I went to WordCamp RDU on Saturday. I’d like to share some observations about it here. As a bit of background, I’ve been to just about every kind of show, conference, user group meetup, etc. that there is. Starting with the very first Comdex, back in the day, as we old farts are fond of saying. I’ve listened to keynotes by just about all of the who’s who in technology, from Gates on down, or up, or sideways, or, however one would rank that group. Maybe, just maybe, I heard one of the best at this WordCamp. We’ll get to that in a bit.

I have been using WordPress since it’s first official release. There were two people at the camp, other than Matt Mullenweg, who had used it since it’s b2 and 0.7 releases. Impressive that. I implemented it at my last place of employment although we later replaced it with the blogging engine supported by Community Server. We were a Microsoft ISV and Community Server blogs fit in better with the support forums, etc. Even so, I continued to keep WordPress updated on my Mac and follow its development. I have long thought that WordPress is the equivalent today of the phenomenon that was Visual Basic in the early 90’s. VB was the programming language that really launched the Windows platform/operating system. It opened up programming to the masses. It had a very vibrant community surrounding it. It supported components or plugins if you will. Likewise, WordPress has opened up publishing, or blogging if you will, to the masses. It too has a very vibrant community. It supports plugins and themes, and hacks and you name it. It has over 10 million users. And I can’t help but feel that it is helping to propel the revolution we are experiencing now just as VB propelled Windows.

I registered for the camp on the 8th of June. I had been following some tweets about it, and been to the website, but when I saw that Andy Beal and Wayne Sutton were doing sessions I decided that I would go. I had been seeing both of them mentioned more and more as I looked at what was happening in RDU social media space and I thought this would be a good opportunity to see them. I wasn’t disappointed.

I arrived shortly after 8:30. When I signed up it was supposed to run from 9:00 until 4:00. I soon found out that had changed and, if I have any nitpicks, that would be it. I should have checked back of course, but they could have done a better job of communicating those changes via email. That said, the event organizers and volunteers did a wonderful job. I’ve done events in the past and they are not easy things to get right. These folks got most of it very right.

Registration went from 9:00 until 9:45 and then there was a 30 minute introduction with the first two sessions starting at 10:15 and running until 11:00. I went to the plugin development one as opposed to the absolute beginner one. There were 120+ people there and I would say that each session had about 50% of the attendees. And for the most part, it seemed to stay that way all day. The event organizers clearly did a great job in choosing the session content and presenters.

The second sessions were a choice between WordPress and eCoomerce and Building Communities Through Your Blog. I choose to attend the latter and was not disappointed. Angela Connor, who works for WRAL and attends to their online community, was the speaker. What a live wire she is! She gave a great presentation and with her engaging personality the entire room was soon involved. She pointed out that in 1973, when she was a girl, that their neighborhood was a wonderful community. I remember those times as well, and while not quite old enough to have been her father then, I was fast approaching it at the time. It was nice to see someone who is recognized as a top notch practitioner point out that community is not something that was just invented. It was alive and well in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. It was simply practiced and expressed in a different way. It did seem to get lost or misplaced as we went through the 80’s and 90’s though. Another interesting point she made has to do with the people she has working for her. Other than a few canned responses, they do not post anything without her approval. This is a topic that gets debated quite a bit in social media circles and business and I found her reasoning very interesting. She felt that her job was on the line with their posts and that if she had to justify what was said to her boss then she wanted to have control over that. I can certainly understand that. Is it any wonder then that businesses are somewhat hesitant to turn their employees loose in the blogosphere? Or at least loose without any clear guidelines.

The third sessions dealt with Video Blogging with WordPress; Copywrite, Content and Coding issues; and using WordPress as a CMS. I picked that last one but I was torn. I really wanted to see the Video one, especially in light of WordPress’ video initiative. I was not disppointed though. Brett Bumeter did a great job with his presentation and I learned some things about using WordPress in a CMS setting that I had been wondering about. As opposed to PowerPoint or Keynote (there were a lot of Macs at this camp!), he was using a mindmap to present his talk. I got into a discussion about doing just that on FriendFeed with my old pal from the Visual Basic days, Robert Scoble a few weeks ago. Robert has become a big fan of using mindmaps to drive his presentations and it was nice to get the opportunity to see this in person. Brett made very effective use of it.

