That’s right, tickets are on sale now for WordCamp Portland 2013.
Last week we announced our first set of speakers as well as our keynote speaker: Brewster Kahle.
As in years past tickets are just $20. That gets you a fantastic day of WordPress fun as well as snacks, lunch, and some really awesome swag that we’re working on right now. 🙂
Register today and we’ll be looking forward to seeing you on August 10th at the Eliot Center!
The organizing team here is excited to announce Brewster Kahle as our keynote speaker for WordCamp Portland 2013! When we first defined permanence as our theme for this year’s sessions we set to work thinking of who would make the right keynote speaker. Brewster is exactly that as his work epitomizes permanence on the web. We’re beyond excited for this.
If you’re not familiar with Brewster’s work he is the Digital Librarian and Founder of the Internet Archive. He’s been working to provide universal access to all knowledge for more than twenty-five years.
His keynote is titled, Internet Archive and Preserving WordPress Blogs. If you’re curious what that entails, read on:
The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has been serving archived versions of blogs for years, but only now are we starting to work directly with Automattic, the makers of WordPress.com, and now hopefully the community to make sure these blogs are accurately and enduringly saved.
This talk will cover how the Internet Archive is attempting to provide universal access to all knowledge by working with communities that have been digitizing, organizing, and serving books music and video for years. Hopefully the ensuing discussion will lead to new ideas on how the Internet Archive can help the WordPress communities and how the WordPress communities can bring even more rich resources to a world that is increasingly turning to the web as its library.
Wow! Brewster’s keynote adds to our fantastic group of speakers that we announced earlier this week. When can you get tickets to WordCamp this year? Good question! Stay tuned as we’ll be opening ticket sales early next week.
We tried something new this year for speaker applications, and we weren’t sure how it would go. The experiment was two-fold: requesting video submissions around a central theme: permanence.
I’m excited to announce the experiment paid off. We received a ton of great applications and have a fantastic lineup of speakers for this year’s WordCamp Portland, and we’re ready to reveal the primary lineup. You can look forward to:
Grant Landram: Creating a Better WordPress Admin Experience for Clients
Matthew Boynes: Rewrite Recipes, Exploring Advanced Permalink Structures
Bob Dunn: Making Your WordPress Knowledge Stick
Christina Elmore: From URL to ISBN: Making Books from Blogs
Andy Hayes: Website Critiques, How to Decide What Works and What to Ditch
Austin Gunter: Lean Product Development – 4 Steps to Build Something Your Customers Want to Buy
Maria Erb: How WordPressCan Save Higher Education
John Lee: The eBook and Gutenberg’s Dilemma
Matthew Eppelsheimer: Checklists: A path to mistake-free development and publishing
But wait, there’s more. Once we tie up a few more details we’ll have even more speakers to announce. We also have two amazing keynote speakers to announce in the near future. No teasers yet, though I can tell you the organizing team is really excited. 🙂
In addition to the pre-planned sessions and the keynotes, we’ll have time for unconference sessions and a round or two of Ignite-style talks.
Ticket information is coming in the next few days. We’re also still looking for volunteers and sponsors. Here’s to a fantastic WordCamp Portland!
Sign up to volunteer for WordCamp Portland! It’s an easy way to get the most out of WordCamp Portland, join an amazing team, build friendships with other great WordPress people, and give back to our open source community — all at the same time!
There are several different opportunities and ways to chip in, with a mix of different time commitments and skills required. The main thing we ask is that you be friendly and reliable. If that sounds like you, read on to learn about our needs, and complete the form at the bottom of this post to apply. Our volunteer coordinator Matthew Eppelsheimer will be in touch.
Audio / Video — Requires knowing your way around audio & video equipment. Bonus points if you’d like to bring along your own equipment to help record sessions.
Emcees — Keep things running on time. Always keep your eye on the clock and remind speakers when it’s time to begin and wrap up.
Food & Beverage — Everything from serving food and beverages to making grocery store runs as needed. You’ll help keep everyone well fed and happy. If you are licensed to serve alcohol in Oregon, let us know!
Happiness Bar — Help people with their WordPress-powered sites throughout the day. Requires solid experience and skill with the WordPress user interface.
Publicity — Got a knack for promotion? Know your way around the Portland tech scene? Help us in advance get the word out to potential attendees and sponsors.
Registration — Check in attendees at the door and hand out name tags and swag. This might be for you if you enjoy checking off lists and saying hello 100+ times before 9am. Coffee is included. 😉
Room Runners — Handle anything unexpected to keep things running smoothly.
Wherever there’s a need — Helping out with random unspecified things here and there, etc.
Other — Do you have a creative notion to contribute in some specific way we haven’t thought of? Great! Let us know.
Ready to sign up? Fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch.
Thank you in advance for making WordCamp Portland a success!
Update: Read this post, then read our second clarifying the application process.
Want to present at WordCamp Portland this coming August? Sweet — we’d love to consider your application. With five successful years under the belt, we want to shake things up a bit. Read the details carefully, should you choose to accept the assignment.
Your theme: permanence. WordPress has been around for over a decade now. Many sites have hundreds or thousands of posts. Consider one such post published in 2006. If the site has been tended to with love and affection, odds are the content has remained the same and the presentation has changed with each redesign.
What does permanence mean to you? Are you a developer who still has to deal with that API decision made three years ago? Are you a daily blogger who’s been writing since the days of b2?
Your format: to be determined. We loved how WCSF 2012’s twenty minute presentations encouraged focusing on a single point. We also love our fair share of keynotes, workshops, unconferences, and music gigs.
As avid WordPress customizers, we know form matters as much as content — sell us on yours. Plan to see some editing as we fit your content into a compelling package.
Your application: a two-minute video. You can rehearse as many times as you’d like, but we’ll only consider your best. Your video needs to include what your topic is, who it’s directed towards, and why you’re the one to speak on it. You’re welcome to upload it anywhere you’d like on the internet, but we need to be able to watch it.
Have too many ideas? Try to pick the unique gem. We’re also happy to provide feedback. Send an email to Daniel Bachhuber to start the conversation.
Your deadline: Sunday, June 9th at 9 pm Pacific. Cook up something tasty. When it’s ready, send it to us the deadline has passed! We look forward to announcing speakers soon.
Please mark your calendars for WordCamp Portland, to be held this year on August 10 at the Eliot Center. Don’t miss the biggest, most erudite, and betterer WordCamp in Portland this year!
We’ll be making calls for speakers, sponsors, and volunteers very soon – if you don’t want to miss a thing, be sure you subscribe to this site.
WordCamp Portland 2013 is over. Check out the next edition!