Welcome to the official blog of the community/outreach team for the WordPress open source project!
This team oversees official events, mentorship programs, diversity initiatives, contributor outreach, and other ways of growing our community.
If you love WordPress and want to help us do these things, join in!
Getting Involved
We use this blog for policy debates, project announcements, and status reports. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to comment on posts and join the discussion.
You can learn about our current activities on the Team Projects page. These projects are suitable for everyone from newcomers to WordPress community elders.
You can use our contact form to volunteer for one of our projects.
We also have regular Community Team meetings on the first and third Thursdays of every month at 11:00 UTC and 20:00 UTC in #community-team on Slack (same agenda).
In order to assist organisers with the process of moving their WordCamp online, and to pave the way for new organisers to get involved, the Community Team has set up some tools, processes, and documentation to make things possible. You will find all of this in the new Online Events Handbook, but read on for a broad overview.
In practice, this means that the online production and captioning costs associated with any online WordCamp taking place this year will be covered in full without the need for local sponsorship. As an organiser, you can make use of the vendors available or choose to work with a local supplier.
In order to cater to online WordCamps, the guidelines for these events have been updated to be more flexible and adapt to the needs of the format. You can find these updated guidelines in the new handbook – they cover the regional focus of online events and important changes to the budget review and planning processes.
Note that these updates apply to online events only – when in-person events are able to resume, those events will follow the guidelines that were already in place taking note of these additional guidelines for in-person events taking place in 2020.
Code of Conduct for Online Events
In order to ensure these online events remain as safe and welcoming as in-person WordCamps, the new handbook includes a code of conduct that has been updated to cater to this new format. There is also some new documentation on effective ways to moderate the chat during a live stream and how you can ensure your event’s chat remains friendly and inviting.
Acknowledging Sponsors at Online Events
You can read this handbook page for some excellent ideas about how to acknowledge your online event sponsors, and more information will be published soon with information about recognising global sponsors. One requirement that has been added in here, is that all organisers must have their sponsorship packages approved by a deputy at the budget review stage.
The WordCamp Schedule
The WordCamp schedule has been updated to indicate whether an event is taking place online or not – this will provide an easy reference for anyone interested in attending an online WordCamp no matter where they are in the world. Note that Online WordCamp tickets will always be free, so anyone around the world can easily attend.
Tips for WordCamp Speakers
Since presenting a talk online is a very different experience to doing so in-person, here are some tips for speakers to help you make the most out of the experience.
Guidelines for In-Person WordCamps
If you would like to organise an in-person WordCamp for any date after June 2020, please refer to the updated guidelines for these events.
WordCamps Beyond 2020
The updated guidelines outlined here will be in effect for the remainder of the year. The team plans to review these guidelines in Q3 2020 so that organizers applying for a 2021 WordCamp have greater clarity and enough time to prepare for either an online or in-person event.
On a personal note, I’m excited to see the online events that local organisers put together – while this is a challenging new frontier for all of us, the need to move our events online will provide a platform for a huge amount of innovation within our community.
Is there anything you think was missed here? Or any other resources or documentation you think would be helpful for the team to provide for organisers of online WordCamps? Please make it known in the comments!
Summary: Reporting on how the Diverse Speaker workshops and group coaching have been going. Talked about our upcoming workshops and roles needed to fill. The group brought up some ideas for us to consider for improving how we do things.
New volunteer @Dani_Long jumped in and helped out!
@Dani_Long I am interested in helping out more! I just need to learn the ropes first. I have a lot of experience with diversity-type work. In one of my past iterations (and surfacing in a reboot currently), I have experience as an English language teacher (English as an additional language)
@jillbinder I managed to reduce a lot of the assistant work this time (which caused some other issues in the back-end, which I’ll talk about after), and so Dani spent the time helping people feel comfortable, answering questions behind the scenes, filling in things that were needed, etc.
Results from the workshops & coaching so far: 11 attended. Most attended all 3 last week! Two showed up for the group coaching yesterday.
They were from 3 countries, and 11 cities.
Their self-reported public speaking confidence score went up 20% or 30%… I have to check my math again. But either way, that is great.
Despite having explained it better in advance, so I thought, people again showed up not really sure what they were showing up for. Not sure if that needs more work on my part, or if it is just the way it is. People did really like it though.
@Dani_Long: I’m curious. Has there ever been a version of the class where they are sent a (brief) reading assignment first?
