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Any reports people have on what they’ve been working on
Looking at the project management dashboard I’ve started up
Following up from the Zoom meeting
Open discussion to help people get started on their projects with feedback/discussion from the team
If time, discussing a question I have on slides
Reports
Does anyone have anything to report on what they’ve been working on, what’s going well, where they’re blocked, etc.?
@jillbinder I’m pleased to report that WC Torino (in Italy) is running the workshop this week. They may be the first ones to be running it this year! @francina who has been a wonderful supporter of our work all along is leading that.
@jillbinder Tonight! We’re looking forward to hearing how it went after, @francina. We even have a follow-up questionnaire.
@miriamgoldman
I’m getting ready to run a train the trainers session on Sunday. Gotta go into Helpscout and send out the info. Then will be writing my blog post and testimonial.
We had a really great video chat to kick off the year this last weekend.
We talked about where we’ve been, what items we want to maintain, where we want to improve, how we want to grow.
I’m hoping to get the recap for that up on the Community blog this week.
One of the items I talked about was how a classmate at my business school is helping me figure out project management. We decided to start with a Google spreadsheet, and then once our team has got a sense of what our needs are, we can pick a project management tool. Possibly with help from him, @jamieschmid who offered to help, and others. TrelloTrelloProject management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing. was mentioned a lot on the call, and we’ll see if it can fit.
As of last night, we now have the start of this dashboard up.
Downsides to current version: I don’t know if we can get it to send people emails (or if we even should?).
Upsides: We can move the workshop tracking sheet over to a tab of this document and have it automagically fill in our KPI (key performance indicator) results, like how many have contacted us, how many we’ve trained, how many have run it.
Everything is experiments. We don’t know what works until we try it….
(Though if someone sees something I’m going to try and knows it won’t work and has a better way, I am totally open to that.)
The dashboard is split into our subprojects / subteams. Each one has its own KPI.
Also, I combined the “Action sheet” that I talked about into this same doc so we won’t need to go back and forth.
Any initial thoughts or questions?
@jamieschmid I really like this idea for gauging our needs
@jillbinder Thanks, @jamieschmid! It would be great if we can keep our tasks streamlined down to what will actually forward our specific, measurable goals.
I also like the idea of everyone knowing what everyone else is working on, and having this structure to make sure everything is communicated well.
I forgot the big KPI for our team overall at the top. I will add that.
The big KPI is 100+ meetupsMeetupMeetup 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. are running our workshop by the end of 2020.
It would be worthwhile to create a smaller goal for 2019. Maybe… half that? 50? Thoughts?
@jillbinder
Or our goal could be something else, like getting ourselves ready to serve more.
If there were a specific, measurable way we could phrase that.
@jamieschmid
How about getting our feedback score up? We’re planning on updating a lot of the training materials right?
@jillbinder
Yes. We didn’t get many replies on the questionnaire — but we also need a better system for sending that out and reminding people to fill it out. So we don’t really have a feedback score to compare to.
A goal could be getting a high number of feedback questionnaires back…
So this is a doc I’d like people to be going in and adding their items, updating the items, clarifying bits, asking us questions when they don’t know, etc.
The “by when” (deadline) is one of the most important bits, as I’ve discovered that without a deadline, things don’t get done.
So can you go through and look at your items, ask us questions now, edit things that need editing, and fill in a “by when” you’ll be doing your task?
One of the things I may add is an easier way to see your own items. Like with a filterFilterFilters 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..
@jamieschmid
I’ll come back to this sheet after I take the training with Miriam 🙂 not sure yet how I’ll be contributing
Apart from messaging which Larry hasn’t gotten back to me yet on meeting
@jillbinder
Sure thing, @jamieschmid. Though I do believe you and Larry are starting with the words, and that’s something we’ll want started soon.
When I asked @laryswan about what he was picturing for the Promotions team that he suggested, he said:
“I think it would work best for me and Jamie to work up top-level messaging first and run it by team. With that in place, we can form marketing team and craft individual messages.
