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. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.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

Reflecting on the NextGen Events Pilot Project and Looking Ahead

Background

In May 2023, the WordPress Community Team embarked on an ambitious journey with the “Next Generation WordPress Events” pilot project. Our goal was to explore innovative event formats beyond the traditional 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. 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., bringing fresh experiences to our community and attracting new audiences to attend WordPress events. Throughout the latter half of 2023, we experimented with a variety of creative events, each uniquely contributing to the WordPress community. Check out the full list of pilot events.

Today, @adityakane, @devinmaeztri, @no249a002, @francescodicandia, @unintended8, @lanche86, @samsuresh, @yoga1103 and I are excited to share our learnings, reflections, and a vision for the future of innovative WordPress events.

Broadening the Horizon of WordPress Events

Based on our experiences with the pilot program, we recommend concluding the NextGen pilot project, and permanently adopting an expanded scope of WordPress Events. This means expanding the WordPress Events program beyond just WordCamps, 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 do_actions, to embrace a broad range of creative event formats. The sky’s the limit, and we encourage the community to keep experimenting with new ideas.

It’s important to clarify that “NextGen” is the name of the pilot project, not a new categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. of events. This project was a playground for experimentation and innovation in the WordPress Events program. Moving forward, we propose simply referring to these events as “WordPress Events.” This term encompasses WordCamps, meetups, do_actions, and an infinite number of other event types that are supported by WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a Public Benefit Corporation, 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. and the Community Team.

The Ideal WordPress Event

We’ve learned that the ideal WordPress event should be:

  • Replicable: Easy for other communities to adopt and for the same community to organize again.
  • Desirable: Each event should serve a purpose within the WordPress ecosystem and generate excitement.
  • Sustainable: Events should be financially viable and not overly complex to organize, to prevent burnout among our valued community organizers.
  • Scalable: Ideally, events are able to grow and scale as a community grows. 

We wholeheartedly encourage creativity and experimentation in WordPress Events. Innovation is the lifeblood that keeps our community vibrant and helps grow the WordPress project, its user base, and WordPress communities worldwide!

A highlight from the NextGen Pilot project:

The Rome Community Day event format inspired the Swiss community to organize a Switzerland Community Day, demonstrating that this event format is truly desirable, replicable and sustainable! The Rome event organizer mentored the Switzerland organizing team, a testament to the project’s collaborative spirit.

Tools

To sustainably expand the WordPress events program, we need some new tools, workflows, and documentation that will assist Community Team Event Supporters, Program Supporters, and Program Managers in vetting, onboarding, and mentoring events that don’t fit neatly in the established categories of WordCamp, meetup, or 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.. Our new WordPress Events page (events.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/) is a crucial step in this direction, offering a central URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org and unified platform for all types of WordPress events. Additionally, we have a brand new WordPress event organizer application form, which streamlines the application review process (during the NextGen pilot project, event organizer applications were submitted through a Crowdsignal survey; this was unwieldy for the Community Team to review and process).

What this means for…

WordPress Event Organizers 

We invite you to think outside the box and consider organizing an innovative WordPress Event in your community! Let’s continue to experiment and grow together. Remember, some of the most impactful WordPress events are simple, low-cost, and easy to organize.

Apply now to bring a unique WordPress event to life in your community!

Global Sponsors

Sponsoring the WordPress community’s innovative events provides companies with a unique opportunity to reach new, diverse, and tech-savvy audiences. Global Sponsors already support WordPress Community Events worldwide; innovative event formats offer an opportunity to experiment with new sponsorship benefits and ways to connect with attendees. Do you have ideas that we could test at an innovative WordPress event in 2024? Let the Community Team know by commenting on this post!

Community Team Supporters

In the coming weeks, the Community Team will invite Community Team Supporters to participate in a Zoom session on innovative WordPress Events. This session will provide an opportunity to ask questions and share feedback so that Community Team Supporters are well-equipped to 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. innovative WordPress Events and amplify this exciting new development in WordPress Events. Stay tuned for more details!


