We are so pleased and grateful to have such a prominent sponsor as SAIT behind us! As you may know, we actually held the last two WordCamps at SAIT, though due to some scheduling challenges, we had to relocate for this year. But we’re glad that they’ve still got our back by way of sponsorship.

If you’re reading this soon after it gets posts, you should know that next autumn’s New Media Production and Design class is taking applications until June 1.

What is NMPD? In their own words:

New Media Production and Design provides comprehensive training in multimedia skills. Students learn the tools and techniques used in web design and development, corporate presentations and communications, audio and music production, educational design, animation, simulation, game design, and many other specialties. The program emphasizes project-based, hands-on training, with students working in teams for assigned clients to produce comprehensive and useful media products.

Your Career
Graduates find employment in specialty new media production houses, agencies, corporate, educational or government organizations. Some develop their own freelance and small business opportunities. Work ranges from web design, corporate communication and digital signage to educational media, animation, simulation or game design.

New Media is all about the modern age and the ways in which people communicate digitally. And, as we are all about WordPress, we get it. And here’s a video that will tell you much more about the program. (Heads up! It features 2016 WordCamp Calgary speaker Dan Stephenson.)

If you’re about current tech, SAIT New Media Production and Design is all about you.

Organizer John typing here. I’m going to be very frank. Payment processing is all very confusing to me. Or rather, was very confusing to me. I suppose only because I had never really looked into how it all works before. But since I’m going to write a sponsor profile about Helcim–one of our awesome sponsors, obvs–I figured I’d do a better job if I looked into it a little bit.

Here’s what I, as a civilian, know. Someone hands me a machine into which I insert a credit or debit card. It asks me to confirm the amount I’m spending. I enter my PIN. Something magical happens and I get to walk away with merchandise even though I didn’t give anyone money! Amazing!

But of course, I did give them money. But how??

Well, there’s a company called a payment processor. There are lots that are that, actually, and Helcim is one of them. These companies give (or maybe rent or sell, I don’t know) machines (which are called payment gateways) to merchants who want to sell me stuff. They charge a monthly fee for the unit, though whether that’s for the unit, or for the unit to access a system I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter. When I want to buy something using my plastic, the merchant hands me that machine that they got from the payment processor.

After I’ve done my bit where I insert and acknowledge and PIN-punch, the payment processor takes the information I just entered and submits it to my bank or my credit card company. The bank or credit card company checks to see if I have the liquidity to manage a transaction of that size. They also carry out a number of anti-fraud checks. In this example, they know it’s me because I’m just buying a couple of pints or a pizza again. They then communicate back to the payment processor and then to the gateway that all is copacetic.

And then, somebody else gets involved, and they’re also called a payment processor, but they’re called back-end payment processors. They don’t have payment gateways like Helcim does; instead, they handle the settlement systems for companies like Helcim (which are called…wait for it… front-end payment processors).

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, a small piece of the action is charged by the payment processor.

Now THIS is where choosing a payment processor becomes important. Not only are you, as owner of Suzie Joe’s Pizza & Beer, paying the monthly fee for the payment gateway, but you’re also paying a percentage fee of your transactions for this money to magically end up in your account. It’s nifty, and certainly worth it for the almost-cashless society in which we now live. But you definitely want to know what you’re paying, and be able to rely on that.

And here’s where Helcim becomes a great choice. I went to the website of several different payment processors. On some, I couldn’t even find prices. Helcim has clear pricing right on their website.

I also went and googled around to see what people complain about when they’re complaining about their payment processor. Those complaints are primarily unexpected fees and locked-in contracts.  Helcim themselves point out in a handy video some of the most common payment processor “tricks” and they say that they don’t play those games.

Normally, I like to write kind of light and cheery sponsor profiles. But just because I didn’t even really understand their business very well, I figured this one deserved a different treatment. If you’re like me and really didn’t know what the heck a payment processor does and why you would care, hopefully you’ve come away with a bit more knowledge.

Thanks for your sponsorship, Helcim!

Isn’t this just a super fun logo? I dig this zebra so much. I had to get that out of the way before I could talk more about Orange Ambition and what they do.

Orange Ambition is a design company that specializes specifically in WordPress driven websites. Owner Sherry Wasdal describes herself as a “non-traditional mother of three grown boys (non-traditional meaning a girl who got married in a hockey jersey and shorts while the Justice of the Peace wore a referee jersey!) Fun, right?

We asked Sherry to tell us what she thinks sets Orange Ambition apart from others in its industry, and she had a great answer:

We have Dancing Zebras and Starfish, so you know we are going to be creative and help you have fun with your web design project. We have experience with marketing, social media, project management and business management in a corporate environment as well as human resources and classroom training skills. This, coupled with more than six years experience working daily in WordPress makes Orange Ambition well rounded and full of ideas to make the online world better. We love helping people connect in fun and meaningful ways with their customers.

