We’ve been working overtime to have everything ready for WordCamp and we’re pretty sure it’s gonna rock. A lot’s been going on and we wanted to summarize all the new information in case people missed it on Twitter and the blog.

Venue announced: UQAM Coeur Des Sciences, Agora Hydro-Quebec

It’s a mouthful but it’s also a great place to have a WordCamp. Right in the heart of downtown Montréal, the venue can hold up to 250 people, so register now in case we run out of space.

For full address details, a couple of useful maps and advice for nearby hotels check out our Venue Information page.

Use http://wcmtl.org for twitter and mobile

Our official website url is http://wordcampmontreal.org but we’ve also registered http://wcmtl.org for those times when less is more. Use it in your tweets to avoid ugly shorteners or on your iPhone to avoid typing all day. You can even link to specific parts of our site by adding them at the end of the short url, like http://wcmtl.org/schedule.

Tshirts! Register ASAP so we know your size

We are close enough to the event that we need to start ordering shirts, if you can register now it would help us ensure that we have one ready in your size on the big day.

Tons of prizes and giveaways announced

If you’ve been following our Twitter stream you might have noticed how excited we are about the free stuff companies have given us to raffle off during the event. Sure its consumerism gone mad and these products have at best tangential relationships to WordPress, but still, free stuff is nice and so are the companies that give them to us!

Anyone registered for WordCamp could win any of the following just by showing up:

• 2 copies of Adobe CS5 Master Collection
• 3 other Adobe software packages.
• 2 iPads from our sponsor NetFirms
• Free premium (paid) themes from local themers RichWP and Bavotasan

Every single WordCamp attendee will also have access to the special 1$ hosting package from Netfirms!

Did you register yet?

With so little time before the event we need everyone to register immediately! Having late registrations makes ordering food and shirts a lot more complicated. If you’re coming (and we’re pretty sure you are) register now!

WordCamp a lieu dans une semaine, êtes-vous prêt?

On fait des heures supplémentaires afin que tout soit prêt pour WordCamp et nous sommes convaincus que ça va être génial.  Ça bouge beaucoup et nous voulions vous faire le résumé des dernières informations, au cas où nos tweets, ou les derniers billets du blogue, auraient échappé à certains d’entre vous.

Le lieu de l’événement a été annoncé : le Cœur des sciences de l’UQAM, Agora Hydro-Québec

La salle est assez impressionnante, mais c’est vraiment l’endroit idéal pour un WordCamp. Située au cœur du centre-ville de Montréal, elle peut accueillir 250 personnes, alors dépêchez-vous de vous enregistrer  avant qu’il n’y ait plus de place.

Pour toutes les informations, adresse, quelques cartes pratiques et conseils pour les hôtels les plus près, consultez la page d’information sur le lieu.

Utilisez http://wcmtl.org pour twitter et les mobiles

L’URL officiel du site web est http://wordcampmontreal.org, mais nous avons également enregistré http://wcmtl.org pour ces moments où le temps compte. Utilisez-le pour éviter ces disgracieux raccourcisseurs d’URL ou sur votre iPhone pour ne pas avoir à taper toute la journée. Vous pouvez même faire le lien avec des pages précises du site en les ajoutant au url court, par exemple, http://wcmtl.org/schedule.

T-shirts! Enregistrez-vous au plus vite afin qu’on connaisse votre taille

L’événement est à nos portes, nous devons commander les t-shirts. Si vous vous enregistrez maintenant, cela nous aidera à nous assurer que, le grand jour venu, nous en aurons un à votre taille.

Des tonnes de prix et de cadeaux annoncés

Si vous suivi notre flux Twitter, vous avez peut-être remarqué combien nous étions excités au sujet de tous les trucs gratuits qu’on nous a donnés pour faire la tombola pendant la journée. Bon, d’accord, c’est très matérialiste et ces produits  n’ont qu’un lien lointain avec WordPress, mais tout ce qui est gratuit est bien, comme les compagnies qui nous les ont donnés!

Tous ceux qui se sont enregistrés pour WordCamp pourraient gagner l’un des prix suivants, seulement en se présentant:

• 2 copies de Adobe CS5 Master Collection
• 3 autres progiciels Adobe
• 2 iPads de notre commanditaire NetFirms
• Des thèmes premiums gratuits (payés) par deux thèmeurs locaux : RichWP et Bavotasan

Chacun des participants à WordCamp aura également accès au forfait d’hébergement de Netfirms à 1$!

