Max, Scott, and Kristan are back from the annual Wordcamp in San Francisco’s Mission Bay and wanted to share the top lessons and ideas we each took away from WordCamp SF 2013.
Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word address was phenomenal. Some very cool statistics – Matt shared that recent research by WP Engine found that almost 30% of Americans have heard of WordPress and that in the last 12 months alone, there have been more than 46 million downloads of WordPress. Matt also previewed some amazing new features coming very soon. It is WELL worth a watch to see what’s planned for WordPress 3.6 and 3.7!
Max
- Mike Schroder ran through how to interface with WordPress via the command line in Magical WordPress Management using WP-CLI and I saw the potential for quite a bit of time savings. I’ve added this to a few of our servers already and created a tutorial for how to install it on a Mediatemple Grid server for some of our clients.
- Josh Broton’s talk on Responsive Web Design methods Sticks, Spit, & Duct Tape covered some past, present, and future techniques to make websites mobile and tablet friendly. Some great ideas which you’ll definitely see in upcoming Razorfrog projects.
- As Razorfrog is currently expanding, the panel Teaming Up: From Freelance to WordPress Agency lead by Matt Mullenweg with Brad Williams, Jake Goldman, Shane Pearlman, and Alex King was incredibly useful. Lots of great things to think about in the coming months as Razorfrog grows.
Scott
- WordPress now powers 18.9% of the web to date, which is an increase of 2.2% from last year’s announcement. The sample population size used for determining this statistic was in the ten millions, making it the most accurate estimation to date. This was announced by Matt Mullenweg himself on Saturday July 27th. Need a website or blog? Invest in WordPress! It’s only getting better from here.
- From Carrie Dil’s presentation titled “Cooperation And Competition,” she called for freelancers to seek out and establish coopetition in business projects and efforts when possible. This literally means to work together with folks that share similar objectives to you, in order to create healthy competition and better options within the marketplace. It also follows this logic: (x + y) > (x || y) — also known as the 1+1=3 theory. You are more valuable together as a team than as individuals pursuing the same goals. Team up and power up!
- Online news aggregator and blog The Washington Post is entirely powered by WordPress for both its desktop and mobile platforms. The mobile news site is currently one of the fastest in the nation, as announced by Yuri Victor, the Director of User Experience at the Washington Post. Without a doubt, WordPress is making the world a better, faster and more connected place for everyone.
Kristan
- So much of what I do is content curation and user management, so I was very excited to hear about a few new plugin ideas for managing content-rich websites with many users: Content Audit, Edit Flow, and Public Post Preview are all on my list to check out very soon!
- A Matt Mullenweg trading card. Need I say more?
- Grant Landram’s talk on Bridging the Chasm: Working with Non-Technical Stakeholders was a great reminder that not everyone is familiar with all the jargon we so easily throw around. My favorite suggestion was to use visuals and metaphors as part of your explanations, as so often they will help further cement an idea in the brain.
Visit WordPress.tv For More
To watch the WordCamp SF 2013 panels online, head on over to wordpress.tv. We highly recommend reviewing these info-packed videos to learn more about what’s happening in the WordPress community!
