Field Notes: Úll 2014
Sara Rosso, our VIP Global Services Manager, shares her input from an eventful conference in Kilkenny, Ireland.
Every week, Automatticians — the people behind WordPress.com — participate in conferences, WordCamps, and other community events around the world. Today, let’s hear from VIP Global Services Manager, Sara Rosso, who just returned from Úll conference in Kilkenny, Ireland. Úll is a WordPress.com-sponsored conference about making great products.
Last week I enjoyed a second trip to Ireland, which is not that far from my home base in Italy, for the Úll conference. I was joined by two colleagues, Beau and Mike, and we geared up to spend a lot of time talking about making great products and hearing what other Úll participants were excited and passionate about.
We weren’t there just as participants — WordPress.com was also the main sponsor of the conference. We sponsored a hack bar that was serving some pretty great coffee (coffee + developers go well together!) and had some interesting chats over perhaps too many steaming cups of brew.
There were a lot of sessions from mobile application developers about their ideas, the challenges they faced, and the lessons they learned. One of the presenters, Dan from ustwo, had just launched their game, Monument Valley, which was #1 in the Apple app store at the moment! It was great to see how they had a concept and vision which they pursued even when others told them it wasn’t a good idea. The game is very beautiful, too — like live-action M.C. Escher mazes and perspective mind twisters.
One of the really interesting talks came from a development studio based in Sweden, Toca Boca. Amanda talked about how they design ‘gender-neutral’ games which will appeal to both boys and girls, and the results are encouraging! Their apps are used widely by both genders, with a conscious omission of the blue or pink that many game manufacturers use today.
And they also refuse to have in-app purchases because they feel it’s inappropriate to target kids. Pretty cool, right?
It’s this level of attention to detail and decision-making that we at WordPress.com love and celebrate, because we put just as much thought and care into developing WordPress.com for you, too. 🙂
If you’re not following @WordPressdotcom or @Automattic on Twitter, you should! You’ll see more about what the WordPress.com team is up to, as well as the extended Automattic team.
- May 9, 2014
- Community, Events, International, Wrapup
WordPress.com News 
I would love to attend a smaller version of your meeting just to become more schooled in using WordPress. And, I love Ireland; favorite location is West Cork along the sea.
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@Maureendmack – It wasn’t a conference organized by us, WordPress.com, just one we participated in!
If you’re looking for a local group to talk more and learn about WordPress, there are meetups in a lot of cities – you can search on Meetup.com to see if you can find one near you!
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Will there be other events in Ireland happening? As an Irish based blogger I’d be interested to hear of any future ones. Thanks
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@Aubrey – I’m not sure of any coming up quickly – with that being said be sure to check out our events calendar launched yesterday which will have a list of upcoming conference/places where some of the WordPress.com team will be. http://automattic.com/events/
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Oh, how I LONG for this kind of thing to happen in Sydney. Wonder if it will again in my lifetime ? Can only cross fingers …
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