Update: Thank you for the attention so far. Please if you can register and login to just update your avatar in time for this Friday that would be great. Thank you!

It’s exciting to talk about a side project, but as I type this I am sitting in a hotel room during the week of WordCamp US. And it’s almost my bed time. So just a quick summary will have to do for now.

If anyone remembers WPArmchair (which was a central place for some events and WordCamps to see a “social wall”) then this might interest you. If you like highly customized WordPress/BuddyPress sites, then this might interest you too.

Conferencia.io is a work in progress, but i’m ready to open it up to people who want to register and update their profile. The site CAN be considered to be a sequel to WPArmchair – a version 2.0 – but the site can do more than just monitor social feeds and updates from other events and WordCamps. In fact, I would say the OTHER two things i can do would be:

1. Allow members on the network to follow/join events and get notified when that event opens up it’s call for speakers and when the event starts to sell tickets. Personally I was tired trying to monitor a variety of different events and WordCamps and unless you were on Twitter all the time you eventually missed something.
2. Users can update their profile on the site so others can see what events they have attended, are planning to attend, and what events they might be speaking at. Users can even make themselves a “speaker” user type and elect to advertise themselves as a speaker available for speaking roles. So if you’re looking for speakers, you can reach out to these ones via direct messaging.

I’m going to briefly showcase this BuddyPress site at WordCamp US during my talk on BuddyPress.

I would LOVE it if anyone can register, login, and simply update their profile and avatar so we can get the member page looking decent in time for the demo.

Of course this is a BETA so many things needs polish – from code to UX. But i’m looking forward to polishing this and making this available for people to simply add their WordCamp or event and automatically create a dedicated event section (which is in reality a BuddyPress group connected to a blog on a multisite network).

I want to also thank WPEngine for hosting this during WordCamp US weekend. They are on my short list of hosting companies I would trust with a BuddyPress + multisite project like this.

Recently WordCamp US announced the after-party at Luck Strike. If you plan on attending the after party, there’s a brief window to getting a WordPress bowling shirt for the event. Please read all the information below before submitting. And thank you!

Store Is Now Closed! Thanks To Everyone!

Update: The very kind Michelle Schulp has updated our wapuu design. See below.

Update: Women’s Sizes SHOULD be available (although just in case please fill out the ordering form fully) and women’s shirts will be WHITE (not BLACK). We have also removed one design because it wasn’t getting any love. We will reach out to the very few who bought it. You can change your design or you’ll get a refund.

– Sales end at 1pm EST tomorrow (November 19th) 10am EST November 20th.
– These will be American Apparel Next Level shirts (which is similar to American Apparel). As you’ll see in the order form, i will do my best to get women’s sizes. However there’s a chance I might be able to (or not enough, or in right sizes) due to inventory. Please check off if you would like to get a refund if we cannot get the women’s shirt.
– Shirts will delivered to me in time for WordCamp US. I will bring them up to me (or ship them directly to my hotel) in time for the Community Summit. If there is ANY delay or change of plans I will email you directly. If you’re attending the Community summit I can give the shirts out outside of the summit building at lunchtime, or you can find me Friday morning at the WordCamp US venue. Otherwise i’ll hand remaining shirts out at the after party.
– Pick a design but realize that designs might be tweaked at the last minute. Shirt colors are not guaranteed due to inventory. You must be happy with the worse case scenario of getting a black shirt with the artwork.
– While i have permission from WCUS, realize this is NOT an official product of the conference and this is all last minute. Ping me on Twitter if you have questions. Refund policy: for some reason i cannot get the women’s size (and you have checked off that you want the refund under that circumstance) or if by the after-party I don’t have your t-shirt then i’ll refund you via Paypal.
– There’s a slim chance that if you pick a design that isn’t popular (doesn’t sell more than one or two shirts) that i might ask you if you want another design OR issue you a refund.
– YOU MUST BE PRESENT TO RECEIVE THE SHIRT. If by some emergency you are not at WordCamp US let me know and we’ll see how we can get it to you. But please don’t order a shirt unless you plan be at WordCamp US unless you want to pay for shipping.
– In case you were wondering, i am NOT making profit and happy to share the receipts. If by some miracle I actually end up making money, i will donate the funds to the WordPress Foundation.

Designs:

As someone who doesn’t give WordCamp talks often (I organize them, like with WordCamp Miami which is coming up at Feb 19-21), it was especially humbling that I was choosen to speak at the very first WordCamp US (right now the schedule puts me in the late afternoon on Friday December 4th). That’s less than a month away as I write this.

My talk will be about BuddyPress. If you know me at all, this isn’t too surprising since i am (among doing complex WordPress themes and coding plugins) a BuddyPress developer (at various times in my schedule i’m almost a full-time developer on BuddyPress related projects). The talk is aimed at the general audience – perhaps you run a single site, you’re an agency, you work at a higher-educational institution, or you’re a developer trying to bring the maximum amount of value to your client projects.

I’ll be posting slides here right before my talk, but in the meantime there’s still time to grab tickets to WordCamp US. If you can get your butt there physically you can grab a live stream ticket. See you there, one way or the other.

Hard to believe that WordCamp Miami is going into it’s 8th year.This year the lead organizer is a good friend of mine Ptah Dunbar. I can’t think of anyone right now more capable of keeping the ship on course.

One thing that I’m glad that Ptah, myself, and other organizers decided on: t-shirts especially for volunteers. Yeah, I know – sounds small and minor. But bear with me. In the past WordCamp Miami volunteers had various badges – great if you wanted to know if the person right beside you was a volunteer. But you can’t see badges at great (and not so great) distances. Also usually you have to be facing that person and have a direct line of site.

Why is this important and worth a few minutes of reading? Because safety for attendees at conferences should be very prominent in the minds of the organizers. Many times people look for volunteers to find rooms or areas at the venue – but what if they needed to find someone to report a Code of Conduct violation? What if they want to report a problem with the venue or the event that the organizers and volunteer are missing? Something that needs immediate attention. While events should have ways of reporting and notifying volunteers and coordinators of urgent issues privately (something that WordCamp Miami has had in the past, but will greatly improve in 2016), it’s important to take a look around you and easily be able to spot a volunteer.

And that’s why having a UNIQUE BRIGHTLY COLORED t-shirt for volunteers at events is important.

It’s so important that this year, WCMIA put dedicated t-shirts for volunteers into our base budget. Someone wearing a volunteer t-shirt should be approachable and be able to listen first and then if appropriate direct urgent matters to organizers. I know this has been done by MANY WordCamps and events in the past. This is nothing new. But something I thought I would share, as maybe it hasn’t been considered by some.

If you organize an event, consider putting unique shirts for volunteers into your base budget.