Sponsorship Squad, Activate!

As you might recall from my call for volunteers to form a WordCamp Sponsorship Squad a few weeks ago, I made a call for volunteers who are experienced 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 and would be interested in helping WordCamp organizers work with fundraising and sponsors. That team has been formed and is made up of:

Kevin Cristiano, WCNYC organizer and one of the co-creators on the Multi-Event Sponsorship Program, yay

Andy Christian, WCNYC

Aditya Kane, WordCamp Mumbai

Valent Mustamin, WordCamp Indonesia

Noel Tock, WordCamp Switzerland

This squad will hold IRC office hoursOffice Hours Defined times when the Global Community Team are in the #community-events Slack channel. If there is anything you would like to discuss – you do not need to inform them in advance.You are very welcome to drop into any of the Community Team Slack channels at any time. at two different times on Wednesday: Aditya, Valent, and Noel will be in #wordpress-getinvolved at 4:00 UTC, and Kevin and Andy will be in at 17:00 UTC. Hopefully this will allow organizers from all over the world to check in about doubts or questions they have when fundraising or working with sponsors.

If no one has questions for the squad during office hours, squad members will review WordCamp sites to help organizing teams avoid missing anything in their sponsorship packages, as well as reviewing sponsors for any issues around 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. or trademark that the sponsoring company and organizing team might have missed.

They’ll be recording their reviews and findings on this spreadsheet for now (which I’ll embed into a page when I can figure out how to do that): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiOGe9LzBlkOdGpXclRid1Vmc2Q1eldyU3laTEhBbXc&usp=sharing

Thanks to these volunteers for helping WordCamps keep their/our promises to sponsors and advising organizers on sponsor wrangling! 🙂

#multi-event-sponsorship, #sponsorship, #wordcamp, #wordcamps

WordCamp organizer forums open

Forums are now open on plan.wordcamp.org for 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 – new and experienced – to share ideas, knowledge, victories, and woes.

New organizers, ask questions! Experienced organizers, post your tips! Sign in with your 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/ credentials to contribute to the knowings.

#wordcamp, #wordcamps

Reusing WordCamp lanyards: our badge of honor, or a pain in the neck?

Currently, 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. provides lanyards to all WordCamps in the US and Canada who need them, then asks the organizing team to collect the lanyards at the end of 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. and ship them to the next, closest WordCamp on the schedule.

This helps reduce the amount of waste that WordCamps create, which of course minimizes our combined carbon footprint, and makes us all very proud. Unfortunately, this project has faced a few challenges:

  • WordCamp organizers often forget to collect lanyards after the event; it’s frequently the last thing they think about on the “day of.”
  • WordCamp organizers often collect some lanyards, but not very many – best retention is 60%, tops.
  • Shipping lanyards from WordCamp to WordCamp cancels out some of the carbon footprint reduction.
  • Some people think it’s yucky to use a lanyard someone else has already used.
  • This program never grew past the US and Canada, because shipping between WordCamps internationally is really expensive.

So where do we go from here? I’d like to keep providing lanyards to WordCamps, if people agree that’s valuable.

Option A is to buy WordCamps recycled PET lanyards — branded with 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.’s logo — in quantities high enough to get us a stellar deal. We could ship out these lanyards in the same package as WordPress swag (buttons, stickers). One advantage here would be that we could then provide lanyards to WordCamps outside the US and Canada, yay! The “yuck factor” would be neutralized, but we could not say that we were in any way reducing the amount of waste created by WordCamps.

Option B is to redouble our efforts to reuse lanyards at WordCamps, and all agree to do better at collecting them at the end of the event. This also doesn’t address the “yuck” factor, but it does reduce the number of lanyards that the WordCamp program generates. This also doesn’t address the issue of non-US and Canada events missing out on this benefit.

Do you have a preferred option, or can you suggest an Option C, D, or E to help us efficiently reduce WordCamp waste? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

#global, #wordcamp, #wordcamps

How much time does it take to organize a WordCamp?

All of it. Just kidding. Well, maybe not. 🙂

I’d like to be able to tell new 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 how much time they should expect to commit to organizing a WordCamp, so people are less often surprised when they get down to crunch time. Why? Well, because one of the best and most effective ways to recruit and retain great volunteers is to give them a good send of what they’re signing up for. There are some great volunteer “job descriptions” out there, but none of them come with an estimate of hours per week or per event, and that can be the make-or-break for some organizing teams.

So this is an open call: if any organizing teams are willing to try to track their WordCamp hours (maybe on the shared budget spreadsheet?) in any way that makes sense to the team, please comment below – so we’ll know who you are – and start tracking! 🙂 Once we get 5-10 camps who have tracked their organizing hours, we’ll publish the collected data to plan.wordcamp.org.

