WordPress Genius Bar Help Desk At WordCamp Is A Big Hit!

New (just to me, as I later found out) at WordCamp SF was the WordPress Genius Bar. I don’t remember seeing it at WordCamp 2009, but apparently this has been around since WordCamp SF 2007.

According to Lloyd Budd, the WordCamp Genius Bar came about when he and other WordPress participants felt regret for not being able to answer all of the questions that people were stopping him and others in the hall for, at the first WordCamp in 2006.

The Genius Bar at WordCamp SF 2010

This is how the Genius Bar works. A group of subject matter experts – WordPress in our case – are stationed at a Kiosk / long desk with their laptop and gadgets, ready to help anyone who had questions about or problems with their wordpress installs. Along with troubleshooting wordpress, the Genius Bar team is also highly experienced and equipped to give you suggestions and recommendations for your various needs and big ideas.

Say, for example, you were looking to sell T-Shirts or mugs on your wordpress site, then they could give you recommendations on the best wordpress plugin to use for e-commerce, what the pros and cons are, how to setup and configure it, what payment gateways you should activate and so on.

WordCamp Genius Bar SF 2010

The Genius Bar this year featured over 35 wordpress experts.

Judging by the number of people getting advice at the Genius Bar, as well as the long line of people waiting in line at the Genius Bar, I think this years Genius Bar was a BIG HIT!

So  please don’t kill this great service at WordCamps and do keep up the good work peeps!!