Hello WordPress friends and blogging neighbors! I (Morgan Senkal) am thrilled to take over the fabulous work that Aaron Hockley has done with WordCamp here in Portland. My two goals for this event are:
Make WordCamp Portland 2010 as fabulous as last year
Make it even better, if that is even possible!
I decided that the very first [...]
We’re into February, and folks have started to ask me (Aaron Hockley) about WordCamp Portland 2010.
I’m pleased to announce that Morgan Senkal (aka @morganpdx) will be assuming the leadership of this year’s WordCamp Portland event. Morgan brings a great mix of technical and event experience to the role, and I know she’ll do a great job to continue the tradition of awesome WordCamp events in Portland.
Morgan is starting to outline high-level plans; she’ll be making announcements once she’s actively seeking volunteers, speakers, and folks for other roles.
With an increased focus on some other ventures, I felt that I wouldn’t be able to devote the proper attention to coordinating WordCamp Portland. I’ll still be involved with the event in some smaller role and will help out as needed. A sincere thank you to everyone in the local WordPress community who helped make our first two WordCamps as great as they were.
~Aaron
WordPress.tv is a project bringing together all sorts of WordPress-related videos, including those from WordCamps around the world. I’m excited to announce that the first WordCamp Portland 2009 videos are now live on WordPress.tv. The Saturday videos are being put online now, with Sunday’s videos to follow within a day or two.
Thanks to Joe for his great event streaming services and the folks at WordPress.tv for hosting the videos.
Happy viewing!
We’ve had a lot of questions about if it will be possible to view the streamed sessions at a later date. The answer is yes; we’ll get them processed and posted. We’ll be sure to announce it here, the best way to stay informed is to subscribe to our RSS feed.
This is a sponsored post as part of BootsnAll’s WordCamp Sponsorship
Title: Portland Based BootsnAll Travel Network: PDX Word Camp Sponsor
Since 1998, the BootsnAll Travel Network has been connecting travelers and travel blogging. A private company based in Portland, Oregon – BootsnAll publishes 1000s of WordPress blogs throughout it’s travel network for Budget Travel, From expert written blogs/sites like Italy Travel Guide to blogs written from the travelers perspective on how to find cheap air tickets and international consolidator airfare to free travel blogs based on the WordPress MU platform. BootsnAll uses WordPress up and down and all around.
Back in 2001 – we started with one of the 1st blogging platforms called greymatter, moved on to Moveable Type – and have been on WordPress for 4 or 5 years now. We are thankful everyday for the vibrant community around this platform.
BootsnAll is honored and excited to be a part of this years PDX Word Camp. Please say hello to Ian, Brandy, and Chris as they listen, learn and share at this years event as well as visit our site(s). We always love constructive feedback!
A big thanks to Joe from Blaze Streaming Media who is providing our streaming services for WordCamp Portland.
View the stream at http://live.blazestreaming.com/wcpdx/.
The plan is to start streaming as the event begins at 9am on Saturday.
Normally this sort of blog post would follow the event, but I wanted to get this out in the public while folks are still reading this blog.
I’d like to say thank you to the various organizers/volunteers that are making WordCamp Portland happen. The core group of organizers has been actively working on this event since January. Betsy Richter has done a great job wrangling our registration process, which has involved a wait list and overflow process that’s kept her very busy over the past few weeks with the registration and the thorough communication surrounding those lists. Dale Chumbley has spent the last few months talking with potential sponsors, explaining the value of a WordCamp sponsorship and taking care of details such as payment delivery and communication between parties. Rick Turoczy has helped with our bookkeeping as well as publicity through his little floral venture. Kat Markert has talked with dozens of food vendors to arrange for two full lunches, morning bagels and muffins, two days of snacks, and a full range of beverages (coffee, water, pop, beer) for the weekend. Robin Catesby has helped with a variety of hospitality roles including providing some information for out of town attendees as well as a few things to help take care of our (all volunteer) speakers.
We’ll have other volunteers working on tasks on Saturday and Sunday including assistance with registration, T-shirt distribution, organizing the unconference grid, assisting with food setup and cleanup, escorting attendees into the secured area of the building, audio/visual setup and troubleshooting, and more. Take a moment to say thanks to the folks that are helping WordCamp happen.
WordCamps are very much community events, and WordCamp Portland wouldn’t happen without the dedicated WordPress community in Portland. Thank you.
We have a couple changes to announce for our Saturday lineup of speakers at WordCamp Portland. Unfortunately Micah Baldwin will be unable to attend, but I’m excited to announce that Shayne Sanderson will now be a featured presenter.
Shayne is owner of S-Tastic Designs where he offers WordPress-related support, design and consulting services. He also works for Instinct Entertainment (makers of WP Ecommerce) providing support and custom modifications. He has presented at several WordCamps this year including Las Vegas, Raleigh and Los Angeles.
Shayne will be presenting on WPMU and Ecommerce.
Saturday’s schedule and order of speakers has changed a bit; see the agenda page for the updated schedule.
Maybe WordCamp Portland will be your first WordCamp. Perhaps you haven’t been to a WordCamp say, I don’t know, the last WordCamp Portland. You might be wondering what it will be like, what you should bring, and so on. Here a few tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your WordCamp experience:
WordCamp Portland is using a hybrid model of a traditional conference that has pre-announced speakers along with an unconference, where attendees can suggest their own sessions and the schedule is made up as the weekend progresses. If you want to come and only see the speakers we’ve announced, think of that as one “track” that will take up the entire weekend. We’ll also have an unconference open grid on the wall starting on Saturday morning, so that other sessions will be held throughout the weekend. The goal is that at any given time, we’ll have a variety of topics for a variety of interests. If our featured speaker is very technical, my expectation is that there will be some less technical unconference sessions at the same time, and vice versa.
If you have a bit of time, take a look at our group of speakers and learn a bit about their background. We’ve got a diverse set of speakers coming at WordPress from a variety of positions, and if you’re interested in a particular topic you’ll probably gain more from the experience if you’ve read a bit of background on the speaker.
Here are some suggestions on what to bring to WordCamp Portland:
Don’t forget to do a bit of followup after the event. If there were some topics that were really interesting, check out your resources, visit the URLs that you jotted down in your notes, or follow up with the speakers. If you met some interesting attendees and got their business cards, visit their websites or send them an email.
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Note that an email will be sent to all WordCamp Portland attendees in the next couple of days with final logistical information including parking, transportation, building entry, and a few other topics.
I’m very happy to announce that Microsoft, creator of the excellent Windows Live Writer blogging tool, is now on board as a Premier Sponsor for WordCamp Portland. While one doesn’t often think of Microsoft when thinking of the open source WordPress platform, the company is no stranger to social media software and it was a WordPress user at Microsoft who set the wheels in motion for their sponsorship. Thanks to Microsoft’s financial support we’ll be able to provide an even better experience for WordCamp attendees (both in person and over the web) and they’ll be on hand to show off some Windows Live Writer tips and tricks. Thanks!
While it’s great that we have a sold out event for WordCamp Portland, it means that there are a lot of people who aren’t able to attend in person. Thanks to a new sponsor (more on the sponsor tomorrow), we’re now pleased to announce that we’ll be streaming as much of the event as possible. Blaze Streaming Media will be onsite to produce recordings and streams of speakers throughout the weekend.
Once we have the details on the broadcast of the stream we’ll post the information for those wanting to tune in.
Overheard
