Category: News

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WordCamp San Diego Recap

We are happy to report that WordCamp San Diego 2018 was a great success and the entire organizing team is thrilled with the overall outcome and so now it’s time to wrap this up.

Speakers & Sponsors

This year we made it a priority to get feedback on the topics you were most interested in learning about, so that we could structure the tracks accordingly. WCSD 2018 covered a range of topics in Development, Design, Admin, Business and WordPress’s latest feature, Guttenberg, all with their own dedicated tracks.

We had a great lineup of speakers this year to help us tackle all aspects of WordPress, and want to extend our gratitude for the time they put into preparing for, and presenting at, our event. If you missed any of the talks, make sure to visit WordPress.tv as the presentations will be available soon.

WCSD is not possible without our sponsors. Not only did they support us with funding and in-kind donations, but many of them came out to network and share their expertise over the weekend. The sponsor room was alive with chatter and smiling faces – and the swag was plentiful! We hope you were able to take some time between tracks to meet some of our awesome sponsors and learn more about their services.

Venues & Vendors

San Diego City College

Finding a venue for an event of this size in San Diego is challenging, especially with the need of multiple, simultaneous tracks, so we were excited when San Diego City College met our criteria. The staff was a pleasure to work with and very helpful in makng WCSD a success.

Wild Thyme Catering

Saturday’s lunch was provided by Wild Thyme Catering. They prepared a variety of fresh sandwiches and wraps for attendees. People spread out along the courtyard while networking to enjoy their delicious meal.

Wild Thyme also made sure to keep the coffee, tea and water flowing during our event. We know how important it is to stay caffeinated during a WordCamp, so we made sure that coffee was readily available at all times.

Chipotle

A full day of Camp learning would make anyone hungry and having burritos from Chipotle certainly gave attendees the extra energy they needed to make it through another round of tracks on Sunday.

Museum of Man

The after party was held in the heart of Balboa Park at The San Diego Museum of Man, which is housed in the California Building, originally built for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. We were lucky to have the entire museum for our private event and the opportunity to visit the exhibits that were currently on display.

A nice selection of beer and wine was served, along with light appetizers from Luna Grill.

Community. Core. Commits.

We hope you enjoyed WordCamp San Diego and have been inspired to create and do more with WordPress. Remember, there are a ton of ways to get involved.

Post-Camp Survey

Send us your feedback so we can make next year’s WCSD even better.

https://central.wordcamp.org/wordcamp-attendee-survey/

Meetups

The Advanced WordPress Meetup is held monthly in/around San Diego and is a developer-centric Meetup focused on sharing knowledge and ideas.

Contributing to WordPress

The Codex has a very detailed page explaining the different ways you can Contribute to WordPress. There are opportunities for everyone to get involved, whether or not coding is “your thing”. Some of the ways you could contribute include: writing documentation, helping others in the support forum, assisting with translations to other languages, putting your coding chops to use and participating in development, bug reporting, and more.

Volunteering Next Year

Interested in organizing or volunteering to help with WCSD 2019? Drop us a line at wordcampsd@gmail.com and we will reach out when planning for next year begins.

Thank You

YOU are the reason we continue to volunteer our time to organize this event year after year, and it is our sincere hope that you walked away with a bit of inspiration and some new friendships. You are the reason the WordPress community is so amazing.

We look forward to seeing you next year!

– WCSD 2018 Organizing Team

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Get Ready for WCSD

Hey recruits! We are looking forward to seeing you this weekend at #wcsd and want to share some helpful information to ensure you get the most out of your WordCamp weekend.

In case you didn’t know, all WordCamps are volunteer-run conferences organized by those in your local community and are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all. Please reference the WordCamp Code of Conduct for details.

Check the attendee list

This is a great way to see who’s attending and make new friends.

Read Through the Schedule

Decide which sessions to attend ahead of time so you can plan lots of conversation time in the “networking track” where you can learn one-on-one.

Get Social on Twitter and Facebook

Share quotes and comments you overhear throughout the weekend with #wcsd.

Registration

Registration begins at 7:45am. Come early for meeting cool people just like you. Opening remarks will start at 8:45am of the corresponding rooms for each track.

