7 Things I Learned at my First WordCamp
You might be wondering what a blog entry about WordCamp has to do with travel. My travel blog and 75 million other websites use WordPress (WordPress report) and many of you reading this post have a WordPress website. I was asked to present a talk to the Ottawa WordPress meeting by my daughter Meagan who was part of the organizing group for this meeting. She has been involved with WordPress for many years, and often presents and participates at other WordCamps. My career background includes customer service, customer management, and technical support management. Given many of the developers work for themselves, I thought a presentation on stellar customer service might be of interest, and it was.
I also learned quite a few things as well as dispel some of my assumptions about WordCamps.
1 – I expected most of the participants at the WordCamp conference to be millennials. I’m not sure why I expected this, but it was a wrong assumption on my part I was quite surprised to see all age groups, from young adults to late baby boomers. I didn’t feel out of place with my graying hair.
2 – I expected a great percentage of participants to be men. This assumption was based on the fact that throughout my Information Technology career, women were very often outnumbered. I remember going to a technical content conference and finding myself to be part of a very tiny group of women. At this particular conference, it seemed to me that there were more women than men, but not by much. This also could have reflected just the participants who attended my presentation.
3 – I expected most participants to have deep technology and WordPress knowledge. Again, an assumption that I based on past experience with technical conferences. Turns out many of the participants were people that are creating their own website and were attending to get more in-depth knowledge about WordPress.
4 – I was hoping there would be a good balance between deep technical presentations which are too in-depth for me at this point of my web development level. I wasn’t disappointed as there was a great mix of presentations including a few panel discussions, social media insights, detailed coding and tools, and even a presentation about Mental Health, The Imposter Syndrome and working from home.
5 – I discovered that the WordPress community is a very inclusive and supportive community. Everywhere I turned, people were chatting and sharing. I connected with two other women presenters, two travel bloggers, and several other individuals. One panel discussion had some great feedback and comments from the participants as well as those on the panel. I really felt the community connection of this group.
6 – I recognized that attended these types of conferences will help me improve my technical knowledge. There are presentations for all levels of knowledge and opportunities for participants to present about their topic of choice.
7 – I was very pleased to discover that the subject of the stellar customer service was on many bloggers and developers’ minds. I was pleased with the feedback I received from the presentation. Speaking of stellar customer service, I was surprised and happy to receive an email with my presentation’s feedback forms a mere 4 hours after I presented. THAT certainly scores high in my customer service experience!
If any of you are using A WordPress related website, I strongly encourage you to attend a local WordCamp. There are WordCamps all around the world, and you are sure to find some information and gain knowledge that will help you as the owner/developer/creator or even end user of your website. If you want to know more about WordCamps, access this link to WordCamp Central.
I love our local WordCamp in Sacramento! In fact, there is a big WordCamp conference in September (I’m part of a blogging panel). It is amazing what you can learn and the treasure trove of resources and people there who can give advice! Congrats on being a speaker–I’m sure anything on customer service was welcomed!
Hi Terri, Congrats on being part of the blogging panel. You are bang on about the treasure trove of resources! Thanks for your comments.
Thank you for pointing out how inclusive the blog community has been. They have welcomed me with open arms as well.
Hi Erica, Thanks for your comments. I’ve attended a lot of conferences during my career as a consultant, and in my experience, it’s been rare when I have felt a good solid sense of community as I did last Saturday. Did you attend the same one as I or you come from another area?
I’ve never heard of WordCamp but it sounds interesting. Seems like you got a lot out of it. I’ll have to look it up.
Thanks for your comments, I do hope that if you decide to check one out (or a few), you will let me know how it all turned out for you.
Do you know when the next WordCamp will be help in Ottawa? Or maybe in Montreal? I’d love to attend one!
Hi Elaine, the list of WordCamps is available at WorldCamp Central. Montreal is the next one (Aug 12-13) and you can read about it on the WordCamp Montreal 2017.
this is an informative blog for me. Had no idea about worldcamp just had a vague idea. this was really educative
Good day and thanks for your comments. Thanks for thinking my post was educative, I appreciate that. I do aim to leave the reader with something new, or a new twist on an old concept, item, location etc. As well, I’ve learned a lot through others these past 4 months, and many were online folks who like to help out or great support service. You likely would really learn much by attending at a WordCamp. If you do, please let me know how you experienced it.
Thanks for sharing. You put it very nicely. We are a very interesting community with a nice mix of Enthusiastic and fresh new blood!
Good day and thanks for your comments. It really was apparent to me the sense of community. This is something that cannot be faked.
This is awesome! Since I started blogging I’ve heaed grear things about this pannel I always wanted to learn more. Congrats!! And thank you so much for sharing.
Thanks Yadira for your comments. I really recommend attending at least one – and I expect, much like Toastmasters’ meetings, each meeting has a culture and style of its own. I expect it is similar with WordCamps. Keep me posted, please!
Good day and thanks for your comments. I really recommend a WordCamp (and no, I’m not being paid to talk about this, WordCamps are run by volunteers). If you find out it’s not the kind of conference that suits you, then you keep looking. Cheers!
I have never attended a word camp before, hopefully I’ll attend one soon, especially after going through your post. Thanks.
Hi Mary, Ièm so happy you are considering attending a WordCamp. And if you are a traveler, you might have a chance to visit a new city! Thanks for your comments
This is a new world to me. I am loving learning about it
Elise, It’s a new world for me as well. It’d great to know there are so many resources everywhere to help us out! Thanks for your comments
WordPress user here and did not know about Wordcamp, will look it up. I too would assume the crowd, nice to know it is diverse.
Hi Julie, It was certainly a diverse group of people attending and presenting as well. Thanks for your comments.
What great information. Looks like something I need to look into. Thank you.
Hi Leah, Thanks for your comments. Let me know if you attend your first WordCamp – would appreciate hearing of your experience.
This blog was… how do you say it? Relevant!! Finally I’ve found something which helped me.
Appreciate it!
Thanks for your comments – glad it was relevant to you.
Great post. I will attend a similar conference the first time, soon. I have so many expectations and also none. I´m not sure what exactly will happen but that I can learn a lot of the speakers, presenters and all the other people who will attend. So excited.
Thanks Pia for your comments. Let me know about your conference if you have a few minutes. I’m sure you will find a lot of information.
I have never heard of Word Camp before. It seems like it would be something that is useful to a lot of users out there!
Hi Jennifer, thanks for your comments. I’m glad that I am able to let readers know of the Camps, they could really be helpful for many of us.
actually, i use blogger and i know that WordPress is another world, i will be in it soon to get more experience, WordCamp will help me to know how to use WordPress more effectively
great post, thanks for sharing
Thanks so much for your comments – I wish you well as you transition to WordPress. I am pretty sure in stating that you will learn some new elements of WordPress at the Camps.
Woah. I had no idea WordCamps were a thing! I feel like I could definitely benefit from attending one of these camps, so I could learn the ins and outs of WordPress. Everything I know so far is self-taught, which means I know I have a lot more to learn! And it seems like a great place to network!
Hi Larissa, and thanks for your comments. You are right, WordCamps are a great place to network with so many people of different background and level of expertise! I learned a lot!
Great insights you share about what to expect from your first WordCamp, what I liked the most was learning from the volunteers WordPress community team. You will have the chance to meet and network with local WordPress businesses, meet with some of the great organizers of WordCamp in the area and also have the opportunity to feature your business to WordPress lovers. We’ve written an article with our own takeaways from the first WordCamp we’ve sponsored and we would be happy to have your feedback 😉 https://goo.gl/D5z781