My WordCamp Weekend

Bear with me as I diverge from real estate commentary, but I got to embrace my inner nerd this weekend.

Saturday, I had the privilege of attending one of the many creative and technical events that Portland is becoming famous for holding — this being WordCamp Portland conference, celebrating the Wordpress publishing system.

So, what’s a REEL-TOR doing at a quintessentially Portland chic geek event?

Well, rePDX and many blogs and websites are run using this open-source software system. Without getting into technical details, sites like this would be difficult to manage, update, and host — particularly for non-designer or developer types. I went to get better grasp of what Wordpress could do to extend some of the ideas I have, and how I could do what I do here, better.

About 150 bloggers, software designers and web developers, spent the day listening to speakers, getting Wordpress 2.7 previews, and networking. A couple other real estate brokers attended, Mike Rohrig and Dale Chumbley, so as a percentage of attendees, the real estate industry was well represented. Early in the day, we stopped for a group photo:
WordCamp Portland attendees
Then, after flashing ‘W’ symbols with our fingers (for Wordpress) for the camera, someone had the brilliant idea to walk us into the middle of Grand Avenue for another photo op. I feared the police were about to descend and shower us with rubber bullets and tear gas, mistaking us for Bush protestors.

WordCamp Portland in the middle of Grand Avenue

The Portland tech and creative crowd is vibrant, diverse, accessible, and super-smart. For many hours, the Wordcamp PDX topic was the highest trending topic on the Twitter social network (follow me at rares_pdx). I hope this fervor translates into viable future business ventures and rewards these talented folks for their ground-breaking efforts.

My thanks to organizers, speakers, sponsors, and the local Wordpress community for a great event and really helpful ideas.

Ok, enough nerd-talk for today. Back to our regularly scheduled programming…

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September 29, 2008 · Filed Under Diversions

Comments

3 Responses to “My WordCamp Weekend”

  1. Mike Rohrig on September 29th, 2008 9:56 pm

    It was great to finally meet you in person Ron.

    The Wordpress group follows the philosophy of open source and sharing. Many were willing to give tips and teach lessons on the fly. It was a great time.

  2. Tony Sena on September 30th, 2008 8:59 pm

    Sounds like this was pretty cool event. I love wordpress, too bad this event was so far away or I would have loved to attend!

  3. Ron Ares on October 1st, 2008 12:15 pm

    Tony,

    Good news. There will be a Wordcamp in Vegas in January.
    http://lasvegaswordcamp.com/

    One of the Portland organizers, Aaron Hockley, has been named to the agenda, so there will be a PDX presence there.

    http://siliconflorist.com/2008/10/01/wordcamp-las-vegas-recruits-wordcamp-portland-organizer-aaron-hockley/

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