by Areti Vassou
And the big day arrived where we all can meet the Speakers of WordCamp Thessaloniki 2019 #WCTHESS2019. Wish you could see the smile on our face, right now. Thanks to speakers’ willingness to share their expertise all visitors have the opportunity to learn something new.
Speakers #WCTHESS2019
Who is Who
Smaro Maroglou
Smaro Maroglou started her professional career in 1998 at an educational software development company in Thessaloniki, where she worked as a UI / UX / Graphic Designer. She, then worked as a UI / UX Designer and 2D Animation Designer for web, multimedia and mobile web design agencies, gaining knowledge and experience in HTML, CSS and the WordPress platform. In 2018 has joined Social Mind as a UI / UX / Graphic Designer with the primary focus on the creative department responsible for graphic design for online advertising, Social Media Accounts content and, of course, web design.
Bridging the gap between creative and development in the WordPress world
Despite the versatility and ease of use that characterizes the WordPress platform, errors are often encountered in the process of implementing an application, at the level of requirements, design and operating options. These mistakes are usually in the cooperation of the planning and implementation teams. Both teams contribute to the creation of the application and play a very important role, but they have different sets of skills, work on different objectives and have a different mentality. As this is an important topic that costs time and money to the company and to the customer, we have developed, and we propose, a set of good practices, useful tools and guides for «bridging the gap», aiming at a proper and organized framework of cooperation between the planning and implementation teams. These practices improve the work environment, enhance the unobstructed flow of projects and ultimately optimize the end-user experience.
Goran Nikolov
Goran Nikolov is a digital marketer with over 7 years of experience and an incredible passion and persistence for staying up to date with the latest marketing trends. He started his career as an independent SEO content writer and soon afterward entered the world of SEO by co-founding and running a couple of blogs. Taking a further step, he discovered a whole new world with SEM and it was the paid marketing exactly that kept his attention the most. Currently, he is mostly focused on building chatbots (or Messenger marketing) as he believes it is a great way of building trust and strong relationships with today’s customers.
Chatbots: in Digital Marketing: An expiring trend or an absolute must?
In my speech, I will emphasize how chatbots grew to become an essential part of everyone’s marketing strategy, their importance and the possibilities they possess for businesses in all industries.
George Tekelis
George Tekelis, is a full-stack web developer based in Athens, Greece. After his dad took him to a computer exhibition back in the ’80s, he decided that one day he would become a computer programmer.
Some times dreams manifest and now having more than 20 years of experience in the industry, he has worked with big and small companies, on many different kinds of projects.
For the last 4 years, he is with the National Technical University of Athens, School of Electrical Engineering. There he is involved with the development of many interesting projects for Smart Grids, Electric Vehicles, Energy Neighborhoods and research.
He also develops his own ideas. Among others, he has created a SAAS for e-shops that help in sales generation, WordPress plugins and mobile games.
Last but not least, he is a happy dad, board game geek, open-source believer, foody and he is always learning new things.
WordPress as Application Development Framework
We usually use WordPress to create beautiful and functional websites. But it provides us with all the tools to use it as an application development platform. These applications can be entirely WordPress-based or part of an ecosystem.
We will see, among other things, why and when to use WordPress for application development, what its benefits are, and how to analyze a project to implement in WordPress.
We will frame all of the above with examples from a real project we implemented at NTUA.
Olaf & Sharon Lederer
Olaf & Sharon Lederer (from finalwebsites) create websites together since 2013, but they know each other a lot longer. As father and daughter, they can offer their customers the full package. From websites and webshops, search engine optimization, online strategy and content creation to consultancy for all kinds of online projects. In 2006, Olaf (who had been a developer for many years) started his first website withWordPress. It was actually a friend from Thessaloniki who advised him to use WordPress for Olaf’s project Web Development Blog. Seven years later, Sharon also got involved withWordPress. First, she started a blog called SuperBlogger, but later she also started helping Olaf’s customers. At this point, Olaf and Sharon are not only using WordPress for their own websites and their customers’, but they are also actively involved in the community as organizers of WordCamp Nijmegen.
How to scale up your WordPress website to the next level?
