A WordCamp US 2023 Recap

Katie:
Hey everyone, and welcome to a special post-WordCamp episode of Do the Woo. I’m Katie, Co-founder and CEO at Barn2 Plugins, and today I’m joined by my co-host, Marcus Burnett, and a lineup of amazing people from the WordPress and WooCommerce community.

Marcus:
Yeah, thanks, Katie. I’m Marcus, and I am on the Community and Events team at GoDaddy. Today, we’re going to have an informal discussion recapping our experiences at the WordCamp US Conference. We’re going to go around the screen and let everyone get a chance to introduce themselves. We have a couple of special guests too.

Raquel:
Hi everybody, I’m Raquel. I’m the Community Manager for Elegant Themes.

Marcus:
And how about you?

Topher:
My name is Topher. I’m a regular WordPress WordCamp goer. I’ve been to all the US ones. I’ve been to over 80 camps around the world, and they’re really fun. If you’ve never gone, you should try it. I’m excited to talk about this one.

Marcus:
Very cool. Happy to have you here. And we’ll round out with you, Cory.

Cory:
Hey, thanks for having me. My name is Cory Miller. I’m the CEO of Post Status, the professional network of WordPress. Many of you, or all of you, are members. Regarding WordCamps, gosh, Topher, you’ve definitely got my record there. I’ve been to most of the WordCamp US events, even when it was in San Francisco. I went there and never missed it. I’ve been to more WordCamps than I can definitely remember, but not 80—maybe in the 50 realm. I’ve spoken, volunteered, never organized. I always said, hey, that’s the toughest job in WordPress—organizing a WordCamp for $30 or whatever the price is—to be able to have great food, great speakers, and all this kind of stuff. It’s the best deal ever, but it’s a tough job to have. I’ve had friends who have been organizers, and I’ve supported them and always liked to go and meet passionate people about WordPress and open source.

Katie:
Cool. Well, let’s start by talking about first impressions of WordCamp US this year. What did you think of the venue, and how did the whole thing compare to previous ones?

Topher:
I liked how it was spread out. I liked that it wasn’t all packed together. There was lots of room for small groups to get together—lots of different small groups. The sponsor area had lots of room between all the booths, making it easy to walk around. It just felt like a nice place, and I enjoyed being there. There were a lot of quiet rooms. I don’t know if everybody noticed, but around behind the talk rooms, there were five different rooms for different quietness. There was the speaker room, the nursing room, the sponsor room, and one just called a quiet room, which was pretty cool. I liked that.

Katie:
Yeah, the venue was amazing. I really liked the atrium area with the café. One day, I think I spent the whole day sitting in the café talking to people, which is nice because normally you’re standing up networking, aren’t you? So it was nice just to be able to sit down for once. I thought it worked really well.

Raquel:
Yeah, no, I mean the venue itself was really, really awesome. Definitely echoing what Katie said. I loved the atrium; that was fun, and I loved the idea of creating a third space. That’s always what I love whenever you have a WordCamp. You have WordCamp, you have all the sessions, but where does everybody go? Where’s the third space? Not work, but where we go afterward. So that hotel definitely created that whole third space aspect of the WordCamps. I was not a fan of the separation of the sponsors, especially coming from more of a sponsor angle, but still, the venue was really cool. So, no complaints.

Cory:
I appreciate you saying that, Quel, because I didn’t want to say it from a sponsor’s perspective, but our members are often the sponsors, and talking to them, it’s never good when it’s so spread out. It was two floors down, and I get the whole walk, like Topher said—that was nice. But from a sponsor perspective—and this is not just this particular WordCamp US—those of you who have been to a lot of these, you hear grumblings from the sponsor hall saying, “Why aren’t we right there in the middle of everything?” From that perspective, and I know the organizing teams are aware of that, it’s just a continual challenge where you’re trying to match a venue, get all these things going in one place. But for me, similar to Topher, I just camp out in that hall or the hallway track in the sponsor hall because for me, the WordCamps are mostly about networking, relationships, and conversations. I always like to support people who are doing talks. I got to see Justin Kope give a lightning talk about being incarcerated before he entered WordPress, and we got to work at iThemes with Kope for a couple of years. So it was awesome to hear his talk. But otherwise, my venue—no offense to any of the speakers—I’m camped out in the hallway, or like you said, the atrium, Katie. Great place to talk. I totally missed the quiet halls and the private rooms and stuff. But just wandering around the sponsor hall, you can really get to meet and talk to everybody you need to from my perspective.

Marcus:
Yeah, that’s awesome. And you alluded to this a little bit, Cory, but I know that a lot of what folks do at WordCamps is the hallway track and getting to network and talk to folks a bit. But I also want to ask a little bit about the sessions and talks. You mentioned one, but were there any from any of you that stood out that you really enjoyed from the sessions, from the speakers?

