In the three years I spent at Yoast, I never worked the booth at a WordCamp. Yes, you read that right! I didn’t have to. The brand carried itself. People came for the swag, the selfies (so many selfies), and the comfort of something familiar.
But this year was different for me. This was my fifth flagship WordCamp and the first where I stood behind a booth representing Progress Planner. With all the drama this year, I knew things would feel different. And yet… I was excited.
Yes, you read that right. The introvert was looking forward to meeting people.
And I did. I met old friends, made new ones, handed out an unholy number of stickers (thanks, Kirsty!), and had conversations that reminded me why I do the work I do in the first place.
The talk that left the room silent
As the keynote of WordCamp EU 2025, Noel Tock’s talk didn’t just open the conference; it cracked it wide open and left the room breathless.
This wasn’t a highlight reel or a glossy success story. It was a visceral, deeply personal reckoning. Noel stood there, calm and grounded, and walked us through war zones, through shattered cities, and through moments where websites became lifelines and open source quite literally saved lives.
Noel wasn’t trying to impress us. He was inviting us to remember why we build.
He shared stories of dog rescues under fire, evacuations from frontlines, and humanitarian missions coordinated with the help of WordPress-powered tools. Not only that, but he talked about the platforms built on our contributions, the donations processed because someone somewhere committed a line of code. He didn’t ask for applause; he asked for awareness.
By the time the footage rolled, the data hit, and the GoPro scenes gave way to silence, the gravity of his message had sunk in: this work we do matters more than we know. Our software isn’t just powering blogs and business sites. It’s fuelling resilience. It’s fighting despair.
Somewhere in all that destruction, he found hope, and he gave it to us. Even a single site, especially a single site, can be a lifeline. And that’s not just inspiring. That’s a responsibility.
Standing still in the middle of a crowd
Progress Planner has always been a quiet little engine. A behind-the-scenes tool that helps people keep their websites, and their sanity, in shape. But standing at that booth, I got to witness firsthand just how many people were struggling with the exact problems we solve.
A recurring theme came from agency owners. They shared the frustration of launching a beautiful new site, only to watch it collect dust because their clients wouldn’t touch it afterwards. Updates neglected. Content stale. The spark is gone. And that’s when the conversation shifted, because that’s exactly where Progress Planner comes in.
I found myself talking more and more to agencies and freelancers, not just individual site owners. And every time I explained how they could use our plugin to give clients a simple, gamified to-do list, complete with points, badges, and activity scores, you could see the lightbulb go on. Suddenly, maintenance wasn’t a chore anymore. It was a game. And better yet, it was a tool agencies could brand as part of their own offering.
During our time there, we ran a raffle. One attendee, instead of heading to the parties that evening, spent their time installing Progress Planner on 48 sites! When it came time to pick a winner, Taco nearly died climbing up on the booth for full showman effect during the draw.
He was fully committed. It turned a simple giveaway into something utterly chaotic and completely brilliant. It was WordCamp at its best. That moment said it all. Not just excitement, but understanding. Progress Planner had clicked with people.
Site reviews and shared insights
We also ran a live panel doing on-the-spot site reviews, and it turned out to be one of the unexpected highlights. Attendees leaned in, took notes, and asked smart questions. After the session, many came by the booth to say thanks. More than one person told us they’d learnt something new that they were already planning to implement. It wasn’t flashy; it was useful. And that’s what stuck.
We left Basel not just with more installs but with more clarity. This wasn’t just about showing off a tool. It was about meeting people where they are and helping them get where they want to go.
Conversations that stick
One of the most meaningful moments for me came just after Kirsty Burgoine’s talk on inclusion within the WordPress community. It wasn’t just insightful; it was a gentle jolt. A call to think deeper about who we build for, who gets left out, and how we show up for each other. If you missed it, her talk is available now on WordPress.tv, and I highly recommend giving it your full attention.
That session stayed with me. Long after the applause faded, it kept echoing in my mind. I ended up writing a follow-up blog post to process it all, part reflection, part reckoning. If inclusion is something that matters to you (and let’s be honest, it should), I hope it adds something useful to the conversation.
These are the moments that matter: when something stirs, when we carry it home, and when we let it shape what we do next.
And that feeling followed me straight back to the booth. While Kirsty’s words were still settling in my chest, I stepped into conversations that echoed the same themes, frustration, curiosity, and a desire for something better. People shared real problems, not just surface-level stuff, and I realised how much I needed to show up in these spaces.
A community that keeps showing up
It’s easy to forget, isn’t it? That this thing we build, this vast, chaotic, open web, isn’t just for showing off portfolios or arguing about core updates. It’s for people. It’s powered by people. And it serves people.
