Why talk about it now? Although I have attended numerous WordCamps, this was the first one I organized. Typically, I’m happier when I’m out there speaking, but when I took over the Seattle WordPress Meetup, I inherited WordCamp as well.

Last week on the WPCandy Roundtable Podcast with the BuddyPress Core Team, someone submitted the question “What are the chances of a BuddyPress Camp in the future?”

I thought the question was a lighthearted, fun one that might evoke a joke or two, o seven some more of Boone Gorges singing (which it kind of did). I didn’t expect this really insightful response to the question from John James Jacoby:

If the community was to the point, and large enough where someone wanted to throw together a BuddyPress only thing, I would be totally down for it.

That said, I think what would be the segue towards that is to have a plugin camp. You know, let’s just talk about all the cool plugins specifically. And it can still be like a WordCamp where there’s a user track and how to pick a plugin and how to use a plugin and which ones are favorites and you can have a developer track where developers can talk just about the plugins they’re building…

So eventually for it to get to the point where plugins can just have their own conference, and WordCamp can still sort of be all the things in one, I think that would be a stepping stone toward BuddyPress having its own event.

That made me stop and think quite a bit, both during the show (around the 52 minute mark of the episode) and afterward. The more I think about it, the more I think conferences focused on plugins and brands built on WordPress will really help confirm the strength of the WordPress platform.

Perhaps in time people will identify more with plugins and themes they use than WordPress.

PressNomics, while it hasn’t happened yet, could likely end up being one of these such events. The focus of the event is the WordPress economy, and the brands and businesses built within it. Friends of iThemes was a fun example of a handful of WordPress businesses holding a private meetup and brainstorming ideas together. Copyblogger Media has run Genesis theme meetups for some time now too.

Brands like these rely on the WordPress platform and community to coexist, and while their meetups might not center on discussing WordPress itself, they all point back to WordPress as their source.

It’s great to see WordPress businesses forming their own events, but I’ll be more excited when a free, community developed project built on WordPress sees its first real dedicated event — be it a BuddyCamp, bbCamp, or something else. ¹

There could be a way to approach an idea like this before a camp for a single plugin is possible. Naturally most WordCamps feature plugin discussions, but has there ever been a WordCamp where WordPress plugins were the only topic? It’s something I’ve only been considering since Jacoby mentioned it last week, but I like it.

I couldn’t find the reference, but I can recall Matt Mullenweg saying he looks forward to the day when people use WordPress without really knowing it’s WordPress.

The comment was specific to the WordPress dashboard user interface becoming more utilitarian over time and less in the way, but there could be more to that. Perhaps in time people will identify more with the plugins and themes they use on top of WordPress than the WordPress platform itself. The more they become the focus, really, the more of a true platform WordPress will be.

Or, put another way: the less we talk about WordPress, the better.

If you’ve awaited news on WordCamp Edinburgh UK 2012 and when ticket sales start, then today is your lucky day. You can now get your hands on an early bird ticket for £35, as long as you order it before June 1st when it increases to £45. The ticket price entitles you to two days worth of speakers and a social event on Saturday night. What more could you want?

Sponsorships are also available, ranging from £75 to £1,000 (which covers the official social event on Saturday night).

So are you looking forward to WordCamp Edinburgh UK and your visit to Scotland?

WordCamp Seattle and WordCamp Austin are happening this weekend. Actually, they’re happening right now. Since it’s far too late to snag a ticket and run over there (far, far too late), I suggest you attend the events in whatever way you can:

• WordCamp Seattle: #wcsea hashtag on Twitter and the livestream of all three stages
• WordCamp Austin: #wcatx hashtag on Twitter

Just because you can’t be there doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy (part of) the show. And hey, while you’re here in this post, why don’t you share the next WordCamp you plan to attend in the flesh. Visit WordCamp Central to see the events happening all over planet Earth in the near future.

This episode of Aftertaste follows WP Late Night #8, and is a real doozy. We dig into the WordCamp topic a little bit more, as you might expect, and spend a few minutes planning for the future of WP Late Night. You know, just in case you’re into that sort of talk.

