Powered by the Community
We’re bringing the community powered EE CONF to Nashville, TN for more inspiration, learning, and fun. EE CONF 2018 features two days of top-notch speakers in two tracks plus four optional hands-on workshops. Come join us at EE CONF 2018 in Music City!
Speakers
Bio
Caroline Blaker
Principal, Petroglyph Creative
Caroline C. Blaker founded Petroglyph Creative in 2010 and has been “living the dream,” ever since. A typical day involves coding, design, and demystifying the odd world of the internet for her clients. She is driven by problem solving, data visualization, and really bright colors (too bright, sometimes.) While not at work, she enjoys gardening, self-care, making blueberry desserts, and spending time with her family.
Bio
Jason Boothman
Front-End Architect, Reusser Design
Jason works at Reusser Design, located in Roanoke, Indiana. From design to development, he has been building websites since High School and has been an avid user of ExpressionEngine for the last 6 years. When not working, Jason enjoys spending time with his wife and three kids, reading books, watching sports, and playing video games.
Bio
Lydia Chiu
Partner, Jub Jub
Lydia is a partner at Jub Jub Interactive with over 15 years of programming and web development expertise. Prior to joining Jub Jub, Lydia was a Solutions Architect at Vignette Corporation, an enterprise content management software company, where she served as the technical team leader for several years. During her tenure, she served clients in a variety of industries including travel, automotive, software, and financial. Her client list included enterprise accounts such as American Express, Honda, Nissan, and Hewlett Packard, and start-up clients such as Orbitz.com and Shopping.com. Lydia’s expertise includes a deep understanding of content management (CMS) systems and enterprise application development.
Her current interests include mobile application development, mojitos, and tumblr.
Bio
Patrice Embry
Freelance Digital Project Manager
Patrice started managing digital projects 20 years ago, starting with a pioneering ecommerce music company during the .com boom in the 90s. Since then, she’s managed projects big and small for companies, agencies, and now as a freelance project manager - projects ranging from mobile apps to large scale CMS-driven websites, and even print projects on occasion. An active member and writer for the larger Digital Project Management community, she’s bringing her PM skills to EEConf to share!
Bio
Julian Fann
Technical Lead, Vector Media Group
Julian is a full-stack developer with a focus on modular, scalable systems that abstract complexity in favor of simple interfaces. Starting with ExpressionEngine version 1.6, he has developed sites and created custom addon solutions for industry leaders Solspace and Vector Media Group. Julian works remotely from Northern Virginia where he lives with his wife and a very tiny dog.
Bio
Khaliq Gant
Vector Media Group
Khaliq currently resides in Paris, France, where he lives with his wife. He has a passion for music and building things on the web. Khaliq studied computer science at Columbia University after doing an undergraduate at Cornell University. He currently works for Vector Media Group and has been busy building a presence for Vector Media Group in Europe.
Bio
Jeremy Gimbel
Web Services Manager, Vector Media Group
Jeremy has been building websites since middle school and somehow managed to turn that into a career. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and works for Vector Media Group. He has been working with ExpressionEngine since 2010 and is known in the community for his artisanal snark. In his spare time he enjoys cooking and baking and occasional antics out on the town.
Bio
Pedro Guimaraes
Owner, Willow Light Studio
Pedro has been doing web work in one form or another since the mid 1990s. Over the years, he has gained great appreciation for beautifully designed products — from what the eye can see to the code that drives the product. His passion for well crafted ‘products’ goes beyond the web, and he can be found cooking, photographing, hiking, and building bows and arrows from materials found in the woods.
Bio
Reuben Johnson
Digital Director/Lead Developer, Fly Media Productions
Reuben Johnson is a self proclaimed peace lovin’ revolutionary. He loves dope music, intellectual debates, and anything that moves “the culture” forward. He co-founded Fly Media Productions, a boutique digital agency in 2001 alongside his wife Sherri. His passion for the web stems from an innate desire to create meaningful, relevant, emotional connections that shape culture, build communities, and bridge the gap between culture and commerce.
Bio
Charles Kolner
Marketing Data Analyst, Jamf Software
Charles worked in strategy and analytics at ad agencies for several years before taking on a data analyst role at Jamf. He watches world soccer religiously while balancing life as a night owl and an early bird in downtown Minneapolis, MN.
Bio
Brian Litzinger
Owner, BoldMinded
Brian is originally from Kentucky, but his home is in Minneapolis with his wife, Collette. He has been building websites since 2000, and using ExpressionEngine since 2008. He currently works at Jamf and sells add-ons at boldminded.com.
Bio
James Mathias
CCO, EllisLab
James is a father of four, husband of one, Internet Improver, yoyo player, artist, writer and outlaw. He spends his days crafting experiences for ExpressionEngine CMS, and his nights redrawing maps for Age of Steam.
Bio
Brad Nietfeldt
Omaha Media Group, LLC
Smiling Award Winning Entrepreneur, Investor, Leader, Creator, Divinely Favored, ex-PayPal/eBay Lead Developer, Celebrity Web/Designer/SEO Advisor
Bio
Tracy Osborn
Entreprenerd, Hello Web Books
Tracy Osborn is a designer, developer, and entreprenerd living in Toronto, Canada. She’s the author of Hello Web Books, as well as the creator of WeddingLovely. She’s also an avid outdoorswoman and would love to go on a hike with you.