Do you have an adequate website, but are great results missing? Do
you find it difficult to renew your website, even though you know it’s
really necessary? We will help you to take the next step(s).
During our presentation, we will guide you through every step of the
process. Of course, we keep in mind not to lose your current position in
Google!
We will discuss:
- The importance of a strong brand identity
- Different ideas for conversion optimization
- New ways to attract the right visitors
After this presentation, you will have enough ideas to improve the success of your own website!
Dian Tankov
Dian Tankov: Ι am a Marketing Specialist, Video Content Creator, a WordPress Power User and Contributor. I’ve been in Marketing and WordPress for almost 10 years. My experience includes working as a Marketing Specialist in the leading Bulgarian web hosting company – SuperHosting.BG and as a Marketing Relations Manager in a top WordPress Development Agency – DevriX. As a WordPress Contributor, I have experience in Translations, Marketing, WordCamp Speaking and Organization.
Now I am running my WordPress website diantankov.com, where I share valuable resources (video and articles) related to Digital Marketing, WordPress and other topics. I am cooperating with companies to find customers, helping companies with their online presence, creating WordPress websites, creating content and assisting in organizing events.
Looking forward to meeting you at WordCamp Thessaloniki, where I will speak about effectively combining a video content strategy with a WordPress website and ideas on how we could profit from this.
Twitter – https://twitter.com/DianTankov
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/diantankov/
WordPress.org – https://profiles.wordpress.org/dido4012/
Website – https://www.diantankov.com/
How to successfully use Video Content in a WordPress Website
The topic is on how to effectively combine a video content strategy with
a WordPress website, to drive more traffic to your WordPress website.
- How to achieve better SEO.
- What technical optimizations (cache, plugins, CDN, images, videos) we can make at our website?
- How could we deliver the video content on our website effectively?
- And ideas on how could we profit from all of this?
Areti Vassou
Areti Vassou has been using WordPress professionally since 2004 and considers it one of the best CMS in the history of the Internet. She has over 20 years of digital experience and her CV includes collaborations in the USA and Europe, on demanding SEO & Content Marketing global projects as well as in marketing companies. As a ghostwriter, she has worked on some of the most popular blogs and brands in digital technology and marketing, academic research and medicine, as well as travel, tourism, lifestyle & fashion. She specializes in SEO, digital communication & marketing strategy and the creation of Advanced SEO optimized content for Luxury Brands. At the same time, blogging has been her favorite business occupation since 1994. She has traveled to 105 countries with her laptop. She loves cats, music, books, swimming and code studying.
Blog: https://www.ideadeco.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aretivassouideadeco/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aretivassou/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AretiVassou
Tumblr: https://ideadeco.tumblr.com/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Ideadeco.Ideadeco/
Corporate Blogging
Corporate Blogging is based on research, strategy and expertise. The goal is to develop communication and corporate identity, with WordPress itself as a first strong example. The presentation is about the basic principles of Corporate Blogging.
Dimitrios Selimidis
Dimitrios Selimidis is the founder of Web Expert, a modern IT company specializing in website building, e-shops and web applications’ development, located in Kozani, with a significant clientele, both in Greece and abroad. He has been involved in Web Development and Design since 1999, and his first contact with WordPress was in 2013. Since then, he has been creating websites and e-shops on the popular platform, creating custom themes, custom add-ons and WordPress-based web applications.
WooCommerce Do’s and Don’ts!
WooCommerce is the most widely used e-commerce system in WordPress, with over 70 million sites worldwide. But is WooCommerce right? Is it slow? Is it simple?
In the presentation, we will talk about Do’s and Don’t’s for WooCommerce, which mainly focus on usability, performance, speed, and we will share experiences with you on setting up an e-shop in WooCommerce.
Thanos Papavasileiou
Thanos Papavasileiou is a self-taught product designer who lives and works in Svoronos & London. Ex designer @CSSIgniter, Ex Head of Design @incrediblue, the last 5 years he’s designing B2B Marketplace Platforms for big brands and enterprise-grade companies like Christie’s, Lloyds of London, LeasePlan and Mitsui & CO. In his spare time, he facilitates a UX Design club for teens, writes fairytales for kids, learning Spanish and playing Tennis.
