WordCamp Italy, Here I Come!

For those that don't know me, I dearly love WordCamps. I would go to every single one if I could. I've kind of lost count, but I've been to more than 80, on 4 different continents. I love meeting new people, catching up with old friends, learning new things, and teaching.

Image that says WordCamp

A couple months ago, someone from WordCamp Italy reached out to me and asked if I’d help with the WPPhotos table at Contributor day. I was tremendously excited of course, and after a quick chat with Rob we decided I should go!

So talk about why I love WordCamps.

People!

A big reason is meeting people. I love hearing people’s stories; finding out where they’re from, what they do, and how they experience the world. A particular joy of a camp far from home is there will be many more people that I’ve never met. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing old friends, but every time I meet someone new I have MORE friends! And even at this camp there will be some old friends, so I won’t be standing in the corner alone.

Talks

Another reason is of course learning new things.  Talks are the foundation of WordCamp, and at this one I’m looking forward to Paolo Scala’s talk “Schema.org: cos’è e perché dovrebbe interessarti (Schema.org: what it is and why you should care)” and Simon Kraft’s “Making connections: the joy of organizing the local Community“.

Giving Back

And then there’s community day! Most WordCamps have a time (often a whole day) where people can learn how to contribute to WordPress, and often actually make contributions on the spot.  This doesn’t refer to just WordPress core, but also the marketing team, the community team, the design team, the photos team, and many many more.  I’ll be there representing the WPPhotos community team, if you attend the camp please stop by and say hi!

Speaking

I really enjoy presenting at WordCamps.  At WordCamp Italy I’ll be speaking on “Image Formats and Optimization“. I did a similar talk years ago, but there are some new image formats these days, and the topic is a lot more intricate than it used to be. You can see some of my past talks at WordPress.tv. I really love helping people understand things that will help their careers and make their lives easier.

See you there?

WordCamps are great, and I’m super excited to travel far to this one brand new to me, and meet so many great new friends. If you’re going to be there, please please stop me and say ciao!


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Topher is a web developer and WordPress community member from Grand Rapids MI, where he lives with his wife Cate. Topher has been a web developer for nearly 30 years, and a WordPress developer for 13 years. He loves going to WordCamps and teaching other people how they can fall in love with web development as well.

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