@jillbinder: Oh! That is something I’ve never thought of before. That’s an interesting idea.
@Dani_Long: A mini-syllabus, sort of, plus a first assignment. Then they come to class ready to DO things. Flipped classroom.
@Dani_Long: I think the people who sign up are motivated…. the sooner they get to speak and do (especially as it’s an online class), the more their confidence will rise. From an educator’s standpoint…. Especially given that this is a class about DOING things, not just theoretical knowledge. I would totally be down for helping create that approach.
@jillbinder: I love the new idea, Dani! I’m seeing pros and cons… which I want to talk over with Andrea Middleton in my meeting with her today. I’ll let you know if we move forward with that.
@cguntur: @jillbinder how about we make a list of online meetups and WordCamps to the people who attend? I know they can find it online, but giving them the list right after the workshop, might push them to apply for speaker
@jillbinder: Ohhh. @cguntur Yes! So we tell the meetup organizers who attended so that they can reach out to the participants to ask if they’d like to speak…? Or was it the other way around, @cguntur? We tell those who attended at what meetups they can apply to speak?
@cguntur: I was talking about telling those who attended what meetups they can apply to… but telling the meetup organizers works too. Sometimes, it is motivating when the meetup organizers reach out…
@jillbinder: Love this. Let’s figure out who can do them.
@Dani_Long: Right! Let both sides have the information (knowledge is power)
@cguntur: Given that many meetups are online now, there is more opportunity for everybody to practice their speaking skills
3. Upcoming workshops & group coaching schedule
Tomorrow, May 28: Group coaching (they don’t have to have taken a workshop, but so far almost everyone signed up has) Tuesday, June 9: Workshop 1 of 3: Who am I to be speaking? & Finding a topic that people would love to hear Wednesday, June 10: Workshop 2 of 3: Creating a great pitch Thursday, June 11: Workshop 3 of 3: Online stage presence Tuesday, June 16 & Thursday, June 18: Group Coaching on Zoom: Q&A and Get Feedback
We haven’t set the July schedule yet. Andrea and I were thinking we’d do a Train the Trainers (cc @miriamgoldman and @angelasjin). I’ll be talking with her later today about that and what other workshop I’d be doing, if it would be the same or a different one.
Also! Saturday, July 11 I’m doing a Train the Trainers for the women of WordPress Latin America!
fyi, Train the Trainers means teaching meetup and WordCamp organizers how to facilitate the workshop so that they can do it on their own.
Which is how things normally run. We are temporarily having me deliver workshops directly to keep our work going during the pandemic.
Because there is so much online speaking opportunity these days, so we don’t want to miss this window of helping people want to start speaking at them.
@Dani_Long: OH!! OH!!! July 11 – can I help with that? I’m bilingual/bicultural (Diverse family) (More C. America/Mexico than S. America but hey, it’s close)
@jillbinder: Oh, @Dani Long! Quite possibly! I’ll note that and let’s talk more about it after.
The July workshop that I do in our group might be for the meetup and WordCamp organizers on holding more welcoming and inclusive events. TBD.
On the upcoming workshops: Marketing!
So far I’ve been doing adhoc marketing. It’s worked out ok – in April we had 26 attend and in May, we had 11. However, @abhanonstopnewsuk from the Marketing team is going to help us with better marketing. I’ll let you know if that can use some help.
4. Roles needed
I can use a helper again in the group coaching tomorrow. (Dani?)
I can also use a helper in the workshops and group coachings next month.
One of the participants suggested that we have someone from our team present in each breakout room. I’m still thinking about that one.
I know that almost everyone on the team doesn’t have bandwidth these days, but is that something you think you could be interested in? It would probably be: Help them decide who goes first. If no one in the room is giving feedback to the person sharing their title, pitch, whatever they’re working on, offer a few words. Things like that.
@Dani_Long: I can help tomorrow. And I’m going to work with Larissa Murillom from the Marketing team for promotion of this here team’s goals/opportunities. Abha asked Larissa and I to work together after the Marketing meeting today.
@Dani_Long: About the breakout rooms – having either a member of this team or someone from a prior class volunteer in each breakout room. I does help from spending valuable time doing the organizational/structure bits
@wpfangirl: Back in the days when I was on the board of a networking group, we made sure we had a board member at each table to help guide things like networking exercises or exercises that were part of a speaker’s program. There was only me when I ran the training for my meetup, so I sort of circulated among the tables to check in with people.
