Jonathan Bossenger 1:58 pm on July 16, 2020
Tags: ,   

Reimagining Online Event Sponsorships

As we start reimagining what online events look like, so might we also have to reconsider our sponsorship packages and the perks we offer to our sponsors.

Online events do not incur such a high cost as in person events do, so the requirement to gather large sponsorship funds to make a successful WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. no longer exists. This might mean that WordCamp organizers don’t feel the need to reach out to existing sponsors, and get them involved.

On the other hand, with online events, companies could possibly sponsor many more events worldwide, instead of focusing their sponsorships to local only events. So the possible reach of a sponsor could be wider.

It is important to remember that the option to sponsor a WordCamp has traditionally been with the agreement that sponsors don’t receive any “pay to play” type benefits. So typically sponsor perks have included things like advertising at key locations around the event, and sponsor booths/tables to interact with attendees and hand out swag.

In an online event, this is not possible, so WordCamps have had to adapt. One such example is the option of a Virtual Sponsor booth, where attendees can log in to a virtual room to chat with sponsors. This is something that is already being made available at existing WordCamps.

This is equivalent to offering a sponsor a physical booth/table in the general sponsors area at a WordCamp, typically in a space where attendees are very likely to walk past and therefore interact with sponsors.

The problem with such an option is that, if attendees have to log off the regular WordCamp platform, then go find some other link to the Virtual Booth, the experience becomes arduous and full of friction for the attendee making, it highly unlikely they’ll attend.

This ends up meaning that the Virtual Booth has no real benefit to sponsors, and as such, may opt out of choosing a higher tier sponsor package, that would include such a perk.

This post serves to open a discussion around the concept of sponsorships for virtual WordCamps, how they might need to change to fit into the new world of the all online event, and how we can better marry the needs of sponsors to the needs of attendees, to make an online event successful.

Please leave suggestions/ideas as comments on this post, which I will leave open for one week until Thursday 23 July 2020 at 3:00pm UTC. After that I will filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. the comments in a follow up post, where we can discuss them in detail, with an aim to turn them into an actionable plan for sponsorships of our online events.

Thanks to @hlashbrooke for reviewing this post and making sure I don’t sound foolish 🙂

#events-2, #wordcamps

jillbinder 10:46 pm on July 15, 2020
Tags:   

Supporting Black Voices in WordPress

The Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) has received a lot of questions lately about how to feature more Black voices on WordPress stages right now. 

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

  1. Don’t pressure people to step up. It’s an incredibly challenging time right now, and people may not be available or have the emotional and/or physical capacity to do anything extra right now. 
  2. Recognize those who are feeling especially motivated to start sharing their voice more right now. Now and always, yes, you should be featuring people who want to.
  3. Welcome people who are interested in learning or participating, but who aren’t quite ready for getting on stage just yet. It’s great to think about the future!

What can you do?

  1. When inviting a potential speaker, be sure to highlight their specific contributions to the community, or ask if they have great stories to tell about something they learned. (See https://make.wordpress.org/community/handbook/wordcamp-organizer/planning-details/speakers/building-a-diverse-speaker-roster/#speakers-think-they-have-nothing-to-talk-about.) Don’t just invite them on the basis of being Black, as that is tokenizing.
  2. Make sure that whenever the person is ready to start speaking, now or later, everyone who helps them in their speaker journey will be welcoming and encouraging, particularly your meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. and WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. speaker wranglers.
  3. Make sure that Black speakers receive all of the same perks as your speakers of well-represented groups. This mistake is accidental, but it happens.
  4. Start including Black people in your leadership, particularly in your speaker selection committee. (Keep in mind point #1 about asking based on contributions or potential and not on being Black!) This will help ensure everyone gets a fair shake and people don’t feel tokenized when invited to apply.
  5. It’s ok to add to your invitation something like, “We are aware that our speakers/leadership do not yet reflect the diversity we aspire to, but we are learning that prioritizing diversity is important to make a supportive and welcoming space for all.” 
  6. Be mindful of microaggressions which may deter participation or make people of color feel unwelcome. Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniesarkis/2020/06/15/lets-talk-about-racial-microaggressions-in-the-workplace/

Was this list helpful? Do you have anything to add?

