Community

Exactly on this day 13 years ago I was on my way back after attending the first ever WordCamp Europe 2013 in Leiden with a warm and cosy feeling. Little did I know that this was the starting point for my journey with the WP Community that shaped the path of my professional career like probably nothing else has. Today I have to acknowledge that this path has slowly been changing direction for some time. But let me start at…

…the beginning

Early 2013 I became aware of a newly started WordPress Meetup in Vienna. As I had already been working with WP for a couple of years this sounded interesting. So I went and met a bunch of nice people. I realised that having a small group of people with similar professional interests is a great thing to have. So, what is better than a bunch of nice people? Right, more of them. And this is exactly what I got when I went to the first ever WordCamp Europe in October 2013.

Energized by that experience I dove deeper into the community. I gave my first talk at the local Meetup 3 weeks after. I became a regular at the Meetup and part of the team to organise the first WordCamp Vienna in April 2015 with great success. I gave a talk at WCEU 2016 in Vienna on a frightening big stage.

I went to other WordCamps, continued to co-organise WCVIE in 2018 and 2019, and visited almost all WordCamp Europe as well as took over as organiser for the WordPress Vienna Meetup for some time.

After WCVIE 2019 I finally retired from active involvement as an organiser to make space for the next generation of volunteers. Still I continued to go to WordCamps and feel very closely connected to the community.

This feeling of connection was of course partly due to the fact that most of my professional career is built on top of WordPress. But in hindsight I’ve come to realise that, probably more than just by the software, I was drawn in by a lovely community: A bunch of talented, diverse, open-minded, helpful and outright amazing people of which I am happy to be able to call many my friends now. In the end tech can only get you so far, what really counts are the people.

State of affairs

And this is where things are taking a turn. Yes, it was always about a community of people. But having lots of lovely people in a community alone doesn’t guarantee that the overall direction of that community cannot be spoiled.

For those following what is going on in the WordPress worlds #WPDrama - the following should come as no surprise:

I am increasingly unhappy about the direction things have been going in WP-Land.

With all of that I realised that the overall situation was slowly threatening to suck me dry of my lifelong passion for the web.

For a long time I considered that it might just be an effect of age, or it might go away on its own over time. But it didn’t. It doesn’t.

Love it or skip it

So in spring, after a lot of back and forth, I decided to skip WordCamp Europe this year.

Just to make it clear: This was and still is a big thing for me. I’ve only ever missed 3 WCEUs and not a single one since 2018. And on a purely personal level I’m still sad I didn’t meet all the lovely people.

Before anyone wonders: As of now I’m still a full time WordPress freelancer with plenty of clients that rely on me and my WordPress expertise. This is not going away any time soon. All I am saying is that I just didn’t feel enough of the excitement I once had to justify the trip to WordCamp Europe this year.

Still, the closer WCEU came, the more I realised, that I’m just not the kind of person that sits in front of the computer all alone. My passion for the web never came from the tech alone, it also was the possibility to connect with other people that drove it. So with my unspoiled conference budget I looked around where else I could make those connections.

Something else

I knew I wanted something for a change. Something different and inspiring.

And this was when Kirby Konf came along.

I had been dabbling with Kirby on and off for many years on non-commercial side projects and had come to like it more and more. Not even primarily for the tech itself (although I like that too) but mostly for the attitude of the project and its community. Not fearing to do things differently like growing organically and daring to go slow, being considerate, principled, not frantically running after each hype and listening to the community.

So, when I heard about the Konf I was immediately intrigued and got myself a ticket. The closer the event came the more excited I got. A level of excitement I hadn’t had for quite some time. And when the schedule was finally published I knew this wasn’t just neophilia. It looked like it would tick all the boxes:

• lots of political and soft topics dear to my heart like sustainability, accessibility and the future of the open web
• otherwise a balanced mix of design and tech
• more inspirational than hands on stuff
• and most importantly a single track with ample space for conversations between the talks

That level of excitement is a risky thing, since it is all too easy to not meet the expectation. But, spoiler alert: Boy was my excitement warranted!

Kirby Konf

So, after a surprisingly unproblematic train ride to Mainz I arrived at the hotel and without knowing what to expect immediately met up with other people that had already arrived.

One of the people I already got to know in the hotel lobby was Felix who had been sitting two rows behind me on the same train from Vienna. I spent the whole evening chatting with him and everyone else about all and everything. After dinner most of the group strolled through the old town to see the “Mainz leuchtet” festival. Everyone was very nice and I immediately felt welcome, even though I probably was much less of a Kirby pro than most of the others.

Next day I woke up early and arrived at the venue before doors had officially opened. Some people from the night before were already there as well so the conversation picked up where it had stopped. And all of that on a nice terrace next to the water on a wonderfully sunny autumn day.

When Bastian opened the event one could feel that he was nervous, but in a good way. You could see he really cared about the event. This wasn’t just some random commercial event people got done merely for money. Everyone was in it with their heart, including the speakers.

To prevent this post from becoming exceedingly long I will not go into a detailed discussion of each of the talks. You’ll just have to watch them yourselves and form an opinion as soon as they are published on YouTube.

All I want to say is that all the talks were really well done. Professional without being sterile. Passionate without being cheesy. All unique in their own way. And most importantly they were inspiring. I even liked the fact there was one “AI” talk since the elephant in the room isn’t going away just by ignoring it.

All in all it was a really well-rounded mix. And I am saying this as someone who has had the difficult task of balancing a conference schedule before.

But again what was even more important than the talks was the chance to have real, thoughtful conversations with everyone.

On Friday evening we could still hang out at the venue in the evening where I got to have a long chat with, among others, Jonas from my favourite hoster uberspace and Johannes who might dethrone Oliver as the biggest typo nerd I know.

On Saturday I had a rather reasonable and civil conversation with Bruno (who had held the “AI” talk), which, politely said, is rather exceptional with an “AI”-proponent. So kudos to him.

Two more things, not directly related to the Konf, but representative for the vibe: Almost everyone I talked to arrived by train. And when connecting with people the Fediverse seemed to be the default. A very welcome change from the “LinkedIn? Insta? Facebook? X? None? Sorry I’m not on Mastodon." conversation I’ve already had way too often.

On both evenings we finally ended up in the hotel lobby where everyone stayed until way too late. They even had to refill the hotel fridge around midnight. 😅

Among many other nice conversations there I had the chance to chat with Marc Thiele of Beyond Tellerrand (and for the older ones Flashforum) fame revelling in memories about bygone days throwing me back to the days of my diploma thesis.

What was really nice was that the Kirby team was there the whole time and you could have conversations at eye level with all of them. Something I’d like to highlight in a world where way too many tech leaders have become unapproachable, condescending and detached “celebrities”.

A spark of hope

So, before this posts gets even longer I’ll come to the point:

Going to Kirby Konf I found a lot of what I’ve recently been missing at WordCamps.

Everything about it just felt right. The event (and the people there) reignited my battered hope for the web. Besides all the tech bro induced doom and gloom there still are people out there carrying the flag of the independent, open web. That take their craft seriously, care about quality and user experience more than the latest trend and are not interested in outsourcing all of their thinking to an “AI” for a quick buck. And even if that had been all (which it wasn’t) it would have made this trip more than worthwhile.

So, a big thank you to Bastian & Team, the speakers and everyone else involved! I can’t wait to see you all again at the next Kirby Konf. I’m ready when you are. ❤️