Share your thoughts, ideas, and questions in the comments below. Your input is the catalyst for continued innovation and growth in our community. Let’s continue building the next chapter of innovative WordPress Events, making them more inclusive, engaging, and impactful than ever!

Props to the fantastic pilot event and future WordPress event organizers; Community Team NextGen Event Supporters, who reviewed event applications and mentored pilot events; and the entire Global Community TeamGlobal Community Team A group of community organizers and contributors who collaborate on local events about WordPress — monthly WordPress meetups and/or annual conferences called WordCamps. for their incredible effort to make the NextGen Pilot Project a reality by engaging in discussions, sharing ideas, and spreading the word!

The following people participated in writing this post: @juliarosia @devinmaeztri @peiraisotta @_dorsvenabili.

#community-events, #next-gen-events

Share your feedback about the new WordPress Events Page!

As announced in December, we have a new centralized WordPress Events landing page in WordPress.org that aims to give more visibility to all kinds of WordPress events around the globe. It shows next WordPress upcoming events like WordCamps scheduled, 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 Next Gen WordPress Events (WordPress Events from now on).

For context, that landing page was the result of an initiative that I started with a post back in August 2023 that ended up with a first GitHub issue and a series of other related issues.

What we have now

The first iteration of this project created the following three pages:

Call for feedback!

Those three pages are just the beginning of a vision where we bring WordPress Events closer to our users and visitors of 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/.

The most important goal how I envision it, it’s for the Events landing page and the Organizers Landing page to become the main and only pages that anyone would need to check and/or share when want to check for upcoming WordPress events and/or when want to check or share any info about how to become a WordPress event organizer.

We want to keep iterating and your feedback is key to doing it! Please leave your comments with any relevant feedback about how you would improve those pages, and texts… are you missing anything relevant? Any ideas are welcome!

#events-2, #feedback, #highlight, #homepage, #next-gen-events

From Japan to Rome: Recent and Upcoming Next Generation WordPress Events

WordPress events spark innovation and adoption by way of accessible training and networking for users, builders, designers, and extenders. We celebrate community by accelerating 21st-century skills, professional opportunities, and partnerships for WordPressers of today and tomorrow.

– Purpose Statement, WordPress Community Events Program

The WordPress community is buzzing with innovation, and Next Generation WordPress Events are at the heart of it!

The Community team continues to encourage WordPress enthusiasts around the world to organize creative events that align with the above purpose statement. The ‘Next Generation WordPress Events’ project invites you to think beyond the traditional 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. format, and consider what sort of unique event – whether in-person or virtual – would meet the needs of your particular community. For inspiration, check out this recent post with ideas for NextGen WordPress events.

With this purpose in mind, we are excited to let you know about three upcoming and two recent NextGen events that are shaping the future of WordPress.

Three upcoming NextGen events

September 29, 2023: WordPress Community Day in Rome, Italy

This one-day event will focus entirely on the activities of the WordPress Community Team, and will provide support and practical tools to people who organize 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. or WordCamps (or would like to start doing so), or who would like to propose talks, panels and workshops, but do not know how to begin. There will be opportunity to discuss improvements to documentation in Italian to support organizers, and to explore new event formats such hackathons, do_actions, and NextGen events. Participants will share experiences and develop a deeper understanding of which tools and best practices can help build a stronger WordPress community.

September 30, 2023: WordCamp Gdynia

This one-day WordCamp in Gdynia, Poland has a unique focus: ‘Optimization: Work and WordPress’. Speakers will present various approaches to this topic, and participants will have the opportunity to ask questions, connect with other WordPress enthusiasts, and develop practical knowledge.

October 22, 2023: WordCamp (NextGen Event) Tegal

This one-day “Scale Up” workshop in Tegal, Indonesia will focus on enhancing participants’ WordPress skills for the enterprise world. Approximately 50 local WordPress enthusiasts will gather to learn from four experienced WordPress experts who will serve 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. and facilitators. By attending this workshop, participants will gain a comprehensive understanding of how to make the most of WordPress for enterprise purposes.

