Official dates are set for WordCamp Miami 2013. April 6th (Saturday) and April 7th (Sunday) 2013. Yep, we really mean it this time.

We are a while away from posting any schedules, but Saturday will be our traditional multi-track event with a variety of speakers. Topics will vary, but all follow some general themes (such as topics for WordPress beginners). You’ll have to wait what we have in store for Sunday. 🙂

If you have been following along, we had some difficulty securing a venue this year. We were originally shooting for a date in February, to close out a big tech week in Miami. However, once we got the venue there was simply not enough time to plan, get sponsors, etc. Plus we are going into our 4th year and wanted to try some things differently. One of those things will be a brand new venue, Ai Miami International University of Art & Design. We can’t wait to share the other different things we have in store for you.

With a date now set, lots of things can start moving now. For us here on the planning and organizational end of things, we can now reach out to sponsors, speakers, and volunteers. And book places for parties. Woot. As for you – potential WordCamp Miami attendee – you can mark the dates on your calendar (and if you are out of town, start thinking about your travel plans).

About 10 days ago, we put up a survey of some out-of-box topics to see which what possible “workshop” or multiple session topics people might be interested in. 10 days isn’t alot of time for a survey, but we have gotten literally a mountain of responses (which is a good sign people are generally interested in a second day of a WordCamp Miami, although we already knew this from last year when we had standing room only at our Friday workshop sessions).

I won’t release numbers here, or the degrees of interest. Since we are letting the survey run as we accept speaker submissions, we don’t want to taint any responses. But on the other hand, we definitely see a trend. Here are the topics in order of interest as of now:

How To Build A Better Freelance / WordPress Business
Front-End Development
BuddyPress Mini-Camp
WordPress For Beginners Workshop
WordPress For Kids

Now, some interesting things about this ordered list. First the negative – I was sad to see WordPress for Kids bringing up the rear. I guess it makes sense that this would only interest you if you had a child and a child old enough to bring… and although we’ve gotten a ton of responses those factors would reasonably not make up many from a statical viewpoint. Perhaps we need to confirm by offering better targeted surveys. But for this type workshop we don’t need a large group at all. In fact, just the opposite. My wife is a teacher, and has personally explained how smaller class sizes with students allow you to give the one-on-one attention. Like I really needed that explained, of course. So all would we would need to about 20 kids, and compared to a 400-500 attendee WordCamp, that’s not large at all.

The beginners workshop is a bit of surprise, but might also be a factor of just happening to have more advanced developers fill out the survey. We are getting enough beginners and newbies signing up to our mailing list (which is approaching over 200 people in almost two weeks, so it’s not a small number) for us to definately not forget about anyone wanting to learn about WordPress for the first time, or get some reminders. I met a few of these personally during my time at Code Miami this past weekend.

Although it’s in the middle of the list, i’m stoked that BuddyPress has gotten many of those “i’m highly or somewhat interested” in responses. Could there be a potential for a BuddyPress Mini-Camp? BuddyPress is a niche, but it’s popularity is growing. A challenge might be to get qualified advanced speakers, since many of these are scattered across the globe, but at any rate i’m happily surprised at the responses.

The big story is the freelance business and front end development interest. These were practically tied in order of interest, with interest in freelance and business beating out front-end development by a narrow margin. I’m beginning to see this as more of a trend at WordCamps, both large and small. Started seeing a session or two appear about how to treat clients or about managing your own projects. Now i’ve seen sessions devoted to building WordPress businesses (and many of those suggestions and tips could easily be applied to any freelance tech business), even at the San Fran WordCamp in 2012.

So while WordCamp Miami is going to cover alot of bases – especially on it’s Saturday multi-track day – i’m excited and interested to see if these trends also appear in more WordCamps in 2013. More people are getting comfortable with WordPress… they aren’t beginners anymore. They want to start to learn about plugins like BuddyPress, become better designers and front-end developers to build better themes, and strengthen their freelance skills and business that they are using WordPress more heavily in.

If you are a designer, front-end developer, or have unique insight or experience in freelance (or own your own WordPress business) you might want to consider submitting a proposal to speak at WordCamp Miami 2013 this year. This is an educational event and there could be alot of people that could benefit from your knowledge and experience.

We talked about this briefly in our last WordPress South Florida meetup, but now you have the chance to give us your feedback on the upcoming WordCamp Miami 2013. Let us know what interests you so we can schedule our conference days better.

WordPress for Beginners Workshop: A few hours running you from hosting, domain name registration, to the beginnings of how to setup and post w/ WordPress.

WordPress for Kids: A couple of hours in the morning devoted to just teaching WordPress to youngsters and getting them to start and run their first blog. If they can type, they can use WordPress.

BuddyPress Mini-Camp: A few sessions devoted to BuddyPress, a social networking plugin for WordPress. Sessions to be delivered by experienced BuddyPress developers and will cover a range of beginner and advanced topics.

How To Build A Better Freelance / WordPress Business – A collection of sessions devoted to the business and legal side of WordPress and your freelance business. If you want to sell a theme, plugin, or be a better freelancer (even if you don’t do WordPress), then this would be suited for you.