“As to who to lead it . . . I like the idea of involving the marketing team, but if someone already on our team wanted to lead, that could work, too.”
So if you’re game for Larry’s plan, you have a great role already!
@jillbinder
But/and yes to taking the training, as it’s easier to see the pieces when you understand our work better.
And the sooner you can run a workshop for one of the cities you’re planning, the easier it’ll be, too.
It would be great if folks on our team who are taking the training can fill out our form so they get into our Helpscout queue and then we can do our proper follow up processes and such. Particularly if they are going to be running it for their meetupMeetupMeetup 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., as well.
@jamieschmid if you haven’t already, can you fill out https://tiny.cc/wpwomenspeak ?
@miriamgoldman is writing up her journey and a testimonial
@jillbinder And also I have in mind 2 other items that aren’t in the doc yet:
Creating a follow-up email to go out to workshops who were trained that has all of the info in it that they need post-training. Including the questionnaire so that maybe some of them will think about it right away and remember it when they’ve run the workshop…
And a question I have about slides.
The first may be an item for our Train the Trainers zoom call, and the second we might be able to cover today… and/or also in that call.
@jillbinder
Also, any questions or concerns/blocks from anyone on their immediate actions?
@miriamgoldman
None here. Just that I’ll be doing a Doodle as well for the train the trainers onboarding. It’s likely not possible until late February due to my personal schedule.
And also does anyone see any actions missing from this list and/or the project management dashboard?
@cguntur @jillbinder how can I help? I wasn’t there for the zoom meeting. Not sure where and how I can help
@jillbinder
Thanks @cguntur! Can I send you the zoom call video recording so that you can watch that and then tell me what you’d like to do.
Anyone else on our team who missed the call and would like to see the video, please pingPingThe 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.” me and I’ll make sure you get that too.
My question on slides
Currently it’s in a “choose your own adventure” style where at the end of each lesson, there are links to the lessons they could do next. That way people can just pick and choose which lessons they are running in their own “playlist”. Like say, 1, 3, 5.
It made sense at the time, but I suddenly had the brainstorm idea:
Why not remove the links and just make the slides follow each other in sequence. If someone needs to flip through a lesson or two to get to the lesson that they want, it’s probably not a big deal……
I’m under the impression that the current format makes sense to some and is confusing to some. Though Trainers, you probably have a better handle on what people are currently thinking about it.
If we did change it, does it make the current recording confusing? Since part of the video we show them is about using the slides.
I welcome thoughts. Or I can bring it up in our “how to improve the training” Zoom call we’ll have and be able to have discussion on it.
Open time for questions / discussion / concerns / kudos about anything on our team, your upcoming things to do, etc.
@miriamgoldman
None here. Just gotta set aside the time to do the things I need to do.
@jamieschmid
It all looks good to me! Will follow up with Larry to set up a time to make the messaging plan
@jamieschmid Sounds good about following up with Larry. Thanks for doing that!
@jillbinder
My kudos is how excited I am for the new ideas and energy that everyone is bringing to the team, and looking forward to how we are going to shape up this year.
And that I’m already liking the dashboard. It was easy to go through just now to show here what people are doing next.
Some of that info was in my head, though. I knew which ones are next vs can wait a bit. We’ll need to find a way to show that. (Probably with the by when / deadlines.)
@miriamgoldman is writing up her journey and a testimonial
@jillbinder post recap of the weekend’s Kickoff Zoom call
@jillbinder adding a big KPI for our team overall at the top of the dashboard
All: Can you go through the dashboard and look at your items, ask us questions now, edit things that need editing, and fill in a “by when” you’ll be doing your task?
All: Anyone on our team who would like to see the video, please ping me for it.
Start talking about the new year goals a little bit – with more in depth discussions in the upcoming weekend Zoom call.
Cover some of the small details that are next for us to tackle
Talk about supporting you to run the diversity speakers workshop in your own city
New Members
I’m thrilled that with the new year, we have a number of folks joining or returning to the group. It’s a great way to start off the year. And with our new focuses for the year, it’s great to have more joining.
