Jakarta WordPress Web Challenge

Website: https://events.wordpress.org/jakarta/2024/web-challenge/
Top Participants: https://events.wordpress.org/jakarta/2024/web-challenge/top-participants/
Event Recap Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giz3TYOkrQI&t=10s
Organizer Recap: https://events.wordpress.org/jakarta/2024/web-challenge/web-challenge-2024-recap/

Jakarta WordPress Web Challenge took place on January 27, 2024. The team discussed having a small 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. in 2023, but after the NextGen project was launched in May, we began brainstorming about a new idea in July 2023. @rioburhan, who brought up the original idea, submitted his idea in August, and we started planning the event in October 2023.

The event aims to create a space for WordPress developers to learn from each other. It is a web competition, but the event offers a variety of activities such as:

  • Web pitching by the finalists
  • Web showcase/exhibition for the top 20 websites
  • Workshop for beginners
  • Talk show
  • Sponsors exhibition
  • Community booth

Lessons Learned

  • We started with 3 organizers at the beginning of the event, but we onboarded a few more organizers closer to the event, realizing the amount of work we needed to cover. The more activities, the more details need to be managed.
  • Using government facilities required us to anticipate some bureaucracy and have a plan B.
  • We used a platform called Mayar. We learned how to create and manage the coupon code for all the participants so we could use the Event Dashboard (Tickets –> Attendees) to confirm attendance.
  • We invited sponsors to become more involved as emcees, moderators, and workshop co-facilitators, and to provide prizes such as hosting and licenses.
  • Almost 55% of the participants were first-timers.
  • We tried to reach out to non-WordPress communities and had folks from PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. Indonesia and the Laravel community.
  • We had a great event without a welcome dinner, after-party, and the need to produce swag.
  • We aimed to provide the Transparency Report within 2 weeks and slightly missed our target. It was relatively easy as we collected all the receipts/invoices and updated our budget along the planning process.

#community-events, #next-gen-events, #wordpress

Events of the Month – October

In a continuing effort to provide some real-time information for event organizers and the community alike, below is a month-in-review post with recaps of the prior month’s events and how they fared financially, in terms of ticket sales and budget.

As we roll into the final quarter of 2023, the month of October was quite active. The month closed out with a total of 13 events.

