Building community in “The Big Friendly”

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WordCamp is a great way to build and strengthen the local WordPress community, which is one reason we’re excited to kick off the event with local developer and community builder Aaron D. Campbell, talking about Being a Good Citizen in the WordPress Community.

Aaron has been a regular contributor to WordPress for the last eight years, and even co-lead the WordPress 3.6 release (which is a pretty big deal). He’ll help us find out how we can help make WordPress better through good community citizenship.

You’ve seen the speakers, here’s the schedule

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Here at WordCamp OKC, we’re excited to provide attendees with a broad range of topics from knowledgable speakers, and thanks to our single track we’ve made it easier to hear them all! No need to pick and choose which sessions to attend and which to watch online later; no rushing down the hallway as one talk ends and the other begins in another room. Just a great time of listening, learning, and visiting.

Along with the listening to the informative talks, we’ve built in lots of time for community-building and the ever popular “hallway track” with time in between talks to chat with the speaker and your new friends, post a selfie, grab some coffee, call your mom, or just stretch your legs a bit.

Food and visiting go together, so in addition to a classic Oklahoma BBQ lunch, we’re providing an afternoon snack time during the event (sorry, no nap mats, though).

See the schedule and read the descriptions for each session, then take a minute to tweet out which sessions you’re most excited about and encourage the speakers. Don’t forget to include #WCOKC.

See y’all in just a few weeks!

We’re excited to announce the speaker lineup for WordCamp OKC 2016

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We had a lot of great talks submitted for this first-ever WordCamp in Oklahoma, and with only a small number of available slots it was tough to pick just the right ones. We decided to focus on the building blocks of WordPress: community, content, security, and business.

With that in mind, we’re excited about this diverse group of WordPress bloggers, business people, developers, community organizers, and contributors, and are confident that their talks will encourage, inform, and entertain everyone who attends this year.

Visit the Speakers page on our site to learn more about each of them, and look for the schedule to be published soon.

OKC WordCamp Schedule – Working On It!

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We’ve had several inquiries about our schedule for our Saturday, July 30th WordCamp. Well, it’s not quite finished yet.

So you’ll know what time to get out of bed that morning, we can give approximate times.

Registration will most likely begin around 8 AM with the first session around 9 AM. We expect to finish up between 4 and 5 PM with the after-party scheduled to begin about an hour after we conclude.

We hope that helps – stay tuned – information will be posted as it is ready.clocks

Places to Stay in OKC

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Oklahoma City is the 27th largest city in population, but the  8th largest city in America, by land area at 602 square miles. We share this fun fact to let you know that if you’re flying into Oklahoma City for the WordCamp, you’ll probably want to rent a car. NW OKC is not a walking area and public transport in this area will not serve you very well.

Our WordCamp is at Portland & 150th St. at the Francis Tuttle Bruce Gray Center. Just a mile south of 150th is Memorial Road – a mecca of hotels, restaurants and a major mall in OKC.

We recommend this link to check out hotels along Memorial Road. Most of them will be under 3 miles to the WordCamp. This link is an interactive map from VisitOKC.com that may also be helpful. If you would like recommendations further away,  use our contact form and we’ll get back with you.

Here’s a map to give you a feel of where the venue is (circled in red), and how far away the hotels are. Memorial Rd. and the John Kilpatrick Turnpike parallel each other.

oklahoma city map of francis tuttle

Have you heard of WordCrash?

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WordCrash allows traveling WordPressers to view a list of friendly folks across the globe who are willing to offer free accommodations, and start a conversation with any of them about visiting their town. Save money, see the world, meet people, make friends.

With WordCamp OKC just about six weeks away the timing seemed perfect to encourage our local WordPress fans to consider signing up to be a host. WordCrash.net provides all the info you need to decide if it looks like a good fit for you and has a convenient form to use to sign up if you’re ready to enter the conversation.

WordCrash.net was built by the Ann Arbor, Michigan WordPress meetup group as a fun group project. In less than a year there are already over 20 hosts. Let’s see if we can add some Oklahoma City options to the list!

A bit more from Kyle Maurer, WordCrash co-founder:

I love the WordPress community and have been fortunate to be able to travel to numerous WordPress events in the past few years including WordCamps, meetups and more. The best part about traveling to these new places is getting to meet and spend time with new people and WordCrash is great for facilitating that. I’ve consistently found that when I travel and stay with a local host rather than a hotel, I have an overall better experience. I have someone to share rides with who can show me around. I don’t end up getting lost in the worst part of town (which I have a knack for) or missing out on the city’s noteworthy sites. I create new or strengthen old relationships by spending less time alone in a hotel room. I also save a lot of money!

So if you’re open to conversations with travelers who want to experience Oklahoma City, I encourage you to sign up on WordCrash. It’s a simple site that serves only to facilitate introductions. Anything that happens after is up to the host and the traveler and WordCrash is no longer involved. You are not required or even expected to open your doors to everyone who happens to contact you. You should only do so if you feel comfortable with it.