The WooTeam at #wceu

Working remotely means you can go for a long while without actually meeting your colleagues. G+ Hangouts, Slack, Zoom calls, etc., are great, but there really is nothing quite like real-time. It’s why we have our annual WooTrip and why WooThemes encourages us to attend as many WordCamps and WP MeetUps as we can to mingle with the WP community, meet customers, and others.

Last year, we hooked our WooTrip onto #wceu in Leiden and had a blast. This year, our team trip will be around San Francisco after WooConference, so it fell to the Europe-based Woo people to make the trip to Sofia, Bulgaria, for this year’s WordCamp Europe. Barry Kooij, Mike Jolley, and I were the chosen ones.

The first thing that happened was that our swag didn’t arrive (our fault), which left 1 x rather empty table in the sponsor area. It quickly became known as the booth of shame, and we apologized to many a bright-eyed person who came over to us with high hopes of a t-shirt, ninja stickers, and our usual loot. What it did mean was that anyone who came, stayed, and spoke to us was truly into what we do as opposed to free stuff, which was kind of refreshing.

We were treated to a number of inspiring talks. I particularly enjoyed hearing from Chris Lema, Mark Jaquith, and Sara Rosso, and it was my first time hearing from Mr. Mullenweg, which was also interesting. I swear he was glowing slightly as he answered fireside chat questions with expert cool.

Inevitably, the question of female representation in the WordPress ecosystem came up, and Matt’s answer was on point. One no doubt well-meaning chap shouted out, ‘We love women!‘ from the audience. Matt responded graciously but sternly – read Helen Housandi’s post about that.

It was a really well-organized weekend, and the after-party, though in a dark alley, was a blast. A couple of things that are top of mind as my takeaways:

• Automattic wants to grow to 2,000 strong #scary
• Gestalt principles make design come alive in new ways
• It remains a grey area that Akismet is baked into the core
• Site loading speeds can and should be a matter of m/s
• Infinite scroll is like watching a series, if you let people, they will just keep going (and going)
• I’m glad to be part of the WordPress community
• I really want to be able to add value on contributor days (as a non-coder)

Some thoughts from Mike and Barry:

«WCEU was a great opportunity to meet fellow WordPressers, discuss ideas, and catch up with old friends. The event itself was well planned, and the quality of the talks was top-notch. Looking forward to next year 🙂» – Mike

«I really enjoyed WordCamp 2014; the talks, venue, and organization were superb. I met a lot of new people and was able to hug old friends. I love how friendly and welcoming our community is, this WordCamp was another example of this.» – Barry

Thanks for a fun time, Sofia. And to the splendid people at #wceu, see you next year.

About

Marina Pape

I live in London, the land of tea and Jane Austen, but was born and bred in Cape Town. I studied English, Psychology and Marketing which led me down the Social Media rabbit hole where I've been for over 4 years. Words and connecting with people are my passions. I also like the sea, reading and singing.

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