Some quick snaps.  Special hello & Thanks Wordcamp Nashville also on right now

Liz Quilty - NZ

Security, Scaling & High End Hosting especially for WordPress sites. This talk will include related topics such as back-up and other tips and strategies you can use for larger WordPress sites.

WordPress core changes pretty much at least 4 times a year and in between are plugin updates and other changes to background systems.

Liz Quilty works as a sysadmin for Rimuhosting who are based in Cambridge (Waikato) and their servers where you need them approach is very helpful for NZ companies who are born global but want a NZ company to help with that. More about Liz

When you are a Sysadmin you look for ways (clever scripts) of managing scale and keeping everything secure and stable. This talk may mention related sub topics such as:

Apache, nginx, Memcached, MySQL, APC, NFS, rsync, Git, Puppet, and Capistrano.

As local A / NZ sites get bigger there is a need for more local scaling and optimisation closest to the users. For example a CDN in the U.S might be useful there but not so much in NZ so Liz has local insights she will share.

There was a talk by Mark Jaquith at WordCamp SF last year which covered similar ground check out Coding, Scaling & Deployment if you haven’t already seen it

This talk is aimed at developers so feel free to ask plenty of questions.

Bronson Quick - Au

Every WordPress developer should always be doing their best to reduce the number of options for clients whilst they are developing their themes.

Most developers hate support calls so it’s in their best interest to reduce those calls.

“I’ll present a talk that shows bad examples of options pages and custom post types that I’ve seen in WordPress themes and teach developers the right way to do things, so that their WordPress themes are not only easier to use but they are also “client-proofed”.

Bronson is a WordPress obsessed designer/developer from Brisbane. After working in the IT industry for many years and wrangling code in both proprietary content management systems (CMS) and other open source CMS, Bronson decided it was time to focus on the best CMS out there…WordPress!

Day to day Bronson works at a leading WordPress only design and development agency in Brisbane, Queensland.

At night he’s often found commenting and blogging on anything that’s WordPress related because he’s completely obsessed with WordPress!

Website: Sennza

Aaron Rutley - Au

Aaron will talk in depth talk for fellow WordPress theme developers to help us build better WordPress sites for our clients.

Aaron is based in Melbourne where is  front end / WordPress theme developer. This presentation is part of the Sunday Tech meetup for deveopers.

I’ll cover the plugins & techniques I use in custom themes to achieve all kinds of complicated layouts & to ensure WordPress (as a CMS) is easy for the client to use.

I completed a similar presentation (that I’d like to update and expand on) at the October 2011 Melbourne WordPress meetup slides:

I’m a huge WordPress fan – I’ve attended two WordCamps and bunch of WordPress meetups.

“Eleven Media was founded in November of 2008 by graphic designer Blaz Robar and web developer Aaron Rutley (that’s us!). It was only a few months earlier that we were working separately as freelancers, but after collaborating on a number of projects together we saw the amazing potential in joining forces.

It was this humble beginning at a small Clyde Road office, that would set the foundation for our business, which today, has serviced over 300 clients!”

Twitter:@aaronrutley    Aaron is also co-founder of Eleven Themes

Full title is “Build Your WordPress Business on Your Terms for Devs” by Troy Dean will be on Sunday morning for developers and advanced tech users.

Troy’s  presentation is designed to help WordPress developers leverage WordPress to deliver better user experiences in less time so they can make more money and reclaim their social life.

And who doesn’t want to do that ? Any WordPress developer who wants to grow their small business on their terms benefit from this talk. This presentation (or variations of it) was given at WordCamp Melbourne and WordCamp Gold Coast 2011.

Troy is Director of Geeky Stuff at Tonto Digital, a digital marketing and coaching company based in Melbourne, Australia.

We have clients all over the world including Jessica Watson, the 16 year old Aussie girl who sailed solo, unassisted and non-stop around the world. We looooove building websites on WordPress. I wrote my first E-Book (which was 6000 words) in less than 24 hours and have recorded countless hours of training videos for clients.

I am the co-founder of Video User Manuals, a company that makes a video tutorial plugin for WordPress that teaches small businesses how to use WordPress, saving developers hours of training time per project. We also have clients all over the world.

I lecture in E-Business at JMC Academy in Melbourne, teaching our future entertainment industry leaders that Facebook is not just for organising parties (although knowing how to do that that can be helpful if you work in marketing).”

Check out Video User Manuals for more Twitter: @troydean

Working exclusively with WordPress and an array of other open-source technologies, Justin and Zao have provided creative and effective solutions for a wide variety of companies and associations ranging from Targus to Pitney Bowes to the National Education Association to HTC.

When not managing Zao or enjoying his beautiful wife and lovely one-year-old daughter, Justin can be found enjoying the finest coffee Oregon has to offer.

The story of Group Deals Plugin, the latest premium Plugin from Instinct, is a classic example of the power of the WordPress community. While presenting on WordPress E-Commerce at WordCamp Philadelphia, someone in the audience asked if anyone had made a “Groupon” WordPress plugin.

Now, at WordCampNZ, we’re excited to unveil the first stable release of GroupDeals, soon to be known as the Groupon Killer

Update: 20th Jan Spreets Online Group Buying was sold to Yahoo for $40m. In the same article Anthill notes that Retail Me was also a very large play in the same space.

Tech Crunch quotes “After SEO and email, affiliate type deals/coupons are the most profitable way to get new customers, says WhaleShark.”

Justin is Js_Zao on twitter.