Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes
My presence at the recently concluded WordCamp which was held last September 19 marks my first blogging event attendance since I started blogging in December 2008. I’m just one of the many local WordPress enthusiasts empowered by this Open Source Content Management Software to embrace the web and explore its endless capabilities.
On the day’s event, I started the day waking up at 4am to publish my prelude to the event which I cannot do a live blog nor tweet about due to some resource restraints.
The Program
The Philippine National Anthem was played then event’s Lead Organizer Bloggie Robillo of the Mindanao Bloggers Community delivered the Opening Remarks. He proudly introduced the Mindanao Bloggers Community as a solid society of bloggers (not necessary residents of Mindanao) with the aim of promoting Mindanao in their most positive way while at the same time using WordPress as blogging tool and reaching out to others who are eager to learn WordPress and blogging.
Beau Lebens of Automattic, the makers of WordPress talked about the WordPress Family—WordPress, WordPress MU, bbPress, BuddyPress, BackPress, and GlotPress.
His talk focused on this presentation below:
Meet The Family (Philippines Remix)
Markku Seguerra on the other hand talked about WordPress—what it can do because of its popularity, power and its vulnerabilities once it goes live on the Internet. A pretty rich talk indeed.
Danilo Arao, a journalist and blogger, introduced Citizen Journalism and its impact to society especially on the upcoming national elections in 2010 and how bloggers and blogging can influence the citizenry to shape up a different point of view. The talk was lively with some pinch of humor but can definitely leave a blogger pondering afterwards.
Seth Bindernagel of Mozilla spilled the beans about the localization efforts of Firefox for Filipino web users. He highlighted the Philippines as one of the biggest contributors to Firefox’s growth globally while at the same time encouraging efforts to support the Open Web.
Check out his presentation below:
Seth Bindernagel Presentation on WordCamp Philippines 2009: Firefox Localization for Filipino Users
Halfway through the event, Jeff Villafranca discussed the substantial elements of having an editorial voice and good taste especially in writing for technology niche blogs. I find this talk rather self-explanatory however most topics like these are the ones that are often overlooked or missed. The message not only applies to tech blogs but for all types of blogs too. Most of the time, tech blogs are boring and too jargonized which I think sways most people that are not so tech savvy. I believe there are varieties of ways where we can present stories on tech blogs in a more conversational tone with simpler approach.
Vlogging Mythbusters was tackled by Video Blogger Coy Caballes. The talk focused on uncovering some of the most common misconceptions about video blogging. It was short but concise. Video blogging is easy but may require most of the time creativity and a little bit of talent.
Gail Villanueva showcases the capability of WordPress as a Portfolio & Directory Site. The topic was quite technical because web development languages were discussed such as PHP, HTML and CSS and how they are applied to tweak websites for design-optimization among many other things.
WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System) was tackled by Karla Redor prior to the Q&A segment. Karla talked about the three among the many WooThemes theme design. The presentation was easy to understand and I think she had an easy task doing it since WooThemes are naturally user-friendly.
The Q&A with experts followed and among the things that I’d like to share is better left said on my succeeding post. Congratulations to the event organizers and a big thank you to all the speakers for selflessly sharing their expertise to the rest of the attendees and thank you as well to all the sponsors that help make it happen.
Suggested for further reading:
- WordCamp Philippines 2009 Slated Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes In conjunction with my previous post about upcoming WordCamps worldwide, one significant event is about to unfold next month. The second WordPress WordCamp here in the Philippines was scheduled on 19 September 2009 at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati City. WordCamp Philippines 2009...
- WordCamp Philippines 2009 Memorabilia Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes Attending my first WordCamp was a great experience. I had a blast. If you have observed, this photo wasn’t attached to my previous post about the WordCamp Philippines’ event highlights. I intentionally did that so I can showcase this photo on one post. I...
- WordCamp Today @ 8am UTC Reading time: < 1 minute I will be attending my first ever blogging event today, the second WordCamp Conference held here in the Philippines since 2008. A WordCamp is a gathering of all WordPress users, developers and those behind the core to speak about it, share what’s new and increase...
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