VIP Co-Working and Big Media Meetup in New York City

We’re looking forward to seeing many of you at our Big Media & Enterprise Meetup on Wednesday, September 10th at Interactive One. We’ve got a terrific speaker lineup and as always, a solid after-party planned.

Since we’ll have quite a few folks from the VIP Team traveling to New York for this meetup, we wanted to set up a short co-working event for VIP clients before the event. If you’re working on a new project, have questions for our team, or just want to brainstorm a bit, this is a good opportunity to informally chat with folks from our support and development team. This will run from 5 – 6:30 p.m. at the Interactive One offices (850 3rd Ave). 

If you’re interested in stopping by this co-working event, send me a note at steph@automattic.com and we can get something set up!

In Las Vegas for SXSWV2V?

Ilogof you happen to be in Las Vegas for this year’s SXSWV2V I’d love to say “Hi!”

Even better, you should come to the Monday Night Mixer that WordPress.com is throwing!

The mixer is in lovely Downtown Las Vegas at the Inspire Theater (501 Fremont St) from 6:30 til 8:30 tonight. I hope to see you there.

Toronto, London & San Francisco VIP Training and Big Media & Enterprise Events!

If you’re in or near Toronto, London, or San Francisco in the near future, you’ll want to join us for VIP Training and a special event focused on media & enterprise companies using WordPress in each city!

We’ll be holding VIP Training Days, our intensive, one-day in-person training courses led by a team of WordPress.com VIP instructors for both developers and superusers. We limit training courses to 20 people so you’re sure to have plenty of interaction with our team of instructors.

The Big Media & Enterprise WordPress Meetup is open to developers, product managers, and editorial teams who use large, high-traffic WordPress sites, and the meetup features four 10-minute presentations, followed by an evening of networking.

Here are the dates & times of those events:

VIP Training Days: Developer Fundamentals I & Superuser — exclusive limited-number training classes with VIP instructors. Upcoming dates in Toronto, London, and San Francisco.

Big Media & Enterprise Meetups — focused on the operation, development, and scaling of large, high-traffic WordPress websites. Upcoming dates in Toronto, London, and San Francisco. Even if you can’t make these dates, be sure to sign up for the group so you’re informed for future events!

For more upcoming events, be sure to check out our VIP Events page and follow @WordPressVIP.

VIP Event At SXSW: #dcallstar

Well, it’s that time of year again – I’m closin’ up the house, kissing the wife goodbye and packing up for another voyage down to beautiful Austin, TX for SXSW. On Saturday March 8, 2014 at 8:00pm, WordPress.com VIP will be sponsoring an epic gathering we’re calling the DC ALL-STAR EVENT, #dcallstar.

We’re joining forces with a few companies from the Washington, DC area and are throwing a party for friends, clients, and of course, friends of friends who will be attending SXSW. This is the perfect chance to mingle with the top players in the DC creative, tech,  and Federal community.

We’ll have a DJ, an open bar and some delicious eats.

Want to join? We’d love you have you!

Please go to: http://nvite.com/dcallstar/dc-all-star-event
Enter Access Code: dcallstar-wp

When: Saturday March 8, 2014 from 8:00pm -> to 12:00am
Where: Maggie Mae’s Rooftop – 323 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Feel free to brings friends and colleagues – the more, the merrier. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at ps@automattic.com. Looking forward to seeing y’all in Texas!

SXSW Event Screenshot

Going to the ONA13 Conference next week?

If you’re attending the Online News Association 2013 Conference (Oct 17-19) in Atlanta, GA, please let me know! I’ll be there along with Kevin Koehler from Automattic, and we’d love to catch up with you. You can contact me at steph@automattic.com.

Here are the following sessions that are related to WordPress:

Editorial Workflows in WordPress – Greg Linch (Washington Post), Steph Yiu

Adopting WordPress in the Newsroom – Yuri Victor (Washington Post, Kevin Koehler

Building Apps in WordPress – Connor Jennings (Washington Post), Chris Amico (Glass Eye Media)

Using WordPress to Structure Your Beat – Greg Linch and Connor Jennings (Washington Post), Steph Yiu

Getting Started with WordPress – Mindy McAdams (University of Florida), Yuri Victor (Washington Post)

WordPress.com VIP @ The Royalton Hotel

new-york-city-skyline

Well, the summer is over and the fall is  upon us, which is a perfect excuse to get together and share some cocktails with the team from WordPress.com VIP. If you’re in NYC tomorrow night (September 12, 2013), please Join Paul, Min, Steph and Peter for drinks and appetizers at the Royalton Hotel (Penthouse A). The festivities kick off at 6pm and will end around 9pm.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email Peter Slutsky at ps@automattic.com.

“Big Media” WordPress Meetup in NYC

We’re co-hosting a “Big Media” WordPress Meetup on Wednesday, August 21 at 6 p.m. with the NYT at The New York Times building.

The “Big Media” WordPress Meetup focuses on issues concerning the operation, development, and scaling of large, high-traffic WordPress websites. Topics tend to be technical, but not exclusively—all are welcome, including folks from editorial and business teams.

The following presenters will be giving 10 minute “flash” talks, followed by 5-10 minutes of questions:

  • Andrew Nacin (Lead Developer, WordPress) – TBD
  • Austin Smith (Co-Founder, Alley Interactive) – Elastic Search on WordPress.com in Action
  • Jaymin Patel (Manager of Technology, NYTimes Blogs) – What’s Next for the NYT Blogs
  • Josh Kadis (Web Applications Technologist, Quartz) – Building qz.com, a web app powered by WordPress

Full event information can be found here.

Please RSVP to the event via the “Big Media” WordPress Meetup Group (you may need to request to join first).

WordCamp SF Starts Today. Watch the livestream.

WordCamp San Francisco starts today at 9 a.m. Pacific.

The schedule is packed with great talks for VIPs, such as:

  • “Why The Washington Post Uses WordPress,” by Yuri Victor, Washington Post
  • “Lessons Learned in Unit Testing,” by Alison Barrett, Automattic
  • “Magical WordPress Management using WP-CLI,” by Mike Schroder, Dreamhost
  • “Custom Tailoring the WordPress Admin Experience,” by Helen Hou-Sandi, 10Up
  •  “Current User Can Watch This Talk,” by Andrew Nacin, WordPress.org

Matt Mullenweg’s “State of the Word” presentation will be tomorrow at 11 a.m. Pacific.

Tune into all of WordCamp San Francisco by using this exclusive livestream code for VIPs: WCSFlivestreamyum

Redeem the code by entering it in at the bottom of the Tickets Page. Once you click “Apply Coupon,” you can register by entering your email. Instructions on accessing the livestream will be sent to you.

WordCamp San Francisco & The WordPress Survey

1ecc0d99234e41638132ab7ee16af03aHeading to WordCamp San Francisco on July 26th & 27th?

We hope so! If you haven’t gotten tickets, there are still livestream tickets available for purchase to follow the event online.

If you’re going to be there, make sure you let the VIP team know as we’ll have several members there speaking and volunteering at the event. Don’t miss the annual “State of the Word” address on Saturday which will be given by Matt Mullenweg.

And, as part of that State of the Word address, statistics from the annual WordPress survey are revealed. The survey is currently open, so if you’re a user, developer, designer, editor, administrator, or anyone else using WordPress, you need to provide your feedback for the survey!

The survey should only take about 5 minutes to fill out – add your voice to the worldwide WordPress community!