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Frederick Townes, creator of the W3 Total Cache plugin and Senior Technical Advisor at Mashable, joined in last night for WP Late Night #8. We followed up on the WPMods and ThemeThrift discussions from last week, went over freelancer prices and books about WordPress, and finished up with a bit of a back and forth over issues facing WordCamp organizers. We were also briefly joined by Tony Perez (who wrote last week’s blog post that had everyone talking) when we discussed WordCamps.

This episode is sponsored by WordPress theme shop CSSIgniter and SeedProd’s Coming Soon Pro plugin.

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Episode #8 Show Notes

• Followup on Flippa sale of WPMods
• Followup on ThemeThrift
• Discussion of prices, business models, freelancers, charging more
• How to get folks participating in the WordPress.org forums
• WPStats.org
• Yoast plugin update
• P2Theme.com redesign
• Lorelle’s blog post on 201 WordPress books
• Ipstenu’s and Andrea Rennick’s Multisite eBook
• WordCamp sponsorship levels at WordCamp San Francisco
• WPCandy comment thread
• WPTavern post
• Dre’s killer video on Sucuri Security

Future shows

Every episode of WP Late Night is recorded live on the WPCandy Stream. Check out the broadcast schedule for more information on when exactly we’ll be going live in the future.

If you’d like to get in touch with the show for the mailbag segment, or anything else really, here’s how:

• Leave a comment on this post, we’ll see it.
• Shoot an email over to wplatenight@wpcandy.com.
• Leave a voicemail for us at 815-322-WPLN.
• Tweet about us using the #wplatenight hashtag.

If the WordPress Foundation is going to tell WordCamp organizers what the limit is on their sponsorship packages and quite possibly make it too low which can make or break an event, WordCamp San Francisco should be held to the same procedures. If WordCamp San Francisco can not put on a successful event because of the regulations of the WordPress Foundation, they should change its name so they can hold an event without anyone telling them what to do.

WordCamp San Francisco is a WordCamp in name, but that’s it. It’s not like other WordCamps. Think of it as WordPress OMGBBQ Yearly Event if that makes it easier.

My bigger issue is with the “Do as I say, not as I do” mentality. I fail to see how this camp is any different than any other. I have heard the rumors yes, the plan is to change the name and make it the one true WordPress conference. Great, then change the name and differentiate it, don’t hold it under the same name, hold everyone to one standard, and yourself to another.

Automatticians Evan Solomon and Jane Wells spoke up in the comments to respond to concerns. Wells explained, among other things, why San Francisco is still called a WordCamp:

Matt has not felt the need to change the name to differentiate, in part because most of the community already knows it’s different and in part because as the founder of WordCamp, with an event in SF, he’s attached to it.

The post and comment thread are both worth a read through, particularly if you’ve been confused about how WordCamp San Francisco differs from other WordCamps. I’d also recommend checking out Jane’s post announcing WordCamp San Francisco 2011, which further explains the thought process behind keeping it named WordCamp.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the first-ever WordCamp in Nashville, Tennessee. Nick Weaver and I took a quick seven hour road trip down to Nashville and, if I can speak for us both, had a great time. ¹

The event was organized by John Housholder and members of his development shop Ah So Designs. They did a great job, pulling off a solid WordCamp in just nine weeks with what sounded like a budget on the lighter side. There were two tracks (one for beginners and intermediate users, another for developers) and eleven sessions. I stuck to the developer track sessions, though I missed out on Mitch Canter’s presentation in the morning (that’s what I get for relying on only one alarm) and was briefly distracted by an epic 34-level game of Jenga outside one of the rooms.

The highlight of the event

The highlight for me (aside from the after party, details of which are never, ever to be published of course) was the Otto and Nacin Show, wherein they went through and demonstrated the various features coming to WordPress in version 3.4. Although it was in the developer track, I’d say a majority of the session would have been interesting to any attendee there — particularly since a lot of it was focused on what’s coming in the near future.

I liveblogged a number of my choice favorite quotes from that session, but just in case you missed them:

"How confident are you? How far back will updates work?" "Version 0.7, released seven years ago." "That's pretty confident." @nacin #wcn12

April 21, 2012 12:48 pm via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

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"No widgets or functions were harmed in the making of this feature." - @nacin #wcn12

April 21, 2012 12:45 pm via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

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As @nacin changes background color: "You have a terrible sense of color." - @otto42

April 21, 2012 12:32 pm via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

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WPCandy

"When can we download WordPress 3.4?" "When it's released." @nacin #wcn12

April 21, 2012 12:33 pm via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

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WPCandy

"If you ask a question that we disagree on, bonus points." - @nacin #wcn12

April 21, 2012 12:07 pm via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

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WPCandy

Too much fun, really.

