I attended WordCamp Toronto yesterday, and did a presentation on how to write and manage multiple blogs. The event, which continues today, is extremely well organized, teeming with enthusiasm and at $35 offered terrific bang for the buck.
That said, I think there’s a place for a bigger and even better WordCamp Toronto. If you were relatively new to blogging or WordPress, yesterday offered a great opportunity to get a lot of solid knowledge and inspiration, and an opportunity share ideas. But for people experienced with WordPress and looking to do more creative, innovative or sophisticated things, it wasn’t the place to get it.
In an ideal world – and something that should be seriously explored given the size of Toronto’s tech and WordPress communities – WordCamp Toronto should be a one-day, multi-stream event that meets the needs of everyone from newbies to WordPress ninjas.
There should be a WordPress 101 stream that provides the straight goods on why to use WordPress, the different ways it can be used, and basic information about the worlds of plug-ins, themes, hosting, etc.
A second stream would be for designers and people looking for insight on how to take their blogs and Web sites to the next level, offering insight into creating new themes, and rolling out innovative features and functionality.
The third stream would be for developers with sessions on the guts of WordPress MU, the development of themes and plug-ins, hacks and security.
WordCamp Toronto would become a place for the entire WordPress community to gather to meeting new people and exchange ideas – a place where the new WordPress users could talk to experienced designers and developers to learn about how WordPress can be used, and a place where experienced WordPress users could learn from peers and gain insight into the things that users are looking to do.
Toronto’s technology community has tons of enthusiasm, energy and a hunger to learn. In the right venue, WordCamp Toronto could be a much bigger event with a larger mandate that would be a roaring success.
I completely agree. I spoke at WordCamp last year – this year I wanted to attend but realized that myself or our developers are more interested in the 3rd stream of content you were referring to that was not offered. I’d love to see that change next year and would be willing to help make it happen – it is truly needed.
I agree. The event was focussed on bloggers, new WordPress users and social media (all important to cover), but lacked the advanced technical topics. I want to hear more about the guts of the system, PHP, MySQL, plugin development, etc.
From a programming perspective, it’s just a matter of keeping the current WordCamp programming, and then latching on two more streams with four to six sessions per stream. Of course, it would also mean getting a larger venue but a place such as Ryerson would probably do the trick quite nicely.
Mark
Wordcamp Toronto 2010 Wrap-Up | Community Guy
[...] Mark Evens Tech: Next Up: A Bigger WordCamp Toronto [...]
I can’t agree more; multiple streams like we see at DrupalCon, meshU and other conferences is the next logical step. Of course, the problem arises that popular presentations can end up side by side in the schedule, but overall, I think multiple streams cater to a broader audience and create more variety for an event.
By the way, great presentation on blogging.
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