Miami is the center of small business in the US with more entrepreneurs per capita than any other big American city, and it is increasingly also a center for small high tech companies. One weekend last month I joined 750 other techies and tech-wannabes at the 5th Annual Word Camp in Miami.
WordCamp is a conference for people who already have or would like to create websites based on WordPress. Founded in 2003, WordPress today has millions of users worldwide who come to conferences like WordCamp to learn how to manage their own website or to take advantage of enhancements to the system to develop or design better websites for clients.
I was interested in going to WordCamp for the first time because a friend has just completed a website for me that’s based on WordPress. Up to now I had no idea that WordPress, which began as a simple text-based technology in 2003, could be the backbone for sites as sophisticated as those used by People magazine, The New York Times, Martha Stewart, Coca Cola France, and thousands of others.
WordCamp conferences are held every year in many US cities and around the world although I believe not yet in the Middle East. They will be taking place before the end of the year in Europe (Hamburg and Sofia), Asia Pacific (Auckland, Hanoi, Sydney, Tokyo), Africa (Cape Town), Canada (Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver), and South America (Quito and Rio de Janeiro).
The three-day Miami event was from Friday through Sunday at the new Student Center at the University of Miami. It cost $30 to attend and included ten 30-minute sessions on Saturday and seven on Sunday. Friday was a boot camp for beginners – I certainly belonged among them in terms of computer knowhow, but since I don’t intend to create sites myself, I was more interested in the business of website creation and spent two days at WordCamp.
The attendees were an eclectic group. I was afraid that someone like me would stand out among the teenagers and early 20s I expected. However, that wasn’t the case at all. No teenagers, probably some university students, more people in their 30s and 40s as well as some much older than that. The grandmother on Facebook is not a rarity in the US, and there were some undoubted grandmothers and grandfathers among us.
Moreover, it wasn’t a heavily male majority audience; probably the group included more men than women although many women attended. In one session I met Leby, probably mid-30s, who has an animal-focused business as a dog trainer and groomer. She is currently improving her website and wants to learn more about what she can do on her own. The site is how she gets new business.
At WordCamp I learned that websites have an effective life of two years, and that made sense. When I had a PR company in Poland in the 1990s, the website that was eventually created for me was what’s now known as brochureware, the material from our tri-fold brochure expanded with some photos and plopped on the internet. That doesn’t work anymore although such sites can still be found.
These days sites have to be dynamic and constantly undergoing updates. To see my new dynamic site, go to www.alcatusa.com. It’s typical of a newer approach to marketing any kind of business on the internet. Tell me what you think @almakad.
Written by: Alma Kadragic
