WordCamp San Francisco 2013: Part Two

By now you might realize how awesometastic WordCamp San Francisco is. If you don’t, you might want to read my first post about WordCamp San Francisco. Helpful and friendly people, volunteers everywhere, delightful bling…but wait! There’s more!

Happiness Engineers

Right at the top of my list goes the amiable and accessible Bryan Villarin (@bryan on Twitter), Happiness Engineer at Automattic. I have to say that chatting with Bryan was my most favorite “session” of WordCamp. I’d been having a problem with scraping on my blog, and he explained a few different things I could do, such as a Google search for unique sentences from my blogpost. And the next day he introduced me to the Automattic “Dotcom Protector,” Jenny Zhu, who was well versed in content theft as well.

Nom Nom Nom

WordCamp San Francisco Lunch Buffet

Feeding 700 people is a big job, and doing it well is something like magic; the buffet was way beyond the usual sandwiches and pizza. There was no pushing, and everyone had a place to sit and many choices, including vegetarian ones.

Six Stories of Joy and Despair

My favorite session at #WCSF was Natalie Mac’s.  I love reading about failure (especially really atrocious ones), so I was excited to hear about this session. The worst failures contain the seeds of success. Who said that? Was it me? Or did I unconsciously steal it from someone? Anyway, there’s nothing like a good failure, and for some reason startup people love failure. Natalie Mac did not disappoint. The story of Lloyd, who didn’t want anyone contacting him through his website, was a particular crowd favorite. (If you’d like to know about first steps for startups on social media, that’s the subject of another post.)

The Venue

The Mission Bay Conference Center is a tall-ceilinged place with bright colored walls and long clean angles, perfect for WordCamp.

O2 is the New P2

Beau Lebens talk on O2 was another favorite. With 80% of Automattic’s internal communications now being held in P2, it holds the promise of being used as the internal communications system for many companies. Apparently, Automattic employees rarely use email any more. I love the different threads of conversations that P2 enables, the transparency of the interface, and the searchable format. And the play on words–“Communication is the new oxygen” made the new moniker perfect!

Have a Favorite Story from WordCamp?

I’d love to hear your favorite story. Who did you meet at WordCamp? Let me know in the comments! Thanks!