Mary Job 9:43 am on July 15, 2020
Tags: , , ,   

Community Team Chat Agenda | July 16 2020

Hello Team!

Our bi-monthly Community Team chat is happening this Thursday, 16 July 2020. Meeting times are detailed below. We use the same agenda for both meetings in order to include all time zones.

Asia-Pacific / EMEA friendly: Thursday, July 16, 2020, 11:00 UTC

Americas friendly: Thursday, July 16, 2020, 20:00 UTC

Deputy/Mentor check-in

What have you been doing and how is it going?

P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. posts needing review/feedback

  • WPDiversity Workshops in July: Different this month! – Jillbinder – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/07/02/wpdiversity-workshops-in-july-different-this-month/
  • Proposal: Recognition for event volunteers and attendees in WordPress.org profile – Timi Wahalahti – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/07/03/proposal-recognition-for-event-volunteers-and-attendees-in-wordpress-org-profile/
  • External Linking Policy – “Commercial blogs” posted by Milana Cap – https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2020/07/06/external-linking-policy-commercial-blogs/
  • Tuesday Trainings: Thoughts on WordCamp Mentorship – Kevin Cristiano – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/07/07/training-tuesdays-thoughts-on-wordcamp-mentorship/
  • Youth Event Working Group: Call for More Volunteers and New Meeting Time – Sandy Edwards – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/07/08/youth-event-working-group-call-for-more-volunteers-and-new-meeting-time/
  • Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) on June 24, 2020 – Jillbinder – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/07/08/recap-of-the-diverse-speaker-training-group-wpdiversity-on-june-24-2020/
  • Tuesday Trainings: Signup for the Mentor Roundtable discussion – Cami Kaos – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/07/09/tuesday-trainings-signup-for-the-mentor-roundtable-discussion/
  • Meetup Organizer Newsletter: July 2020 – Hari Shanker R – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/07/14/meetup-organizer-newsletter-july-2020/
  • https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/07/14/tuesday-trainings-mentor-roundtable/ – posted by Cami Kaos

Highlighted P2 posts

  • Reimagining Online Events – Angela Jin – https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/07/13/reimagining-online-events/

Please add any additional items to this agenda by commenting on this post as needed.

#deputy-chat, #meeting-agenda, #team-chat

Cami Kaos 11:29 pm on July 14, 2020
Tags: , ,   

Tuesday Trainings: Mentor Roundtable

For this Tuesday Trainings session I was joined by @kcristiano @brandondove @kdrewien @courtneypk and @vizkr for a roundtable conversation on mentoring WordCamps. Whether you’re an active WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. mentor or interested in becoming one there are some words of wisdom here for you. Join us for an hour and find out more.

For more information please check out these links:

Looking for more great training content? 

Check these out!

The WordPress Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) has several workshops coming up to help you in your journey to public speaking at online WordPress events, or for WordPress event organizers to support more diverse speakers at the events you are holding:

Saturday, July 18, 5-7pm UTC: WordPress Meetups: Hold Your Own Diverse Speaker Workshop
Tuesday, July 28: Who am I to be speaking? & Finding a topic that people would love to hear
Wednesday, July 29: Creating a great pitch
Thursday, July 30: (new!) What if someone asks me a difficult question?

#mentors, #mentorship, #tuesdaytrainings

Hari Shanker R 9:40 am on July 14, 2020
Tags: , OnlineWPMeetup   

Meetup Organizer Newsletter: July 2020

Hello friends,

It’s time for another edition of our meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. organizer newsletter, packed full of updates from past and upcoming WordPress events, as well as updates and inspiration for your local meetup.

Newsletter contents:

  • Reimagining Online Events: Feedback Required
  • Online Event Updates
  • Upcoming Online Events
  • Tuesday Trainings

Reimagining Online Events: Feedback required

In 2020, as the WordPress Community took big steps in moving WordCamps, Meetups, and other community events online, the focus has mostly been trying to recreate the in-person WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. experience. We feel that this may not result in the best experience for attendees or organizers. Hence, the team is exploring different options on finding out the best ways to use online events as a platform to teach people how to use and contribute to WordPress, while connecting and inspiring WordPress enthusiasts. 