Two Recent NextGen Events

Community Building Workshop in Japan

This monthly Community Building workshop series brings together Japanese contributors to develop community leadership skills. They have held two events so far: at the August workshop, participants shared tips about sustaining a successful WordPress 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. At the recent September workshop, participants discussed the GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples. (general public license) and trademarks. To cater to the Japanese audience, the team uses two platforms: their Meetup.com page for registration, and the event website for promotion. Here is a recap of the first event, in Japanese.  

WordCamp Bengaluru

Video: Percussion at the opening of WordCamp Bengaluru. Published under CC0, video by Arun Shenoy.

Held on July 29, 2023, this one-day WordCamp Bengaluru was organized a little differently than a traditional WordCamp.The event’s tracks combined panel discussions, workshops and lightning talks, and the event was infused with traditional local culture. It kicked off with percussion and floral arranging; and instead of an after party, attendees were invited to join a historical walk of Bengaluru. A full recap of the event can be read here.

Image: Attendees of NextGen WordCamp Bengaluru

It’s Your Turn!

Are you inspired to organize a NextGen WordPress event in your community or online? Apply to organize a NextGen event!

Have you attended a NextGen WordPress event, or do you have an idea for a future event? Share your experiences, hopes, ideas, and questions in the comments below!

Thank you to @deadpool76, @devinmaeztri, @kharisblank, @motylanogha, @nukaga and @yoga1103 for contributing to this post!

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

The NextGen Event Project: Your Ideas, Your WordPress Community!

Like all great communities, the strength of the WordPress community is the incredible people who participate and also bring their unique perspectives and ideas to the project.

As the NextGen Event Project rolls along, we have put together some creative concepts and ideas powered by your fellow WordPress enthusiasts. These concepts are all ready for implementation, and we hope that these are brought to life over the next months and years to come.

Community and Identity-Based Groups:

  • College Campus-Based Groups
  • Self-Learning Clubs
  • Events for Identity-Based Groups
  • Peer-to-Peer Matching
  • Expert to Beginner Matching
  • Event for Underrepresented Groups

Educational and Informative Events:

  • WordPress “Shark Tank” (Ideas Pitch)
  • WordPress LearnUp
  • Intro to 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 WordPress
  • Intro to Contributing
  • Second Half of the Day
  • Sponsor Networking Day
  • WordPress Debate on Hot Topics
  • Events on Specific Topics: Hosting, Security, Performance, Sustainability, Optimization
  • Online Event: WordCast
  • Happiness Bar
  • Online Clinic
  • Show and Tell Night
  • Curated Talks
  • Web Pitching Competition
  • WordPress Career Day
  • WordPress for Rural Communities
  • WordPress Showcase for Students

Networking and Professional Development:

  • Job Fairs
  • Fireside Chats/Show and Tell
  • Lunch Clubs
  • Networking Circles
  • Group Speed Networking for Business Owners (Finance, Insurance, Tech)
  • Networking for WordPress Businesses
  • Networking for Jobseekers and Recruiters
  • Networking for Bloggers
  • Events for Podcasters
  • Events for Publishers

Education and Skill Building:

  • Community Building Event
  • 1:1 Learning
  • Event with Non-WordPress Tech Groups
  • DevCamp with Non-WordPress Dev Communities
  • Edutainment
  • Study Group Learning WP on Different Topics (Learning by Doing)
  • WordPress for Enterprise Training

Specialized Events:

  • Event for Enterprise Users and Media Companies Using MultisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network.
  • Event for Web Agencies
  • WordPress Youth Summit
  • Scary Stories or Horror WordPress in October – Learning from Mistakes
  • WordPress for Publishers
  • Low-cost or Eco Event
  • WordPress Retreat
  • Event about Digital Marketing

These ideas have been collected from community members like you. The exciting part is, if you are an event organizer, we truly encourage you to experiment actively by creating more vibrant, inclusive and exciting events for the future.

This is where we get to participate and shape the future of WordPress events.

Apply now for organizing an event under the NextGen Events program!

Thank you to @devinmaeztri, @no249a002 and @_dorsvenabili for contributing to this post!

