all walks of life to attend, meet, share, and learn. You’ll meet people who are crazy smart, insanely inspired, and wildly engaging. You may find new collaborators, new employees or employers, and new groups to continue working with throughout the year. Join us at WordCamp, and build community together!

Be part of the WordCamp Minneapolis community in 2016 as an attendee, volunteer, or sponsor.

Register to Attend   Volunteer for WordCamp

Become A Sponsor

Become A Microsponsor and Support Women In Tech

Introducing Community Microsponsor tickets for WordCamp Minneapolis

WordCamp Minneapolis 2015. Photo © 2015 Kristine Leuze

WordCamp Minneapolis 2015. Photo © 2015 Kristine Leuze

We hear from many people who want to help support WordPress and WordCamps, but that traditional sponsor levels don’t really fit what they are looking for. Often, these are individuals or small businesses that use WordPress and want to help out. We hear you, which is why we are pleased to be offering Microsponsor tickets this year!

A microsponsor ticket gets you general admission to the weekend conference (Saturday and Sunday) plus a shoutout on our sponsor page thanking you for your extra contribution! As you know, we work really hard to put on a quality event at such a low, accessible price, so we appreciate everyone in the community that wants to give a little extra!

WordCamp Supports Women In Technology

WordCamp Minneapolis 2015. Photo © 2015 Kristine Leuze

WordCamp Minneapolis 2015. Photo © 2015 Kristine Leuze

In addition to being involved with WordCamps, I am very passionate about empowering women to get involved with code and technology, which is why I also volunteer and mentor for Girl Develop It Minneapolis. Recently, in addition to standard classes, Girl Develop It Minneapolis has started to offer an entire Front-End Developer series. A cohort of women take all the classes together, participate in extra study sessions and meetups, and get real hands-on learning about modern web development workflows. It’s a joy to be a part of, and something I want to support beyond just mentorship.

Your microsponsor ticket will not only help us put on a successful WordCamp, but helps offset the cost of special discount tickets we are offering to their winter Front-End Developer cohort to come join us for WordCamp and continue their web education!

Get A Microsponsor Ticket Now

Foundation Friday: Hands-On WordPress Training

New to WordPress? Or want to ramp up your web design or development skills?

Attend WordCamp Minneapolis Foundation Friday

WordCamp Minneapolis 2015. Photo © 2015 Paul Lampland

Photo © 2015 Paul Lampland

We’re excited to announce that WordCamp Minneapolis is offering a day of workshops with our first Foundation Friday. This is a smaller, separate event taking place Friday, May 20th prior to the weekend conference. Unlike the normal conference tracks, these are full-day hands-on learning sessions.

If you’re new to WordPress, you can get up to speed before WordCamp. If you’re a graphic designer or programmer who wants to work with WordPress, you can acquire a solid foundation to get started.

You should plan to bring a laptop computer, as many of the sessions will be working live in WordPress. You may have your own WordPress website installation, or we’ll offer options for local and remote workspace. All sessions will be in a classroom format, led by professionals with WordPress expertise.

You can purchase these tickets in addition to the normal conference tickets. Capacity is limited and we expect tickets to go quickly—so don’t delay, register today. There are three tracks from which to choose depending upon your interest.

INTRO TO WORDPRESS
for bloggers, content managers, and marketers

From setting up WordPress to creating content and managing a website, you’ll learn everything needed to get started with the world’s most popular content management system. You’ll become skilled using the WordPress dashboard to create web pages and blog posts, add images and videos, customize themes, manage users and comments, monitor security, and even extend your website with new features from the thousands of WordPress plugin options.

Prerequisites: None, but please bring a laptop to follow along working in WordPress.

BUY TICKETS

WORDPRESS DESIGN
for graphic designers

Moving from print design to web design, or from static content to dynamic content? Explore how to design a great user experience for both the website audience and the content administrator. You’ll learn how design relates to content output, and explore “thinking like WordPress” via the template hierarchy, WordPress content types, modular design, front-end best practices, and more.

Prerequisites: General design experience is encouraged, but not necessary, though we will be talking about design concepts on a high level. Experience with the WordPress Dashboard/Admin and comfortable talking about WordPress content. Bonus if you have some HTML/CSS experience.

BUY TICKETS

WORDPRESS DEVELOPMENT
for web developers

Starting from scratch, you’ll learn about using WordPress logic and template functions to output dynamic content, as well as writing clean, reusable code. You’ll learn how to use core functions, the template hierarchy, custom queries, actions, and smart programming logic to build themes and plugins, as well as best practices for creating a maintainable, scalable codebase.

Prerequisites: Experience with the WordPress Dashboard/Admin and comfortable talking about WordPress content. Comfortable with HTML/CSS, and some experience with a programming logic language (like JavaScript, PHP, or similar). Highly recommend bringing a computer with your local development environment of choice already setup with a WordPress install.

BUY TICKETS

Location

Foundation Friday will be held at the McNally Smith College of Music on Friday, May 20, 2016, conveniently located adjacent to the METRO Green Line 10th Street Station in downtown St. Paul. Schedule coming soon!

McNally Smith College of Music
19 Exchange Street East
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55101

Check out the Location page for more details about hotels, transportation, and social events!

 

The McNally Smith College of Music is not affiliated in any way with the activities conducted by WordPress Foundation on the McNally Smith College of Music campus. The relationship between the McNally Smith College of Music and WordPress Foundation is solely that of licensor and licensee.