The staff has returned from WordCamp Europe 2023, which happened in Athens. From exploring town’s iconic landmarks to immersing ourselves in participating periods and connecting with fellow WordPress lovers, learn on as we recap the highlights of WordCamp Europe 2023.
WordCamp Europe is an annual convention that brings collectively WordPress lovers, builders, designers, bloggers, and professionals from throughout the globe. It’s a celebration of the whole lot WordPress, the place attendees collect to be taught, share data, join with like-minded people, and discover the newest traits and developments within the WordPress ecosystem.
What’s a WordCamp?
Normally scheduled round a sequence of displays and workshops. WordCamps are conferences the place individuals with an curiosity in WordPress—from newcomers to specialists—come collectively, share their data and be taught from one another.
WordCamps happen everywhere in the world, organised by native WordPress communities. On a bigger scale, flagship occasions reminiscent of WordCamp US, WordCamp Europe, and WordCamp Asia convey collectively WordPress customers from broader geographic areas, fostering a way of unity and collaboration.
Our journey with WordCamps started again in 2011 at WordCamp Portsmouth UK. The nice and cozy and inclusive ambiance welcomes individuals from numerous backgrounds and talent ranges. Since then, we’ve got actively participated in and sponsored quite a few WordCamp occasions all through the UK, which have performed an necessary function in our skilled growth and progress inside the WordPress ecosystem.
WordCamp Europe 2023 – Athens
Athens supplied the proper backdrop for this yr’s gathering of WordPress lovers. WordCamp Europe 2023 was held on the Megaron Athens Worldwide Convention Centre, a powerful venue that supplied ample area to unfold out and take advantage of the occasion. With an attendance of 2545 people from 94 international locations, it was really a world gathering of WordPress lovers.
The convention boasted a lineup of 102 audio system from 29 international locations, providing a various vary of periods over the course of two days. The schedule catered to numerous pursuits and talent ranges, reflecting the inclusive ethos that WordPress and WordCamp occasions embrace. With a number of talks operating concurrently throughout three tracks and two workshop tracks, attendees had a busy itinerary to select from. Moreover, the WP Join area and wellness monitor supplied a extra relaxed and casual ambiance.
Past the displays and workshops, the occasion supplied alternatives to interact with sponsors, from the large names in WordPress plugins and companies, all the way down to smaller area of interest corporations.
We caught up with the WooCommerce staff at their sales space, creatively designed with a WooCommerce purple storefront theme (there’s a intelligent WooCommerce pun in there someplace). The staff guided us via their demo WooCommerce retailer, the place we had the possibility to “buy” some olive oil. This not solely confirmed off the performance of WooCommerce, it was additionally a surprisingly clean means of capturing contact particulars and advertising consent. We had been delighted to take dwelling a travel-friendly bottle of olive oil, full with oregano and a Greek salad recipe—an enthralling Greek-themed freebie.
We additionally spoke with the WPML staff at their stand, one other trusted plugin associate of ours. Our dialogue proved to be extremely productive as we delved into the challenges we encountered and the teachings discovered from a current enterprise-scale multilingual mission. Collectively, we explored the answer we developed and shared insights on potential enhancements for integrating WPML with the LearnDash LMS.
The group sales space on the occasion was a hub of exercise, offering props for taking selfies and a spot to ask concerning the numerous WordPress mission groups. A distinguished function was the map of Europe, the place attendees might mark their places with sticky dots, visually representing the group’s geographic variety. That is the place my colleague Laura found there was one other attendee from her hometown of Valladolid. She took to Twitter and finally efficiently situated the individual with old-school offline networking expertise!
In between periods, while searching for the quiet room for a second of calm… we by chance stumbled right into a Tai chi session, simply because it was about to start. Scheduled as a part of the wellness monitor, we gave it a go—this impromptu expertise supplied a possibility for staff constructing, and served as a refreshing pause to chill out and rejuvenate!
Discuss highlights
10 issues that each one WordPress plugin builders ought to keep away from
David Artiss
David delivered a enjoyable and informative speak, sharing his prime 10 plugin annoyances. He emphasised the necessity to avoid aggressive promotion, to keep away from inconsistent admin menu placement and look. Moreover, David inspired builders to chorus from creating bloated customized UIs, ideally a plugin ought to seamlessly mix in with the native WordPress interface. Whereas David’s speak could not have supplied rapid options to all of the challenges confronted by WordPress customers worldwide, his objective to open a dialogue with the WordPress growth group was profitable. The Q&A session grew to become a secure area for attendees to voice their very own grievances!
Don’t promote WordPress prefer it’s 2016: the evolving panorama of WordPress advertising
Afshana Diya
WordPress has advanced from it’s early days as a running a blog platform to a strong ecosystem able to creating eCommerce, membership websites, and even cell apps. Afshana emphasised the necessity for entrepreneurs to adapt their approaches to successfully promote WordPress within the ever-changing digital panorama.
Key takeaways from the speak embrace the significance of understanding the audience, cultivating a passionate and dynamic staff, creating compelling merchandise, harnessing related expertise and instruments, staying up to date with the newest traits and developments, and adopting sustainable and moral advertising practices.
WP-CLI for PHP builders
Milana Cap
On this workshop session, Milana went past reside demonstrations of WP-CLI instructions and as an alternative centered on exploring how WP-CLI can work with different instruments to deal with the particular wants and on a regular basis duties of PHP builders. By leveraging WP-CLI’s command line capabilities, builders can streamline information processing duties, optimise their workflows and improve their productiveness and effectivity in managing and remodeling information inside WordPress.