Updates on WordCamps Held pre-October with Open Budgets
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. Kerala, India (March 25)
Final Tickets Sold: 499
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $19,664 USD/1,638,635 INR and cost per person/day of $39 USD/ 3,284 INR.
Event closed on budget.   
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Nairobi, Kenya (Aug 16-17)
Final Tickets Sold: 160
Approved Attendee Total: 200
Budget Notes*: Initial review of Transparency Report complete. Awaiting response in regards to small surplus.
Open Items – Finances: Awaiting response in regards to small surplus.
WordCamp Denmark (Aug 26-27)
Final Tickets Sold: 48
Approved Attendee Total: 95
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $11,002 USD/ 73,347 DKK and cost per person/day of $115 USD/ 764 DKK.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $4,190 USD/ 27,937 DKK
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Jinja, Uganda (Sept 4 – 5)
Final Tickets Sold: 186
Approved Attendee Total: 250
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $6,290 USD and cost per person/day of $17 USD.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $60 USD to be used towards future 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. expenses
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Kathmandu, Nepal (Sept 8-9)
Final Tickets Sold: 473
Approved Attendee Total: 450
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $18,288 USD/ 2,438,435 NPR and cost per person/day of $19 USD/ 2,577 NPR.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $1,828 USD/ 243,694 NPR to be used towards future WordPress expenses. Surplus held in WP Nepal account.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Finland (Sept 14-15)
Final Tickets Sold: 407
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Several payments still pending (Signage, Audio/Visual, Speaker Event)
WordCamp Pontevedra, Spain (Sept 16-17)
Final Tickets Sold: 245
Approved Attendee Total: 300
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Several payments still pending (Audio/Visual & Swag)
WordCamp Vancouver, Canada (Sept 23)
Final Tickets Sold: 241
Approved Attendee Total: 375
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $16,470 USD/ 21,671 CAD and cost per person/day of $68 USD/ 90 CAD.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $550 USD/ 724 CAD.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp and Events Held in October
WordCamp Biarritz, France (Oct 6)
Final Tickets Sold: 304
Approved Attendee Total: 300 
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Food & Beverage payments still pending 
WordCamp Masaka, Uganda (Oct 6 – 7)
Final Tickets Sold: 217
Approved Attendee Total: 200
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $8,136 USD and cost per person/day of $19 USD.
Event closed with additional Global Sponsorship funds used totaling $1,336 USD. The majority of this relates to customs fees for swag. A potential way to avoid this in the future will be to source the swag locally using templates provided by Central. This is in the works.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Bhopal, India (Oct 7-8)
Final Tickets Sold: 353
Approved Attendee Total: 350 
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Still Awaiting final Transparency Report**, and team has responded to say they are working on the final numbers
WordCamp Atlanta, USA (Oct 14-15)
Final Tickets Sold: 181
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $39,439 USD and cost per person/day of $109 USD.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $5,781 USD after making major budgeting changes due to lower than expected sponsorship and ticket sales.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Skopje, North Macedonia (Oct 14)
Final Tickets Sold: 254
Approved Attendee Total: 250
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $6,548 USD/ 385,188 MKD and cost per person/day of $26 USD/ 1,516 MKD.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of approximately $1,140 USD/ 67,046 MKD.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Taiwan (Oct 14)
Final Tickets Sold: 321
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Several payments still pending (Food, Speaker Event, Swag, After Party, Signage)
WordCamp Germany (Oct 19-21)
Final Tickets Sold: 276
Approved Attendee Total: 250
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $45,743 USD/ 42,220 EUR and cost per person/day of $28 USD/ 25 EUR.
Event closed with additional Global Sponsorship funds used of approximately $2,091 USD/ 1,955 EUR.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Sevilla, Spain (Oct 20-22)
Final Tickets Sold: 243
Approved Attendee Total: 200
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $28,304 USD/ 26,452 EUR and cost per person/day of $39 USD/ 36 EUR.
Event closed with additional Global Sponsorship funds used of approximately $5,785 USD/ 5,407 EUR.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Wroclaw, Poland (Oct 21)
Final Tickets Sold: 106
Approved Attendee Total: 100Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $5,337 USD/ 23,205 PLN and cost per person/day of $50 USD/ 219 PLN.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of $2,064 USD/ 8,973 PLN.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Tokyo, Japan (Oct 21)
Final Tickets Sold: 424
Approved Attendee Total: 400 
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Still Awaiting final Transparency Report**, and the team has been emailed to request the report.
WordCamp Tegal, Indonesia (Oct 22)
Final Tickets Sold: 83
Approved Attendee Total: 75
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Still Awaiting final Transparency Report**, and the team has been emailed to request the report.
WordCamp Managua, Nicaragua (Oct 28)
Final Tickets Sold: 173
Approved Attendee Total: 200
Budget Notes*: Budget closed. 
Final cost $3,914 USD and cost per person/day of $23 USD.
Event closed with a contribution to the Global Sponsorship fund of $821 USD.
Open Items – Finances: No open items
WordCamp Mumbai, India (Oct 28-29)
Final Tickets Sold: 495
Approved Attendee Total: 500
Budget Notes*: Awaiting Final Numbers
Open Items – Finances: Still Awaiting final Transparency Report**, and the team has been emailed to request the report.

Budget Notes*: If an event was able to raise more sponsorship income or ticket income, or the expenses were less than amounts listed in the approved budget, the additional funds are contributed back to the Global Sponsorship fund. If, on the other hand, an organizing team raises less sponsorship income or ticket income than planned, or expenses are higher than originally budgeted, the additional amount needed to cover all expenses is covered by the Global Sponsorship fund and will be stated as additional Global Sponsorship funds used.

