--- title: "Community At Community Conferences" id: "1591" type: "post" slug: "community-at-community-conferences" published_at: "2010-11-17T16:00:49+00:00" modified_at: "2014-04-12T20:47:56+00:00" url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/community-at-community-conferences/" markdown_url: "https://johnpoelstra.com/community-at-community-conferences.md" excerpt: "I attended WordCamp Portland 2010, a conference about blogging and WordPress. There were two sessions tracks and an unconference track. At a couple of the session times, none of the track offerings looked interesting, but I picked one anyway. Without......" taxonomy_category: - "Personal" taxonomy_post_tag: - "community" - "conference" - "connection" - "Fedora" - "loneliness" - "Open Source" - "Portland" - "wcpdx" - "wordcamp" - "WordPress" --- [Skip to the content](#site-content) [John Poelstra](https://johnpoelstra.com) ### Bringing order to chaos and clarity to confusion - [One Conversation](https://johnpoelstra.com/) - [Podcast](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/podcast/) - [Coaching for Directors](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) - [About](https://johnpoelstra.com/about/) Toggle search field - [One Conversation](https://johnpoelstra.com/) - [Podcast](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/podcast/) - [Coaching for Directors](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) - [About](https://johnpoelstra.com/about/) # [Community At Community Conferences](https://johnpoelstra.com/community-at-community-conferences/) [http://www.flickr.com/photos/manu_le_manu/248439794/](http://www.flickr.com/photos/manu_le_manu/248439794/) I attended [WordCamp Portland 2010](http://www.wordcampportland.org) , a conference about blogging and [WordPress](http://wordpress.org) . There were two sessions tracks and an *[unconference](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference)* track. At a couple of the session times, none of the track offerings looked interesting, but I picked one anyway. Without fail I learned something new, interesting, and useful. The conference was super well-organized, the food was great, and the people were friendly. This is more of a *meta post* on the event and not a recap of what I learned or which sessions I liked best. I was surprised by how diverse the audience was. It ranged from people steeped in WordPress who do it for a living, to people interested in blogging who don’t have a blog. There was all manner of note taking devices–more paper and pen than I expected and a strong showing of iPads. There were also a lot of MacBooks, including the one I recently purchased. Now I understand the *Apple hardware at open source conference phenomenon* others have written about. The MacBook did what I needed it to do without any monkeying around. From 9 AM to 5:30 PM the MacBook Pro ran flawlessly and on one charge–I didn’t plug it in all day nor does it require a massive battery hanging off the back like other notebooks. Suspend and resume did actually that, multiple times, and without a hitch–not something I can currently say about my Dell Notebook running [Fedora](http://fedoraproject.org) . Sometimes I wonder if conferences like this could have a larger sense of *community* at the conference itself–a greater sense of connectedness. A lot of people, including myself, appeared to have come on their own and knew very few of the other attendees. Some people looked really lonely and bored, particularly during the breaks as they fiddled their phones, surfed the web, or stared out into space. At times it felt like a gathering of individual islands scattered around the room. ***To be clear, this is not a WordCamp problem or the result of anything that the organizers of this event failed to do*.** I’ve seen it at many events, including [Fedora](https://johnpoelstra.com/2008/06/24/fudcon-boston-recap/) ‘s. On several occasions I made a point of sitting down at a table of people or next to someone and introducing myself. We didn’t have incredible conversations each time, but occasionally we did. I met a couple of really interesting people I plan to stay in contact with. Most times I think this was because I took the initiative. I also fully respect that not everyone attending a conference wants to meet new people or has come looking to make lots of new friends. I’m wondering, what could we do to make it easier and less awkward to get to know the people around us and build more connectedness between the attendees? I’m not suggesting name tags, cheesy *corporate ice breakers* or [trust falls](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_fall) . Have you had the same experience? What are your thoughts? *[Image by manu_le_manu via flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/manu_le_manu/248439794/) used under a [Creative Commons license](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/) .