WordCamp US 2021 Recap

This year again the flagship event WordCamp US took place.

On October 1st 2021, the US WordPress community met online to share the latest developments and trends and listen to about 18 exciting sessions and speakers for a whole day. 

The event addressed the WordPress community aimed at WordPress newcomers and professionals.

Online Event: The WordCamp US 2021

More than 2,000 WordPress enthusiasts and experts were able to participate for free in two virtual tracks that addressed different topics and interests.

WCUS 21 Schedule

The Yukon track was about less technical topics; the Columbia track was more focused on development. 

All enthusiasts also had the opportunity to participate in the onscreen chat and directly place their questions around WordPress.

Schedule – WordCamp US 2021

State of the Word by Matt Mullenweg

Unfortunately, there was no State of the Word at this WordCamp US, as we are used to from Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress and face of Automattic. 

Matt’s State of the Word is expected to be followed up later this year. The exact date is yet to be announced. 

Instead, the event concluded with the “Grow Your Story” presentation by Josepha Haden Chomphosy, Executive Director at WordPress. 

She talked about trends as well as growth projections for WordPress in her presentation and was available for questions and answers from the community afterwards.

Addendum

Matt Mullenweg recently presented his long-awaited State of the Word 2021 on-site in New York City and via live stream for the international WordPress community. Where he provided insight into the current and upcoming developments of WordPress. Afterwards, Matt was available to answer questions in a Q&A session.

As a special milestone, Matt highlighted WordPress 5.9 in his remarks. He pointed out new features and demonstrated some, for example, Themes, Global Styles, and Patterns. In his opinion, the future of WordPress lies in Gutenberg. The third phase is scheduled for release in 2023.

Not for nothing, the high market share of WordPress with over 43% also illustrates how healthy the system is and to what extent it is appreciated by its users worldwide.

Here is the detailed State of the Word 2021 by Matt Mullenweg! 

Grow Your Story by Josepha Haden Chomphosy

Grow your story” means that anyone in the WordPress universe can grow their own story and take things to the next level. Because WordPress is open source and connects people.

Community contributes to growth

It is a community, of e. g. developers and designers, that grows together and with each other and wants to participate in the further development. This is also shown by the expansive growth, according to which 42% of all websites use WordPress.  

Learn new skills with WordPress

Ultimately, it is also the fact that WordPress teaches skills that are useful in projects. That also contributes to its great success. Anyone can learn these skills in the community and apply them in many areas such as web design, communication skills or change management. Change Management is a “structured approach to implementing change in an organization“.

Increasing acquisitions

Lately, we’ve seen a lot of acquisitions in the ecosystem. According to Josepha, company acquisitions tend to be a sign of commercial maturity and especially for an ecosystem like WordPress. It can be an early indication of future growth.

Multilingual solution in WordPress Core

Josepha sees the most exciting thing about the future of WordPress in the current roadmap as multilingual support in the Core. It is the next phase of Gutenberg. This will make WordPress even more true to its mission of “democratizing” publishing and enabling people to publish their voice on the web even better.  

Having a multilingual solution in WordPress Core is not only interesting for the community and bloggers but for all operators of websites, online stores, and also companies that use WordPress as CMS.

In the end, this is a development that shows that WordPress is evolving and becoming an even more complete content management system. As the provider of MultilingualPress, one of the most popular plugins for multilingualism with WordPress, we are happy about this development. Because, as with all our projects, we have paid attention to the greatest possible compatibility with the core.

Diverse and inclusive community

Another WordPress commitment is towards diversity and inclusion. Because it’s very simple – WordPress can be used by everyone, so everyone can help shape it.

Community with children & youth

Children and young people should also be able to participate more in WordPress. They are virtually the 2nd generation of WordPress users. For this, they need a wider range of training formats that make WordPress even more accessible to this user group.

Exciting sessions at WordCamp US 2021

For me personally, the most important topics at this year’s WordCamp US were the contributions and statements on Learn.WordPress.org, Openverse, and WordPress Block Pattern Directory.

As important as ever is the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg). For this, there was a very interesting and detailed presentation by Rich Tabor with his article Building modern WordPress sites. With the full-site editing, users get much more possibilities to implement their ideas virtually. 

Full-site editing is going to be the future of WordPress because it will help to fulfill the mission of WordPress.

Robert Windisch, CIO at Inpsyde

Topics of the Yukon Track

  • Website accessibility as a journey
  • How green can a website be?
  • Recharging your social battery in the age of online events
  • Communication is the key to community
  • The future of Learn.WordPress.org
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Topics of the Columbia Track

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Wapuu: The WordPress mascot on an exploring expedition

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The background of this year’s Wapuu refers to the theme of the WordCamp: travel and discovery. 

Wapuu hikes along the two tracks Yukon and Columbia – just like our speakers at WCUS 2021. That’s why he also wears a backpack and holds a map in his hand.

That was the WordCamp US 2021

Experiencing WordCamp US virtually for the first time was an exciting experience, although I missed the personal encounters on site. Therefore, I hope that this will be possible again at the next WordCamp US. 

All in all, it was a very informative event, in which the many facets of the WordPress ecosystem were conveyed in a condensed and entertaining way in one day. 

Josepha’s presentation and also the subsequent Q&A session from the community rows was a real highlight of this year’s WordCamp. As always, she was competent and professional. Nevertheless, we are all already looking forward to Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word, which is still to come.

Finally, I would like to thank all the supporters and organizers of the virtual event. They have put on a great online event! I’m already looking forward to the next time – then hopefully live on site!