Category Archives: Announcements

Child Care will be available for WordCamp Seattle

We are pleased to announce that we have made arrangements with the Child Learning and Care Center to provide child care during WordCamp this year!

The Child Learning and Care Center is located inside University Congregational United Church of Christ, just across the street from UW’s campus. They will offer child care for children aged 15 months to 8 years, from 8:00am to 5:30pm. They have lots of yummy food planned (and can accommodate allergies and special diets) and lots of fun activities, including art projects, books, board games, and some outdoor excursions.

Cost for child care for the day will be $100. Parents will need to fill out registration forms and pay the Child Care and Learning Center directly.

We will make the registration forms and payment information available when WordCamp tickets go on sale.

Speaker Coaching with Scott Berkun

We are very lucky to be able to offer a wonderful opportunity to WordCamp speakers this year: a speaker coaching session led by Scott Berkun. Scott is a best-selling author and speaker. In addition to his books, he has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, Wired magazine, Forbes, USA Today, Wired, Fast Company, National Public Radio, The Huffington Post and other media. He has spoken at hundreds of events – in fact, he gave the keynote at WordCamp Seattle 2012.

Among his books are Confessions of a Public Speaker, which offers entertaining and practical advice for people who want to speak in public, and The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work, about the year Berkun spent working for Automattic (the company that runs WordPress.com) and how Automattic functions with a 100% distributed workforce.

This is an amazing opportunity for speakers to learn from a veteran speaker and coach. Speakers of every experience level will learn something valuable from Scott. We are very grateful to him for offering this opportunity to our speakers!

Speaker Brainstorming and Confidence-building Events

Are you thinking of giving a talk at WordCamp, but you are quite sure what to talk about?

Do you want to talk at WordCamp, but you’re nervous about public speaking?

Then come join us for our Talking About WordPress events! At these events, we will brainstorm ideas for talks you can give at WordCamp or at our regular WordPress meetups. We will generate outlines for our talks, and even get a little bit of practice speaking in front of a small group.

Please note that one of these events is for women only. Women face a few extra obstacles when speaking at tech events, so we’ll discuss those obstacles and how to overcome them.

We hope to see you at these meetups!

April 1, 7pm-9pm: Women Talking About WordPress
April 2, 7pm-9pm: Talking About WordPress

Call for Speakers Now Open!

Our Call for Speakers is now open! We will accept proposals until April 18, 2014.

We know we have a really knowledgeable community, so we’re excited to see the topics you’re interested in presenting this year.

If you’re thinking, “Wow, I’d really love to speak at WordCamp, but I don’t know what to talk about!” we’ve got you covered! Later this month, we will host two brainstorming events where we can come up with ideas, start to outline talks, and even practice giving short talks. We also have a survey to find out what topics people want to hear about: we’ll publish the results of that survey soon!

If you’re thinking, “But I’ve never spoken in front of a big group before and that makes me nervous!” fear not! We are also planning some speaker training events, so if you’re nervous about speaking, you’ll get a chance to practice and get some expert advice before you speak.

If you’re thinking, “I wish I could do something other than just stand in front of the room and talk,” then we’re ahead of you on that one too. This year, we are open to a variety of formats for your talks. We will have a workshop track, where you can guide your audience through a task or project. You can also facilitate a panel discussion, group discussion, or series of lighting talks.

So what’s stopping you? Go submit your talk idea(s)!

Officially Announcing WordCamp Seattle 2014

It is with great pleasure that we announce WordCamp Seattle is officially on the calendar for 2014!

WordCamp Seattle will be Saturday, June 28th, 2014 at The HUB, a fantastic building on The University of Washington campus, and the same venue WordCamp was held last year. We received rave reviews of the venue from last year’s attendees, and are very excited to be back for another year.

hub_sw_entrance

You can find more details about the venue on the location page of this site.

Follow WordCampSeattle on twitter or subscribe using the form in the sidebar to stay up to date on the most recent news. We’ll be keeping you posted on all the details over the coming months, including speaker submissions, ticket sales and more!

Cheers!
Your Organizing Team