Twitter – https://twitter.com/Klou
Design Principles for WooCommerce Projects
In this talk, Thanos is going to share some practical hints & tips for a proper WooCommerce User Experience. From the landing page to check-out, these guidelines will help you build stores that convert.
Takis Bouyouris
Takis Bouyouris is a software engineer and lead web developer at Nevma web agency. He has been creating small and large websites and web applications with WordPress since 2007. He is an active member of the Greek, but also the global, WordPress community, organizing meetups and WordCamps wherever he may be. He likes reading, music and cinema, but searching problem-solving, and especially within a performance, is his second nature. If you see him on the train, talk to him about technology and WordPress. He will definitely answer.
https://www.nevma.gr/
https://takis.nevma.gr/
https://www.facebook.com/takis.bouyouris/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/takisbouyouris/
https://twitter.com/takisbig/
Measuring frontend performance
If you can’t measure it, you can’t optimize it. This ancient saying is right! In this talk, I will present the fundamentals of measuring frontend performance in a WordPress web page and how to spot the problematic spots and thus search for means of optimization. Ι will also give some useful tips and ideas on optimization and I hope to learn some new ones, too.
Fotis Routsis
Fotis Routsis (aka mr.fotaras) is a Freelance Web Developer based in Athens, Greece.
He holds a BSc in Informatics from Athens University of Economics and Business and an MSc in Health Informatics. Since 2007 he works as a Freelance Web Developer and Consultant and has participated in various projects. He is a member of the Greek FOSS community and he is actively involved in most of the community activities.
As a Web Developer, he always tries to keep up with the new trends around the Web and the latest technologies around it. Although he is a backend web developer focused on code and algorithms he also gets in touch with front-end stuff making the web more beautiful!
From 2009 to 2012 he was part of the Open Government Initiative (OpenGov.gr) of the Greek Prime Minister’s Office and had the chance to get involved in large scale Open Government projects mainly focused on Transparency and Improvement of Public Administration. His passion for Open Data emerged via his activities as a member of the OpenGov.gr where he realized the need for Open Data and the potential they have.
When not coding or in front of his laptop he pretends to be an adventurous guy by scuba diving, spearfishing or in the winter snowboarding.
Custom Post Types, Post Meta, Custom Taxonomies: The heart of modern WP
The heart of modern WordPress implementations is to make the most of Custom Post Types, Post Meta and Custom Taxonomies.
The purpose of the presentation is to make a clear distinction between the three and through easy examples to help the user in choosing the right solutions based on the above mentioned.
Alexandros Melis
Alexandros Melis was born in Greece, obtained his degree from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki as a Mechanical Engineer and his postgraduate degree from the University of Sheffield in Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations. From an early age, as a fan of music and urban culture expressed by Hip Hop, he dealt with music events, initially as a listener and then became one of the most important members of the creation of THHF, the longest-running Greek Hip Hop Festival and the Zoltan Tribe Collective. Along the way, he has been involved with startups and entrepreneurship since he loves launching new projects in order to solve small daily (or even larger) problems that concern him. He loves the science of marketing and the technologies around it, trying to find out more about himself and the people around him.
- Blog: http://zoltan.gr/
- Website: https://www.unfitmarketing.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melisalexandros
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexandrosmelis/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandrosmelis/
Hate Me Now, Love Me Later: Validate your business idea with WordPress!
9 out of 10 ideas fail
«Yes, but that will never happen to me.»
Hmmm….
Together we’ll see how we can test a business idea, with the help of WordPress, before we start writing code or spending money on it.
Fellyph Cintra
Hello, my name is Fellyph Cintra I’m Front-end developer. Actually, I’m based in Ireland and work at Deloitte Digital, my story with WordPress started in 2008 when I created my first professional project since then much happened, in 2012 I attended my first WordCamp as a volunteer, 2 years later I became one of the organizers of WordCamp São Paulo. I have participated as a speaker in over 10 WordCamps in Europe and South America, always covering my favorite subject front-end technologies.
I’m always involved supporting local developer communities because I believe communities are tools of integration and social development. And 2019 I’ve received the title of Google Developer Expert on Web Technologies in recognition of it.
