WordCamp US’s second installation happened at the beginning of the month. Hosted by an all-volunteer team of organizers, this annual gathering has the largest attendance in North America and a keynote by the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg. The goal is to bring together people who use WordPress to share their experiences and stories in order to get more productive with this tool.
WordCamp US has been around since 2006 – first as WordCamp San Francisco, and now as WordCamp US – in Philadelphia for the past two years, and the for the next two, Nashville. The event was a huge success this year as well. Josh and I were so proud that we are a part of this community as we attended this annual event and our experience was full of new learning as WordCamp US 2016 was very well executed. Below is a roundup of what we saw, what we loved, and what we learned.
Hashtag WCUS Taco Club
“We should get friends who are already in town before the event begins and, I dunno, have pizza at our hotel room or something.”
That’s what Josh originally said. Somehow, someway, that simple idea turned into a 40-person taco bar & beers, complete with Caldera-branded taco stickers. It has been almost a month now, and we are still laughing about both the concept and the execution of Caldera’s first promotional event.
We had set a simple intention: we wanted to give back, meet customers that we hadn’t met before, and as always, have fun. That intention, our creative minds, and a heaping dose of silliness created the perfect recipe for a promotional event that accomplished what we wanted to accomplish while providing a good time for everyone involved. On Thursday around 4:30pm, we started seeing a stream of old and new friends stop by for tacos, WordPress and Caldera Forms. It was a good time, and a great way to start our second WordCamp as a team. We are deeply grateful to the wonderful attendees that made our event go so well due their welcoming response, as well as to Postmatic for providing the drinks.
Highlights of WordCamp US 2016
Taco parties covered, every year WordCamp US is attended by more than 1800 people. It was amazing to hear so many stories and engage with the community. WordCamp US is the largest WordPress conference held in the North America. This year, the conference was hosted in Philadelphia on December 2nd to 4th.
WordCamp is a series of locally organized events to learn new tips and tricks about all things related to WordPress and blogging in general. Like every year, WordCamp US 2016 was once again successful in hosting a great event where we got to learn and get inspired.
Among many highlights of this event for me, naturally, was Pippin Williamson’s talk. Pippin is a well-known plugin developer – the mind behind leading plugins such as Easy Digital Downloads. At the conference, he took the stage to answer questions that are often asked of him. Pippin was funny, instructive, and inspiring. I sat in this talk with the rest of the team from GiveWP and I could feel that our row of growing plugin companies felt great listening to Pippin’s words and experience.
Another highlight of WordCamp 2016, just like last year, was the State of the Word by Matt Mullenweg. I won’t give you a summary of what he talked about because that has been covered to excellent and extensive detail by others. My favorite summary was the one from Brian Krogsgard at PostStatus – and bonus points for the fact that he published it about 0.3 seconds after Matt was done!
I will say that much of what Matt highlighted were accomplishments of WordPress during this year that made us proud. Also, the priorities he outlined going into 2017 greatly line up with what Josh and I believe we can do with WordPress, including supporting worthy nonprofit organizations, emphasizing security and focusing on a more modular platform. We think there’s reason to be excited as we watch how our community is going to proceed forward for the coming year.
It’s also important to note that Matt mentioned that he was very grateful to city of Philadelphia for hosting this event. He was kind to acknowledge the efforts of sponsors, organizers and volunteers that make it possible for such an amazing event to take place – the herculean nature of their effort can’t be under-emphasized. For next year, WordCamp US will be going to Nashville. I’m excited to serve up tacos in
Tennessee.
Finally, no good event is complete without an enjoyable after party. We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the after party held after this successful conference. The Academy of Natural Sciences was the perfect location for an excellent way to round of the event. The party allowed us to get to speak to the attendees and speakers on a personal note after listening to their experiences at the conference. Also, check out this picture of Josh being super excited about the dinosaurs.
Conclusions on WordCamp US
There were 116 WordCamps in 2016 with more than 36,000 attendees, 2,056 speakers, 103 sponsors and 750 organizers. According to Matt, this has been the fastest growth for these events for around 5 to 6 years. WordCamp US felt almost celebratory of these facts – and there’s only more to come.
We are glad that we attended this conference as it was a great platform for learning and networking opportunities. It is always great to listen and engage with like-minded people. We deduced significant benefit from WordCamp US 2016 and we are thankful to the organizers, hosts and everyone else who made it happen.