I’ve Been to WordCamp Indonesia

Personal

wordcamp_indonesiaLast Saturday and Sunday (17-18 January), I attended an amazing event called “WordCamp Indonesia ″, the 1st Annual Conference for WordPress Enthusiasts, which was held at Erasmus Huis, the Netherland Embassy, Jakarta. I have been waiting to attend this event to thank Matt Mullenweg personally for creating such a wonderful blogging platform: WordPress. I was so fortunate that I finally got the chance to meet him, thank him, and luckily be one of the panelist on a talk show about WordPress Business Forum with him.

WordCamp Indonesia was held in Erasmus Huis, the office of the embassy of The Netherlands for Indonesia. The conference itself was held inside an auditorium, attended by approximately 150 attendees, including developers, designers, bloggers, sponsors, and media representatives. It’s totally my rough guess, I didn’t check the guest list thoroughly.

It was clear to see that they who attended this event really appreciate the development of WordPress and seemed curious about how it all started, the mastermind behind it, and everything related to it including the codes, the plugins, the themes, the user interface, and everything. Everyone seemed so passionate to be there, them who are newbie users and even them the PHP/CSS freaks. A blogger community (Anging Mamiri) even tried so hard coming all the way from Makassar to attend this event.

wordcamp_indonesia_1

The first day was started with an opening speech by Valent Mustamin, the organizer, and Matt Mullenweg. We then continued with a presentation by Nanda Ivens, a representative from IndoPacific Edelman, who told us some interesting facts about the digital influence in the current society. There was also a WordPress Free Forum, a talk show that discussed about WordPress from the user’s point of view. Ryan Koesuma, a friend from Bandung Blog Village is one of the panelist there.

It’s Romi Satria Wahono who started the second day. He gave us some valuable insights about personal branding. In the afternoon, Nukman Luthfie from Virtual Consulting presented us a hilarious presentation about himself, wrapped with an elegant topic: Corporate Blogging. Hahaha. And the funny thing with these two guys is that both of them acted as if they were the “fairest among us all”. No wonder they succeeded well in building personal and corporate brand.

wordcamp_indonesia_2

Anyway, I was lucky enough to join a talk show with a topic: WordPress Business Forum, that was held just before the lunch on the second day. The talk show was moderated by Deden Purnamahadi, and Matt Mullenweg was the main panelists, accompanied by Nadiah Alwi and me.

Just before the end of the second day, there was a presentation from the finalists of Paperless Mading Competition (Mading Online Bandung Blog Vaganza): SMUN 20 Bandung, SMKN 4 Bandung, and SMKN Informatika Bandung. One of the team presented a wonderful idea relating WordPress to paperless school magazine: “Using WordPress for school magazines means helping the world to survive from the Global Warming.”

These are some screen shots of their wonderful works. They are using WordPress MU and the Arthemia Premium theme.

smkn4

smun20

smkninformatika

Bottomline, it was such a once in a lifetime experience to meet wonderful guys there. I saw famous people like Enda Nasution, Ndoro Kakung, Christian Sugiono, and of course Matt Mullenweg. I met new friends: Simon Lim, Septi Yulia Sari, Cynthia Rahayu, Erick Mainaky, and many others.

I totally look forward to attending WordCamp Indonesia. And I can’t stop thinking: he is only 25-year-old, he didn’t finish his degree at his university, but he was named to be the 16th most important people on the Web by PC World. Amazing, huh?

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  • hi

  • I wish I’ve been there. Unfortunately I knew WP just in 3 month ago.

  • it’s great events
    though I heard the entrance fee was kind of high
    for some unemployed NEET like me . But I guess it’s worth it … wish I had heard it sooner

  • Wow, I didn’t know about WordCamp. I hope if there will be a next WordCamp, I attend it. :)

  • Years a go I found Michael Jubel themes and impressed with his works… Now… his a world popular blogger’s…. congratulation! Bravo Indonesia!

  • After seeing the picture of the talk show and reading your enthusiastic account of the event, I can see you are a real Mullenberg fan by now( he calls himself an entrepreneur - and apparently is he is a very talented and exemplary one).

    It’s great the “Erasmus House” decided to be the host. However, being a Dutch citizen and taxpayer- I wonder what made them do so. Favoritism towards Wordcamp?

  • Hey Michael, when will you visit Philippines. Send me a message, i wanna see you. Btw, I love your Arthemia template. I’m using it right now. Love yah!

  • Cynthia R. Tedjorahardjo

    Hi Michael! Thanks for mentioning my name. It’s a honor to have you as my friend :)

    Btw, you’re 23, rite? Well, you still have 2 years to named to be the 16th most important people on the Web by PC World. hahaha… Anyway, what you have done now is so inspiring! Good luck for you always.

    n.b. Sep, Rick, yukk ke Bandung. hehehe…

  • Wow, it’s such a nice experience…meet famous Indonesian Blogger and above all, Matt Mullenweg. I know some guys and certainly I can recognize the handsome guy at the middle from one of your pic. Here I also want to say an appreciation to you Michael because your theme creation “Arthemia” used by a lot of people out there. Hopefully I can also has great experience like yours.

  • Too bad i missed this event. I knew it when watching Apa Kabar Indonesia in tvOne.

  • Hi Michael. It was great to be up there with you and Matt, you both were so inspiring.

    I found out that my name is on this journal from the Google Blogs Alert.

    I will definitely revisit.