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

Call for ideas: new features for our NextGen WP events central page

As the WordPress.org new design is taking shape, I’d like to open a call for ideas with this post to find the most useful and desirable features for a future homepage that would host a list of all Next Gen WordPress events, have a centralized place to find the next WP events, all open calls for speakers, sponsors, volunteers, ticket sales,… and to be able to filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. them by continent, country, language, type of event, etc.

I’d like to share The Linux Foundation Events page for reference as it contains many elements that we’re missing in the WordCamp Central Schedule page and that it would be very useful for attendees, sponsors, etc.

I’d like to highlight:

  • You can search events by name, topic, categories, country…
  • Every event in the list has a direct link to its registration page, schedule, call for speakers (if currently open), call for sponsors (if currently open), etc.
  • The top submenu includes links to the pages where someone can see all the calls for speakers currently open, all calls for sponsors currently open, etc.
  • I visualize this new homepage as a place where people can find any kind of WP event: 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., WordCamps, NexGen events, WP workshops,…

Ideas are welcome!

It’s our opportunity to create something that improves our current “Upcoming Events” and WordCamp Central Schedule pages and to create a more modern and usable site that can be useful to newcomers, attendees, sponsors, etc., and to promote it publicly more.

Please comment with your feedback and please add any more features that you’d like to see in this new site, thanks!

#call-for-ideas, #design, #events-2, #features, #highlight, #homepage, #new-design, #next-gen, #next-gen-events

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

Proposal: Next Generation Event URL

In June, we started discussing tooling for NextGen WordPress events. One of the ideas we discussed is an updated URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org mapping, to accommodate a diversity of event types events.wordpress.org/city(or country)/year/event-type.

We anticipate that this new URL structure will make it much easier for new audiences to discover our community events, and for returning attendees to find what they’re looking for.

Community Day in Rome is the first NextGen pilot event to use this new URL structure. Their event URL is events.wordpress.org/rome/2023/training.

The second NextGen pilot event to use this new URL structure is a monthly online community building workshop for all community members in Japan. The event will kick off in August 2023 and is planned to continue into 2024.

The recent discussion in #community-team about the URL for NextGen events has resulted in several options to approach the URL, especially for multi-city, multi-year, and multi-format events.

Referring to the principles of readability, ease of understanding, and scalability, we’d like to propose the following URL:

events.wordpress.org/city(or country)/year/event-title.

The event-title can be anything that best describes the event. We can also add -2 to indicate the series of events.

For example

In 2023
events.wordpress.org/japan/2023/community-training
events.wordpress.org/japan/2023/community-training-2

In 2024
events.wordpress.org/japan/2024/community-training
events.wordpress.org/japan/2024/community-training-2

If there are no strong objections to this URL structure, we’ll be moving forward with it. Please comment if you have any questions or concerns about it.

Thank you to @angelasjin, @_dorsvenabili, @harmonyromo, @juliarosia and @samsuresh, for contributing to the post!

#next-gen-events #community-event #event-tooling

Next Generation of WordPress Events: Updates

Hello there!

A massive thank you to all who have participated in the discussions about the next generation of WordPress events, and who have facilitated the discussions in their communities. 

Below are some nice numbers to share about the progress this far:

  • 64 ideas shared
  • 59 organizers willing to follow up on their ideas
  • 8 pilot events confirmed, of which 6 will happen in 2023

Here are the proposed formats for the 2023 pilot events:

