WordCamp.org 4:00 am on May 27, 2019
Tags:   

Weekly Updates

Hello to all our Deputies, WordCampWordCamp A WordCamp is a conference where the WordPress community come together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. https://central.wordcamp.org/about/. 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!

Sandy Edwards 7:45 pm on May 24, 2019
Tags:   

Recap of the Kids Event Working Group Checkin Chat | Thursday 23 May 2019

Attending: @sunsand187 @michelebutcherjones @ericka_barboza @camikaos

Start: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1558641612059600

We Covered

  1. Updates from volunteers.
  2. Discuss June and July Goals
  3. Discuss next steps.

Updates from Volunteers

Michele: Still working on the Illinois papers, getting CPR/1A recertification, and compiling all my info to Sandy.

Sandy: Just finished the Missouri research for WCUS and any other Missouri camp and will get that documented this week

Ericka:

I was working for KidsCamp in the next WordCampWordCamp A WordCamp is a conference where the WordPress community come together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. https://central.wordcamp.org/about/. San Jose Costa Rica, we will have three Workshops.
Robotics workshop, STEAM workshop and Create my first blog on WordPress.comWordPress.com An online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/

KidsCamp

June Goal: Research Sprint

We should work as team to discover the laws that different states/countries have surrounding hosting one day kids events. As well as, the laws surrounding waivers for kids events as well.

This will help expedite camp planning for all camps around the world (eventually).

An example would be that in Florida a very specific liability waiver is needed with specific language. Thank you to @RianKinney, Esq. for digging that up for us.

While that specific waiver is needed for Florida, the need for a waiver could be looked at as an overarching need for ALL camps with kids programs. It would be good for us all to take a region near us so that we can dive into what those laws look like and formulate a general plan that would cover the bulk of those laws. This could include the need for background checks, waivers, first aid certifications, etc.

Here is a spreadsheet for all of our findings:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xky1PbUQD99IZj9wpgmPdfkCqXBrpDveArc9nFpBZpY/edit?usp=sharing

If you want to help here please sign up on the second tab to take a region.

Project Management Information

So I know a lot of people expressed interest but not everyone made it to todays meeting. I am sure more people will be getting involved over time. I did create a TrelloTrello Project management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing. Board so that we have some jumping off points for anyone to just dive in and start on micro pieces.

https://trello.com/invite/b/GryYJ7P9/0a44a78f320c0eb04013fa193b0663ce/wordpress-kids-events-planning

End: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1557432914349500

Next Actions

  1. @sunsand187 Will Document process for a new camp to vet state laws and requirements. And create the handbook structure. As well as, create spreadsheet.
  2. Team, Look over Trello and this post to stay up to date and provide feedback. https://trello.com/invite/b/GryYJ7P9/0a44a78f320c0eb04013fa193b0663ce/wordpress-kids-events-planning
  3. @michelebutcher-jones is working on state laws for Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and MIssouri
  4. Ericka is working on creating a Manual for the creation of the Blog on wordpress.com, with images, to give to the kids-parents of KidsCamp.

Next Meeting is Thursday, 13 June 2019, 2000 UTC/ 4pm EST. This chat will occur in the Make WordPress Community-Team 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.

#kids-events

Sandy Edwards 5:56 pm on May 23, 2019
Tags:   

Kids Event Working Group Chat Agenda | Thursday 23 May 2019

Our next weekly Kids Events Working Group chat is happening this Thursday, 23 may 2019 at 2000 UTC/ 4pm EST. This chat will occur in the Make WordPress Community-Team 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.

Agenda

  1. Updates from volunteers.
  2. Updates on Goals for the group.
  3. Discuss next steps.

Come and discuss how you can be involved. We need people to:

  • Research – laws surrounding minors at events globally
  • Writing – arts and crafts documentation, WordPress basics documentation, Parental Resources Documents
  • Editing – grammar, spell check, and general flow proof readers/editors

Everyone is welcome. Please attend even if you are not sure how to participate.