Help Bar

Have a specific question about using WordPress? Stop by the help bar which is staffed by volunteers from various backgrounds that will assist you with your WordPress site.

WiFi

Due to how the buildings are structured at SDCC, the WiFi can be a little spotty, so please prepare accordingly in the event there is no connection or it’s slow.

Saturday After Party

The After Party will be held at San Diego Museum of Man, in the heart of Balboa Park. We’re lucky to have the entire venue for our WordCamp attendees from 7 – 11 PM. Be prepared to show proper ID if you would like an adult beverage and please, have your WCSD badge with you.

Sunday Networking

Join us for some great networking over coffee at 10am on Sunday, right before our keynote speaker, Dre Armeda takes the stand.

Parking

There’s plenty of parking nearby so make sure to check out where to park in advance.

Last of all

Please give a big thank you to our sponsors, speakers, volunteers and organizers for all their efforts in making WordCamp San Diego great this year.

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Meet the people who work hard to make WCSD happen. 

We have worked relentlessly for the past 8 months in the planning of  WordCamp San Diego so that bloggers, designers, developers, authors, marketers, non-profits, photographers, consultants, entrepreneurs— the list goes on, can expand their knowledge in WordPress and meet others who share the same interests. We are excited to see it all come together this weekend and look forward to meeting new friends. When you see one of us around, feel free to give us a high-five,  so we know how much you enjoyed Camp!

Kim Blake

Kim is the owner and lead developer of Alpha Webworks. She enjoys building websites in WordPress and learning about the latest web trends and techniques. She attends the popular AWP Meetup group regularly, where there is always a topic of interest. Kim was an organizer for WCSD 2016 and 2017 and is honored to be back leading the team for 2018.

Away from the computer, you’ll find Kim planning a new route for her run club or attending a good play.

Devin Walker

Devin Walker is the creator of several highly rated and award winning WordPress plugins. His work is actively being used by millions of websites and has been featured in Product Hunt, WP Tavern, Torque, and several other widely regarded online publications.

As an advocate for open source, Walker has given back extensively to the WordPress community in the form of code contributions, WordCamp and Meetup organization and speaking efforts, and fostering and supporting popular online groups like Advanced WordPress (AWP) and WordPress for Nonprofits.

As a business owner, Walker founded his WordPress company WordImpress and has grown it to a team of more than 15-employees within two years of incorporation. Popular plugins include GiveWP, the top-rated donation and fundraising platform for WordPress, WP Rollback, Google Maps Builder, Yelp Widget Pro and WooCommerce Quick Checkout.

Outside of work, Devin enjoys traveling the world, going to concerts, and a leisurely round of golf.

Mike Payne

Mike is a Salt Lake City transplant to San Diego who has been working with WordPress since 2008. He is deeply involved in the WordPress Community, and loves to see WordPress used as more than a blogging platform. Currently, Mike is the Web Development Manager at VITRO, an organizer for the Advanced WordPress Meetup, and for WordCamp San Diego 2018.

Mandie Shaner

Mandie Shaner is a “wearer of many hats” at ZenThree – a WordPress-centric website development and consulting shop based in San Diego, CA. Her team has been creatively solving problems and providing fully managed WordPress hosting for a decade, focusing on the needs of small and midsize businesses.

When she’s not WordPress-ing you can find her at our local Bitcoin Meetup.

Joel Williams

Joel Williams is an England native, and now San Diego based Happiness Engineer at Automattic. He previously owned Blog Tech Guy for over seven years, one of the first WordPress.org customization services.

Trish Daugherty

I am Trish Daugherty. I’ve been working in WordPress for many years now, but my background is in Graphic Design, including many years designing signage and wayfinding systems for hospitals and other large ‘campus’ and building systems. I have done some product development and lots of marketing related and branding along the way.

My current projects involve environmental issues, working with a group that is developing food and energy security. My job is the website and related marketing components of the projects, but I get to learn about things like Ultra High-Temperature Pyrolysis® (for waste-to-energy plants, where garbage,  plastic, even toxic waste is safely converted to useful energy called Syngas) while doing so.

