Overall Impressions

Your Suggestions + Our Responses

Schedules

“Basically the only thing I didn’t like—and would make this easier if done—is a centralized Google Calendar (or other similarly sharable format) for the sessions, including details. And the way the Sessions and Schedule was laid out (different names for some, it would have been great to see the details on the schedule page).”

We bailed on the iCal setup this time, thinking it wasn’t being used. Evidently, we were wrong! We’ll do it again for next year. Thanks for letting us know.

As for the Sessions page? The default WordCamp template that we’re forced to use is terribly lousy, we got nothing but complaints about it, and we won’t be using it again.

“It would be helpful to post the session topics at the appropriate rooms in addition to having the schedules.”

Absolutely. For next year, we’ll have more thorough session descriptions posted outside of each room. (Time to re-allocate that printing budget…!)

“[Regarding Mobile] Would have been great if we could have been able to tap on the sessions to see the details rather than having to go to the full site. Spent a lot of time browsing the full site session descriptions each time I wanted to see where I was going next because they weren’t organized by track on the full site.”

We’re going to do better with mobile next year. Dear Brave New Code: We’ll be in touch.

“I heard a rumour that you are going to go back to only one WordCamp next year by combining the two events you had this year. I have to discourage you from doing so!

[...] However, I understand that organizing WordCamp is a really big undertaking. Might I suggest that you put more time in between the two events? Say 4-6 months? [...]“

We’re really, really happy to know that folks enjoyed having two conferences instead of one this year – but it’s just too draining to do again. To put it in perspective, we’ve spent our evenings and weekends since July preparing for WCTO 2012. That’s five months, nearly half a year, plus the meetups! Doing one big WordCamp Toronto 2013 would make our efforts more focused and our logistics much easier to manage.

Update: We don’t know what we’re going to do for 2013 yet. Details TBD.

Speakers & Sessions

“[...] Speakers felt like they only had to time to talk about their topic but not get into it with code and examples. They all generously posted their notes/code online for us to go through at our leisure, but not all together. [...] if the workshops were twice as long, we would be able to get into some code and walk through a few examples. Of course, if some were EXACTLY twice as long, you could still run the same schedule and have the longer workshops fill up two ‘blocks’ of the schedule.”

This is a tough one to get right. Double-length sessions (90 min) would give far more time for applied examples, but it also reduces the variety of talks. One idea we’ve been toying with is to change the track setup to make room for longer workshops and shorter “Introduction to X” sessions.

“It seems the focus was on quantity over quality. I think it could have been narrowed down into 2 tracks with the best speakers and topics.”

The only way for speakers to improve is to get some experience under their belt. Our speakers are volunteers and we’re a community-focused event. We love it when polished presenters and experienced speakers come out, but that’s not our goal.

“More topic with Panels”

“Longer biz panel  Maybe an 11 am stat on Sunday – although the late start was brilliant”

“I also think that the Panel was an absolute success!! I enjoyed it enormously. I suggest that next time it be 2 sessions long instead of just one. I also think more women should be on the panel if possible. You should definitely do at least one other panel, if not more, next time.”

“[...] the Women’s Unconference was also amazing. It too could have spanned two sessions as we were still having a dynamic discussion when our time ran out. Something like this should definitely happen again in the future.”

“It would be nice to see more panel discussions next time. Perhaps the panel discussions could be scheduled to run a bit longer than the presentations.”

“Panels are awesome.”

“I loved the panel on building a WP development business! I wish it was longer!”

“The Business panel was great, but looked like it could have used another hour – or a workshop format. And should have been more about WordPress and less about freelancing.”

“For the panel on business development – longer time to enjoy the questions. Perhaps have people submit questions live or beforehand via twitter and then select the best. Having open questions at the start was perhaps not the best format – get the three or five questions started and then open it up for questions and comments.”

“The one thing I really liked was the panel. I would love to see that taken further and have more interaction. Like most of the presents repeated. There are tons of tutorials and educational material out there but the interaction is something that for me is valuable, especially as work at home contractor.”

The panel was very well received, and we’re definitely planning on doing more of them for WordCamp Toronto 2013 + next year’s WordPress meetups. Our current thoughts are to make the panel sessions 90 minutes long instead of 45 minutes.

“The speakers really should max out their allotted Time slot on the topic. if there is insufficient content to discuss on the topic, then it expand it. [...]”

“Try to vet the speakers a little more, give them some more guidance (especially those who haven’t presented before). Even though it was a developer’s event, one presentation had way too much code and really served no purpose. I could’ve just looked up the code myself if I had wanted.”

“In some of the sessions the presentations tended to stray away from the topic and could have been more structured.”

One attendee suggested we prepare a guide for new speakers. Making good use of presentation time would be included in such a guide.