That was the thread running through so many conversations this year. Inclusion. Resilience. Showing up. Whether it was Kirsty Burgoine’s powerful talk on inclusion within the community, Noel Tock’s moving keynote on open source as a force for global good, or quiet corners with new collaborators.
Noel’s talk, in particular, was a grounding reminder that our everyday work, our commits, and our contributions can ripple out in ways far beyond the screen. It left me with a lump in my throat and a renewed sense of responsibility.
The spirit of AltCtrl
The magic of WordCamp didn’t stop when the venue emptied out. AltCtrl wasn’t your average side-event. It was a defiant, deeply thoughtful gathering of voices from across the WordPress ecosystem. Independent, community-driven, and fiercely intentional, it held space for the conversations that needed to be had, the ones that don’t always make it to the main stage at a WordCamp.
Talks were sharp. Vulnerable. Honest. Sè Reed cracked open the emotional core of open source. The FAIR team launched a decentralised vision of infrastructure that could shift everything. But beyond the talks, AltCtrl brought a feeling of people reclaiming their agency, showing up for one another, and imagining a more accountable future together.
One of the most electrifying moments of the entire week happened at the AltCtrl meetup, specifically during Sè Reed’s talk: Getting to the Heart of Open Source.
The heart of open source beats loudest when it’s challenged
No slides. No fluff. Just Sè, a microphone, and twenty years of community heartache and hope condensed into something raw and razor-sharp.
She reminded us that open source doesn’t begin with code; it begins with collaboration. That an open licence opens the door, but the magic only happens when someone else walks through it. That WordPress was never the product of a single visionary but of thousands of us, across decades, across continents, showing up and choosing to care.
She didn’t mince words about the tension in the ecosystem right now. About erasure, rewritten histories, and the risk of losing not just volunteers but the very soul of the project. And she made one thing crystal clear: collaboration isn’t just foundational to WordPress; it is WordPress.
It was a battle cry dressed as a conversation. And it landed.
And it touched me deeply. I sat there, tearing up, not just because of what Sè said but because of how fiercely she said it. The love, the fight, and the vulnerability she brings to this community are powerful.
It hurts to know how often that passion has been overlooked, dismissed, or actively sidelined by leadership. She continues to show up anyway. That, to me, is the essence of WordPress. Not just resilience, but love in action.
I’ll be thinking about that talk for a long time. You should watch it.
A new direction: FAIR and the future
AltCtrl wasn’t just a gathering of voices; it became a launchpad. The final session of the night introduced something that could fundamentally reshape the infrastructure of the WordPress ecosystem: the FAIR project.
Built from collaboration across companies, contributors, and continents, FAIR (Federated and Independent Repositories) is a decentralised system for managing plugins and themes. It aims to fix one of the biggest risks facing WordPress today: the reliance on a single, centralised point of failure.
FAIR isn’t just a technical solution. It’s a political one. It’s a movement. It represents a reclamation of autonomy and resilience, giving users and developers the ability to distribute, host, and discover plugins and themes through an open, accountable protocol, without sacrificing trust, usability, or scale.
When contributors from across the ecosystem stood on stage together, some for the first time, it was a moment of defiance but also of unity. A reminder that the real power of WordPress lies in the hands of those who build it, day after day, line by line.
I felt something shift in that room. A collective exhale. A spark of possibility. FAIR may still be early, but it’s real. And it’s happening.
You can learn more at fair.pm.
What I’m taking home
I came to WordCamp expecting a whirlwind. And it was. But it also grounded me.
I remembered why I build. Why I serve clients. Why I care so deeply about small, sustainable tech. I saw how much more work there is to do and how much love already exists in this community to get it done.
I met folks just starting their WordPress journeys, small business owners, curious newcomers, people building their first sites with nothing but hope and a stubborn belief that they could. Introducing them to what WordPress can do and what this community can offer was a quiet joy all its own.
And AltCtrl added another layer to that clarity. It reminded me that our community doesn’t just thrive in the spotlight; it flourishes in the margins, in the unrecorded sessions and unsanctioned ideas.
The people I met there, the courage on that stage, and the energy of folks choosing to show up differently. It all wove itself into my understanding of what WordPress really is. It’s not just software. It’s a collective, held together by trust, tension, and an unshakeable desire to do better.
WordCamp EU 2025 reminded me that even the smallest plugin can be part of something vast. And that even this anxious little introvert can find joy in the crowd.
So thank you! Thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth. Thank you to the voices at AltCtrl. And thank you, open source, for being the wild, untamed, beautifully human thing that you are.
Let’s keep building. Let’s keep showing up.
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