And we get that it’s volunteer. People come and go. Do what you need to do. We are glad for any help that we get, no matter how big or small.
To help you get oriented, we have a post explaining what we’ve done so far and where were at at the end of 2018:
In 2019 we have new goals, but this is still a great start, as the end goal in that doc is where I’d like you to start: considering running the workshop in your city. More in that in a bit.
Also! This is new: We have a new, quick questionnaire for new folks to fill out so I can get to know you and help me direct what you’re doing in the team so that it’s fulfilling for you. I’d also like to get all current members to fill it out too, please!
The first thing I would like all folks in the team to do, new and old, is to consider running our speaker training / diversity outreach workshop in your local city.
Before starting to ask people to do this last year, folks were feeling lost on what we are about. Doing the workshop helps you understand it intimately. After that, folks started being able to think through more, make decisions within the team, and jump in where needed.
And then some may be interested in going on to be Trainers in our team to help MeetupsMeetupMeetup 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. around the world run theirs.
Any obstacles you may encounter to running it will likely be things you’ll be helping Meetups overcome, so it’s a great practice and training ground.
You’re welcome to either just pick up the material and run it: http://diversespeakers.info
Or join one of our trainings. In fact, @angelasjin is running one tomorrow that you could attend. This is our sign up form to let us know you’d like to run a workshop with or without training, and also let us know if you would like training:
http://tiny.cc/wpwomenspeak
It’s just suggested. You can of course participate in our team without having run it. Only a few have run it so far. Though most have attended a training, and even just that in itself helped them understand more of what we’re doing and helped them be able to participate more.
angelasjin: I don’t have anyone signed up for the session tomorrow yet, so I’d love for you to join!
@jillbinder: They are currently 2 hours, though one of our goals for this year is to shorten them. It’s a 1h and 20m recording, and then time before to connect with the participants and set them up, and time afterwards to answer questions and help them get the resources they need.
If you don’t have all that time, I can also just give you the script that includes the recordings and what we say before and after. That is also something that we offer to participants if they don’t have the time as well. (Or can’t attend for any reason.)
@jamieschmid: So as a trainer, you play a recording during the meetupMeetupMeetup 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 in person interaction before and after?
@jillbinder: Yes! In person being on a webcam call, as we are training folks all over the world. We also prompt them to participate in the recording in the Zoom text chat window. As in the recording there are exercises that the recorded people are following, and we like the participants to be doing them as well.
@jamieschmid: That’s sort of confusing. Perhaps we can come up with a better name for the train-the-trainers people and sessions. Or vice versa.
@jillbinder: I would like that! There are a number of things I’d like us to look at renaming this year. I’ll mention them later in the meeting.
Reports (what people have been working on)
@miriamgoldman I have a training on the 27th if people can’t make @angelasjin tomorrow. Also trying to prod my team here in Ottawa to kick off WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. planning, so I can actually plan to run the workshop here! Oh yes, I applied to WCEUWCEUWordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event., WordCamp Calgary, and WC Nordic – and our team will be heavily mentioned if accepted.
@angelasjin This morning, I sent out a number of emails to see if anyone wants to join the training session tomorrow. I’ll keep an eye on the queue and will follow up if needed.
@cguntur Not much except keeping an eye on HelpScout.
@jillbinder: I applied to WCEU as well. It would be great if we both get in and talk about our work!
@newyorkerlaura: I also applied at EU, not on a diversity talk.
@newyorklaura: I don’t want to step on @simo70’s toes, but was wondering if there would be any need for practical help during the workshop whether is was handing things out or whatever.
@jamieschmid: I’m doing a WP101 at WCPhoenix and I’ll mention our work.
@jillbinder: Thanks, @jamieschmid! We have a link to share with folks to learn about our workshop and sign up for the training: https://tiny.cc/wpwomenspeak
This Coming Year
The most active team members and I met late last year to talk about how we did in 2018 and what we’d like to do in 2019.
