Mentorship Wednesday I’ll be writing up posts today…

Mentorship Wednesday! I’ll be writing up posts today for all the contributor teams about mentorship programs:

  • A one-month beginning contributor ramp-up mentorship
  • A three-month project mentorship
  • Specific third-party programs like GSoC and OPW

GSoC
I’ll be starting the GSoC application process this week (deadline to apply is Feb 14). I would like to have a backup administrator for the GSoC program that isn’t someone heavily involved in development of coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., but someone with some free time and good project management skills. Responsibilities would be helping wrangle potential mentorsEvent Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. to write up project descriptions and bios in the next week or so, and then if we’re accepted, helping to oversee the selection of students/mentorEvent Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. pairings (including running a couple of irc chats), and once it starts, helping with weekly check-ins. If anyone is interested in helping out with this, hands up in the comments. Note: because this program is important to us, this would not be something I’d feel comfortable handing over to someone brand new to the community. Familiarity with the WordPress project and involvement in some way (core, forums, docs, WordCamps, etc) would be desired, so that there’s some level of trust already established.

OPW
Last year we had 2 OPW interns, one in core and one in support. Unlike GSoC, for OPW we have to raise the 5k per intern ourselves (in 2013, Automattic provided the funding). I’ll be reaching out to a couple of hosting companies and such this week to see if they’d want to sponsor an intern, but in the meantime we would need to be better organized. We have the GSoC program down pretty well, but we need similar structures in place for the other groups (OPW is available for any contributor area, not just code). If we de decide to participate, will need a backup admin for this as well.

One-Month Program, Three-Month Program
Time to try a pilot for our own official mentorship program. After discussing it with a bunch of different people who’ve asked about having such a program and a bunch who’d be in the position of mentoring, here’s what I came up with that I’d like to try as a pilot this spring (before the GSoC coding period).

  • One-Month Program. For each group, devise a 4 week introduction to contributing with that group that focuses on hands-on practice. A mentor will connect with mentee(s) once per week officially, and may be in contact as needed throughout. Each week will have a goal or set of goals as well as homework for practice (example: in the week of learning how to work with svn, homework might be to create 5 patches and upload them to a ticket we use for training purposes). The most common thing I hear from people is that they learn how at a dev day or meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook., but forget the steps and don’t want to sound dumb if they ask again, so focusing on repetition is the key idea with this.
  • Three-Month Program. Basically just like GSoC/OPW, but we run it ourselves, people don’t get paid, and we do it each season.

For the one-month beginner version, in keeping with the pilot aspect I’d like to run them in two varieties.
1. One-on-one mentor-mentee pairings.
2. Small cohorts. One mentor (plus backup mentor) for a group of 3-10 new contributors.
The idea behind trying both is to see if we get different results with one-on-one vs small classes where the mentees can also bond with each other and help each other as they go along. If it does work better, that would be awesome in terms of scalability. We can also record the weekly mentor chats/lessons for people to follow along on their own even if they’re not in the program.

#gsoc, #opw

Updates Post your fresh hot updates here

Updates! Post your fresh hot updates here!

Last few days I uploaded several videos in…

Last few days I uploaded several videos in English from 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. Sofia 2013 and I noticed they are already published. The next few days I’ll upload the rest and some of them are in Bulgarian, which obviously I have to review them and I’ll prepare for publishing. Have a nice weekend 🙂

#wordpress-tv

I moved all the videos that I edited…

I moved all the videos that I edited to the Draft queue and marked them “Duplicate Video, Logo In Video” just in case there’s an issue with any of them.

#wordpress-tv

Based on the comments on the post about…

Based on the comments on the post about splitting up meeting main topic by week, I would like to officially propose:

  • 1st Thursday of the month — MeetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. (and other local events)
  • 2nd Thursday of the month — Mentorship programs, Diversity initiatives
  • 3rd Thursday of the month — WordCamps (and other big conferences)
  • 4th Thursday of the month — Contributor recognition, Site stuff
  • and on those occasions when there’s a 5th, we’ll have a virtual party. 🙂

For 2-4 there’s still work to be done assembling teams to have something to report/discuss, so some of the meetings might be light on action until next month (also because will need to give people in other contrib groups who are involved in these things some notice about these meetings).

#meetings

Who has stuff for this week’s update

Who has stuff for this week’s update?

FYI WC London had a producers logo at…

FYI: WC London had a producers logo at the end. I did an edit on the video and re-uploaded.

#wordpress-tv

Re meeting today Andrea and I will be…

Re meeting today: Andrea and I will be on our way to 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. Phoenix during our normal meeting time. I posted my update yesterday here on the blog, so if anyone has any questions/suggestions/etc, go ahead and comment on the update if there’s anything we should talk about before next week.

Also, I want to set up a regular meeting time for meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. organizers. (and one for WC orgs, or one for all event orgs, whatever). Two options:
1. Set up a specific separate time, add another meeting to the roster.
2. Rotate the focus of our team chats. For example,split up a month’s meetings so that it’s one week focus on meetup orgs, one week focus on community tools, one week focus on mentorship/outreach programs, one week focus on contributor recognition/engagement. Or something like that.

Thinking the 2nd approach might be better, as it would give our chats more focus, people would know if they wanted to turn up or not in advance, timing wise for organizers it’d be once a month (on par with most meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook.), and it would give us a little extra nudge to get things moving in each area so that we’d have a little pressure to have something to report by the appropriate meeting. Thoughts?

Related: I’m working on a big list of team projects (either in progress, abandoned due to volunteer availability, or new) and a plan for the coming year. Would like to discuss at next week’s chat (will post beforehand) and get some folks tied to projects and set some deadlines that people commit to meeting.

#team-stuff

There are some videos from WordCamp Copenhagen last…

There are some videos from 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. Copenhagen last year that were not uploaded because of “the limitation in the file size. Our videos was too large.”

@myroseapple, it was my understanding that these video files can just be saved down, but maybe I’m missing something. May I please put you in touch with the organizer of WC Denmark so that you can help him find a solution?

#follow-up, #wordpress-tv

Stuff for Friday’s update Anyone Bueller

Stuff for Friday’s update? Anyone? Bueller?