The goal of WordPress events is to provide a space where community members can come together and share knowledge, build relationships with other members and sponsors, and spread love for WordPress. The goal is never to make money. Because WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a subsidiary of WordPress Foundation. It is created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program. pays taxes on any income at year end, we strive to hold events where income is equal to expenses.

Transparency Report**: WordCamps that run funds through WordPress Community Support (WPCSWPCS The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the WordPress Coding Standards. May also be an acronym referring to the Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook.) – meaning WPCS collects ticket income and sponsorship income, and pays vendors directly – are not required to submit a Transparency Report. 
Alternatively, organizing teams that run money locally collect all or some of the ticket income and sponsorship income directly. The team then uses the collected funds to pay expenses of the event. The organizing team is responsible for completing a transparency report after the event where they submit receipts/documentation for all expenses, support for ticket income collected, and support for sponsorship income collected. More info can be found here

#community-team, #wordcamps, #events-of-the-month

Recap: Inaugural NextGen Pilot Events

In early July 2023, the first two NextGen WordPress pilot events were held in Leipzig, Germany, and Sevilla, Spain. Both events experimented with a one-day, small-scale format that can be easily organized, replicated, and enjoyed by the community.  

The event in Leipzig was a local 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. (WordCamp Leipzig 2023) through which the organizer, Robert Windisch, aimed to demonstrate that a small and simple local WordCamp is achievable and can ignite the community. This WordCamp did not have a welcome dinner or after party, nor did they not provide swag or badges. 

Nilo Velez, the organizer of WordCamp Sevilla 2023, also delved into experimentation and organized WordPress Day in only 20 days. Since WordCamp Sevilla was already in planning, the WordPress Day event was announced on the WordCamp Sevilla site.

Event Format

The organizers of both events were experienced and had a clear vision for their respective gatherings. Robert aimed to organize a small and intimate, low-budget yet high-quality conference that introduced a diverse range of speakers.

Nilo organized a contributor dayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. with selected 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/ projects (Support, TV, and Polyglots) that required specific tools, addressed clear tasks, and needed a large number of volunteers. Nilo hopes to continue holding similar events at universities, schools, or town halls.

Photo courtesy of Bernard Kau

Attendees

Each event hosted approximately 30-40 attendees. Unfortunately, we received only a small number of responses to the Attendee Satisfaction Survey: 9 responses from Leipzig and 12 from Sevilla.

Out of the 9 respondents from Leipzig, only 2 reported being first-timers to a WordPress event, while all 12 respondents from Sevilla were returnees. All but one respondent have used WordPress for more than a year.

All 12 respondents from Sevilla stated that they were ‘very likely’ to recommend the event to others. In Leipzig, 6 respondents were ‘very likely’ to recommend the event, while the rest were ‘likely’ to recommend it.

Takeaways

  • From these pilot events in Leipzig and Sevilla, we learned that organizing a small WordPress community event, larger than a 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., is both achievable and desirable.
  • Although the events were smaller than regular WordCamps, local sponsors can still contribute alongside global community sponsors. Both events received support from a couple of local sponsors.
  • The events confirmed that Community team contributors know how to effectively organize conferences and contributor days. Therefore, our challenge is to see if we can experiment with a format that we haven’t yet seen within our WordPress ecosystem.
  • We also noticed that more attendees were returnees rather than first-time attendees. What can we do to attract new audiences to our events?
Photo courtesy of Nino Velez

Share Your Ideas

If you are keen to see innovative event formats and topics happening in your area, you can start now! Share your ideas with us, and we will support you in making them happen. You can submit your ideas via the Ideas Form and then chat with us on how we can provide assistance.

Thank you to @kau-boy, @juliarose, @harmonyromo, @nilovelez, @_dorsvenabili, and @nullbyte for contributing to this post!