AI in WordPress
Sujay Pawar, Gabriella Laster, Daniel Kanchev, Shane Pearlman & Constanze Kratel
A panel dialogue on the potential of Synthetic Intelligence (AI) as an accelerator inside the WordPress ecosystem. The panelists mentioned numerous use instances of AI, together with how its already being utilised in manufacturing. Internet hosting corporations are leveraging AI to reinforce assist and documentation. AI can get rid of the “clean canvas syndrome”—it’s simpler to begin with one thing somewhat than nothing. Themes are exploring methods to harness AI for kickstarting new web site era—producing a web site construction primarily based on the customers particular use case.
WordPress prolonged: construct distinctive web sites on prime of WP
Petya Petkova
Avoid cookie-cutter design and add a contact of uniqueness to make your web site memorable. Petya emphasised that the visible enchantment of a web site performs an important function in making a constructive first impression. Incorporate fluid animations, scrollytelling methods, and a transparent content material construction to create participating consumer experiences.
State of WordPress safety – insights from 2022
Oliver Sild
Beneficial insights into the safety panorama of the WordPress ecosystem. Key takeaways included ongoing efforts to resolve previous and simply exploitable bugs, the necessity to promptly tackle safety points within the software program provide chain and the challenges in reporting vulnerabilities to plugin builders.
Oliver spoke concerning the threat posed by unsupported plugins within the WordPress ecosystem. When a safety situation arises in an deserted plugin, it may be faraway from the WordPress.org plugin repository. Nonetheless, web site house owners are left unaware of the vulnerability. He really useful that WordPress implement a visual safety alert within the dashboard each time a plugin is pulled from the repository as a consequence of a safety concern.
Attendees had been inspired to take proactive steps in minimising safety dangers and strengthening the general safety of their WordPress web sites.
The artwork of the code evaluate
Tim Nash
Tim emphasised the significance of code evaluations in bettering code reliability and fostering a collaborative work setting. Attendees discovered that code evaluations are usually not only a job to be accomplished, however alternatives for enchancment. Key takeaways included recognising the importance of language in code evaluations, understanding suggestions as a steady loop, and realising the advantages of pairing for code evaluations, benefiting each senior and junior builders.
Variations on a theme: 20 years of WordPress
Matt Mullenweg, Josepha Haden Chomphosy & Matías Ventura
A panel dialogue reviewing the accomplishments and learnings of the WordPress mission in 2023. Key takeaways included the reactivation of WordCamps, the introduction of WordPress Playground, updates on the progress plan for Gutenberg, plans for a brand new strategy to translating blocks, perception into the long run affect of AI with Matt quipping “be taught AI deeply”. Attendees gained useful insights into the previous, current, and way forward for WordPress and its persevering with evolution.
WooExpert Comfortable Hour
As one among solely three UK-based Platinum stage WooExpert companions, we had been delighted to be invited to the WooExpert Comfortable Hour occasion. Happening after the primary day of the convention, because the solar set, it supplied a relaxed ambiance to take pleasure in a drink or two and join with the WooCommerce staff and fellow WooExperts. We met some nice individuals, together with some pretty individuals from fellow businesses digicube and Atomic Smash.
The EU WooExpert Awards ceremony happened in the course of the night. Kanuka Digital was shortlisted for The Innovator Award for our work within the music area, constructing multi-format music shops on WooCommerce. Whereas our journey to say the Innovator Award could have fallen brief, we loved networking with the WooCommerce staff and fellow WooExpert companions from throughout Europe.
A bit of sightseeing
Throughout our time in Athens, we had been lucky sufficient to have a couple of moments to go to the principle vacationer points of interest of town. Athens has a wealthy cultural heritage and is thought for its historic monuments, such because the Acropolis, which is dwelling to the Parthenon. The Acropolis Museum shows lots of the sculptures from the Parthenon and different buildings on the positioning.
We took a strolling tour of the long-lasting Acropolis and The Acropolis Museum. Our information shared tales and historic insights alongside the way in which. We took the time to wander, and our explorations led us via the picturesque Anafiotika neighborhood, with its conventional Cycladic-style homes, earlier than meandering via the bustling Monastiraki Flea Market.
We stumbled throughout the Historic Agora of Athens, the place we discovered the Temple of Hephaestus and Stoa of Attalos, that are among the many greatest preserved monuments in Athens.
Our temporary exploration of Athens, its structure and historical past, meals and tradition made for a memorable go to.
Conclusion
We want to categorical our because of the numerous organisers, volunteers, audio system, sponsors, and fellow attendees who performed a big function in making WordCamp Europe 2023 a very memorable expertise.
After a difficult interval by which many occasions had been both postponed or held just about as a result of pandemic, we had been thrilled that WordCamp Europe 2023 was as soon as once more in a position to happen in individual. With the ability to collect collectively, face-to-face, with like-minded people from across the globe was a breath of recent air. We left feeling impressed and reinvigorated, and with a newly found ardour for Tai chi?
As we bid farewell to this exceptional metropolis, we supply with us the reminiscences of our explorations and the data gained from WordCamp Europe 2023. It was an ideal fusion of studying, networking, and cultural immersion that may by no means be forgotten. As we glance forward, we’re already eagerly anticipating WordCamp Europe 2024, which can happen within the enchanting metropolis of Torino. Till subsequent time!