WordCamp US Revisited: Trends, Learnings and Community Reflections

Matt:
Hey Bob, it’s Matt from Gravity Forms and the WP Minute. My biggest takeaway from WordCamp US 2023, it is just amazing to be back in person, seeing all my friends, seeing all my colleagues. For the first time in many years, there was definitely a sense of new energy in the room. Obviously for the last few years from folks being totally remote and not having a lot of in-person time, at least here in the States, there’s a new sense of that WordPress excitement that I like, especially with WordPress 6.3, 6.4 around the corner, new themes, new iterations to Gutenberg, full site editing. I think we’re going to start riding the roller coaster backup again and things are going to get a lot more exciting for WordPress over the next year to five years as we see it evolve. That’s my takeaway from WordCamp us.

Seth:
Hey, Mr. Wu, Bob Wp, how’s it going? It is Seth from Philadelphia. Great seeing you at WordCamp US in the National Harbor down in Maryland, just outside of dc. I wish it was actually in DC but that’s despite the point. My biggest takeaway was how WordPress and Woo and all that are growing with the overall web and how they’re doing their best not to be left behind and being a legacy product. We are 43% of the web right now. The websites online is WordPress, so that was a big takeaway for me. Another big takeaway for me was that, man, that sponsor Hall was far away, but overall it was such a great event. It was great seeing everyone. It was great seeing you, Bob, and hopefully you had a safe trip back to Portugal and I can’t wait to see you next time. Be well.

Shambi:
Hi, I’m Shambi Broome with Web Girls Code in Columbia, South Carolina, and this was my first WordCamp and I was a first time speaker at WordCamp and it was an amazing experience. First of all, shout out to the organizers and volunteers. Made the experience completely amazing. My biggest takeaways would be one, definitely look at the schedule and plan out your schedule ahead of time. That really helped me and I really appreciated. There were so many sessions that were more about community and diversity. I was more interested in that than necessarily the tech talks and sessions, so I really appreciated that. I would say pace yourself. It can be overwhelming. Got a little bit overwhelmed after day one and had to take a break for most of the day, the second day. But definitely schedule out the sessions you want to go to in advance. Pace yourself and network. I mean the amazing people that you’ll meet at lunch, sit with different people at lunchtime and just really take an opportunity to network after hours if possible. Can’t wait for 2024.

Bud:
Hi everybody, this is Bud Kraus and I just want to say do things actually about WordCamp Us. One is that I enjoyed the Community Summit better. Maybe I’m not supposed to say that, but I just did because it was smaller and more intimate and we could have discussions about the WordPress community that were really interesting. And the second thing is, well, I got asked by three different people what my age is, so I’m not sure why because a year ago when I was a year younger, no one asked me, so maybe I’ve aged a lot and that one year, who knows? But anyway, it really was a great experience, although I must say I’ve been to Sweet Work Camps this summer. WordCamp Europe working at Montclair in New Jersey and then work camp US in. I probably had my fill of work camps for a while.
However, at the end, during the after party, I know it’s called social, there were the beginnings of what I hope will be WordCamp New York City 2025. Stay tuned for that one. Hello, hello, hello. Jeremy Fremont here with Malted Dots, a leading WordPress development agency. My favorite thing about WordCamp US this year, 2023 was the same thing. That’s my favorite every single year, and that is the community. The WordPress community is absolutely amazing. It’s vibrant, it’s inviting, it’s educational. It doesn’t matter if you’re brand new to the WordPress scene, you’re going to be able to go in and have conversations with people who are going to be open arm, be able to help share that knowledge with you. Also, for me, who’s been seasoned in the industry for many years over 15, it’s something that when you come together in these WordPress events, word camps specifically, it feels like a family reunion.
So you have a chance to be able to meet and greet with old friends and colleagues, maybe people that you work directly with in a remote setting and you have an opportunity to be able to rub shoulders, sit down, have meals, have more in-depth conversations. I’d say the cherry on top this year was the setting the location. So it happened to be in National Harbor, Maryland, and it was hosted at the Gaylord Resort and the Gaylord Resort. I just felt it was super conducive to be able to, to find a quiet spot, to be able to go and have those more in-depth conversations or discussions with the folks who are attending the event. So I’d highly recommend any other future word camps. The Gaylord resorts were spot on because they’re also very inspirational, the location of where it was. I also just love it because one morning I ended up going out with a friend at the event and getting on the water and doing some kayaking. So all the way around. Fantastic. Also some great takeaways as always from some of the sessions. I really enjoyed being able to hear more of the public sector come into the picture. It was great, the initial keynote talk about NASA and the web modernization elements there. Really fun just to be able to see that piece of the WordPress community continuing to expand in a fashion as it is signing up. Jeremy Fremont.