#community-event, #next-gen-events, #recap

Recap of Contributor Working Group Inaugural Mentorship Chat on March 20, 2023

In attendance: @adityakane @nao @oglekler @yoga1103 @leonnugraha @kirasong @st810amaze @onealtr @carl-alberto @tobifjellner @kcristiano @javiercasares @webtechpooja @sz786 @meher @webcommsat @courane01 @jeffpaul @sereedmedia @cbringmann @angelasjin @juliarosia @askdesign @wolfpaw @nomadskateboarding @dpknauss @harishanker

Notes: @nomadskateboarding @harishanker

Agenda: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/03/20/contributor-working-group-mentorship-kick-off-chat-agenda-march-20th-1200-utc-emea-and-2100-utc-amer/

Meeting Start

Clarifying Group Responsibilities

At the chat, it was clarified that the exclusive focus of the group will be on building a projectwide mentorship program for WordPress. This is because lack of mentorship was identified as one of the biggest gaps in contribution experience for our program based on feedback from multiple blog posts. Besides, “Establish contributor and 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. programs” is one of the big picture goals of the WordPress Project in 2023 as well.

@tobifjellner shared some excellent ideas that the group might want to look at, which includes finding easier ways to contribute, find a new default channel 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/. for newcomers, suggeestions to improve onboarding, and onboarding contributors regionally and locally. The idea of creating a default channel for contributors was supported by several participants. While these ideas have merit and should be pursued, the group decided that it was best to focus on Mentorship for now, which is a big project to tackle.

The group proposes to have bi-weekly chats (for now), every second and fourth Thursday at 12:00 and 21:00 UTC (for now).

Proposed Mentorship Program Brief

The Mentorship Program is envisioned as a short-term optional program for new contributors. It does not focus on a particular Make/Team but is aimed at imparting necessary guidance and skills to new contributors to succeed in and with the project through 1:1 and cohort-based mentorship. The program will be launched with the hope that mentees will pick up the necessary knowledge, guidance and skills required to succeed with WordPress and will go on to make successful contributions in the project, and grow with the project.

Continue reading

#wpcontributors, #contributor-working-group, #mentorship-chat, #mentorship-chat-recap, #mentorship-program

Request for feedback: Review for the dedicated deputy communication channel

After the discussion on my proposal about a dedicated communication place for deputies, we agreed to experiment with a private #community-deputies channel 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/.. In the discussion, we also agreed to do a public review after three and six months to see how the channel has worked and decide its continuation. The channel was created in December, so it’s time for the first review.

The purpose of the channel is to be a safe place for all deputiesProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. to discuss sensitive and private aspects of our work, get peer-support when needed and ask second opinions for event applications. It’s not meant for discussions that could take place in public forums like this blog, #community-team or #community-events channel.

Guidelines for the channel are:

  • As we all are busy and have an abundance of unread notifications, please avoid irrelevant chatter.
  • Help to create a safe and welcoming space for all deputies. Be empathetic and help answer questions when you can!
  • If you feel that the discussion should take place in a public forum, say it and help to move the discussion to the #community-team channel or Community Team blog.
  • Any decision making that will affect the broader community will be made in public. Help others be aware of when they might be making a decision that should happen after public discussion.

As this year has continued being really strange, I think we really can’t use many numeric metrics while reviewing the channel. That’s why I’d like us to have an open, free form, discussion. Here are some questions to help start that discussion:

  1. Has there been discussion about topics that should have been taken place in public forums instead?
  2. Have you got help with some issue in the channel, which you’d normally handled by yourself or asked help from another deputyProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. in a private message?
  3. Has the channel helped you feel more connected to the team?
  4. In general, what is your feeling about the discussion that has taken place on the channel?
  5. Should we continue to keep using a private deputy channel?

Active deputies, please share your thoughts and raise new important questions to the discussion. This is also an open invitation for all community members to ask questions about the channel, which could help us with the review.

Discussion is open until 2021-03-29. If the result of the review looks like there’s no justification for private working space for deputies, the channel will be shut off at the beginning of April. In case the experiment continues, we will do another public review in three months.

