All posts by Amy Lane

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A few final reminders…

Are you ready for WordCamp?! With WordCamp weekend starting tomorrow, we just wanted to throw a few last minute details your way:

Transportation

Be sure to keep an eye on the MTA website for any service outage or reroutes. For more information on how to get to the venue, check the Transportation page.

Arrival and Registration

Registration begins at 8am on Saturday morning. After you enter the Marriott on Adams street, head straight up the escalator, and keep straight to head into the registration area.

We’ll have coffee, tea, and breakfast items available to help you wake up and start enjoying all the goings on.

Your badge will have everything you need to know for the weekend, including the schedule, WiFi information, and more.

Internet Access

Cellular reception is limited in the venue, so you might want to put your phone in airplane mode while inside to save battery.

However, thanks to our WiFi sponsor, WordPress VIP, WiFi will be available throughout the weekend. We’re asking attendees to limit their connections to one device per person, in order to make sure the network isn’t overloaded.

Electricity

Electrical outlets are available, but limited, so make sure your devices are fully charged. Better yet, put away the laptop and phone, and interact with your fellow human beings!

Happiness Bar

The Happiness Bar will be open all weekend, with the exception of lunch time and the post-lunch Keynote on Saturday.

If you’ve got a burning WordPress question, bring your laptop, and our Happiness Volunteers, will do their best to answer it!

Lunch

Lunch will be provided on Saturday. Your badge will have a discreet indicator if you signed up for a Vegan or Kosher meal.

Social Media

Keep an eye on our official twitter account @WordCampNYC for the latest updates throughout the weekend. If you want to share your experience on social media, be sure to use the hashtag #wcnyc on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram and Vine.

If you’re not able to come, you can follow along with all of the social media flow on WP Armchair’s New York City site.

See you this weekend!

We’re so excited to bring you WordCamp NYC this weekend! The organizing team has been working on it for a long time, and we think you’ll be amazed at the amazing event we have planned.

See you this weekend!

Announcements

Sunday Workshop: So You Want to Be a WordCamp Speaker

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On Sunday, Kathryn Presner & Tammie Lister will be presenting a workshop for those who want to learn more about speaking at a WordCamp.

Here’s the abstract of the workshop:

Have you considered presenting at a WordCamp but thought you didn’t know enough or felt like an imposter? Does the idea of speaking in front of a group set your knees quivering and your heart racing? During this hands-on session we’ll look at what’s stopped you from speaking in the past – and explore how to move past your fears.

We’ll delve into practical techniques for choosing a topic, writing a proposal, crafting presentation content, and making great slides. We’ll discuss how to avoid common public-speaking mistakes and techniques for battling stage fright. We’ll help you navigate the dreaded post-presentation Q&A session and gather post-talk feedback. Each participant will come out of the workshop with a WordCamp or meetup talk proposal – and more confidence to submit it.

This workshop is limited to just 30 attendees, so if you want to attend, be sure to sign up using this form!

Announcements

Saturday Beginner Workshops

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On Saturday, August 2nd, in addition to the main tracks, WordCamp NYC will be offering beginner workshops. If you’re just starting out with WordPress (or don’t know where to start), these workshops are for you. There are two workshops on Saturday, each divided into two sections:

Morning – Introduction to WordPress

WordPress 101
Presented by: Shanta Nathwani

  • .COM vs .ORG
  • Themes & Plugins
  • Pages & Posts
  • Categories & Tags

Overview of the WordPress Dashboard
Presented by: Marc Benzakein

  • Overview of the Dashboard menus
  • Common WordPress settings
  • How to create/edit posts & pages
  • Adding users
  • How to manage comments
  • Managing menus & widgets

Afternoon – Customizing WordPress

Choosing & Customizing Your Theme
Presented by: Jamie Schmid

  • What is a theme?
  • Where to find themes
  • Choosing your theme
  • Installation & activation
  • Customizing/theme options

Adding Functionality to your site with Plugins
Presented by: Kiko Doran

  • What can plugins do?
  • Finding and Installing Plugins
  • Useful Plugins
  • Troubleshooting tips

A computer isn’t required, but we recommend you bring your own laptop to follow along.

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Location

Brooklyn Marriott
New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge
333 Adams Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201 USA

 

Directions

The best way to get to the Brooklyn Marriott is by the New York City Subway. If you’re coming from Manhattan you can also walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. The venue is a short walk from these stations:

2 3 4 5 — Borough Hall

A C F R* — Jay St – MetroTech

*Note: R service does not operate between Manhattan and Brooklyn on weekdays, and operates via the N on weekends, skipping Jay St – MetroTech. In short, if you’re coming from anywhere but Brooklyn, don’t take the R.

For more information on how to get to the venue, including from the New Jersey, Long Island, and Metro New York, visit our Transportation page. If you’re visiting from out of town, be sure to check out our Travel page for information on regional train and airport services.

