Three cheers for WordCamp Manchester 2017!

1 November 2017

Siobhan Hancock

What happened at WordCamp Manchester 2017? 34SP.com sponsored, we spoke, we helped organise it and most importantly we had fun!

My take on WordCamp Manchester 2017:

WordCamps are known to provide a fuel filled weekend of energy and WordCamp Manchester is no exception to this rule. Being the last WordCamp of the year for us, it seemed to go by incredibly fast and with a bang. From my perspective I feel like we fit in quite well at WordCamps in general, simply because of the nature of the conference. We man the 34SP.com stand on the conference day and there’s usually just enough attendees so we aren’t run off our feet and enough that we get to have full conversations with many potential clients.

I love WordCamps. It’s completely worth the early weekend alarm clock. I’m not your typical morning person like some of my colleagues are; it takes good friends, good talks and good coffee to get me pumped in the morning that WordCamps certainly have. Ultimately myself and and my colleagues are there for business and to offer trials on our managed WordPress Hosting, but it’s not all work there’s plenty of time to play. Each of us have different friends in the WordPress community that we like to spend time with. It’s quite easy to make friends at WordCamp, that’s another perk of the job. As staff, we take it in turns to go to the talks. We get quite a bit of downtime to mingle and help out in the happiness bars too. We always look forward to the sponsors party and the after party.

WordCamp Manchester – the big one!

When it comes to WordCamp Manchester we have a great time, however it’s slightly different. After all, WordCamp Manchester is the big one for us. It takes place in our hometown (34SP.com is a UK based web hosting company) and we love to have local clients.

34SP.com @ WordCamp Manchester 2017 #WCMCR

WordCamp Manchester 2017 – Day 1

How often can you say you get to meet all the guys who work at your web hosting company face to face? …and if you do meet the people behind the brand, is it the people who pick up the phone to you on a daily basis or a separate representative crew? That’s the great thing about our 34SP.com staff. Directors, support staff, engineers, developers, marketing dept – you’re likely to find us all there whenever we can come. Thanks to WordCamp there is something there for us all to coax our crew into attending and WordCamp Manchester 2017 was no exception.

This year myself, Daniel, Tim, Kayleigh, Keith, Phil and Lewis had fun at WordCamp. Traditionally that’s a smaller number of us. You’re used to seeing a large 34SP.com staff presence at WordCamp Manchester. Well this year a couple of us hung up the 34SP.com shirts for organiser shirts, helping contribute to WordPress by becoming part of the team… and I tell you what, it’s been a fantastic weekend for all of us.

Hanging up the 34SP.com shirt for the organiser shirt

From March this year myself and our WordPress Specialist Kayleigh Thorpe have been involved in planning WordCamp Manchester. Kayleigh helped out on the design side, myself on social and on day 1 of the conference it was all hands on deck. It’s been a good learning experience for us with plenty of highs and smaller teaching moments.

Like I said, we’re usually there to man the 34SP.com stand with our colleagues, however we both mentioned to management we wanted to experience organising and we were given the green light to go ahead. It’s been a full seven months of Monday night Slack meetings and I guess WordCamp homework, however it’s been a great exercise for us and has ultimately given us an inside look at WordCamps. If you are thinking of organising for WordCamp, I highly encourage you to do it, it’s a good experience. WordCamp Manchester 2018 will call for organisers in January so watch this space.

On Day 1 Kayleigh and I helped the other organisers in ensuring WordCamp Manchester ran smoothly.
Day 1 also saw 34SP.com developer Phil Barton volunteer to help out. Phil very kindly took on the setup work for the AV equipment, he’s a naturally hands on type of guy. He helped make sure WordCamp Manchester got all the great footage it needs for WordPress.tv.
As requested Tim Nash took to the stage for his infamous WordPress Security talk. Make sure to follow him on Twitter @tnash to grab a hold of his slides.
Kayleigh also put her name down for a lightning talk on the popular SEO plugin Yoast whilst Daniel, Keith and our apprentice Lewis were all hands on deck with the 34SP.com stand.

It was a fantastic day and a busy one to say the least. You can see how the day flowed on Twitter – the social media platform of choice for WordCamp Manchester – by searching the official hashtag #WCMCR.

WordCamp Manchester 2017 – Day 2 Contributor Day

I began this blog post initially on Day 2 WordCamp Manchester Contributor Day. As your first week back in work after WordCamp can be a little hectic with client on boarding, it’s good to get a head start. Sat a little wooden table in Ziferblat Manchester, laptop in hand, it was quite a relaxing second day of the conference. We went against the grain choosing a co-working space to host contributor day, hosting work shops and ordering Vietnamese food – that’s a little crazy – but it worked well! So much so I think we’ve set a precedence for WordCamp Manchester 2018. Ziferblat Edge Street very kindly hosted Contributor Day for us after a technical incident at our previous venue and they were great. The WordCamp attendees seemed to agree. If you have a Ziferblat space in your area, get down to it and work from there for a day, I’m sure you’ll agree. We had a nice day enjoyable Contributor Day.