Over the weekend, Liam Dempsey drove south from suburban Philadelphia to Atlanta, to speak at one of the premier WordPress conferences, WordCamp Atlanta. As expected, WordCamp Atlanta proved a valuable experience, packed with opportunities for networking and learning.
A Short Recap of WordCamp Atlanta
Roughly 500 designers, developers, marketers, writers, bloggers and business owners attended the conference, held at the Loudermilk Center in the heart of downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The community-organized event offered four learning tracks of talks covering topics that ranged from logo design, podcasting, building community, freelancing, clients, and more.
With a theme of creative diversity, WordCamp Atlanta embodied the epitome of the WordPress community. Folks from all over, of different races and genders gathered together for the weekend.
Great Presentations from Skilled Professionals
Liam’s favorite takeaways centered around Aimee Copeland’s keynote address. After recovering from suffering a flesh-eating bacteria that required the amputation of both hands, her entire left leg, and her right leg below the knee, Aimee started a non-profit organization to empower people of all abilities.
Aimee’s talk was funny, touching, and moving on many levels. Two of Liam’s favorite quotes from the talk are “Helping other people is where it’s at!” and “Together, we can make a difference for each other.”
Some of the other talks Liam saw and enjoyed were:
- Pam Ann Aungst on Killer Keywords: How to Write for Humans and Search Engines;
- Rich Tabor on Gutenberg Block Development for Beginners;
- Naomi Bush on Hands-Off Content and Membership Sites;
- Jodie Riccelli on Selling to Enterprise Clients; and
- Raquel Landefeld on Becoming a Community Builder.
So Well Organized
WordCamp Atlanta was a really well-run WordCamp! Liam looks forward to taking lessons from how that camp was run and implementing them as the lead organizer for WordCamp Philly.
Building Belonging through Podcasting
On Sunday afternoon, Liam delivered a presentation on Building Belonging through Podcasting. He shared some of the lessons learned since starting a podcast, Hallway Chats, with friend and colleague, Tara Claeys.
During this talk, Liam walked through the reasons for the podcast: growing community, shining the spotlight on guests, and giving a voice to the lesser known people in the WordPress community. He shared the practical lessons learned from producing a weekly podcast, and the challenges that they have faced while building community.
The slides from Liam’s talk are available below.
