Lessons Learned from IndiewebCamp and WordCamp

For a little over two years, I have been involved in Indiewebcamp. This past weekend, for the first time in five years, I was able to attend WordCamp.

WordCamp NYC was a massive undertaking, to which I must give credit to the organizers. WordCamp was moved to coincide with OpenCamps week at the United Nations, which added security headaches to the fold as well. There were 500 attendees just for WordCamp alone. I have to congratulate them for their hard work.

By comparison, an Indiewebcamp is a smaller, more intimate affair that is happy to get 20 people. In a discussion with Shane Becker, who is organizing Indiewebcamp LA in November, he has a personal goal of getting a hundred people there. But more people makes for a very different conference than 20.

For me, the scale of WCNYC created problems. Contributor’s Day, the smaller pre-event for people interested in contributing to WordPress, found me in a room full of people interested in being involved in Core not interacting, sharing ideas, or picking each other’s brains…but mostly working independently. There were isolated pockets of people helping each other, but I felt that should have been what was encouraged. The equivalent at an IndiewebCamp is the Hack Day, where people announce at the beginning what they are thinking of working on, which encourages people who have similar interests to interact as they build something. And at the end, you present to all a demo of what you created.

For the panels at WordCamp, I found the speakers very engaged, but two tracks, one for users and one for developers led to a wide range in each room. WordCamp Orange County, the previous weekend, had four tracks. WordCamp Boston, next week, has three. On the first day, Designers, Developers, and Intro to WP/WP in Higher Education. The second day has Users/Writers, Business/Entrepreneurs, and a Contributor’s Day track.  That seems like an organization that appeals to me a bit more.

The appeal to me of IndiewebCamp sessions is that they are more interactive. You get to discuss an idea in more detail. I look forward to seeing how that might scale.

I enjoyed WordCamp, and it had a lot to offer. I suppose I am just looking for more opportunities to share interests inside the conference activities, instead of outside them.