Slides & Presentations

In case you wanted to catch up on presentations you might have missed or you wanted to jog your memory on something awesome you learned, we’ve linked to all of the presentations that presenters have sent to us. I’ll update the list as presenters send me further links.

UPDATE (10/29):

UPDATE (11/2):

Saturday Food Options

For those who do not pack a lunch on Saturday, there are a variety of options in the Alter Hall vicinity.

First up is Liacouras Walk:

The first floor includes retailers such as Conwell Inn, PNC Bank, Saxby’s Coffee, 7-Eleven, Maxi’s Pizza, Master Work, Chop Shop, and Philadelphia Chutney.

There’s also a Qdoba a short walk away:

A Subway is just a bit further as well:

We should also have a few Temple students and alumni who will be able to direct folks who have any further questions.

Packing For WordCamp

Speaking from experience, WordCamps are a lot of fun. Whether it’s your first WordCamp or your fiftieth, it pays to be prepared. We’ve had a lot of people ask about what they need to bring and what we’re providing.

Provided

With that in mind, we’ve got the following covered for you:

  • Your registration
    If you registered for a ticket and received a confirmation email, you’re in our system. You don’t need to print out a receipt — we’ll have your name and t-shirt size on our master list
  • Badges
    Everyone will have a badge with their name on it, for easy identification. The badges also have a master schedule printed on them for easy reference.
  • Official t-shirts
    Everyone who registered by October 8th was included in our t-shirt order. We will have extras for late registrations, albeit in a limited range of sizes.
  • Internet access
    Every badge will have a wifi username and password printed on it which will allow you to get online throughout the day. MiFi’s and tethering shouldn’t be necessary, though you certainly may bring your devices.
  • Power aplenty
    Temple’s Alter Hall has many amenities, including power outlets at (practically) every classroom seat. You shouldn’t need to worry about having your devices go all day without a charge.
  • A light morning snack/breakfast
  • A light afternoon snack

Not Provided

Due to various factors (budget, logistics, etc.), we unfortunately aren’t providing the following:

  • Lunch
    There are multiple options for food in the area. I will address these in a follow-up blog post.
  • Note-taking materials
    If you feel most comfortable taking notes with plain old pen and paper, feel free to bring your own.
  • Shuttles/transportation
  • Validated parking

Recommendations

So what should you bring? WordCamp is a fairly laid-back affair. With four speaker tracks, there is plenty of content to consume. You’re not locked in to a single track, though — feel free to float between sessions and catch the speakers that interest you. Additionally, we will have a Happiness Bar, where volunteers who are well-acquainted with WordPress and its inner workings can help you with your various questions. With this in mind, you should consider bringing

  • Note-taking equipment  
    Whether you prefer pen and paper or a keyboard, bring along something to jot down notes, tips, Twitter usernames and questions.  There’s a lot to keep track of and anything you can refer back to will help you stay abreast.
  • A laptop, tablet, or smartphone
    If you’re someone who wants to stay connected while at WordCamp, feel free to bring your devices and take notes, Tweet or blog.
  • Your web hosting information
    If you’re looking for answers, tips or tricks and you want someone at the Happiness bar to help, have this information handy so that we can assist you, live and in person.
  • A local WordPress install on your laptop
    If you’re interested in trying out the tips, tricks and best practices our speakers will be handing out like Halloween candy, please have a local install of WordPress ready to experiment on. Instructions on how to do so can be found on the WordPress Codex.

If you have any other questions, feel free to hit us up on Twitter (@WordCampPhilly) and we’ll get you sorted out.

See you all tomorrow!

Visitors Guide to Philly

There is a lot more going on in Philadelphia besides a great WordCamp! If you are looking for the city’s best cheesesteak, interested in seeing where our forefather’s made history in historic Philadelphia or hoping to reenact Rocky Balboa running up the Art Museum steps you can find this information and more at VisitPhilly.com.  The website has a number of weekend itineraries that are sure to fit everyone’s interests.

We have also compiled a short list of major Philadelphia attractions, food options near the Comfort Inn Penn’s Landing and a few popular tour companies. Click here to view the PDF.

