Come Join Us at WordCamp Ann Arbor!

By: Justin Ferriman • October 3, 2016
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collaborative-meetingBeing involved in the WordPress industry means that I have the opportunity to meet people of all kinds of backgrounds and ambitions.

This is particularly true at WordCamps – weekend conferences dedicated to all things WordPress.

The presentations and conversations at WordCamps are often quite casual, entertaining, and informative.

WordCamps are held all over the world so you are usually never too far from one. I highly encourage you to attend if you have not yet had the opportunity.

If you are wondering which WordCamp to start with then let me encourage you to attend WordCamp Ann Arbor held October 14-15.

What makes WordCamp Ann Arbor so great is that it is large enough where you will find topics of interest and get to meet the people behind the WordPress products you use today, but it is small enough to easily network with all of the attendees.

You will find that by attending a WordCamp you will quickly realize that you are in good company. It’s also fascinating to learn about how people first came to use WordPress and how they are using it today (be it professionally or personally).

My story is likely similar to most people who are involved with WordPress. I was an undergrad and decided that I would look into this “blog” thing everyone was talking about. Soon I discovered WordPress.com and not long after that I began hosting my own WordPress sites.

I spent hours tinkering my blog to get it “just right”, and then I would find another theme or plugin and the process would start all over again.

While WordPress was always a hobby, I was working full-time as an e-learning consultant creating courses and implementing learning management systems (LMS) at large organizations. Coming from a world of enterprise learning management systems I can tell you that they were clunky, bloated with too much functionality, had a terrible user interface, and just looked flat-out ugly.

On the other hand, WordPress is quite a natural fit for online education is that it is both flexible and scaleable. New features can be added (or removed) with ease and the sheer volume of beautiful themes ensures that the program is visually appealing for the learner. WordPress also fits with nearly any budget.

In early 2012 I started a  blog (the one you are on now) and wrote about the concept of a “WordPress LMS”, among other e-learning topics. From this humble blog my wife and I grew our company, LearnDash.

It has been an incredible journey since those early blogging days back in college.

We love WordPress and find that WordCamps are a great way to continue to give back to the community. It is also a great opportunity to connect and network with other like-minded individuals.

If it works for your schedule, come on out to WordCamp Ann Arbor on October 14-15 while tickets are still available (hurry, they are going fast)!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter