Before we get into all of that, WP Engine want to give a big thanks to all the organizers for their hard work putting this together.  A big conference like this one takes a few months of prep work, and all of the organizers have done a fantastic job to make the whole event possible, and we’re grateful.

WP Engine is sending a couple of really awesome folks to the OC for the WordCamp: Ben Metcalfe, and Jason Cosper.  Both of these guys are going to be attending the events and will be looking to talk to developers about their sites, maybe giving a few WordPress pointers, and definitely sharing stories about WordPress lore.  They’ve both been part of WordPress since very early, and have some great stories to tell.

Both Ben and Jason will have free accounts for life to give out, along with T-Shirts and maybe some lanyards for everyone who can track them down and find them.

How to Spot Ben and Jason

• You’ll be able to spot Ben Metcalfe by his often orange hair, as well as his very cool British accent.  Ben has been active with WordPress since it was called “B2,” and has unique insight into how the platform has become a global powerhouse.  Follow Ben on Twitter @dotBen, to see what he’s up to.
• Jason Cosper’s beard should be back in full force, so look for the guy rocking WP Engine gear underneath a beard to find Jason.  Jason has been developing since 1995, and on WordPress since 2005, and has become a WordPress specialist over the years.  Follow Jason on twitter @boogah, to see where he’ll be!

This is the part where we talk about how awesome WP Engine is, so prepare yourself for a full-frontal attack of marketing that no mere mortal can withstand:

You’ve heard the rumors of pages being delivered in milliseconds, blogs scaling instantly when they get featured in the New York Times, and top-tier security.

This is WP Engine – the premier, managed WordPress hosting company. WP Engine serves 125,000,000 requests daily, each one carefully and continuously tuned for speed, scalability, and security. As a hosting company, WP Engins is beloved by hundreds of bloggers from huge, popular sites down to small company home pages who care about their SEO ranking and their users’ experience. Perhaps best of all is their tech support.  Only WordPress experts answer questions and solve support tickets, with a first response within 30 minutes.

Don’t take our word for it though.  Test how much faster your WordPress could be at speed.wpengine.com and let us prove it to you.

Now, here’s a picture of a LolCat.

Looking forward to seeing you guys there!

We are designing unique and ground-breaking WordPress plugins that will take your blog to the next level. With our content discovery engine, we can help your readers discover interesting content and help you, the blogger, add related content to your posts. Together, these tools will help you understand your readers better, turn casual readers into engaged members of your community, and help you build a community of bloggers with shared interests and linked posts.

Interested in learning more about our product? Take a quick survey that will help us make it even better and sign up for our beta release.

We are super excited to bring you this line up.  We are proud that so many of the presenters represent Orange County and the OC Meetup Group.  We really have some a long way since Steve Zengut and Jeff Turner started the meetup over two years ago.

Also, we are trying something a bit different this year with the tracks.  We did not list the tracks with the usual Designer and Developer titles.  Rather, we only tried to pair up presentations that seemed like they’d split the audience.  (Granted, there are many pairing that could be tough calls.) The idea is to break down the designer/developer paradigm a bit and encourage more cross-pollination and mingling.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the event!

• Plugins development
• eCommerce
• Essential Plugins
• bbPress
• Membership
• General Design
• Stuff For Beginners
• SEO
• Custom Post Types
• Real Estate
• WordPress for Podcasting
• Using WordPress as a Hub

Also if you are an attendee and there’s a particular topic you’d like to see, add it to the comments below.

Go to speaker submission page >>>

View WordCamp OC 2012 in a larger map

That said, we’ve posted the attendees page so we call all see our lovely WordPress friends. (It’s alphabetical by first name.) Who’s your WordCamp OC Attendees rowmate? Mine is Jason Tucker, which is sweet! Although as tickets continue to sell, my attendees rowmate may change. If we have to implement the buddy system at WordCamp, this will be your buddy.

If you are displeased with the Gravatar that shows up on the list, go to gravatar.com and get your picture set up. The image shown is tied to the email you used when buying your ticket.  Also, this is the avatar that will show up on your badge (if we choose to print avatars on badges this year; haven’t designed those yet).