@Dani_Long: Exactly
@jillbinder: I can also use help on the admin side. After a whole bunch of changes, this is what we’ve currently got:
An eventbrite account signed up with our group email, speaker-training@w. This allowed us to know who is signed up for what and to automate sending out the warm-up and reminder emails.
A google account at speaker-training@w. I needed to sign up with our account as it was getting confusing for everyone getting info from too many emails, plus people had started writing to me at my personal account. The google calendar means that people have it in their calendars.
An interesting note: Google started automatically adding Google Meet links to events, so some people went to that instead of the Zoom link. Grrr. So we need to remember to cancel that every time we make an edit to the event.
@wpfangirl: There’s a Zoom add-in for Google Calendar that might help with that.
In order to avoid having to take attendance, we required that everyone register in Zoom. People registered get shown if they attend. The interesting things about that: It was showing in my Vancouver time which confused several people. We had to do it again in UTC time.
In order to save people from having to sign up twice, anyone who signed up in Eventbrite, we did their Zoom registration for them. One manual piece that made it look automated.
@jillbinder: I did all of these items with my paid assistant who is not on our team because we didn’t have bandwidth on our team. It’s better if we can be doing it in-team.
A lot of the hard work is now done, and things I would be looking for June:
Setting up the automated emails in Eventbrite
When people sign up for the event, add them to the speaker-training google calendar and register them in Zoom
I’m not sure what else, but it would be along those lines
@cguntur: I can probably assist at the workshop tomorrow
@jillbinder: And then the other role is I’ll find out if @miriamgoldman or @angelasjin can do a Train the Trainers in July. And find out if Miriam is available to coordinate that.
So, to recap, roles I’m looking for:
a helper again in the group coaching tomorrow. (Dani and Chandrika!)
a helper in the workshops and group coachings next month (June 9-11 & June 16 & 18)
possibly helpers in the breakout rooms in the workshops next month… tbd (edit: since then have decided no)
help with eventbrite, google calendar, zoom registrations
oh yes, and possibly help with marking down who attended, where they’re from, which sessions they attended
and the new item that Dani is telling me about, which she is doing: Marketing. (Yay!)
and the other new item, Dani may help me on July 11 for the Latin America group.
(edited to add:) and connecting participants with their local meetups (Chandrika!)
@cguntur: I don’t think I will be able to help in June
Strong communication within a local organising team is one of the keys to a well-managed community. When it comes to open-source communities, especially when discussions are almost exclusively held online, making things public will enhance the impact and value of that communication exponentially.
Open communication is, however, an easy thing to forget when it comes down to it – talking about things in private channels is frequently quicker and easier, or at least feels quicker and easier, even if it isn’t. This makes it easy to fall into a pattern of keeping conversations private amongst organisers, although it’s usually done largely out of convenience and speed rather than any sort of intent to hoard control.
Benefits of open communication
In order to push us towards openness, let’s look at some of the benefits of open communication:
Greater community buy-in
When you make decisions in public, people have a much easier time buying into what you have decided, even if they haven’t been involved in the decision-making process. People might not speak up during a discussion, or provide any actual feedback at the time, but the fact that they were able to see the process taking place gives them an inherent bias toward agreement and approval.
Increased engagement
Many of your community members might want to be more engaged, but they struggle to find the time or motivation – this is for a variety of reasons, many of which are out of your control. One thing that you can do to increase engagement, however, is to make your discussions public. Holding conversations in a space where everyone can follow along gives your community members a chance to get involved and to become further engaged. Even if they choose not to take part in a specific conversation, it shows them that they can be a part of your decision-making process, which is a great encouragement for them to remain connected to the community.
More ideas
One of the open-source principles included in the WordPress contributor training is “with many eyes, all bugs are shallow” – this is equally true of community building as it is of software development. If you involve more people in your discussions, then you will have a greater resource of ideas and input to learn from.
Greater trust
Many people have an inherent mistrust of people in power and will frequently second-guess your motivations and decisions, assuming that you are only serving your own interests and not those of the community. You know what your true motivations are, so you need to do what you can to reassure people that they are in good hands. One of the ways you can do that is by discussing things publicly and engaging the community in your conversations. If you do that, it will build trust with the members of your community and they will more readily believe that your motivations are noble and that you are working their best interests in mind.
