Category Archives: WordCamp Miami

WordCamp Miami Changed My Life

by Camille Vogl | Instagram| Website

Before 2017, I had very minimal knowledge of WordPress or WordCamp Miami. That year, I was approaching my senior year at Florida Atlantic University and was starting to apply for marketing roles. I began to notice that almost every marketing role required WordPress knowledge. Needless to say, when I was given the assignment to create a marketing blog as part of my senior project, I took the opportunity to learn WordPress. I wanted to give myself an edge when applying for entry-level marketing jobs.

I had no clue what I had gotten myself into.

I spent two weeks learning everything I could, stumbling along the way. I even made the noob mistake of signing up for WordPress.com instead of WordPress.org.

Luckily, things became smoother and I started getting the hang of it. Shortly after, my internship manager told us he was bringing our team to WordCamp Miami. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was willing to dive in headfirst to the experience. And I’m glad I did.

Over the next three years, I would be involved in one of the most immersive and collaborative conferences I have attended. Every year, I’m able to take away a gold mine of information and constantly transform the way I help build online experiences. I have been able to use the skills and tactics I learn at WordPress to become a Unicorn marketer. Yes, I know it’s a large claim but truly, I do it all and I’m proud of it. I learned more than web design, I gained knowledge on SEO, creating content, personal branding, and much more.

My WordCamp experience especially helped me in finding and exceeding at Florida International University’s Master of Marketing program. I created a strong digital presence as a marketer and even assisted my Cohort with their WordPress sites. Now a recent graduate of the program, I teach personal branding via WordPress to the same program I was part of.

I also was able to take my first marketing role and complete a full re brand of the company using WordPress and the skills I learned from WordCamp Miami. This same experience and knowledge eventually helped land me my role as a Customer Experience Specialist for ADT mid-2019. In my role, I help to improve the experience of our online platforms.

I credit much of my success to WordCamp Miami. It has afforded me so many opportunities over the last three years. This is why I come back year-after-year. This community has embraced me, taught me, and inspired me to challenge myself and to create for good.

I encourage anyone attending their first or even their fifth WordCamp to just dive in. Don’t just show up, take notes and leave. Embrace the crazy Slack chats, visit the Happiness Bar, and interact with the vendor booths. Do all the things!

Most importantly, connect and collaborate. I have gained some amazing friends and colleagues from this conference. I guarantee you that you will too!

Update On 2020 Speaker Submissions

WordCamp Miami is so grateful to all the interested speakers who submitted talks to our 2020 event. To be clear at the present time NOT EVERYONE has been confirmed to be a speaker (or not a speaker) but we wanted to get some information out publicly for the sake of some transparency.  A link to this post will be sent to all those that applied to speak via our online form.

All-Time Record Of Submissions

We experienced close to 240 speaker submission this year, a new WordCamp Miami record. That is an honor to have that number of submission for a WordCamp – and we are happy to have that kind of variety of people and topics. As you can imagine, with only about 60-70 slots available that means still only 1/4 of the submissions can be accepted.

Emails, Emails, Emails

It’s our policy to send an email out to EVERY person who submitted via our official online form. The acceptance emails are pretty much the same (outside of some minor details related to the talk). The emails stating we couldn’t accept the speaker are also short and sweet. We try to mention any particular reason why the sessions submitted weren’t accepted if we can, but many times it just boils down to a few innocent reasons (see below). Sending out these emails takes a lot of time and energy.

Reasons Why Applications Weren’t Accepted

A few people ask, so we figure we would share common reasons why applications are not accepted (outside, again, of the sheer fact that we don’t have slots for everyone). The vast majority (>95%) of ones that get a confirmation that they have been selected this time around fall into one of these three categories:

– Simply too many talks submitted with the same subject. This is the most common reason, and you can’t blame this really on anyone. But sadly with an event like ours if you are looking for (let’s say as a random example) an SEO talk… and there are 40 SEO talks submitted by qualified speakers… you can only realistically pick one.

– Some submitted talks interested us greatly, but simply wasn’t relatable to attendees of a WordCamp event. Random example (this was NOT submitted): how to build a toaster (if there’s a toaster conference though, we know who to recommend).

– Room reservations at the venue have made us have to consider some format changes and other planning difficulties that removed spots in our schedule that would have otherwise gone to other speakers.

It’s the nature of the beast that with large conferences the odds aren’t in your favor, sometimes if you submit multiple talks. Highly suggested reading: Speakers And Organizers: Dealing With Conference Rejections. If you are among  those not sadly not accepted this round, there are some good pointers there.

Other Recommended Places To Submit

If you are looking to give talks to other WordCamps in sunny Florida and Georgia (general Southeast), we would recommend checking out these:

WordCamp Atlanta –https://2020.atlanta.wordcamp.org/call-for-speakers/ (speaker call submissions accepted until Feb 15)

WordCamp Orlando – https://2020.orlando.wordcamp.org/ (event in August, so watch for speaker calls on this).

Meetups

If you are local to the South Florida area, we highly encourage you to give those same submitted talks at your local WordPress meetups. Speaking at a local WordPress meetup is an excellent way to demonstrate that you are interested in supporting the local WordPress community, which is what WordCamps primarily focus on.

No matter where you are, find your local meetups and give your talks there. Some speakers come recommended to us just by the fact they gave a presentation at a local meetup that impressed enough people to made to our ears.

Speaker Announcements

Please help us spread the word about all the speaker announcements coming out. That not only shows support for the conference, but those speakers that got selected. There are going to be quite a number of speakers that are new to speaking at WordCamp Miami, or new to speaking at a WordCamp period.

More Information

We hope to share more information about our submissions – we will likely share some interesting stats Saturday, February 29th, during our opening remarks or during our closing remarks on Sunday, March 1st.

Thank You

We sincerely want to thank EVERYONE who submitted a talk. If you were not accepted this year PLEASE SUBMIT AGAIN NEXT YEAR. WordCamp Miami is dedicated to locating new speakers locally and from around the world. Feel free to get in touch with us after April if you want to pick our brains on future submitted talks.