Thanks to @angelasjin, @andreamiddleton and @kcristiano who helped with this post.

#slack

Recap of Contributor Working Group Kickoff Meeting Oct. 6, 2020

In attendance: @amethystanswers, @angelasjin, @chaion07, @annezazu, @adavis3105, @paaljoachim, @daisy, @tara_king, @webcommsat, @matthewfarlymn, @geektutor

Group Responsibilities

It was agreed that we would focus on 2 main areas to begin with:

  • compiling onboarding resources
  • enhancing new contributor experiences

We also acknowledged that there will be lot of coordination with all of the Make Teams throughout our work.

@webcommsat invited us to work alongside efforts that the Marketing Team has already begun.

Roles and Volunteers

The top three priority roles were outlined, requesting volunteers. Leaders of each role will be determined at a later date.

Updating the Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. Handbook

The goal for this task is to have a more robust handbook for those organizing Contributor events. You would be responsible for reviewing the current handbook, ensuring existing information is current and correct, and identifying/creating additional information that would benefit an organizer of a Contributor event, particularly first-time organizers new to this experience. You will likely need to collaborate with many, if not all, other Make Teams.

Volunteers: @adavis3105, @chaion07, @matthewfarlymn, @geektutor

Collecting and documenting best practices from previous Contributor events

The goal of this task is to gather information about what worked well and what can be improved on from past events, and to see how lessons can be learned, shared and acted on. Your role would be to reach out to organizers of past Contributor events (large and small, general and specialized), make recommendations on how processes and documentation might be modified to make for continued successful events.

Volunteers: @daisy, @adavis3105

Discovering ways to improve New Contributor onboarding experiences

The goal of this task is to identify challenges new Contributors face that might prevent them from taking the next step to contributing, and find ways to eliminate or minimize these challenges. Your role will be to reach out to potential and existing contributors for their input and brainstorm ideas to improve existing onboarding practices.

@paaljoachim and @annezazu have been working on some documentation/resources in this area prior to joining the Working Group.

@webcommsat noted that Translation week has just happened and will be another new source of feedback.

@angelasjin noted that diversity and inclusion were mentioned in the comments of our initial Call for Volunteers, and this will be important aspects to consider.

Volunteers: @chaion07, @daisy, @paaljoachim, @annezazu, @geektutor

Additional Suggested Roles

@webcommsat suggested a role to work with the Marketing Team on promoting how materials are presented for accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility)

Next Steps

Platforms

We will use the following platforms/tools to communicate, plan, and organize:

Google Drive and Trello will be set up before the next meeting.

Prep Work

Please spend some time reviewing the existing documentation and resources that are relevant to the roles you have volunteered for.

Next Meeting

We will meet every 2 weeks on the same day/time. Our next meeting will be during the week of Oct. 18.

Please indicate your general availability on the new Doodle poll (Please ignore the dates on the poll and indicate what days/times work best for you in general.)

Poll link: https://doodle.com/poll/6pi9v9ceuqbsef5a

Poll will remain open until Oct 12 and will be posted in the next Agenda by Oct 14.

Important Note

Please know that, like every other volunteer endeavour, we appreciate your time, and your health. If at any point you feel you need to trim back your participation, or step back completely, we support you 100%. All we ask is that you let us know.

#wpcontributors

do_action Zurich 2018

In April, we organized the first do_action Event in Switzerland – the second in Europe after Bristol. We Haptiq, a small design shop from Zurich organized the event with the great help of other members of the Zurich 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. Group. I’d like to share some of the things we learned along the way.
It was just before 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. Europe last summer, when I first read about do_actiondo_action do_action hackathons are community-organised events that are focussed on using WordPress to give deserving charitable organisations their own online presence. Learn more on doaction.org. Hackathons. We were already talking about the possibilities of organizing one in Switzerland and whether it could work here as well, when we saw that Sasha Endoh, who was organizing the first do_action in Montreal at the time, was giving a talk about “WordPress for Nonprofits”. Of course we attended her presentation and talked to her afterward. It didn’t need much to convince us: Half an hour later we had filled out the organizer application and after a few weeks, we were on a call with Hugh Lashbrooke, our contact on the Community Team.