How to practise open communication
With all of that in mind, and seeing how public discussions can really make your work in your community significantly easier, here are some practical steps you can take to make sure you practise open communication as much as possible.
Use a public Slack channel
Many organising teams use Slack for their event planning. This is a great idea as it allows you to have a searchable history of your communication as a team. In order to make Slack even more beneficial to you as a team, you can make sure to use a public channel in your community Slack group. You can go a step further and make sure everyone in your community knows this is where you discuss your plans, by advertising the fact that you are using this open space. This goes a long way to maximising all of the benefits we looked at above.
Use a public P2
P2 is a WordPress theme designed to create a collaborative space that can effectively replace email (this blog uses a modified version of the P2 theme). Setting up a P2 for your local organising ream to use as a communication space allows all of your conversations to take place in a central location and not be tied into a series of private email threads. You can set up a P2 for free on WordPress.com, or simply download and install the theme on any WordPress site.
This allows anyone to follow or comment on your plans with ease. You can even link your P2 to your Slack channel so that all new posts show up in there, maximising their visibility.
Publish meeting notes
Even if you maintain public spaces, like Slack and P2, there will always be conversations that happen on calls or in other areas that are not open to everyone. In those instances, you can use your P2 as a record of these meetings by publishing notes and summaries of what you spoke about. This allows all of your discussions to be publicly available for review and comment. You can, of course, remain selective about what you publish in your notes, so sensitive matters can still be kept private where necessary.
Ask the community
One of the keys to soliciting quality feedback, especially in a public forum like a P2, is to ask the right questions to the right people. With a public place for discussions, you can ask your community for their input on your work and gather input from a variety of sources. When doing so, you need to keep your questions specific and open-ended. You should ask for feedback about individual decisions but ask for further input, rather than simply gathering yes/no answers. This way you will allow your community to be involved in decisions that will affect them, and you will be able to pull together useful and actionable feedback.
Do you have any other tips for how to practise genuine open communication? Share them below!
This is really important. I’ve shown up to Org meetings for Camps where the decisions were made. It felt like a waste of time to be an org at best and dismissive at worst.
Hello to all our Deputies, WordCamp organizers, Meetup wranglers, and WordPress Community builders! You were probably hard at work this weekend. Tell us what you got accomplished in our #weekly-update!
Have you run into a roadblock with the stuff you’re working on? Head over to #community-events or #community-team in Slack and ask for help!
This week I’ve been attending a few WordCamps orientation sessions in South America, a meetup in Spain, and helping WordPress Mexico better use its community in Slack.
I’ve also organized the monthly meetingup in my city, Seville, and translated some of the networks into Spanish. Good week!
Please leave comment below if you’d like to help with beta testing.
If you’re not currently planning a camp, you can use one of your older sites, or ask for access to a test site.
The new block doesn’t currently support the personalized schedule feature that the shortcode has, but that will be incorporated before the block is enabled for all sites.
Testing Details
Leave a comment below, and include the URL of a past- or present- WordCamp that you helped organize. I’ll enable the block for that site.
Edit the Session posts and update the duration field, if needed. If you skip this step, you’ll probably see a lot of warnings while using the block.
Draft or publish a new page, and add the block to it. Please share a link to this page in the comments, so myself and everyone can see the results.
Play around with the various options, and keep an eye out for bugs, missing features, pain points, etc. I’m especially interested to see if anyone runs into problems applying custom CSS to it, and any tweaks that would make that easier.
@iandunn I want to test this on a non-English site, could you enable it on one of WordCamp Tokyo sites? (the oldest one with a timetable is 2011.tokyo.wordcamp.org)
The Community Team is looking for feedback from former/current WordCamp organizers about how they use their existing city@wordcamp.org email addresses.
The Problem
WordCamp organizers are currently provided with city-based @wordcamp.org email addresses. Once the WordCamp is approved, deputies set up an email forward for the event in the format of city@wordcamp.org to the organizer’s email address (or another email address created and managed by the organizing team). The team also offers access to a webmail client if organizers wish to send mail from the city@wordcamp.org address directly. However, the webmail client is not very user-friendly and doesn’t work well when multiple people are using it.
