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Out on a LIMSThe Blog for People Who Risk Life and LIMS on a Daily Basis

WordCamp 2014

Volume IIEntry 20 of 39 in 20142 min read2 comments ↓

Written by Gloria Metrick on . Published as written. It may not reflect how these systems work today.

This year, I decided I should attend some conference that would expand my horizons and I selected WordCamp. The Ann Arbor version was held this past Saturday.

My business blog is run off of WordPress and I decided I would like to learn more about the tool and how to use it. It's a tool that is more and more frequently being used as the web-site for some businesses, as well. For those of you looking to start using this tool, I would encourage using this tool over some of the others, partly because you'll more easily find people who can help you and answer questions, also because there are events such as WordCamp and WordPress local meetings where you can get ideas and assistance.

Also, I find we become too insulated from what's going on elsewhere when we don't occasionally venture into different areas. This event was my effort to keep myself from being too siloed.

WordCamp was extremely informative. It had several tracks available, for developers, users and business people. For my $12 admission, I learned quite a lot and got some direction on what is possible. The bottom line is that your admission and effort in attending conferences has to be reflected in the outcome. If you don't learn enough to make it worthwhile or get enough business leads or whatever the reason to attend, then it's not worth it. In this case, I can easily justify the $12 (plus $3.50 for parking) and the day of my life spent at the event versus what I learned. That's the first time in a long time I can say that about a conference.

I'll admit tha WordCamp turned out to be what I'd hoped the LIMS/Laboratory Informatics group meetings would turn into. I'd hoped we could build them into annual one-day events where people could share their expertise and learn from each other. While I wasn't able to make that happen, I still hope that some day, it could. Maybe our industry has moved past wanting that kind of exchange or maybe we're just waiting for the right person to lead us to that. We'll all have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, maybe I'll run into you at WordCamp 2015. I'm already planning to attend.  :-)

Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/

The conversation

2 comments from 1 person, October 9 to October 10, 2014. Gloria replied once.

  1. John H. Jones

    Here, here to Wordpress. The app is absolutely fabulous. I am using it to build a complete new LabLynx site and a complete new site to host my Linkedin group. I built a wordpress plugin using the Linkedin API for Linkedin groups.

    Check it out. Mind you I have not gone public with it yet but your blog post inspired me to share it with you. Go to http://www.limsinstitute.org and on the home page is the LIMSforum group. You can login with Linkedin and then you can interact with the group and in fact access all the groups you belong to from right on this site and post new discussions and comments.

    Mind you... I am not done with the development and am not yet ready to release to the public but when I do, I will make the plugin open source and freely available within the Wordpress plugin ecosystem. Then you can put it on your own wordpress site and host whatever group you want on your site.

    Additionally, I have created a Wiki embed plugin that embeds wiki content on the site. There is a lot of work to do but when it is done, it will bring my LIMSforum group to a whole new level that Linkedin simply cannot provide such as the creation of local chapters of the LIMSforum so we can have a sort of local meetup for group members. With over 60,000 members, that will give us an almost instant local presence across the world. The same will go for any other Linkedin group, not just mine.

    Anyway, I agree completely about the value of wordpress and it is easy to develop for and you can make some killer sites.

    1. Gloria MetrickAuthor

      I would strongly urge you to attend your local WordCamp, then. Before I went, I knew that this tool had a lot of capabilities but was really blown-away by the amount of information I got when I attended. Anything you want to know and there was someone there that was working on it. I've got a friend starting a local brick-and-mortar business who I'm going to probably help get started with some on-line material, and I plan to do that in WordPress - might even make free future changes for him in order to play around with some of the options that I wouldn't need on my own site.

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