After heading to Chicago this weekend for my first ever WordCamp, I am happy to say the experience was definetly positive.  This WordCamp was a two day event located in the UBS Towers, which is right in downtown Chicago.

The line up of speakers was hot (Liz Strauss, Doug Hanna, Jeremy Wright, Erin Blaskie, Micah Baldwin, David Dalka, Kevin Palmer, Jim Turner, Tim Frick, Matt Mullenweg) and the seats were packed.  My two beefs with the line-up is I was search for a bit more technical knowledge and I would have like to see a bit mroe WordPress centric talk instead of more general web talk.  To their credit, the organizers did mention the idea of two tracks for the second WPChicago. 

My biggest takeaway from the weekend is probably how much potential WordPress has.  And that is intentional – baked in, not a mistake.  That is, I think, why I like it so much.  Also the networking.

Oddly enough there were a good number of Iowa people there. I met 3.  I probably missed one.  We also met some cool guys from Michigan.  (Ya I know – don’t tell them…Michigan people cannot know that they are cool.)  There we out placed newspaper guys looking for some new paths, I think they may have found one.

Now my biggest chore is to go back to the company I work for and convince them.  Sometimes it’s OK not to spend big $ on a platform.  It will be OK. 

Wish me luck.

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