We’re still ironing out the exact topic for Jane’s talk and will update this post once we have it finalized, but I can pretty much guarantee it will be interesting.

I’ve seen Scott speak previously, he’s an engaging and informative speaker and I’m really looking forward to hearing him share with our Portland audience.

Learn more about Scott on his website, or follow him on Twitter.

“It is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for
people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense
event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants.”

Or in more detail:

“The unconference is an adhoc gathering shaped by those who attend
with the sessions and agenda being driven by the participants. The
framework is defined in advance, but the sessions are organized and
produced by the attendees. In other words, instead of a full agenda
with sessions and speakers clearly determined in advance, you start
with a blank grid containing times on one axis and rooms / locations
on the other axis; lunches and any other common activities are often
added to the grid in advance to provide some basic infrastructure for
the event. You never know what discussions, demos, and other interactions
to expect before the event, but you can count on it being an
interesting time!”
…
“Unconferences on the other hand may tend to attract people who enjoy
shaping their environment and who may value networking and
conversation more than presentation. You become a participant, instead
of just an attendee. Sessions are proposed, refined, and often
combined as the event progresses and conversations evolve. I also find
more networking opportunities at unconferences, since many sessions
are discussion based rather than a single person giving a
presentation.”

Thanks to Dawn for allowing me to republish her explanations; this should clear things up for those who have yet to experience the benefits an unconference can bring when so many interesting people are together.

In order to spur some pre-event discussion, tomorrow there will be a blog post here that can be used as an open thread for discussion about topics folks might want to discuss at WordCamp Portland.

Andrew Nacin is a core developer for WordPress and is an active participant in the WordPress community. He is involved with development tasks including bug fixes, feature development, and wrangling contributions from other developers. He also participates in various mailing lists and forums and has been known to attend many WordCamp events.

We don’t have the exact topic for his talk, but I believe we can divulge that it’s being billed as “hint = something awesome”. Having seen Nacin speak a few times I have no doubt he’ll live up to that expectation.

Learn more about Andrew Nacin and come see him speak at WordCamp Portland.