* #### John Poelstra John Poelstra coaches directors in finance and software. Trained through the Co-Active Training Institute, he has coached for more than 10 years, with over 520 clients and 3,150 sessions, including people at well-known Fortune 100 companies. In over 30 years of professional experience, he spent 25 in technology and finance: software testing, project management and team leadership at Red Hat and Dell/EMC, and finance as a bank auditor at Wells Fargo and a CPA at Grant Thornton. He hosts The John Poelstra Show podcast and is based in Portland, Oregon. [Author archive](https://johnpoelstra.com/author/john-poelstra/) [Author website](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-poelstra-show/id1130635146) November 17, 2010 [Personal](https://johnpoelstra.com/category/personal/) [community](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/community/) , [conference](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/conference/) , [connection](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/connection/) , [Fedora](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/fedora/) , [loneliness](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/loneliness/) , [Open Source](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/open-source/) , [Portland](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/portland/) , [wcpdx](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/wcpdx/) , [wordcamp](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/wordcamp/) , [WordPress](https://johnpoelstra.com/tag/wordpress/) [Previous post](https://johnpoelstra.com/fedora-15-release-date-is-set/) [Next post](https://johnpoelstra.com/seven-ways-to-make-a-little-progress-every-day/) ## 2 Comments ## [Add yours](#respond) 1. Greg DeKoenigsberg[November 17, 2010 at 9:57 am](https://johnpoelstra.com/community-at-community-conferences/#comment-370) [Reply](#comment-370) I think it’s natural and okay that some people end up being lonely and bored. Not everyone is built to socialize. The real goal, I think, is to provide an environment in which people *can* easily connect and participate. Whether people choose to do so is entirely up to them. Personally, nothing annoys me more than being hounded to participate, as though I’m a problem to be solved. Leave me be. To me, the sessions are the thing. The best interactions at all the BarCamps I’ve been to have been direct extensions of great sessions. Which, to me, means making sure that the organizers put forth the effort to mix in a few guaranteed rockstars among the pitches. [Reply](#comment-370) 2. [Juanjo](http://blackshell.usebox.net/) [November 17, 2010 at 9:26 am](https://johnpoelstra.com/community-at-community-conferences/#comment-369) [Reply](#comment-369) It happened to me a couple of times (feeling lonely and bored hehe). It depends on the conference, and I don’t know if it’s related to the topic, but I’ve feel out of place in 2.0 conferences (web 2.0, social media, blogging, all that stuff). May be it’s me, but I had better experiences in OSS/Linux events, and I don’t know why. [Reply](#comment-369) ### 1 Pingback 1. [Distraction and Empthay | John Poelstra](http://johnpoelstra.com/distraction-and-empathy/) ### Leave a Reply [Cancel reply](/community-at-community-conferences/#respond) ### John Poelstra [https://johnpoelstra.com/?attachment_id=3756](https://johnpoelstra.com/?attachment_id=3756) ### Work With Me I coach directors in finance and software who want to prioritize, delegate, and lead with clarity. Start with One Conversation, a complimentary 60-minute coaching conversation. [See how I work](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) ### Subscribe to Podcast [Apple Podcasts](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-poelstra-show/id1130635146?mt=2&ls=1) [Android](https://subscribeonandroid.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [by Email](https://subscribebyemail.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [RSS](https://johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) ### Links - [About](https://johnpoelstra.com/about/) - [Coaching](https://johnpoelstra.com/coach/) ### Subscribe to Podcast [Apple Podcasts](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-john-poelstra-show/id1130635146?mt=2&ls=1) [Android](https://subscribeonandroid.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [by Email](https://subscribebyemail.com/johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) [RSS](https://johnpoelstra.com/feed/podcast/) © 2026 [John Poelstra](https://johnpoelstra.com/) — Powered by [WordPress](http://www.wordpress.org) Theme by [Anders Noren](https://andersnoren.se) — [Up ↑](#)