The discussion on child themes that Ryan Green led was well received, and he covered the essentials. I also enjoyed hearing about child themes from a user experience professional’s point of view. Though, I think the session itself might have served better in an intermediate or advanced user track. As the session went on the room seemed split: half were curious about framework options, and the other half already had a workflow in place they were happy with.

Russel Fair’s Less presentation generated some interest and fit in well with plenty of code examples to show off. On a personal level I’m still unconvinced LESS is really worth all the trouble, but I certainly understand the features it brings to the table better now than before.

I started a discussion in our forums on this topic, because I’m interested in what others have to say about it.

Housholder himself held a session that I wasn’t sure about until it was underway called The Future of WordPress in Nashville. Taking up both tracks as what could be considered the keynote session of the event (and also the first time I’ve seen Google Hangouts used to stream a session into another room to accommodate seating requirements) it turned out to be a nice way for Housholder to walk through the state of WordPress meetups in Nashville and how those attending could get more involved. It’s only fitting, I think, that all WordCamps have something akin to this to help get more members involved in their regular, smaller events.

He also introduced the group to WPNashville.com, a website he and his team are working on to offer a more ideal place to organize the group, citing problems relying on Meetup.com entirely as their motivation for putting something new together.

I selfishly look forward to seeing their development and what they put together at WPNashville so I can steal their ideas for updating and improving my own city’s WordPress meetup website.

You have to criticize something, right?

Really, my only criticism of the event would be what they recognized right at the beginning of the day: rooms were a bit overwhelmed with attendees (a good thing) and a larger venue will be needed in the future (also a good thing).

Oh, and I would also vote for two-sided nametags on badges in the future. No matter what you do, the laynyard always ends up twisted the wrong way. For your consideration:

Since the information you want to see is on the left, the side you’ll always see is on the right. It’s the Law of One-sided Conference Badges. But the schedule was on the badge, which is a definite plus.

Collection of presentations from speakers

There was a great group of speakers at Nashville, and though I couldn’t see them all in person I’ll be browsing their slide decks as they are posted. These were the speakers and their presentations, linked up if they’ve posted their slides:

• Kenneth White: Categories, Tags, and Custom Post Types! Oh my!
• Mitch Canter: The Blank Screen: Overcoming Your Fear of ‘Pressing From Scratch
• Joel R. Norris: A Beginner’s WordPress Bootcamp
• Ryan Green: Child Theme Frameworks Through the Lens of User Experience
• Rick Sanders and Tara M. Aaron: Copyright and Other Legal Basics for Bloggers (and Developers, too)
• Andrew Nacin and Samuel Wood: Otto and Nacin Show
• Brad McCarty: Making the Leap: From Hobbyist to Professional
• Michael Toppa: Dependency Injection for WordPress Plugin Development (and his post)
• John Housholder: The future of WordPress in Nashville
• Anna Belle Leiserson: Search Engine Optimize Your Site in Three Easy Steps
• Russell Fair: LESS, JS & WP (and demo theme on Github)

If you see other activity, or posts relevant to WordCamp Nashville, feel free to drop a link in the comments below.

Liveblog, duh

I also maintained a liveblog here on WPCandy for the duration of the event, which I recommend checking out if you want to experience a bit of the day for yourself.

Recommended food and drink

What would a WordCamp weekend be without an awesome bar or two? Nick knew his way around Nashville better than me, so he gets kudos for the couple of spots we enjoyed.

• Patterson House is one of the coolest bars I’ve ever been in. Pricey, but the cocktails were worth it.
• Sitar: I’m not normally crazy about Indian food, but this was a nice little restaurant.

What did you think of WordCamp Nashville?

I enjoyed my time in the Music City, and look forward to heading back soon. My next visit might not be until there’s another WordCamp in town, but hey, I’m comfortable planning my travel around where WordCamps are happening any given weekend.

If you attended WordCamp in Nashville last weekend, share your thoughts on it in the comments below.