Cory:
Now, publicly, I’m going to admit this: I went to one talk, and that was Justin’s talk. It was really incredible, vulnerable, authentic. I’m glad WordCamps make space for that. And then, of course, I had to miss it—I had a meeting. But all the talk around the NASA launch—I mean, that’s incredible. That was a great theme for that. But beyond that, that’s my only comment. It was really well done—the lightning talk.

Raquel:
Yeah, I’ve got to say, much to what Cory said as well, I know Justin well. Justin and I, we’re both Native American, and so we always get all excited when we’re around in the WordPress community—the only two that we know of. But his story is just incredible, and I was really impressed that he got picked to speak at WordCamp US. I can’t keep track of where I am. But kudos to the team for picking him. Seriously. And I actually, for the same reason Cory mentioned, was very much in the hallway track 90% of the time. So I also did not get to see many talks. But definitely, yeah, Justin’s was great.

Marcus:
Yeah, I have to admit that I saw one fewer talk than that, and didn’t get a chance to see any of them. I know that’s partially because of sponsor duties, and I was down in the sponsor hall a lot and stuff. But how about you, Topher? Was there a session that you were able to jump into that kind of stands out for you?

Topher:
Yeah, I saw two, which is two more than I usually see at a camp. I’m also a hallway track guy, but I saw the storytelling one, which was really good. And I saw the NASA keynote, which was extraordinary. I love NASA, space, and all that kind of stuff. After that, I reached out to JJ and said, “Are you guys hiring?” And he said, “Yeah.” So now I’ve actually had an interview with them, and I might end up on that team. No promises, of course. We did one interview, but it’s exciting.

Marcus:
Yeah, that’s awesome. The good news for everyone is that I think the talks have gone online pretty quickly from this one. So most of them, I think, are available now to watch online.

Katie:
Normally, I try to go to a few talks as much as anything—it’s a break from the networking, but sometimes you get some useful ideas and things to implement. But I read through the schedule this time, and there was literally not one talk that I wanted to go to. I tend to favor talks on business and marketing, but there was nothing at all about that. So I thought that was a shame because normally, particularly at flagship WordCamps, there are some real topics I can get my teeth into, but this one, there wasn’t. So I’m hoping to see a better breadth of different talk topics at future WordCamps.

Raquel:
Yeah.

Cory:
Absolutely.

Katie:
So obviously, we’ve all said that the main thing for us is the networking, and it is largely a community-building event as much as a let’s get information from the talks and apply it to our roles. So has anybody got any stories about particularly valuable networking that happened there that you might not have expected, or anything like that? What’s the most valuable piece of networking you did?

Raquel:

I do have a story. I’m not sure how much I can divulge specifically, but somebody came up to a good friend of mine, in a very funny way, and said, “We’re looking for somebody who’s a woman, stateside, knows WordPress, the community, and page builders.” And they were like, “Are you kidding?” because, obviously, it was Raquel. So something might come of that. That’s all I can say at this point, but that’s some pretty serious networking right there.

Topher:
That’s cool.
I did something unique this time that I’ve never done before. As I said, I’m looking for a job, and one of my options is to start my own thing. I’ve always enjoyed making videos for organizations, and a friend of mine gave me a challenge. She said, “Go full-time with that.” She said, “Build a website—an MVP, something small, simple, light. The colors are black and white. Make some business cards and just hand them out at WordCamp and see what happens. If you get a good response, maybe you go for it. If you don’t, you’re out $20.” I made my business cards wrong twice, so I am out $60. But it was an interesting experience. I did get good feedback, and I’d probably do it on the side, even if I get a regular job because it’s fun. But in the past, I’ve gone to WordCamps looking for work, but I’ve never been so planned with it. I’ve never gone with cards and an idea to pitch. And it worked well. People were receptive to the idea that I was just trying something out.

Cory:
So for me, there’s always two parts. There are all these people you want to hug and catch up with, see what’s going on in each other’s lives, and high-five each other for the cool things that have gone on. So that’s just normal. But I think for me, overall, it’s the people. I don’t know, just walking around, bumping into people. I’ve been in the space long enough where people may know me, but I don’t know them particularly. So at the after-party, just walking down, I’m actually talking to someone, and a guy goes, “Hey, Cory.” I was like, “Hey, how’s it going?” and got to meet him and meet members and then hear those stories. That’s what WordCamp is for me. It’s hearing all the stories you don’t get to hear normally and connecting with people on a different level. So I’ve got bunches of those, just wandering the halls, bumping into people.

