Back in the office after spending the weekend at the London Metropolitan University, for WordCamp London 2019. I love this event: not only do you get well fed and given loads of lovely swag, you get to meet and listen to some of the leading lights from the WordPress community. Talking of community, this really is something unique and very special about WordPress. WordPress is so much more than a truly excellent piece of open source software. It is a warm hearted and very diverse community of kind and generous people that embraces and supports its members. Over the weekend, I had plenty of opportunities to chat with and get to know many interesting people.

As well as some fairly geeky WordPress presentations such as “Going To The Dark Side, They Have Cookies” and “Syndicating Content with WordPress” there were some much broader topics covered, such as how we need to consider the environment when building websites, mental health issues and support for WordPress developers, addressing the ridiculously large gender gap in the web design sector, and website accessibility.

A number of the leading hosting providers were there. They tend to be among the main event sponsors, with plenty of their people around to give advice and assist with particular issues. It was through a meeting at WordCamp London some years ago that I started working with my main WordPress hosting provider Siteground. I relationship which has ground over time and one I am most pleased to continue. Siteground always come out very well in independent reviews and I have found their service to be reliable, excellent value for money and backed up by tech support that is second to none.

Concern for people and the world as a whole is a big thing at WordCamp. The Charity Sponsor this year was WP&UP who are a charity with a mission to support and promote positive mental health within the WordPress community.
Ruth Raventós gave an excellent talk on the gender gap in the WordPress community, it’s implications and how we can address this.
For me, no visit to WordCamp London would be complete if I couldn’t say hello to my good friends from Wholegrain Digital, and so I was delighted to attend an excellent talk by Tom Greenwood on why a Greener web is good for everyone.

All in all it was another very inspiring and energising WordCamp in London this year, and I’m looking forward to going along again next year. Thanks guys for all the good work you did to make this possible. It’s really appreciated.

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