WordCamp Savannah 2010

I’ve gotten a number of emails over the past couple of weeks from people who are interested in coming to WordCamp Savannah, but wonder if they’ll be able to keep up with the presentations because though they are thinking of using WordPress, they haven’t started yet. Since there are probably a fair number of people in this situation in Savannah, we’ve put together a full-day. pre-event workshop on Friday, August 20, 2010, to help these people ramp up. Since not everyone needs this, it will be ticketed as a separate event, but thanks to the generous sponsorship on Automattic, the company behind wordpress.com, it’s super affordable, and comes with some freebies.

Each workshop attendee will be walked through the setup of a site on wordpress.com and will learn about different content types, how to customize their site using themes and widgets, and how to use the features built into WordPress. You’ll also pick up tips on better blogging, SEO, building an audience, and integrating media into your site. By the end of the day you’ll have your own wordpress.com site with a customized design, and will have the vocabulary you need to understand the sessions over the rest of the weekend. Did I mention that the workshop instructors will include Happiness Engineers from wordpress.com? You’ll be getting information straight from the source, and will meet the people who provide wordpress.com’s famous 24/7 free support.

I’ve seen workshops like this go for $250 or more; you can get ours for only $30, and it will come with a free 1-year CSS upgrade (a $15 value) to enable your site design customizations during the workshop. If you have any questions about the workshop, leave a comment on this post and we will answer it here. Note: this workshop is a separate ticket from the rest of WordCamp weekend, so if you want to attend the weekend sessions as well (and you should, it will be awesome!), you’ll need to buy a ticket for the workshop *and* a regular WordCamp ticket. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.

The workshop will go from 9am to 5pm, and will be held at the SCAD River Club.

Step right up and get in the ground floor to sponsor the first ever WordCamp Savannah! We’ve got sponsorship opportunities for every budget, and hope to rack up the best collection of local and internet sponsors we possibly can to cover the costs of what we’re expecting to be an amazing community event. What will that amazing event be like, you ask?

• We’re expecting around 200 attendees, but can admit up to 500 if demand is high.
• We’ll be offering workshops for new WordPress users, sessions for current users and developers, and workshops for more advanced techniques.
• We’ll have a Genius Bar where WordPress experts will help people fix problems with their sites or figure out how to achieve new ideas.
• Food. Drink. Afterparty.
• Local WordPress practitioners as well as visiting speakers will provide a well-rounded program.
• Video coverage of the event will provide more exposure after the fact on WordPress.tv.

Since we all know it can take a while to get things organized, we’d like to confirm our sponsors by July 10, and get final payments processed by July 31 to ensure that we can cover our costs.

Note: Sponsors from within the WordPress “industry” should be aware that we will be adhering to WordCamp sponsorship guidelines and will only accept sponsors that are neither actively violating the WordPress license nor promoting businesses that are.

Become a sponsor now!

We’re starting to plan the WordCamp Savannah program, and we have a lot of fun ideas. It’s important that we deliver on what the local community wants/needs, though, so we whipped up a survey to get a feel for the kind of event that would best serve the everyone. It’s short, only 5 multiple choice questions, so please help us out by taking the survey.

Hooray, we have a venue! SCAD Student Media has come on as a primary event sponsor, and as a result we will be able to hold WordCamp Savannah 2010 at the fantastic River Club. This converted warehouse space has two stories with room for a couple hundred people on each floor. This will allow us to run multiple tracks, so that people can decide for themselves what they want to learn about. Since the River Club is currently used as an event space, it’s all set up for projecting presentations, and can double as the afterparty space to boot. We’re so lucky that SCAD has this space and is donating it to the cause, so thank you, SCAD Student Media, for your helpful generosity!

One of the fun things about WordCamps is seeing how each event personalizes it with local flavor, as expressed by the logo. Savannah has more personality in the trees than most cities have in their whole skyline, so we need a Savannah-esque logo. Since we’re holding WordCamp Savannah at SCAD, we thought it would be fun to let some design students take a crack at designing the logo for WordCamp Savannah. In two weeks, we’ll pick a winner. Here are the rules for the contest, and the design guidelines.

Rules:
To enter a design, you must be a registered SCAD student or live full-time in Savannah or Tybee Island. We know lots of designers who live elsewhere would like to help out and submit an entry, but this is strictly local, sorry.

Post your entry on the web somewhere (preferably on a WordPress-powered blog!), and leave a comment here with a link to it. In your comment, include your status as a SCAD student and/or local.

You may submit multiple entries.

Entries must be submitted by noon on May 20, 2010. (No question of time zone, since everyone’s in Savannah, right?)

Winner will be chosen by the event organizers.

Design Guidelines:
Want to get an idea of what some other WordCamps have done? Check out some of these for inspiration: Atlanta, New York, India, Las Vegas, Seattle, Philippines, Academic, UK,  Australia, Boston,  Charlotte, Raleigh, Spain, Fayetteville.

Start with official WordPress logos and/or WordCamp logotypes.

You can do a banner-style logo for use on the website, tshirts, etc, but we also need a recognizable W symbol for use as a Twitter avatar etc.

Logos should represent Savannah.

This WordCamp site is in early planning. Check back soon for more information.