WordCampUK – the only event in the UK dedicated to the joys of WordPress – will be taking place in Cardiff this year, on 18 and 19 July. You can find out all the details on the official blog, which has been beautifully put together by Simon Wheatley and Laura Kalbag.
To find out what some of the sessions will likely be about, check out the wiki page which lists the ideas that people have had.
The two big draws for me will be the chance to hear from Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress and the company that supports it Automattic. The other will be my old friend Simon Dickson, who will no doubt provided another of his highly motivating rants.
If you are interested in finding out more about WordPress and its possibilities, there is no easier way of finding all the people that matter in the same room. Well worth £35 in my book (and only £25 if you’re quick!). Book here, now.
And yes, I am aware that this blog has become rather event-heavy of late. Sorry. Normal, more creative, service to be resumed shortly…
I was delighted to be a part of the winning pub quiz team at WordCampUK, not least because it meant that I won a wicked cool dark green WordPress tshirt. I asked the now-legendary quiz host Jon Bounds for a large, and a large was what I got.
Only, it’s in the ladies style, which makes it significantly smaller than me.
So, there is a free WP tshirt going spare to any suitably sized female who wants it. Let me know in the comments or by email. See the photo of Automattic dude Sam Bauers below, who is sporting the manly version.
I am typing most of this on the train back from Birmingham, where I have been attending WordCampUK, a two day conference on all things to do with the greatest online publishing platform, like, ever. It was great to meet new folk, and friends too and as always, the value for me was in the conversations snatched over a cup of tea rather than the official sessions themselves.
Part of this was because WordCampUK was a curiously formal affair, with a proper agenda and with everyone attending all the same sessions, by and large. It was, I think it is fair to say, a lot more word than camp. One thing I couldn’t really understand was that there was a room available that wasn’t used at all, that would have been perfect as a breakout room for people to have off the cuff discussions and practical sessions.
I suppose it is a rather peculiar thing to try and form an event around a platform – the one thing we all had in common was the tool we use to get lots of wildly different stuff done. Finding common ground was therefore always going to be tricky, which made the lack of an official breakout space more of an issue.
Something that could be improved for next time would definitely be to introduce some flexibility into the agenda – at least to make people feel that they are able to leave a session in the main space if they don’t think it is really for them. There also needs to be enough room for manoeuvre in the sessions themselves, to let them fly off in a different direction than may have been originally intended.
The one session that was clearly missing was a show-and-tell – “Cool Stuff I’ve Done With WordPress” – give everyone who wants it five minutes to show off something they have done. Simon Dickson did a bit of this during his great session – the only one that really had everyone buzzing at the end. Presenting is clearly not as easy as it seems.
Some other positive stuff:
The WordPress community in the UK is beginning to shape itself. I picked up several business cards from techie types which could well come in very handy in the future. I don’t see my future as being too much about building stuff, rather enabling people to realise how the social web can help them, and maybe joining the folk up who can get stuff done. Knowing the people with the skills will be vital.
There was a very interesting discussion around SEO, on which I made some notes on this blog. The key message was to make sure your content is well written and interesting. There is still a lot for government to learn about this stuff, as Paul Canning often says – maybe we should call it findability or something, though.
Jon Bounds is a ludicrously amusing quiz show host. His quiz was pointlessly hard, and yet somehow the team I was on won. Huzzah! One green WordPress tshirt for me – lets hope it fits.
There was much twittering going on, and despite the use of the hashtag, the most useful way of monitoring it all was a SummizeTwitter Search for the wordcampuk tag. It did descend into snarkiness on a couple of occasions, but that was probably necessary at that particular point in time. Twitter is like passing notes round class for the 21st century, and was laugh out loud funny on occasions
Simon’s announcement that the new site for 10 Downing Street will be running on WordPress drew several gasps from the attendees. It’s big news for those trying to sell the use of WP to large organisations: after all, if it’s good enough for Gordon…
Some stuff needs to be done to develop the community, to draw others in that couldn’t make the event and to really make the most of the connections being made.
Let’s get a WordPress UK planet of blogs set up, so we can all keep up with what one another is saying
Let’s get a community network built, where we can all list ourselves, our interests, skills, knowledge, availability etc
Let’s start planning the next event, and make sure it’s flexible, informal and fun
So well done to those who organised the event, but I guess the real work starts now.
Quick notes on Simon Dickson‘s presentation at WordCampUK:
Make big change happen in a small way
Didn’t intend to be a WP fanboy, but it just turned out to be the best way of doing things
Need for a WP ecosystem – WP now mature enough to require/support a real community
PHP geeks not enough – need to understand the simplicity of the platform
Simon not a developer, or designer. Can get by, but could do with some help!
Three threats: procurement teams, IT people and
Big web projects cost far too much – hundreds of thousands, millions even. Not just the systems, but the project management etc
Free platforms has benefits, including longevity and ongoing support
Simon started using typepad mainly, as seemed easier. No need for IT depts to know about what people were doing. WP.com takes that to a new level.
