Last week several Hall employees and I participated at WordCamp Maine, Maine’s first WordCamp. In case you are unfamiliar with WordCamps, they are an informal gathering of developers, marketers and business owners who use WordPress as their Content Management System.
WordCamp Maine included over twenty one speakers from around the world, including Hall employees RC Lations and myself. Additionally, Hall Internet Marketing also participated as an event sponsor.
Friday, August 15 –
Friday was a nice ease into the weekend with classes for Beginners and Intermediate level users. I kicked off the event by leading a workshop on the fundamentals of WordPress, including how to create, set-up and maintain a website using the CMS. We then split into three separate sessions, each covering common goals for people just getting started with their websites: Content Creation, eCommerce and Blogging.
Saturday, August 16 –
Saturday was the main attraction, with four concurrent tracks on development, business development, design, and general usage. Some of my favorite talks included Michael Cain (Automattic) and Konstantin Obenland’s (Automattic) hilarious take on a morning talk show, “Cain and Obenland in the Morning,” Willim P. Davis’s (Bangor Daily News) discussion on using WordPress as an application platform, and Patrick Rauland’s (WooThemes) talk “Let’s Build an E-Commerce Store in 30 Minutes!”
RC’s talk on “How to use Data to Power the User Experience” was also popular. In his talk, he discussed the process of how Hall uses valuable data from A/B testing and Advanced Google Analytics configurations to gain insight and improve blogs and websites.
Sunday, August 17 –
Sunday was the most laid back day, where a small group of people met at the Casco Bay Tech Hub for a WordPress contributor day. Nearly 20 people broke into groups to work on the upcoming 4.0 WordPress release by contributing to its code, providing QA testing and submitting documentation.
I had a great time this year and I look forward to upcoming WordCamps. If you missed out on the event, you can check out the WordCamp Maine website, or search the hashtag for the event—#WCME.