WordCamp Utah was on Saturday and nothing exploded, so were calling it a success! Another round of applause for our sponsors that helped make it possible:
And a big thank you for everyone that came to the event. Our estimated attendance was 135 people. This number might be a little bit low, it’s our best estimate at this point.
With the big day having come and gone, I’ve been thinking about what thinks went well and what I might have done differently. The scheduled probably should have just included 10 (15?) minute breaks between each session. Balancing between developer desires and user desires was still a big issue, going with multiple tracks would have helped that I think.
On the plus side doing things through EventBrite and Paypal was good. Lunch worked out well (I really wanted to make sure no one felt like they didn’t get enough food), especially having it served by the folks doing the catering (The Smokehouse). Having key specific things handled by volunteers, like registration (thanks Clint, Sheri & Shauna!) was a huge help.
What about you? If you were at WordCamp Utah what did you think went well and what could be improved upon?
7 replies on “WordCamp Utah Recap”
I believe its “Jake Spurlock”, not “Jack Spurlock”.
I thought it went amazingly well! Between this and the Open Source Conference, Utah is finally starting to feel like a legitimate part of the tech world.
The schedule (panels / breaks / lunch) worked fine for me.
I would have liked some more advanced presentations, which probably would require a separate track. Maybe two tracks next time? Or two days?
Matt Mullenweg’s talk was great, and Cameron Moll was amazing – I learned a ton about design.
Thanks again Joseph and everyone for making this happen!
@Matthew –
Fixed.
@Michael –
I’m leaning towards the two tracks idea.
Excellent event Joseph! Very happy with everything. Including the multiple back channels on twitter, IM and Skype. #geekfest…
-M
I loved the event. It was absolutely worth the drive down from Boise.
A couple of things:
1. Some higher quality speakers would be good. Or at least more preparation on their part. Both Matt’s and Cameron’s were great, but a few of the others were lacking (I thought the WP as a CMS talk made it sound far more difficult than it actually is).
2. Get the presenters to practice more. I am not sure how exactly to do that since they are volunteering their time, but more practice would have made several of the presentations a lot better.
3. Multiple tracks would be great. There were some people there just getting into blogging mixed with some advanced users, so multiple tracks would be nice.
I loved the food and the people. Thanks to all the sponsors, speakers, and volunteers who made such a great event possible!
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Darn! I was in the neighbourhood at the time (visiting all the way from Sweden!), but didn´t catch this page until now. How typical. ;-(