Êtes-vous déjà enregistrés?

Avec si peu de temps avant l’événement, nous avons besoin que tout le monde s’enregistre tout de suite! Les enregistrements tardifs compliquent les commandes de t-shirts et de repas. Si vous venez (et nous sommes pas mal convaincus que vous viendrez), enregistrez-vous maintenant!

Adobe is a perfect example. At this year’s WordCamp we will be giving away enough multimedia software to start an agency. The following donated packages will be raffled off randomly to people present at the time (hint: stay till the end of the day guys!)

• 1 copy CS5 Master Collection (Mac, English)
• 1 copy CS5 Master Collection (Mac, French)
• 1 copy Photoshop Lightroom (Mac/PC, English)
• 1 copy Photoshop Lightroom (Mac/PC, French)
• 1 copy Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8 (PC, English)
• 1 copy Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8 (PC, French)

Thanks for the stuff Adobe, everyone already knows who you are and that your products are as pro as it gets, now they can see how generous you are on top of it all.

P.S. There’s only one way to win these prizes, as well as the 1$ hosting and iPads from Netfirms: Register now!

1$ Hosting and domains for all WordCamp attendees

Seriously. They’re giving away hosting packages including domain registrations to all attendees for just 1$ to ensure that anyone curious about their services will get a chance to try them out. Netfirms tells us they’ve been working night and day to make their support for WordPress the best it possibly can be, and we hope you get a chance to try it out!

Here’s what Netfirms had to say in their press release:

WordPress is the top open source application deployed on our hosting platform.  We are very excited to partner with Wordcamp Montréal and to help support the WordPress community in Montréal and from around the world,”  … “Most importantly, we are dedicated to supporting WordCamp Montreal’s commitment to providing casual WordPress users and web professionals a venue to participate, share ideas, and get to know each other.

2 iPads up for raffle

Oh yeah, in case the idea of 1$ hosting doesn’t float your boat they are also bringing along 2 Apple iPads to be raffled off to people present at the event. Everyone at WordCamp will have about a 1/100 chance of walking home with one of these puppies, as well as other awesome giveaways from Adobe and RichWP.

Thanks Netfirms for all your help with WordCamp!

To anyone who hasn’t registered yet: Are you kidding me? How can you keep holding out in the face of so much awesome? Register now!

Microsoft loves to support open source, and we love them for supporting us.  For a second year in a row Microsoft has graciously jumped on board as a GOLD sponsor!

You can also look forward to a presentation by Christian Beauclair, Senior Developer Advisor, on their new web development IDE, Web Matrix.

In this session, we’ll show you the whole experience from end to end, to demonstrate how easy it is to deploy a blog site based on WordPress using WebMatrix.

Full presentation details »

Also dont forget to check out  PHP on Windows. @phonwindows

We have just activated the EventBrite event for WordCamp Montreal 2010. You can now sign up and buy your tickets for the event. They are $40 and include both days of the event, a tshirt and at least one catered meal. Also included are the dozens of interesting new friends and collaborators you’ll meet in the hall, all the skills and knowledge you’ll pick up in the lectures and maybe even a WordPress sticker or two.

Register now!

Early registrations will make our lives so much easier in so many ways, so if you can register today or ASAP, we’d really appreciate it.

The event will be at a downtown university campus (probably Concordia). You can learn more about the schedule on the Schedule page, which has full talk descriptions and bios of our expert speakers.

Once you are registered grab one of our badges and show off!

Micro-Sponsorships also available

Along with general registration the freelancer-friendly micro-sponsorship package is also available through EventBrite. Micro-sponsorships let small companies or individuals be sponsors of WCMTL without breaking the bank (details). A micro-sponsorship includes registration for the sponsor and the rest goes to making WordCamp as awesome as possible. There are a limited number of micro-sponsorships available so get yours now!

First 12 speakers announced!

We’re proud to say that we already have 12 excellent talks by WordPress experts from Montréal and across Canada lined up! You can read all the details on the Schedule page. We hope that there are already talks you’re dying to see, if you want to present something that you don’t see there please read about becomming a speaker, thanks!

L’inscription pour WCMTL est ouverte!

