Day 1
Upon arrival at the Super Bock Arena, every WordCamp member is welcomed with a modest goodie bag and name tag. We slowly split up and each moves towards a first talk or workshop.
As head of product strategy, Leo Postovoit from XWP can tell us everything about the performance of your website. Especially about considering the performance of your website holistically, from the user's perspective. Page Speed, UX, Conversions en Retention are the four pillars that Leo focuses on. In addition to the obvious tips such as “a slow website drives users away”, he also offers depth. He shares insights regarding content, testing and ads.
He also mentions a number of useful tools such as Calibre. For example, a tool that uses empirical test data. This can tell the developer in real time whether a certain plugin or script causes extra loading time.
Time for a joint lunch, where everyone shares their experiences and timetables are compared. The schedules vary, with one person on the expo floor in the afternoon for networking, and the other attending a talk.
After the lightning talks session with short presentations on various topics such as FSE (full site editing) and the future of Gutenberg blocks, we conclude with a talk about the integration of podcasts in WordPress. “With WordPress podcasters can turn attention into action”, said Richard Midson. He answers the question of how WordPress can be the future of podcasts. With the ever-growing attention for podcasts, the integration of audio in WordPress through plugins is a particular point of attention. Extra interesting for us, of course, since we also produce a podcast.
Day 2
We kick off the second WordCamp day with a more marketing-oriented talk. The Bulgarian Vassilena “Vassy” Valchanova tells us about data-driven content personas. As an experienced marketing strategist, she knows everything about online personas and target group profiles and even though every company knows how important it is to have a strong and solid customer profile, she takes the attendees through a practical step-by-step plan to create a profile. In addition to the usual suspects (demographics, age, etc.), as a company you must now also include types of content interests in your profile. The focus is on B2C, but there are certainly opportunities for B2B companies as well.
On the expo floor, networking and collecting merchandise is elevated to a fine art, with some already having a bag full. A chat with a hosting party, a greeting to an old acquaintance, or just see what Google has developed again.
We ultimately conclude the conference with a talk by great WordPress boss Matt Mullenweg. An animation is followed by a round of questions from the audience. And despite the fact that they immediately jump in with comments about community support and language support, Matt and Josepha (Haden Chomphosy) try to parry the criticism as best they can.
We enjoy the sun for a while, a drink and a delicious dinner before returning home around noon the next day. Thanks to the centrally located venue, we were able to see a lot of Porto in addition to WordCamp and experience a wonderful trip in which we were able to perfectly combine fun with work. We are already looking forward to Athens!