Just a few months ago, I had the pleasure of attending WordCamp Montreal. Conveniently located in the core of downtown at Concordia University, this two-day WordCamp was very accessible by any means of transportation. This year was their 10th anniversary of consecutive WordCamps—a great achievement and testament to the health of their local WordPress community.
Instead of presenting on a topic, I signed up to volunteer and greet everyone by the main doors. It was the first time I had adopted this role at a WordCamp. It certainly felt fulfilling to say good morning to so many people and set a positive tone for the day, and the parade of tech T-shirts was entertaining to see.
I attended a number of interesting and educational talks:
- Meghan Dove’s “Bridging the Gap Between Designers and Developers:” This subject matter is always interesting to me, as many of my job roles have involved being this communication bridge to facilitate communication across the skill divide.
- Jamie Schmidt’s “Don’t Break Live: How Using a Staging Site Can Make Your Life a Lot Easier:” Naturally, we use staging sites frequently at Maintainn, the WordPress maintenance and support arm of WebDevStudios, but the concept of a staging site is still new to many. Jamie offered valuable insight about what exactly a staging site is and how to create staging sites using a variety of methods. You can check out Jamie’s slides from the presentation here.
- Dwayne McDaniel’s “Shipping Content with WP-CLI and Why That Is Awesome:” The concept of using version control to manage content updates was new to me, so I found Dwayne’s rationale and examples to be quite informative. See Dwayne’s presentation slides here.
One of the newer initiatives at this year’s WordCamp was a focus on being eco-friendly. Lunch was provided buffet-style both days using real plates and cutlery, and recycling/organic bins were abundantly available. They even had a special prize draw for people who brought their own water bottles.
It’s definitely challenging to run a large event like WordCamps while focusing on reducing the ecological footprint left behind, but I think the WordCamp Montreal team and staff at Concordia University put forth a great effort this year. As a surprise, WordPress Montreal’s Wapuu was made available as a limited-edition enamel pin by the team at Wapu.us. Check out how adorable they are:
Here's a sneak preview of our 10th Anniversary WordCamp Montreal Wapoutine pins! Make sure you've got your #WCMTL ticket https://t.co/AzaQLs8kS0 pic.twitter.com/ymuGavpZ9S
— WordCamp Montreal (@wordcampmtl) August 3, 2018
All in all, WordCamp Montreal is one of my favourite WordCamps to attend. If you’ve never been to Montreal, or haven’t been in the past few years, I highly encourage you to consider attending next year’s WordCamp! Keep up with which WordCamp is happening where by visiting WordCamp Central.
The next WordCamp events where you’ll find WebDevStudios are WordCamp Orlando, November 9-11 and WordCamp US, December 7-9. Will you be attending either or both? Leave us a comment below.