Author: Sarah Rowe

I am a huge fan of George Eastman, a famous Rochester philanthropist and founder of Eastman Kodak, who generously supported the Rochester community. I love that the WordPress community is so open and welcoming to all, with people willing to give their time and expertise to anyone who needs it. If it wasn’t for George and his Eastman Kodak company, founded in Rochester, where might we be today with photography?

I am George Eastman’s number one fan. I’ve even been accused of dressing like him. And it is true I do try to dress like him! He was so stylish! The only problem I have with the way Eastman dressed is trying to find pants – they often don’t have a hole for my tail!

My favorite camera is the folding Brownie camera first introduced in 1900 by Eastman Kodak – I carry it with me wherever I go. So if you see me on the side of the road thumbing a ride – as I’m not old enough yet for a driver’s license – I hope you’ll offer me a lift. Then we can take a picture of us and I’ll post it on the selfie wall of my WordPress site!

I just love exploring Rochester. Some people even think I know a whole lot about my home town and I have to admit, I love to tell a good story – complete with photos of course. But, more about my Rochester explorations next time. In the meantime you might want to consider visiting The George Eastman House https://www.eastman.org/ .

Hey! Tara Johnson is speaking at WordCamp Rochester! She owns a design and marketing agency. Tara is going to tell us how to keep clients on track. This will be a can’t-miss for freelancers!

I saw him! Trevor Johnson-Steigelman. He is the local expert on website accessibility. I am really looking forward to his presentation at WordCamp Rochester to learn more about what I can do to make my website accessible to everyone.

Michelle Hayes rocks Gravity Forms! I just bumped into her and she will be speaking at WordCamp Rochester. I can’t wait to hear her very first presentation. This is sooo exciting!

What is a Happiness Bar? A place to get a drink? A place to practice karaoke? At WordCamp Rochester 2018, I learned that the Happiness Bar is staffed by local WordPress pros and they are there to lend a helping hand and answer questions. They helped me figure out a plug-in issue I had and even wrote a quick bit of custom CSS to get a button on my site looking a bit more stylish. Speaking of style, what do you think of my clothes? More on that next time! Catch ya’ at the WordCamp Rochester 2019 Happiness Bar!

Omg! I just met Terri Parthum. She is another freelancer who will be speaking at WordCamp Rochester. Terri specializes in SEO and Analytics. Way cooool.

While spinning around town, I found Jim Echter. Jim told me that he and his wife run a few businesses and they use WordPress for all of their websites. He will give an intro to WordPress. Perfect for new WordPressers at WordCamp Rochester!

Whoa! I bumped into Andy McIlwain! He is the keynote speaker for WordCamp Rochester. He’s going to talk with us about WordPress beginnings, creating what you want with WordPress, and being a part of the WordPress community. I am getting soooo excited for October 5. This is going to be the best WordCamp ever!

As a WordPress newbie I was surprised at some of the things I learned at WordCamp last year. I started that morning thinking hashtags might be a type of potato; that Akismet was an insect of some kind; that a dashboard was a type of surfboard – and I’d never surfed, much less been near a lake or an ocean!

I was also surprised to learn that a footer was not a type of running shoe, that the visual editor was not another name for an optometrist. Heck, I thought that tag referred to a kid’s game and that JQuery was the name of one of the speakers!

Luckily I found a lot of friendly help with all of these concerns and more during lunch, in the afternoon, at snack time, from the presenters, other participants, and at the Happiness Bar. I had all kinds of ideas about what a Happiness Bar might be, but more on that next time.

Next up I met the last co-organizer, Nick Adams. Nick is deep into WordPress and will speak at WordCamp Rochester about volunteering in the global WordPress community.