 So we're talking about connections. As Lydia said, let's go to the working up logo this year. Let's see. It's education, connection, and inspiration, or sort of the themes. In 1986, my family relocated from Arlington, Texas down to Houston. It was the summer between, I just came out of fifth grade, was getting ready to go into sixth grade. That's when I learned to sell over there. And that was my first time to ever be in a new city. No friends, didn't know anybody. And then there's that dreaded first day of school, right? You go into school, you're not sure what to expect. You're not sure kids are gonna be mean, it's gonna be nice. How many of you have ever had that experience being a new kid? Pretty much everybody, or a significant portion of the room. So you do my thing. So I got there and actually everything went fairly smoothly until lunchtime. And then there's the terror of who are you gonna sit with? Would I sit by myself? If I did find somebody to sit with, would they make fun of the love note that my mom had put in my sack lunch, or maybe my weird sandwich that kids from Arlington eat. But thankfully, this girl, DM Byers, she asked me to sit with her and her friends. And such an insignificant little gesture to her, but I'm still talking about it 30 years later. So it meant something to me. So for at least that next little half hour or so, relax a little bit, I had a place to belong and some friends that I could connect with. I found out later that Mrs. Wallace, the sixth grade teacher, had pulled DM aside before lunch and asked her to ask me to sit with her. So it wasn't that DM thought it was cool, it was the teacher made her do it. But I appreciated it nonetheless. So here we are at Workamp Asheville and we have the opportunity to maybe help someone else that is feeling like that kid on the first day of school. Maybe you are feeling like that kid on the first day of school. So as we kick off the day together and get ready to do some really fun things, I would like to encourage you to make some connections. And I'm gonna share some specific ways and opportunities you'll have to make some connections as well as share some stories of my own connections that I made at Workamp's. And thank you to Mindal by the way for the coffee. What is this? Two shots on ice with one more sugar? It's perfect. Not 13. Okay. So every relationship, every opportunity somewhere comes back to a connection. So think about the job you have right now, whether you are self employed, or whether you work for the man, you got that job, or you got that client through a connection and somewhere that opportunity came about from some relationship that you had formed somewhere. So we're tracing all the way back to that thread, that first connection. Now, before we get going, I want to tell you about my friend Alicia. She has a swimming pool. And that's not the only reason I'm friends with her, but it is a big draw. And I love going over and swimming with her kid. She has a four year old son and a six year old daughter. That's not either of them, by the way, because that would be creepy. I was putting her kid up there. But anyway, excuse me, I hate it when people cough in the microphones and I just did it. So we go over and we play and one of the more popular games is Uber, where I ferry the kids across the pool on my back. And I charge surge pricing if they want to go the deep end. And then the other game we love to play is the diving board competition. Nobody's actually diving because they're too little to know how to duck. But we do some cool jumps. And the way the diving board competition works is there's the peanut gallery and then there's the person jumping. And whoever's in the peanut gallery gets to shout out what kind of jump the person on the board has to do. So there's the frog, which is like all your limbs out and you end up kind of belly flopping. There's the catch where you run and you jump and somebody throws a ball at you and you try to catch it when you're jumping. There's the pencil where you try to make yourself the smallest profile possible for the minimum slash when you go in. And then of course, there's beloved cannibal, where the opportunity to make the biggest splash and bonus points if you get water into mom's drink. So why am I telling you about swimming with these kids? I liked the visual in my mind for pencils and cannibals. We're talking about connections. Connections don't have to be this huge cannibal experience where you're sharing your story and there's Kleenex is at the end of it. Not connection can look like that. But probably for us here at Workamp today, that's not what our connections are going to look like. We're gonna have a lot of pencil connections. We're just making small connections. We're introducing ourselves. We're sharing just a little bit of our story. And I want to talk about four, those four opportunities that you'll have to make some of these pencil connections that later on might lead to cannibal connections. So the first point during a session. So here's how it's going to go. When we wrap up this time together, you're gonna take a moment to study that schedule that you got. And it's got four tracks, a ton of awesome information. And you're gonna wonder, where do I go? I can't teleport myself. Or what's the word we are multiple places at once, whatever you can do that. So I've got to pick which session I'm going. What was it? Omni present. Thank you. We are not the Lord. We cannot do that. So we have to pick which session we are going to attend. And then you'll find your room. You'll look