Written by Jorge Rodriguez

A few Latinos in Tech members attended the WordCamp conference in Seattle on November 4-5, 2017. This was my first WordCamp conference and I came away impressed and inspired. I had the opportunity to meet a few of you. 

What is WordCamp? It’s an empowering tech conference for anyone who designs, develops or publishes on WordPress. The organizers really did a good job at having subjects for a wide range of skill levels and fields. Everything from getting started with WordPress, contributing to the community and lightning talks packed with valuable information. I had the opportunity to network and connect with many like-minded people. 

I share with you five valuable takeaways that I learned from WordCamp: 

1. Design Tips for Non-Designers. Quick tips: Line length matters. The user may not know what’s wrong with your page, but they may think “this content is boring”. Something that can help is making your content easy to read by limiting line length to 45-75 characters per line. Raven Gildea was the guest speaker on this topic. and offers more design tips on the WordPress Tv site. 

2. How to get Google to love you. Some of my favorite tips from Kori: Page title, alt tags and meta descriptions matter. When uploading an image give it a name that includes your target keyword or phrase. Use the image alt tag, don’t leave it blank. Site speed, mobile friendliness and content influence your page ranking. Want to learn more about SEO? Follow her twitter account @koriashton 

3. The Price is Wrong. Quick tips: Pricing is not a decision, it’s a strategy. Know your value. Position or re-position yourself in your niche. Reach out to others to study their pricing. Pricing isn’t an exact science, it’s ok to experiment with pricing options. Use options in proposals involving price. Nathan (@nathanallotey) covered “Hourly Pricing, “Flat Rate Pricing”, “Value Based Pricing” and “Price Anchoring”. Need more help in pricing your services? Nathan is quite brilliant, his advice on pricing offers a unique perspective. 

4. Workshop: Clarity Breeds Opportunity – Brand Communication Tactics to Boost Referral. Quick tips: You want to be remembered, respected and referred… which is very hard without total clarity. This workshop was one of the best I’ve attended. Jennifer helped us figure out what we do best. How to answer the question. What do you do for a living? If you’re in the creative, design or service industry. Follow Jennifer @jenniferbourn for more tips on branding. 

5. What WordPress is Doing to Keep Your Site Safe. Speaker Aaron Campbell shared a couple of things you can do right now to keep your site safe. Update, update, update and keep your site updated. Minor automatic updates are very reliable. You are more likely to get hacked from an out of date WordPress installation than one that is up to date. Use strong passwords. This on its own, it’s the weakest link on website security. Aaron works full time on security and offers some helpful tips, tweet him your questions @aaroncampbell.

If you enjoyed these quick tips and are interested in attending the next WordPress event check out their website for the next Seattle Event. It would be awesome to see more Latinos at these conferences! You can also check out more WordCamp events in your area. 

About the Author

Jorge Rodriguez, Guest Blogger from Portland, Oregon

Hi everyone! My name is Jorge Rodriguez and I’m a guest blogger on this channel. I’m stoked to introduce this blog to fellow creatives, designers, bloggers and anyone interested in tech. Our goal is to use this space to share, discuss, organize and connect with others who have similar interest. In doing so we hope to inspire and empower you.

My background is in computer science and photography. My work entails web design, creating stories using film, and photography. I’m based out of Portland Oregon. I enjoy coffee, good food, beer, wine, hiking and traveling. When I’m not working, I volunteer my time teaching others. Feel free to drop me a line and say hi, even if it’s just to ask for recommendations on places to visit, hang or eat here in Portland. Links below. 

Twitter: @wspacecreative

Instagram: @wspacecreative 

Email: [email protected]

Written by Rabecca Rocha

For as long as I could remember I wanted to draw. I’ve never really seen my culture depicted positively within the 3D or 2D animation world. Most recently my colleagues and I from Latinos in Tech Washington were able to go to a screening of Pixar’s: Coco.

The energy was high and nervous, would this live up to the hype? Would this be a carbon Copy of “The book of life.” A well meaning, gorgeous movie with cover songs in the style of mariachi to make american audiences feel as though they could “relate.”? Would this movie feel the need to explain Día de los Muertos to its eager audience?

When the lights dimmed, I felt my heart putter as the music began and much to my surprise even the Disney beginning music was beautiful. I felt the tears well and it didn’t stop. Los colores, the brightness and seeing the environments built in such a world was overwhelmingly beautiful.

The dynamic storytelling along with the characters like Hector and especially his great great grandma, who picked herself up by the bootstraps and took care of her own, reminded me so much of my own abuelitas and especially my little brothers.

La familia es todo. I know this sentiment well and watching this in a PIXAR movie no less was like being seen, I tried to regain my composure during the plots and twists but it was to no avail.

The minute we see Hector strum his guitar I recall myself audibly gasping, not to be corny but it really did take me for surprise that we would then be transformed into the land of the dead by way of vibrant gorgeous colors.

For the first time witnessing a story and environment put together with so much care, throw backs to the Rancheros and the musica it felt like home. Seeing our stories told by and for us is truly the beginning of the ever expanding black and brown voices that are coming forward.

I highly recommend taking your whole family, friends and anyone else who was as skeptical as I was (along with much of my staff.)

Pixar’s Coco is now open to select theatres, even some are in spanish so check your local listings.

About the Author

Rabecca Rocha is an 2D/3D  Artist residing in Belltown, She is currently working on an indie game as one of their 3D character artists, volunteer designer for GeekGirlCon and in her spare time performs Let's Play! videos for her Channel LatinaGeek. 

“Let’s do a Mixer!” Jose, Our cofounder and head of the steering committee said.

I looked at him for a moment, thinking of the logistics, who would come? Do we have enough latinos in the city?

A round of Yes, nods and affirmations came from around the table, Latinos in Tech was working out of a small office in the Impact HUB in Pioneer Square. From 6pm-8pm plotting ways to bring the community together while also creating dynamic and interesting events to keep our people engaged.

And so it happened..

On November 17th, Latinos in Tech (Seattle) had its first mixer.

I arrived thirty minutes early to help with setup, Jennifer ran to the next thing while I opened wine bottles. The space was big, gorgeous and reminded me of Jane Austen dances. Coming from the WeWork space to this one was a big leap. It resembled the cool vibes of Silicon Valley, everything was new and chic and we took up space there.

After the wine bottles opened and the reggaeton was on the sonos speakers, I stood by the door. Eager to greet all the new and beautiful brown faces that would appear.

Our very first visitor, my good friend Allison came in, signing her name and grabbing a name tag. I quickly introduced her to my team. I could not help but feel this immense sense of pride. We said we were going to do this and we did. Many hands went into assisting to set this up.

Closer to 8pm the room was bustling with Spanish, English, Reggaeton and wine. More people arrived from all walks of Tech life, Doris from Latino film festival, Environmental Engineers, Software Developers and Data Analysts. The list goes on and the most exhilarating part was to look around and see folks, just like you from all areas of tech coming together.

The feedback overall was incredibly positive. We had 30 people join us but, 30 is a start. As we continue to grow we want to continue to extend our hand into our community and pull them with us and have our voices heard.

Thank you so much to everyone that came we would not have been able to do this without you.

To the Amazing Leadership team and beyond we hope to see you at the next Mixer!

About the Author

Rebecca Rocha, is an 2D/3D  Artist residing in Belltown, She is currently working on an indie game as one of their 3D character artists, volunteer designer for GeekGirlCon and in her spare time performs Let's Play! videos for her Channel LatinaGeek.