“I’d really like to se TO rival Montreal in terms of the depth of material for advanced developers. Even the most advanced topics here weren’t all that advanced. Let’s make this an event that even seasoned PHP/WordPress developers can get something out of. Let’s see some core devs attend Toronto – why should Montreal get all the glory?”

Our sessions are determined by the speakers who volunteer to present, so we don’t have much control over content – we just manage it. As for the core developers, we had really bad timing with November. The True North PHP conference was taking place at the same time, and the WordPress Community Summit took place a weekend prior.

 ”More on intro to plugins – there was only one plugin session, but many theme sessions”

Networking

“something to tie everyone together while we’re there like a business card board or ??”

“Organize ways for people to network better. Time before and after (non-after party time) when people can just talk with each other and learn about each other, as opposed to cramming it into 15 minutes during the breaks.”

“What if there was something like “speed dating” where you broke up interest groups ie “plugin dev”, “theme dev”, “need designer”, “mobile”,”multi-language” then had do 3-5 minute conversations, exchange cards. The interest groups would need to be fairly small to get through everyone in say an hour but I think it would grease the networking side of the conference.”

“It was hard to network at the sit down after party. I would have preferred a more casual setting and didn’t feel very comfortable.”

“Afterparty should be more social. The appetizers and drinks were fabulous, just too many places for people to sit down Get rid of all the tables and force people to mingle more.”

Food!

“Liked the lunch at the user WordCamp better, there was more choice.”

“The only thing I’d suggest is figuring out a way to streamline the lunch — the hallway got REALLY crowded with the buffet table down the middle and the people trying to find a seat on the sides.”

“Bigger coffee cups!”

“From talking to a different people it wasn’t at all consistent. My beef was really dry. Some people’s chicken seemed undercooked. I thought the veggies were overdone and limp. I’m super impressed that we weren’t told to fend for ourselves – or even the old standby of pizza – but maybe next year a selection of sandwiches and salads would be better.”

Other Stuff

“Women’s tshirts.”

“There were a few times when the audio went down for the speakers or the portable mic wasn’t set up properly. Perhaps giving newbie or all speakers a short demo on how to set everything up so that A. audio always works, B. they feel confident with using it and C. people aren’t turned off by someone sitting up there fooling around with audio.”

Again, a big thank you to everyone who submitted feedback! We’ll take these notes and add them to our planning documents for 2013′s meetups + WordCamp conference.

All the best,

The WordCamp Toronto Organizers Team

We sold out in September, we sold out in November. Combined, we had nearly 600 registrants for 2012, with folks coming in from around the globe. (A shout out to our brothers-in-WP from Montreal, Quebec!)

To our speakers, volunteers, sponsors, and — most of all — everyone who attended: thank you! We could not have pulled this off without your support. An especially big thank you to Tailor Made Café, who spoiled us with amazing food – pop into their location if you’re ever around Davisville and Yonge!

What’s Next?

• Miss a presentation? No worry – videos will be posted on WordCamp.tv
• Online presentations will be linked from our Slide Decks page.
• How did we do? View the results of our feedback survey.
• Join our community groups! Check out our meetups on Meetup.com, Like us on Facebook to receive updates, and chat with other WordPress pros on our LinkedIn group. Follow us on Twitter for future event updates and useful WordPress links.
• Photos and social media updates are aggregated here: RebelMouse and Eventifier.

Have any other comments? Contact us and we’ll get back to you when we can.

Thanks again, from your faithful organizers,
Al, Andy, Craig, and Val

Tomorrow is the big day! WordCamp Toronto: Developers 2012 kicks off at 8:00am in the morning @ George Brown College. Registration is on the 4th floor, along with coffee and breakfast goodies.

Here’s our latest batch of updates:

The final schedule (PDF) and mobile schedule are now available on our schedule page. The printed agendas we provide tomorrow morning will be *mostly* up to date, but there will be a few changed speakers in the Beginner’s Track.

Introducing new speakers: Chad Mohr, Christopher Ross, and Sam Xu. Chad and Christopher will be familiar faces for anyone who has attended WordCamp Toronto in the past. Sam is a regular attendee at Toronto WordPress Group meetups. Check out their presentations on our Sessions page.

If you have any questions, contact us and we’ll get back to you as quickly as we can. See you tomorrow!

This workshop has been designed for absolute beginners. If you know absolutely nothing about coding or computer programming or WordPress, you’ve come to the right place! Our only expectation is that you know how to open up a web browser and do something online like checking your email. (But if you’re reading this, we’re pretty sure you know how to do that.)

This is an excellent opportunity for you to increase your exposure as a WordPress expert, get some hands-on training experience, and indulge in a free lunch.

Interested? Fill out the application!