Potential Solution and Request for Feedback
The WordPress Foundation now has a G Suite for Non-profits account. This account can be used for @wordcamp.org accounts, as well as email addresses for the Foundation itself. The Community Team is evaluating whether we can use G Suite to replace the existing cPanel-based webmail clients for both new and existing city@wordcamp.org email accounts.
Before we consider implementing G Suite for WordCamp emails, we would like to hear from WordCamp organizers about how they work with emails using the existing tools (the webmail clients and email forwarding). In short, we are trying to get more clarity on the pain-points that we are looking to solve.
We are seeking your input to help us arrive at an informed decision on whether to switch to an email client like G Suite for processing WordCamp emails. If you are a current/former WordCamp organizer, can you answer the following questions for us?
How much do you use the city@wordcamp.org email address?
What are the benefits of this provided email account over other options?
What are the current pain points of using this email account?
What other 3rd-party tools do you regularly use, and perhaps pay for, because there’s no suitable tool available from WordCamp Central?
Do you see any benefits in preserving emails from previous years in the email account?
How does your organizing team handle sharing access to your WordCamp email account?
Please let us know your answers in the comments by Monday, June 8 2020. Thanks for helping us think through how we can best support our WordPress community organizers by improving our tools!
The whole team has the same main login, using authenticator to get through security validation. In 2020 we added Zammad to handle the bulk of the mails: everyone has their own login (so for a lot of mails there was no need to log in to GSuite anymore); downside is the history ain’t in GSuite no more (split up over multiple tools)
How much do you use the city@wordcamp.org email address?
We use as a forwarder to a shared gmail account.
What are the benefits of this provided email account over other options?
Looks more professional/legit than our Gmail account.
What are the current pain points of using this email account?
That it’s a forwarder and we can’t directly manage it. Makes troubleshooting contact forms stressful because there’s one more variable to test.
What other 3rd-party tools do you regularly use, and perhaps pay for, because there’s no suitable tool available from WordCamp Central?
Gmail and a handful of free add-ons from back in the “Google Lab” days for canned responses and snoozing/reminders.
Do you see any benefits in preserving emails from previous years in the email account?
YES, 100% yes. Comparing rates to previous years, matching style/tone (or improving style/tone) as the years go on, finding a contact from previous years when sponsors aren’t responding to emails going to their generic “wordcamp” email address, etc.
How does your organizing team handle sharing access to your WordCamp email account?
Unfortunately insecurely and we have an awful password (this is for Gmail. we don’t have direct access to the wordcamp.org one). Wish we could have a system similar to FreeScout (though FreeScout has its drawbacks, too) where everyone is responsible for their own account.
I think that’s a really great point. Last year an A/V vendor quoted us in Seattle $8,000 dollars more than they charged the previous year, for the same service.
I do have some strong opinions about using Google products. Especially against it.
WordCamp emails are definitely something we can improve on, but before we, as a community, jump to use Google services just because those are free to us, I would like to see larger conversation to take place. Yes, Google services are really usable and most of us are used to those.
But do we want to trust one of our most critical parts of the infrastructure to them? Do we want to support Google namely as a project and community? Do we want to support the centralization of internet services and dominance of few companies, which is absolutely opposite to the mission of the WordPress project?
Did we even evaluate other options?
I think it’s fair to say that running our own email system is a bit old approach and it’s wise to move using some service that handles the technical side for us. But we can’t just say that we are going to use the service X just because it’s free, without exploring other options like Fastmail or ProtonMail.
One could argue, that as an open-source project, WordPress Community, should use and support services that give back to the open-source community. What Google hasn’t made to my knowledge in the field of the email, but for example Fastmail has done numerous contributions over the years on developing email protocols.
In Finland camps use the official address for all communication related to WordCamp.
2. What are the benefits of this provided email account over other options?
Trust as it is “the official” address instead of some shady personal or created GMail address.
3. What are the current pain points of using this email account?
When the WordCamp is getting closer, the same email address gets a lot of different emails; venue, vendors, sponsors, speakers, volunteers, attendees… Sometimes it’s got a bit messy and it’s hard to track what conversation should be followed by which organizer. It would be nice to have opportunity to have different addresses for different things if organizing teams want so, for example, city.speakers@wordcamp.org, city.sponsors@wordcamp.org, etc and the general city@wordcamp.org for “public” attendee service use.
3. What other 3rd-party tools do you regularly use, and perhaps pay for, because there’s no suitable tool available from WordCamp Central?