I look forward to meeting you at WordCamp in April. Contact me on Twitter (@trish_daugherty) if you want to connect before then!

AJ Zane

AJ Zane has been building websites since the days before flash loading screens and you couldn’t expect your users to have “JavaScript Enabled” in their browsers.

Although his day-to-day no longer revolves around WordPress (he works as a Software Developer at Veyo Logistics, changing the way healthcare is provided for those who need it), he enjoys strengthening the community around WordPress through helping out with wordcamps, being an admin of the Advanced WordPress FaceBook group, and engaging with community.

Say hi to him on Twitter (@azanebrain), in the WordPress Slack group (also @azanebrain), or in person at a WordCamp.

Chris Ford

In 2012 Chris spoke at her first WordCamp (right here in San Diego). Since then she’s spoken in San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore. She’s a project manager at Reaktiv Studios, a WordPress VIP partner, where she works with an extremely talented team of developers who make me look good 🙂

When she isn’t in Asana or reading up on the lastest productivity hacks she’s probably hanging out with her wife, dog, and guitar (and possibly a craft beer or three. It is San Diego.)

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Parking

parking

In case you have been wondering about parking, there’s plenty of it!

Free parking for WordCamp San Diego is at the following structure and lots.

  • Parking Structure 3, next to Garfield High School at 1255 16th St, San Diego, CA 92101
  • Parking Lot 5 at 1127 16th St, San Diego, CA 92101
  • Parking Lot 8 at the Learning Resource Center. Northside of C Street and 13th Street

There is also plenty of free on-street parking.

Campus Map Parking

 

 

If you’re taking the trolley, the closest stop is the City College Station.

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Introducing Dre Armeda: WCSD 2018’s Keynote Speaker

This year’s keynote speaker, Dre Armeda, is one of the original organizers of WCSD and has been pivotal in growing the WordPress community in Southern California.

When the WCSD organizers were brainstorming a solid choice for this year’s keynote the first name that came to mind was Dre Armeda. He has been an inspiration to us all and his encouragement has ensured many years of successful WordCamps in San Diego after his departure as one of the original organizers.

WCSD 2018’s Keynote Speaker Dre Armera

Dre Armeda, is a veteran who has lead his country forward and now heads and directs all enterprise sales and partnership efforts for Sucuri Security at GoDaddy.

The company he helped co-found, Sucuri, is a globally-recognized and trusted website security brand. They are known for their technology, research and customer service. Armeda has been pivotal in the growth and success of the company.

The insights and tips he will present within the keynote will be relevant to all those in the WordPress Community from the beginner and freelancer to successful agency or product business owner.

KEYNOTE: HOW TRANSITION CAN EMPOWER YOUR BUSINESS

Dre Armeda, veteran and successful businessman, will give WordCamp San Diego’s keynote talk on Sunday April 15th at 11:00am. This talk will allow you to not only listen to his experiences, but also dive into your own, as you experience your own transition.

In his words:

“I want to bridge stories about my military career, how that was a foundation of learning and persistence, and how it lead me to my experiences in business, entrepreneurship and so on. Embracing change and understanding pivots are necessary.”

Sunday Keynote

We encourage all attendees to come on Sunday to experience this one of a kind keynote.

His keynote is at 11am, Sunday April 15th and will be 30 minutes long with room for a Q/A session after. This is an excellent opportunity for you to meet a successful business owner and a well esteemed veteran from our local Souther California community.

We expect standing room only for this keynote so please show up early if you want a good seat. We’ll be sure to have plenty of coffee and snacks to keep you fully fueled throughout the day.

See you Sunday for Dre Armeda’s keynote!

 

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Meet the Speakers for the Navy Track

Come join these excellent speakers in the Navy track and learn about support and client relations.