around. You'll find a seat that doesn't look too scary to sit in. You'll look at your watch and you'll have about five minutes before your session starts. And what better to do with five minutes than check your email or get in a couple games and work with friends. All right. But my challenge to you today, I'm Mrs wall is pulling you aside. If that's not too creepy to imagine. And asking you to not retreat into your device. I'm guilty of it as well. But don't use your device as an excuse to not connect with someone around you. I know you'll need to check your email today. I know you'll need to play some words with friends who got rounds. People are nudging you. But just for at least once resist the urge, put down the device and simply turn to someone around you and introduce yourself. And that's a that's a pencil connection. It's not much takes 30 seconds. Also during the session, there's Q&A. So either at the end of the session or some speakers will take questions during during the session, but ask questions like we're techies here, we're nerds. There's going to be a lot of acronyms and phrases flying around. And if something passes over your head, ask that's what we're here. We're here to educate today to connect and inspire. So definitely ask questions if you haven't. And then finally, at the end of the session, this is going to sound like I'm setting it up, but I'm really not. At the end of the session, if you enjoyed it, go up to the speaker and shake their hand and introduce yourself. That is a connection. And for people like me, it's very nerve wracking to get up and speak in front of people. So that that lets the speakers know that hey, somebody somebody got something out of it. Somebody appreciated it. So anyways, again, that was not a troll for this, but that was an opportunity to make a connection. Okay, so interact. Connection is really just a fancy word for interacting. Okay, so after all these morning sessions, we're going to come back to that cafeteria. Some volunteer is going to lovingly hand you a sack lunch. And you're going to have to go find the place to sit. In August, no, April of 2013, I went to word camp, Austin, and that was my first ever word camp to attend. And there's this lady named Andrea Middleton. She works for she works for automatic and is on their community team. Anyhow, I have interacted with her quite a bit online, but I never had a chance to meet her in person. So she was also working for Austin. And I made a point over lunch to find her and just plop down myself at her table. And we had pencil level connections. No big deal just talking about work and talking about what was going on. And that was the beginning of the connection that led to eventually led to an opportunity. That was that was very cool. And I'll tell you a little bit about that later. But or no, I'll tell you a little bit about it now, because why not, right? So a couple months after word camp, she she DM to me and said, Hey, did you know that word camp San Francisco speaker? They're accepting speaker apps, you should throw your hat in the ring. And I was like, For those of you, if you this is your first word camp, or you haven't been around the WordPress community long, word camp San Francisco is historically kind of the grand poobop of word camps. Automatic is headquartered in San Francisco, Matt Malamueg spends quite a bit of time out there. And actually this year, they're going to be in Philly. That was a non sequitur free information. But so it's it's huge. Everybody comes out to this word camp. And the idea of turning in a speaker application, it would have never crossed my mind. There's no way that I would have had the the courage to do that had Andrea not given me that little bit of a nudge. And so I didn't end up going out to work in San Francisco. I'll tell you more about that later. But lunch is a great time to make a connection. People are happy they're eating. We all feel a little bit relaxed and go food or belly. So take advantage to meet someone new and make that pencil connection. Or if you're here to visit your buddies, then go cannonball style on that. And here's the deal. Now you may think, I might accidentally sit by a weirdo. Now I know there are no weirdos in this room. But on the off chance once slips into the cafeteria, and you end up sitting next to them at lunch, just remember, you don't have to marry them. It's just 20 minutes, okay? So yeah, it's going to be all right. You know, I've never seen a proposal to work in. That could be cool. Do I need my feedbacking? So anyhow, you never know who you might send in, end up sitting next to who you might end up having a conversation with. And, you know, when I sat down next to Andrea that day, there was no, I had no evil plan or thoughts of anything beyond just, you know, having lunch with her. But you do never know where things will, what can come out of a conversation. So the we talk about during a session over lunch, the next place is going to be the beloved hallway track. So the hallway track is what word campers kind of lovingly refer to as all the little asides and conversations that end up happening between sessions in the hallways, or in the foyer, depending on the venue. But they're typically unplanned. They just kind of happen. I mean, we're here with, we were with our people. I can't think of anything to say after that. But we're, I was thinking, I was thinking of like envisioning aliens in my head, like we have found home, people, nerds like us. Anyhow, in, let's see, word camp Las Vegas 2013. This is going to sound terrible. I