WordCamp Montreal 2010 est maintenant activé sur le site événementiel EventBrite. Dès maintenant, vous pouvez vous y enregistrer et  vous procurer votre billet. Pour la modique somme de 40$, vous aurez accès à deux jours de conférences, un t-shirt et au moins un repas fourni par un traiteur. Également inclus: de nouveaux amis et collaborateurs, de nouvelles compétences et informations glanées lors des présentations et même la chance d’obtenir un ou deux autocollants à l’effige de WordPress.

Inscrivez-vous maintenant!

Les pré-inscriptions simplifient nos vies de différentes manières. Ne tardez pas davantage. Enregistrez-vous dès maintenant ou dès que possible; nous apprécions énormément votre compréhension.

L’événement se déroulera au centre-ville de Montréal sur un campus universitaire (très probablement celui de Concordia). Pour de plus amples détails, veuillez consulter le programme où vous trouverez la description des présentations et les bios des conférenciers.

Une fois que vous vous êtes enregistrés, affichez fièrement votre affinité à l’événement en téléchargeant un des nombreux badges.

Micro-commandite également disponible

Sur EventBrite, il est également possible de s’inscrire au forfait de micro-commandite permettant aux pigistes, aux individus, et aux petites entreprises de commanditer WCMTL sans se ruiner (détails). Une micro-commandite inclut les frais d’inscription du commanditaire; le reste contribuera  à agrémenter davantage l’expérience WordCamp. Le nombre de micro-commandite est limité. Réservez votre place dès maintenant!

Les 12 premiers conférenciers sont annoncés!

Nous sommes fiers de vous annoncer que nous avons déjà douze experts de WordPress, de Montréal et de partout au Canada,  qui viendront faire une présentation. Consultez le programme pour de plus amples détails. Nous espérons que vous avez aussi hâte que nous d’échanger avec ces professionnels. Si vous désirez partager avec la communauté WCMTL un thème qui n’a pas encore été abordé, consultez notre section devenir un Conférencier. Merci!

Le français suit.

After some initial planning we have settled on the August 28-29 date for WordCamp 2010. It will be a two-day event at a downtown location (still not pinned down).

Wait, wtf is WordCamp?

WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other.

Tickets will be 40$ and should be available for purchase sometime next week from EventBrite. We’ll post again when you can come to the site and register.

For now we hope you’ll reserve the date and consider being an active participant in WCMTL from the start. WordCamp is organized by the community in Montreal (i.e. a few passionate core volunteers) and we depend on the contributions and involvement of the wider community to make it the success we all know it can be.

Consider getting involved:

• Become a speaker – WordCamp is about sharing knowledge and teaching each other how to use WordPress more effectively. That requires presenters to assign themselves a topic and come to the event prepared to share it with everyone else. We are looking for all kinds of talks, from web-writing tips to hardcore development, so almost anyone could be a speaker if they put some time into it, why not you?
• Volunteer for WordCamp – For the most part the core organizers will take care of things, but leading up to and during the event there is too much for the three of us to handle. Sign up as a volunteer and promise to do a few hours of work and we’ll love you (and give you a free ticket if you want ;)
• Sponsor WordCamp, or convince your boss to -  Those who have been to other tech conferences know that 40$ for a two-day even with catered lunch is nothing. This is possible because gracious companies and professionals sponsor WordCamp, supporting the local community and generating good-will and awareness about their brands at the same time. Please consider being a sponsor of WordCamp 2010 or promoting the idea to a company that you think would be a good fit.
• Also on the sponsorship page is information about our ‘micro-sponsor’ program, where freelancers can support WordCamp without breaking the bank with a $200 donation that includes their registration fee. A limited number of micro-sponsorships will be available during the ticket buying process, so start thinking now if you can afford it (of course you can, WordPress has provided, hasn’t it?)

Okay, that’s probably enough for now. If you want to learn more about WordCamp Montreal 2010 you can read the about page, which explains the history and goals of WordCamp, and the schedule page, which outlines what the content of WordCamp will be like.

__________________________________________

WordCamp aura lieu le 28 et 29 août 2010. Nous recherchons des conférenciers, commanditaires et bénévoles!

Après un peu de planification, on a finalement choisi les 28 et 29 août  pour WordCamp2010. Ce sera un événement de deux jours quelque part au centre-ville (endroit exact pas encore confirmé).

Attendez, c’est quoi WordCamp?

