@WordCamp - Home to the WordPress Gurus

I’m sitting here wearing my WordCamp Kent shirt with an adorable squirrel Wapuu on it. Wapuu is the WordPress mascot and it is cute. When you go down a professional path that includes “aw!” inducing swag - you know you’ve chosen well.

Kent, Ohio was my first WordCamp and I’m so glad it was there. The people who ran the camp were very emphatic about the importance of welcoming newcomers to the WordPress community. They were so friendly and willing to help me, even though I was a noob to WordCamp.

WordCamps are run entirely by volunteers, including the organizers and the speakers. It is all done in the spirit of camaraderie and sharing knowledge. The price for attending is low to keep the events accessible to anyone who wants to attend. They have great sponsors that help keep the costs down and provide swag and sustenance.

I’ve been at Crowd for a year, we are an agency that builds almost all of our sites on the WordPress platform. WordPress is incredibly versatile and it’s amazing what can be done with it, from simple to extremely complex websites. If you go to WordCamp, you will see that people who use WordPress are passionate.

From bloggers and small business owners, to highly experienced freelancers and developers - all are welcome at WordCamp. The talks are loosely divided into categories with sessions about development, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and other aspects of marketing your site, design, content, maintenance, and more.

At Crowd I have learned so much through my projects and the senior developers on the team - getting smart about plugins, using SFTP, and designing engaging sites. At WordCamp I’ve expanded my knowledge and have been exposed to new ideas and topics. I attended a presentation about building a site using the starter theme Underscores, which was a good introduction for me. Another good one was about Custom Post Types and going beyond what a theme offers. The sessions are valuable, but so is the experience overall. Being a part of WordCamp has made me feel like I’m on the right path with my development career.

Since I went to WordCamp Kent I have joined our local Detroit WordPress Meetup and attended the Grand Rapids WordCamp. I’m starting to see familiar faces and making professional connections and new friends. I’m looking forward to the Ann Arbor WordCamp in October. There is talk of hosting a WordCamp in Detroit in the future and I’m going to volunteer. That’s the great thing about WordCamp, when you see what others are giving it makes you want to give back.

My friend teases me that it sounds like I’ve joined a cult. What can I say… “All hail the mighty Wapuu!”

Our US team is part of a global digital marketing agency network which all work in synergy on a number of projects. #TeamCrowd build websites, design creatives, create brands, engage social and a lot more. Find out more about our team of digital enthusiasts.