Takeaways from Wordcamp US 2017

Another Wordcamp US has come and gone! We had a great time in Nashville last week at the annual Wordcamp US conference. There were great talks this year on a variety of topics, all that will help us become better designers and business owners. We also learned a lot about the future of WordPress and big, exciting changes that will be happening to the platform.

Here are some takeaways that we got from Wordcamp US.

We can do more when it comes to accessibility

Web accessibility refers to the inclusive practice of removing barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to websites, by people with disabilities. Accessibility was a huge topic at this years Wordcamp, with several talks on the subject. Accessibility was something on our minds, but after hearing these talks, we’ve decided to make it more of a priority. We know it will make us better designers.

Educating our clients is important

We listened to a great talk by Sarah Benoit on how to teach clients to effectively use WordPress. While we educate our clients on how to use their websites, after hearing Sarah’s talk, we realized there was a lot more we could do to help them use their websites better. We plan on revamping our training process to make it more comprehensive for our clients.

We need to be adaptable

The release of the Gutenberg WordPress update was all the rage at this years State of the Word (the annual WordPress keynote by Matt Mullenweg). Rightfully so, lots of people had questions and concerns about this new update. One of our main takeaways from this year’s Wordcamp was how important it is as business owners to be able to adapt to changes. Things will change over time, so in order to survive, you have to be flexible. We can’t be sure what the future holds for our business, but as long as we stay on top of things and learn to adapt, we will be okay.

We think the main point of conferences is to leave feeling motivated and inspired to do more. That’s exactly what we got out of Wordcamp US this year! A BIG thank you to everyone who put on such a fantastic event. We are looking forward to attending more conferences, including future Wordcamps, in 2018!