Front-End Development Workshop – Sessions devoted to HTML/CSS and other front-end subjects.

Click here to take the survey. The more people fill out the survey, the better!

If you want to make sure you don’t miss an update, make sure you signup on our mailing list. We try to keep updates to a minimum so not to spam you, but we do expect more frequent updates as the event draws closer.

There’s a few nice perks for those on the mailing list. You’ll be the first to know about when tickets go on sale (and the first to know about any early bird discounts, if we offer those again this year), even before we released this information via the website or via Twitter/Facebook. Secondly, if 100 people signup for this list we will give away some WordCamp Miami tickets to those who signed up (and if you bought a ticket, we’ll simply give you a refund or you can donate the ticket to someone else).

So what are you waiting for? Signup here, fellow WordCampers.

Although event dates in April are not officially confirmed (please read our post on this), there are some that wish to submit speaker submission requests as soon as possible. These are usually fairly sure they will attend WordCamp Miami – either they come every year, or they live close to the area. In either case, we are opening up speaker submissions now. Once dates are confirmed, we will send out a notice to everyone who submitted a proposal.

All the information you need to know – including the link to submit a speaker proposal – is located here.

We welcome back anyone who has attended and spoken at WordCamp Miami in the past – repeat speakers welcome! On the other hand, we are looking especially for those who might not have spoken at WordCamp Miami before – or perhaps those wanting to make WordCamp Miami their first speaking conference!

We are looking for unique and interesting topics that beginners, advanced users, or both would be interested in (and that relate to WordPress in some way – read this page).

When submitting proposals, please assume at this time you will have 30 minutes for your session, plus some brief time to answer questions. Also assume your talk will be recorded, so you will have to sign a media release before giving your presentation.

At this time, deadline for speaker submissions in February 12th, 2013.

Update: We have closed comments here because we want people submitting proposals via our official form rather than anything official in the comments section. Thanks!

Welcome to the 2013 WordCamp Miami site! We are excited to be bringing you more information about the event in the coming days and months, not to mention all the cool activities, speakers, and sponsors centered around the event.

However, we wanted to get one thing established right away and that would be the dates for the event. Originally – although this was not official – we had stated via social media (Twitter/Facebook) that WordCamp Miami 2013 would be held on Feb 23rd and 24th, 2013. This is no longer the case.

In a nutshell, WordCamp Miami 2013 has had some difficulty securing a venue for 2013. The week before Christmas we talked with the lovely and awesome Ai Miami International University of Art & Design who has agreed to be the venue location. Great news for WordCamp Miami after attempting to secure a venue for quite a bit of time. However, after some discussion with the WordCamp Miami Planning Committee, it was agreed upon that we could no longer meet the late February dates. Which was a shame, considering the month of February is packed with lots of exciting tech and startup conferences ( the excellant BarCamp Miami and SuperConf conferences for starters ) – this was the reason why we were aiming for those February dates. But here’s why we want to delay WordCamp Miami until after March:

• A better planned and organized conference. This goes without saying. We don’t think we can pull off a quality conference in two months. In the past we’ve done CLOSE to this but 2013 being the FOURTH WordCamp we feel like we should get even bigger and better. Last year was our first two day event, and we wanted another two day (with a possible unofficial third day) event this year. With our volunteer force (who all have full time jobs of course), that simply would have been extremely difficult.
• We wanted to give more time for potential speakers. More time means better quality sessions and better tuning things for our audience. We will be inviting guests that include core contributors to WordPress, among other special guests.
• We wanted to give more time for potential sponsors. Many sponsors take early 2013 as the time to make decisions as to what WordCamps and conferences they would like to sponsor. It would be demanding to ask potential sponsors to make a quick decision and potentially come down to Miami within that short of a time frame. Besides, a better, well-thought out experience will attract larger or additional smaller sponsors – all of which means we can offer lower ticket prices AND a better experience for all attendees. Everyone wins.
• Speaking of everyone winning – more time means being able to locate a potentially bigger and better location for our after-party. This is MIAMI and having a great party experience should be one of the goals, right? For example, wouldn’t it be great to have the after-party on a rooftop pool deck? 🙂
• We are planning (depending on budget) some potentially awesome things involving video and/or live streaming. A possible first for WordCamp Miami.
• Lunch BBQ. That’s all I need to say.

So as unfortunate it is that WordCamp Miami, which traditionally happens in February or early March, to be pushed a bit – we think it’s best for everyone involved. We are currently working with Ai Miami International University of Art & Design to confirm dates (they have been AWESOME so far) and once we can confirm again dates we will let you know. The past two weeks have been difficult for everyone communication-wise with the holidays.

Regardless, no matter what happens we want to bring you the WordCamp Miami experience you deserve.

If you feel you would like to become a sponsor (with some perks and discounts for those sponsors that come on board early), please contact us. We will be opening speaker submissions as well for those confident they could visit Miami in the month of April.

Please keep checking the WordCamp Miami site for details. Once dates are official, we will be officially added to the official WordCamp calendar on the WordCamp Central website.