WordCamp Atlanta

In between WordCamps, we get together here all around Atlanta to share and learn more about WordPress. There are five of six different Meetup Groups, all different flavors all over town. So sign up for Meetup.org and search for WordPRess Atlanta and you can get up to date info on the Meetup topics for the week or month.

Our big Atlanta WordPress Users’ Group Meetup is now on the 4th Wednesday of each month. We are having a beginners topics group at 6:00 PM and a second meeting at 7:30, following and just after pizza and beer, aimed at the intermediate level user.

You are welcomed to sign up for either and come to either or both for one fee of 10.00 to cover the refreshments and supplies.

Was it really just a week ago that we were all at Camp?

WordCamp was so awesome! The sponsors, speakers and the volunteers joined together in an non-commercial, open source kind of way to put on this amazing event. There was a sense of community, and possibility in the air that was intoxicting. It was a WordPress Love fest for sure.

It was an honor to have Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress and Jane Wells, WordPress UI ( user-interface) lead,  join us. Matt and Jane and do a “He Said, She Said talk” at the opening remarks on Day Two. I heard someone say that if that was the only talk they saw they  would have felt like they had got their money’s worth from the conference.

To keep the memories alive we posted a bunch of photos on the WordCamp Atlanta Flickr Group.  These photos were taken by photographers, Frank Neimier and Jan Stittleburg. Check them out. There are some great shots. And, feel free to upload your own photos to the WordCamp Atlanta Flickr group.

In order to make WordCamp Atlanta even better next year (is that even possible?), we put together a survey. We’d sure appreciate if you would please take a few minutes to give us your feedback.

Take Our Survey Here!

Thanks to all of you for making WordCamp Atlanta so amazing!

Until next year, see you at a Meetup!

Judi and Russell

Follow us: @judiknight, @rfair,

Well the time has finally come. The signs are up,  the badges are alphabetized, the t-shirts are grouped by size into tidy piles and we are ready to have a WordCamp! We will have coffee, orange juice and muffins for you during registration. See you in the AM!

There is a lot of talk going on about hosting, which types of hosts are best for different people’s needs and which types of hosts run faster. WordCamp Atlanta is fortunate to have several great hosting providers sponsoring us this year. If you’re shopping for a hosting provider, we encourage you to check them out and sign up for a hosting account to get your site up and going before Friday!

WP-Engine is a managed hosting company that has tweaked their servers to do one thing well, run WordPress. They have made a special offer to WordCamp Atlanta attendees – FREE WordPress hosting for life! How do you sign up for this?  Just click here: http://bit.ly/wpe-for-atlanta.

ClickHOST is a Georgia company located just north of 285. They are also offering a fantastic deal to WCATL attendees.  You get a free domain and their “better” hosting package for just one dollar a month. You can find out about their offer here: http://www.clickhost.com/wordcamp-atlanta-2012/.

ZippyKidis also a managed hosting company that specializes in making WordPress uber fast. They claim to be the fastest WordPress host ever. You can find out about ZippyKid here:
ZippyKid.com/signup/ Coupon code WCATL

Each Day after WordCamp about 5:15, we are going to head over to the Cheyenne Grill to mix and mingle and have an adult beverage or so. We don’t want anyone to get a speeding ticket but the first fifty people to arrive at Cheyenne Grill will get a treasured MailChimp t-shirt for FREE. You will get a dollar off of pints of Red Hare beer, house wine and well drinks. The Cheyenne Grill is located in the Brookwood Shopping Center, North on Peachtree about a mile and a half from SCAD. If you want to put it in your GPS the address is:
2391 Peachtree Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30305.

Our very own WordCamp EZVideo Guy, Randy Barnes is showing us the way:

As the time draws near, we’ve been getting a lot of questions from people about  WordCamp tickets.

We’ve been getting a lot of questions from people who don’t have tickets. The thing is, we really wish we could open up the conference to everyone who wanted to come. But we are sold out.

We have a space capacity for  350 people. We sold 350 tickets the first month, and recently opened up an additional block of fifty tickets on the assumption that some people would not be able to make it and we would end up with about the right number of folks for the space.

If You Didn’t Buy A Ticket

Some people signed up to volunteer or signed up to go to the beginners workshop who did not get a ticket.  But please note: You cannot volunteer or go to the beginners workshop without a buying a ticket.

Please don’t show up the day of the WordCamp hoping to get in without being registered because we will just hate to have to turn you away. We cannot take any walk-ins. And all people who are registered will be wearing large badges throughout the conference.

The only way you may be able to get a ticket at this point is to get one from someone who isn’t going to use theirs. You are welcomed to do this, but understand that t-shirts and meals have already been ordered and the orders can’t be changed, so you will get the t-shirt and meal choice that your ticket came with.

Since we did not actually issue paper tickets at the time of purchase, you will need to have the name and e-mail address and a transaction receipt of some sort  from the person that you got your ticket from.

If You Bought a Ticket You Don’t Need

If you have a ticket but can’t come,  you can let us know ahead of time and we can hook you up with someone looking for one

If You Did Buy A Ticket

If you went through our registration ticketing process and paid by Paypal or put in your SCAD code,  you should have a badge waiting for you at Registration. You do not need to bring a receipt but your Paypal receipt wouldn’t hurt if there is a problem. We have a list of people who got a SCAD coupon code so there won’t be an issue for you.

Capacity

We have one room at SCAD that is very big and holds everyone. We have four rooms that hold fifty people each. And we have one room for the happiness bar and un-conference meetups. We will have five presentations going simultaneously during most every time slot. We have tried to have the presentation scheduled for the large room have appeal across levels and tracks. If you can’t get into your presentation of choice, please be cool and go to another presentation or go visit the happiness bar room and get or give some personal attention.

We are videotaping each of the presentations and they will be available on WordPress TV. And in the meantime,  you can visit WordPress TV and catch wonderful presentations from other WordCamps.

We have two beginner overview presentations. Each of these has a capacity of fifty people  One two-hour beginner presentation will be held on Friday morning with Russell Fair. It is hands-on and specifically designed for people who have never made page or a post.

If you have some experience with WordPress but want a little more overview, Kathy Drewien’s one hour presentation on Saturday might be the one for you. It will be a good overview but will not be hands on and it will probably move faster than Russell’s workshop.

Other presentations have been designed to go into setting up WordPress, choosing themes, choosing plugins, security and such.

Beginners

We have a lot of people coming to WordCamp who have categorized themselves as Beginners. We have presentations that cover most everything someone needs to know to get started with WordPress.

Our badges will identify people by their indicated type: Beginner, User, Designer and Developer. We did this so you can reach out and meet others and  so you can show our newcomers some extra special attention.