On Saturday I attended the first ever WordCamp. Based on the notification emails going out about it, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Only 15 hours before it was slated to start, Matt sent out a message saying that more than a dozen sessions still needed discussion leaders. It made me wonder what we were in for.
The event actually turned out fairly well I thought. I mostly stayed in the Main Hall for the sessions in there. The Second Room seemed to be discussions for more advanced users.
My only criticism about WordCamp would be the organization of the sessions. It would have been nice to let us know as users which ones were geared towards different experience levels. I heard people say that too much of the technology-speak was over their heads. Next time an effort should be made to distinguish different types of users. Have more sessions for the people who know only the basics–and clearly tell us which sessions are for whom.
Anyway, here is very short synopsis of what I got out of the sessions that I sat in on:
Widgets Showcase, Andy Skelton - Widgets are cool. They make your sidebar easy to configure.
Blog Promotion and Writing a Compelling Blog, Prince Campbell - Write about other people so they will want to come read your blog. People care about themselves the most; play to that.
State of the Word, Matt Mullenweg - WordPress needs help with support. Work on it is constant and enthusiastic.
Blog Architecture, Aaron Brazell - I didn’t get anything out of this session, but it wasn’t necessarily Aaron’s fault. The conversation became dominated by nonsensical audience members’ questions.
WordPress as CMS, Mark Jaquith - This session showed me the potential WordPress has in making all kinds of great sites that are not blogs. I really hadn’t thought about it before.
Blogs and Journalism, Om Malik - He basically said bloggers aren’t journalists unless they put in the effort to do fact-checking and follow-up phone calls. They are separate spheres.
SEO & WordPress, Neil Patel - I learned that SEO means search engine optimization. The worst things you can do are sleazy tricks. Search engines are smart.
Plugin Showcase, Niall Kennedy, et al - I was getting really tired at this point. I didn’t write down the address for the coolest plugin I saw: one that gathers all the info on the web about a commenter on your blog and displays it in a box on a mouseover. Oh well.
After all that I went to dinner with some friends and some people I had just met. I went up with Elea and Melinda, met Lauren, an Internet acquaintance, and her friend Anna, and was good to catch up with Will again. I didn’t take too many photos during the day, but by far the best one was at dinner. I don’t even need to say any more.
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