In 2022, my dear friend José Luis attended (as a volunteer, of course) the first WordCamp Griñón. I remember meeting him on his return and when I asked him how was the WordCamp, he told me emphatically:
— I loved it! A small, but very special WordCamp, with lovely people and the spirit I love about WordPress events.
I could not go to that edition, but I kept the “thorn”. Especially for the organization team. Great friendships, with great personal and professional values, starting with the great Fernando Lopez.
I met Fernando in Pontevedra, in one of our WordCamps. He is a very special guy that I admired from the beginning for two reasons:
(1) He is a good-natured guy. Noble. I admire that nobility a lot. Dedicated with much affection to the community and does not cut a penny in being to thousands of things: mentoring, organization of WordCamps, from Madrid, Griñón and now: WordCamp Europe.
(2) As SEO is to admire his clients and projects. He is the typical “webmaster” who has been in this world for ever and has an experience that many of us would like to have.
The rest of the organization group, that “bunch of WordPress geeks” as they define themselves and who continue to defend independent WordCamps with heart.
Thanks to David Plaza and Gema Fusion, a very powerful family tandem with great experience in these WordPress worlds. It’s amazing the energy they both have.
The great Angel Zinsel. He is one of those classic friends and collaborators. One of those people you meet at a WordCamp and you are going to have one of the best conversations. Maylén García, who already surpassed her father in many aspects (I’m sure with a lot of pride on her part). A great volunteer organizer and very experienced in many WCs.
Lola Limón, one of my wonderful discoveries of that WordCamp Torrelodones where she shone with her copla, voice and that joy she has that is contagious to anyone. And finally, José Ángel Romero.
As we can see, a team with a lot of tradition, which is reinforced by a team of volunteers with a lot of experience in these matters: Carlota Galván, Gian Oliveira, Carla Saiz, Luis Antonio Neira, César Frisa, Ángel Cabaleiro, Adolfo García-Uceda, Fede Padilla, Paco Marchante, Paula Carmona, Gustavo Galati, Jorge Marín Nieto. And Colibot, a wonderful initiative of his Telegram channel (brilliant idea).
The date didn’t suit me personally, but I didn’t want to miss this event for anything in the world. They managed to organize a very balanced program and true to their tradition, focused on online stores and business.
I had high expectations for the food, which was very high in their communications. On Friday, my friend Jaime Gármar kindly picked me up in Madrid and we went together to the volunteers and organization dinner.
The restaurant was beautiful and the food was spectacular. I felt like I was at a wedding. I refer to the photos. I shared good conversations with people I had not seen for a long time, or new friendships.
We got up early, because the next day would be an intense day. The space where the celebration is held is small but cozy. They were very clear about the maximum number of people for space reasons. There were many people on Friday looking for tickets on the Telegram channel waiting for another batch to come out.
The sponsors, who are closely linked to the team, are fundamental for everything to work out the way it did.
The program was one of the best I have seen at a WordCamp. Not only because it was very specialized with all the e-commerce stuff, but the quality of the talks I was able to attend were very high.
I was able to enjoy Santiago Alonso ‘s talk about AI support for online stores, mentioning several inspiring tools and ideas for any business. Santi is brilliant.
Montse Cano followed with her interesting talk on creating brand differences in global markets. With her experience in London and working with international companies, I knew it would be a very valuable talk.
Then it was the turn of Viola Gruner, who I was especially excited about. I met her in a pizzeria in Torino, Italy, a few days before this year’s WordCamp Europe.
Despite his youth, he has an incredible experience in the marketing world, and with his perfect Spanish learned in Mexico, he gave us a very interesting talk with a framework on decision making and changes in a web page.
He only failed to say “Ostia,” in the chat. 😉
Then, it was my turn with the talk: “First of all, a lot of linking: Advanced tracking of your online store”. It was a wink and homage to Siniestro Total and Radio 3′s Sótano.
Suffice it to say that I got them to “sing”. Talking about SEO and crawling is super heavy, but if you’ve read me before, you know that I’m obsessed with teaching in a didactic and entertaining way. And since I’m a bit of a gamer, costumes are never in short supply. 😉
So I’ll leave you with the video of it, if you want to laugh at me, or just learn some crawling tricks with Screaming Frog looking to improve your internal linking.
I was looking forward to see the talk that started after Marina Febles, who gives amazing masterclasses, or Fernando Puente‘s, a great lesson on development with WooCommerce and conditional loading.
But I was answering questions from the talk and helping very interesting professionals like Iveth Dvalencia and Gabriela Permetei. So a lot of “pasilleo” at that time.