If for any reason you can not attend the meeting live but still want to be involved please comment on the post to introduce yourself. Share a bit about your WP background and what area you want to help with.

Please leave a comment of anything else that should be added to the agenda for discussion.

#kids-events

jillbinder 7:03 pm on May 22, 2019
Tags: ,   

Recap of the Diversity Outreach Speaker Training meeting on May 22, 2019

Attending: @jillbinder @miriamgoldman @amyjune @angelasjin @aurooba

Start: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1558544373473400

Agenda:

  1. Work I’ve done since our last meeting
  2. New way of reporting
  3. Viewing what each other is working on
  4. Reports
  5. Look at 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. life cycle mindmap
  6. Hashtag change
  7. New Train the trainers content format

1. Work I’ve done since our last meeting

  • I put everything together officially for the long (all 5 modules) version: the modules, the slides, and more… I added in things that have been rolling around my head for a long time:
    • edits to the content (most particularly a new way of creating bios, some edits to the “filler words” section, and a some more)
    • cleaning up items that have been added by others over the years if they distracted from the main content. (Most of what people added were very good, but a couple of items were distracting.)
    • time recommendations to run the 5 lessons in 4 hours, like we do in Vancouver
    • icons to help facilitators see what is discussion, exercises, facilitator notes
    • when to move to the next slide
    • diversity notes and facilitator notes are very clearly shown now using the Training team’s suggested formatting for this
    • etc.

      I just need to do a little more clean-up and add a few more of the Training team’s recommendations, and it’ll be good to replace on their site.

      It’ll be easy to create the short version out of this.
  • Thinking a lot about our new processes with:
    • calendly
    • a new train the trainers content format
    • if we want meetups to show us their scheduled workshop before they get training, what all do they need to have from us in order to do this
  • (Not mentioned in meeting) Team roadmap

2. New way of reporting

Something I’d like to start trying in our meetings, and would love to know what you think:
When we give the reports, I’d like to hear:
What are your top 1-2 priorities right now, and give them a colour:
green: on plan. No help needed.
yellow: not on plan but I have a strategy to get there
red: not on plan, no plan to get there, I’m lost!

Summary of discussion: Team agreed to do it.

@angelasjin Would yellow be a good place to ask for feedback on strategies?
Or save questions for a later/different point as that would get us too far off updates. I just always have questions and it helps to know when is a good time to ask.

@jillbinder Anytime, and especially during reports time. I’d welcome asking for feedback anytime no matter which colour you say, but if we want to make it formal, we could say yellow.

3. Viewing what each other is working on

On that note, I’d love to have a way for everyone to know what everyone else is working on. Having it so that not only I am the one who knows what everyone is doing, helping each other manage how much we’re taking on, supporting each other, etc.

Ideas we discussed:

  • I list out in each meeting what each person is doing
  • Our current TrelloTrello Project management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing. board, where columns are the sub teams
  • A new Trello board, columns are team member names
  • A new Trello board, columns are Needs action, In progress, Done
  • Asana
  • Actioned, which is designed to see what each other is working on

We voted between

  • Trello where columns are Needs actions, In progress, and Done
  • Actioned

As the 2 long-time volunteers voted for Actioned, and I have a bias myself to try it, we are going to try it for a couple of weeks and see what we think.

(Because I was a betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. tester on the individual account I get the team account for free for life.)

4. Reports

What are you working on? How is it going? Do you have any obstacles?

Top 1-2 priorities: green (on plan), yellow (not on plan but I have a strategy to get there), red (not on plan, no plan to get there, lost).

To my knowledge:

@cguntur is checking our group email (helpscout) most weekdays.

@sheilagomes and @simonasimionato are working on translations.

As the team reboot is still very new, most folks aren’t working on anything yet. Several are waiting to see what they can be doing.

Andrea and I are working from the foundation up so thing will be changing. Simplifying, becoming more effective, etc. So things are on pause. We’ll have a roadmap and ideas soon.

