WordCamp Boston 2011

Last year, as part of the schedule for WordCamp Boston 2010, we organized a beginners / newbies track of content in the am, to help get those new to WordPress as a platform up to speed. This year we haven’t planned a specific “101” or “beginners” track. Certainly many of our talks will be accessible to those new to the platform, but there isn’t really a newcomers orientation style set of sessions.

I’m very excited to announce, however, that Kurt Eng and James Coletti (organizers of the Boston WordPress meetup in addition to being part of organizing team for WordCamp) will be offering a Beginner’s Workshop the afternoon before WordCamp.

This workshop will be on Friday, July 22nd running from 1pm to 5pm held at Boston University. The cost for this workshop is $20. Here’s their description:

Curious about WordPress and how it can help you build and manage a better blog or website?

WordPress is a state-of-the-art web publishing platform, developed by hundreds of community volunteers and used by over 25 million people. Best of all, WordPress is free! With thousands of themes and plug-ins available on the web, anyone can launch a feature-rich website in minutes. First, you will learn the fundamentals of how WordPress works, how to get it up and running, and how to start publishing content immediately. Then we will explore the Administrator’s Dashboard, including how to organize your content and configure certain features & behaviors of your site. Finally, you will learn how to install themes and plug-ins to alter the appearance of your site and add additional functionality for improved social integration, search engine optimization, and backup/security. (Note: We will be working with the self-hosted version of WordPress at http://wordpress.org, not the hosted service at http://wordpress.com.

Not only that, but they’ve agreed to run this beginners workshop as a way to help fund WordCamp itself, donating all of the proceeds to the Camp!

If you’re new to the WordPress platform and looking to add a booster-pack of knowledge going into the weekend, please do check out the information and registration for BostonWP Beginner’s Workshop.

Thanks again to Kurt and James for their ongoing management of the Boston WordPress meetup, without which WordCamp Boston would never have been possible.

We’re happy to have WordCamp Boston 2010 sponsor Growth Spark back for another year.

Ross Beyeler, the founder, writes:

Personally I’ve been working with WordPress since the days of Duke but more professionally, Growth Spark has been developing WordPress-based websites since 2008. We’ve grown quite fond of *cough, obsessed with* WordPress and everything it can do. Sponsoring WordCamp Boston is our opportunity to show give back to a community that has given us so much.

We sponsored WordCamp Boston 2010 and had a blast with everyone who attended. We’re looking forward to a bigger crowd, bigger venue and bigger impact for this year’s event. Growth Spark will have a solid crew in attendance, so please don’t be shy to pull one of us aside and nerd out on all things WP!

That’s a big expectation to live up to – last year’s WCBOS wasn’t called #bestwordcampever for nothing – but we’re excited to try!

Thanks Ross and everyone at Growth Spark for supporting the WordPress community generally and specifically WordCamp Boston 2011.