didn't actually care about the word camp. I wanted to go because my friends were going to be there. I had made friendships at some previous word camps. And I wanted to see these people. My husband thinks it was really bizarre to go to an event just to see people that have only talked to online. But here we are. And one person in particular that I wanted to hang out with was Rebecca Gill. You haven't met Rebecca. She is the lady behind web savvy marketing, which is a huge Genesis child themed shop she has been solding actually. And I hadn't gotten to meet her yet and talked with her lots online that hadn't actually gotten the opportunity to meet her. So she told me in Vegas that if I had any questions, I was getting ready to roll out my first Genesis child theme. And she told me if I had any questions, wanted to know anything. She was an open book. Happy to tell. And what's funny about that is she's kind of my competitor. Technically, I mean, not reality, but we both do development consulting and are in the Genesis framework space doing services and providing products for that. And that connection in that hallway has led to tremendous friendship with her as well as the opportunity to actually work on some cool projects. I got to do a translation project go through and make all of her 30 plus themes translation ready and therefore ultimately more accessible. Anyway, that was that was a total aside, but you never know your next big idea might happen when you're hanging out in the hallway, just having a conversation. So here's the deal. Lydia's Lydia in here. Okay, close your readers Lydia. Sessions are awesome, right? But if you get a chance to have a hallway conversation, it's okay to skip a session. Yeah, don't I know speakers work hard to prepare them. But it's okay to to skip a session. You can work to watch it later on WordCamp TV. But yeah, oh, what happened to my computer? Excuse me, this is a technical difficult. Well, it wouldn't be the first time. It would not be the first time. Okay, I probably mashed the wrong button. Okay. So we've talked about over lunch, during sessions, in the hallway. And by the way, there's a bajillion other times in place that you may have a connection in the bathroom, which I don't know why I said that. I hope you don't have a connection in the bathroom. That made me think of George Michael, which is so inappropriate. Wow, okay. The fourth opportunity that you'll have, and Lydia touched on it earlier, is down later at the wedge, where the after party will be. And by the way, after parties look nothing like this. It was just a creative comments license or a photo that I was able to use. WordCamp after parties are actually much more calm. Anyhow, after parties are a fantastic place to kind of carry on the conversations from the day. And your mind is going to be blown today. It's going to have so many facts going up in there that you'll I mean, I don't know, you're going to need days to digest what you learned at WordCamp. But the after parties are a great way to discuss the things that you've learned in a very relaxed atmosphere. So you might have a hamburger in one hand, and a cold beverage in another, and you're amongst friends. So it's a good thing. So picking up my earlier thread, so lunch with Andrea, eventually submitted my speaker app for WordCamp San Francisco, went to WordCamp San Francisco, and I was at the after party, which was actually there in automatic headquarters. And there, across the crowded room, I saw him. It's not my husband. I saw a fellow named Morton Rand Hendrickson. And if you haven't had the chance to stalk more online, do it. But he is an instructor at Lynda.com. He teaches a ton of WordPress courses. And that's actually how I learned WordPress. I got myself a subscription, got on there and took all these glasses from Morton. So he had never met me, didn't even know my name, but he was Morton. So I saw him and I ran up to him, and I probably embarrassed myself fangirling just a little bit. But hung out, and he's so such an unassuming guy, I'm sure I scared him. But hung out with him, just for, I mean, five minutes or less. Met him, shook his hand, met his wife, and then nearly tripped and died at where K. Bassville. And that was it. And then I went on to meet great connected with some other people. So I'll stop drawing the story out. But a couple months later, Morton got in touch and asked if he could introduce me to the folks at Lynda.com. And the end of that story is now I'm teaching WordPress courses at Lynda alongside Morton. So it was a completion of a journey for me to end up teaching where I originally learned. And not that, and that, here's a deal, that meeting with Morton, it all threaded backwards and started with sitting down and having lunch with Andrea. Now it could have happened, I'm not going to get into esoteric, spiritual conversations about our lines, and if we get off the line, it still happens. But just to show that you really never know what a connection will lead to. And as a matter of fact, a year from now, you might think back to this room or this camp and you're like, oh, yeah, that's where it started. That's where the such and such happened. Excuse me. So my challenge to you then is to make the connection, step outside of your comfort zone, just a little bit. Are you yawning? Are you yawning during my presentation? It's all right. I've gone cane and ball with Mendel. It's okay. He really sick. Anyhow, so my challenge to you is to not leave camp this weekend before you've had the opportunity to make a connection. Thank you guys.