One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was to spend 30 seconds after every encounter to find that one takeaway. You could be meeting someone new, attending a lecture, or organizing a conference. It isnāt about taking notes itās about reflecting. By spending time reflecting you force yourself to prioritize information which is something weāre usually too lazy to do. And thatās what Iām doing here.
Last week we had our inaugural WooConf and since this was such a big undertaking itās important to look back on what we accomplished so that we can make it even better next year. Iāve spent a lot of time mulling this over and came up with three important takeaways. All three are important but by far the number one reason is more important than all of the other takeaways combined.
3. The Speakers
ā Back to topConference shouldnāt be measured by the number of speakers or the number of tracks. They should be measured by what you can take back home with you. And thatās why we stuck with a one track conference where we picked the very best talks.
We had one scaling talk, an A/B testing talk, a newsletter marketing talk, etc. And people loved it.
Great first day at the #WooConf, brilliant speakers and engaging presentations. Proud to be part of this community. pic.twitter.com/V4O6y9Ns0S
ā Scott Salisbury (@iScottJS) November 4, 2014
2. Meeting Partners
ā Back to topAs a developer myself I wish that writing software could solve all of the problems in the world. Unfortunately that just isnāt the case. If you really want to succeed (at anything) you need to work with people. To steal a quote from Cory Miller:
"Go Far Together" isn't a warm fuzzy slogan @ithemes ā it's the way we do life together ā so proud of my team
ā Cory Miller (@corymiller303) September 25, 2014
And thatās why is was so great to meet our partners in person. By forming these relationships we can work towards common goals which helps our customers. I love that sort of collaboration.
1. Meeting Customers
ā Back to topMy number one takeaway was how incredible it was to meet our customers. I ran into people that Iād seen in the support, people Iād seen on Twitter, people Iād seen at conferences, and a ton of people that I hadnāt seen anywhere and this was their first impression of our community. When youāre stuck behind a computer screen all day itās so wonderful to be able to shake someoneās hand and help them with a problem. I love giving people suggestions on plugins, themes, settings, etc to get what they want done. Even when someone comes at me with a problem that I donāt know how to solve itās good to hear because I want to fix that problem and I can add it to the roadmap.
One attendee in particular that I really enjoyed meeting was Bradley. I originally met him at WordCamp San Francisco a week earlier and we talked about his store. He literally loves making jam from home in his big copper pan and he can sell that jam using WooCommerce. How cool is that?
All of us here at WooThemes love that we can empower people to live the lives they want. Building the platform to do so is just a means to an end.
Meet Bradley, the jam-maker and developer behind @CopperPanJams! Great to have some of our storeowners at #WooConf http://t.co/fyqH1eZInv
ā WooThemes (@WooThemes) November 3, 2014
Future
ā Back to topIt isnāt just me. Tons of people on the team have told me that their favorite part of the whole conference was meeting people. Since thatās the best part we want to double down on that. Weāre exploring the idea of doing two conferences next year. One in the US (not San Francisco) and one in Europe. We also are thinking about changing up the format so that we have a full two day conference where the first day is an optional hands on workshop day. Day two would be speakers.
Itās still too early for me to promise any of these things but I did want to let you know that weāre taking what weāve learned and refining it for next year. I hope to meet you there.
Photo credit: Jeremy Waldorph Photography.
About
That Bradley guy is great, and his jam is delicious!
It was a cool experience answering questions from WooCommerce users in real life. Definitely an experience we donāt get often.
Unfortunately I could not attend. Too far and therefore too expensive ā¦ A conference in Europe would be really great! What about Germany:-)
Stay tuned Jochen! Weāve got big plans for 2015.
PayPal stops the support of SSL 3.0 from 3 December!!
Is woocommerce already prepared???
Hi Ingo,
This only applies if you were using our PayPal Pro extension.
Just be sure you are on the latest version of that extension and that your host has your SSL certificate prepared as well. Thanks!
Hi Ryan,
thank you for your answer. I live in Germany and PayPal Pro extension is available within the UK, US and Canada to holders of a PayPal Pro merchant account.
So, which PayPal extension can I use to be prepared when Paypal stops the support of SSL 3.0?
Hey there Ingo,
If you arenāt using PayPal Pro, you never had anything to worry about.
If you have anymore questions, we would be happy to answer them in our support desk