RAY SIDNEY SMITH

Ray Sidney-Smith is a perennial Small Business evangelist, working tirelessly to help small businesses launch, grow, and succeed in the marketplace each and every day. Ray Sidney-Smith is the President of W3 Consulting, Inc., a consultancy providing small businesses throughout the United States with practical approaches to business development and management/operations using Web, mobile, social and digital technologies. We provide Social Media content production and support for Small Business. Ray also hosts our podcast, Web and BeyondCast, a weekly show focusing on Small Business marketing and management on the Web and beyond, available on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify and more.

W3 Consulting has offices in Arlington, VA (outside Washington, DC), Pittsburgh, PA, and New York, NY.

As a Digital Business Strategist, Google Small Business Advisor, Evernote Certified Consultant, and Hootsuite Global Brand Ambassador, Ray is hired or invited by economic development authorities, chambers of commerce, small business development centers, convention and visitors associations, and small business advocacy & support organizations to speak to SMB audiences and conduct strategy sessions with small business owners on a small business management, Web, Mobile & Social Media marketing topics.

Ray is the author of SoLoMo Success: Social Media, Local and Mobile Marketing Small Business Strategy Explained (available through Amazon in Kindle and paperback) and co-author of Podcasting for Small Business (available through Amazon in Kindle and paperback).

His work has focused over the past 20 years in the Small Business start-up, management and marketing fields. As a serial entrepreneur bootstrapping his own business and real estate ventures, he has owned several businesses, most notably a real estate title, escrow, and settlement agency (and its subsidiary, a qualified intermediary (i.e., IRS Sec. 1031 / tax-deferred exchange) agency) across three states for a decade.

In his spare time, Ray has been organizing the two largest productivity Meetup TM groups in the United States (in DC and NYC) based on Getting Things Done by David Allen over the past nine years. Ray uses his education and passion for psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and time, task, team, and project management, in helping professionals with the personal productivity methodology and supporting them at different stages of productivity systems development. He hosts and facilitates the personal productivity podcasts, ProductivityCast, Productivity Book Group, and ProdPod, the podcast of productivity lessons in two minutes or less (now with over 3 million listens globally!).

Ray will be talking about WordPress and Google Analytics.

LAURA BYRNE CRISTIANO

Laura started her first WordPress site back in March 2006 when she and a friend and decided to start a website about a then little-known book called Twilight where fans could discuss the novel on a blog and forums. What started as a small site with maybe 30 visitors a week, rapidly grew into the most popular Twilight website on the Internet with millions of visitors each day from around the globe.

Laura was suddenly thrust into a media vortex that included set visits, a book deal, speaking engagements, and too many surreal experiences to count. This lead to Laura transitioning from a career in teaching to one in marketing as she hit the ground running with a whole new skill set including podcasting, video editing, SEO, social media management and content marketing.

Since then, she’s created/written for over twenty WordPress sites mostly in the areas of education and entertainment. Aside from her love of WordPress, Laura is also an Anglophile, avid traveler, theater lover, fantasy junkie, and occasional actor. She currently writes for Hypable.com and does freelance marketing and social media work.

Laura’s talk is about How to Win Friends and Influence People in a 280 Character Universe.

ALONSO INDACOCHEA

Alonso Indacochea is the CEO of 11 Online, a full service digital agency in Albuquerque, NM. At 11 Online, Alonso lives and breathes WordPress, where he and the team build, fix and maintain websites for their clients. He and his team recently launched Block Party, a Gutenberg block membership site.

Alonso’s session will be on The New WordPress Paradigm — How Gutenberg Will (Eventually) Empower WordPress End Users and Professionals.

NATHAN INGRAM

Nathan is the Host at iThemes Training where he teaches WordPress and freelance business development topics via live webinar.

He is also the creator of >ADVANCE Coaching, working with WordPress business owners individually and in groups to help them become more successful in their businesses.

Nathan has been a web business owner since 1995, and is based in Birmingham, Alabama where he is the lead organizer of WordCamp Birmingham.

You can learn more about Nathan at https://nathaningram.com.

Nathan’s session is What I Wish I’d Known About Freelancing.

JUAN PABLO GOMEZ

NYC based Web Designer. Built my first table-based site in 2004. Currently designing for FC Harlem, New York City FC. UX Design Mentor at Bloc.io.

Juan Pablo will be talking about CSS Grid and WordPress.

AMANDA GORMAN

Amanda Gorman helps nonprofits and wellness-based businesses build thriving online communities. As a Customer Success Coordinator at GiveWP she works diligently each day to assist nonprofits in growing their communities and receiving more donations online to make a bigger impact in the world. As an SEO consultant, she’s passionate about tending to the internet like a gardener would tend to their garden, so it can become a safe and fun place to connect again. Amanda uses her SEO superpowers to help her clients better understand their purpose, their audience, and how to better reach their people. Amanda is in love with her husband Casey, her nephew Jackson, and their dog Topanga whom all live together in Rochester, New York.

Amanda’s session is on 3 SEO Strategies for Building Connection With Your Online Community.