Ben Meredith

Ben is the Senior Support Technician at WordImpress, the makers of Give, the most robust donation platform for WordPress. He also created Better Click To Tweet, the most popular WordPress Plugin for adding Click to Tweet boxes to WordPress posts and pages. A lifelong North Carolinian (with a 4-year break in Middle Tennessee just after college), Ben is also one of the organizers for WordCamp Raleigh, leading the team in 2017 and 2018. When not coding or solving code puzzles to support users, you’ll find him with a guitar in hand or perhaps playing a round of disc golf. He’d lobby for it being called just “golf” and making that other game “ball golf” or perhaps “expensive ball golf.”

Jason Knill

Jason is a partner at co-founder of GiveWP.com, a WordPress donation plugin powering more than 40k+ active installs. He works on managing the businesses growth, buys the ads and does pre-sales support tickets, too. He grew up in Jefferson Park (blue line), too—though he lives in San Diego now, he’s a Blackhawks and White Sox fan.

Jamie Schmid

Jamie Schmid has a particular passion for creating excellent content experiences. Originally from Milwaukee, WI, she has been working as a WordPress freelancer and consultant since 2012, regularly taking sites from conception through a well-managed build process that encourages communication, planning, and smart use of content. She has a background in Information Architecture and Content Strategy, a passion for all things WordPress, and a whole lot of cats back home in Portland, OR. In her role as SiteLock WordPress Evangelist Jamie helps build awareness of website security best practices and solutions.

Ellen Goodwin

Ellen Goodwin is a TEDx speaker, trainer and productivity expert who inspires digital entrepreneurs to cut the BS, turbo-charge their results and become the Action Hero of their business and their life!

No stranger to the entrepreneurial roller coaster, she nearly fired herself from her own graphic design business after procrastination, uninspiring projects and playing way too many computer games nearly shut it down. Something had to change. And fast.

So, like any good Action Hero, she pulled herself up by the bootstraps and dove headfirst into the world of neuroscience to understand the brain’s natural triggers and signals related to productivity and focus. Through trial and error, she took what she learned, coupled with 20+ years experience as a business owner, and transformed her life and livelihood… in record time. And has made it her mission to help others do the same. Today she is founder and CEO of EllenGoodwin.com where she empowers other entrepreneurs to create the business and life they’ve always imagined too.

When she’s not talking about brains and saving the world one entrepreneur at a time, Ellen can be found podcasting, bike riding or hosting a Dive Bar of the Month club

Kitty Lusby

Kitty Lusby is a long time professional blogger based in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she blogs both at a day job and as her nighttime gig. About 5 years ago, Kitty decided to start a blog to hone her writing skills and build an audience, and after a perfunctory Google search for “how to start a blog,” she created her first WordPress site. That simple search led to a full-time career within 6 months, and today, Kitty spends most of her day on a WordPress dashboard. She’s known for her humor and wit, her knack for picking up a brand’s voice in her writing, and also for her minor obsession with all things taco. You can find Kitty’s personal blog at kittylusby.com, her most prominent professional blog at NeONBRAND.com, and articles with her name on them all over the web.

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Meet the Speakers for the National Guard Track

Increase your knowledge on a variety of WordPress topics with these fantastic speakers in the National Guard track.

Michelle Ames

Overextended, overcommitted, entrepreneur, volunteer, and social butterfly. Avid Scrabble player. Photographer. School board member. Marketing enthusiast. 11th hour expert. WordPress fanatic. Lead organizer of WordCamp Rochester, NY. Co-organizer of WordCamp Buffalo. Michelle is the Head of Customer Relations at GiveWP.com.

Natalie Bourn

Natalie Bourn is currently a freshman in high school. She’s been a WordPress blogger for four years and writes about adventures, life lessons, her journey through school and being a teenager, and her friends and family. She has recently started a YouTube channel sharing videos about her life and travels. When she’s not busy with homework and exploring with her family, she loves to dance and choreograph, read, write, and play with her brother. Check out nataliebourn.com for more.

Chris Lema

Chris Lema is Vice President of Products & Innovation at Liquid Web, a blogger (at chrislema.com and leaders.blog), the author of several ebooks and a public speaker. He loves to tell stories – helping people learn how to leverage technology for their business and personal use.

