Well, this last weekend I was in Lisbon, Portugal for WordCamp Lisboa. Having moved only a 2 months ago here to Porto, I was honored to be asked to speak. It had been sometime since I spoke at a WordCamp, but I enjoyed ending the day talking about 20 years of WordPress community.
Not only did speak at WordCamp, but I was also able to present at their local WordPress meetup the night before contributor day. We had a room filled with 20+ people and I chatted about podcasting. It was the same subject I had done the month before here in Porto at the meetup.
So why am I bringing this topic to the table.
I forgot how special local events are
Maybe I haven’t really forgot, but to give you a bit of history. Living in the states I was in rural areas for for many years. For the latter five of those, really far away from anything. And of course there were those years of Covid. About 7 or 8 years ago I commuted to Seattle for a weekly WooCommerce meetup. Now in my early hears, say from 2010 on for many years I was active in both a lot of meetups and WordCamps. So that is that.
The fact is it had been a long time since I did either a meetup or a smaller, local WordCamp. Most of my travels have been committed over the last several years, when we could travel, to WordCampUS.
With that all said, I had forgotten how special local camps and meetups, in person, really are. The meetups were so cool and we had a fun conversation. Of course it doesn’t hurt that they are followed by a 3-4 hour dinner out afterwards, which is even more special. It was the start of getting to know some new faces, building on friendships I already had and a lot more.
Then came the WordCamp. It started with Contributor Day. Now only in my latter years of going to WordCamps have I started participating in them. At the flagship WordCamps they are huge, but the one at WordCamp Lisboa had really good attendance for the size. It was amazing what the day ended on as far as contributions. But even more so, the conversations I both listened in on and the ones I have with new WordPress friends. Those all flooded over to the next day at WordCamp. My friend Marco and his team of organizers and volunteers did an amazing job. The day was magical.
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Small is sometimes better
I love the flagship WordCamps. I’m really looking forward to WordCamp Europe in around two weeks. But the time I was able to really get to know my new EU friends, and those specifically from Portugal, was priceless. Top that off with visiting the sponsors and learning about the cool businesses over on this side of the pond and the people behind them. I always love reconnecting with people I knew, and there were plenty of them attending. But growing new friendships is the best. Longer conversations and lots of laughs. I knew this was home for me.
Now I know that they are talking about how we need to revisit the new generation of WordCamps, the smaller local ones. I’m not going to get into the details as you can read about it on WordPress.org. And I agree that it’s time to look at new and creative opportunities. But no matter what we do, we can not lose the people or the connections. We cannot lose the laughs, conversations and yes, I’m sure some debates. We can’t lose the hundreds of smiles that come across to us in the room. And most importantly, we cannot lose those who are attending for the very first time and creating new memories.
I’m not saying they are dying, far from it. Nor is anyone else really suggesting it. But over the last few years things have changed. And we need to adapt in whatever way we can to keep the community alive. I know we can do this and we already are. I experienced that at the local meetups here and at WordCamp.
I wish I could share with you every single new friendship I made and conversations I had. But I would be here a long time and likely would forget someone or some special moment. So I’ll leave it at this. For all of you making the efforts to bring local WordCamps back to life, and those who already have, a special thank you from me. And please, if you have the opportunity to attend a local WordCamp I highly encourage you to do so. I promise, you will not regret it in any shape or form.