Using machine learning to improve our WordPress Application
Machine Learning is one of the most trendy things in IT world right now, a bunch of new services pop-up every single moment, large companies have started to implement different features that utilize Machine Learning(ML). But…. how mortal developers and small and medium business can effectively use machine learn to improve their solutions?
In this talk, we are going to discuss the basic concepts around ML and using high-level libraries in JavaScript to implement on our WordPress Application, described as a friendly Machine Learning library ml5.js will be our entry door to the Machine Learning world.
To wrap up the introduction journey, we will see how we can use ml5.js in a real project. As I mentioned before ml5.js is a Javascript library – the talk is focused on a front-end stack but is open for people who want to learn more about the basic concepts behind machine learning.
Let’s get coding!!!
Myrto Theodoroglou
Myrto is a creative designer with a passion for new technologies, holds a Bachelor of Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Central Lancashire. She is fond of the desks and so she is constantly finding something to study. She has worked for many years in the field of design, with a year of collaboration with the University of the Aegean and undertaking the branding of various companies across the design spectrum, combining it with information technology and new technologies.
Currently, she works as a design and information technology teacher in post-secondary education in Thessaloniki and is a regular columnist at maxmag.gr. She especially loves the trips and the harmony of nature that she loves to enjoy by returning to her island, Chios.
In recent years she has been involved in creative thinking, discovering new approaches into solving design problems and unfolding her imagination that is increasingly scouring science fiction stories, which she has promised to publish shortly.
Typography and its importance in Web Design
Typography is one of the most fundamental elements in Web Design, it can literally destroy or glorify a whole website along with the user’experience. Learning to master it will lead you to smart and classy designs that exceed baseline needs and become little pieces of art, making sure that your websites will be memorable for pleasant experience and aesthetics. Through the talk, we will encounter all the rules and do’s/dont’s that will make you understand and lead typography in any kind of web design.
Georgia Tsiamanta
Georgia works as a Customer Support and Success consultant and helps SaaS companies, startups, and e-shops organize customer service processes on their platform, set strategies and goals, implement all these at a technical level, and measure results. In addition, she is a co-organizer of the Athens Support Driven Meetup, where the goal is to create a Greek community of people who are interested in evolving into Customer Support or Customer Success and have chosen it as a career.
Blog : https://www.georgiatsiamanta.com
Website : https://www.rewundo.com
Tools to skyrocket your customer support in 5 simple steps
All of us have at some point been confronted with the chaos created by our stacked user messages. And in addition, the channels they come from are many: different email addresses, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, forums, etc.
In this talk, we will take a look at 5 easy steps to help you improve the quality of your services and reduce service time sharply. In particular, we will talk about ticketing systems that integrate with WordPress and analyze best practices that you can take advantage of. Excellent customer service is what sets you apart from the competition.
Sergey Biryukov
Sergey Biryukov is a WordPress developer at Yoast. For more than 10 years he’s been contributing code to WordPress core, reviewing tickets and patches on Trac, translating WordPress into Russian, and helping out on support forums.
He studied Applied Mathematics at the Southern Federal University (formerly Rostov State University) in Rostov-on-Don, Russia.
Sergey has a passion for open source, which started with contributing documentation and bug fixes for a popular file manager in 2002. While creating some websites for his university, he discovered a growing web publishing software called WordPress, which quickly grabbed his attention due to its simplicity, extensibility, and an amazing community. Giving back to the community was a natural thing for him, so he has started translating WordPress into Russian, answering questions on support forums, and participating in core development.
After joining Yoast in 2015, Sergey is working on WordPress full time as a core committer and an active member of several other teams: Polyglots (which translates WordPress into 200+ languages), Support (which helps users to find answers to their questions), and Meta (which manages the WordPress.org network). He is also a frequent speaker at WordPress conferences, called WordCamps, in Russia and Europe.
Being Productive While Working Remotely
In his talk at WordCamp Thessaloniki, Sergey will share tips and tricks from his experience of working remotely for 12+ years.
Key takeaway: remote work, when fostered the right way, can be an ideal setup for many modern employees.
Surprise!
For the last talk, we have a little surprise for you that is going to be announced within the coming days. Stay tuned so you won’t miss any news on WordCamp Thessaloniki 2019!