WordCamp c’est une conférence axée sur tout ce qui se rapporte à WordPress.  Les WordCamps sont des événements informels organisés par la communauté des utilisateurs de WordPress comme vous.  Tout  le monde, des utilisateurs occasionnels aux développeurs purs et durs, participe, échange des idées et socialise.

Les billets coûteront 40$ et devraient être disponibles au cours de la semaine prochaine sur EventBrite.  Nous vous informerons ici quand vous pourrez vous enregistrer sur le site.  

Pour l’instant, nous espérons que vous allez bloquer ces dates et envisager de devenir  un participant actif de WCMTL dès le départ. WordCamp est organisé par la communauté à Montréal (c’est-à-dire  un tout petit noyau dur de  bénévoles passionnés) et nous dépendons de la contribution et de l’implication de la communauté élargie pour que l’événement devienne le succès qu’il mérite.

Pourquoi ne pas vous impliquer:

• Devenez conférencier –  à WordCamp, on partage nos connaissances et on s’éduque les uns les autres sur les façons les plus efficaces d’utiliser WordPress.  Les présentateurs  devront se choisir un sujet et venir  à la conférence fins prêts à le partager avec tout le monde.  On recherche des conférences en tous genres, des trucs d’écriture web au développement pur et dur. Presque tout le monde peut  devenir conférencier, pourquoi pas vous?
• Devenez bénévoles pour WordCamp – Le comité organisateur va s’occuper de la majorité des tâches mais d’ici à la conférence et pendant son déroulement, il y a trop à faire pour nous trois.  Inscrivez-vous comme bénévole , engagez -vous à faire quelques heures de travail et nous vous adorerons (et vous aurez droit à un billet gratuit, si vous le désirez ;)
• Commanditez WordCamp ou convainquez votre patron de le faire – Ceux qui ont déjà participé à une conférence tech savent que deux jours de conférence avec lunch fourni pour 40$, c’est donné. C’est rendu possible grâce à la généreuse contribution d’entreprises et de professionnels qui, en commanditant WordCamp, s’impliquent dans leur communauté tout en contribuant à augmenter la notoriété positive de leur marque. S’il vous plaît, pensez à devenir commanditaire de WordCamp 2010 ou à en promouvoir l’idée  auprès d’une entreprise qui aurait des affinités avec l’événement.  
• En outre, sur la page des commandites vous pourrez lire au sujet de notre programme de micro-commandite qui permet aux travailleurs autonomes de soutenir WordCamp sans se ruiner, grâce à un don de 200$ qui inclut les frais d’inscription. Les  micro-commandites  seront disponibles pendant le processus d’achat de billets et leur nombre sera limité, alors commencez à compter vos sous (bien sûr que vous en avez les moyens, grâce à WordPress, n’est-ce pas?)

Bon, ça suffitpour l’instant. Si vous voulez en savoir plus au sujet de WordCamp Montréal 2010, vous pouvez consulter la page À propos qui explique l’histoire et les objectifs de WordCamp et l’horaire, qui décrit l’événement dans ses grandes lignes.

On Friday night there was a WCMTL planning meeting at the Vanilla offices. Brendan Sera-Sriar, Shannon Smith and I (Jeremy Clarke) attended. For now we will form the core team for this upcoming WordCamp, though we want to include everyone in the process.

This site (RSS feed), the planning Google Group, our Twitter account and the Facebook Group will all be updated with new information as it becomes official and things like tickets go on sale, so sign up to stay up to date! Below are summaries of the major points we discussed during the meeting.

Date

We talked about some of the different dates already proposed and decided that late/end of August would be best. The two potential weekends are Aug 21-22 or Aug 28-29. For now we are going to take advantage of the extra week of planning time and state the date as Aug 28-29, with the caveat that if a particularly awesome venue is available for the week before we may choose that instead.

Venue

We discussed our venue needs but didn’t come to any firm conclusions. Our ideal would be to find a university/cegep venue that already has all the AV and seating stuff that we’ll need, but we don’t know of any that are available at this point. The building Vanilla lives in has offered us several large rooms and we can use this as a fallback location but it would require renting chairs and organizing all the projectors/screens/audio equipment ourselves. The Vanilla building is also unlikely to offer a single room that could hold all participants for big meetings (i.e. seating 150 people). We could live without a giant room and big shared talks if necessary.

Any leads on educational or other venues that would be free or affordable are very welcome, if you know someone WordPress-friendly at a Montreal university or Cegep please get in touch.