5. Look at our meetup life cycle mindmap

Look at the mindmap revised for using event planning tool. How does this look? Anything else we can streamline? https://mm.tt/1215137447?t=YWzQsjLPqb

Miriam and I talked a bit last time about seeing if we can streamline the manual spreadsheet. Andrea and I talked about it and thought that the ideas would be great in the future once it becomes a pain point.
But right now Chandrika is used to updating it, and her job is about to become much easier once we implement Calendly for scheduling our trainings.

Summary of discussion: Team said it looks good. If anyone else has feedback, please comment here.

@aurooba
It’s probably good to have a specific time when you want to reach out for ‘Long after training’

6. Hashtag change

Last time we decided that yes, we should change our hashtag from #WPWomenSpeak to #WPDiversity. So now we need someone to actually go through and make those changes.

The places the hashtag lives:

  • New tiny.cc url for our form (was https://tiny.cc/wpwomenspeak)
  • Add tag to all of our community 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/. blog posts
  • Encourage people to start using it on twitter
  • Other?

@aurooba created our new http://tiny.cc/wpdiversity link during the meeting

@aurooba volunteered to make the changes to the community blog if we can get her access. It’ll either be her or @angelasjin who already has access. I will touch base on this next week.

@aurooba
are there slides or anything that are included for the workshop? including the hashtag there as part of the branding will help

@jillbinder
There are! And that is a great idea! Slides and handbook. As I’m redoing both of those right now, I will make a note to myself to do this, or to request someone.

@aurooba
I’d love stickers lol. that’d be such great swag. A diversity wapuu!

@jillbinder
Yesss! Like the Rosie the Riveter wapuu for Women Who WordPress!

@aurooba
can also include it 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/. titles etc. to raise awareness

@jillbinder
Yeah! I think the way this might work is when we announce the meeting putting it next to the title….

7. New Train The Trainers content format

We need to redo the Train The Trainers from scratch anyway because the current training is a lot of explaining how to use the 5 lessons, and that will become moot now that it’ll be all in one…. These are my current ideas:

  1. A quick “what is this workshop about” video
  2. My Seattle WordCampWordCamp A WordCamp is a conference where the WordPress community come together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. https://central.wordcamp.org/about/. video where people can get more details about it.
  3. A 20 minute “how to use the material orientation”.
  4. Videos showing a class being taught online, so people can see how it’s used. (I might be interested in doing this workshop with our team..) Split up into sections of smaller videos.
  5. Accompanying videos that have facilitator’s notes for each section.

Thoughts? Please comment on this post.

I may not respond to things until next week, after my big move to a new city.

Thanks for being here today and for being so active in the discussions!

End: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1558548125056400

jillbinder 6:25 pm on May 22, 2019
Tags: ,   

Diversity Outreach Speaker Training Hashtag change

If you’re reading our posts for #WPWomenSpeak, this is the point at which to switch over to reading #WPDiversity. =)

jillbinder 9:50 pm on May 21, 2019
Tags: ,   

Diversity Outreach Speaker Training Working Group Chat Agenda | May 22, 2019

Our next weekly Diversity Outreach Speaker Training working group chat is happening Wednesday, May 22, 2019 at 5pm UTC / 10am PT / 1pm ET. This chat will occur in the Make WordPress Community-Team Slack channel.

Agenda

  1. Work I’ve done since our last meeting
  2. Anyone else’s reports?
  3. Look at the mindmap revised for using event planning tool. How does this look? Anything else we can streamline? https://mm.tt/1215137447?t=YWzQsjLPqb
  4. Proposal for the Train The Trainers process for using Calendly (fewer steps than it was before…. I swear):
    * 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. fills out our form
    * They go into our Helpscout queue
    * Chandrika puts them into our spreadsheet
    * They get an autoresponder to choose a date in Calendly. They receive their automated Calendly info and reminders.
    * When they choose a date, that Trainer tags them with trainer’s name in Helpscout (to visually see who is in your event)
    * If participant cancels or reschedules to another training, when you get the email letting you know, update the Trainer name tag in Helpscout
    * If participant sends message to your personal email because of Calendly, reply in Helpscout. Paste the message in Helpscout or add a Note.
    * Success!
    Thoughts?
  5. If we require that Meetups show us they have scheduled a Speaker Training Workshop meetup before having a Training with us, what kind of orientation info can we provide them online to make sure that they have all the info they need? So far we have a video up. We could have a meetup template. We should have more info up too.
  6. Someone change our hashtag from WPWomenSpeak to WPDiversity in the places it lives:
    * New tiny.cc url for our form (was https://tiny.cc/wpwomenspeak)
    * Add tag to all of our community blog posts
    * Encourage people to start using it on twitter
    * Other?

