On October 5th & 6th 2013, I attend the 2013 WordPress WordCamp Europe event – also affectionately known at #wceu! Held in beautiful Leiden, The Netherlands, it was conveniently close to where I live (Den Haag). There were around 700 attendees from all around Europe. I was one of a small percentage of female attendees! It was a great weekend, and offered at a really affordable price.
I first heard about WordCamp when I watched Matt Mullenweg give his keynote speech “2013 State of the Word” at the 2013 WordCamp San Francisco. I bought a live stream pass for only $10 and clearly remember that this was the moment I went from the step of not just liking WordPress as a product but becoming part of the WordPress community.
This feeling was certainly strengthened by spending two days listening to great speakers and meetingothers at the 2013 #wceu WordCamp Europe. I even had the chance to meet Matt himself!
With a wide range of speakers split into four categories: Earn, Build, Make & Learn, beginners and more advanced WordPress users were catered for. There were topics for developers and users. Here’s the sessions I attended:
Day One: 5th October 2013
- Vitaly Friedman: Behind the scenes at Smashing Magazine
- Rocio Valdivia: BuddyPress and Multisite Case Study
- Sara Rosso: Why Big Brands Love WordPress
- Monica Guerra Leiria: Delivering what the client needs
- David Coveney: Unlocking Enterprise with WordPress
- Panel: Running a European WordPress Development Agency
- Vladimir Prelovac: A ManageWP Case Study
- Frederick Townes: Business Optimization
Afterwards, as I didn’t really know anyone staying on for the after party and it wasn’t starting until 8pm, I met up with a nice group via Twitter for Tapas!
Day Two: 6th October 2013
- Andrew Nacin: WordPress 3.7: Foundations
- Bram Duvigneau: Practical WordPress Accessiblity
- Hanni Ross: Being Part of WordPress
- Q&A with Matt Mullenweg
- Naoko Takano: Growing local WordPress Communities in Japan
- Dre Armeda: Real WordPress Security: Kill the Noise
There were several more I would have liked to have seen, particularly Miriam Schwab: Learn from My Mistakes, Don’t Make them and Joost de Valk: The Victory of the Commons, but I was exhausted after an intense two days and had to get home to my family.
I wrote pages of notes and am sure I will be digesting and using the information for some time to come.
The good news about WordPress WordCamps around the world is that many of the presentations are recorded and accessible via
Here’s a few of the sponsor organisations there at the 2013 WordCamp Europe:
- Merchandise.nl: Print your logo on almost anything!
- Coconut Private Social Network: Intranet
- WPML: Make your WordPress site multilingual
- Types, Views & Cred: Customise WordPress sites without PHP
- Nexus: WordPress Themes
Zestee 