We’re accepting applications to speak at WordCamp Philly 2018 through 11:59 pm Eastern Time on Tuesday, July 31.
Our Themes for 2018
For 2018, WordCamp Philly has adopted a few themes we feel are uniquely Philadelphian. This year, we’re focused on Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, and Independence, as we recognize Philly as a City of Firsts. In sharing these themes, we see an opportunity for our local WordPress community to deepen the sense of belonging that many of us already feel, and to broaden the scope of people who feel invited to and welcomed by our community.
Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection
The name Philadelphia draws its meaning from Greek. Philadelphia literally means the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection.
Possible talk ideas or considerations:
- How are you using WordPress to cross bridges or build communities?
- How can empathy be incorporated into design, development, or teaching?
- What steps are you taking with your website to make sure everyone feels the love? Accessibility tools? Transcripts for videos and podcasts?
Independence
The Declaration of Independence was drafted and signed in Philadelphia. The Liberty Bell calls Philadelphia home.
Possible talk ideas or considerations:
- The importance and value of owning your own platform
- How can WordPress help people gain their own financial independence?
- The need to free ourselves from our own biases to deliver our best designs or code
City of Firsts
Philadelphia was the capital of the Pennsylvania Colony, founded by William Penn. It was also the first capital of both the United States and of Pennsylvania as a state. It housed the first public library. And it was home to the country’s first World’s Fair.
Possible talk ideas or considerations:
- What new or groundbreaking uses for WordPress have you developed?
- What have you done for the first time with WordPress? Perhaps wrote your first plugin? Designed a new child theme?
- WordPress can also help you take first steps – into a new career, a new business, or a new field. What first has WordPress enabled you to do?
Make These Themes Your Own – If You Can
As organizers, we want to make it very clear that we’re eager for speaker applicants to embrace these themes, but please know that we appreciate this can be trickier with some talks. We invite you to consider your talk applications in light of our themes. Yet, connecting to this year’s themes is not a prerequisite for applying. We expect to accept talks that are not directly connected to our themes.
Key Aspects of Our Call for Speakers
As co-organizers for our Philadelphia area WordPress community, we’re particularly interested in ensuring that the range of topics and the individuality of our speakers reflect our community. To that end, we’ll be working to develop a slate of speakers with the following in mind:
Diversity contributes strength, depth and understanding: We want to hear from speakers of all the many communities that make the wider WordPress community so wonderful.
A local WordPress supported by the wider community: We invite local presenters to apply to speak. We also very much welcome speakers from beyond the immediate area to share their knowledge and experience.
WordPress in all its shapes and uses: While diving into design and development techniques, workflows and the like will be a focus, we appreciate that WordPress is more than just a basic CMS. We hope to hear about advanced and unique uses of WordPress. We expect to have presenters focused on online marketing and SEO, content creation and more.
A Four-Track WordCamp
For 2018, we’ll have four tracks at WordCamp. The tracks are:
Designer
Web design is an art and a craft, the product of skillful HTML, CSS, Javascript, color theory, typography and so much more. We hear a lot about UX and UI these days. Accessibility is always important. WordPress theming is a rich topic in itself. What new or interesting twist can be shared to make the web more intuitive, more useful and more engaging for all?
Developer
Developing on the web offers challenges. What was yours, and how did you solve it? Code is important, but there’s more to it than simply code. Plugins. Tools. APIs. Philosophies. And maybe a bit of poetry too. (See what we did there?) In particular, we’d love to see talks about projects beyond WordPress, using REST or other tools.
Business/Freelance/Career
The track focuses on best practices for growing and managing your business, freelance practice, or career. Suitable topics could also cover self-care, remote work, and related topics.
WordPress 101
Once again, we roll out a full day of sessions to help those new to WordPress get into the CMS. The WordPress 101 track will help users install WordPress locally, get it running on their local machines, and begin to understand and use the WordPress Dashboard.
Nuts and Bolts: What We’re Looking For
Here are a few more thoughts about what we’re seeking. These are not posted in any particular order, but we hope they make it easier for applicants to fine tune their speaking applications.
- While the “what”, “where” and “how” of specific techniques are important, the “when” and “why” are equally so. Submitted talks should look to address all these areas where appropriate.
- WordPress is huge, but there’s more to the web than it alone. We’d love to hear from people who rely on Drupal, Joomla, Ruby on Rails, and other systems or technologies. What can you teach or share with the WordPress community?
- Designing and developing with WordPress constantly evolves. What new tool, system or workflow has proven valuable?
Cap ’em at Three, if You Will
We ask that applicants submit up to three different talk ideas. We appreciate your understanding here. Thanks in advance for your kind adherence to this request.
Apply Now!
Now that you’ve read the guidance, we invite you to go ahead and apply to speak. We can’t wait to see the exciting proposals you send us!
Visit the form here or fill it out below