Diverse Speaker Training Group (#WPDiversity) 2022 Year-End Report

Hello everyone! The Diverse Speaker Training Group (#WPDiversity) helps WordPress event organizers diversify their speaker lineups and create more inclusive and welcoming events.

Every year we calculate our results accomplished since the previous State of the WordState of the Word This is the annual report given by Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress at WordCamp US. It looks at what we’ve done, what we’re doing, and the future of WordPress. https://wordpress.tv/tag/state-of-the-word/.. Here is December 2021 to December 2022.

A few highlights:

  • This year we continued carrying out the 3 programs that we launched in 2021.
  • We launched an APAC branch of our group, the APAC WPDiversity Network Building meetings
  • We translated our speaker workshop material into more languages
  • We put a lot of focus on getting more contributors to participate in the group this year, and that number went up significantly
  • We held our first day-long in-person workshop (except for the facilitator over Zoom), which was a lot like producing a 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.
  • We held fewer events to make room for more of the other things that our group needs to do, and yet all of our results went up! More people in more places with higher results.
  • We had #WPDiversity initiatives at WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event.
  • We advised people on their questions and initiatives ideas when the surge of interest in WordPress diversity that happened earlier this year
  • We launched a calendar of events that we keep updated on our handbook page

And now, let’s talk numbers

Program 1: Underrepresented Voices Speaker Workshops

  • Participants self-reported an increase in public speaking confidence of: 54%

Program 2: How to Organize Inclusive and Welcoming WordPress Events

  • Participants self-reported an increase in feeling prepared to run an inclusive event of: 40%

Program 3: Speaker support and speaking opportunities (#diverse-speaker-support SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel)

  • 225+ speakers, speaker 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., event organizers, and allies in the Slack channel so far

Overall

Our 15 events (workshops and group coaching sessions) in 2022 impacted:

  • 248 participants
  • from 117 cities
  • in these 27 countries:
  1. Bangladesh
  2. Bhutan
  3. Bolivia
  4. Canada
  5. Cabo Verde
  6. Costa Rica
  7. England
  8. Germany
  9. Greece
  10. India
  11. Indonesia
  12. Italy
  13. Luxembourg
  14. Netherlands
  15. Nigeria
  16. Philippines
  17. Portugal
  18. Rwanda
  19. Serbia
  20. Slovakia
  21. South Africa
  22. Spain
  23. Switzerland
  24. Uganda
  25. United Kingdom
  26. United States
  27. Marked as “Unknown”

Increased number of contributors in the team:

  • 2020-2021: 5 contributors
  • 2021-2022: 32 contributors!

Our speaker workshop materials are available in:

Testimonials:

“I truly appreciate the #WPDiversity programs. I wouldn’t have done a successful talk at WordCamp US 2022 without them. I guess I can’t say that I suck at public speaking anymore!”

– Ebonie Butler, Senior Software Engineer, Philadelphia USA

“The reason that our WordCamp 2022 organizers are a diverse team is as a direct result of your #WPDiversity Speaker training. This group’s composition is no accident. The 2019 group was kind of a diversity nightmare. Of our 14 organizers in 2022, 9 are from underrepresented groups (gender, ethnicity, neurodiverse). Our speakers are similarly diverse.”

– A WordCamp Organizer Co-Lead, United States

“I’d love to see ALL THE ORGANIZERS take an Organizing Diverse & Inclusive WordPress Events workshop!”

– Sallie Goetsch, organizer, East Bay 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.

You can read more testimonials in our monthly reports.

With the return of in-person events, we are looking forward to continue being of service to 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 WordCamps to in 2023!

#wpdiversityannualreport

Diverse Speaker Training Group (#WPDiversity) 2021 Year-End Report

Hello everyone! As a follow-up to Matt’s mention of our Diversity work in the State of the WordState of the Word This is the annual report given by Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress at WordCamp US. It looks at what we’ve done, what we’re doing, and the future of WordPress. https://wordpress.tv/tag/state-of-the-word/. yesterday, I wanted to share some data and more detail around our  accomplishments this year.