    :)

    BTW, tingkahanak.com is a blog I prepared for kids stuff. I’m preparing my own blog. Yet, it’s not ready for any publication.

    • I will visit your blogs as well. Anyway, you looked so young. I never thought that you already have a child. Hehe.

      Nice to meet you, Nadiah!

  • loh, kok ndak masuk komennya tadi?

    • masuk kok bung tobing. blognya pake plugin WP-SuperCache biar loadingnya cepet. Ya tapi kadang-kadang comment nya sering gak langsung ke-refresh. Hehehe..

  • Hi Michael,

    How are you in Bandung? Thanks for acknowledging me as your new friend in this post :)

    I really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. I do learn a lot from you about business + wordpress although it is just a two days event.

    Do keep in touch and will definitely contact you when i am going to Bandung. Take care bro.

    • Fine here. How are you in Malaysia?

      And I guess, there were also a few number of new Indonesian-Malaysian vocabularies that we learned together. Hahaha.

      And I deeply apologize if our language could not be “digested” well. Well, I’ve told you that we barely use a word that is listed in the official dictionary. Even if it is listed, we will use it in some way that is grammatically incorrect. Hahaha.

      “gue”, “banget”, “loe”, and “PDKT”, none of them are official Indonesian word.

    • I am fine too in Malaysia. Yup i like learning session and i am so surprise that Indonesia language is so diversified and really different than Malaysia. :)

      Do keep in touch ya and all the best in your business. Take care.

  • Looks great Jubel, how was your talk show going?

    • It went great. It wasn’t my talk show, though. I was just a panelist; Matt was the main speaker.

      There were some discussions about starting an online business using WordPress, and in particular, the audiences asked about how Matt maintain his business: Automattic.

      There were also a hot discussion about GPL and premium themes and luckily I was there at the stage stating my opinion.

      Anyway, I should start to blog again. It’s been so long since I saw you wandering around here. Hehehe..

    • Haha, I visited this blog regularly, but since there hasn’t been new post recently, I couldn’t leave my footprint (comments). :D

      Anyway, just knew from Anton, wordcamp’ll also be held in Tokyo this April, it’d be 500 yen (around 60000 rupiahs) for the entrance fee.

    • That’s totally cheap! WordCamp Indonesia registration fee was Rp 400.000 (around USD 40). Anyway, WordCamp San Francisco registration fee is going to be USD 20-25. Kok mahal ya Indonesia? Hehehe..

    • hahaha, mahal bener, parah.

  • Adrian

    menarik!!

    • apa kabar sumur minyak di Duri? Hehehe..

  • Thanks to the establishment of Cipularang Freeway and the emerging shuttle service business that create a new mode of transportation between Jakarta and Bandung. I went from Bandung in the late afternoon on Saturday, arrived at Jakarta, checked in at a nice little hotel in Jalan Mampang Prapatan, pampered myself with a nice hotel spring bed, and fell asleep.

    On the D-day, I am shocked to know that it was so easy to get to the venue. Fortunately, the road and traffic was really cooperative back then. But I guess I should give a big thank-you to the reliable Bluebird taxis. Unlike in Bandung, Bluebird taxis are everywhere. It’s not that surprising to me, though. I just want to emphasize that there is no ridiculous self-centered regulation that prevent them to get on business. For your information, such regulation does exist in Bandung, don’t ask me why. I guess we, here in Bandung, are not ready to be served with such a reliably high quality service, yet.

    • shape_tea

      Hi Mike..talking about bluebird, i become remember that our first introduction to each other was when we wait for that taxi after taking the 1st day of WordCampIndonesia2009..remember that? (*how about your journey back to Bandung? did u missed the departure?)

      And such a funny thing, when we met again on the 2nd day, I almost jump from my chair while i see clearly to your name tag ‘Michael Jubel Hutagalung’..what? so u are the owner of colorlabsproject & the creator of Arthemia theme? hahaha..u’ll have no idea how shocked i am when u mention that u start run this business only 8 months ago & u still studying in ‘Teknik Kimia not IT in ITB,Bandung’ - really inspiring me :D..

      I really appreciate that you acknowledging me as your new friend here..thanks for the friendship, inspiration, business forum that we made from attendees chair while presentation still running on stage..haha..stay keep in touch n’ tell me when u’re going to Jakarta again, n’ off course i will contact u when i’m going to Bandung (*sbg warga Bandung wajib hukumnya nemenin pelancong dr Jakarta u/ wisata kuliner & wisata distro-FO), jgn kabur loh Mike..hehe - Sukses slalu ^o^ (*sorry if my English s****)

    • Yep, I missed my shuttle to Bandung. But, guess what? Again, thanks to the enormous number of commuters between the two cities, the schedule was like *ehm, once in an hour? Hehehe.. I then took the next shuttle and I barely felt the despair of being late. I mean, it was totally unlike the situation of being late. Hahaha.

      Haha.. you’re exaggerating it! Haha.. There are tons of wonderful WP themes out there and Arthemia is nothing compared to them. Well, just like what I said to you that day, I was really lucky.

      And I truly felt bad that we’re making such a significant noise back there in our seats while there was someone giving their presentation at front. But, everybody was doing that, right? The others might spend the time engaged with their laptops (wondering how they can do that in the middle of a presentation) while we preferred to have a little chit-chat. And both were fundamentally the same: they were both unethical. Hahaha..

      Sure thing, buzz me if you plan to drop by. Bring Cynthia and Erick along, that would be great!