Everyone is welcome. Please attend even if you are not sure how to participate.

If for any reason you can not attend the meeting live but still want to be involved please comment on the post to introduce yourself.

Please leave a comment of anything else that should be added to the agenda for discussion.

Thanks!

#wpdiversity, #wpwomenspeak

Cami Kaos 7:22 pm on May 17, 2019
Tags: ,   

Organizer Best Practices: Make the most of your feedback!

As community builders and leaders one of the most important things we can do is put feedback to work for us. But since doing nothing is often easier in the moment for various reasons than doing anything is, we often receive feedback and never act on it or put it off until it’s no longer timely. To put receiving, giving, and using feedback to its best use here are some handy suggestions this month on making the most of your feedback.

Where does feedback come from?

Feedback can come from so many sources that sometimes we don’t realize we’re receiving it, let alone putting it to good use. Feedback  can be active or passive and is defined most simply as the return of information. Feedback is data. Sometimes it’s hard to quantify that data, but if we find a way, we can put it to great use! So let’s talk about some of the most commonly available forms of feedback for organizers in our community.

Indirect Feedback

Attendance – Attendance, or lack thereof, of a 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. event is feedback in and of itself.

Participation  – Pay attention to how the audience or guests interact with presenters or projects. Are they engaged and enthusiastic?

Discussion boards – What are people asking about on the meetup group discussion boards? If there are topics you’re not covering at your event, consider including  them in the future.

Conversation  – Whether conversations take place in person or on social media, listening to what attendees and participants have to say is a valuable exercise.  Organizers can put that knowledge to use by making adjustments, additions, refinements or even repeating topics.

Direct Feedback

RSVPs/ Ticket Sales –  Even though we can expect a certain amount of attrition with any event (lower for formal or paid events, higher for more casual and free events) whether or not people are RSVPing for certain topics or at certain days and times or purchasing tickets can tell you a lot.

Survey results – For Meetups in the chapter program we send out a yearly survey. Individual results for each meetup group are sent to the organizing team through meetup.com and general results can be found here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2019/04/18/2018-meetup-survey/ We’re working to significantly improve this survey moving forward in case you wanted to share some feedback with us about that (hint hint.)

For WordCamps there is a standard survey available for all attendees to answer after WordCampWordCamp A WordCamp is a conference where the WordPress community come together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. https://central.wordcamp.org/about/. is completed. They’re collected by the WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each. account and shared to the organizing team. Organizers can  also create their own custom attendee survey if they want to get more in-depth information or ask about a specific feature of the event.

Meetup automated debrief questions – After every Meetup.com meetup an automated debrief is sent to those who registered to attend. It’s not customizable, but it’s still great information to have. Encourage your attendees to fill it out, and review the results regularly!

How to get better feedback

Create a safe space for feedback –  Many folks feel anxious about sharing and receiving feedback and don’t want to be seen as critical or complaining. This often leads to organizers and leaders hearing from a vocal few who might not represent the majority. Make it clear that feedback is welcome and important for the growth of your community, and that you are committed to improving events in response to community feedback. Provide multiple ways for your community to provide feedback such as in person, a voice call, email, or 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/.. Not everyone is comfortable with the same communication style, and you’ll get the best information if you collect feedback from people in the way they’re most comfortable.