I’d like to share with you in depth what we discussed on a web cam call so we can have more organic discussions about it. We are choosing a time for this official kick off meeting for a Zoom call in the next two weekends. Please choose as many times as you can most likely make it. Please fill it out by 11:59pm Pacific time this Thursday, January 10.
I’ll give a preview now, planting the seeds before our call.
Getting set up so that by the end of 2020, 100 meetups a year are running the workshop
Scaling up our promotions so that more meetups hear about us
Scaling up our ability to support and train so many
Improving the Train the Trainers recording (content and video quality!)
Helping meetups who have run the workshop before do it again. They may have new folks running it who didn’t do it last year, or are coasting off of the success of year 1 and thus are less successful in year 2.
Maintaining our current work
Incorporating previous feedback and collecting new feedback
Making our processes clear! Seems like right now I’m the most clear of anyone and I’d like everyone to know what is going on. smiles
Getting a project management system in place so we all know who is doing what
So year 1 was a lot of getting things started. I let go of perfect in order to get things done.
This year we know more of what we’re doing and so it’s time to start improving. This year I’d like to:
keep our great momentum going
improve that which is really important to improve
help even more meetups
A couple of the first things I’ll want us to be looking at soon:
New name for our group. The current name is long and hard to say, and it is becoming increasingly important as I seek funding for leading the team to have something short and clear.
New hashtag for the group. We started focusing on women. We quickly expanded to all diversity, and never did figure out how to reflect that. Our current hashtag is #wpwomenspeak
@cguntur: Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend a weekend meeting in Jan. But, I would still love to help. I might be able to help with getting a project management system in place.
@jillbinder: Ok, thanks @cguntur! We’ll do our best to write up a good recap. If people on the call are ok with it, I may also record it.
Of note: I am in a business school right now working on how to take this diversity work further and make a bigger impact — and one of my classmates specializes in project management. He’s started helping me think through the needs of the team.
One detail that was previously requested:
We have a Google folder now!
And inside that folder is a document with links to where everything lives, as not all are google docs.
@jamieschmid: Can we create a google doc for brainstorming names?
@jillbinder: That’s a great idea. Would you be willing to get that started, @jamieschmid? (I’m not quite clear what that would look like, and it sounds like you have a clear picture of it.)
@jamieschmid: Yes. I’ll be adding a brainstorm doc to the drive folder/doc list so we can decide on a hashtag for Diversity Outreach-related discussion!
Productivity Help
I don’t know about you, but I was finding I was getting overwhelmed easily doing work, life, and this kind of volunteer work.
(Ok, I do know that some volunteers sometimes took on too much as well.)
A few months ago I started a new, simpler productivity system. Those in the team might have noticed that I suddenly got on the ball again and got a lot more done.
I just started sharing it in a Facebook group yesterday, and I’d love to support this team in “doing more by doing less” as well… So that we all stay centered while still accomplishing what we want to do in all areas…. So if you’re on FB and are interested in what I’m calling the The Simplify Productivity 2019 challenge, it’s over here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thingdotdo
@jamieschmid: I LOVE the productivity idea! Joining.
Final Questions & Thoughts
@jamieschmid: Someone mentioned HelpScout. What is that and is it something we are using in this team?
@jillbinder: Good q, @jamieschmid! It’s the customer service emailing system that the Community Team (which we are a part of) uses. When meetups fill out the form on https://tiny.cc/wpwomenspeak they go into our Helpscout queue and we communicate with them there. One of the reasons for it is so that anyone on the team who has access can jump in and communicate with them. It also lets us keep track of who is Active, Closed, Dormant, waiting for training, been trained, etc. I request access from the Community Team for it on an as needed basis. So only a handful in our team are on it right now.
Don’t forget to fill out the doodle poll, all. Before the meeting today, this Saturday was winning for our Zoom call, and now the Saturday after is winning. There is still time to sway it.
Thanks everyone for being in the meeting today. Great energy. See you soon!
