Monday, January 26th, 2009

by Kate LeGresley

WordPress is an incredibly popular blogging platform and publishing tool. This weekend, the lovely Fairmont Chateau played host to the first ever WordCamp Whistler (#wcw09 on twitter). The local online community came together to learn the ins and outs of WordPress, which has an improved logo—and don’t forget to make the ‘P’ capital! The variety of speakers and topics made the day enjoyable and really informative.

Lorelle VanFossen was the keynote speaker. Her name is practically synonymous with the term WordPress. Lorelle manages many blogs and explained how easy WordPress is for blogging. Some of her key tips include: always use HTML editor, use note tab pro to speed blog, try the turbo button, and pre-schedule your posts. According to Lorelle, deployment using WP 2.7 combined with some essential plugins can result in a better looking website, improved engagement with your audience, and more traffic to your site.

Some of the other topics covered were mobile publishing (Dale Mugford), photo and video integration (John Biehler), WP alternate configurations (Moren Rand-Hendrikseen), design and theme (Tris Hussey), BuddyPress (Andy Peatling), SEO and measuring tips (Quentin Mulert), and of course Dave Olson’s story of content.

As one of my first conferences, in an ever-changing industry, it was fantastic to meet the people behind the twitter names. #wcw09 was a great opportunity to broaden our online social network, geek it up in Whistler, and sing Wonderwall whilst swaying back and forth in a circle. Huge thank yous to the amazing Bolwitt team, Duane, Dale, Lorelle and the sponsors, for putting together the first ever WordCamp Whistler.

More info from WordCamp here:
• All of Rebecca’s posts on Miss604.com tagged with wcw09
• Dale Mugford’s post about WordCamp Whistler
• Cathy Tibbles discovered some sweet plugins at WordCamp
• Raul’s fleet of posts provide coverage of the whole day
• Kris Krug was a Flip cam ninja and posted video interviews like mad on YouTube
• Twitter hashtag: #wcw09 or #wcwhistler09
• Flickr tag: wcw09, wcwhistler09

Tags: blogs, conference, wcw09, wcwhilster09, Whistler Wordcamp 2009, wordpress

This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Blogging, Press Releases, invoke, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.