Ask specific questions – If you want to know something specific, just come out and ask. Unless your community includes some mind-readers, people won’t know that you’re open to feedback unless you tell them.

Ask what you’re not asking – Leave room for attendees to fill in the blank. Specifically, call out that you want diverse ideas and opinions, and you’d like to know what the leadership team isn’t thinking to ask.

Make it actionable – Don’t ask for feedback just for the sake of having it. Example: If you’re asking people if they have a dietary preference or restriction but you’re meeting in an office and no food will be provided, there’s no reason to collect the information. But if you have a speaker who is an expert in three different topics and you want to know if your community would benefit more from learning about Contribution, SEO, or Content Management — then ask the community what they’d like to hear about.

Make it shareable – Either collect or collate feedback in a way that makes it shareable with the entire leadership of your group, or whenever possible, your entire community.

Recruitment – New incoming community members, speakers, sponsors, and leaders will always bring with them fresh ideas and a new perspective to share.

What to do with feedback once you have it

Share what you’ve learned – With the exception of private information and personally identifying information, it’s important to share what we’ve learned.

Don’t make change for the sake of change – If everything is working, and that’s the feedback you’re getting, don’t change things on a whim. If you want to test out new formats, content, or dates, then try to offer them as an alternative and then collect feedback on the experiments.

Recruit – Some WordPress community organizers like to say, “You’ve got an idea? You’ve got a job!” because feedback and suggestions can so often be used as a recruitment tool. The people who care enough to suggest a new topic or event series for the meetup, or a new registration system or caterer for WordCamp, are much more likely to care enough to get more involved in the community. If people come to you with a good idea that you think will work, invite them to take another step along the path to leadership by taking responsibility for making that good idea become a reality. If someone has an idea that you think won’t work, then you can still explain the reasons you do things the way you do, and invite them to help come up with another way to solve the problem they’ve identified! Often people don’t realize how easy it can be to get more involved in the local community.  

Please leave feedback on this article about feedback

How do you collect and respond to feedback in your local WordPress community? Have you ever given feedback and been surprised by the results? Do you have some other suggestions for ways to improve the quality of feedback, or respond to it? Leave a comment on this post with your thoughts!

#feedback, #organizer-best-practices

Hugh Lashbrooke 12:07 pm on May 15, 2019
Tags:   

Community Team Chat Agenda | Thursday, 16 May 2019

Hello Team!

Our bi-monthly Community Team chat is happening this Thursday, 16 May 2019. 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, May 16, 2019, 11:00 UTC

Americas friendly: Thursday, May 16, 2019, 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

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

#agenda

Sandy Edwards 12:24 pm on May 10, 2019
Tags:   

Recap of the Kids Event Working Group Checkin Chat | Thursday 9 May 2019

Attending: @sunsand187 @melindahelt  @michelebutcherjones

Start: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1557432030338900

We Covered

  1. Updates from volunteers.
  2. Discuss Meeting Time Change
  3. Discuss next steps.

Updates from Volunteers

@sunsand187 is working on getting a handbook shell built. This will make it easier to house documentation.

The goal is to spend about 12 months creating, documenting and polishing the documents and then creating a handbook on the https://make.wordpress.org/community/ site for all organizers to easily access.

https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/WordPress-Workshop-for-Kids-organiser-kit–AZQlFlZU7eZKdGm_j7OFHj2bAg-kxmOjjycWysa3jFYoaBTv

Needs for Researching

We have several camps looking to add on kids events in various states and need some help vetting laws and requirements.
We need to document a process for new camps that will provide easy to follow steps.

@michelebutcher-jones is going to work through some of the Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana and Missouri laws and report back in the coming weeks.

@sunsand187 mentioned having a grading system to eventually rate how easy it is to hold a kids event in a particular state, but also said that is a ways down the road.

Meeting Time Change Request

The meeting will now be held at 2000UTC on the Second and Fourth Thursdays of the month. This is to not conflict with the community-team meetings.