Serendipity—that was my goal, actually. I was like, if I’m going to try to do this, Mike Demo over at Codeable—Raquel, you know how he does conferences—he schedules every minute, he has meetings, and I’m like, I will die. I won’t leave Baltimore. Someone will bury me there if I do that. But I’ve tried to do those things—meet everybody, talk to everybody—and I said, okay, I’ve got to do some key things. I knew my priorities, and the other one is just serendipity. That’s the beauty of WordPress—all these people come together passionate about open source, an open web, WordPress, and each other. And so those serendipitous moments where I got to talk to people—another was Ray Mitchell. I’ve known his name for a long time, but at the Pride Party, he came up, we got to talking, got to hear a little bit more about his story. He was on a panel that I, unfortunately, missed, but I was like, I want to go to that panel. I missed it. But just hearing those types of stories, like the Ray Mitchell-type stories, is what makes it all worth it.

Katie:
And you’re right—it’s about the people you don’t know, because it’s so easy to hang out with people that you do know. And I spend most of my time doing that, and that’s my favorite part of WordCamps. But sometimes the most valuable part is networking and maybe arranging more structured meetings with people that you don’t know. So I sometimes worry that I should be a bit more structured and planned. Maybe I don’t want to organize every minute, but sometimes I used to read the attendee list and reach out to people, and I just don’t bother anymore—I just wing it. So I wonder if I’m missing opportunities. We’ve been talking about whether to put our plugins on the WooCommerce marketplace, and I’ve tried to communicate with them by email and say, “Oh, there are some terms we are concerned about; we’re not sure.” And I thought, well, since I’m at WordCamp US, why don’t I meet with them in person and actually go through our concerns and see if we can come up with something? So I did that, and it was so much more productive than the emails I’ve been trying to do for two years, and we have some specific actions. So that’s actually a real business thing that might happen as a result of doing something in person. So it is definitely good to meet new people, often with a particular purpose.

Cory:
That’s exactly the perspective. When I was running, we didn’t miss two things: WordCamp San Francisco or US now, and PressNomics. Because with those two events—now you’ve got to add WordCamp EU and you’ve got to add WordCamp Asia—but for those events, you can meet the key people you need to meet and talk to. Like you said, you can do things over email and stuff, but personally connecting is important. I think that’s something we don’t always think about with these—we do, because we’ve been doing it for a long time. We know these are networking events; these are about deepening relationships, and these are potential partnerships that happen. But for the value, even for an agency owner—we were just talking about how maybe there aren’t a lot of business topics and marketing topics there. That’s okay. We want to do those through Post Status, by the way. But for these, it’s those relationships that you can connect with where you take the avatar to real life, which is always a little bit of a conversion. Do you have that experience where you’re like, “You don’t look like your avatar,” and I probably don’t either?

Raquel:
Yeah, I have the best story. We were literally talking to each other, and I’m like, “I’m Raquel, by the way.” He’s like, “Yeah, we know each other.” And I’m like, “No, we don’t.” He’s like, “Yes, we do.” I’m like, “No, we don’t.” Turns out we do, because his avatar looks nothing like him.

Katie:
Very angry about this, and very clear about that.

Raquel:
I was like, “This is not you.” And then he later took a picture of himself at the Acropolis and then had the audacity to call me out on Twitter, saying, “You happy, Kel?” But yes, sorry, Cory, to totally interrupt with that story.

Cory:
No, I think that’s the beauty of these. So if you look at the schedule and you’re thinking about going to one of these WordCamps, and maybe the talks don’t resonate with you, if there’s one or two, that’s great, but go, because you can meet these people. Raquel’s now in the Netherlands, Katie, I know you’re in England, I believe, and so you’re able to converge at one time. And even if you only get a little bit of time with each other, that time sparks so many things. I mean, I can count so many business partnerships, relationships, opportunities that happened because we went to that. And I know I’ve heard those stories too, where companies got launched or grew or took that next step because that is the spirit of WordPress. It’s collaboration, it’s cooperation, it’s still good in the world.

Topher:
I can’t tell you the number of camps I’ve gone home from thinking, “This changes everything.” It happens all the time.

Katie:
Do you have an example of everything that was changed, more specifically?

Topher:
A lot of them have to do with jobs. I occasionally go looking for a job, but sometimes I’ve been at WordCamps where I wasn’t looking for a job, and somebody just walked up to me and said, “Hey, I’d like you for this job,” and it’s been amazing. And I said, “Wow, that changes everything.” There’ve been a few where I’ve actually gone to sessions and learned new coding techniques or something, where I’ve been building a plugin and now I’m going to start over because I learned something completely new. There’ve been times when I’m doing stuff with HeroPress where I’ll go to a camp and meet someone with a great story, and it’s such a unique story that it changes the way HeroPress works. And I think, “Oh, well now I need to back up and rethink everything I’ve been doing.” I’d say more often than not, I go and come back thinking, “Wow, so much is different now than it was three days ago.”

