This past weekend, I attended and spoke at WordCamp Tampa. It was the second WordCamp Tampa and was my third time speaking at a WordCamp (after 2014 WordCamp Tampa and 2013 WordCamp Orlando).
The talks
The sessions were not a letdown this year. I’ve yet to be disappointed by what I learn at WordCamps. Even though I bought a ticket to attend in person, I also purchased a live streaming ticket, so that I could watch the sessions I missed after the event (you get access to the videos for 30 days after the event).
In particular, Shawn Hooper’s talk on using wp-cli (similar to his WordCamp Columbus talk) was fantastic and made me want to start using wp-cli straight away.
My own talk
This year, I submitted a talk on Creating Custom Sites with Post Types, Taxonomies and Meta, which was accepted. I knew for about 6 weeks that I needed to prepare my talk, but could just never muster the time to finish it off. I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t finish my slides until 2 hours before the presentation and had no rehearsals.
With that said, while it may have been apparent that I was a bit rusty and shaky, I think it ended up going ok. It’s not something that I plan to make a habit of though and will definitely make sure that I’m prepared at least a couple of weeks ahead of time next time.
Also, it was really nice that for the first time, I have video of my talk for others to see and for me to learn from, and that my whole family were able to come and see me talk. After my talk, Ellie said:
Good job talking to all the people Daddy!
*heart melted*
The venue and food
The inaugural WordCamp Tampa was at Keiser University in Tampa, but this year we moved on up to the Marshall Student Center at the University of South Florida, which was really nice. It was quite a drive for me from St Pete, but I don’t expect the organisers to locate an event based solely on my geography
Hi Dave,
I’m glad you enjoyed the WP-CLI talk. Thanks for spreading the word!
Cheers.
Thank you for spreading the word