Website

The website for this year will use the same domain and structure as last years, http://wordcampmontreal.org but with some aesthetic changes to make it feel like a different event (and obviously updates to all content).

Shannon has offered to be in charge of press releases and press relations and will work with me (Jeremy) on the website content.

Like last year tickets will be sold through EventBrite (they will probably have a similar price, 35$)

Volunteers

We are hoping to get people signed up as early as possible as volunteers. Volunteers will get free admission to the event but will be expected to put in several hours of incredibly fun work-time to compensate. You will also recieve bragging rights and free hugs from Brendan upon request. Once the site is relaunched for this year there will be a form where you can sign up.

Sponsors

Sponsorship will probably work mostly like last year. We discussed donation tiers and settled on a relatively obvious set of choices:

• Platinum $10,000
• Gold $5,000
• Silver $1,000
• Alluminum $500

We also plan to offer a low-price sponsorship package for freelancers, $100 or $200, which won’t get your logo on the poster or website but will buy you a position on a special page of freelancers who care deeply about WordPress Community. There will be a limited number of these sponsorships for sale, probably 20, to ensure that everyone who invests in this idea can be featured on the resulting page. We will sell these packages via EventBrite, so they will be purchased instead of a ticket to the event and will get you into all activities. Special investors will also have a special sticker on their badges so everyone knows how sexy they are.

Anyone have feedback about the price of this freelancer package? 200$ woiuld mean less dependence on other sponsors and we could feature the list even more, but would  obviously be less affordable for a lot of people.

Schedule

We discussed several elements of the schedule for this WordCamp but agreed that the practical considerations listed above are more urgent and immediately in need of solving.

We didn’t come to a firm conclusion about whether this should be a one or two day event. Both have their benefits and it may depend on our venue.

We agreed that the schedule should feature as much balance between development and content-production as possible, and that we hope to have balanced speakers like last year or even better if possible.

Speakers

Once the website is relaunched to reflect this new WordCamp there will be a form for speakers to enter their personal information and propose topics. We hope you will start thinking now about topics you would like to present and start working on your info about them. If you can, prepare the following information about your topic:

your name,
your bio,
talk name,
talk description.

For examples and information please go look at last year’s schedule which is up on the site now: http://wordcampmontreal.org/schedule/

Meetups in the meantime

Ma.tt is going to be in town for much of July and he wants to hang out with us! http://ma.tt/2010/06/to-montreal/

Moving WordCamp itself up a month isn’t really feasible but we can certainly have some warmup get-togethers in the meantime. We will be in touch with matt and with this group and the facebook one to announce some social get-togethers (at a bar) and hopefully at least one informational meetup next month.

Lots to do, lets get started!

Thanks for your interest in WordCamp and we hope you can all be involved as Sponsors, Speakers and Volunteers! Keep in touch.

• Location: Station C :: 5369 Boulevard St-Laurent #430 (mile end) http://is.gd/3silg
• Time: 7:30pm – 10:00pm
• 2 presentations, contact jer if you want to present
• Presentation: NetBeans IDE and other tools for faster programming.
• Discussion: GPL and WP, paid themes/plugins, legality, sharing.
• Food and drinks: Please bring some snacks and drinks (alcohol welcome) to share with everyone.

More details and full information available on the Facebook event listing.

If you’d like to be notified of future WordPress events in Montréal please join the Montreal WordPress Community Facebook group.

Hope to see you there :)

My roomate Arthur (who does amazing work for the under-appreciated TV McGill) is going through the process of digitizing and uploading all of the video he shot at WordCamp. Eventually everything from Room 1 should be available (if you filmed room2 please get in touch with me, I’ll give you the login for the blip.tv account so you can upload the video!)

You can see all our videos on the Blip.tv Archive page. You can also find the player below in our video page, which is in the top navigation

Videos we’ve uploaded so far (jul29-09): Q&A with ma.tt, Future of WP with Jane Wells, Theming for Noobs with Jeremy Clarke, WP Security with Brad Williams, Flashpress by Brendan Sera-Sriar.

This player should have all the videos so far. There will be more soon so subscribe to rss updates if you’re interested.

I wanted to share that opportunity with everybody, if you are available these days (let’s say for some work in august or september), post your availability here and I will put you in touch with the people that sent me requests (and will redirect others here too).