Marcus:
Yeah, like Cory, I can’t schedule every minute of camp or I’ll also die. And so I tend to not do that, but I also have the fortunate opportunity that I am usually at a sponsor booth, and so I

can kind of post up there and let folks come and find me. And so I’ll have a lot of great conversations that way and find ways that we can work together. This camp in particular was kind of the first one after I started a different little side project called the WP World, and I had a number of folks come up to me and say, “Oh, I love the site, thanks,” and stuff, which is great, and I love that. But it started conversations for ways that I can continue to grow the site, ways that I can collaborate with people to build on and continue to make it just more and more of a resource.

And so it was great to do that. Like Cory said too, I have those conversations with people online. That is my job when I’m not at a camp—to continue to have those conversations in the community online, whether that’s through Twitter or X or whatever it’s called, or Post Status, and different Slack channels. Having those conversations with people is great, but you don’t have the same conversations that you have in person. They’re shallower, they’re quicker, they’re more, “Let’s get to the point—I’ve got work to do.” But when you’re sitting at a camp with people face to face, that is what they’re there for. They’re there to have those conversations. So it’s not a quick, “Let me try and get through this conversation as fast as I can to move on to the next person.” You really have a chance to sit down and talk to people and really get to know them better and form real relationships that then turn into collaboration opportunities and that kind of thing. So I really enjoyed that about this camp as well.

Raquel:
Which is why I’m determined to somehow recreate PressNomics, to Cory’s point earlier. That was definitely, there’s a lot that PressNomics had I haven’t been to, and absolutely, completely, Katie, you would love it. Absolutely love it.

Katie:
A lot of people at WordCamp US were saying we need a PressNomics—we need a business event for the WordPress community. That’s been lost. So no one’s stepped up to the plate yet to create one, but there’s a lot of interest. Are you doing it?

Raquel:
I absolutely will. I mean, I have a lot of experience here, so Cory, you and I…

Cory:
Raquel, we need to talk. I felt convicted before WordCamp US that the missing component was a space to talk business—just business—about what’s going on in our space. So I’ve been sharing that with our Post Status members. I haven’t wanted to do it. I don’t know when I didn’t have someone like Raquel to talk to about these event things. I like to go to them, but I feel convicted. We have to, through Post Status, have an annual meeting. I’m calling it a meeting or some kind of summit. I mean, the Contributor Day happened before WordCamp, right? Because that’s valuable—to have these in-person things. PressNomics held that space for a long time, and Josh Strebel did such a good job leading that. And now I think they need a break from it, or whatever—just life for a little bit. But we feel pretty convicted from Post Status that we need to do that for our members. We’re just saying here, we’re giving all the reasons for it. So Raquel, let’s talk. We need to put a date on the schedule and just come together and talk business. Katie, what are you seeing over here with plugins? Raquel, you’re traveling the world, you’re seeing all these different countries and how people interact with WordPress—what are you seeing with that? What are we seeing in our agencies? We’ve got this big agency that just helped launch NASA—that’s a whole public sector conversation we need to be having, and they were having, and we needed time and space for that. Every other industry you can think of has one—why doesn’t WordPress? So for me, it’s turning from, are we going to be a hobby industry, or are we going to be serious about this thing we really love and want to grow and expand for the future?

Raquel:
Cory’s spitting fire!

Cory:
I just need your help, Raquel.

Raquel:
A hundred percent. Absolutely. I’ve been saying this to everybody—it’s happening. Cory, we will make it happen.

Cory:
Okay, well, tell ’em we’re going to do it through Post Status, and you’re going to be helping—please.

Marcus:
If ever there was a time for Cory to put on an organizer hat, this is it, right?

Cory:
Make it happen. Oh God. Thoughts and prayers, people. No, it’s knowing what I do best, knowing what I don’t do best, and finding great talents in people like Raquel to help with those things.

Marcus:
For sure.

Marcus:
All right, let’s move on from networking a little bit. Of course, there’s a little bit of overlap here. Let’s talk about the fun side of things and some of the side events and after-party and all of that. Were any of you able to make it to some of the side event parties that people were throwing or the after-party? And how was that for you all? Did you enjoy that? What kind of things did you see there and get out of that?

