Plugin-a-Palooza Plays Out at WordCamp Orange County

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In a feat requiring the abandonment of Cleric powers, players from near and far have sought to win Plugin-a-Palooza, a coveted contest held yearly at WordCamp Orange County. Previously awarded to three master adventurers (including Natalie MacLees, author of the Simple Event Listing plugin) the contest requires skill, time, and the following of Rules As Intended (RAI). MacLees, entered the contest last year with a plugin designed to display events on a WordPress site, was commended on her presentation and the plugin’s ability to “easily and quickly enter a list of events with just a few descriptive fields.” Her entry impressed the judges and MacLees took home the prize in 2017.

MacLees describes the achievement as, “Pretty awesome.There were some pretty impressive competitors, so I was really honored that my plugin was selected,” she said.

MacLees recalled that Plugin-a-Palooza opened her eyes to new possibilities and encouraged her to experiment. “It was fun learning how to use the API and build a working app,” she said, “Which I don’t think I would have tried otherwise.”

The first ever Plugin-a-Palooza wizards were a team of developers at WordImpress consisting of Devin Walker, Matt Cromwell, and Brandon Lavigne. Together, in 2015, they created WP Rollback, a plugin actively used and maintained today, with over 50,000 installs that allows users to “quickly and easily rollback any theme or plugin from WordPress.org to any previous (or newer) version without any of the manual fuss.”

“Plugin-a-Palooza definitely helped us out and we thought about it this year too,” said Walker who felt their participation was instrumental to their agency. As MacLees, founder and principal of Purple Pen Productions explained, “Development is generally a pretty lonely task – even if you’re not a freelancer, you pretty much just sit at your own desk, plugging away,” she said. “Stuff like Plugin-a-Palooza is good for getting you to put your ideas out there and see what other people are doing.”

Robert Gillmer of Shiny 9 Web Design agreed. “I think it’s very important,” Gillmer said. “It gets people involved in giving back to the WordPress community. It also shows that you don’t have to be a million-dollar agency to contribute – anyone who’s figured out how to overcome a pain point can share that knowledge with the community.”

Gillmer won Plugin-a-Palooza in 2016 with Protect Version Controlled Updates, a plugin which “warns or prevents users from updating plugins on a Git version-controlled server.” Though he doesn’t currently maintain or update the plugin due to “the pesky interference of real life,” Gillmer loved being able to take the stage and display his dev work. “The judges had some great ideas about features and how to factor the code better,” he said.

About Jen Miller

Jen Miller has spent a lifetime deep in the content trenches - more than 25 years - publishing everything from newspapers, magazines, and books to newsletters, emails, resumes, and websites. As the author of The Book on Content, entrepreneur, blogger, and sales and marketing expert, Jen understands how to use content to build authority, create trust, and forge lasting client relationships. Jen became known in the WordPress world as her company, Need Someone To Blog, published and promoted more than a million blog posts for companies and individuals representing many industries, from real estate and mortgage, executive coaching and leadership, health and fitness, construction, plumbing and air conditioning, insurance and finance, technology and start-ups to non-profits and artisans. Jen has a breadth of website content and business blogging knowledge you will not find elsewhere. Jen launched a course entitled "Create Great Content" in 2015, where she taught clients how to get the same results her company produced for their clients. She has spoken at many WordCamps and, in 2021, began sharing her knowledge as an adjunct faculty member at four universities. Professionally, as Director of Accounts at WebDevStudios, she helps clients find success through WordPress website enterprise solutions. Jen lives just outside of Phoenix, AZ, with her two teen sons and Goldendoodle dog and says she uses her college degree every day, having graduated from CSU, Long Beach, with a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies, an option in Music and a minor in Journalism. She also earned a Master of Science in Management and Leadership (MSML) and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Western Governors University and is working on a Ph.D. in Business at the University of the Cumberlands. Jen Miller is an active volunteer with her church and other non-profits in her area and has served as an organizer for WordCamp Phoenix, believing that the key to providing value is learning and sharing with her community.