Bio
Erik Reagan
Co-founder & Operations Director, Focus Lab
Chances are, if you’ve spoken to Erik Reagan for any length of time, you’ve heard him talk about his family. His amazing wife and kids are his world and it does not take long to discover that. He is a huge proponent of being intentional with time and keeping work at work. (His wife thinks that’s pretty cool.)
Erik’s career has been an evolution from musician, to developer, to entrepreneur. He has a variety of interests these days, but hat ties them all together is a hunger to learn how and why things work. What was once “How does this chord progression work?” turned into “How does a dependable website get built?” and eventually became “What does it take to build a great company?”
Bio
Kevin Smith
Senior Marketing Developer, AxisCare
Kevin rescued his income and saved his house in 2008 when he discovered ExpressionEngine and quickly delivered a new client’s site. He then ran his own solo agency for several years, led the support team at EllisLab, and has worked with a handful of digital agencies and software companies alike. He’s on a mission to help developers grow their careers, love what they do, and consistently deliver real customer value. He answers the interns questions at https://kevinsmith.io
Bio
Susan Snipes
UX Designer & Strategist, UX Within Reach
Susan delivers strategy and UI design for digital agencies, startups, and software firms through her consulting firm UX Within Reach. She’s passionate about mentorship, inclusion and building community in tech. Susan lives in Cleveland, Ohio with her husband and two daughters.
Bio
Luke Summerfield
Program Manager, Growth-Driven Design, HubSpot
Luke wakes up each morning excited to help others unlock their true potential. He does this as a program manager at HubSpot, writing, speaking, and with his startup, Keyy.io.
Luke founded Growth-Driven Design, the new playbook for building and optimizing websites. In the first year, the program grew from 0 to 1000 web design agencies in 56 countries offering GDD services to clients.
Previous to HubSpot, Luke helped grow a digital marketing and web design agency until it was acquired in 2014.
Bio
Tony Ticknor
VP Software Engineering, Riley Hayes
Tony has been making websites professionally since that dancing baby gif was all the rage. During this time he’s spent more hours than he cares to admit making websites work on all manner of browsers and devices (including the much maligned IE6) for clients like the United Nations, Victoria’s Secret, and Delta. About five years ago, he gave up full-time development and moved into leadership roles where he is known for building high-performing teams that produce quality software. When he’s not busy watching old StrongBad videos you can find him searching for Minneapolis’ best tacos.
Agenda
We’re still working hard on hammering out the exact schedule so stay tuned for exciting updates. In the meantime, we’re pleased to announce the following amazing sessions at EE CONF 2018. We couldn’t be more excited!
- Caroline Blaker, Petroglyph Creative, “I Cured My Imposter Syndrome Using This One Weird Trick”
- Jason Boothman, Reusser Design, “Easy Solutions to the Not-So-Easy ‘User Problem’: Giving Users More Control”
- Lydia Chiu, JubJub Interactive, “How to sell ExpressionEngine in a competitive situation”
- Patrice Embry, “Run your project like a Project Manager”
- Julian Fann, Vector Media Group, “Demystifying EE Services”
- Khaliq Gant, Vector Media Group, “Fun with 3rd Party Services in EE”
- Jeremy Gimbel, Vector Media Group, “A Docker-based Development Environment Even I Can Understand”
- Pedro Guimaraes, Willow Light Studio, “ExpressionEngine Templating Strategy & Architecture for Highly Efficient Sites”
- Reuben Johnson, Fly Media Productions, “On Being Different”
- Charles Kolner, Jamf, “A/B Testing: Using science to make UX decisions and increase conversions”
- Brian Litzinger, BoldMinded, “A/B Testing: Using science to make UX decisions and increase conversions”
- James Mathias, EllisLab, “ExpressionEngine UX: What I’m Thinking”
- Brad Nietfeldt, Omaha Media Group, “Building, Growing and Sustaining a Successful Digital Agency”
- Erik Reagan, Focus Lab, “Creating Your Culture”
- Kevin Smith, “What the Ã�©Ð”ã° is going on!?”
- Susan Snipes, UX Within Reach, “UX & You: A simple & practical approach to UX design”
- Luke Summerfield, HubSpot, “Growth Driven Design: A retainer-based web design model that will transform your agency”
- Tony Ticknor, Riley Hayes, “Making the Leap from Engineering to Leadership”
Venue
Acme Feed & Seed
Located next to Music City’s riverfront, Acme Feed and Seed is right on Broadway. Walk out the door after a day of conferencing in the beautifully rustic Feed and Seed and you’re right in the heart of Nashville life with a great bar scene full of live music, friendly people, and everything great Nashville has to offer!
Locations
For the walking enthusiast, the walk between hotel and venue is 1.3 miles right along Broadway and offers many sights to see and fun to be had. For those who prefer, we’ll be offering a shuttle service to get people where they need to go.
Hotel Information
Given the expense of hotels in downtown Nashville, we were very fortunate to get a special group rate at Aloft West End —just $199/night. Call 1-888-627-8279 to book and tell them you’d like the “EE Community Association” rate.