In Finland, we use free Gmail accounts where city@wordcamp.org is forwarded. We also have one main account under which are shared Google Drive folders for each WordCamp.
4. Do you see any benefits in preserving emails from previous years in the email account?
Yes. Also sharing the Google Drive folders from previous year(s) to at least lead organizer has proven to be very valuable, as some things can be used again in next years.
5. How does your organizing team handle sharing access to your WordCamp email account?
Few trusted members have the login details for Gmail accounts and those are shared if and when needed.
I also like ProtonMail from an ethical perspective; they were the first option I looked into. They gave us a quote for $6,200 /year (paid upfront bi-annually), including a nice non-profit discount.
Fastmail and Rackspace’s advertised prices were $7,500 /year, and they have good reputations from a technical/UX perspective IMO. Dreamhost’s advertised price was $4,000 /year, but that does introduce some additional conflict-of-interest concerns, since they’re involved in the community.
That’s just the pricing information, though. I agree that ethical considerations are also worth considering.
We use Google groups for Mumbai, mumbai@wordcamp.org redirects emails to a couple of organisers (as a fail safe) and the Google Group email id, which forwards to the dozen odd organisers, who reply back to any emails with a cc to mumbai@wordcamp.org
While having a way sending emails from G-Suite seems nice, as it looks more credible when we send out emails from an official email id.
I like the fact that many people are clued in to the various conversations that are happening with attendees, speakers, sponsors and WordPress foundation. They also can reply and their voice is their own, and there’s no confusion about who sent this email.
Last weekend, about 70 Japanese WordPress community members and 9 non-profit organizations came together and built websites for our first do_action event.
This was also the first-ever virtual charity hackathon in do_action’s 5-year history. In this recap, I want to share some tips and findings for future organizers (read this in Japanese | 日本語版はこちら).
While finding additional organizers was unexpectedly easy, reaching out to non-profits wasn’t. A week after we opened the call for non-profit organizations, we only had one submission. We quickly tried different approaches: posting more frequently to social networks, rewriting the message to make it clear that unincorporated organizations and projects could apply, and adding an “About Us” page to show who we are. Thanks to these improvements and outreach from interim NPO support organizations, we eventually received applications that exceeded the maximum quota.
The 15 organizing team members were all experienced WordCamp and Meetup organizers. Even though this was our first time organizing do_action, the overall preparation went relatively smoothly.
On the other hand, there were some areas where we weren’t prepared enough due to a lack of knowledge in online event organization – such as opening and closing all-hands Zoom and facilitation on Slack. For the participants, the satisfaction level of the “real-time” experience greatly affects the overall impression of the event, so I hope we can improve this in the future.
Non-profit Organization Reps
According to the post-event survey, satisfaction level was particularly high from the non-profit representatives; many of them were pleased that the hackathon participants were able to complete a high-quality website with their skills. We received comments such as “My first hackathon was a learning experience. I was thrilled with the high level of skill and focus” and “We were able to work on the project online without any major issues, and I enjoyed the process a lot.”
Hackathon Participants
The majority of the hackathon participants said that site production and communication were generally smooth, and they learned something new by being immersed in a situation different from their usual workflow. However, more than a few also said it was difficult to fully understand the nonprofit organization’s needs and put that into a website under time constraints. We received comments such as, “It was very busy at the end due to a large amount of tasks and loose schedule management,” “It required hard work but it was meaningful,” and “I came in with no past experience, but it was a very valuable experience to see a real-life website production process.”
@mekemoke ran our social media and @tomominn took care of visual design.
Virtual Event Organization Tools
We made use of the following free tools and sites for the event management. Given a short prep period (about a month and a half), we wanted to keep our tools as simple as possible. Eventually, we ended up gradually adding some more necessary tools such as Google Apps. I hope this list will help you choose the setup to run a “minimum-plus-alpha” event.
doaction.org website (call for nonprofits & hackathon participants)
Slack (overall event prep, communication on the event days)
Google Forms (call for organizers & sponsors, post-event survey)
Google Sheets (task & data management)
Google Docs & HackMD (collaborative editing of documents）
Google Slides (opening/closing remarks presentation)
Figma (design)
Twitter, Facebook Page, YouTube (marketing)
We also experienced Slack going down for a short period on the day before the event and Zoom going down during the after party. We tried to go around this by creating Facebook Messenger groups for the operations team & project managers and using Google Meet and SpatialChat for the get-together. We definitely realized the importance of having fallback tools for communication!
