WordCamp Birmingham

Last fall, in 2022, my friend Thomas from Weglot pinged me on Slack and said they wanted to keep going to U.S. WordCamps, and were interested in Americans to represent them. He wanted to know my opinion of paying Americans to go to U.S. WordCamps and represent Weglot as a WordCamp sponsor. I told him it was a brilliant idea. Unfortunately I was otherwise employed at the time and I couldn’t go.

Fast forward a couple months and I was unemployed. I pinged Thomas and let him know I was free and the first thing he said was “Are you going to WordCamp Birmingham?” As you may have guessed, we made an agreement and away I went. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Who Is Weglot?

Weglot makes software that facilitates language translation on a number of platforms. My experience is with their WordPress plugin, but I know they do other platforms like BigCommerce. They’re based in Paris, and have traditionally been very present at WordCamps and in the WordPress community.

It can be extra impactful to have local people at the booth though. The connection has always felt more natural to me. That’s one of the reasons I think it’s so brilliant that they’re hiring people near the venue to stand at their booth and represent them. Someone this weekend said they also hired a couple locals for a Costa Rican WordCamp as well. Either way, I’m impressed.

Furthermore, Weglot recently became a global sponsor for WordCamps. This means that they sponsor every WordCamp, in the entire world. That’s a pretty special thing.

So, how was WordCamp?

Fantastic. Cate went with me and got pulled into a volunteer role (it wasn’t difficult to convince her). I was at my Weglot table pretty much the whole weekend, but since I tend to hang out in the sponsor area during camps anyway, this didn’t feel difficult or awkward.

I met a whole bunch of new friends, helped make some new WordCampers more comfortable, and had some great meals. That pretty much summarizes all WordCamps for me.

For Weglot swag I had a bunch of pens, some stickers, and some bottle/can openers. Here’s a picture:

Day two started with far less swag. Look at that lonely pen.

Fortunately, Chris saved the day and took that lonely pen home.

Lots of other great pictures can be found on Twitter.

See you at the next WordCamp?

I’m headed to Bangkok next week, but then don’t have plans for more camps in the future, but who knows? Let me know in the comments where you’re going next and maybe we’ll see each other!