The First WordCamp US
Thorsten Ott on
In 2006, the first WordCamp was held in San Francisco–followed by subsequent camps in cities around the country. This weekend, the first WordCamp US will take place: an expansion of the traditional San Francisco conference, now attracting the WordPress community on an even larger scale.
Our team regularly contributes to open source projects and community initiatives, and I am thrilled to be one of seven co-organizers of the inaugural WordCamp US. Hosted in Philadelphia, PA on December 4-6, the conference is a jam packed 3-day event: kicking off with a yoga session right after registration, and moving through the weekend with more than 80 speakers and sessions, including 15-minute “Lightning Talks.” Matt Mullenweg will also present the annual “State of the Word” address: a summary on the current and future outlook of the WordPress project and community. The conference will conclude with Contributor Day: an event for novice and seasoned contributors to give back to the WordPress project, co-organized by colleague and Web Engineer, Drew Jaynes.
I’ll be attending WordCamp US with a number of 10uppers, including our Chief Executive Officer, John Eckman, Director of Platform Experience–and full time WordPress contributor–Helen Hou-Sandi, and a tribe of nine other 10uppers who were nominated through a blind selection process, to present the following talks:
- Senior Web Engineer, Adam Silverstein- “A Bolt of Backbone”
- Director of Platform Experience, Helen-Hou Sandi- “Intent in Software Design”
- Senior Web Engineer, Chris Wiegman- “Make WP CLI Work For You: Extending WP CLI With Custom Commands”
- Senior Web Engineer, Aaron Brazell- “Asynchronous Events”
- Front End Engineer, Allen Moore- “I Wanna Go Fast: Advanced Techniques to Optimize Front End Performance”
- Senior Web Engineer, Scott Kingsley Clark- “Getting a Feature Into Core From Start to Finish”
- Lead Web Engineer, Eric Mann- “The Future of WordPress is Low-Tech”
- Web Engineer, Morgan Estes- “Scratching an Itch: Taking The First Step to Becoming a WordPress Contributor”
- Engineering Manager, Luke Woodward- “Robots Write The Docs”
- Director of Web Engineering, Taylor Lovett- “WordPress Best Practices For Enterprise”
Prior to the kickoff of WordCamp US, the 2015 WordPress Community Summit takes place on December 2-3. Dubbed as the official “unconference,” it’s a smaller event that swaps traditional speakers and presentations for small-group discussions where WordPress contributors explore topics critical to the WordPress project and community. I’ll be around helping to ensure the event runs smoothly, and contributing to various discussions pertaining to WordPress-related Meetups, WordCamps, and improvements to WordCamp.org.
If you’re interested in the web and open source, you’ll definitely want to be in the city of “Brotherly Love” this weekend to grab a cheesesteak and attend the inaugural national event for the web’s most universal publishing platform.
Don’t forget to say hello if you see 10up folks around throughout the event.