Wordcamp 2010 – A Partial Review

To say I rely on WordPress is an understatement. So when I found out that there would be a Wordcamp in Boulder this year, I was pretty excited.

The event was volunteer run so the cost was only $35.00 which seemed cheap compared to other tech conferences which can run in the hundreds to thousands of dollars per ticket.  Plus you get a free t-shirt.

The Day’s Events

There were 3 “tracks” going on simultaneously as is usually the case at conferences. My interpretation of them was: 1) user-centric, 2) developer-centric and 3) other.

Since I am a WordPress developer I attended most of the development conferences, no surprise.  Some of the other, non-development, sessions are reviewed over here.

Here is a quick run-down of the ones I attended.

Caching in WordPress

This topic covered pretty much what it said and aside from “use a caching plugin like WP-SuperCache to reduce the number of database calls” there was little more to say.  I did find it interested to hear about some distributed caching schemes for high-performance websites, but we didn’t have time to delve into actually implementing this, sadly.

SEO Techniques

This was a good discussion on some things to consider about what search engines use to judge your site for ranking purposes. Overall this wasn’t really specific to WordPress, but rather included just the basic HTML for any site on the internet.

The presenter dine a fine job and given one hour, probably covered as much as possible. I didn’t get as much out of it as I had hoped. I already implement the standard SEO techniques and I was looking for more advanced, cutting-edge or off-the-wall SEO techniques. I didn’t get them here.

WordPress Development

The speakers had the lofty goal of developing something using WordPress during the presentation which I thought sounded neat. In practice, and given the small and overcrowded room, it made for a confusing and garbled presentation. They covered some good stuff, but mainly it didn’t augment my WordPress development skills. I think reading a book on the subject would get me farther in 1 hour than this presentation was able to. Judging by the number of people checking their email, I wasn’t alone.

Free Lunch! (Who says there’s no such thing?!)

BuddyPress 101

I was looking forward to learning more about BuddyPress in the discussion as I have never used or even looked into it. I figured I’d sit back and get an overview.  After all, the presenter Lisa Sabine-Wilson wrote the book (literally) on the subject.

Overall the talk was definitely geared towards the beginner. I would have liked a bit more meat, but again the 1 hour time limit kept things broad and shallow.

The End

Here is where I bailed out (Hence the Partial Review). I wanted to go to the last development presentation, but as I had spent enough time in dark rooms (combined with the WIFI going out at the theater location), I decided to take off earlier to hang out with my family on this nice Saturday.

The Final Word

Looking back on my summaries, I feel like the tone is more negative and critical than I actually felt about the event.  There were definitely some unsatisfied attendees, judging from my Twitter searches – most complaining about crowding and lack of depth of presentations. But it’s a volunteer run even, so I give them some slack. But as they say, here is an opportunity for improvement for 2011.

I would say given the cost, it was more than worth it.  There were a lot of things I would improve upon for next year and this was the catalyst I needed to get involved as a volunteer for 2011 (assuming it happens) to see to it that some changes might get made like:

• Longer presentation time slots, maybe 1 1/2 hours to allow speakers to get past the basics and go into detail.

• I think the addition of an advanced development track would be great. How to push the limits of WordPress, etc.

• A better intermediate topic track was needed. You were either a total-newbie or a developer.  I spoke to at least one other person who was caught in the middle and looking for more ways to use WordPress to help with their business.  Maybe next year.

• More space. I understand that it might be difficult to find a free location to hold enough people given that it’s downtown Boulder, but the Techstars garage was way too small for all the people that decided to hit the dev-track presentations. I spent the first talk sitting on a side table, the next two on a wooden bench. Many were either standing the whole time or in the stairwell only able to listen. Too bad CU wasn’t the venue, I think they would have better options.

For now, I will tentatively keep a space open on my calendar for Boulder Wordcamp 2011.

Oh Yeah

C’mon Matt, Boulder is a nice place. Lots of food to take pictures of. You really ought to come next year!