Translations and Editing

We still need editors and researchers. If you know anyone who is good with hunting down legal research and making legal speak sound human or if you are good with editing documentation we could use your help.

Please comment if you are available to edit and/or do some research.

Project Management Information

So I know a lot of people expressed interest but not everyone made it to todays meeting. I am sure more people will be getting involved over time. I did create a TrelloTrello Project management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing. Board so that we have some jumping off points for anyone to just dive in and start on micro pieces.

https://trello.com/invite/b/GryYJ7P9/0a44a78f320c0eb04013fa193b0663ce/wordpress-kids-events-planning

End: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1557432914349500

Next Actions

  1. @sunsand187 Will Document process for a new camp to vet state laws and requirements. And create the handbook structure.
  2. Team, Look over Trello and this post to stay up to date and provide feedback. https://trello.com/invite/b/GryYJ7P9/0a44a78f320c0eb04013fa193b0663ce/wordpress-kids-events-planning
  3. @michelebutcher-jones is working on state laws for Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and MIssouri

Next Meeting is Thursday, 23 May 2019, 2000 UTC/ 4pm EST. This chat will occur in the Make WordPress Community-Team 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.

#kids-events

jillbinder 7:49 pm on May 9, 2019
Tags: ,   

Recap of the Diversity Outreach Speaker Training meeting on May 8, 2019

Attending: @jillbinder @miriamgoldman @simo70 @amyjune

Start: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1557334828250300

Agenda

  1. Relaunching
  2. Streamlining
    1. Calendly
    2. Meetups schedule workshops before taking Train The Trainers
  3. Scheduling Train The Trainers
  4. Hashtag
  5. Short and Long Versions
  6. Roadmap
  7. Conclusion
  8. Next Actions

Relaunching

We are relaunching! Hooray!

As many of you know, without funding I didn’t have the bandwidth for leading the team and so we took a few months pause.

I am receiving 50% of the funding. Automattic is coming in to cover half of the time I would like to dedicate to this work. 🙂 🙂 :confetti_ball: :confetti_ball:

It is great and I am so grateful!

And so we are back!

I’m still looking for another sponsor(s) for the other half… so if you know any groups who would like to make sure that this important work continues to happen, please consider introducing us.

Another nice thing about this relaunch is a) it’s giving us a chance to reboot and improve how we were doing some things, and b) Andrea and I are making dedicated meetings for help with improving what we do and how we do it.

I’m excited to share some of those ideas with you today, and also we have some discussion points of things she and I are thinking of and we’d like feedback from you.

I propose that the items we’re looking at we start convos here and then continue convos on the 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/. of this meeting after. Partly because some are big topics and partly so that we get more input from more internal and external to our team.

Streamlining

Updates to our Train the Trainers more streamlined process.

Calendly

This is something we started talking about last year: increasing participants’ attendance rate at the Train The Trainers sessions, and reduce Trainers’ bandwidth needed by having an event management system that will:

  • allow Meetups to choose their session
  • give them an easy way to reschedule / cancel
  • give us an easy way to communicate the link and requirements
  • send out automated reminders
  • etc

@miriamgoldman
I’m a big fan of this. Anything to streamline processes to make them easier, and more inuitive.

@jillbinder
Earlier this year, I drew up a mindmap of the “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. Life Cycle”, from sending us a message to completion and giving feedback.

The X’s on this mindmap are what items I think we’ll be able to remove once we implement this:

https://mm.tt/1215137447?t=YWzQsjLPqb

How does this look? Anything else we can streamline?

@miriamgoldman
If there is a way we can streamline the workshop tracker spreadsheet that would be ideal.

@jillbinder
That’s something that Andrea and I talked about and we couldn’t come up with a solution. Using a google form loses getting people into the Helpscout email queue.
Could a google form accept 2 email addresses? A gmail and our Helpscout…?

@miriamgoldman
A database driven solution would be ideal. Because we could tie in forms, track who did/ran things, etc.

@jillbinder
Love it. What else? Please keep sending ideas!

