WordCamp PDX
Well WordCamp PDX came and went. It truly was a whirlwind for me. I stayed at my old friend Mikey’s house on Friday night and of course we stayed up late. And of course WordCamp had to start at eight in the freaking morning! Thankfully it wasn’t in downtown Portland so parking wasn’t an issue at all. CubeSpace was ground zero for WordCamp PDX.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect as WordCamp’s are intentionally kind of general in scope so they appeal to the most wet-behind-the-ears beginning blogger to power users to hardcore developer types. This one was no different as there were people of all stripes in attendance. There were people of all ages, but the scales definitely tipped to the younger end of the spectrum… lot’s of hip kids use Wordpress. I definitely felt like the weird old goth guy at the party, but that had more to do with the fact that I rarely go to events like this so I was a bit intimidated. I’ve never been very outgoing so meeting new folks and “networking” is not one of my strong points. There was a lot of “networking” happening.
From what I gathered, there’s a burgeoning tech scene in PDX so I imagine a lot of the people there were used to seeing each other at tech “social” events around town. I didn’t know a soul in the entire place. Being from little ol’ Olympia there isn’t a whole lot going on so I found the atmosphere quite exciting. And I was even able to put faces to a few names I’ve seen online. While I can’t say I made any “connections,” I did meet a few nice folks.
Anyway, the reason I attended was for information overload! And I was not disappointed in the least. The keynote address was given by famous blogger and WP evangelist Lorelle VanFossen. She shared a pretty amazing story about a blogger she met named Glenda Watson Hyatt, known as The Left Thumb Blogger, who was born with cerebral palsy and only has use of her left thumb. She uses Wordpress to communicate with the world — the theme of the keynote was “Changing Lives with WordPress” and this was a very touching example that I will never forget.
The morning breakout session I attended was presented by this bloke named Justin Kistner, “Using WordPress to Manage a Social Relations Program.” He talked about using Wordpress MU, BuddyPress, and bbPress as platforms for “social ecosystems.” Not sure how I jive with the terminology he used, but his presentation gave me many ideas that I think I can apply to my day job. Probably the most fascinating thing was watching the attractive young lady next to me display some pretty sick productivity skills on her MacBook Pro. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her screen and as a result I discovered some interesting web sites and a neat Twitter app for OS X I think I’m going to check out. I noticed she was attempting to live blog so I knew her URL had the word “hazelnut” in it. Being the curious type I looked her up later, checked out her blog, which left me with the impression that kids of today maybe aren’t as square as I thought (even though none of them seem to smoke). Seemed like a very interesting and intelligent young lady and I look forward to following her blog.
Next was lunch, which was WAY too long. We had about an hour and forty-five minutes to kill. Pizza was served, then devoured by all… leaving a ridiculous amount of time to “network.” I met this dude named Vin but I think I scared him away when I told him I work for a “non-profit trade association in Olympia.” He was a pleasant chap but he excused himself pretty quickly to go chat with people not as boring as I. Sometimes appearing like an adult on the surface has strange outcomes. I remember the world before the Internet so it’s hard to relate to these kids today who grew up in a vastly different world. Jeez… I’m starting to sound like my Dad. I should probably get out more…
So being the Gen-X’er that I am, I headed outside to smoke some American Spirits. Across the street from the space, there were a group of WordCamp attendees hanging out in the sunshine. Assuming these were the “smokers” I walked over and much to my chagrin, no one was smoking. Then I got glared at by these girls because I was smoking. What the fuck? Maybe these kids of today are totally fucking square? I understand smoking is kind of frowned upon these days in the sanitized version of the world we’ve become accustomed to living in. I guess the cool kids don’t smoke anymore. Such is life.
Headed over to my car, dropped off my swanky WordCamp t-shirt, gave the girls a call, then headed back in to grab a seat for the WP 2.7 demo given by Automattic’s own Jane Wells. She’s one of the newest additions to the Automattic team… a usability expert. Wish I could have caught up with her to ask some questions for Christina, who is desperately trying to figure out what to do with her Masters in Cognitive Psych. I guess a lot of people with Psych degrees get into usability testing… for obvious reasons. Jane’s presentation was fairly informal but certainly highlighted some major usability enhancements in 2.7. Highly anticipating its release on November 10th.
Woopra is pretty slick. And as it happens, Lorelle, who is involved in the Woopra beta, gave an extensive tour of many of its most jaw dropping features. Woopra is analytics in REAL TIME! Getting an invitation code to the beta is not the easiest thing on earth but Lorelle gave each attendee of the session one invitation code to hook up Woopra on their site of choice! Thank you Lorelle! Now I have three sites hooked up with Woopra. If you haven’t seen Woopra, go check it out and sign up for an account. It took about a month or so for my first 2 sites to be approved for the beta, so unfortunately no instant gratification. But the wait is well worth it.
Next was the session I was most jazzed about… “Extending your Blog through Custom Plug-in Development.” This cat named Dane Hesseldahl was the presenter. While waiting for the session to begin I took a look at his site and I almost peed my pants. Holy shit! This dude is super talented… both as a designer and a developer — which is exactly what I want to be when I grow up. You’ve got to check out his site and see his portfolio… totally drool-worthy.
Dane led us through all the essential aspects of WP plugin creation from initial idea to execution to helpful documentation available at the WP Codex to help if you get stuck. My ten dollar admission was worth it for this session alone. Dane posted his Keynote presentation as well as the files we worked through on his site. I really wish I would’ve talked to this dude but alas it was time for me to go.
I was exhausted and had a two hour drive back to Oly to look forward to. Kinda bummed I had to take off because I found out the evening breakout sessions were quite good. Oh well, there was just no way I was going to make it through the dinner and “networking” time with my sanity intact. It was a good day and my quota for information overload was certainly met.
One last thing… I would say about 90 percent of attendees, myself included, had a MacBook or MacBook Pro. And the number of iPhone’s was mind boggling. I felt like a dweeb with my BlackBerry Curve.
Going to conferences like this in a cool city like PDX, really makes me realize I need to get back to the big city!
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