Raquel:
My thing is, if anybody knows me, I am a social butterfly, and I try to go to all of them because I just love everybody and I love connecting with everybody, much like we’ve already been talking about. Some of these people are my lifelong friends—true brothers and sisters, absolutely love them. But then there’s always room for more, at least on my plate. So I love meeting them. So these are the opportunities—the best opportunities are the side events. So I definitely went to all of them, and they were real chill—a lot of fun. And when you go to all of them, it’s kind of hard to do it all. But still, I do go to all of them. And I’ve got to say, my only feedback—the after-party was definitely nice. The museum was super, super nice. For me personally, when I’m at a museum, I want to do museum things—I don’t want to network. So that was the hard part for me because, number one, I’m going to choose the networking because that’s why I’m there—I’m at WordCamp US, and I’m there for everybody. And so I didn’t really get to do a lot of the museum stuff, and it was so siloed. There wasn’t a general place for all of us to be. So, I mean, again, I’m not throwing shade or anything, it just is, like, for me—and I know not everyone feels this way. A lot of people are introverted—they love just being able to be by themselves, go look at exhibits, and stuff like that. I absolutely love doing that when I’m at a museum for other reasons. But for an after-party, I want to be able to network still. So it was a great spot, but I missed that connection of being able to connect with everybody. But yeah.

Katie:
It was the exact opposite of the WordCamp Europe after-party that has been criticized a lot, including by me, for being way too loud and crowded inside so that nobody could hear each other. It is a networking event as well as a party—you should be able to have a conversation. So everybody was just out on the pavement, basically. That’s where I met you for the first time, Raquel, because it was just too loud inside, and everyone was standing by the main road. So that’s not ideal. So I thought, great idea—the Smithsonian, that’s super cool for the WordCamp US after-party. But then when I got there, it was like, this didn’t work as a party, for the reasons you said. But also, conversely, there was no alcohol. That was a bit of a shock—getting non-alcoholic fruit juices. And I was expecting maybe a side party room with a bar and things as well as the exhibits where maybe alcohol wouldn’t be allowed. That would make sense. But it was all looking around the museum, and then, like you say, Raquel, looking at signs, and then a bit of networking, and it was all a bit weird. So my friends and I ended up going back to the hotel bar, where we had a much better time in the Harbor Social. So it was a bit of a letdown. You need something in between the two somehow.

Raquel:
You’ve got to have both—you’ve got to have something for the party animals and then for the ones who want to talk.

Topher:
Yeah, I really enjoyed WordCamp Europe Berlin, which had two spaces nearly identical in size, and one side was a rave. It was loud, it was flashy music, but the other side was very quiet, and there was food and drinks and you could move easily. I mean, there was just one door between them. You could easily move back and forth as you wanted. I really liked that.

Katie:
That was really good. And the sound didn’t travel into the quiet area for some reason, whereas, say, the Pride party at WordCamp US, there wasn’t anywhere you could get away and have a quiet conversation with somebody. The sound traveled throughout the venue.

Topher:
Now, to be fair, they had an outside space and had

to close it because of the rain.

Katie:
Did not know that.

Cory:
I’m the old folksy curmudgeon. I don’t like parties. I didn’t even like them when I was in my twenties. Now I’m in my late forties. But I also wear hearing aids, so it’s hard for me to hear anyway, so you get into loud spaces. But then I did go to the Pride Party—I wanted to show my support, ended up staying up way too late, documented in human history. I’ve not stayed up that late for a party in 20 years. But it was really great to see the community and support the community and feel that we could have that party very openly. And that’s back to the heart of WordPress—we are an inclusive group, an open group. But having said that about the parties, that was really the only one I did besides the after-party. Being at the Smithsonian is incredible, bumping into people, for sure, again. But we hosted two private dinners—one for hosting and one to invite our agency owners in. That’s who we really have focused on with Post Status. We have all sectors—products, software like what you do, Katie, agency owners, and hosting companies and professionals. But we really wanted to get our group of agency owners because I don’t feel like there’s a lot of space for agency owners who are out there in the world extending WordPress, showing what WordPress can do—all the way from NASA to a local nonprofit in Toronto. The beauty of this open-source software. And so it was great to just connect with them in a private space, even though we had about 20 or 30 people trying to get around and just kind of play host. That was really fun for me. So that was my extroverted event—then I crashed.

Topher:
I was surprised and happy to see how well my daughter flowered in that environment—making note, sorry. She recently got her first full-time job ever, and it happens to be in WordPress. She’s working for Paid Memberships Pro now, and she was representing them at WordCamp. She went to all the parties and had a wonderful time. It was really, really fun. The first evening, my daughter was out with my wife and my wife’s friends, and my wife said, “Hey, it’s late, I’m going to bed,” and went to bed. So my daughter went out and partied all night with my wife’s friends. My wife was like, “You can’t take my friends like that!” But she went to the Pride Party, she went to everything, and it was really fun to watch her flower in the community and have the community support her.

Marcus:
Yeah, I think it’s interesting—kind of to the point of there being multiple events, multiple side events. I know that the after-party is the only officially official one, but really, there were opportunities to have loud dance-party drinking time with the Pride party, and then you had the kind of more somber walk around a museum with the after-party. And so there were kind of flavors to have. And the nice thing is that they weren’t all at the same time. We had that issue in Porto or San Diego—I don’t remember which one—but they were all kind of stacked on top of each other, and everyone had to figure out which one they were going to go to or how they were going to try and hop from one to the other. So it was kind of nice to have the Pride party on one night and go dance, be loud, listen to loud music, and drink.