Instead, the customer service team at Moo will be contacting each recipient individually to arrange alternative delivery. You won’t receive your cards in time for this weekend, but you will receive your cards.

Moo’s customer service team is available if you have any questions or concerns about your order. Alternatively, if you’d like to voice a complaint about the hurricane, please scream loudly into the wind – Mother Nature will take your call in priority sequence.

Get your ticket today!

NOTE: We’re looking for someone to replace Joe Rozsa’s Beginner session on Saturday morning. If you’re interested, please get in touch with us ASAP. Your session should be a basic, 101 introduction to development and complement our current session lineup.

What’s new this week?

Speakers

Joe Rozsa and John James Jacoby have fallen victim to other obligations, and we mourn the loss of these two noble speakers. (Next year, gentlemen!) But we do have new additions to the roster: Trevor Mills, Jonathan Davis, John Hartley, and panel moderator Brent Kobayashi have confirmed their attendance. Huzzah! Check out the Speakers page for more details.

Sessions

You know the drill – new speakers, new sessions. We’ve updated our itinerary to include presentations from our new presenters, plus some missing descriptions that should have been posted already but weren’t. (Yup, my fault.)

Schedule Update

We’ve updated our Schedule page with the latest version. (PDF!)

Moo Cards

If you haven’t ordered your business cards yet, you have a day to sneak the orders in! The cut-off date for Moo cards is tomorrow (October 27th) at 8:30PM EST. Please note that a rush print fee is required. Check our sponsor page for more details.

Tickets to AngelHack Toronto

We have six tickets to give away for AngelHack Toronto! This is the first year that Toronto has been included in the international coding competition. Winners will be selected at random tomorrow evening, so if you’re interested in winning, simply fill out the form.

ALSO: Use coupon code ILOVEWPTORONTO to save 30% on the cost of registration for AngelHack Toronto! This code has a 30 use limit, so first come, first serve. Get your tickets today!

Thanks to Hackernest Toronto for providing these awesome perks.

• More speakers. The majority of our presenters have been confirmed, we’re only waiting on a few people to send us their bios and presentation notes. You can check out our full roster on the Speakers page.
• More sessions. Presenters wouldn’t do much good without presentations! We’ve updated our Sessions page with the new entries.
• A draft schedule. This is pretty close to final, but it may change in the next two weeks. You can grab a copy (PDF) from our Schedule page.
• Change of plans for the After Party on November 3rd. Habaneros, the host of our last two WordCamp after parties, has closed. So we’re moving down the street to Hot House Café at the corner of Church and Front St. Drinks will be provided yet again, so as the saying goes… don’t be stupid, be a smarty – come and join our after party!

A Shout Out to AngelHack, the world’s largest hackathon, coming to T.O.!

We have free tickets to give away to six lucky WordCamp Toronto: Developers attendees! Want to enter? Simply fill out this form. Winners will be chosen at random next week.

• Kirk Wight: Member of the WordPress Theme Review Team and organizer of WordCamp Montreal 2013 (they like to plan early).
• Taylor Dewey: WordPress developer with 10up LlC, a high-end WordPress.com VIP development partner.
• Arley McBlain: A talented front-end developer and contributor to CSS Tricks. Imported straight from Burlington, Ontario exclusively for WordCamp Toronto: Developers!
• Jeremy Clarke: WordPress developer & WordCamp Montreal organizer from the beautiful province of Quebec. (Welcome back to Toronto!)
• Shannon Smith: A seasoned WordCamp presenter & WordPress developer from Montreal.
• Erick Hitter: Erick is a Design Engineer with Automattic and the author of numerous WordPress plugins. Erick’s presentation in September was well received, and we’re very excited to have him join us again in November!
• Marko Heijnen: Contributing developer to the WordPress Core hailing from the Netherlands.

The Speakers page will be updated as more confirmations roll in.

In other news, we’ve compiled our survey results for WordCamp Toronto 2012. You can check out the feedback on the WordCamp Toronto 2012 website.

The promotional discount — $119 per night — is still active. To get this discounted rate, you must call the hotel directly at 416-367-5555 and request the discount group rate for WordCamp Toronto.

Please note that cancellations may be subject to a one-night penalty fee. The staff at Holiday Inn Express can provide more details about their policy when you call.

We’ll start confirming speakers in the next week or so. Along with speakers, we’ll be adding to this website as other details are settled.

Interested in presenting? Check out our Become a Speaker page for more information and fill in the form.

Subscribe for updates! If you haven’t already, sign up for our mailing list. It’s the best way to keep up-to-date on important announcements. We don’t spam (one email a week, max!), and you’ll never have your address handed to a 3rd party.

And, of course, don’t forget to pick up your tickets! September sold out really fast, and we suspect that November’s tickets will go flying when we start announcing speakers.