We have published a post to share some ideas from community deputies (like Decoupling online events from geography and exploring shorter online events, for instance) and to solicit feedback from WordPress Community organizers on how to make our online WordCamps more unique. Please share any feedback by commenting on the post before 17 July, 2020. 

Online Event Updates

WordCamp Denver Online
The first online edition of WordCamp Denver was held on June 26th – 27th. The camp, that sold over 2,400 tickets, had 25 sessions in three tracks (Beginner, Marketing, and Power User/Developer). You can find the videos of WordCamp Denver in WordPress.tv and the recorded live stream on the event site.

Featured Online Meetup
The very first meetup group in Spain, the WordPress Sevilla Meetup group, has been meeting regularly for years now. The group that has been meeting regularly for years, pivoted online during the COVID-19 crisis. The group has two presentations a month – a formal session led by a speaker, and an informal session where attendees join hands for an informal lunch meetup. Members of the group joined together for a session on making WordPress themes and plugins compatible with RTL (right to left), organized by Said El Bakkali. The interactive session in Spanish had 38 RSVPs and offered an interesting learning experience for attendees. You can find a recording of the event in WordPress.tv.

An opportunity to highlight your online meetup events
Would you like to highlight recent online events from your local meetup group in our monthly newsletter? We will publish a “call for content” post for the next edition of the newsletter in the first week of July on the Make/Community Blog. Please comment on the post when it is up, or just send us an email to support@wordcamp.org to share about events in your local meetup group.

Badges for Meetup Organizers
Meetup organizers are eligible for a WordPress Meetup Organizer badge in their WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ profiles. We have observed that many meetup organizers don’t have badges. If you are a meetup organizer, and would like to get a Meetup organizer badge, please reach out to us at: support@wordcamp.org with the name of your Meetup and the WordPress.org profile URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org, to request the badge.

Upcoming Online Events

WordPress Meetup groups across the world are currently organizing online events in lieu of in-person events due to COVID-19. Now you can attend online meetups and WordCamps across the world. You can find out about all upcoming online events here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/events/online/

If you are holding a meetup online, please use the tag #OnlineWPMeetup so that the Marketing team can find you and bring you some communications and marketing support. We’d also like to remind of our Online events handbook page that offers a wealth of information on organizing online events. 

Here are some highlighted WordPress events and workshops coming soon:

WordCamp Minneapolis/St. Paul 2020
The first edition of WordCamp Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN is coming up on August 21st, 2020. The one-day event has opened up their call for sponsors, and volunteers. Ticket sales for the event have also started. Get your free tickets now!

Diversity speaker training
The Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) is holding workshops in July to support diverse voices to share knowledge and stories at online WordPress meetups and WordCamps. They have the following events scheduled for July 2020:

Don’t miss this opportunity to participate in these diverse speaker training workshops. Sign up now! 

You can read more about the Diversity workshops here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/07/02/wpdiversity-workshops-in-july-different-this-month/

Tuesday Trainings

Through Tuesday Trainings (#tuesdaytrainings) we publish a different topic on the WordPress Community Blog to train organizers and interested community members in a variety of skills, while also adding additional training documentation to our handbooks. 

We published some tips for managing online meetups that offer organizers a lot of ideas on how to effectively manage meetups. The post talks about sharing expectations before the meeting starts, a space for check-in, being respectful of time, as well as social hangouts, among others.  

Encouraging diversity in Meetups and WordCamps is extremely important. To help organizers in making their meetups more diverse, we organized a panel discussion that delves into several ideas on how organizers can make their meetup events more diverse and inclusive. The discussion also contains links to useful resources that will help organizers in making their events diverse and inclusive. 

In addition to these topics, we also did an exploration on de-escalating conflict in text communication and Thoughts on WordCamp Mentorship as part of our Tuesday trainings, last month. 

The WordPress Community thrives from knowledge-sharing. Would you like to organize a Tuesday Training of your own? Please email us, with a brief pitch about your topic, its format (blog post/panel discussion/webinar), and an abstract of the topic to: support@wordcamp.org. 

If you have any questions, Community Team deputies are available to help. Please send an email to support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-events SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel. Thanks for everything you do to grow the WordPress community, let’s keep sharing knowledge and inspiring our Open SourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. Community! 

