Quest for the True North

I was at WordCamp Philippines 2008

Filed under blogging, events, technology

.. thanks to my boss who allowed me to cut my training short so I could go back to the Philippines in time for it. I had to make up for the lost days, such as having marathon meetings everyday, but it was worth the sweat. After all, I was only going to the first WordCamp in Southeast Asia, and I got to be a part of history. I also got to meet The Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress himself.

I got in on the first flight to Manila (4:30 a.m., and that’s right after going through a 44-hour international trip), so I was supposed to be the earliest there. It was stupid of me, though, to not go to the conference hall immediately and check if there were people there already. The organizers gave prizes to the first five who arrived. I was the sixth, I think, because I had stayed at an Internet cafe near the venue to pass the time.

It was okay, though, because later in the afternoon I got another prize: a WordCamp mug for being the second to register online. I love the mug! I had no idea that I was one of the first to register. I was busy plurking at the back of the hall when my name was called. I should have known, because my camper badge number was 002.

The highlight of the event, of course, was the appearance of the most eligible Matt in the world. He was an instant celebrity. The campers flocked to him, and everyone listened intently when he talked. Most of the time people were plurking rather than listening to the talks. But when it was Matt’s turn, everyone stopped. Or at least the girls did. By the way, he is only 24! And I am 23! So we are good together! LOL. (Roanne’s going to kill me for saying this.)

I was so amazed at how young and humble he was. He started Wordpress when he was only 17! What was I doing at that age? What were you doing at that age? And he didn’t look or sound like a nerd at all, nor did he look like someone famous. He came to the event in jeans, and he was very friendly. He was game enough to have his pictures taken with all those who wanted to have pictures with him, to think that the queue was very loooooooong.

I fell in line, of course. Here’s my picture with him:

Noticed my big, big smile?

I was impressed when he said that he used to check every one of the Wordpress blogs back when there were a few of them. He discussed WordPress 2.7 briefly, presented some data (the Philippines has the 24th most number of WordPress users in the world), and talked about BuddyPress, a Facebook-like application that we can embed into our blogs. It is coming to the user front soon. I believe the organizers are going to put up the presentations on the WordCamp Philippines website, so I better stop talking like a recorder, and stop talking about Matt.

Morning was spent on the breakaway sessions. I had intended to follow the development track; but the schedules for the sessions overlapped each other and I so missed several. I was only able to attend two: Creating WordPress Themes & CSS Power  by Gail Villanueva and Wordpress & SEO by Hans Koch. I wasn’t very happy with the first. The second one was helpful because the speaker gave a list of useful plugins, but I didn’t take down notes because the room was cramped and I didn’t even have a chair to sit on. I’m depending on the organizers to post the presentations soon.

I felt bad in the morning because I thought the event wasn’t worth all my sacrifices just to be there (heck, I hadn’t slept well for two days and I had jet lag), but thankfully, things got better in the afternoon. I am glad my college buddies Kirk and Jam were there with me, even though they are not so much into WordPress as I am. At least I wasn’t so bored. I hope they take WordPress more seriously from now on, though. (Yes, you should!)

I learned from Kirk that he and some of our other friends were going to Laguna that night. Kaladkarin that I am, I tagged along. We ditched the WordCamp After-Party at mag:net cafe, which I heard was a blast, for the spontaneous Laguna trip right after the conference. But I am getting ahead of myself. The Laguna trip is for another entry.