Next Actions
New members, read: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2018/05/16/diversity-speaker-outreach-training-group-on-boarding-summary/
All members and especially new members, fill out the Welcome Questionnaire: https://jill249.typeform.com/to/Ye0NIe
Fill out the doodle poll for deciding on the weekend’s meeting: https://doodle.com/poll/5a4fz6a5iebtcwuq
@jamieschmid starts up a google doc for brainstorming the name for the group, our new hashtag, and how we refer to the workshop and trainings.
What you are thinking of volunteering for in WordPress in the new year?
The Diversity Outreach Speaker Training group is done with the initial birth process. We are now well established. We have clear roles for people to be doing and we have had incredible success in 2018.
This coming year there will be roles for those who want to maintain our work, help us grow, and help our work be more sustainable so that it continues for years to come.
We also always welcome lurkers. Having people around in the meetings or in our chat group giving feedback once in a while is still helpful!
If you’d like to take part, please comment on this post with your WordPress SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. handle.
Meeting Time
Although our meetings are normally on Slack, we are scheduling a kick-off meeting to talk about all the new things we’re doing in 2019 on Zoom. We are having it on a weekend as too many team members are unable to do a web call at our usual weekday meeting time.
If you’re on the team or have let me know that you are joining, please choose as many times as you can most likely make it. Please fill it out by 11:59pm Pacific time this Thursday, January 10.
@jillbinder I have been working hard on looking back over 2018 and creating our big plans for 2019. 2019 will be a mix of continuing what we are currently doing and improving on it, so there will be something to do for all different kinds of group member participation styles.
Improving and growing. I’ll talk more about this in January, but we’d like to really scale up what we’re doing and reach many more meetupMeetupMeetup 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. chapters.
@miriamgoldman Been a quiet two weeks again, running a train the trainers this upcoming Sunday.
Christie Witt and I are actually planning to run the workshop in the new year in Ottawa, once we resume WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. planning.
@angelasjin Pretty quiet for me too, although I had a few conversations about this group at WCUSWCUSWordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event., all very positive.
I’m working on the next workshop in Seattle as well!
@jillbinder On that note, one of the things I’d like us to focus on in 2019 is supporting meetupsMeetupMeetup 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. to maintain running it. Seattle was a great example of doing it really well the first year and then with a change in speaker wranglers, some things got lost in translation the second year.
More on that in our January meeting.
@webrite I haven’t been to the Durham Region chapter in the last couple of months. My intention is to meet up in January if they have one. WordCamp Toronto was very successful. While I wasn’t able to attend, I did my best to help before hand.
Year Review
This year we have:
Gotten volunteers for this team
Created a coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. message that we can send out about our workshop and what our team offers
Created a form that interested Meetups can fill out
Started promoting our message and form (http://tiny.cc/wpwomenspeak)
Have been running regular 1-2 times a month training the Meetups who request it on how to run our workshops
Recorded a “train the trainers” video so that it is easy to keep running
Are working on making our training process smoother!
I’ve been encouraging folks in our team as a first step of participation to run the workshop for their local community, if they can.
In 2018, we ran 15 train-the-trainer trainings, gave advice and support to 55 meetup organizers in 26 countries (!!), and diversity outreach speaker workshops were run by 12 WordPress chapter meetups in 6 countries.
And not only chapter meetups ran it. Also companies that work in WordPress, affiliated WordPress organizations, and regions that don’t have meetups.
And the year isn’t over!
Acknowledgments Game
We have spent so much time this year doing. I would like to take a moment to reflect on our individual accomplishments. And you may even feel there is something you’ve done that wasn’t thanked, or you’d like to be thanked again.
The two questions I have for you are:
What would you like to acknowledge a team member(s) for?
What would you like to be acknowledged for?
We acknowledged each other for the next while. 🙂
Other Topics
@jillbinder I would like to start off the first meeting of 2019 as a webcam call (on Zoom).
We will be kicking off 2019 with an in-depth talk about what our big goals are for the year, what we’ve currently thought of to get there*, and get your thoughts on what else we can do and where your talents lie (or something you’d like to learn) to help. (Lurkers also welcome.)
* We meaning our Train The Trainers subgroup have created our goals and outline together recently.
