Friday: 20:35
I had this post pending for a couple of weeks and you know, time….
I don’t know how long it will take me to write this entry, but I intend to be very brief (I’m sure I won’t succeed) and thus set a precedent for future WordCamps reviews.
The trip
I made the trip with Mónica and Andrés who came from Ferrol and picked me up in Lugo.
Thank you both very much, it has been a wonderful trip, both on the way there and on the way back, and on the way back I was so tired that I was planning to sleep part of the way. Not even for a minute, we spent the whole time in conversation.
It has been a fantastic trip in which we got to know each other a little bit better, thank you Monica and thank you Andres.
The stay
In Torrelodones I stayed with Wajari, my partner of countless adventures, at the PAX Torrelodones hotel. But he fooled me, there was no jacuzzi.
The location was unbeatable, right there was the dinner for speakers, volunteers and organizers, and also just five minutes away from the WordCamp site.
The dinner on Friday was fantastic, but what can we say about the food at any of the WordCamps in Spain?
It must be said, before dinner we were having a few beers with other good friends of the community.
The event
WordCamp kicked off on Saturday. On this occasion I had the great privilege of having them choose one of my talks “WPO with feeling: using DevTools to speed up your web”:
In addition, I had the honor of being sponsored by LucusHost, which means a lot to me, because besides being from my homeland, Lugo, both Jonathan and Maria, are excellent people, and wearing the shirt of a brand that I really believe and trust, is a real luxury.
Of the talks, I have to highlight the one by my friend Wajari, and not just because he is my friend, but because he is a real crack: “Learn local SEO with Petete’s Big Book“, knowledge and fun in equal parts.
Other talks that I also saw, some of them later on WordPress TV because they coincided with others and that I would recommend to you are:
- The importance of knowing the business to interpret data: Fernando Puente never disappoints, a great one.
- Web Accessibility Lesson 1: focus on the content, WordPress will do the rest: Vicent Sanchis is to accessibility what Puente is to caching.
- Change the world with your WordPress: Everything that has the name Juan Hernando, you have to see it, yes or yes, as if it talks about the weather. It never disappoints.
- 10 Changes that improve a sales page (and that you can replicate on yours): A quick talk by our compi Lúa with a lot of crumbs, you can’t miss it.
- Lidia Arroyo Vargas: SEO, strategies for content creation: Another great who has crossed the pond to impress us with her knowledge.
- Engaging with microinteractions: for me Sammy Arburola has been a discovery of this WordCamp that I will follow very closely.
- Anonymous layout designers: detox and embrace the Site Editor: Listen to Flavia, who knows a lot about this and detox, really.
- Hidden tricks and weird and curious things you might not know about WordPress: my counterprogramming, in Track 1. If Fernando says something, it’s Fernando’s word, that’s why he is the WordPress reference in Spanish.
- Discover the trends in web design in 2024: for me, who has no idea about trends at all, it was a marvel. Bravo Maylén.
- Duplicate content and keyword cannibalization in WordPress: How to avoid it: Lucía knows how to give talks that extra something that only a few know and can. No spoilers, but if you don’t see it, you won’t be an Andy and Lucas expert.
- Alzheimer’s vs. Zeigarnik or how to avoid being forgotten about your website: I have been in Pablo’s first talk in Santander in 2017 and I must say that it has been a GrowthHacking of 3000%, a monster, you should never miss a talk of Pablo.
- How is our day to day life with AI as a companion: The first talk I saw from Dámaso and I loved it, very good tricks to keep.
And as you can see, I have enjoyed quite a few live talks or some that I had not been able to, which I have seen as soon as they became available.
In my opinion, the line-up was fantastic, of great quality and very diverse.
Contributor Day
We started the Contributor with a certain tiredness, the result of so much talk the day before, but don’t think it was for any other reason. By the way, if you want to know what a WordCamp After Party is like, you have to attend a WordCamp, as we are very professional and never write about what happens after hours 😜.
As you all know, Contributor is the really important WordPress day, where you contribute to WordPress, which is the main reason for a WordCamp.
And as we got together a few of us from the WordCamp Pontevedra, we are dedicated to start setting up the website of the event that will take place from 20 to 22 September. When we publish the website you will see the results, but now that I have just logged in again I can inform you that the omnipresent presi has already done almost all the work on the website. In the end in the Contributor I put two colors and two blocks and now Sabela has done all the team’s work 🫣.
What is important
For me, the most important thing about a WordCamp is the people, the networking, the chats in the evening, after lunch, etc.
The people you meet again after months, the people that you “devirtualize” after a long time of “knowing” them through the internet, or the new people you meet at WordCamp.
I was delighted that in this WordCamp in Torrelodones we had so many Galicians, Juan, Wajari, Sabela, Lúa, Mónica, Andrés, Sonia, Julio, Jonathan, María, Ángel, José Ramón, Fernando, Julio, Mon, Ohia (the adopted ones also count) and maybe I have forgotten some of them.
I was also delighted to see old friends again and here the list would be too long, so in order not to leave anyone out I will not name all those I had the pleasure of greeting, hugging, chatting and, in short, having a good time with you.
I was delighted to meet Lidia Arroyo, as well as Sammy Arburola and other fellow travelers. It is on the to-do list to attend a WordCamp in Cista Rica and visit its fantastic community, which I met virtually in the Zoom meetings during the pandemic.
I was also delighted to meet people who came to talk to me after the talk with questions, observations and so on, such as Santiago Barrero and Paula with whom I spent some time talking, among other attendees.
I was especially excited to meet Manuel Pernias, Karen Rodríguez and Patricia Ayuso in person. Manuel, that I know you read these reviews, for the year we have to repeat 😉.
The Organization
There is no WordCamp without an organizing team, headed for the second year by Ana Cirujano.
What to say about Ana, there are great, very great and Ana. Not for nothing is he one of the people in the world who has more chats on WordPress TV and the one who has more in Spanish.
This was my first WordCamp in Torrelodones and I must say that everything was great, thank you, Ana. You have done a fantastic job together with the whole team.
Helen Moreno has been at all times aware of everything and everyone, Lidia Marbán has brought us the speakers in palmitas, Jaime as always for everything and everyone … a wonderful organization and excuse me the others that I do not know so much or have not coincided, but between all this great team, you have achieved a fantastic event.
It is clear that WordCamps are great for the people, not for their number and Torrelodones has won me over for future editions. Thank you, Ana and all the team.
PS: Saturday 02:01. In this entry I set out to measure how long it took me to write a “brief” review of a WordCamp, so I wrote at the beginning when I started writing it. In between I stopped for a little less than an hour for dinner.
As you can see, just over 4 hours. Select some photos, adapt them to the size, look at the titles of the talks, Twitter links (sorry X), some websites, correct texts, reread, translate, etc., etc., etc., etc..
And as I know how much work and effort is involved in writing one of these summaries, that’s why I like to read those of friends who publish something and, if possible, comment, because, what less than spending a minute to send a comment, even if it’s just a thank you, when that person has spent several hours to send us their impressions.