#WPDiversity Results December 2020-November 2021

In 2021, the Diverse Speaker Training Group (#WPDiversity) expanded from one to three programs: Diverse Speaker program, Allyship program, Diverse Speaker Support program.

Our group and the community held 26 #WPDiversity events this year.

146 participants from at least 66 cities in 16 countries attended these events from December 2020 – November 2021.

People who took at least a portion of our Diverse Speaker workshop reported an increase in self-confidence by 20%.

People who took our Allyship for WordPress Event Organizers workshop reported an increase in preparedness to hold an inclusive event by 52%!

In the Diverse Speaker Support program, as of November 30, 2021, 49 people have joined it so far. 50% (25) of these are people from underrepresented groups who are looking for speaking opportunities at WordPress events.

Testimonials

Testimonial for Diverse Speaker workshop:

“I felt like you were reading my mind on some of these points about what holds us back from speaking. And the brainstorm prompts are all really, really good. I walked away with a ton of ideas and newfound confidence. I’m excited to talk now. This workshop works!”

– Erika Lewis, WordPress Dev, Washington DC

Testimonial for the “Hold Your Own Diverse Speaker workshop” train the trainers:

“I’m excited to replicate the Diverse Speakers workshop in my beloved country, Mexico, and use it to help more women learn the right tools to communicate on stage and in meetings, and be more confident about their skills.”

– Maryl Gonzalez, Co-Founder @ The App Chefs, Guadalajara, Mexico

Testimonial for Allyship for WordPress Event Organizers workshop

“I loved taking the “Allyship for WordPress Event Organizers” workshop along with other organizers and hearing what they’ve done. The checklists in the workbook are helpful in terms of tracking what I have done and what I can still improve. I’d love to see ALL THE ORGANIZERS go through this. This felt like a great complement to other material that WordPress has about not disparaging people; the focus of the Allyship workshop was on how to be actively welcoming.”

– Sallie Goetsch, organizer, East Bay 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.

Get Involved in 2022

Want to get involved in this inspiring initiative that makes a tangible difference? Comment on this post or pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” @jillbinder on the WordPress 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:

  • Attending an “Allyship for WP Event Organizers” workshop or a “How to Own Your Expertise & Start Speaking at WordPress Events #WPDiversity” (aka Diverse Speaker) workshop
  • Having us hold a “How to Own Your Expertise & Start Speaking at WordPress Events #WPDiversity” workshop to bring in more diverse speaker applications for your Meetup or 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.
  • Being a workshop facilitator
  • Being a workshop 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. or background administrator
  • Being a Translator
  • Joining our #diverse-speaker-support Slack channel (open to those interested in speaking, speaker 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 event organizers)
  • Joining our Diverse Speaker Group #WPDiversity to help out with things as needed
  • And more!

I will reply to your message in the new year.

Have great holidays, everyone. Let’s make 2022 our best year yet!

#wpdiversityannualreport

Diverse Speaker Training Group (#wpdiversity) 2020 Year-End Report

Hello everyone! Every year we calculate our results accomplished since the previous State of the WordState of the Word This is the annual report given by Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress at WordCamp US. It looks at what we’ve done, what we’re doing, and the future of WordPress. https://wordpress.tv/tag/state-of-the-word/.. Here is October 2019 to November 2020:

In late 2019 and early 2020, the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) was operating as usual. In the Spring of 2020, we shifted our strategy online.

We produced a series of workshops, “train the trainer” sessions, and discussion groups that helped 242 participants from marginalized and underrepresented groups, across 87 cities in 26 countries, to be speakers at online WordPress events.

People from marginalized and underrepresented groups face extra challenges in getting on stage, but after spending at least one hour in the workshops, they reported a 20% increase in public speaking confidence!