Since this is the first time, some of the organizers created demo sites to set expectations.
@mimitips and @ippei-sumida worked hard on the guideline for building a maintainable website and it turned out really great. We plan to keep updating it on GitHub.
We also needed to prepare additional information and rules for sponsorship. We were seeking only tools and services to help with the production rather than financial support, and we requested that the sponsored products will provide continuous support to the newly built websites.
As a result, we received several generous offers: free hosting plans from two companies for the life of the website and three premium themes for 10+ years of free upgrades. Many teams did take up the offers. We’ve never made such a request for WordCamp/Meetup sponsorship, and the concept was not fully conveyed to some of the sponsors who were interested. With limited time for adjustment, we decided not to accept the offer with a shorter expiration period. If we were to recruit tool sponsors again in the future, we’d like to make sure our expectations are clearer to avoid any misunderstandings.
The sponsor representatives also joined the Slack team. They were very helpful with their support, answering questions about the product, and fixing bugs immediately. Thank you!
Nonprofit Websites Created
These are the websites teams created for nonprofits (ones still migrating are marked with *).
It was our first time to organize an event at this scale with members from all over Japan. I saw many occasions where new ideas were realized very quickly by organizers’ proactive actions. We embraced the spirit of “do action” 😉This was also happening while the participants were working on the websites.
Most importantly, do_action made us realize that it’s still possible to accelerate and encourage interpersonal connections without face-to-face interaction. I hope everyone who participated will have renewed confidence that we can always make a difference by working together, no matter what the situation is.
Our bi-monthly Community Team chat is happening this Thursday, 21 May 2020. Meeting times are detailed below. We use the same agenda for both meetings in order to include all time zones.
With things ever-changing for our events program within this global pandemic, it feels appropriate to focus the first installment of our Tuesday Trainings on our online events program. Just as we’re adjusting different aspects of our lives while our home communities are working on physical distancing, the Global Community Team is continuing to work on ways to continue bringing the WordPress community together.
Community deputies have currently turned most of our attention to how best to support organizers in focusing on online events. For a primer as you get started, deputies have prepared a new handbook for online events!
In this handbook, you will find guidelines for online events, tools for online Meetups and WordCamps, additional available resources, and our code of conduct for online events. This handbook is constantly being updated, so be sure to bookmark it for future reference.
What hasn’t been shared yet are recommendations for formats of events that can be hosted online to continue to benefit your local communities during this time of physical distancing. Here are some ideas that Meetup and WordCamp organizers have tried, which you can use for inspiration!
Online Meetup Events
Invite speakers from your community to deliver their session remotely, using Zoom, Hangouts, Skype, or other free online meeting tools.
Invite speakers from other Meetups to deliver their session remotely, using online meetup tools.
Play talks of interest from WordPress.tv during the Meetup event.
Online Lightning Talks are a great way to help new speakers and encourage participation.
Online Q & A sessions at Meetup events are always a good way to help the audience with specific questions and find out what their interests are.
Online Help Desk: Members ask for help with their WordPress sites, and other members support them.
Online co-working hour: Have an online meeting where members drop in and work alongside each other — like a virtual co-working space or coffee shop.
Online WordCamps
Invite speakers to present sessions online.
Invite speakers to pre-record content on a video to stream during the live online event.
Support Desks to support folx in your community with questions needing individualized attention.
Host interactive Trivia games.
Virtual Hallway Tracks in Zoom rooms to encourage conversation and serendipitous meetings.
Have you tried any event types not listed here? Do you have additional ideas for online event formats? Please share your ideas and feedback in the comments section!
Hello to all our Deputies, WordCamp organizers, Meetup wranglers, and WordPress Community builders! You were probably hard at work this weekend. Tell us what you got accomplished in our #weekly-update!
Have you run into a roadblock with the stuff you’re working on? Head over to #community-events or #community-team in Slack and ask for help!
Will online WordCamps still need to be location-based?
Yes – WordCamps will still be location-based, but the scope of the location that can be covered is much broader, as per the docs here: http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20200529170156/https://make.wordpress.org/community/handbook/virtual-events/welcome/new-guidelines-for-virtual-events-in-2020/
Great Hugh. it`s a good job!