We’ll see you online soon!

#newsletter

Angela Jin 8:01 am on July 13, 2020
Tags: , ,   

Reimagining Online Events

This year, the WordPress Community has faced an unprecedented challenge. In response, we took big steps in moving WordCamps, Meetups, and other community events online, and together, we provided the community with some stability during this global crisis, by bringing the in-person WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. experience online.

Now that we’ve had a number of outstanding online WordCamps, including WordCamp Europe, we have the opportunity to think beyond simply recreating in-person events. 

Instead, we can take this chance to get creative and take our online WordPress events to the next level, exploring how we can transform online events to better serve our community.

Let’s innovate and iterate!

Successful WordPress Community events help people learn to use and contribute to WordPress. Community organizers make this possible by connecting WordPress enthusiasts and inspiring people to do more with WordPress, making it easier for people to contribute to WordPress.

How can we best achieve these goals, advancing the growth and adoption of WordPress, through online events? As an attendee, what would inspire you to participate in an online event?

A few concepts that have been brainstormed by Community deputies include:

  • WordCamp JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/.
  • WordCamp Portuguese Online
  • Advanced Developer WordCamp Online, August Edition
  • WordPress 101 Online, Hindi Edition
  • BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Builders Bi-Weekly
  • WordCamp “How It Works”**
  • Documentation Contributor Workshop
  • WordCamp for Non-Profits
  • Content Creators Weekly Round-up

**Wins the prize for worst event title.

Other, broader ideas include: 

  • Decouple online events from geography
  • Encourage events and workshops defined by topics, languages, etc.
  • Explore shorter, “snack-sized” online events
  • Experiment with the frequency of events

Share your ideas 

What can online events make possible for WordPress? What do you think about these ideas, and what other ideas do you have? What online events have impressed you? What online events have been successful in your local community? 

Please share as many ideas as you can, in comments to this post by 17 July, 2020. Community team deputies will then start working on how to support organizers in creating effective and powerful online WordPress events, to be discussed in a follow-up post. 

Thanks to the following deputies for their feedback and contributions to this post: @andreamiddleton, @bph, @camikaos @courtneypk, @harishanker, @hlashbrooke, @kcristiano, @monchomad, @sippis

#meetups, #events-2, #wordcamps
WordCamp.org 4:00 am on July 13, 2020
Tags:   

Weekly Updates

Hello to all our Deputies, WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. organizers, MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. 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 SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. and ask for help!

Cami Kaos 6:06 pm on July 9, 2020
Tags: #mentorship,   

Tuesday Trainings: Signup for the Mentor Roundtable discussion

With this week’s Tuesday Trainings post from @kcristiano still fresh in our minds, next week’s Tuesday Trainings feature will be a roundtable discussion hosted by @camikaos (that’s me) and @kcristiano.

The conversation will focus on best practices for mentoring WordCamps and how to best support WordCamps in this time of event uncertainty. It is intended for existing active mentors in the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. program, but open to those interested in becoming mentors as well.

The zoom roundtable will take place Tuesday, July 14 at 11am PST (6pm UTC) and is scheduled to last up to 90 minutes. If you’d like to attend please let me know in comments below. You will receive a calendar invite with zoom link by end of day Monday July 13.

Hope to see you there!

#mentorship-2, #tuesdaytrainings

jillbinder 11:25 pm on July 8, 2020
Tags:   

Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) on June 24, 2020

Summary: The Diverse Speaker workshops have been going very well. We have a great lineup of workshops in July. Volunteer role needed: Inviting participants to a google calendar event and Zoom registration

Continue reading →

#wpdiversity

Sandy Edwards 1:09 pm on July 8, 2020
Tags: ,   

Youth Event Working Group: Call for More Volunteers and New Meeting Time

Have you ever wanted to have an event for youth in your community but were not sure where to start? I have been there too.

Did you know that there’s a solution for this? There’s no one perfect solution, but a group of people with experience planning youth events want to share this information with you: from events within your WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. to stand-alone youth events.

Our goal is to help prepare others for the creation and implementation of these amazing programs. Through lesson plans, schedules, and teaching methods, together we can create a path for anyone that wants to teach youth the value of a blog.

Continue reading →

#kids-events, #youth-events