Week in Review — WordCamp Boston

Blog, WordCamps

Another great week connecting with the WordPress community at WordCamp Boston.

The BoldGrid team arrived Friday morning and stayed on the MIT campus. We met up with a group of WordPress people at the Citizen Public House across from Fenway Park and enjoyed lively conversation with teams from many other companies. 
Fun fact: Did you know MIT invented pencils that have seeds in them? It’s true! Called Sprout Pencils, when you wear them down to stubs you can plant them and grow herbs in your garden.
The next morning we arrived at Boston University to setup our booth. We spent the day talking to people about WordPress and showing them the new features in BoldGrid. One of the cool things we noticed was the extra effort by event organizers to include everyone, regardless of race, religion, or gender identity. Just like last weekend at WPCampus, this event provided visitors with flags to help them declare their personal pronouns. WordCamp Boston even provided an assigned “all gender” bathroom (an idea we saw at WordCamp US, as well). It is really great to see the WordPress community fostering even more inclusion and acceptance of all of its diverse users. That evening we went to the White Horse Tavern for the after party. They had plenty of local beers on tap and the conversation flowed as freely as the spirits. While there, we received an invite to another event to see the Blue Man Group. We gladly accepted! As a good omen for MikeDemo, our brand evangelist, we received a Blue Headed Rubber Duck at the show. He believed this foretold a positive outcome for his presentation the next day (you’ll understand why in a minute). Following the show, we did dinner and a quick visit to the traditional WordCamp Karaoke party at the Limelight Stage and Studio. On Sunday, the BoldGrid team attended the speaker and sponsor brunch at Tavern in the Square. Kudos to the organizers for making this a really unique event. We really enjoyed our brunch with all the other speakers and sponsors. Afterwards, we went back to the venue for the last day of WordCamp. MikeDemo gave his classic A/B testing duck talk (that’s why the Blue Headed Rubber Duck was such a good omen!). You can see what that was all about from the wonderful notes Meagan O’Brien did: This was the first event for William W one of our support reps. While a few of us have done more of these events than we can count, we love hearing what newcomers think of these experiences. William reflected on his first WordPress experience:
With this being my first time attending WordCamp, and also my first time interacting with the WordPress community in person, I was not sure what to expect. I can say now that everyone involved with the Boston WordCamp was a delight to interact with. The excitement and enthusiasm expressed by all the organizers, volunteers, sponsors, and attendees was certainly infectious and I had a blast getting to meet so many new people that I hope to see again at the next WordCamp.
Alas, all good things much come to an end. So, at the end of the day, we tore down our booth and headed off to dinner with some other presenters. What a tremendous time we had in Boston, and what a great event!  Please visit us on the next stop of the BoldGrid roadshow at WordCamp Minneapolis.