Anytime you can can spend two days meeting new people and talking about food trucks, cigars, and WordPress, has to be a fantastic way to spend your time. And for only $40? And you get a cool t-shirt?
Last week I had the pleasure of attending WordCamp Columbus 2014, along with over 150 developers, designers, and business people who work on and use WordPress.
I had an amazing time learning more about WordPress, meeting new people, eating great food (why don’t all WordCamps serve Chipotle and City Barbeque for lunch?), and co-speaking about accessibility with my friend Jacki Keys.
The first day of WordCamp Columbus was a workshop devoted to getting people started working with WordPress.
The second day was five tracks of sessions focused on all aspects of WordPress from plugins to SEO to security to user experience, and more.
The sessions were great, the speakers knowledgeable, and the information they shared had me nodding my head and taking lots of notes.
And with five tracks, I missed sessions I really wanted to attend. Betsy Cohen spoke on user experience (Before You Build: UX, Design and Content Strategy), but I couldn’t attend her session because it was the same time I was speaking.
I missed Joe Rosza’s Congrats, You’re Having a WordPress Site session, where he compared having a WordPress site to having a baby, and handed out cigars.
I have a bunch of notes from Mike Whaling’s WordPress for Business: Measuring the Success of Your Website presentation and loved Phil Hoyt’s talk on Using a Frameworks and Child Themes (Google Doc).
https://twitter.com/redcrew/status/495655875961712641
WordCamp Columbus went by too fast.
As I was driving the three hours home on the expressway, I thought back on the conference. Two things stood out for me, as I drove north to the Mitten State.
First, this year’s WordCamp Columbus attendees had to be some of the friendliest and most helpful people I’ve met.
And it started the first day when I stopped at the registration desk.
I noticed a fellow helping another WordCamp attendee with their WordPress installation. I thought, how nice, there’s a Happiness Bar during the Friday workshop. I hadn’t seen that at past WordCamps.
As it turned out, it wasn’t someone at the Happiness Bar.
First time WordCamp attendee Ryan Sharrer saw someone having an issue on their WordPress site and stepped in to help.
I met Ryan later that afternoon, and we quickly became friends during the conference, talking about WordPress, clients, and camping amid jokes about all kinds of things.
When organizer Angie Meeker mentioned she had an open session for Q & A, with no set speakers, Ryan volunteered as one of the panelists.
Two other attendees, Betsy Cohen and Maura Teal joined Angie Meeker for the four-person Q & A session, which turned out to be my favorite session at the conference (more on that later).
These were people who stepped forward to share their experiences working with WordPress, answering questions from attendees.
They could have gone to another session, or simply hung outside in the warm summer afternoon. Instead, they chose to help fellow WordPress users, designers and developers.
The second thing that stood out for me was the Q & A session, which focused on business and client relationships. No prepared questions. It was the kind of session I recommend other WordCamps and conferences consider adding to their schedule.
An interactive session, the questions came not only from the audience, but also from one panelist to another.
How do you manage projects when the client doesn’t provide content? What applications do you use for invoicing?
Along the way, the panelists and the audience learned a lot about and from each other. Value-based pricing is something Angie Meeker recommends. Consider adding a charge to reinstate a project when the client is delayed, says Betsy Cohen.
And who knew Leah Hackleman-Good had a food truck?
https://twitter.com/redcrew/statuses/495651758941556736
Kudos to organizer Angie Meeker and her volunteer team for a fantastic job with this year’s conference. Looking forward to next year’s WordCamp Columbus!
https://twitter.com/natedriver/status/495941372894281728