And then you have the somber after-party, which I needed. I’m more of an introvert, which is kind of weird for the job that I have. But to have that kind of mellow downtime after spending basically a week talking to people and hanging out and partying and all that—to just be able to walk around. And I did museum a little bit and read some of the things but also got a chance to pick a few people here and there to walk around with. And we were able to just talk while we looked at some of the exhibits. The Smithsonian’s amazing, so it was just really great to see that stuff and be in that environment and just walk around and talk to people. So I had a great time with all of them.

Katie:
It’s interesting you didn’t find them stacked up because, on the Friday of WordCamp US, I found myself registered for four simultaneous parties and was like, why do they all have to be at the same time? One of them is FEWP, which is just for product company owners, and I really like the FEWP party. I think this is the third or fourth one I’ve been to because it’s for people that do exactly what I do. So it’s a really targeted way of networking with product owners. So I always make sure I go to that one as a priority. And then I ended up at Pride as well, but there was also a WP Engine party, a WooCommerce party—I don’t know what else that I wasn’t on the list for, but there seemed to be a lot all at once.

Marcus:
And I was signed up for a few of them, but to some degree didn’t count FEWP or I think WP Engine’s—they were kind of a bit more invite-only, even though I think their links to register did make it out there.

Katie:
With FEWP, they don’t even want you to bring team members, which is always a bit awkward. So I spend lots of time with my team members, and then I’m like, “Oh no, it’s only for the owners of the company. This party, you’ve got to go out to dinner on your own together.” So that’s the fun side of things. Let’s sort of look toward the future now. Let’s talk about what we’re going to implement from what we learned at WordCamp US—any kind of specific actions that we are following up on. I think it’s fun to do these things, but there should also be takeaways to justify the fact that we travel all this way and so on.

Raquel:
For me, a lot of it has a lot to do with my WordPress local training in Phoenix. So we plan WordCamp Phoenix, and we have three and a half people who divvy up WordPress meetups per month in our community. So we have a very active team, and we contributed like crazy for the community there because we’re in the middle of trying to figure out the future of WordCamps, right? So that’s a big thing right now—what does it look like? We just had a WordCamp in March; we sold 400 tickets. We’re planning our next WordCamp in February, and we want to be the same size. So we had a lot of that. We had a lot of takeaways of, okay, how do we still be the same size but still not put such a burden on sponsors and things like that? So it was quite an event for me—just so much. Probably the most I’ve ever done work-wise, and it was all for contribution purposes and not necessarily for my job, even though that just kind of comes with just being there, doing what I do, building community and all that. So for me, the takeaway is very much about boundaries and how to move forward with having a successful WordCamp Phoenix that actually reflects our community—a community that wants a big camp, but also in a way that makes everybody happy and doesn’t put a burden on anybody and all that, if that makes any sense. So that’s where my takeaway comes from, but we actually feel like we’ve got the charge and we’ve got a clear vision for the future. So I feel really good about it.

Cory:
I think it’s a theme of what we’ve all kind of talked about: you go for the people. The talks, for sure, are great learning opportunities, but go for the people. If you haven’t been and you make your living with or around WordPress, then you need to go to some of these bigger events and your local ones—your local ones, like Raquel said. If you’re in Phoenix, go to that Phoenix one, and then when you get a chance, go to one of the bigger ones. If you’re really taking your career or your business seriously in WordPress, you want to be at one of these because the networking, like we’ve said, we could spend the next five hours just sharing stories of success that have come from being with great WordPress people at WordCamps. The other thing is just that continual thing. I think WordCamps—again, this is just outside-in peanut gallery—but you have to connect business value for those sponsors with the WordCamps. They’re the ones who are going to be supporting it, and that means you’ve got to give them great space to get attention and talk to people. There are people that sent 15 people from other continents to this, and they have to go back and share ROI. So that’s the thing I always say about WordCamps—make sure those sponsors get their just due in the middle of things and not separated, and make sure that they are able to check off some boxes to ensure they can continue to support this with their company’s money.

Topher:
Yeah, it’s been impressive to me how some companies are coming around to sending people to WordCamps and others. There was a company that sent over 100 employees to WordCamp Asia—that blew my mind. And he told me the nightmare it was to manage all those flights and get visas for everyone. But yeah, I can’t imagine.