Mike:
My highlight of Workcamp US 2023 in National Harbor was the Pride party on Friday night. It was so great to see hundreds of allies and LBGQT plus members of our community come together in a safe environment and just have a fun time. We spent a lot of time on the organizing team making sure that it would be the best possible, and I think we succeeded in that regard. The views on the roof were beautiful, and what better way to start it out than to have a rainbow actually be visible in the distance. So I am so proud of the work that our team did and thankful to the sponsors and volunteers and everyone and everyone had attended. So that would probably be my highlight of WordCampUS.

Patrick:
Hey Bob, Patrick Rauland here from speaking in bites.com. I wanted to give the organizers of WordCampUS some kudos. They did something that’s very hard for an organizer to do, which is finding a speaker that can inspire the audience. And I know this because I’ve helped WordCamp, Denver, Wuhan Esh, and many, many conferences both online and in person, find and select speakers. And the opening keynote on Saturday was Ken Liu. I’m hoping I pronounced that, that I’m pronouncing that right. And he was incredible. His talk spoke to me on a deep soulful level, and it moved me and I wanted to share my top takeaway from his talk. And this probably won’t make sense without all the context preceding. This is sort of near the end of his talk. It probably won’t make a hundred percent sense, but I still really want to share this. I think it’s powerful.
Enthusiasm is a better guide to what your mission is than almost anything else. Find a thing you wish to play at and pursue that, then find a way to sell it. It’s much easier than finding what people will pay for and try to love making that. So yeah, for people listening to me right now, that talk was so good and it’s hard to articulate why, but it gets into your motivations and what does it mean to be a human? And as soon as this talk comes out on WordPress tv, I strongly recommend you just sit down, watch it, and reflect on it. And I did want to share one other takeaway. I’m currently looking for a job and several WordPresses, and they probably know who they are if they’re listening to this, went out of their way to introduce me to people who are hiring.
And I think that’s incredibly kind and generous of them. So I’m thankful to be in such a generous kind community. And I think it’s also a community where we, it’s like we have a growth mindset. Like me getting a job doesn’t mean that someone else won’t get the job. There’s a lot more work and we can all make money and what is it? A rising tide lifts all boats. So I just wanted to be thankful to be such a kind and generous community. And it was nice to, it was so good to see the whole WordPress world. So those are my top two takeaways from WordCamp US 2023.

Katie:
Hi, I’m Katie Keith from Barn2 Plugins, and I’m from the uk, although I live on the Spanish island of Majorca. I got so much out of attending WordCamp us this year. I currently have two Barn2 team members who live in America, my web developer and my designer. And this was the only chance this year for me to meet them in person. We went on a boat trip at the River Pot Mac and had dinner at a restaurant, and it was lovely getting to know them better At WordCamp itself. I spent the entire time in the hallway track, which I renamed the cafe track because I spent so much time chatting with people in the cafe as well as catching up with people I had met before. I met lots of people who I had previously only met online. This included people who I had been collaborating with on certain projects. So meeting them in person helped to strengthen our work together. But of course, it wasn’t all work. I really enjoyed spending time exploring Washington DC with my WordPress friends. We hired electric scooters to see the main sites and even went to the zoo. So both personally and professionally, WordCamp us was definitely worth the trip.