Mike Demo

Mike “Demo” Demopoulos is a longtime lover of Open Source Software. He currently works at BoldGrid (a WordPress Site Builder) as an Evangelist. He has spoken at numerous open source events around the world. Mike is also a contributor to Huffington Post as well as other publications. In addition, he volunteers as Treasurer for Open Source Matters.

Lindsay Halsey

Based in Basalt, Colorado, Lindsay Halsey is a co-founder of WP SEO Hub, a do-it-yourself WordPress SEO platform, and partner of webShine, a search engine marketing agency. Her primary interest is search engine optimization for WordPress websites. Lindsay enjoys teaching business owners about holistic SEO practices with a focus on actionable tactics that create results.

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Meet the Speakers for the Marines Track

In case you want to learn more about web development, come back on Sunday and hear our great speakers from the Marines track.

Greg Taylor

After working in marketing and business development for over twelve years, Greg decided to pursue his passion for WordPress development and content marketing by starting his own company. Tired of seeing sites that look great but don’t achieve results, he Co-Founded Trinity Web Media & Development to help business owners find the best of both worlds. In addition to leading the company, Greg has become well-known in the WordPress community as a speaker and teacher. He has presented at several conferences (including TechPHX, WordCamp LA, WordCamp Phoenix, WordCamp Orange County and WordCamp Vegas), been featured on industry podcasts (such as EOFire, WP Elevation, BusyMarketer and Excellence Expected), and hosts his own podcast The New Marketing Show. When he’s not working on code or content, Greg spends his free time mentoring, taking in and playing live music, or listening to baseball on the beach.

Behzod Saidov

Behzod is an experienced full-stack web developer currently working at Investor’s Business Daily (investors.com). He previously worked at The Walt Disney Company as a Tech Lead where he oversaw development of new websites and maintained dozens of websites mostly built using WordPress.

He has been using WordPress since 2007. Enjoys building websites and web applications using WordPress and Laravel.

Behzod lives in Los Angeles with his wife and 2 kids.

Cory Webb

Cory Webb is a senior full stack developer at Reaktiv Studios hailing from Waco, Texas, home of Dr. Pepper, Baylor University, and shiplap (that’s a reference to HGTV’s Fixer Upper for the uninitiated). Before joining the team at Reaktiv, Cory ran a small web development company specializing in WordPress and Joomla development. His educational background is in engineering and business, but his true passion has been web development since he built his first web page as a freshman electrical engineering student at the University of Texas in 1997. When he’s not busy manipulating 1’s and 0’s, you can usually find him spending time with his wife and 3 kids, traveling, watching movies, and serving at his local church.

Pete Nelson

Pete is a full-time senior web engineer with 10up. He’s been working with WordPress the past 5+ years, has been doing web development professionally since the mid 90s, and is the creator of baconipsum.com

Website:baconipsum.com, Twitter: @GunGeekATX

Rob Marlbrough

Rob launched Web Wizards over 20 years ago, now rebranded to Press Wizards® Inc. as CEO and Chief Developer, and today is a leading WordPress services and managed WordPress hosting provider. He launched the monthly WordPress maintenance service, WP Site Dr. He also co-founded 5 Star Plugins, with over 20K active installs, and is developing a suite of WordPress marketing plugins. He also co-founded Fandom Marketing, a full-service digital marketing agency in 2010, and serves as the CTO. He has over 20 years of experience in web technology and ecommerce, integration, and digital marketing.

Presswizards.com, wpsitedr.com, 5starplugins.com, fandommarketing.com

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Meet the Speakers for the Air Force Track

Make sure to sit in on the Air Force track and master your web development skills with these awesome speakers.

Tessa Kriesel

Developer Advocate at Pantheon, Tessa has been a web developer for over 10 years. She enjoys front-end development but also loves to build sites from start to finish.

She enjoys teaching others to code, mentoring junior developers and speaking at conferences and youth events. She is an instructor and retired Chapter Leader for Girl Develop It Minneapolis, WordCamp Minneapolis Organizer and founder of Outspoken Women. Tessa is a northern Minnesota native, but now lives in the Twin Cities. She loves dogs and enjoys helping local organizations rescue dogs in her free time.