Cory:
If I may add a third:

I’d say if you have been to WordCamp, do what we’re doing here—encourage other people to go. These are volunteer-led, sponsor-produced, or funded, but it’s the best way. And so, since the pandemic and all that, it’s been hard getting these all restarted, but if we want to keep that heart—the spirit of WordPress—alive, it’s totally about code, it’s totally about people and contributing, and doing the cool work that we’re all doing in our businesses. But this is our Harley-Davidson motorcycle rally for WordPress. This is our geek version of all that. And we’ve got to keep this spirit alive—WordCamps, supporting WordCamps, encouraging people to go, volunteers, put a talk in as best we can so we can kind of get this revived even more. And I hear across the world—United States has had a lot of WordCamps over the years—now I’m hearing really good reports about things on fire in Europe and on fire in Asia, and that’s what we need as a global community. So encouraging people in those communities to go to those and then supporting them in any way you can is the third thing I’d say.

Marcus:
Yeah, for me, I spend the time there talking to people and figuring out how we can collaborate and work together on things. And I keep a nice long list of notes in just Apple Notes on my phone—nice and easy. Keep a nice long list. And then when I get home—and I don’t know how you guys felt after WordCamp US, but I needed a solid week to recover. I don’t know why that was different than other camps that I’ve been to, but I needed a solid week where my brain just didn’t work. But now that I’m back to being productive, it’s looking at that list and figuring out how do I take action on these things? How do I reach back out to these people? Some of it is business, some of it is just collaboration, some of it is just keeping relationships going. And how do we move the bar forward between now and the next one so that when we do get back together at the next WordCamp, there’s a status update? We get to say, “Here’s what we’ve worked on—now where do we go from here? How do we continue to push all of these things forward and continue to work together?” And generally, to the benefit of every party involved. And that’s always the goal—figuring out how do we work together on these things so that everyone benefits, whether that’s just the people involved or in contributing. How do we push things forward so that we can benefit more people outside of even just the people that are collaborating together?

Katie:
Yeah, definitely. For me, the actions are largely about specific points that, again, I wrote in the Notes app on my phone—to follow up with people and hopefully make things happen. And in terms of future WordCamps, I’m hoping to sponsor both Asia and Europe next year. This year, I went to Europe and sponsored, and went to the US and didn’t. While it’s nice to have the freedom of not being a sponsor, there are more concrete things you can get out of one when you are a sponsor, if that is an option for you, because it’s a more structured way. Like Marcus said earlier, you didn’t need to make appointments—people would come to you because they knew where you were and things like that. So I met many, many more new people as a sponsor than I did as an attendee. So for future WordCamps, I think we need to invest more in the sponsorship side of things. And again, keep trying to monitor the ROI of that, which is really hard. I actually did a podcast about that yesterday on WP Product Talk, where we were specifically talking about the ROI, because it’s so hard to measure. We do it—it feels good, but does it actually bring business benefits? Marcus, do GoDaddy measure it in any way?

Marcus:
We do, but again, like you said, there’s a lot of… So for GoDaddy, what’s tough, I think, is that we’re not fully all WordPress. And so there are numbers people at the top that just want to see numbers. The WordPress people get it—the WordPress people that go to the camps and work in WordPress, work with our managed WordPress and our hub, and all that stuff, understand the value of being there, and even more importantly, what it means to not be there. Because both sides to that coin—it’s not just what it means to be there, but also what it looks like to not be there. And so it’s always that game of the WordPress folks—the people that are going to camps and all of that—figuring out how to prove to the numbers people that it matters that we’re there and that it would matter even more if we weren’t there.

And that’s in terms of how we talk about contribution to WordPress itself because we’re all dependent on this software and this community to continue doing business at all. So it matters for us to be there to form those relationships, to talk to people about contributing, but also kind of the business and the ROI. Some of it is, yeah, we’ll get business, but to be honest with you, we spent a lot of money on this camp, and it would take a lot of business to recoup that cost. But there’s a lot of affinity for GoDaddy that we build in going there and forming those relationships. And when people think of GoDaddy, we want them to think of the people that were at the WordCamps—my team and some of the other folks that we had come out to WordCamp US. It makes us feel not like some giant mega-corporation that doesn’t have an eye on the ball. There are people invested in this community, people invested in contributing to the community, people invested in just pouring into it. And it’s hard to justify with numbers alone. And so again, some of the conversations that I had there too—with Raquel and others—figuring out how sponsors can, one, be visible and be seen, but also have the tools and reporting and all of that from the camp or from whatever way possible to be able to bring that back and say, “Hey, it matters that we’re here.” It’s always one of those things that’s kind of hard to figure out exactly.

Topher:
I was talking about this with somebody just the other day. We were talking about the value of personality, of sending people to camps. And we were talking about Mendel Kerlen and Shayda Torabi.

Marcus:
Before my time, but yeah.

Raquel:
I’m literally texting Shayda right now. Shayda and I are still besties.

