If you’re not able to be here at WordCamp Orlando in person that doesn’t mean you can’t still follow – and participate in – the conversation that’s happening here. Be sure to follow us on Twitter, keep an eye on the #WCO11 hashtag there and even check out Flickr for pics throughout the day. Updates re coming from both the Publisher and Developer tracks so there’s something within the online conversation for just about everyone.

Presenters: Erik Erickson, Mark Jaquith, Klaus Heesch, Devin Reams

Whether you want to start a site from scratch, migrate an existing site from another CMS, or make updates to an existing site you’ll be faced with the tough decision of hiring a designer and/or developer. A bad decision can cost you time and money–and your sanity. So how do you make the right decision? We have put together a panel of designers and developers to talk about what questions you should ask when evaluating potential vendors, what homework you should do prior to requesting proposals, options for hosting your site, and share examples of what makes projects successful.

Presenter: Dave Coustan (@extraface)

“Content,” like “Digital,” is a word that should denote a whole range of activities, but usually brings to mind just one – in this case, a bunch of words. As platforms and technologies and services evolve, they influence and are influenced by the unpredictable ways communities and makers take advantage of what those tools can do to present new kinds of things. Experiments and one-offs slowly evolve in to common forms as more makers use them, as audiences begin to understand and expect their conventions, and as they are found to fill an audience need or niche particularly well. This session will explore some of the things out there other than words that publishers are making, including videos that aren’t podcasts or shorts, pictures that move, pictures that don’t move, and the other (other) C word, Curation. After all of that talk about *what’s* being made, if there’s time we’ll talk a bit about how some of those forms of expression might influence *how* content is made.

Presenter: Ibrahim Madha (@omgibu)

WordPress and the set of tools it provides can be used beyond the scope of a typical blog or even a simple content-management system for any website. This session will give an overview of how a major online publication, Salon.com, uses WordPress as its day-to-day publishing platform and the journey it took to get there. We’ll cover the things that WordPress can do right out of the box, the major features we’ve added or subtracted, and ways we’ve adapted the software to support our editorial process to meet the demands of a high-energy, high-traffic publishing environment. We’ll go over the challenges we faced, how we overcame them, and those we’re still dealing with.

Presenter: Chris Lauzon (@squireX2)

Changing servers doesn’t have to be scary, and we’ll prove it by moving a site LIVE! Beyond database dumps and DNS, we’ll get into updating URLs embedded in WordPress plugins and other techniques. We’ll shine a light in those dark corners and peek under the bed — trust us, there aren’t REALLY any monsters under there.

Have a question you’d like us to address? Tell us here: http://bit.ly/questions-for-chris