2012. The year in which our little WordPress group brought WordCamp to Grand Rapids. And it rocked. Due in large part to the energies of Brian Richards, a few co-coordinators, and a bunch of volunteers – WordCamp Grand Rapids was born. It a pretty big inaugural event.
Day 1 went really well, as speakers gave talks in 4 tracks (User, Community, Themer, and Dev). Speakers traveled to Grand Rapids from all over the country, and over 130 tickets sold by the time the event started.
Day 2 was really cool though I missed the morning session. Mark Jaquith and John James Jacoby led a really cool session on contributing to the WordPress core, and several patches were submitted! I also helped three different WordPress users learn about the platform during the “WordPress Study Hall,” and found out makes them tick.
The planning…
A strong subset of the WPGR monthly meetup got together to make a plan of attach for Saturday and Sunday. A lot of time went in, and it showed in how smoothly the event ran. I am also thankful to my employer, Steelcase, who supported the WordPress community by sponsoring the event.
And so it begins…
Grand Valley was a great venue, perfect for the number of people we had involved.
The speakers…
What a lineup! Mark Jaquith, John James Jacoby, Brad Parbs, Benjamin Lotter, Kimanzi Constable, David Scott Tufts, Paul Kortman, and so on. I hopped from session to session capturing photos and tweeting on behalf of @WCGrandRapids, so I had the benefit of catching a lot of topics and yet I was unable to sit through any one talk. I look forward to catching up on the talks as they get posted to WordPress.tv.
The talk of the town…
Everyone really seemed to enjoy the event and the out-of-towners raved about Grand Rapids.
This is the best $20 I have spent in a long time.
@wcgrandrapids#wcgr listening to@kimanzic speak on “the power of story”— Alana Mokma (@AlanaMokma) August 18, 2012
All the slides and speakers were covered in a more thorough recap over on WPCandy, so I won’t dive too deep. It always feels good to be a part of something new and truly helpful to a lot of people. It’s officially time to take down my “attending” badge, so I’ll immortalize it below. 🙂
Until WordCamp Grand Rapids 2013 then…