Guest post by Jamie Oastler
The hallway track is what happens outside of the scheduled sessions. It is the side conversations, the interesting discussions, the networking opportunities and the in-person connections you make which most often leave you feeling like a WordCamp is equal parts conference and community. The organizers of WordCamp Ottawa were equally accommodating and enthusiastic in accepting my talk topic – Humans in hallways getting help – that aims to help prime the proverbial conversational pump for the hallway track of WordCamp Ottawa 2019. I was quite appreciative that they offered this blog post to help me help you get the most out of the experience in some new and novel ways.
What are your Hallway Track Topics of Interest?
Before July 10th, go to http://wordcamp.gravityflow.io/ to share up to 3 topics that you are most interested to learn about and up to 3 that you have the most experience/knowledge to share with others. Keeping the theme of 3 going, this info will be put to good use in the following 3 ways:
- It will be printed out in advance of the
conference sized for a spot on your registration badge. This will give everyone
an easy ice breaker to new conversations with new people where your skills /
interests overlap. Fear not if you’re reading this after July 10th,
the badge will have space to write-in your own topics of interest.
- It will help me know what topics are of most
interest to most amount of attendees to group up some speed networking topics
for the 2nd
half of my presentation. That also means, for those who show up to my
session, Saturday 1PM in Manotick room, you’ll be able to put face to name of
people with related interests to keep an eye out for the rest of the
conference.
- Are you really hoping to connect about a specific topic during the WordCamp, but not sure who to ask? Stop by the Gravity Flow booth in the sponsor area! You will be able to see/search for attendees by topic that you may want to connect with (of those who agree their contact info can be shared at least). You also can see how easy it was to use Gravity Forms, Gravity Flow and the related suite of add-ons to put it together.
Since this blog post is coming out a few weeks ahead of the conference, I figured it makes sense to share a few of the hallway track tips that relate most to things to do or mindset as you prepare to attend.
Don’t be afraid of the elephant in the room
Yes, organizers have put a lot of work into crafting a schedule for you and yes speakers are hard at work putting quality content into their session/slides. But don’t feel bad if every session doesn’t feel like it is meant for you. There are a wide range of technical skills and areas of interest that a WordCamp tries to cover. If a slot of sessions don’t seem to scratch your itch that is a great time to check out the hallway track. Chances are others in the hallway at that time might be ones you’d really enjoy meeting. All sessions and slides will make their way up to wordpress.tv after whereas the hallway track will not.
Check out attendee list in advance
The attendee page on the WordCamp Ottawa page is one to watch! You can see the websites of your fellow attendees, add them to your twitter feeds and figure out mnemonic device(s) you might use when it comes time to introduce yourselves. Or re-introduce yourself to people you have seen/heard but haven’t properly met before.
Practice Pacman
Simply stated, “When standing as a group of people, always leave room for 1 person to join your group.” More memorably, stand like Pac-Man / Ms. Pac-Man! This encourages other people to enter into the space and join the conversation. Don’t forget that a Pac-Man has to open his/her mouth wider for yet more people to join 😉
Default to listening
On any given topic, you may very well be the smartest person in the room, but a WordCamp isn’t the place to try and show out / try to prove it. By defaulting to listening, you increase your own chances to learn and will often find the opportunities for a more engaging conversation flow forth. When you do decide it’s time to talk, remember to start small and pause throughout, to confirm others are still interested in where the conversation is growing.
Speaking of defaulting to listening, I would love to hear about any of your favourite hallway track tips & tricks in the comments of this post or at the conclusion of the Hallway Track Topics of Interest Form
Say Hello to Jamie O at Gravity Flow!
When not speaking, you’ll be able to find me find me at Gravity Flow booth where I’ll have some fun toys to help you get into conversational flow state. Whether you are looking for ways to save time/effort in managing business processes for your own website or a developer/agency looking to differentiate yourself as one that can deliver more than just customer engagement / marketing materials via the web, or fit into another niche, I look forward to meeting you, learning about your uses of WordPress and share how Gravity Flow can be an excellent option in your development toolkit.