5 Takeaways from WordCamp Santa Clarita

In David Letterman style, we take a one last (last), brief look back at WordCamp Santa Clarita, counting down the five takeaways for attendees.

5. Beginner’s Day

Standing room only crowds surprised and excited everyone involved; an incredible lineup of speakers welcomed newbies into WordPress.

Kameron Jenkins at WordCamp Santa Clarita
Kameron Jenkins at WordCamp Santa Clarita

4. Learning from the Best

WordCamp Santa Clarita had an incredible array of talent influencers and attendees from around the WordPress world.

Kat Christopher
Kat Christopher talks WooCommerce during a dedicated track exclusively covering the most used e-commerce platform on the web.

3. Parties

Energies two-day conference carried over into more fun at thank you parties to all who made WordCamp Santa Clarita a rousing success.

2. WordPress Community

Those who’d never been to a WordCamp NOW know what makes WordPress special, distinguishing these events from other tech conferences.

Lead Organizer Joe Simpson with Stan Zawada who came down from Iceland to WordPress!
Lead Organizer Joe Simpson with Stan Zawada who came down from Iceland to WordPress!

1. The Hallway Track

At WordCamp Santa Clarita, the Hallway Track was an incredible opportunity to continue the WordPress discussion with speakers, sponsors, and new friends that spill over from sessions.

Speaker Wrangler Rebeca Godin talks with Jason Orellana and Chris Boles.

What’s Next? Get more at your local WordPress Meetup

WordCamp Santa Clarita was incredible. Two days of sessions on everything and anything WordPress is now over, but what next? Here in Santa Clarita, join us April 20th for our next WordPress Santa Clarita Valley Meetup.

Old Town Newhall Library
Our WordPress Meetup happens at the Santa Clarita Library, Old Town Newhall Branch
WordPress Santa Clarita Valley Meetup

We gather monthly at the Old Town Newhall Library, just up the street from the site of yesterday’s after-party at Brewery Draconum on 24500 Main St, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 at Lyons Avenue.

Right Here, in Santa Clarita

Thank You. You’ll never realize how much April 5 and April 6 meant to our fledgling WordPress Community here in Santa Clarita. Imagine, having your best friends AND the WordPress world descending on our north Los Angeles County valley, sharing twenty-four informative and entertaining sessions, great conversations, and plenty of hugs and handshakes. Wow!

Those who ascended University Center Drive created history enjoying a crystal blue California day and an amazing panoramic view. The fifth annual WordCamp in Southern California, WordCamp Santa Clarita debuted where William S Hart starred in these new things called Westerns.

It’s So Crazy, It Might Just Work

Fourteen short months ago, Joe Simpson presented his 90 Days presentation and the last slide listed the following bullet point:

HOST WORDCAMP SANTA CLARITA

90 Days to Live: Finding Your Place in the WordPress Community

With the help of a small but energetic team of organizers, the dream became a reality. Enjoy this photographic look back at this weekend’s event:

Thanks again to our sponsors

One final shout out to the WordCamp Santa Clarita sponsors who made our event possible:

  • WooCommerce
  • Liquid Web
  • JetPack
  • BlueHost
  • GreenGeeks
  • GoDaddy
  • Benchmark
  • ServerPress.com
  • Money Done Right
  • Metro
  • DreamHost
  • SkySilk Cloud Services
  • KC Printing + Promotions
  • Geeky Chick Labs
  • Coded Commerce
  • Sticker Giant
  • joesimpson.info
  • Tech90
  • Luis Ramirez Creative Studio

Need More WordPress? Visit a local Meetup or #WCOC

Continue your WordPress experience our your local WordPress Meetup, find a Meetup in your neighborhood, or attend upcoming WordCamp at WordCamp Central. Cheers, until next year…

Meet the WordCamp Santa Clarita Organizers

WordCamp Santa Clarita Origin Story

WCSCV Organizers
WordCamp Santa Clarita Organizers (left to right) Joe Simpson, Rebeca Godin, and Ron Amick. Not pictured – Sean Conklin and Tange Brown Simpson.

Tomorrow kicks off the first annual WordCamp Santa Clarita, the fifth annual Southern California WordPress conference; but who is putting this event on? Meet your local community organizing team — they’ll be here to make your weekend a fun and rewarding experience in a welcoming environment.

Driving home from another Meetup somewhere in Southern California – downtown Los Angeles, Pasadena, Whittier, Hollywood, Long Beach, Orange County, and even Riverside, Lead Organizer Joe A Simpson Jr figured there had to be a better way. Instead of spilling coffee on his lap while driving home at 10:50 pm from a WordPress Meetup, why not start one in Santa Clarita?

At the first meetup almost two years ago, he presented a topic to the WordPress Santa Clarita Valley Meetup and closed with a slide with a crazy idea — host a WordCamp in Santa Clarita.

Tomorrow is that day thanks to the following team of talented and hard-working organizers.

Ron Amick, A/V Wrangler

Ron Amick, A/V Wrangler
Ron Amick, A/V Wrangler

Ron Amick is a creature with two heads – he can write code and content, edit film and ad copy, and speak both digital and analogue. With an engineer father and painter mother, Ron Amick always had an affinity for both technology and art. His misspent youth was dedicated to making short films which, through no fault of his own, landed him at USC film school. After stints working as a producer and editor at several studios and post-production houses, he landed at Disney New Technology and New Media, which ignited a love for web development. Moving from entertainment to tech was less of a pivot than a way to combine his interest in computers with his passion for storytelling. Since then Ron has learned (and forgotten) more software than is reasonable (Flash, anyone?) and worked with many creative agencies, tech companies, and entertainment clients to create websites, mobile apps, games, books, ecommerce stores and more. “It’s hard being both a geek and a nerd,” says Ron, “but who are you if you don’t even try?”

