So with a little over a month or so to go we’re delighted to announce the first group of speakers to WordCamp Manchester 2015!
Liz Hannaford
Liz teaches Multimedia Journalism at Manchester Metropolitan University and before that was a news journalist at BBC World Service radio for 15 years. Liz founded and co-organises Hacks/Hackers Manchester and ran a Code Club at her local primary school. She’s fascinated by the intersection between technology and journalism and has contributed a chapter on computational journalism to the book, Data Journalism: Mapping the Future (2013) edited by John Mair and Richard Lance Keeble.
Developing your Content Strategy
So you’ve got a blog, chosen a great-looking theme, added some plug-ins. Now you “just” need to write some content that people are going to want to read and share with their network. That means having a content strategy. It doesn’t have to be complicated but you need to think about that strategy every time you sit down to write a blog post. She’ll be drawing on journalistic skills to help you devise your own content strategy including:- – Deciding what to write about. And when. And where. And how. – Making it easier for people to find your content. – Engaging with your target audience
Mark Wilkinson
A Year in Freelancing – Lessons Learned, Tips and Tricks
After freelancing for just over a year now and having left a well paid job this talk outlines lessons he has learned from taking the plunge to being a freelancer and some tips and tricks he’s learned along the way. This talk will benefit anyone looking to become a freelancer or any current freelancers that are looking for some tips and tricks on getting by.
Chelsea Louise Haden
Freelance content writer, blog trainer and social marketer of seven years specialising in working with WordPress agencies. She loves to take on projects that are related to education and training, conservation, outdoor living, food and hospitality.
Top tips for web agencies to collaborate with freelance content writers more efficiently
As a content writer who has collaborated with various web agencies on a freelance basis, Chelsea’s experienced some issues that have made her role harder than it should be and problematic for the client. She will talk about how web agencies can work with content writers more efficiently to assist with speedier projects and happier clients. In her talk, she’ll cover these main areas: attitudes towards content writing / content writers, communication and the systems to put in place to aid it positively and how your client and content writer can work together to assist a successful project.
Tim Nash
A Very Modern WordPress Stack
WordPress doesn’t live in isolation but’s sits as part of a stack. From the operating system, to the web server each aspect of the stack should be carefully chosen. In addition WordPress can be enhanced by using other application in tandem. Tim takes a look at the eco-system that WordPress lives in, to help people create a very modern WordPress stack.
Jason King
20 ways to improve the experience of content editing in WordPress
How can you improve on the default WordPress dashboard; and make the post editing toolbar less cluttered, more intuitive and relevant for your users? All it takes is a bit of forethought and a sprinking of code in functions.php. Why do this? To make life easier for content editors, help them avoid some common mistakes, and put some useful new options on the editing toolbar.
We’re looking to announce more speakers in the next few days. With speakers being announced tickets are sure to go, so if you want to come, you can bag your ticket here!
Great line up. Shall be putting my name down and booking my train!