Welcome address and introduction of the two nonprofits.

We already had some experience organizing events, both as co-organizers of WordCamps in Switzerland as well as for local WP meetups and Florian as team lead for photography for WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event., but to take the lead on a new event, that happens for the first time, still brought some new challenges with it, and there were some things we learned.
Here’s a little recap of what went well, what didn’t and where we hope to do better next year.

What went well

As we have a very lively and well connected community in Switzerland, it was pretty easy to get a group of people committing to be volunteers for the day. We ended up having seven volunteers working for two projects, which was  about what we aimed for.

It’s only called a Hackathon with messy cables everywhere, right?

The two nonprofits were a good fit. One of them had already done a lot of work (by learning everything from scratch from YouTube, which still amazes me). She mainly needed advice and had lots of questions about various tasks she couldn’t get to work herself, like installing a donation pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party or small design changes etc. This made the decision to put most of the volunteers on the other team easy, as they needed a new site built completely from scratch. Also, we had one person as a project manager, who oversaw both projects and I was switching between projects as well to help out where needed.
For the location, we were lucky in that we could use the place we usually have our 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. at, which is the “Liip Arena”. It’s a large room in the basement of their agency, which gave us more than enough space for ten people. Also, we got it for free, which was awesome! If you organize a do_action, I’d strongly suggest to just try and ask kindly, many organizations happily support such things, as long as it’s 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. and not for profit!

Team Glocal Roots working out their new content structure

What we could have done better

Basically, the whole communication from our side before the event was a huge mess, which was completely my fault. We startetd by setting up the website, fixed a date and the location. Then, with the beginning of the new year, new projects piled up and we were suddenly busy keeping our agency afloat and the do_action event went into the background a little.
Someday mid-February way too late I basically cried for help in our WP Zurich Slack channel and immediately got three to four people, who were glad to help out and asked for what needed to be done. That was really great and I should have done that much much earlier!
With no time left for PR, and not a single application from a nonprofit yet, I was quite sure that we would have to cancel or postpone the event. In a last burst of desperation, I started randomly googling around for nonprofits and just cold-emailing them directly, asking if they wanted to participate. This, in the end, brought us the two nonprofits we finally got signed up for the event.
Finally, we had two nonprofits registered, some volunteers and a nice location, but it was already mid-March and only two weeks left until the date of the event. We decided to confirm those organizations, but moved the date out a month to end of April. That way we had more time to prepare everything and get some information about what they need and so on.

Things to consider

As the event took place on a Saturday (which is good I guess, so no one has to take a day off), the Liip Offices were closed. We got a badge to access the arena, but not the rest of the building, especially the kitchen. This is not a problem per se, just make sure to plan accordingly and bring everything you need, from bottled water to your own cups for water/coffee and (probably most important) a coffee machine. For lunch we ordered pizza, which was kindly offered from the WordPress FoundationWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org. – thanks again for that!

Short standup discussion before lunch

The two projects we helped building:

Helping refugees build connections and get help to integrate in their host communities.
Work to help people who are born as intersex persons and to spread information about genital mutilations on children.

TLDR:

  • Start your promotion early, press needs some time in advance.
  • Don’t underestimate the time needed to write press material etc.
  • Get help early on, people are more than willing to help out (if you just ask them 😉 )
  • The multilingual part of the do_action site was a bit buggy and hard to work with, I guess we could have saved ourselves that work for translation as we ended up with only an English site in the end anyway, which worked just fine.

 

All in all, if you think about organizing a do_action event in your city, I can highly recommend it. Hugh was very helpful, as well as Sasha Endoh, and both provided us with all the information we needed and helped us set up the event. Thank you both!
We already have some ideas for another one next year and the feedback we got gave us confidence that there’s a need for such a charity hackathon in Switzerland!
You can find our recap (in German) together with an image gallery with some more photos in our blog.