@jillbinder
Another couple of issues are people will be signing up in calendly tied to a Trainer’s email address, but:
a) we want to make sure that conversations stay in Helpscout, not in the trainer’s personal email, and
b) someone will need to manually tag those messages in Helpscout with who is their trainer so that trainers can still visually see who is in their event.
To continue looking at on P2 and in the future.

Meetups schedule workshop before taking Train The Trainers

Something else that we talked about briefly at the end of last year, that seems like a really good idea:

Having the meetups schedule their local Speaker Training Workshop before they book a Train The Trainers with us.

Currently the orientation about what this is and training how to do it are collapsed in the same training, which may explain why only 26% of those trained actually ran it last year, as well as low attendance in the Train The Trainers.
Can we have enough orientation online to then require they have booked a workshop with their Meetup to solve both of these?

As a quick solution for the orientation, we’ve put my 40 min (including Q&A) Seattle talk up on our form page.

This is a bigger topic that’ll require some thinking on how to do this.

Scheduling Train The Trainers

When should we start scheduling our first Train the Trainers?

I’m thinking about June so that we have time to improve processes, get Trainers trained up on new processes, and we have time to recruit a good number of folks into the first session(s).

Depending on my bandwidth before the second half of funding comes in, I may also jump back in to running Trainings so that I can start working on improving the content and delivery.

@miriamgoldman
June sounds fantastic. Should we have a meeting with the current trainers separately to make sure we are all on board before resuming?

I’ve done a basic onboarding for @AmyJune, and @Bhargav, but would likely need to redo it based on new processes.

@amyjune
yes – i am on board to help whenever I can

@jillbinder
Yes, absolutely. After we’ve created the systems (which might be another meeting) let’s have one to show everyone how to use it.

Maybe mid to later June so that we have the time to create those processes, try them out, learn them, teach them…?

@miriamgoldman
Agreed on that timing (for personal reasons too!)

@jillbinder
We also have more timezones covered now that our other most active trainer, @angelasjin, is moving to the other side of the world.

@miriamgoldman
Bhargav is in India, so he’ll be able to help out once he’s fully up to speed

@jillbinder
Ok. I’m going to leave when we are scheduling our next trainings as an open question on the P2 so that we can have all the current trainers discuss.

This is exciting. I’m happy we will be able to remove one of the barriers to trainings for some people, which is the time of day.

@miriamgoldman
I’ll be able to contribute more to that too, as I now work from home, and workload permitting, can do some daytime trainings for those that the eastern time zone aligns better with

@jillbinder
I imagine that we’ll be booking trainings partly on when works for trainers, and partly on the needs of our participants.
Especially once we require them to show us their booked workshop first…

Hashtag

New hashtag !

We are currently using #WPWomenSpeak. We’ve been wanting to change it ever since we started focusing less on just women and more all diversity early on in the project.

But it’s been a stumbling 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. to come up with that.
Andrea’s idea, which I didn’t like at first and then I came to really like it:

#WPDiversity

I would really like to hear from the team about this.

@amyjune
This is great for being more inclusive.

@jillbinder
My concern:
It sounds like all diversity projects!

The argument for that was:
Ours is currently the only diversity project in the WP Community space.
And if there are others in the future, it’s not a bad idea to have us all tagged together.
If really needed, we can always add a second tag later.

@amyjune
I think having one to tie all together would be alright for now

@miriamgoldman
I’m liking Andrea’s idea. And the arguments for it are sound.

@jillbinder
Cool!
After we see the rest of the discussion the P2, we can create a plan for all the spots it would need to be added/changed.

Short and Long Versions

Instead of our current “playlist” of mixing and matching the 5 lessons, what do we think of just having a short version (lesson 1) and long version (all 5 lessons)?

Originally in Vancouver we had a giant workshop of all 5 lessons. The Community team leads at the time (Andrea and Jen) really wanted it to be broken down into small lessons that people could grab and run.

