A year ago, we had a nice turnout for the first WordCamp in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. That event was announced about 8 months in advanced, and dew in quite a few speakers from throughout the United States. We had 5 tracks spanning from 9:00AM to 7:00PM. Actual attendance numbers were never released, but somewhere between 250 and 400 people is a good estimate.
Will there be a WordCamp MSP 2011?
The short answer is no. The organizers from last year have yet to announce anything for this year, and it is too late to fit an event in this year. Someone asked this on the MSP WordPress User Group back in August, and my answer was the same at that time.
However, back in August it was still possible to pull off the event before the end of the year, we’re firmly in “it’s too late” territory now. Organizing this scale of an event takes a ton of time—the last one had someone working on it more or less full time for two months, with the aid of several interns.
Going local for winter 2011/2012
My reply did get the community talking. There will be an event this winter, most likely in the late January/early February time-frame. One of the several things being tossed around is trying to keep this event local, in line with the original intent of WordCamp. Recently, and culminating with WordCamp San Fransisco 2011, there has been a trend for WordCamps to grow much larger than originally intended.
The idea is to buck that trend. And, the event may not even be called WordCamp. Currently, there is desire within the user group to have a BarCamp-style unconference dedicated to WordPress and related topics. This stems from the desire to distance the event from the WordCamp MSP 2010 event.
More information on the winter event will be made available once more of the details have been ironed out. Check back here or the MSP WordPress User Group website for updates.
-John Havlik
[end of transmission, stay tuned]
Is there a member list I can join for updates on WordPress Activity here in the Twin Cities? I tried logging in on the MSP WordPress User Group site with my wordpress and password to no avail. I use wordpress.org not the .com is that the difference?
Sarah,
The MSP WordPress User Group’s website is not affiliated with WordPress.com, or the WordPress.org websites. You will need to register on that site to have an account on it (I can’t remember is registration is open or not). Most of our discussions take place on the MSP WordPress Google Group that is the place to keep in touch with the WordPress community in the Twin Cities area.
As a user group, we meet monthly, on the fourth Thursday of the month, except in November and December (due to conflicts with Thanksgiving and Christmas). I highly recommend attending a user group meeting. In December we’re going to do a user group “Happy Hour”, Toby is working on getting something together for that.
-John Havlik