WordCamp OC 2011 (Video) Recap

First off, I’d like to thank Jeffrey Zinn, Brandon Dove, all of the speakers and attendees that made WordCamp Orange County 2011 a great weekend event!

Here’s a little photo fun from the event…

Sessions I Attended:

There were some sessions scheduled at the same time that I wanted to attend so I left some sessions early to catch the tail-end of another. I guess that’s the sign of a good conference, heh. Unfortunately, until I find a way to chryogenically split myself in two (Hello, Hello), this will have to do.

In the end, my favorite sessions of the day were: Site Optimization, WordPress End-User Security, and WordPress SEO.

There are some things I wish I had learned, and as a result some topics I’d like to suggest for next year’s WordCamp. Still, great job on putting this event on fellas, you did an amazing job!

Here are some of my favorite tools and takeaways…

• Log-in Lockdown Plugin (via @dremeda) – this plugin limits the number of log-in attempts from a given IP within a certain time period.
• WP DB Backup (via @dremeda) – I’ve been using this plugin for a while and I recommend it on every install. It allows you to backup your database files and send them via email to your address (daily, twice daily, or even weekly).
• You can check out the rest of @dremeda‘s presentation on WordPress End-User Security over on his site – it was a great session!
• @codyl had an interesting presentation titled “Strategic Approach to Theme Design” – personally, I always find it interesting to see how folks approach site design. In this case, Cody hi-lighted some neat wireframe tools like: imockups (for the iPad), and omnigraffle (for mac). I like to use a web-based app called gomockingbird.
• The Site Optimization Session with @JoshHighland was a good one – I definitely recommend reviewing his slide-deck as it’s full of notes you can easily read, research and implement on your own site for better performance.
• W3 Total Cache (via @joshhighland) – a great plugin for improving site performance and speed through caching.
• YSlow (via @joshhighland) –  this is a great Firefox add-on integrated with Firebug that helps you grade web pages for performance.
• Page Speed is important. Though you won’t quite get points for high speed performance, sites with slow speed seem to be getting dinged in SERPS.
• (My Tip) To those who have their own podcast and are publishing it along with the rest of their content, remember, you can burn an RSS feed using Feedburner for your “Podcast” category. This would make it easy for users to subscribe to your podcast and receive those updates only. So in my podcast for example, I provide the option to subscribe to the RSS Feed or to subscribe via iTunes.

My buddy @vegasgeek has his own post with excellent notes on his own takeaways from WordCamp Orange County. Feel free to share your own takeaways in the comments below or email me a link to your post so I can link to it here!

Next year, I’d really love to see sessions on:

• Live site critiques – rather than doing a session on design, how about a 2-3 person panel where attendees can come up to the mic and a panel of designers/developers critique a series of sites based on design layout, and site performance (speed, SEO, and conversion). Sounds like a bit much, sure, but I’ve seen it executed really well.
• A session on how to code a plugin (from start to finish) would be awesome. But in this case, have the attendees submit an idea and have a brave developer knock it outta the park.

What about you?

What were your favorite sessions? Did you learn anything new? What would you like to see next year?