Picture of the attendees at WordCamp Madrid 2018

Summary of WordCamp Madrid 2018

David Aguilera Avatar
David Aguilera

This past weekend we had the opportunity to enjoy WordCamp Madrid 2018 and, as tradition dictates, it’s time to share our thoughts on a wonderful event because, remember, “a WordCamp doesn’t end until you write about it on your blog“. If you were unable to attend #wcmadrid, I hope this brief summary will help you to get to know a little better what a WordCamp is and, above all, to awaken your interest and convince you to attend the next one. So let’s take a quick look at one of the biggest WordCamps in Spain!

La N@ve—The Venue

WordCamp Madrid 2018 took place in La N@ve, an old factory building that the Madrid City Council reformed a few years ago to create a space where “to share experiences, to work, to train or to look for new professional opportunities.”

If you take a look at the map (link here), you will see that its location is quite far from the centre of Madrid, but truth is that getting to the site was extremely easy. I, for example, stayed in a hotel next to Atocha station and in less than half an hour by metro I managed to get there ?

I think the organizers did a very good job choosing the venue. If we take into account that there were more than 400 attendees, having a large space in which to talk is an essential requirement, so the venue seemed to me to be a great success.

I remember that one of the things that most impressed me in the first moment was the way they organized the interior of La Nave. Look at the picture I took:

Coffee Breaks and Sponsor Zone at WordCamp Madrid 2018
Coffee Breaks and Sponsors Zone at WordCamp Madrid 2018. Does it look familiar?

Does this distribution ring a bell? Indeed, it looks a lot like the one we saw last year at WordCamp Europe 2017:

There was a huge central space where people could relax, have coffee, breakfast and lunch, chat with the sponsors and, in short, network with each other.

Talks and Speakers

The organizers of Madrid, after receiving 112 proposals for talks, decided to offer three tracks in parallel, accounting a total of 27 talks and 29 speakers. Too much? Too little? I guess it’s anybody’s guess. I personally enjoyed all the talks I attended and, even though there are some I had to miss, I know they’ll soon be available on WordPress TV and I’ll be able to watch them there. If you’re wondering which ones were my top three, here they are (in no particular order):

  1. Progressive Web Apps: Goodbye PHP. Hello JavaScript, by Luis Herranz. A talk that required certain technical knowledge, but accessible to most users nonetheless. Luis, whom I met the night before at the speakers’ dinner, made an incredible job at sharing his view on how progressive web apps will be the future. I think it’s a great introduction to WPAs, with tons of references to tools and frameworks for those interested in the subject.
  2. From Freelance to Founder of one of the largest successful companies in the WordPress ecosystem, by Nando Pappalardo. Nando is the founder of Yith, a well-known company in the WordPress ecosystem and which, as the title of his talk indicates, is quite successful. To be honest, I was curious and wanted to see what Nando would tell us… I didn’t have high expectations, as this kind of talks are a great example of the survivorship bias. But I must admit I really enjoyed the talk! Nando inspired the audience by simply telling us his story. I still believe that following his steps won’t guarantee success, but his advice is extremely useful nonetheless.
  3. Chemistry for your business: Br Cn Fi Pr + WP, by Pablo Moratinos. In a word: awesome. I loved this talk! Pablo did an impeccable job: he spoke loud and clearly, he had good rhythm, he was funny… I just hope one day I can give a talk like this. In Chemistry for your business, Pablo shared the typical problems that any company faces in general (“people don’t know who we are”, “they do, but they don’t buy our products”, “they don’t repeat”, “they don’t recommend us”, and so on) and the steps we should take to fix them and the available tools in WordPress to do so. Seriously, if you only have 25 minutes and want to practice some Spanish, watch Moratinos.

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Our Talk

We were also lucky to be able to talk at WordCamp Madrid 2018. This time we talked about the content marketing strategy that we follow in Nelio and the very important role that the blog plays in promoting our brand and reaching a wider audience. Ruth was supposed to give the talk but, in the end, it was me who surprised the audience ?

Now What?

Now it’s time to get back to the routine and prepare for some of the next (and many) WordCamps we will have in Spain in 2018. Personally, I recommend you save the 5th and 6th of October in your agenda in order to attend WordCamp Barcelona, an event that we are co-organizing from Nelio and that promises (at least) to match this incredible WordCamp Madrid.

Some of the organizers of WordCamp Barcelona were in Madrid taking note of everything that was done there to help us get ideas on how to improve our own event. I hope will be able to at least match the quality seen in Madrid. We look forward to seeing you as an attendee or, even better, as a speaker. ? See you soon!

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