We’re Goin’ to The Camp!

The best part about being connected to a group of like minded individuals is the spark of common interest. The excitement of absorbing knowledge, spewing wisdom, and confirming your interpretations with a colleague that’s reached an identical conclusion. WordCamp touches me in all those ways. As a recently retired Professor, I relished the chances to learn from others who’ve delved deeper into the science than myself. In education, you can get caught in a necessity loop, or worse, a software version black hole. Continuing Education often requires a huge financial commitment, and unrealistic blocks of time to attain. Combine that with the pace of technology, and you’re out of touch before you get back to the office.

And then there’s WordCamp. Three days of pure knowledge, filled with new ideas, new concepts, and new approaches to our favorite coding platform. WordCamp is gathering place of a shared skilled community. A collective of people at various stages in the CMS universe. Some come seeking answers that have baffled them from day one, while the rest just want to figure out how to get started on the right foot. And finally, there’s that group who are ready to evolve, but can’t navigate the map. They want to create now. They want to make their own themes or the own plugins. Hell, some want a piece of the core! So where are the answers? What are the questions? Did I leave the iron on?

Now, let’s not get carried away. Despite it’s profound importance and magnificent outcomes, WordCamp is not a “mountain-top” experience. There will be no Ubergeek rising from the PHP/SQL temple to bring harmony to the coder world. But what will happen, is a inner click. A twinge of sensors seemingly non-functional before, will flame on, giving you that missing segment of code that moves you closer to your goal. You’ll discover that something you’ve read 20 times in utter confusion, was just explained in 10 seconds by a WC Speaker using the color yellow. The light bulb turns on, and peace is restored to the galaxy.

So if you’ve found that talking about web development, SEO, and child themes to your relatives has only made them back away from you further, have no fear. I hear there’s going to be a group of like-minded individuals hanging out at FIU on the last weekend in February. You’ll need a ticket.