What I Liked Best About WordCamp Raleigh 2018
I think I am turning into a WordCamp junkie!
Two weeks after driving 5 hours for WordCamp Atlanta 2018, I attended WordCamp Raleigh 2018 held at NC State (only a 1.5 hour drive this time). This makes 4 WordCamps for me – 2 in Atlanta and 2 in Raleigh. And I must say, I think I am hooked. I can hardly wait for Wilmington and Asheville.
There didn’t seem to be a real theme (outside of the Gutenberg buzz) this year in Raleigh (which was kinda cool, actually) and they made some changes to the schedule that I really like.
What I Liked Best about WordCamp Raleigh 2018
Flowers, Not Skill Levels – They named their tracks after southern flowers instead of beginner, developer, etc. The purpose was so people wouldn’t feel like they couldn’t visit a presentation that wasn’t on their “level” – seemed to work very well. Dogwood, Azalea, Rhododendron and Workshops (more hands on)
My Local Peeps – several folks from our local Triad WordPress Meetup Group were there. It’s always more fun with friends.
Making New Friends – this is my favorite part of any WordCamp. Let’s face it. Those of us who are passionate about WordPress can tend to make our non-tech friends’ eyes glaze over. But at WordCamp everyone is equally as geeky. So it’s easy to make new friends.
The After Party – I have skipped this in the past, mostly due to logistics. This year I participated and it was really great. Another opportunity to meet new people and make new connections.
Vendor Accessibility – this is also true of most WordCamps but even more so in Raleigh because the developers of the All in One SEO Pack plugin are headquartered there and are part of the organizing group. I must admit to feeling a little “star struck” to get to talk to Michael Torbert and Steve Mortiboy. And as always, I love the Bluehost road show guys and gals even if I did miss winning that TV by 1 number for the SECOND TIME THIS YEAR!!
And if I had to pick my favorite presentation for each day, on Saturday it would be Getting Started with Local SEO by Josh Gellock of Expander Digital. On Sunday it was a tossup between 3 SEO Strategies for Building a Bigger Online Community by Amanda Gorman and Optimizing Images in WordPress to Improve Performance and SEO by Steve Mortiboy. All of these gave some really fantastic actionable steps to improve SEO the RIGHT way.
You should GO to WordCamp!
If you haven’t been to a WordCamp, I suggest you find one close to you and try not to miss it. You will learn. You will make friends. You will feel at home with your geek peeps! Thanks to all the folks who organized WordCamp Raleigh 2018 and made it such a great experience. Looking forward to next year.