Typepad has limitations – too blog focused. Need WP’s flexibility especially that which you get from self-hosted
Up to 30% of WP.com blogs now are custom domained / CSS etc
Appeals of WP – zero cost (can send the wrong message), skills base (lots of local talent to draw on)
Designed for use by the individual – no need for support, it’s so easy to use. Upgrade cycle the only glitch
Focus on content – it’s NOT about the tech – also don’t have to wade through metadata fields before writing content. Make it like writing something in Word (sad but true)
Power of RSS – category based, tag based, integrated wordpress mini sites into the big ugly corporate CMS. Use SimplePie and Google API
Do you mention the word ‘blog’ in relation to WP? Initially no, but maybe mention it early then move on. Blog not as dirty a word as it was. Ingrained in culture. BBC news journalists are known by their blogs as much as anything
ourNHS site – built 3 times in 12 months, but so what? Quick, easy and cheap. Lord Darzi’s blog – discussion at time about referring to it as that
Incredible power in themes
“can WordPress do X?” YES! It’s just HTML and PHP folks.
Automate as much as possible through the WP loop
With WP sites, build it then walk. Very very few support requests
WordPress in Welsh with the Wales Office site
New number 10 website is running on wordpress. Round of applause for Simon
Number 10 – what they do is news. News is blogs. Hence, blogging the right medium.
Blogging and political journalism are merging
When dealing with big orgs, form a precedent quickly. No. 10 started using youtube first in uk gov, now everyone is at it!
No. 10 Twitter feed – c3,500 followers – people wanting to be a part of the conversation re: uk gov. Amazing!
No, 10 uses Brightcove for video hosting etc
Key message: acceptance of lightweight, social tools
Security testing of No. 10 – heavyweight testing going on. Will be fed back to Automattic
Micro sites, sites within sites…Can be thrown together fast, run as long as you need them, then close
Theme switching – WP allows one-click change of template. Have some themes developed for certain incidents, can turn on when needed
WordPress as crisis site when required. Have sitting in the background til when needed.
What’s needed in WordPress to get into enterprise environment: page ordering (need rag and drop built in), slicker workflow (better pending/drafts handling), new long term support version (like ubuntu, don’t call it legacy branch!) ie better upgrades, the ecosystem/community (we need people that understand WP available and on call!)
Developers – need to understand content and designers need to understand the WP machinery
Here’s some notes from the session at WordCampUK on SEO for WordPress, presented by Nick Garner of Betfair. Will tidy up later with more links and stuff.
you can’t hold your website users’ hands the whole time. SEO can make it easier for them to find what they want
What have you got that others don’t? What do you want on your site? Structure your content for search engines, use analytics and get social with links
Using WordPress with the right plugins helps
Content – useful and entertaining? Can the people writing your content actually write well? Need for enthusiasm. Would you read your content?
Jon Bounds tweets – “ I’d love a discussion about whether or not it’s all a bit vulgar, rather than how to do it.”
Who do you want to visit your site? Motivation: PR, money making or ego? Picture your reader and write for them
Think like a librarian when structuring content: correct titles, categorisation, avoid duplication
When building sites, get metadata in first, then the content. Don’t bury under piles of javascript & navigation stuff
The cost of some sites using ‘traditional’ CMS can make you sob
Security issues with WordPress? Can’t do ‘hard baked’ pages?
Get Google Analytics and webmaster console
If you are getting 90% traffic from search engines, that’s bad. About 60% is probably best.
Gaming search engines gets harder as processor grunt increases. Don’t bother putting your black hat on.
It takes time to get right, but can save a lot of marketing pennies
Journalists are cheap – get them to write your content
Can’t beat good writing
Links: general directories are useless.
Pimp yourself around: comment on related sites with link back to yours, put signposts up on relevant sites, be remarkable/stand out so people want to link to you
Getting pageviews is fine, but to what end? You can generate traffic, but what do these people do when on your site except consume bandwidth
Plenty of content, lots of key phrases
10% of traffic will have commercial intent
Adsense is horrible (agreed!) If you are going to run ads use affiliate schemes
The fundamental thing is that Google wants to find the sites that people want to see, so it really is just about the content
SEOdigger.com – find out what keywords a site ranks for
Even better news is that Simon Dickson‘s going to be there, and running a session on non-blogging with WordPress. Simon’s also sponsoring the event, in his words:
It’s maybe unusual for a one-man company to sponsor a fairly large conference like this. But virtually everything Puffbox does at the moment is WordPress-based. It’s the content management platform I always dreamed of… and it’s free of charge. It’s time I gave something back.
Besides, it’s in Puffbox’s interests for this gathering to take place. It’ll be an enjoyable weekend of unashamed geekery. I’m hoping to meet some interesting people, learn some interesting things, and help create a support infrastructure for WordPress in the UK. A T-shirt with a big W on the front would be a bonus.
Well done him, a brilliant gesture, not least because Simon has already done more than anyone to progress the use of lightweight, low cost solutions like WordPress in UK government. I last saw Simon at the UK Gov barcamp aaaaaages ago, so will look forward to catching up with him – and a whole host of other top WordPress folk – at the WordCamp.
WordCampUK – the only event in the UK dedicated to the joys of WordPress – will be taking place in Cardiff this year, on 18 and 19 July. You can find out all the details on the official blog, which has been beautifully put together by Simon Wheatley and Laura Kalbag.
