I traveled to Portland OR last week for WordCamp US 2024. It’s an annual community gathering of WordPress users, developers, designers, etc. Whenever I take a trip, I always consider it a big adventure, and this trip was no exception.
I was able to connect with several people in person, that I normally only “see” on video chat or Zoom. The first was Debbie from my coaching group. We’ve known each other for years, but never actually met in person. Next was our very own Jen. Until we shared a very tasty and fun Vietnamese lunch, we’d never met in person. Catching up in person with Nathan Ingram, my business coach, is always awesome.
I met some new WordPress friends too. The first evening I met Scot, a fellow micro-agency owner. He provided me with some valuable insights into an issue I’m having with one of our Customer website rebuilds. The second evening brought dinner with Debbie, Nathan, and I met Chris, a programmer who’s been working with Nathan on a large website rebuild. After dinner, I ventured (all by myself) out on a Portland bus ride to a “side party” hosted by WP Engine and NitroPack. The party was packed with people, with an open bar and amazing food. My drink even had an ice cube with the WP Engine logo in it! While showing off my logo ice cube drink, I met Phil, who works at WP Engine, and worked for Delicious Brains before the company was purchased by WP Engine. Delicious Brains created Advanced Custom Fields, run by millions of WordPress websites, WP Migrate, WP Offload Media, WP Offload SES, and Better Search Replace, which we use often here at CWS. Later that night, I met Cara and Grace, both are micro-agency owners who regularly travel to WCUS together. They were hanging out with Robert, a programmer from Massachusetts. The four of us had an adventure getting back to the hotel (had to walk a few extra blocks for the return bus), but returned without incident.
The following day I met Zack from Gravity Views, I saw Syed Balkhi from Awesome Motive / WP Beginner about 10 times at WCUS. I had a very nice chat with Remkus (Within WordPress) and met Scott (the developer behind PODS). I visited Google Portland for a class on Google Site Kit, and got a mini tour of their downstairs offices and working areas.
The organizers for WCUS Portland 2024 did an amazing job. The venue was spacious, with plenty of space to network, chat, catch up, and power up. The vendor space was very large, and there was plenty of swag! I would have preferred an event t-shirt to a pair of socks, but I’m happy to have the commemorative socks (and pin). The HOP cards were a fantastic convenience.
The entire event was uplifting and exciting, up until the last hour when Matt gave his “spicy” talk to close out WCUS 2024 (full nuclear mode). That talk sparked a heated discussion in the WordPress Community, and eventually brought to light that WordPress has an even bigger problem – it is managed at the whim of only one person, Matt Mullenweg. I talk about what’s happening and what we’re doing in this post: The Price of Open Source Software.
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