Parking

Parking in the area is limited and expensive. We strongly advise everyone to take public transit. Here are the closest parking facilities:

At the Marriott

Operates: 24/7
12 hours: $25 USD
24 hours: $30 USD
Hotel Guests Only: $25 USD per day (indoors, with in/out privileges)

Central Parking

Operates: 6:30am – 11:00pm
Location: 351 Jay Street (right behind the hotel)
12 hours: $18 USD
Daily: $20 USD (until closing)

For more nearby parking facilities, visit the Parking Facilities map by the NYC Department of Planning.

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Schedule

Get ready. This year, we’re bringing you three days of WordCamp!

Friday, August 1st – Contributor Day

Location: New York Times, Midtown Manhattan
620 8th Ave, New York, NY 10018

The fun begins with Contributor Day. We’ll release more information as that gets closer, but if you have been interested in learning how to contribute to WordPress, this is a your chance to get started. It doesn’t matter if you are a developer, designer, documentarian, support provider, or if you’ve never contributed before. Be sure to sign up

Saturday, August 2nd

Location: New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, Downtown Brooklyn
333 Adams Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Doors open at 8:00am, with four rooms of sessions continuing through 5pm. Lunch will be provided, and after lunch, Boone Gorges will be keynoting on Free Software, Free Labor, and the Freelancer: The Economics of Contributing.

In addition to the main sessions, there will be WordPress Beginner workshops throughout the day.

After the event, there will be social gathering of some sort (more to come on that later).

Sunday, August 3rd

Location: New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, Downtown Brooklyn
333 Adams Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Day 2 kicks off at 11:30am, with sessions beginning at 12 noon. That’s plenty of time to recover from staying out late the night before, or to have a decent brunch.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn about speaking at a WordCamp, now’s your chance! Kathryn Presner & Tammie Lister will be presenting a workshop on how to do just that!

Announcements

Updates and a few reminders

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Hey, folks. We want to give you an update on what’s been going on behind the scenes at WordCamp NYC. The blog’s been a little slow lately, but we’ve been working furiously behind the scenes to bring you the best WordCamp NYC ever.

Sessions/Schedule

As you may have seen on Twitter, we’ve been hard at work confirming speakers, and we will start announcing them VERY soon. We hope to have the final schedule posted soon, but we’re going to start announcing speakers and sessions next week!

Volunteer!

We’re still looking for a number of volunteers, if you’d like to help make WordCamp NYC an awesome event, please sign up to volunteer!

T-shirt deadline

To be sure to get a t-shirt in your size, buy your ticket before July 1st, 2014. We’ll be ordering some extras, but can’t guarantee you’ll have a shirt if you buy your ticket after that date.

Marriott Room Rate Deadline

There is a group rate available to book a stay at the Marriott where we’ll be holding the event. The deadline to book at the reduced rate is Friday, July 11th, 2014.

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Volunteer

Volunteers are the backbone of any great WordCamp. You’ll be helping to make our event run as smoothly as possible, ensuring a fun time is had by all. Plus, it’s a great way to get more involved in the WordPress community! If you’re interested in volunteering, please read the information below, and let us know how you’d like to help out in the contact form at the bottom of this page.

Volunteer Roles

Volunteers will be asked to work the event for at least four hours, which entitles them to a free event ticket for the whole weekend (subject to volunteer needs and availability). You are, of course, welcome to volunteer for more than four hours, but please be sure to take some time to enjoy the event! Here are the roles we’re looking to fill:

PRE-EVENT SETUP (FRIDAY AFTERNOON)

We’ll need help getting everything set up the night before everything begins. From folding t-shirts to alphabetizing name tags, it’s all in the details. This will be limited to 5-6 people, so if please choose another volunteer role as well to make sure you get to volunteer.

SETUP/REGISTRATION DESK (7AM SATURDAY)

The Registration Desk will serve as our home base throughout the event, but the main need here is early morning set up and registration. We’ll need help setting up signs, and the registration area. Once registration begins in the morning, we’ll need well-organized volunteers to ensure smooth check-ins and keep lines and waiting times short.

SESSION ROOM EMCEE (MORNING OR AFTERNOON)

Do you love talking or want experience talking to groups of people? For this position we want people who want the microphone in their hand. Our emcees will introduce speakers, keep speakers aware of the time, and help attendees with general event questions.

ROOM RUNNER (MORNING OR AFTERNOON)

Questions always come up, or maybe something is needed and someone needs to run and get it. This person will be the one who can deliver!

HAPPINESS BAR (TWO HOUR SHIFTS)

Do you like helping others to learn how to use WordPress? We need WordPress experts to help man the Happiness Bar. Users of all levels will come to you for help with their websites. It’s a great way to give back to the community and see what people are doing with WordPress as the same time!

PHOTOGRAPHY

A photography maestro will capture all the people, sights, and happenings of WordCamp NYC 2014. We need a volunteer willing to use their own camera and contribute the photos to the WordCamp NYC community to use.

ALL PURPOSE

Our all-purpose all-stars will be filling in where they are needed most. We need people to willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

CLEAN UP

We need a handful of our volunteers to stay a bit late to help clean up and pack stuff up.

HOW TO VOLUNTEER

Thanks, but Volunteer Signup is now closed.