Lunch went from 1:00 until 2:00. Hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, chips pasta salad, cake, and sweet tea or water. I don’t think we quite devoured all of it but we put a serious dent in it. We ate outside and while I’m thinking about it, kudos to North Carolina Central University for providing the venue and some genuine hospitality. Their CIO was there, spoke to us a bit, and could not have been any nicer. Matt Mullenweg showed up as lunch was getting underway and joined everyone in the line and outside as well.

The session after lunch provided a real dilemma. Wouldn’t you know that the two people I initially went to the camp to see were speaking opposite each other? Wayne Sutton was doing a session on Twitter and WordPress and Andy Beal was doing one on SEO for WordPress. I decided to go to Andy’s and I was not disappointed. I learned more about SEO in WordPress than I ever thought possible. He’s a very personable, very engaging speaker, with a killer deep south British accent.  If you ever get the opportunity to hear him I would encourage you to do so. And as for hearing Wayne talk, I am hopeful that as much speaking as he does around the Triangle that I’ll get a chance to hear him soon. The people I talked with who attended his session said he was great.

The second sessions after lunch dealt with WordPress MU and Getting Others to Build Your Blog. I picked the latter and Jason Keath from Charlotte gave a good presentation with some real life examples from clients he works with. He also sported a killer hat that drew a number of comments throughout the rest of the day!

Next up was the Matt Mullenweg’s keynote. I have never been to keynote that was given this late in the order of things, but you know what? It fit in perfectly with the way the day went. He talked for just over an hour. This is a man who has a quiet, but nonetheless fiery, passion for his software, his company and for Open Source. He shared the history of WordPress and his involvement with it, showed some great photos of other WordPress Camps around the world, and talked about what was ahead for WordPress over the coming year or so. I mentioned earlier that I have seen keynotes from most of the who’s who in technology and that I’d get back to that. Well, here we are and I have to say that Matt is possibly the best I’ve seen. He has the uncanny knack of making you feel like you’re having a conversation with him instead of listening to him talk down at you from the podium. He seems very comfortable in his own skin. And, he is very lively in the question and answer period that follows his keynote. David Heinemeier Hansson, of Ruby on Rails and 37 Signal fame, is the only other person I’ve seen who can hold a candle to Matt in this regard. I saw a tweet from Wayne Sutton yesterday to the effect that Matt might be the smartest guy around. Matt would probably brush that off but I think Wayne might be right there. We might just have been lucky enough to see Gates’ successor as thought leader in the technology space if Matt decides to step up and take that mantle.

I didn’t get to stay for the last sessions since I had a commitment. I wish that I had because two of the three sounded really good. Alan Knox’s Implementing WordPress in Corporate & Educational Environments and Beth Morgan’s Blogging with a Purpose: using Your Blog for more than just fun each seemed like they would be more than worth the time spent.

All in all it was a wonderful day. As someone remarked just before Matt’s keynote, “the day has just flown by”. If you ever get a chance to attend a WordPress camp I would certainly encourage you to do so. And if you get the chance to hear Matt Mullenweg talk, do whatever it takes to get there. You won’t regret that either. You can find followup information, presenter slides, pictures and other goodies at the website WordCampRDU. You can also search Twitter for the hashtags #wcrdu and # wordcamprdu for a look at all of the twitter activity that surrounded the event. I can hardly wait for next year!

Here’s a link to an interesting post I ran across yesterday. Why Can’t PR Do Digital? Jason and David’s talk was presented to a group of PR professionals if I read this post correctly. Having just finished reading Putting the Public Back in Public Relations this is something that I’m more than a little interested in. Along with most every other business, PR is having to reinvent itself in light of Digital/Social Media and the way those tools are transforming and enhancing marketing and communications.

No longer can PR function simply as spin doctor. The digital conversation that is taking place via the connected web just won’t buy into it. Jason and David lay out some very specific action items that PR firms have to take if they are going to make this transition. One set of action items is oriented internally to the firms and the other is oriented externally, toward the client base. Here’s the list of external items.

After reading through that I couldn’t help but think of Step Ahead, Inc., the Charleston, SC based PR firm that specializes in PR, Social Media and Internet Marketing. They are doing every one of those action items that Jason and David talk about for their client base right now. Visit their web site for a look at all of the creative things that they are doing and providing for their clients.

They are getting ready to expand into the Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill area. If your business is located in those areas, send me an email or leave a comment and I’ll be happy to talk more with you about their plans, what they have to offer, and how they can help you with your PR, Social Media and Internet Marketing needs. They’re a PR firm who can do “digital”.

(Photo credit: Diner, by Valerie McKeever ‘08. Digital Photography I)