Topher:
Yeah, I mean, we remember them. We still remember those companies because of them. Yep. I’m wearing a Gravity Forms shirt that I got years ago—some great WP Engine shirts. The investment may seem small now, but this stuff’s been lasting for years, and those relationships will last for years. So it’s unquantifiable, really.

Marcus:
Well, we’re coming up on time. I want to respect everyone’s time. So let’s just real quick, if we can go around, and if anybody has just one last takeaway from WordCamp US that they want to share…

Topher:
Go to WordCamp—do it. If it’s the only one you can make in a whole year, and you have to save up for it—do it.

Raquel:
Yeah, I mean, mine is along a lot of what Cory was saying earlier—there’s so much going on for the future of WordPress. It’s not just the software, yes, but the community is really the engine here. And when you go to WordCamps and you’re part of WordCamps, you get to really experience that. So just like Topher said, just now—go. So yes, go, but get involved with some of the most amazing humans ever that just really, truly care, completely inclusive, and where everybody’s invited to the table. It’s just wonderful. The ROI personally is just in that and seeing the community and the world possibly change because of just actual human connection. But at the same time, of course, taking into consideration the ROI for sponsors and all that, but it really just comes down to the ROI for me as an individual. You’ll not regret being involved, so just go and be part of the community and give back.

Marcus:
Yeah, I’ll just echo the same thing—whether you’re there for sessions, or you’re there for networking, or you’re there to pick up some swag, or you’re there to just get a general sense of the community and what’s going on in WordPress, I think I would say on top of that, go to multiple, right? Because I think you have the opportunity to do each of those things individually and say, “This one, I’m going to focus on sessions and see what I get out of doing that,” and “This one, I’m going to focus on just networking,” and so forth. So I’d say go to them and try to figure out what works best for you in terms of finding the opportunities to collaborate with folks.

Raquel:
And Cory mentioned earlier about not much happening in the US, and it’s true. But Phoenix is happening in February, and it’s a big one. So I would invite you all to come. And I know there’s Rochester and Atlanta coming up too, so I’m not trying to say go there, but not throw a shout-out to mine.

Cory:

I think mine is what Topher said—the story of his daughter going to WordCamp for the first time. One, I love that that is still a part of who we are, that you can show up and have a great time. That’s the community we’ve always been and always will be. So I love that story. And it goes back to—go to the WordCamps. We have the Pac-Man rule where if you’re in a circle talking, try to leave a little space for others. I try to always do that. And then you end up with a really big Pac-Man, but that’s WordPress. So we’ll give you some compelling reasons why you should take WordCamp Phoenix—you should put it in February—on your list. That is one of the best, most iconic WordCamps ever. Not just because Raquel’s involved, but because Raquel’s involved. But sign up for one—they’re starting to be restarted, and that’s such a great opportunity. That’s just the spirit of WordPress. So that was my takeaway.

Katie:
Yeah, and yeah, I’d echo what Marcus said about going to more than one because I’ve been to, I don’t know, maybe 10 rather than 80 or whatever. And it is definitely true that the more you go to, the more people you meet, and the easier it gets, actually. Because there’s this awkward, particularly if you’re an introvert, walking around sort of thinking, who do I talk to next? But the more you go to, you’ll very quickly find somebody. So that really helps. Although newcomers are welcomed into the community, and Derrick Au wrote a really nice piece on his blog on the Sunshine Photocart blog about his experience at WordCamp US. It was the first time he’d been, and he was surprised at how inclusive and welcoming it was, given that he only knew people online. So new people can come in and make friends and fit in straight away, but it does get easier the more you go to as well.

Topher:
I want to just throw one more thing out there—this is a tip from my wife. She’s an introvert, and she struggled for a long time at WordCamps before she found the thing that worked for her. And that is to look around a room, find someone not talking to anyone, walk up, stick out your hand, and say hi. Introduce yourself and say, “What do you do with WordPress?” Because it’s a guaranteed conversation starter. If they didn’t do something with WordPress, they wouldn’t be at WordCamp—although I had a very nice conversation with someone in food service one time. But it works every time. It’s a great conversation starter. It brings in the new people. It helps you meet new people. Yeah, there you go.

Katie:
That’s very true. At the WP Includes party, I went up to a lady because she was standing on her own, and we had a long conversation. Then other people I knew came over and joined in, and they ended up talking to her when I’d moved on. And so it’s not just about your wife being an introvert—going up to people who might look like they need someone to talk to helps them as well and can help bring them into the community. So everybody wins by keeping their eyes open to people. Maybe they don’t look so approachable on their own, but they’re the people who most want to be approached, I expect. Okay, on that note, should we close then? Well, thank you so much to everybody. You’ve all been amazing, and it’s been great to share everybody’s different experiences of WordCamp US and hopes for future WordCamps as well.