WordCamp US 2024 | Kanoppi recap and highlights

Summary

Here are Louise’s highlights from the 2024 WordCamp US WordPress community event.

WordCamp US 2024 in Portland

I was thrilled to attend WordCamp Portland in Oregan USA, in September. This event is an annual celebration of all the talented, hard-working people across the USA who make the WordPress community so special.

The event lasted four days (the contributor day, a new project showcase day and two conference days) and included many interesting talks, presentations, panel discussions, networking, and more.

Tuesday, September 17 – Contributor day

Contributor Day is a celebration of the WordPress community spirit, designed to unite people who want to contribute to the project.

Sustainability Table

I was the table lead for the Sustainability Table. During the day, it was quiet, as not many people had signed up to contribute to this table.

We reviewed some ideas for making WordCamps more sustainable and what could be included on the event’s sustainability page, including:

• Collect the mode of travel and where they travel from when people buy a ticket so it is possible to calculate travel emissions.
• Train travel competition if coming by train rather than flying
• Sustainability page in the top level menu, which includes information on:
  • Minimising food waste
  • Locally sourced food
  • Minimising printing
  • Print is high-quality or recyclable materials
  • Calculating the conference’s carbon footprint
• Including specific information on wellbeing.
• Device recycling – partnering with a local organisation to take old tech devices during the conference
• Holding a Mascot auction for a local charity
• Holding a Sponsor contest to evaluate green credentials for swag and stands.

Then I had a productive discussion with the Hosting Table about what they could include in a guide to sustainable WordPress hosting. By the end of the day, they had created their first draft of this guide. View the Hosting Guide here.

I also learned about the Index MySQL for Speed plugin which helps with the sustainability and performance of very large websites with thousands of users and pages by adjusting the database indexing.

There is also an outstanding Trac ticket. I spoke with the Performance Table about this. It is unlikely to be included in Core so using the plugin is the best approach for now.

Wednesday, September 18 – Showcase day

This was the first time a WordCamp had a showcase day and it did not disappoint. My two favourite talks were both from our friends at agency Human Made.

How We Grew and Optimized RecipeTin Eats to Reach 45 Million Monthly Views (from 25M)

Jon Ang and Stuart Shields talked about how they improved the Recipe Tin Eats website without a full rebuild.

They made basic improvements to the theme and then rebuilt specific pages, using A/B testing to increase engagement to 45M monthly views.

A Technical Deep Dive Into Our Favorite Features of the New Harvard Gazette Site

Joeleen Kennedy spoke about some of the custom blocks and features developed for the Harvard Gazette website.

This talk included some really interesting code examples and specific guidance on how they extended the block editor.

Thursday, September 19 – Full event, day one

Building a Customer Success Team

I really enjoyed the talk by Michelle Frechette about building a customer success team.

This included great advice on ‘being human’ and practical tips on communicating with customers and the best way to write to them.

Friday, September 20 – Full event, day two

Uber for Nurses: The Power of WordPress

The talk by Amber Hinds and Steve Jones on their ‘Uber for nurses’ app was really interesting, showing how WordPress can be used for apps as well as websites,

They spoke about how they planned the project, customising the admin, considered data storage and building in accessibility right from the start.

Leveraging AI to Accelerate Your Digital Workflow

I also enjoyed the talk by Robbie Adair about how to use various AI tools to help with workflow and marketing; the specific examples and demos mean I have a few ideas to follow up on to help with our workflow!

Lots of fun too!

And, of course, no WordCamp would be complete without making new friends, meeting old friends and a party. So thank you to Equalize Digital, WP Engine, Stellar WP and Hostinger.

The after-party was at the Oregan Museum of Science and Industry, which made my inner geek very happy. I never expected to visit a planetarium to see a Taylor Swift show!

Portland, Oregan

I also enjoyed Portland, there is a lovely art museum and the world’s largest bookshop.

Next year Portland again!

If you’ve never attended WordCamp US before, we’d highly recommend putting it in your calendar for next year – Portland, Oregan on 26th to 29th August.

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