Pronunciation Guide: ā – mick — with a long “a” as in “acorn”

Sean Conklin, Sponsor Wrangler

Sean Conklin, Sponsor Wrangler

Sean has been a full-stack PHP web developer since 2002. His current specialties have been in WordPress powered sites since 2011 and WooCommerce powered shops since early 2017. Sean co-organizes and speaks at the West Valley WordPress Meetup as well as the WooCommerce Los Angeles Meetup. At his day job Sean is Founder at Coded Commerce, LLC, where he helps his clients with WordPress and WooCommerce-powered online stores.

Rebeca Godin, Speaker Wrangler

Rebeca Godin, Speaker Wrangler

Rebeca has been a WordPress developer for a little over 3 years. In that time, she realized that just creating websites for her clients was not good enough to help them with their business goals. She recently founded Geeky Chick Labs, which is a digital marketing agency that uses WordPress websites as digital hubs. Then connecting social media and other digital marketing resources to create powerful online presences for her clients. The main goal of these hubs is to get business owners back too doing their thing — running their business.

When not helping clients grow their businesses, Rebeca loves to cook, read, play games — video and tabletop, hang out with her family and animals and most importantly cheering for her son and his hockey team.

Tange Brown Simpson, Special Events Wrangler

Tange Brown Simpson, Special Events Wrangler

Tange is an Instructional Aide to the Speech Pathologist at Castaic Elementary school in the Santa Carita Valley. She works with special needs children to improve their speech intelligibility. She is currently completing coursework at Pasadena City College in pursuit of a Speech and Language Pathologist Assistant degree.

Prior to this career, Tange work in entertainment as a Stage Manager at NBC Television and Warner Bros Television, working on Family Matters and NBC at Sunrise. When she’s not helping her husband with WordCamp Santa Clarita, she is be found playing Candy Crush.

Tange is an Instructional Aide to the Speech Pathologist at Castaic Elementary, a distinguished school in the Santa Carita Valley. She works with special needs children to improve their speech intelligibility. She is currently completing coursework at Pasadena City College in pursuit of a Speech and Language Pathologist Assistant degree.

Joe A Simpson Jr, Lead Organizer

Joe A Simpson Jr, Lead Organizer

A veteran of more than a dozen WordCamps around the country as an attendee and after serving as a volunteer locally and as an emcee at last December’s WordCamp US, Joe wanted to do more with WordPress. Joe has also presented topics at WordCamp Chicago, WordCamp Los Angeles, WordCamp Orange County, and WordCamp Phoenix and hosts the WordPress Santa Clarita Valley Meetup.

Joe is a Front-End Web Developer and Graphic Designer specializing in WordPress solutions. During days he works at one of the nation’s top-five transit agencies, fighting the good fight to ease the commute around Los Angeles County. When their lead developer and CSS specialist both left to pursue other opportunities, Joe inherited a Headway-themed design (sans child theme) and the rest is history over ten years later with a WordPress blog network consisting of over a dozen project-specific or transit news sites.

What is a Wapuu?

In these parts, legend has it that these beautiful, graceful, and mysterious creatures were once plentiful throughout the northern plains of Los Angeles County. First sighted amongst the super blooms along the Grapevine in the early 1800s, a blend of pronghorn antelopes and a wizard’s spell, playful and inquisitive.

Home on the Range?

But bad weather, the fur trade, and magic hunters pushed Prongaloops towards extinction in Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys. Recently, reported yet unconfirmed sightings around Magic Mountain, Vasquez Rocks, and grazing along the Grapevine during spring California Poppy season of these Wapuus have sparked a viral sensation on the Internets.

Commemorative Prongaloop Wapuu Pin

These cute monsters were created in 2009 at the WordCamp Tokyo after-party to promote WordPress in Japan.

Attendees at WordCamp Santa Clarita April 5-6, at the Dr. Dianne G. Van Hook University Center on the campus of the College of the Canyons, will receive a commemorative pin provided by our friends at Wapuus Field Guide and Outpost.

New to WordPress?

What is WordCamp? Graphic containing question mark and WordPress logo.

As the first WordPress event north of downtown Los Angeles and south of Sacramento since 2014, WordCamp Santa Clarita becomes the fifth such event in Southern California, joining fan-favorites WordCamps in Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, and San Diego. But for Santa Clarita residents who may not be familiar we answer the question, “what is a WordCamp?”

What is a WordCamp?

WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress, the free and open source personal publishing software that powers over 75 million sites (1 of every 3) on the web. Locally, websites large and small use WordPress — the City of Santa Clarita (Cowboy Festival, Santa Clarita Library, The Main Theatre), Steamwork Center, and It’s A Grind, etc. — with the list growing each day.

Where is Santa Clarita, CA?

Just north of Los Angeles on Interstate 5 is the city of Santa Clarita, the fourth largest city in Los Angeles County. Consisting of Canyon Country, Castaic, Newhall, Saugus, Stevenson Ranch and Valencia the Santa Clarita Valley is one of its fastest-growing communities in the region.

We’ve Got It All Here

With thirty-four parks/open spaces, over 115 miles of bike paths, three local colleges (CalArts, the Masters University and College of the Canyons), a fledgling film studio and tech community, a nationally-known amusement park (Six Flags Magic Mountain) and a public transit system featuring Santa Clarita Transit bus, Pace Bike Program, and regional Metrolink train service, the Santa Clarita Valley is the perfect spot to grow the WordPress Community.