Your Passport to Complete Style Domination

If you thought two days of WordPress sharing, learning and general geekery was enough, get ready to have your socks knocked off across the room and into the washing machine.

T-shirts, my friends – there will also be limited edition WordCamp Portland t-shirts that you can only get if you attend WordCamp Portland.  (Did I mention recently that you should look at all the amazing people you’ll be rubbing shoulders with at wcpdx? Because you really should.)

Oh, the heads you will turn!  This graphic is specifically designed to make your complexion clearer, your hair shinier, and your WPM faster. Plus, you can test people’s knowledge of Portland bridges by asking them to name all eight pictured.  Amaze your friends and astound your neighbors!

IMPORTANT: we’re going with Canvas brand shirts for men and Bella brand shirts for women.  These are a truer fit than you might be used to if you are accustomed to a more gym-style event shirt.  Check out the sizing charts if you’re unsure – you’re going to want to wear this shirt everywhere.

The final t-shirt order goes in tomorrow. Buy your ticket now to join in the high-jinks.  If you want to change your shirt size, you can do so by changing your registration information (that link you followed to tell us your name, rank, and Twitter handle).

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WordCamp Awesome in the Making

I love unconferences because the event dynamic is driven by the attendees – folks get to choose the agenda and everyone can learn from the experiences of a diverse set of attendees.

As I look at the current state of things, we have about 135 tickets remaining.

There’s some great discussion going on at the open thread for discussion topic ideas.

As I browse the list of registered attendees and look at the names of other sponsors and organizers who aren’t yet on that page, I see:

  • multiple WordPress core contributors
  • WordCamp organizers from across the country
  • authors who produce great content, developers who write plugins and themes, and designers who make things look and work smoothly
  • folks like John Hawkins* and Todd Huish who build websites for Chris Brogan
  • Tantek Çelik, a web standards guru and microformats pioneer

* speaking of Mr. Hawkins, check out his article WordCamp Portland – Round 3 in which he explains why (as a 20+ WordCamp veteran) he’s excited to travel 750 miles to come to WordCamp Portland.

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Zero to Blog: Our First-Timer Workshop

Want to blog but don’t know how to get started? (Or do you know someone like this?) If so, dear reader, you have hit the educational jackpot.  This year WordCamp Portland is offering a limited-attendance First-Timer Workshop on Friday, September 16, from 9-4, at the US BankCorp Tower.

This workshop is designed for people who have never blogged before, on any blogging platform.  You’ll start at zero and end up a hero with your very own, free WordPress.com blog! You’ll publish content and learn about themes and widgets, as well as other useful WordPress.com features.

Taught by actual WordPress.com Happiness Engineers, this workshop costs just $25 and includes lunch.  Register today!  There are only 25 spots available, and they’re likely to fly.

Special thanks to Digital Trends, yet again, for providing the conference space for us to hold the workshop.  Amazing sponsors FTW!

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Digital Trends: Our First Hawthorne Bridge Sponsor!

Digital Trends – upgrade your lifestyleWe’re so grateful for our local businesses that support the Portland WordPress community!  Our first sponsor this year is Digital Trends: a tech lifestyle site that provides sneak peeks, one-of-a-kind product reviews, editorials and technology news about trendsetting consumer products and services to its readers. They focus on products that incorporate style along with cutting edge functionality, and are committed to featuring recognized “trend leaders” and journalists to offer informed opinions, news and insight about what’s hot, fun and useful in the consumer electronics world.

Based in downtown Portland, Digital Trends provides daily news on subjects like gaming, mobile devices, the tech industry, and social media.  They also publish product reviews on everything from cell phones to e-readers to digital cameras.  They’re all about keeping their readers up to date on products and news that help us enjoy the cutting edge of productivity and fun.  And, of course, their excellent site runs on WordPress!

Thanks to Digital Trends for their support of WordCamp Portland 2011.

 

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Open Thread for Unconference Topics

As mentioned previously, a large portion of our event this year will be held as an unconference, with topics suggested, chosen, and scheduled by the community of attendees.

Unconference sessions can spring up in one of two fashions:

  • An attendee may come to WordCamp with a desire to speak or lead a discussion about a particular topic for which they are knowledgeable
  • An attendee may come with questions about a particular topic and be seeking answers.

With those two options in mind, we’d like to offer up this post to spark some discussion (please leave a comment below) about topics or questions that might be great WordCamp sessions.

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What is an Unconference?

We’ve mentioned that much of our weekend schedule for WordCamp Portland will be determined in an unconference format, but I’m sure that at least a few of you are wondering what that means. Rather than creating yet another explanation, I’d like to borrow a couple explanations from Dawn Foster:

“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.

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I can haz tikkets?

Oh hai.  Don’t pinch yourself – the rumors are true! WordCamp Portland ticket sales are open.

Prices are stunningly low, as always: only $30 for the whole event, including sessions all day on Saturday and all afternoon on Sunday.  Your ticket includes lunch on Saturday and a limited edition WordCamp Portland 2011 t-shirt.

We’re taking a leap of faith and selling this year’s tickets at a low, low price. To cover our expenses, we still need cash or in-kind sponsors. The organizing team has been pounding the pavement, but I bet you know at least one person that we don’t!

If you have clients with WordPress sites, or if you make money building WordPress websites, or if you met your beloved and attentive spouse through your WordPress blog, or if you just sold a charming little craftsman bungalow from your WordPress real estate site… how about contributing back to the free & open source software that made it all possible by sponsoring WordCamp Portland? According to the Dalai Lama, “it’s the karmic version of a hot fudge sundae.”[1]

Sponsorship comes at all levels, and we’ve tried to price a bridge to appeal to anyone’s budget.  If you can’t give, we’d be totally grateful if you could email or call 3 people on our behalf. Thanks, you’re amazing.

Less talk, more tickets, right? Register now!

[1] This quotation needs additional citations for verification.

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Featured Speaker: Andrew Nacin

We’re planning to begin selling tickets on Friday but in the meantime I’m excited to announce the first of our three featured speakers for WordCamp Portland 2011.

Andrew NacinAndrew 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.

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WordCamp Portland Still Needs Sponsors

So we’ve got this awesome venue and some amazing speakers and what’s shaping up to be some tasty grub… but unless we get more sponsorships, WordCamp Portland will be in a pretty pickle.

Please sponsor WordCamp Portland! It’s a great way to contribute to the free, open source software that has enriched your life and, very probably, your business.

We need all kinds of sponsors – people who can Give Cash and people who can Give Things. Food donations, free printing of badges/programs/signs, etcetera and so forth – if it’s free we’ll probably take it.

If you can’t give, can you ask around on our behalf? Do you know any businesses that run their fabulous site on WordPress that could kick us some green or do our printing? If you’re too shy to ask, just leave a comment below – we won’t publish it if you ask us not to, but we’ll totally ask for money… because we have no shame, we love WordCamp Portland, and we want to keep ticket prices screaming low. 🙂

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Speakers & Format for WordCamp Portland 2011

WordCamp Portland 2011 will span all day (9ish to 5ish) on Saturday and the afternoon (1:30ish to 5:30ish) on Sunday. We’ll publish the exact schedule and agenda as we get closer but here’s the initial information on the event format and speaker selection process.

We’ll be having a few featured speakers throughout the weekend. These will be pre-selected speakers on topics that appeal to a wide audience of WordPress users. Most of the rest of the event will be in an unconference format which allows attendees to bring ideas for topics for which they have expertise or for which they’d like to find some answers.

For more information, see our Speakers page.

We solicited suggestions through the first week of August and used community input as a factor in selecting our featured speakers. Thanks to all who weighed in!

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