But to my knowledge, there’s only been 3 ways that folks have run it:

  1. Just lesson 1 (Impostor Syndrome and Finding a topic)
  2. All 5
  3. Lesson 1 and Lesson… 4? The one on being a better speaker.

@miriamgoldman
I think having it as a short and long version is fantastic, and gives the organizers more flexibility, based on their needs.
Less pressure, in a sense, to try and cram all 5 lessons in
This way, it can even be a meetup topic (for the short one)

@jillbinder
And right now I think everything feels very confusing for everyone having it in the different modules, and creates a lot of extra work for the Meetup organizers.

@amyjune
Also good for attendee experience

@jillbinder
Yeah…
So the suggestion would be offering them both, and in the short version mention that they can always grab anything they want to add from the long version.

@miriamgoldman
Yup, great suggestion

@jillbinder
I think it would help with:

  • right now we repeat all the Impostor Syndrome items in all 5 lessons just in case someone only grabs one, and that is confusing
  • how confusing it is to put the 5 lessons together manually
  • right now the slides are a bit of a jumble to try to accommodate the different playlists
  • people have to put all 5 handbooks together
  • easier to provide just 2 Meetup descriptions instead of 5 and people need to put them together manually.
  • and more

It’ll be some work to make this happen, and completely changes the content of our Train the Trainers vieo…

Maybe we should map out what work is all needed before we do our next Training and base the first Trainings on that…

Or we could still keep the current version for the first ones so that we’re not held back…

@miriamgoldman
I say both. Keep what we have so we can have forward momentum, while mapping out and working on these improvements.

@jillbinder
I am about to create a full “all modules” version for the Speaker Training Workshop I’m doing in Vancouver in 2 weeks.

@miriamgoldman
Lots of work yes, but will likely be ultimately worth it

@jillbinder
And I will try to keep that work down to the essentials.

Request for our team: To save on our bandwidth, anytime something looks unnecessary, please call me out on it!

Roadmap

Andrea and I are working on a Roadmap Plan for our team, so that:

  • everyone knows the bigger picture
  • new folks can onboard
  • we stay steered in the right direction
  • we’re impactful! doing important things, not busy-work
  • we can create a marketing/promotion plan
  • we can create an editorial calendar

Conclusion

Open time in the last 10 min for discussion / questions / comments / obstacles / etc

@jillbinder
I’m so happy with our results last year from trying things, and I’m really looking forward to this year (my current funding contract is until end of Apr 2020) being more impactful, effective, and easier.

And also reaching many more with a solid promotion plan!

@miriamgoldman
I’m definitely looking forward to the more solid promotion plan as well!

I will definitely be bringing up our group in conversations throughout my time in Calgary and at the Women in WP Panel, so hopefully I can spark some interest and get us more people involved!

@amyjune
I can mention it my events section of my session “Inclusive content strategy” too

@simo70
In June there will be wceu: I can try to recruit someone

End: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1557338483330800

Next Actions

  1. Introduce Jill to sponsor(s) for other half of funding of this important work
  2. Look at the mindmap revised for using event planning tool. How does this look? Anything else we can streamline? https://mm.tt/1215137447?t=YWzQsjLPqb
  3. Ideas for streamlining the tracker spreadsheet while still using our Helpscout email – feedback on ideas above and new ideas?
  4. With using Calendly, how do we keep conversations in Helpscout and not in the Trainers’ personal emails?
  5. With using Calendly, someone still needs to manually tag those messages in Helpscout with who is their trainer so that trainers can still visually see who is in their event. Thoughts?
  6. Jill figure out what is needed before we start up Train the Trainers again and suggest a date based on that. (Likely mid June.)
  7. If we require that Meetups show us they have scheduled a Speaker Training Workshop meetup before having a Training with us, what kind of orientation can we provide them online to make sure that they have all the info they need?
  8. New hashtag: We are proposing replacing WPWomenSpeak with WPDiversity. Thoughts?
  9. Currently our workshop is in 5 lesson plans. We are thinking of making it 2 versions: short (1 lesson) and long (5 lessons). Thoughts?