Also, if you’re an experienced WordCamp organizer who is not in active planning right now, but would like to volunteer to check in with organizing teams that have offered to track their time (and help them remember to do it), then please leave a comment below to that effect. This is a job for one person who can spend 1-2 hours a week, popping in to spreadsheets and sending friendly reminders to teams that promised to track their hours.

#events-2, #time-tracking, #wordcamp

Organizing a non-WordCamp

This year has seen twopast 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 decide to organize an independent WordPress conference in their city instead of doing another WordCamp. This is a bummer, since we hate to lose experienced organizers who have a passion for WordPress, but diversity and experimentation make the ecosystem stronger, so it’s kind of exciting at the same time. That said, some boundaries have already become a bit blurry in these situations and we need to reduce confusion for local communities and attendees, so let’s decide on best practices for how to make the transition from being an official WordCamp organizer to running an event that’s not officially affiliated with the WordPress project so that everyone’s clear on what’s appropriate. When we’ve got some agreement here, I’ll add a page to plan.wordcamp.org with this information.

Please read this draft of a plan.wordcamp.org entry and share your thoughts.

Change makes life interesting, and just as we encourage each local community to continually 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. and develop new leaders, sometimes leaders move on to new projects — in this case, organizing new WordPress-focused events.  It’s fun to experiment with other kinds of events, and certainly WordCamp is not the only kind of WordPress conference in the world. More WordPress events is better for WordPress, so everyone wins. And even if you move on to an independent event as your main focus, you are still welcome to participate in WordCamp as well!

Before blazing a new trail, it’s worth checking with 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. to see if the event type you want to run could take place under the official banner — new event types are encouraged — so you can keep the benefits associated with being an official WordPress event. But if you’ve been involved in past WordCamps and decide to organize a different kind of WordPress event on your own — specifically, one that is not officially associated with the WordPress 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. project — it’s important to make the decision to leave the WordCamp program understanding a few key things.

  1. Sooner or later, there will be another WordCamp in your city. 
    Don’t want to organize another WordCamp? We’ll be sad to see you go, but we want WordCamps to continue. WordCamp Central will post a call for new organizers, and it’s likely that someone else in the local community will be interested in organizing a WordCamp. Would-be organizers can apply to WordCamp Central and, if approved, will get the support we provide to all WordCamp organizers. We believe that multiple events can peacefully co-exist and create a more vibrant community, and it’s expected that any past WordCamp organizers will be supportive of new organizers rather than competitive or adversarial.
  2. WordCamp resources are for WordCamp organizers.
    Social media accounts, attendee and sponsor registration and contact information, etc, are resources built and gathered for the sole purpose of running a WordCamp. As a past organizer, you probably contributed a lot to build/gather those resources, but the work on WordCamp Anytown is tied to future WordCamps in Anytown, and shouldn’t be appropriated by past organizers for their personal pursuits. To put it in specific terms, if you take the attendee mailing list and send them all messages for your new event, then it breaks the privacy policy 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/ sites that states we will never rent, sell, or otherwise give away their information, or use it for any purpose other than that for which it was collected (in other words, WordCamp communication).
  3. WordCamp statistics and history don’t apply to your new event.
    Your new event, because it’s new, doesn’t have a “last year.” It’s accurate to say “Last year, WordCamp Anytown had 750 attendees, so we expect WPEvent to have about 1,000” but not “WPEvent expects about 1,000 attendees this year, since we sold out last year at 750,” or “WPEvent is typically attended by web savvy people between 18-65 with an annual household income of 38-150k per year,” since there’s no “typical” for your new event yet. It’s important to be clear about this so that people don’t think WordCamp is being replaced rather than a new event being created.
  4. Respect the WordPress trademarks.
    When you were organizing an official event, the WordPress and WordCamp trademarks (including the WordPress logo) were available to use and WordCamp Central kept an eye on things to make sure there were no issues with how those trademarks were used. As an unaffiliated event. you’ll be responsible for making sure that if you use one of these trademarks it is within the scope of the WordPress Foundation Trademark Policy.
  5. You can submit your video content to WordPress.tv.
    We will not provide the recording equipment as we do with WordCamps, but sharing the content created at your new event can still take place on the official channel if you like, as long as it meets the submission guidelines.
  6. You’re welcome to participate in future WordCamps.
    Don’t worry about being “blackballed” — we hope not to lose your WordCamp experience and insight even if you are running your own, separate event. As long as you’re still cool with the guidelines and active in your local community, you’re welcome to participate in an official capacity at WordCamp under the next generation’s leadership, or even to organize a WordCamp again.

#wordcamp

A super awesome stack of WordCamp Vegas 2012…

A super-awesome stack of 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. Vegas 2012 videos are awaiting your moderation pleasure; just a heads up! 🙂

#wordcamp, #wordpress-tv