I am wondering if it can be at this time in place of our SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. meeting, or if it really needs to be at another time when folks are not at their offices. (I know Miriam can’t make this time. Checking in with others.)
Please fill out the poll I sent you Monday. Thanks!
@jillbinder I feel like the train the trainers still have a few pieces we need to smooth out. I’m wondering what your thoughts are on the best way for us to go about doing that. That may be a question more specific for @angelasjin and @miriamgoldman who are here from that group today. Not the whole re-recording the training. That’s a big piece that will take a few months.
But I’m thinking of things like making sure folks know when trainings are, figuring out processes for our Dormants and for sending out our email questionnaires, etc.
@miriamgoldman I have a few ideas for dealing with Dormants, in terms of when we tag them, etc.
I wish there was more automation that we could employ once we finish a training…
@cguntur I can help with automation if you can guide me through it…
@jillbinder Wonderful! After we have figured out what and how we can automate, I’ll see if it makes sense to loopLoopThe Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. you in to put it in place.
@angelasjin I think that there is some more automation we can employ for sure, but I haven’t quite solidified what that looks like in my mind. I know @larryswanson and @jillbinder had some thoughts on tools.
@miriamgoldman I’m probably going to do some research in my downtime over the holidays. My office is shut between Christmas and New Year’s, so I’ll have some time!
@angelasjin I also think we should set up a shared Google folder, as there are lots of docs, and I have a hard time remembering what we have and where it is
@jillbinder To solve this, I have created a doc of docs. Let me know if that works or if we should still create a folder.
Thanks in advance for helping to think through our logistics. I can send you the list of what we are still thinking through.
Open Discussions
@bhargavmehta Wish to know more about Diversity Outreach program as it is something I have been following but not able to understand. A brief introduction of diversity outreach program, As I am one of the co-organisers I wish to know more about it. Can I also get trained or contribute?
Here is info about what we do:
https://make.wordpress.org/community/2017/11/13/call-for-volunteers-diversity-outreach-speaker-training/ (edited)
This is what we’ve done so far:
https://make.wordpress.org/community/2018/05/16/diversity-speaker-outreach-training-group-on-boarding-summary/
If you’d like to get involved, a great first step would be to take our training and then if you’d like to, run the workshop in your city.
It just so happens we have one last training of 2018 this coming Sunday.
As the second meeting of December will land during Christmas holidays (Dec 26th), the Wednesday this week (Dec 12) will be our last meeting of the year. ^_^
1. It will be a special one. Like a little holiday party. In addition to covering items for moving us forward, I am also going to ask you, from our team’s first year:
What would you like to acknowledge a team member(s) for?
What would you like to be acknowledged for?
If you can’t make it, please send me your answers in advance.
Participation is optional of course, but we’ve done so much this year and I would really like to commemorate our efforts, looking back over our great Phase 1 2018 work before we move into an exciting Phase 2 in 2019.
2. I would like to have a meeting in early January to kick off Phase 2 by webcam. We’ll talk about the new things we’re doing in the new year and see how people would like to help (big, small, or just lurking… all is welcome).
My question there is is it better for you to join a webcam call at our usual meeting time or on a weekend?
@miriamgoldman It’s been a quiet two weeks for me. Prepping to run the training on December 16th.
@angelasjin Also quiet here. Prepping for WCUSWCUSWordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event., and getting ready for our meeting on Phase 1 & Phase 2
@jillbinder I am mostly working on year-end items. Gathering stats for our year-end report, looking back at this year and forward to next year, and putting in a lot of work at school to do all the little steps before asking for funding for this project, and next week starting to ask for funding directly from sponsors at WCUS.
Other folks are working on things as well. I do feel that as we’re wrapping up Phase 1, we are mostly on maintenance mode rather than creating new things mode, although there are some things we are still cleaning up, like the little details that will make the Train the Trainers process before, after, and during trainings smoother.
And I hope to be working on new items in the new year to scale up our efforts. More of that in our weekend meeting.
@sheilagomes So, the good news: the brazilian community has been talking about diversity and just today we opened a new slackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel to share content and tips on how to get more women to participate in meetupsMeetupMeetup 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 other events.
