WordCamp Portland, was, let’s face it, everything you could ever possibly wish for in a crazy election year while the economy crumbles – and much, much more.

Geoff K summed up WordCamp’s brilliance really well in his article, “What I learned from WordCamp Portland“, but I wanted to add my observations as a first time caller, long time listener of OurPDXNetwork.

My highlights?

As I recall, in the first giveaway there were two dozen unbranded oil-free hybrid cars powered by the collective kinetic energy of a crowd of mad MacBook Air keystrokers and Power User iPhone/Blackberry text messagers. In the hand-stitched organic velvet gift bags, we each received free matching his-and-her HD videocams with a gift certificate for a lifetime personal satellite uplink (and stickers!), a complimentary Herman Miller Aeron chair (and a button!), and a lifetime subscription to pre-edited versions of StrangeLoveLive. And then there was the outdoor fully-immersive multiplayer virtual reality gaming arena, but that was kind of boring unless you’re into that sort of thing.

Which I am.

To be balanced, I felt that the scavenger hunt for handfuls of free hacked iPhones and Japanese-test-market A-I Google devices in the room that was filled with oversized private label Jägermeister Voodoo donut holes was a bit excessive, but I say to each his own.

In other words, if you weren’t there, well, maybe not your strongest move.

You might have thought that staying home and knitting in preparation for winter was the right way to go for a Saturday, but actually…and this is true: There was also full-on needle-on-needle knitting action going on during WordCamp by the master knitters of CubeSpace who so graciously hosted the unbridled chaos that was collectively referred to as Widgets Gone Wild during the BravoTV nationwide simulcast. Would that I were joking.

What I learned at WordCamp PDX, between the lines

1. 8:45 – Changing Lives with WordPress: Fairy Blog mothers do not steal the teeth of WordPress children, unlike their less-fortunate and somewhat embarrassingly dentured Blogger and Typepad childlike counterparts. Move over to WordPress or face the consequences, because nobody likes to have their eyelids superglued shut, now do they hmmm???

2. 9:45 – From Concept to Execution: While some may have thought Betsy Richter (@betsywhim) was reaching out for an intervention to stop an odd menage with Knob Creek and some heavy-lifting WordPress plugins, I think not. She clearly has the Lord on her side, having received from on High what will surely be the 10 commandments for the coming Golden Age of the Blog (GAB™ ®).

3. 10:30 – Using WordPress for World Domination: Justin Kistner and his crazy-smart use of WordPress MultiUser (MU) may very well be on the committee of those who handed down said tablets to Ms. Richter, which were apparently screencasts. He at the very least helped her to schlep them down from the mountain. Aaron Hockley (@Hockley) was apparently busy at that time handling the keg-rolling, which was also clearly the work of the Lord.

4. 11:45 – And then the Lord said unto thee there shall be Lunch and chattering. And it was good.

5. 1:30 – WP 2.7 Sneek Peek: “WordPress 2.7 may or may not, at any given moment, have these incredibly cool new features that we may, or may not, be able to show you in this build, because folks, we are livin’ life as in-the-moment as a live report of Matthew McConaughey on TMZ in the soiled waters of a Malibu surf break. If you don’t see a feature you want, fill out the online survey that will be offline in two hours, and hit Apple-r. Voila!”

And ya know what? It was STILL awesome.

6. 2:00 – Tying Your Tubes with WordPress, a sixer, and the skilz of @Jabancroft: I did not realize how powerful one man with some crazy PHP, a hang nail-sized microchip, a computer with a cat, and Windows 95 can actually be. I bow. (Even more shocking? The word “skilz” does not trip the spellchecker in WP. How cool is that? Did I break something?)

7. 3:00 – Dane Hesseldahl from Nemo on custom plugin development: Live coding during your presentation is the final frontier, and Dane clearly fears no one. Who else do you know who can write SQL queries while talking about securing text fields AND making fancy hand puppet shadows, all without spilling a drop?

8. 4:00 – Ask the Experts panel: Voting widgets? Very very bad. Accessible blogs? Very very good. Making your blogs translatable into Klingon? Ask Lorelle after the show.

9. Dinner, another sixer, and tattoos: For once, a contest that was not rigged. Unless you count wearing a Goonies shirt as a form of doping, which I do believe was the tipping point among so many good entries. But it is very clear that the pre-contest testing was rather loose, and besides, with the singularity being imminent and all, doping may become necessary for all of us to keep up.

Did I mention beer (thank you Widmer Brothers)?

10. And finally, what did I learn from the great group of people gathered at the first of many WordCamp PDX’s to come (hint, hint), other than the fact that Portlanders may be systematically destroying the Twitterverse with the sheer volume of #wordcampdx (one p) and #wcpdx hash tags and livetweets?

I learned that this community of incredible people quite literally blows my mind. Time travel not required.

Thank you WordCamp PDX. Inspirations galore.

Related Posts

• September 18, 2008 -- OurPDX shared bookmarks (0)
• September 21, 2009 -- SLL: Martini Lesson for Matt Mullenweg (2)
• August 17, 2009 -- SLL: WordcampPdx 2009, Urban Airship and PIE (0)
• December 8, 2008 -- WordPress Release Party and Blogger Food Drive (7)
• November 9, 2008 -- SLL: A Night With Chris O’Rourke (1)

Update, Sunday night: WordCamp Portland registration is now FULL. If you snoozed, well – you know how the saying goes, right? But since schedules shift and unavoidable conflicts occur, we are now maintaining a waiting list (which means you’ll need to send email to, um, me —I’m the keeper of said list!)

If you want to attend WordCamp Portland on Saturday, September 27th, you need to register NOW. As in Right Now.

See, we’re capping registration at 150-and as of 8 pm today, we have only 13 slots open!

So head on over to wordcampportland.org and register.

Did I forget to mention that you should do so NOW?

Update, Saturday afternoon: I understand that there are 6, maybe 7 spots left. Better get on it, people…!

Related Posts

• June 13, 2009 -- CubeSpace Update: Need Bodies, Boxes, Trucks, Food (0)
• June 10, 2009 -- CubeSpace Farewell Party Tuesday 6/16 (1)
• June 8, 2009 -- Thank you, CubeSpace. Now – What Do You Need? (12)
• May 26, 2009 -- If You Love CubeSpace… (11)
• May 22, 2009 -- CubeSpace Needs Your Help (2)