WordCamp Vienna has a special place in our heart. In 2022, it was the first WordCamp we attended and sponsored. It’s so great to see how much the event has grown since our first time!
We loved being a part of it again, this year. But did you know that there was a time we didn’t even know WordCamps existed? One wouldn’t think it, right? No worries, we caught up on that, big time.
Greyd and WordCamp Vienna – A bit of background and history
Before we founded Greyd, our software company, we were an enterprise focused full-service web agency for many years. In that capacity, we somehow rarely heard about WordCamp events. Looking back, I think it comes with the territory, as we mainly reside in that enterprise bubble. And in-person events were not really a thing, due to the pandemic.
Greyd.Suite was born from the tools we had internally created for our own projects. And that’s where our focus for the features we develop to add to our Suite, still lies: on being a tool for agencies working, or looking to work, on larger scale and enterprise level projects without having to depend on custom development.
Consequently, we’re used to operating in strict hierarchical structures, also at business events. So, when we first bumped into Anne-Mieke Bovelett, in 2022, (who, by the way, has recently been appointed our first official Product Ambassador!) we could hardly believe it when she said that at the big(ger) WordCamp events, CEOs and CTOs are at the booths side by side with their teams. That WordPress truly is about community. She passionately spoke about the open culture within the WordPress community. And we found it to be true. “We came for the software, we stayed for the people” is a well known sentence. And we concur.
WordCamp Vienna has been a great first experience for us, back then. An experience that was amplified by every WordCamp we attended after that.
Talks
We enjoyed the talks! The schedule and line-up was impressive this year.
This year had an extra dimension for us. My talk about how to market your plugins successfully had been accepted. And “our” Anne took the ramp as well, speaking about juggling data in dynamic websites.
Feedback from the audience
As a speaker, you always hope that your talk will have the intended impact. Apparently, it did. Successfully marketing and selling a plugin or a theme is not as simple as it seems, and it takes a solid strategy. I was happy to share our learnings, especially getting more questions in the hallways after my talk.
That early warm welcome
For Thomas and Anne, WordCamp Vienna started a day earlier, as they were invited by the WordCamp co-organizer Dominik Liss, who hosted a wonderful Meetup with guests from his podcast: The Dominik Liss Show. Coincidentally, he had interviewed both of them in the past year. We heard it was a lovely evening for all.
For all of us it was a reunion with old friends in the community and again a feast of connecting with many new faces. The relaxed but still very professional setting was again great, this year. The exceptionally warm spring weather made it possible for all of us to gather outside on the terraces, which was another good opportunity to connect and mingle.
We want to thank the organizing team for yet another great WordCamp experience in Vienna. It was heartwarming to see that the event grew even larger this year, and had even more international attendees than the previous edition.
The group photo says more than a thousand words. Will we all still fit in a group photo next year?
What’s next? WordCamp Europe 2024 – in Torino, Italy
We attended Porto in 2022, we sponsored in 2023, and we will be in Torino for the 2024 edition! We look forward to a reunion with wonderful people we met in the previous years, and to making many new connections.
