India, Europe and North America united by WordCamps
June 20, 2017
What do our OTGSians in India, Europe and North America have in common? Besides being part of OTGS and creating awesome products, we love the WordPress community! That’s why we make every effort to go to each WordCamp and meet you in person.
WordCamp Vienna
After hosting WordCamp Europe in 2016, Vienna couldn’t miss the opportunity and the momentum to hold another WordCamp. This time we prepared a sponsors team with Dario Jazbec, Mladen Andrejic and myself, Andrés Cifuentes.
Initially, I was supposed to be speaking about my own experiences in Remote work: Debugging your stress and improving your productivity. However, one of the speakers cancelled at last minute and Denise Van Der Cruze, main organiser and ex-OTGS, suggested asking Dario to cover for him. Fortunately, when you are a experienced speaker ……….
“I had been preparing my WC Belgrade speech about documentation, so I simply finished a rough draft on the spot and did it. I had like 1 hour from accepting the challenge to doing it.”
WordCamp Raleigh
That same weekend, Lauren Jeffcoat spoke at WordCamp Raleigh on Destination Anywhere: Creating the ultimate DMO or Directory website. In her own words:
“ I was able to showcase some of the benefits of using Toolset. I had lots of great questions and some of the attendees stuck around afterwards to talk more since I ran out of time.”
One of main goals of WordCamps is to connect with people from the WordPress community. As our Lauren is an expert on public relations, she quickly connected with many other WordCamp speakers, organisers and attendees from all over USA and came back home full of energy for the next WordCamp experience.
You can find her presentation here:
WordCamp Chicago
Just one week later, Lauren was participating in WordCamp Chicago where this time she spoke about Support Starts Here: How to go the extra mile to make and KEEP your customers happy. As a supporter herself and the experienced speaker she is, this was an engaging session and I’m sure the attendees enjoy it:
“My presentation was the very last talk on Sunday, with no other tracks at the same time. Which essentially meant I had a full room! I presented on Customer Support and I think this was one of my favorite presentations yet. My audience was very engaging and the audience had great questions. I had about 5 attendees approach me afterward with questions and comments, and all feedback was really positive.”
WordCamp Belgrade
On May 13th-14th, Vuk Vukovic debuted as organiser at WordCamp Belgrade. He was joined by Mladen Andrejic and Dario Jazbec Hrvatin who was also there as also there as speaker!
“I cannot stress enough how inspirational I think WordCamps are. I came home after a long trip at 10pm and I just went on to write the draft of my new talk – ‘Open Sources Of Inspiration’ – an inspirational talk about inspiration, where to find it, and what drives it.”
If you want to check out his presentation and tips about writing better documentation, you can find his slider here below, or you can also attend his presentation at WordCamp Europe.
WordCamp Bilbao
Last year I was selected to speak at WordCamp Bilbao, however for personal reasons I couldn’t make it. For that reason, being selected and attending this year’s WordCamp was pretty important for me.
As part of the pre-events, the organisers scheduled a Meetup day full of workshops. I was invited to lead the one about WordPress multilingual.
WordCamp day arrived, and this time I had a new talk about our support philosophy and structure. It was great to explain our internal organisation to attendees and how I strive to give better assistance every day. At the end of my talk, I spoke with other teams about their philosophy which was really enriching. That’s why I love WordCamps!
If you want to check my presentation in Spanish:
WordCamp Kathmandu
Just one week later, Harshad Mane and Shekhar Bhandari attended WordCamp Kathmandu. Harshad was happy to share his experience with Unit Testing for WordPress and had his first international experience as OTGS speaker.
The organisers took thanking and congratulating the Sponsors, Speakers, Volunteers very seriously. For this, they made a beautiful gesture by giving away a token of appreciation!
Do you feel hesitant about attending a WordCamp? Let’s read what Harshad says and share his passion:
“A WordCamp is actually the best place to meet people from around the globe and to network with them. It is a place where you can meet many people who share the same work field as you and have the same passion and love for WordPress. All like-minded people can meet each other here and network together.”
Finally, we never forget that you are the main reason we attend WordCamps!
“Shekhar Bhandari and I interacted with active WPML users and the comments were all positive. Some guys reached out to us just saying that WPML has saved their lives and when we asked them if they have any feedback to offer, they simply answered “keep up the good work!”
WordCamp Lublin
It was time for WordCamp Lublin and Jakub Milczarek, Kasia Janoska and Agnes Bury couldn’t miss this event. Jakub was a member of the organising team and he was in charge of Contributor Day and Workshops. He also shared the stage with Magdalena Paciorek in “Ask not what WordPress can do for you, ask what you can do for WordPress!.
Photography by Wojciech Równanek – Wedding Photography”
http://www.rownanek.art.pl/
Kasia was leading a workshop about Toolset and pointed out how it has became a fantastic tool and that there is not much to think about when you use it. Also, she shared her thoughts on how the organising team did a great job this year:
“One thing that really stressed me were potential technical problems. Will everyone have access to recharging points so that their laptops wouldn’t die during the class? Will there be a stable internet connection for all 40 people in the room? Will everyone be able to see everything on the screen, even from the back rows?
It turned out that there was nothing to be stressed about! The organizers of this year’s WordCamp Lublin were true professionals and absolutely everything worked perfectly!”
Photography by Wojciech Równanek – Wedding Photography”
http://www.rownanek.art.pl/
Agnes did an amazing job at our WPML/Toolset stand. All day she was interacting with our users, answering questions and explaining how our great products are. Thank you, Agnes!
Photography by Wojciech Równanek – Wedding Photography”
http://www.rownanek.art.pl/
Upcoming events
As always, our OTGSians in India are pretty active and all our next announcements are related to them.
First, Bigul Malayi will be helping to organize two events, WordCamp Nagpur 2017 which will take place on 24th-25th June; and just a couple of weeks later on 9th July, WordCamp Kanpur 2017
After the great success Harshad Mane had last year organising his first WordCamp, he decided to lead it again. As a good organiser he has started in good time, so WordCamp Nashik 2017 will take place on 5th November.
Have you ever wanted to go to India? You have three more reasons to do so this 2017!
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