Our four-legged helper from Team Stop-IGM

WordCamp Los Angeles Debrief

The numbers:

  • How many tickets were sold? 406
  • How many people showed up? 320
  • How many people came to the party (estimate)? 80-100. Also created a site that was promoted throughout the day http://wclax.reviews that was a simple gravity form to collect feedback on the speakers specifically. 367 responses were recorded.
  • How many people filled out the survey? Sent one out, haven’t seen results.
  • How did the money end up (+/-)? Surplus of $3,465

The budget:

  • Are all the vendors paid? Yes, except for one personal payment. It was entered into the WC Payments area of the wclax site.
  • All sponsors paid? Yes.
  • Was there a surplus? $3,465
  • What cost more than you expected? Lunch was a little more expensive than anticipated because pricing was increased from the previous year. Takeaway: even though you’re using the same vendors year after year, make sure to get the current year’s pricing.

The video:

  • What’s the plan to get them on WordPress.tv? Paid vendor recorded, edit, and uploaded the videos. This went really well. Videos are already uploaded and posted to wordpress.tv.

The opinions:

  • What went great: It went really smoothly in comparison to previous years. Organization team consolidated a lot of the locations that were used in previous years. Speaker dinner was at a good venue.
  • What could have gone better: The venue mixed up their food order. They were supposed to have a hot lunch on the first day and a cold lunch on the second day. The venue ended up just making the same thing both days. Wrangling speakers and getting speaker information was difficult. Parking was a challenge this year.
  • What should happen again: Communication with the support systems from the community team went smoothly.
  • What do you think should never happen again: SiteGround asked for one organizer’s address to ship them swag. Unfortunately they also shipped their 10′ sponsor booth to him and expected him to store it for them for two weeks until they arrived.
  • Other thoughts: Potentially look at other venues. USC (Nick Halsey or Courtney Miller may have a connection)

Things that were a downer:

  • Small issue between a couple of speakers that was resolved between the two of them.

Did you write a recap post? Yes and Pictures

Who’s on deck to organize next year? Currently no one. Natalie MacLees, Alex Vasquez, and Nathan Tyler are all stepping down as co-organizers, but will help out next year’s team as 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., confidants, etc.

#debriefs, #los-angeles, #wordcamps

WordCamp Omaha 2015 Debrief

The numbers:

  • How many tickets were sold? 137
  • How many people showed up? 125(ish)
  • How many people came to the party (estimate)? Roughly 50
  • How many people filled out the survey? Has not yet been sent. Asked about protocol for sending out a survey. What account should be used? Recommended the polldaddy account created with 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. email address.
  • How did the money end up (+/-)? There was a $2,800 surplus.

The budget:

  • Are all the vendors paid? No. Afterparty vendor has not invoiced the camp yet. Venue invoice was turned in 10/12 but has not been paid. Three personal expenses have not been paid, though only one has been added as a payment request so far.
  • All sponsors paid? Interface School ($750) may or may not have paid. It was not highlighted in the psonsor tab in the spreadsheet.
  • Was there a surplus? Yes, $2,800
  • What cost more than you expected? Badge printing was more than originally anticipated. If she had to do it again, she would have gone to a print shop and printed higher quality badges instead of low quality paper and badge holders. Make order sooner to avoid rush fees.

The video:

  • What’s the plan to get them on WordPress.tv? All sessions were recorded. The venue provided livestreaming and recording for one room. It’s currently available as one long file. Only given one SD card, but two camera kits. Will be posting to wordpress.tv by the end of the week.

