This year, we’ve been hitting up as many WordCamps as we can. From Milwaukee to New York, from Denver to the very first WordCamp held in Omaha, the city we call home, we’ve been making the rounds. Since Flywheel has only been around for a couple of years, this year was the first time we were really able to immerse ourselves in the events.

Something we’ve realized along the way: we LOVE WordCamps. And we get what all the hype is about.

The WordPress community is a unique group that we’re so happy to be a part of. There are few other tech-centered communities as welcoming and inclusive as the WordPress community. As both a woman and a person with limited WordPress knowledge, I love how welcoming people have been at the WordCamps I’ve attended.

For Flywheel, attending WordCamps is an excellent opportunity to get to know some of our customers in real life, to learn more about what people want and don’t want in a WordPress hosting company, and, of course, have some fun while we’re at it.

For us personally and individually, it’s also a chance to get to hang out with each other more than we usually do. From long flights together to hotel hang time, dinners, and escapades, we have a great time bonding in the name of WordPress.

This past month, we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to sponsor and attend WordCamp San Francisco — the holy grail of WordCamps, if you will. We had a blast meeting people we’ve been interacting with online for years, hanging out with Flywheel customers, and talking to people who had absolutely no idea what Flywheel even was (including a few who thought we were, ahem, a cab company).

From start to finish, we loved immersing ourselves in the WordPress world, getting to know others in the community more, and hearing about the (very exciting) future of WordPress and the web.

Next week, we’ll be in Toronto for our first non-US WordCamp, and we’ll be hitting up WordCamp Orlando in December. After that, we’ll be taking a little break until WordCamps get going again next year. Hopefully we’ll see some of you, and until then, check out the video we made in San Francisco on why people love WordPress (hint: it’s the community).