After the family photo, and that word “family” is very relevant in this WC, the turn of the food. I loved the decoration and the space we had to enjoy that moment.
We were treated very well in terms of food. The catering company were lovely and very generous with the quantities.
At the beginning of the afternoon we started with two main courses: David Ayala and Jaime Gármar. I could not attend either of them, as I was asked to participate in the podcast sessions. A wonderful initiative and one to copy in other WordCamps.
Jorge Marín Nieto and Ángel Zinsel were interviewing us (with the audience in attendance) with the difference that the conversation was being recorded. I participated with the SEO group.
Montse, David and myself were solving the interesting conversation raised by Angel, discussing SEO, AI, the future of Google, online stores, even details of our opinion of WordCamp and open source.
I loved this initiative, as it allows to generate a very interesting conversation, a debate, but with the positive side of documenting it. congratulations!
So the rest of the talks of that block I could not attend: Lidia Marban, Montse Fernández, Nilo Vélez and Santiago Becerra. We already have them all on WordPress TV.
In the last block, and after a great photo shoot of that wonderful team of volunteers who always give us their art, I was able to attend the talk by Claudia Marcano, an all-rounder in the world of marketing who blew my mind with the topic of Pinterest.
It is a social network that I have totally abandoned, but it offered us incredible possibilities, especially for online stores. Claudia is an exceptional teacher and you can see the love and affection she has for the world of training.
Claudia, you should know that I came to Pontevedra to update my profile thanks to your advice. Now I need to start creating content 😉
We continue with the great Pablo Moratinos. I always say that when I grow up, I want to be like Pablo. He has a wonderful art to expose an idea, taking you in his storytelling to teach you things of great value, in this case, a framework to learn how to calculate the best product pages to optimize. Great talk.
We ended the day with Víctor Sáenz: “WooCommerce in online stores with a turnover of more than one million euros”. Victor knows how to use the title very well to attract us to a technological reflection on performance and scalability of online stores from his experience with Mowomo. Fascinating examples and reflection!
After the traditional raffles, a team of organizers and volunteers won a standing ovation from all the people who attended the event, delighted with such a beautiful and intense day.
If I have to highlight something, it is that it is a small WordCamp where its scale allows you to share with everyone in a close way.
I loved the amount of new people they managed to attract, many people who had not attended a WC before and it has been one of the WCs where I have had the pleasure to talk to and enjoy the most new people.
I usually close bars, but this time I was restrained due to family issues. I was at the after party for a while, and wanted to go back to lunch with my son the next day; so I couldn’t attend contributor day, my favorite day of any WC. But sometimes you have to pick your battles.
Yes, I would like, as I try to do in every WC summary article, to mention all those wonderful people you meet at these events and who recharge you with energy.
People who lovingly share their knowledge, their time, their effort, allowing us to grow personally and professionally. Thank you! ❤️
To mention a few: Alejandro Gil and Merche from the Zaragozana community, Amadeu Arderiu, my good friend Ana Cirujano and Helen Moreno (yummy those almendrados ;-), Ángel Cabaleiro, Carla Saiz, Carlota Galván, David Pérez and Fede, those wonderful Grenadians who fill me with joy in every event where we coincide.
Fernando Portomeñe and Julio de La Iglesia, the WC are not the same without them with their “gadgets” making perfect recordings. Guido Centésimo, who we had met in another WC, a Venezuelan with an incredible professional profile and experience.
Gustavo Galati, Héctor de Prada, Ibon Azkoitia, Joan Rodas, Josep Morán, the great Moncho, Juanma Aranda, Paco Marchante, Paula Carmona, Paula Sánchez, Pedro Crespo, Raúl Hermoso, Yannick García (I hope your knee is improving).
The new people I met in this WC: Adolfo García, Luis Antonio González, Luis Humberto (Venezuelan who came from Chile and with the wonderful company name: Páramo Digital), the Smile Comunicación team, especially Aylid Herrera and many more that I mention throughout this article.
Fernando López, David Plaza and all the organization team. You guys are the best. Thank you for giving us this special WordCamp and for knowing that many of you will be behind the biggest WC in Spain, in Madrid by March 2025.
They left me with a very nice feeling during the whole week, and despite the trip and the tiredness, I arrived full of energy. When you enjoy a WC where the organization team has such a good vibe, you feel it in every detail.
Thank you for the effort to bring us together and create relationships, something that in these times of attention value and stimulus overload, is of immeasurable value.
Long live and prosper WordPress!