The opinions:

  • What went great: Planning was really hard, but it paid off on the event days. Speakers were great. Received good feedback from attendees on Sunday after the event was over. Volunteers really stepped up and is interested in becoming more involved in the local 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..
  • What could have gone better: Handling money and payments was stressful and frustrating. Asking for volunteers to pay for things personally and be reimbursed wasn’t ideal. Speaker gift could have gone better. Wished that she could have given attendees more takeaway information so they can continue their learning beyond the WordCamp. Wished their surplus could have been used for furthering attendees learning instead of just being put back into community funds. Would like more clarification on how to make payments on weekends or off hours. One of Sunday’s anticipated speakers got sick and there was no backup plan so some folks were disappointed.
  • What should happen again: People really liked the venue & food vendor. Most rewarding part to lead org, a lot of people took advantage of the community help room and personal help on the second day.
  • What do you think should never happen again: It should never be one person running the entire camp. Dan Griffiths was originally the lead organizer but wasn’t fulfilling his responsibilities to his organizing team and missed multiple mandatory “get back on track” meetings set up by the WordPress FoundationWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org. and therefore had to be replaced as the lead organizer.
  • Feedback for the planning process: “The only negative feedback, really, that I have for Central is that I felt that there wasn’t much “push out” of info. I didn’t take the MT stuff down because nobody told me. Julie Kuehl just asked me if I had heard about it at the speaker/sponsor dinner. I didn’t know which community sponsor it was. I get that that’s no-one’s fault, but an organizer listserv (or opt-in update feed other than 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/.) would have been nice.”

Things that were a downer:

  • One attendee complained about the topics. She was hoping for more “user focused” content. Organizer referred her to attend and participate in the local 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..
  • Ticket sales were very stressful.

Did you write a recap post? Will write a re-cap post tonight and schedule it (with link to survey).

Who’s on deck to organize next year? I don’t know. I think I’ll be able to get some more help with monthly meetups, but have not yet thought as far as a 2016 WC.

#debriefs, #wordcamps

WordCamp Baltimore Debrief

The numbers:

  • How many tickets were sold? 196
  • How many people showed up? 180
  • How many people came to the party (estimate)? 50- 60 Tops
  • How many people filled out the survey? Survey just sent out (9/25/15) Has not seen results
  • How did the money end up (+/-)? On Budget (actually a little lower) surplus about 1,000

The budget:

  • Are all the vendors paid? Yes
  • All sponsors paid?All but Woo – Believe that is just not updated
  • Was there a surplus? Yes, about 1,000
  • What cost more than you expected? No, Right on Budget

The video:

  • What’s the plan to get them on WordPress.tv? In process if uploading

The opinions:

  • What went great: Event went great.  All volunteers and speakers showed up. Attendees had a great time.
  • What could have gone better: Need more organizers and more help planning next year
  • What should happen again: The event itself runs very well,  well attended and will try and keep same format for next year
  • What do you think should never happen again: Having one person take on most of the burden.  Looking for more organizers for the next camp

Things that were a downer:

  • There was an after-party issue: A volunteer (employed by a sponsor) became unruly starting at the after-party and spilling over into the ‘after-crawl’ (the informal party after the after-party ). There were 50-60 people in attendance of the after party. Some WC Balt attendees went on a public boat ride after the after party. About 15 after crawl attendees/sponsors/speakers were on this boat. Attendees brought their own bottles on this boat ride as per the rules and regulations on the ship. This person became visibly drunk, unruly, inappropriate behavior ensued. There was an incident where he kicked another volunteer in the back. The lead org and many others told him to stop, but as they were first on a boat, short of ‘throwing him overboard’ they could not remove this individual. Once back on land the individual followed people around and continued this behavior. People were concerned for the individuals safety, attendees considered him an unruly drunk. Lead Org described him as showing college age jock rowdiness — all inappropriate, but Lead Org addressed as best he could. Lead Org did report back to Sponsor (he had contact info as he knew them) and their HR dept was informed.
    There were no injuries, every one is safe, every one is on good terms.

Did you write a recap post? Not yet

Who’s on deck to organize next year? Not sure, but some good people came out of the volunteer team that are possible organizers

#debriefs, #wordcamps