If you are looking for something specific while visiting Philadelphia be sure to tweet us @WordCampPhilly. We will have our WordCamp and Philly experts monitoring Twitter throughout the weekend to help you with any questions you have or problems you may run into!

Sticker Sponsor: Sticker Giant

StickerGiant is the sticker company that does it all. The latest digital production methods, as well as old school silkscreen printing are all available at StickerGiant Custom Sticker Printing. Customer Service at StickerGiant is available from real people that are very knowledgable about all things sticker and can help any company create any kind of sticker to stand out.

StickerGiant writes about its customers, and tells their stories on its blog at http://www.stickergiant.com/blog/ where every sticker has a story.

Follow StickerGiant on twitter @stickergiant and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/stickergiant.

Bronze Sponsor: Semper Fi Web Design

Semper Fi Web Design is an established provider of online business solutions. We are based in Raleigh, North Carolina and provide web site maintenance, web site design, web site development, web site programming, web site hosting, web site marketing and more to a wide range of business throughout the US.

Semper Fi Web Design can help you quickly and reliably address your web site maintenance needs, build your online store, develop your company’s extranet and so much more. For more information please contact us for a free consultation.

Venue Sponsor: Fox MIS

The Fox School’s Management Information Systems department was founded in 2000. Dean M. Moshe Porat formed the department to support the three strategic pillars of the Fox school, entrepreneurship, globalization, and information technology. Dr. Munir Mandviwalla, founded the MIS department and currently serves as department chair. The Fox School’s MIS department is one of the youngest business oriented IT academic units in the U.S.

The newly revised (2010) vision of FoxMIS is to be a worldwide leader in transformative research and teaching on the design, use, and effects of information technology in a digital world.

Fox MIS prides itself on being connected and innovative.

The Fox School’s MIS department offers undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs in information systems and includes more than 750 majors and minors and 14 faculty members. The associated Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) connects students and faculty with industry leaders through a membership structure, and provides project and professional development opportunities. More information at: http://www.ibit.temple.edu.

Bronze Sponsor: All-in-One-SEO Pack Pro

All-in-One SEO Pack Pro optimizes your WordPress website for maximum search engine visibility and Semper Plugins has just released v2.0 which is full of great new features such as:

  • NEW Feature Manager and plugin modules
  • NEW XML Sitemap Generator module
  • NEW Performance module
  • NEW user interface that looks great on any screen size
  • NEW edit your Meta data using Quick Edit
  • NEW advanced custom post type options

All in One SEO Pack Pro v2.0 improves on the most popular WordPress SEO plugin.  With All in One SEO Pack Pro you can set site-wide defaults in WordPress as well as customize the search engine settings for each individual WordPress post and page.  All in One SEO Pack Pro gives you complete control over exactly what appears in the search engine results.

All in One SEO Pack Pro is easy to use right out of the box, so you can start improving your search engine results right away!

WordCamp Philly Costume Contest Details

As you probably already know, this year’s WordCamp Philly is completely Halloween themed! It wouldn’t be a Halloween WordCamp without a costume contest. We plan on having two contests: Best Presenter Costume and Best Attendee Costume.

Best Presenter Costume

We are asking all presenters, should they want to participate, to wear costumes for their presentations. Attendees will vote for their favorite Presenter costume throughout the day. At the end of Saturday, during closing remarks, we’ll announce the winner of the Best Presenter Costume award!

Best Attendee Costume

The Attendee costume contest will take place at the WordCamp Philly After Party @ Buffalo Billiards Saturday evening. We will be awarding prizes for the top 3 costumes at the party as voted on by everyone at the party. You can wear your costume all day Saturday if you’d like, but if you want to wait until the after party that is fine.

Prizes

What costume contest would be complete without awesome prizes? We’ve gathered some amazing prizes to give away to the winners of each contest!

Best Presenter Costume: New iPad (16 GB/Wifi)

Best Attendee Costume:

  • 1st place – Google Nexus 7 Tablet (16 GB)
  • 2nd place – Kindle Fire (8 GB)
  • 3rd place – $50 Amazon gift card

Now you have no excuse not to break out your best, most creative, Halloween costume at the event!

Please remember to thank our sponsors for making this possible!