We held the following events:

  • 8 three-part workshops between April and November 2020
  • 8 Group coaching / practise sessions between April and November 2020
  • 5 Discussion groups between October and November 2020
  • 11 Train the trainer sessions for 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. between October 2019 and November 2020
  • 7 Meetups held workshops themselves between October 2019 to November 2020

This year, we reached  these countries:

  1. Australia
  2. Buenos Aires
  3. Bulgaria
  4. Canada
  5. Colombia
  6. Costa Rica
  7. El Salvador
  8. Greece
  9. India
  10. Indonesia
  11. Italy
  12. Japan
  13. Kenya
  14. Mexico
  15. Netherlands
  16. Nicaragua
  17. Nigeria
  18. Panama
  19. Peru
  20. Philippines
  21. Serbia
  22. Spain
  23. Thailand
  24. Ukraine
  25. United Kingdom
  26. United States

We had 7 meetups or WordCamps in 5 countries run the workshop themselves for their communities between October 2019 and November 2020:

  1. Canada, Calgary
  2. India, Ahmedabad
  3. Japan, 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. Ogijima
  4. Netherlands, Leiden
  5. United States, Houston
  6. United States, Minneapolis
  7. United States, Oakland

Congratulations to the groups who did this during a difficult year for event organizers.

Did we miss any? We look through all of the meetups events that were run in this period to confirm the ones that are self-reported to us and to look for more, so it is quite possible that we are missing some!.

 We definitely want to count everybody, so tell us: Who did we miss? Please comment on this post to tell us!

Testimonials

“Before taking the workshops, I didn’t have the confidence for public speaking. Thanks to these sessions, I can relax, gather my thoughts, and proceed with my presentation. I would recommend this workshop to people of color in the WordPress ecosystem. You belong here; it’s a no-judgment zone where you can find your authentic voice.”
– TC, Learner Advocate, @codebrother1, USA

“LOVED the #WPDiversity Workshop! It really inspired me to bring this type of content to the WordPress Mexico community and bring more diverse groups into speaking at our Meetups and WordCamps. ¡Muchas gracias!”
– Maryl Gonzalez – Co-Founder / Lead UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it./UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. Designer | Scrum/Agile PM – The App Chefs

#wpdiversityannualreport

Question for the community: Diverse Speaker Training Group (#wpdiversity) 2019 Year-End Report

2019 was quite a year!

First, we had goals in 2019 that we came close to meeting but did not quite hit. As the goal is 25 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 run our workshop from May 1, 2019 – April 30, 2020, we are breaking that down to say 15 run it between June and November 2019.

We had 10 meetups run it in 7 countries. It should be noted that our number was quite close to Jan-Dec 2018, where we had 12 in 6 countries.

The places that ran it, as far as we know, are:

Canada
– Vancouver (ran it twice)

India
– Ahmedabad

Italy
– Torino
– Verona

Portugal
– Lisboa
– South Africa
– Cape Town (Ran workshop on diversity that was heavily inspired by ours)

Spain
– Sevilla

USA
– Houston
– Oakland
– Seattle

It is a challenge to know which places ran it. Most of these were self-reported to us and we followed up by confirming that they had 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. events. Some, however, were ones that we found ourselves by looking through all of the meetup events that were run in 2019.

It is quite possible that we are missing more. Particularly ones we may not have found who have events in other languages, so they would have been missed in our search through the meetup events.

We definitely want to count everybody. Who did we miss? Please comment on this post to tell us!

During this time, we accomplished more than our original goals.

There were other major items that went through months of thorough, detailed revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. from folks from different underrepresented groups:

  • Lead and created with a team a new, important workshop for the Community Team: Creating A Welcoming and Diverse Space (Created for WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event.)
  • Created 2 important handbook docs:
    1. Building a Diverse Speaker Roster
    2. Inclusive and Welcoming Events

We focused heavily on improving our processes that are necessary before doing the workshop on a larger scale and we achieved great results:

Improving the Attendance Rate of Our Train the Trainers Sessions:

  • 2018 – Very low attendance & didn’t let us know they weren’t attending
  • 2019 – A near-perfect attendance rate, telling us in advance if they were not attending!

Improving the rate of meetups/WordCamps who run the workshop after taking our training:

  • 2018: 28%
  • 2019: 83%!

Who did we miss? If you think other groups have run the Diverse Speaker Training workshop in 2019 that we missed, please comment on this post.

#wpdiversity, #wpdiversityannualreport