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…
Nice summary, Luke. You did a great job with social media and snapping photos. Also, thanks for arranging the Steelcase sponsorship!
I enjoyed chatting at lunch and throughout the day Saturday.
Thanks, Chad – you were a major part in pulling this event off as well. I am still surprised that it happened, and that it went well!
I’m really sad about the thought of taking down the wcgr badge.
Well, it’s gone now, Dan. At least it will live on in this post. 🙂
It was good to meet you at WordCamp, hope your web dev skills were sharpened and you were able to implement some of the new knowledge right away!