Mika Epstein

Mika Ariela “Ipstenu” Epstein works for DreamHost as a full stack WordPress developer on DreamPress, Mika helps make the internet better for everyone. She is passionate about code, open source technology, open data, and mindful development practices. The cofounder of LezWatchTV, the greatest database of queer characters and shows, she develops software and trawls queer representation on television to make the data visible.

Adam Rasheed

Adam Rasheed is a UI designer and front-end developer who runs a design consultancy at Creatix Online Marketing. For 5+ years, he’s directly helped small businesses reach their audiences online.

Carl Alexander

I’m a PHP developer from Montréal, Canada. I live and breath advanced programming topics (and memes). I share a lot of my passion for those topics on my website where I publish articles on a regular basis.

It’s my way to help you with these hard-to-learn topics. That’s also why I’m excited to speak at WordCamp San Diego. It’s another way for me to help you.

Besides that, I’ve been a WordPress Montréal organizer since 2010. I also help organize other WordPress events during the year. You can find me on Twitter and GitHub.

Chris David Miles

Chris is a Product Manager for Bluehost in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has done freelance web design and front-end development for over a decade. He discovered WordPress in 2011 and has used it to build sites for clients and non-profits ever since.

Johm Adams

I’m a friendly, goofy guy who is a bit a Frankenstein engineer. I started in home automation, then worked in software, from there server and database development, machine automation and development, and finally web development. My wife — my best friend — and I moved to San Diego two years ago from Detroit and have enjoyed the weather! I’ve contributed to WP core, am an author of Piklist, and like to contribute where I can. Feel free to approach me and chat about anything!

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Meet the Speakers for the Army Track

Get ready to learn about design at WCSD with these great speakers in the Army track.

Christopher Tuttle

I have been teaching WordPress for the last 3 years and I currently run a premium WordPress consulting team called WP-Live for Mojo Marketplace. I love helping people and small business get a start on something they didn’t think they could do on their own.

Amber Hewitt

Amber Hewitt is a front-end web developer who has created websites for a wide variety of clients for over 15 years. With a strong background in design (graphic design degree from Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design), she has developed a passion for good imagery and typography in print and on the web.

Jennifer Bourn

Jennifer Bourn is founding partner at Bourn Creative a full-service design and development company specializing in WordPress. With twenty years in the industry under her belt, she is an award-winning designer who consults on branding, website strategy, and content strategy. Jennifer speaks often, delivering workshops and keynote presentations, co-organizes the Sacramento WordPress Meetup and WordCamp Sacramento and writes regularly about freelancing, client services, blogging, marketing, websites, and branding. Learn more at jenniferbourn.com

Christina Hills

Christina Hills, the creator of the Website Creation Workshop™, has been passionately teaching WordPress non-techie small business owners, authors, experts, coaches and consultants. She puts the fun into teaching technology and empowers business owners to be in full control of their marketing and online presence. She has been running her online WordPress training program to an international audience since 2008. Before becoming a WordPress entrepreneur, Christina Hills worked as a digital artist for the network promotions division of NBC-TV, and then as a senior technical director in the Feature Film Division at George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic with film credits for Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and ET the re-release. She now lives in San Diego, California with her husband and daughter.

Dave Woods

Dave is the founder of Deedub Inc., a San Diego area brand strategy and customer experience (CX/UX) consultancy. He got his start in web design in 1998 when he took an HTML class in high school, and he subsequently graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a BS in Graphic Communication. Dave then went on to serve a variety of schools, non-profits, and businesses in both in-house and consulting roles, including a nearly six-year stint as the Branding and New Media Specialist at California State University San Marcos. During his time at CSUSM, Dave was involved in a number of high-profile strategic marketing initiatives for the university, and he was a leader in two campus website redesigns. Today, he helps his Deedub Inc. clients transform their customer experiences through a blend of research, strategy, and design services (which often includes highly-customized WordPress design and development projects).

Mark Uraine

Mark is an interdisciplinary designer dedicated to making the web more accessible and human friendly by facilitating the transfer of information through design. Mark works at Automattic contributing to the open source project, WordPress.

WordCamp San Diego 2018 is over. Check out the next edition!