  • Low-cost 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.: 90 attendees, no swag, no social dinner, no after party. 1 Track. The goal is to motivate and help new and veteran organizers to create a lighter, impactful event that is low cost and requires less time, financial resources, and fewer organizers/volunteers. Location: Leipzig (Germany). Date: Jul 1, 2023.
  • WordPress Day: contributor event for 50 attendees focusing on 3 areas of contribution. The goal is to bring new contributors to the community and retain them by organizing multiple events every year. Location: Sevilla (Spain). Date: Jul 2, 2023.
  • Rural: 1-day itinerant event per quarter to bring WP to rural areas in small towns/villages. WP activities in the morning, lunch locally, paid for by attendees, and in the afternoon, nature and cultural related activities to connect with the territory and local people. The goal is to bring WP to different rural areas, teach WP to local residents, bring people from the city to the villages, and expand the community. Location: Catalonia rural areas (Spain). Date: TBD, 2023.
  • WP for Publishers: 1-day event for folks who use WP for publishing. Discuss the new most used features and brainstorm about new ones. The goal is to bring publishers together who currently use different platforms and introduce them to WordPress as an alternative, and hopefully sway them to make a switch. Location: Bengaluru. Date: TBD, 2023.
  • Community Day: 1 day event made by WP organizers for WP organizers. 60 attendees max, hopefully from all 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. in the country, to attend workshops and refine their community management and event planning skills. The goal is to train and empower current and aspiring organizers, so they can foster sustainable and healthy communities. Location: Roma (Italy). Date: Sep 29, 2023.
  • Scale-up Workshop. 1-day training event that hosts 50 people with basic WordPress proficiency. The goal is to show the potential of WordPress and to enhance participants’ WordPress skills by diving into the world of WordPress for enterprise. Location: Tegal (Indonesia). Date: October 22, 2023.

This is so exciting, and it’s just the beginning, friends! The community is abuzz with ideas .

If you want to organize a pilot event in 2023 and haven’t submitted your idea yet, please do it now via this form: https://wordpressdotorg.survey.fm/next-generation-of-wordpress-events

Can’t wait to see all these new events happening!

Thank you @devinmaeztri, @harmonyromo, @nao for your precious help in drafting this post.

#community-team, #next-gen-events

Discussion: Next Generation Event Tooling 

WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. organizers have done amazing things with WordCamp sites. While WordCamp has kept our events afloat for a long time, organizers have long raised challenges with the current platform. As we explore the Next Generation WordPress Events, it seems a great time to also iterate on our current platform as we look to the future of events. 

This is a broad call for input on what sort of tooling would make creating WordCamp sites a joy for WordCamp organizers. Specifically when it comes to building and using the WordCamp website, what have you experienced that you found frustrating? What would you like to be able to do that you currently cannot? 

What does it mean for our Next Gen WordPress Event experimentation?

We need you to share some ideas on how we can maintain our WordPress-powered event site such as WordCamp.org easier, and make it more useful for our event organizers. 

But remember! This discussion is NOT about: 

  1. The events hosted on Meetup.com.
  2. Creating brand-new infrastructure. Rather, we want to make improvements to the current infrastructure.

Idea Example 1: One-size-fits-all Application for Speakers

This came up during the Community Discussion on May 25, 2023, from the group that was assigned a topic on tooling. Having a speaker application system where organizers can send emails to and communicate with potential speakers can help avoid miscommunication and reduce event workload.

Idea Example 2: Alternative URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org Mapping

We’ve heard a great idea floating around — reworking our URL structure to include ‘event’. If folks search for “WordPress events”, they typically get results about event plugins, rather than community-organized events. 

Since the new audience might not be aware of terms like “WordCamp”, a more straightforward URL structure could help us reach broader participants who are seeking specific events such as training and networking.  For example events.wordpress.org/city/2023/event-type

An added benefit is that our community will be able to direct those who are interested in future events to check out updates by using URLs such as events.wordpress.org/city.

Share your feedback by June 20, 2023

To figure out the tooling that would be most effective for our Next Gen Event planning sites, please share ideas about what features could be added or removed to make the most of the website experience.

The community team is very aware that there are also additional tools folks would like to have, like better tools for surveys. e-mail, communication, newsletters. The hope currently is that the focus can be on WordCamp sites only, so the WordCamp MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. team can get a better sense of scope and priority. Future posts will have calls for additional tools!

Please comment by June 20, 2023. The Community and Meta team will review all comments and prioritize based on the level of impact and level of effort required. 

Thank you to @angelasjin, @harmonyromo, @peiraisotta, and @nao for contributing to the post! 

 #next-gen-events #community-event #event-tooling