We’re so pleased to have Orange Ambition as a first-time WordCamp Calgary sponsor in 2016.

We’re so grateful to have Lighthouse Labs as a sponsor of this year’s WordCamp Calgary! Who are Lighthouse Labs? I know that you know the answer to that question. But just in case you’re going to play coy about this, I’m going to tell you anyway.

Lighthouse Labs is a place to learn. I first heard of them when they ran one of their signature The HTML500 events in Calgary. I was registered to attend, but sadly, had to be out of the city on the day it actually happened. A buddy of mine went, though, and thought it was great.

Lighthouse Labs was started by a group of coders in 2013 and has its main campuses in Vancouver and Toronto. But of course, they also have satellite campuses in other cities around the country–Calgary being one of them. Here’s how they describe themselves:

We train passionate people in Web and iOS development. Our core programs are intensive, immersive bootcamps that transform people into outstanding developers. Our part-time Intro to Web and iOS Development courses are perfect to get your feet wet when learning to code.

And that’s what they do. But like I said, you already knew that.

We’re very grateful to have Live Composer as a sponsor for this year’s WordCamp. What is Live Composer, you ask? Well I’m glad that you asked.

Live Composer is a free plugin for WordPress that allows you to create a website using drag-and-drop components to create just the look you’re after. What this plugin lets you do is put the stuff on your page in the place you want it to live without having to know all of the code to make that happen.

You know what, they’ve already got a sweet video that shows you what Live Composer does.  That’s probably much more effective than me trying to explain it. Here you go:

Thanks Live Composer for helping to make WordCamp Calgary a thing. It’s kind of like we drag-and-dropped your support right into our WordCamp weekend!

Run by Brin Wilson (a self-proclaimed WordPress fanatic), WinningWP is an increasingly-popular website offering an excellent selection of helpful tips, tricks and resources — such as an insightful beginner’s ‘Guide to Choosing the Best WordPress Hosting’, an extensive (and beautifully designed) ‘Where To Buy Top-Quality WordPress Themes’ directory, and a heap of WordPress-related deals and discounts on a range of different industry-leading brands and services.

Brin keeps his finger on the pulse of all things WordPress, with frequent roundup posts that will help you to find other great content, and a whole host of posts that rank different services and plugins so that you can get your website doing precisely what  you want it to do. I’m signed up for his newsletter, and you should go sign up too.

My first introduction to Jeff Archibald, co-founder of Paper Leaf Studios, was at Edmonton’s first WordCamp in 2011. He was one of the organizers and did a talk called “Typography and the State of the Web Today”. He was clearly a talented and experienced designer, and I got my first taste of the importance of typography.

Still going and growing half a decade later, WordCamp Calgary is proud to have Jeff back as a speaker in 2016. He previously appeared as a speaker in one of our sessions in 2012. We’re also very grateful to have his Edmonton-based design firm, Paper Leaf, as one of our sponsors for 2016.

You should definitely have a visit to Paper Leaf’s website. They have a number of nicely laid-out case studies in web design, app design, and more that talk about projects that they’ve worked on, the challenges each one presented, and how they met those challenges. They also highlight key project features.

We asked our sponsors to answer a number of questions. Here are some of Paper Leaf’s answers:

If Paper Leaf was a superhero, what would its super power be?

We’d basically be the superhero that swoops in, eats a remarkable amount of pastries, and then has to leave to have a nap because sugar. Didn’t say we’d be a good superhero.

What one key characteristic sets Paper Leaf apart from others in its industry?

We are definitely the only design & technology shop with a lot of tattooed white guys who wear plaid and black-rimmed plastic glasses. (I can attest to this. I don’t think there exists another shop anywhere that fits that description. -JS)

What three values are most important to the culture at Paper Leaf?

First is to put out remarkable work – that is, work that is worth making a remark. Second, have some damn fun while you do it and don’t take yourself too seriously. Third: alway ask how we can make something better.

How old is Paper Leaf’s oldest employee? How young is the youngest Paper Leaf employee?

Our oldest employee is Adam, a Project Manager, at 36 years old. Our youngest is Nathan, a developer, at 21 years old. Listening them talk about music is hilarious, and not only because Adam has to set aside his walker and turn up his hearing aid. (As someone who has been both 21 and 36, I’d make a comment, but my hip hurts. Thankfully, my Generation X vinyl collection gets me through it. -JS)

We’re grateful to have Paper Leaf’s support for WordCamp Calgary 2016. It’s because of generous sponsors like this that we’re now up to our fourth annual ‘Camp.

I leave you with the video suggested by Paper Leaf in response to our question, “What is Paper Leaf’s favourite YouTube video that is 20 seconds or less?” (Noting that this plaid-wearing, rule-breaking sponsor nominated a video that is 25 seconds long.