WordCamp is returning to Vancouver in the summer of 2010, welcoming WordPress developers, enthusiasts and bloggers once the Olympics have moved out.

We have a great group of people signed on to organize so far who all want to see this event become a smashing success.

It’s still very much in the planning phases so please follow @WordCampYVR for updates from Duane Storey (BraveNewCode), John (sixty4media), or myself. The website will be up at WordCampVancouver.com and it’s already listed on the official WordCamp directory.

Related: See John Biehler’s post about WordCamp Vancouver 2010 as well.

On August 22nd we’ll be participating in the second WordCamp Fraser Valley. The day will be laid out in tracks for beginners, intermediate users, developers, and a track just for Twitter use with WordPress.

This will also be our third WordCamp this year, having organized WordCamp Whistler, and attended WordCamp in San Francisco. My specific talk will be about how WordPress can be used for much more than blogging.

I’ll be giving examples of websites powered by WordPress where a blog is not the main feature and sharing some tips on how to achieve this use of the platform. It is in the “beginner” track so it will be far more educational than code-heavy. My hope is to spread the word that WordPress is powerful and easy to use but not just for blogging although that’s how my experience began.

WordCamp Fraser Valley is 9:00am – 5:00pm August 22nd at the SFU campus in Surrey at Central City. Easy to get to by SkyTrain and transit, with plenty of parking as well. Each track is $25 or you can get a ticket to all tracks for $75 by registering online.

Fisheye shot of WordCampSF Welcome (Photo by John Biehler)

We’re spending today at WordCampSF 2009. We hope to learn and share a lot of knowledge about all things WordPress, and you can following along Rebecca’s blog post that she is updating throughout the day.

If you’re here, stop us and say hello!

In just a few short hours we’ll be heading down to San Francisco along with our friend Duane Storey to attend this year’s WordCamp conference. The event takes place Saturday and the lineup includes everyone from Chris Pirillo and Cali Lewis to Matt Cutts and WordPress’ founder, Matt Mullenweg of Automattic.

John and I have been asked to do a shift at the Genius Bar so if you’re there bright and early, you can ask me all your WordPress questions from 9:15am until 10:00am. We’ll be blogging while we’re down there and hopefully making some connections, meeting new people, and brushing up on our WordPress skills so that we can deliver the absolute best sites and tools for our clients.

This past weekend sixty4media co-hosted WordCamp Whistler alongside Brave New Code. We had originally planned for 50 people and we ended up getting over 100 attendees joining us for the weekend for a day of talks about WordPress and online publishing.

Keynote Lorrelle Van Fossen (aka Lorelle on WordPress)
Dave Olson (Topic, Are you Worthy?)
John Biehler (Topic, How To Sex Up Your Blog With Photos And Video)
Dale Mugford (Topic, WordPress On The Go)
Andy Peatling (Topic, BuddyPress)
Quentin Mulhurt (Topic, WordPress and Search Engine Optimization)
Morten Rand-Hendriksen (Topic, Using WordPress In Alternate Configurations)
Tris Hussey (Topic, Using WordPress as a Generic Content Management system (CMS))

We were very please with the location and the accommodations, while the attendance, input, insights, and presentations exceeded expectations. We definitely look forward to doing this again next year.

You can read the live notes on the WordCamp Whistler website that John setup and I also have a few day blogs up on Miss604.com.

After several successful WordCamps in Vancouver, Kulpreet got the wheels in motion for the next event, coming this winter. Last night on Twitter something magical also happened – the idea of having the event in Whistler was hatched and so planning for WordCamp Whistler is now underway.

Read Duane’s blog post for a preview, view the Facebook event, and feel free to sign up on the wiki. More details to come in over the next little while. sixty4media will once again be involved as an organizer as well as presenting.

WordPress is an open source blog publishing application powering millions of blogs worldwide.

During this year’s BarCampVancouver on Granville Island we had a sidetrack that featured WordCamp as well as PhotoCamp in the afternoon. In case you missed it, I have a small recap up on my site and here are some of the featured talks:

Andy Peatling – BuddyPress
Keith Murray – WordPress for Newbies
Brad – WordPress as a CMS
Tris – SEO tips
Lloyd Budd from Automattic – The Business of WordPress
Greg from Donat – sni.ps
John Biehler – FAlbum plugin

John also shared his top 3 most-recommended WordPress plugins, which include FeedEntryHeader, WordTwit, and Quicktag Manager.

So far I’ve had a great time at all of Vancouver’s WordCamps and we’re looking forward to the next.

There have been a few WordCamps in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley over the last year but none have compared to the scale and grandeur of San Francisco’s master gathering of WordPress enthusiasts. Duane from Brave New Code attended this year and is bringing back all sorts of ideas for the city’s next WordCamp, which sixty4media will be co-organizing with him at BarCamp Vancouver.

BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.

All attendees are encouraged to give a demo, a session, a presentation, or help with one. All attendees are expected to be participants. All presentations are scheduled the day they happen. Prepare in advance, but come early to get a slot on the wall.

Presenters are responsible for making sure that notes/slides/audio/video of their presentations are published on the web for the benefit of all and those who can’t be present.

Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.

If you have any suggestions about what you would like to see at WordCamp during BarCamp feel free to drop us a comment. We’re hoping to incorporate some elements from San Francisco as well as bringing in experts to share their thoughts and knowledge on all fronts. This will be a learning session for rookies and veterans, all celebrating our favourite blogging platform.

Apologies for not promoting this event sooner, but WordCamp Fraser Valley is going on right now. In fact, Raul is up in the front of the room and giving his presentation on switching to WordPress from Blogger, so we are in full swing out here in Langley.

Rebecca is doing her best to live blog most of today’s event, so head over there to get more information.

It’s worth noting these types of events for being great places to meet other WordPress users. There is also a wealth of ideas that we find by attending gatherings like this. Whether it’s finding your voice as a blogger or discovering new tools to make your postings better, finding events like these are worth your time when it comes to wanting to find out more by what you can do with your blog.

Update: There was a question raised during Rebecca’s presentation that prompted me to make a quick blog post on my personal blog about “Designing drop down menus with CSS on WordPress“. This is something that we did for one of our clients, No Boundaries.org. If you are curious about this topic, please check out my post there.