Wordcamp Australia has come and gone and several months have gone by. But one thing definitely hasn’t changed: the memories and the community. I can honestly say that Wordcamp Australia was an amazing success and that it was the highlight of my year.
When we first started planning Wordcamp Australia almost a year ago now, Me and Sam sat down to lunch at the Eastern in Bondi Junction and talked about everything from which venue we were going to chose to what we were going to serve for lunch. We were very excited about putting on a WordCamp in Australia, and we knew it would be a blast.
But what people don’t tell you is that planning a WordCamp is a very tricky thing to do and it almost never ends, even after the event is over. Things like insurance, the internet connection, and even the catering are all very intricate and delicate processes.
To be honest, Sam and I didn’t know anything about what we were doing when we started. We had a few ideas of what we needed to do and we knew what we wanted to do. In the end, it all fell together, but at times it felt as if it was going to effectively fall on our heads.
There are alot of things to consider when planning a Wordcamp, as it is a full two-day conference. Everything from the attendee badges to the silverware being used is important and will not go unnoticed. People ask different questions and random costs effectively come out of nowhere.
When me and Sam were going through the process of planning Wordcamp, we found that there were a few rules to be learnt. They go a little like this…
The Rules of Fight Club Planning a Wordcamp
The first rule of planning a Wordcamp is: Don’t talk about WordCamp. I mean, literally. Don’t announce your conference unless you have your venue booked and unless things are set in stone.
The second rule of planning a Wordcamp is: You don’t talk about WordCamp. Get a few people together you absolutely trust with your life and don’t let anyone else in. It can cause serious issues later down the road.
The third rule of planning a Wordcamp is: if someone says stop, the fight isn’t over. We had one team member who left a tad bit late in the planning process, but, the show must go on. Don’t let anything stop you and don’t let anything
The fourth rule of planning a Wordcamp is: several guys to a fight. When you get people together to plan Wordcamp, three is a very good number. Two organisers is slightly underscale for an event of this scale (proven by Sam’s partners’ nickname for me: “Sam’s second wife”). Have someone work on PR, someone else on the venue, and yet another on catering.
The fifth rule of planning a Wordcamp is: Sessions will go on as long as they have to. Planning a Wordcamp isn’t a joke, and it isn’t easy if you do it right. Jeff Waugh and Alister Cameron got into a debate about the GPL. We had the option of cutting it off on time, but we let it roll and some interesting thoughts came out of it.
The sixth and final rule of Wordcamp is: if this is your first Wordcamp, you have to speak. I didn’t get a chance to speak, in fact, I had actually scheduled several speakers to make sure I wouldn’t get a chance, and I didn’t. The only time I was on stage was when helping a speaker hook up their laptop or when Sam threw the mic at me and told me to introduce a speaker. Looking back at it now, it was indeed a lost opportunity.
The Event
The event itself went very smoothly. In fact, it couldn’t have gone better. We held Wordcamp Australia over two days in a place called The Red Box in a suburb of Sydney called of Lilyfield.
Saturday
Badges, courtesy of Halans on Flickr
Saturday was the first day of the event and we had a large amount of attendees that showed up for the conference.
Jane Wells went over the Road to 2.7 and the massive UI overhaul done by Automattic. Sam demoed prologue groups, and David Wolf went over some cool ways to use Wordpress as a Media CMS. Then, Dan Milward, author of the famed WP-E commerce plugin, announced that they were going GPL in his presentation, “Wordpress and the Bling”.
We then broke for lunch (which was some amazing sushi) and then had a special presentation by the dancers from Legs on The Wall, which are an internationally renowned dance group who use the space to practise.
After lunch we had Matt’s Keynote, which was very detailed and went over some interesting history of the Wordpress Community, some of which I hadn’t heard of (I’ve been lurking around since the 1.2 era of Wordpress).
Following Matt, we had two lightening talks by Neerav Bhatt and Karel Segers which opened more of the community spotlight and what Wordpress has done for its users. We then had some tea and Jason Kemp (yet another kiwi) gave his presentation on doing business with Wordpress.
This was followed by Jeff Waugh’s intimate “Crikey <3 Wordpress” presentation. Jeff went over how he had used Wordpress MU for Crikey. The day was rounded off by a panel moderated by Sara Stokely titled “New Media and Journalism”, which went over the intricate game the two sides of the spectrum are playing.
Sunday
Alister Cameron (ants88)
We started the morning on Sunday off with a presentation on frameworks by Alister Cameron, which got people talking and created a huge debate about the GPL. After that, Jomar Reyes went over advertising with Wordpress.
Afterwards, we had a more technical presentation on the versatility of The Loop by Harley Alexander and then broke for lunch with a less intimate setting on an easygoing Australian afternoon.
Epilogue
What was the outcome? We built a community. Walking past the stacked chairs, bundles of Cat5 wire, and talking to those who remained, I felt at peace. This was the start of something great. We had successfully organised a community. We shut the doors to The Red Box, hoping to return next year for another great weekend.
Then I tripped the burglar alarm.
