It was bound to happen at some point in time. It was on my wish-list ever since I heard that the WordPress community is organizing events that gather the most talented and most inspiring people, people that work with WordPress.

After I attended last years WordCamp in Cluj, RO (which was my first WordCamp ever) I knew that someday I'll be on that stage speaking about one of the things I know best, WordPress.

Planning

When I saw the call for speakers, within 10 minutes I submitted a talk proposal and surely my talk was accepted, within a week or so. Of course I was super excited about the news and I stared planning the talk and also the whole trip.

This time around the WordCamp Romania edition was held in Timisoara. A beautiful city in it's own way, to bad the historical part of the city was under construction when I was there. I wish I could have seen the real beauty behind all that rubble.

The date was set, on the 28 June I was to speak on a stage before 100+ people about WordPress development anywhere. In case you missed the page on the left where I talk about me speaking at conferences and share the slides to each of my talks you can find the slides to this talk, here.

In short I talk about how developers can start a WordPress instance in just seconds with Koding and how they can collaborate, in real time, to get the best results.

The talk

I won't get into any trip details, because this time around everything worked as expected and I got there in one piece.

The day of the talk came around and I was the first of the speakers to arrive. I should mention I arrived a day early to do a bit of sight seeing and to find out where exactly I was going to speak.

After some breakfast and some awesome swag from the swag table I started mentally preparing while listening to the people that had talks before mine. Everyone was awesome and it was an absolute pleasure to talk on the same stage with people the are much wiser then me and that have worked with WordPress for a very long time. A big shout-out to @danstefancu for the encouragement and support before and after the talk.

The actual talk went great, the Q&A session was impressive, and as always the demo was rubbish, but it doesn't matter because I already made my point. I got a lot of pertinent questions and I hope I answered all of them. If I didn't I apologize.

En fin

So as to wrap this up, I had an amazing time at this years WordCamp Romania. The organizers did an amazing job with the event. The food was out of this world, the people were really kind, welcoming and supportive. I can say that it was by far the best conference experience I ever had.

Needles to say, now I'm planning on doing a WordCamp closer to home, it probably won't be as awesome as the one I just attended but who knows.

What experience have you had with WordCamp so far? Have you participated at any, as a speaker or attendee? Let me know in the comments bellow.

And before I forget, in a future article I'll post some of my tips on how to have an awesome talk, so stick around if you want to find out more.

Until next time, code long and prosper!

Stefan

WordCamp Romania 2014 | Conference Adventures – Episode 3