Oklahoma City, anyone? I’ve never been there before – but I will be this month to join the fabulous team from iThemes for their Builder BootCamp.
iThemes creates premium WordPress themes, plugins and they host ‘BootCamps’ for their clients, and anyone else who wants to learn about how they can use the iThemes Builder WordPress theme framework to make awesome web sites.
But, let me backup a little bit here. . .
I had mentioned my trip to Austin for the SXSW Interactive conference that I attended in March. If you EVER get the chance to go, I highly recommend it. Each and every single time I attend SXSW, the networking and opportunities that you can find there are amazing! While there this year, I had the fortunate opportunity to spend some quality time with the great folks over at iThemes: Cory Miller, Matt, Danner, James Dalman and Brad Ulrich. These are a great group of guys and their passion for designing great web sites and giving users the tools to enable them to do it is contagious!
Check out the video interview I did with Cory Miller – it was a lot of fun!
So, I met up with them – had dinner with them and enjoyed a lot of shop talk. The end result ended up being a very gracious invitation to have me join them for their upcoming Builder Bootcamp in Oklahoma City April 23-24th, 2010. I couldn’t turn it down — so I’m very happy to announce that I will be joining their Builder Bootcamp, giving a little talk to their group about why using WordPress is such an awesome idea because it’s such a fantastic content management system.
We will also be giving away signed copies of my book WordPress For Dummies while I’m there and I’m really looking forward to meeting everyone who is attending. Here are a few of the great topics they will be covering during their 2-day event:
- The keys and benefits to using WordPress as a CMS
- How to install and optimize WordPress for search engine optimization and every day use
- The best tools to use for WordPress and Builder web design
- How to backup, restore and secure your WordPress sites
- What WordPress theme files do and how Builder works
- Graphic design tips and tricks to personalize your WP sites
- Tips for customizing Builder with Child Themes and CSS through Style Manager
- How to make your website a marketing hub for your clients and yourself
Tickets are still available – however, there are only 20 seats left, so if you are in the OKC area and are able to make it – go on over and register today (tell them I sent you over, that will make me feel all warm and fuzzy!)
As an aside – - I have some announcements coming over the next month (or so) about some exciting collaborations I am doing with the WebDesign.com team – headed up by iThemes founder, Cory Miller and WebDesign.com’s Vice-President, James Dalman. Exciting stuff coming in the near future, and I will announce as soon as I am able!
In the meantime, if you are able and/or interested in making it to Oklahoma City for the iThemes Builder Bootcamp and would like more information – drop me a comment in this post, and I’ll get you the info you need!
Big thanks to Cory Miller and the iThemes team for including me in their weekend of Bootcamp fun – I’m really looking forward to it!
I saw your post in my newsreader and I had to say just one thing about your trip to Oklahoma City – Make sure you visit Bricktown and Michael Murphy’s Dueling Piano Bar.
Now that sounds like an interesting place…. I may just have to check it out, Scott.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I’m from Edmond (where the iThemes office is located) and attend the local WordPress meetups. That’s where I met Chris Jean and some of the other iThemes guys–so I just HAD to get my themes from them! I was so excited to see they were going to do a bootcamp here and I’d already signed up for it when I heard you were coming. Now I’m even more jazzed.
Looking forward to meeting you, learning more about WordPress and bringing my copy of ‘WordPress for Dummies’ for you to autograph.
Lynn – thanks for dropping by and for your comment. So glad to hear from folks who will be attending Bootcamp! Looking foward to meeting you, too Lynn – see you there!
My sister lives just outside of Oklahoma City. It’s freezing there! Well, it was last week, she sent me pics of the snow. brrr… dress warm!
Scentsy – I hope it’s warmed up since then!
This might sound like a shameless plug for iThemes Builder, but let me preface by saying that I have NO affiliation to them whatsoever. I’ve always been a Thematic person, and I’ve literally had Builder for less than a day now.
Back to my point:
I can’t figure how iThemes will fill time at a Builder Bootcamp. Its so easy to use at best it needs a ‘boot hour’. Really amazing stuff. Its what every WordPress designer has always WISHED they had done. A little rusty on some of the presentation… but just a breeze to use. I have a feeling there will be a lot of time to kill at the bootcamp once a site is whipped up in 20 minutes.
In any case… enjoy your visit!
Nothing shameless about it, Ben :) That’s quite a compliment and testimonial for Builder.
Though, to answer your question, I do believe the BootCamp will not only cover the use of Builder for building web sites with the WordPress platform, but will also cover the use of WordPress, itself — a BootCamp merged with a WordCamp, if you will. Plus – it’s great to meet other users, share resources and network at events like Builder BootCamp.
I’ll pass your compliment on to the Builder guys – they’ll love to hear it!
How much money would this boot camp be?
From their info page about BootCamp – Cost: $97 (iThemes customers); $297 (non-customers).
Looks like there are only 5 seats left :)
Any BootCamp’s coming to the East Coast? @-)
Hey Lisa! Just wondering if that follow me tab in the top corner of your site is a plugin? If not could you point me to where i could learn to make one? thanks!
I don’t suppose something like this will make it to my side of the earth, although there have been WordCamps in Bangkok in the past.
OKC is Sold Out! I need a miracle ticket l-)
Hi Lisa, is there an international distribution of your book? I can’t place an order in Amazon since Paypal does not recognize any bank in my country. :((