Or…”WordCamp Dayton: So much to think about I had to wait a few days to write about it.”
This weekend had a lot of firsts for me. My first WordCamp, and first Happiness Bar volunteering. My first time meeting some of my fellow Automatticians, including Jackie Stachurski who was my trial buddy last year. My first time at the Dayton Chess Club, which I’ve talked about visiting for about 7 years.
But really what I left with was not a feeling of accomplishing firsts, it was a feeling of how much is out there that I need to reach further to understand. Just by helping out in the Happiness Bar I learned of a ton of new problems that are pretty common but I just don’t see everyday in my work. Also tons of plugins and themes that I’ve never experimented on but seem like I should really know more about them. Most importantly, I feel more than ever that I’d like to be more active on the development side.
I know I’ve already got the knowledge to create at least simple plugin, but I’ve just never set aside the time because I figured no one would be impressed by anything I can do. It’s probably true, but I learned that’s really not the point at all.
I’d really like to play in Buddypress but always figured it was just one step beyond where I’m at — and now I’m pretty sure I could wrangle it at least enough to be dangerous.
WordCamp was a great success to me because when I left I couldn’t stop thinking about the projects I wanted to do that were all WordPress related. It was really fun being with rooms full of people that all just wanted to get better at what we do.
I didn’t get to attend all that many sessions. Most of my experience was in the Happiness Bar and the hallways conversations that really make an ‘un-conference’ event great. But I very much enjoyed the Keynote from John James Jacoby. And once it comes out on WordPress.tv I’ll make sure to link to it.
Needless to say, I’ll be attending more WordCamps in the future. I’ll leave you know with a load of fun stuff that went on during the event…
John Parkinson interviewed JJJ for WordPress.tv:
Some of my favorite tweets from the #WCDayton stream:
Alex Gustafson 
One reply on “WordCamp Dayton: Tired, Excited, and Ready for More”
> trial buddy
**Grand** buddy! 🙂