I’m writing an article about it that will be shared in our blog, and I also told everyone we’re working on online training as well. People are excited about all this and I hope it helps bring more women and other minorities to our events
@jillbinder @sheilagomes I have a document to share with you that will be helpful. It’s almost ready to be published in the Community Handbook but there are a few details left for me to incorporate, and that got bumped to lower priority. But sometime in December. I can show you the draft in the meantime. It will help this new endeavour.
It’s on Buiding A Speaker Roster and it covers not only speakers but creating good environments for diverse folks in general at events as well.
I’m looking forward to hearing more about it from you. I expect there will be some help back and forth between our groups.
Next Training, Dec 16
The next Train the Trainers will be run by @miriamgoldman on Sunday, Dec. 16.
@sheilagomes will be attending as the first step of training to become one of our trainers. She has already run Lesson 1 many times, and it will be great to be exposed to the rest.
I would like to invite other members of our team to join as well. It is still a good first step in our team to run the training in your local community if you can, or online. You can do this without attending a training, but many find it does help.
The training will be primarily for meetups to learn, but anyone running WordPress events who might want to run it for their own group are welcome.
Email Questionnaires
@dianewallace is busy sending out our first email questionnaire follow-ups. This is something we will start doing regularly some time after people have taken the training, after we think they have run the training.
We have also been checking in why people may not have run trainings after being trained.
I hope to have results to report by our next meeting or two.
Who We’ve Talked To
Last time we started talking about which cities/regions we’ve been talking to about our work. They may or may not have gone and used our work, but we’ve discovered that just knowing about it sometimes is all it takes to start making a difference. We have some who went ahead and got speaker diversity without the training but because of the awareness that they got from us. And this is a stat we want to report on.
I added all the ones that you told me in the last meeting. Please go in and fill in the rest of the details.
And those who haven’t let me know, please fill those in as well.
The “has been trained or has run a training” column is important because it’s the “no”s that we are adding to our stat. We’ve already got the rest covered in our Workshop Tracker.
On that note, if you hear of someone who has run a workshop and didn’t let us know, please do add it to the workshop tracker.
If possible, it would be great to have that by Nov 30 so that we can add it to our stats for potential possible reporting at WCUS.
Meeting This Weekend
We decided that in order to have a proper discussion about Phase 1 vs Phase 2, it’ll be on Zoom and it’ll be this weekend so that those in offices can participate.
Sunday, December 2, 2018 at:
7:00 pm UTC
11:00 am (Vancouver/Seattle)
2:00 pm (Ottawa/Toronto
5:00 pm (Brazil)
on Zoom (webcam) https://zoom.us/j/9103925289
to talk about:
How did we do this year?
What could we have done better this year? Were there any barriers?
What could we accomplish next year?
What should we focus on in order to accomplish it?
To help me in planning us scaling up to make a bigger impact in 2019.
You are invited!
Please bring headphones and if you also have one, a microphone.
Doc of all docs / Where Everything Lives
Even with paring down our goals and to do list, our team still has a lot of moving pieces!
I finally collected them all into a document that links to them, as they live in different places and different people’s google drives:
Please take a look and let me know if there is anything to add.
And if you recommend any different kind of formatting. I’m playing with formatting to make it less unwieldy, such as I made the titles into the links so that cleaned up all the long links that were making it hard to skim.
As always, you can reply to items here, on the Recap I will post, or to me or our group on Slack.
Thanks all! Talk to you the second week of December, and see some of you in our webcam meeting this Sunday.
Any of us who haven’t taken a training yet are invited to join our Training on Sunday, Dec 16th
@dianewallace is sending out email followup questionnaires to folks who have run our workshop
@jillbinder report on findings from that and from asking folks why they may not have run trainings after being trained, in one of the December meetings
Celebrating Milan’s results! (featuring on next MeetupsMeetupMeetup 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. newsletter)
Reports
What MeetupMeetupMeetup 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. cities/regions have you talked to about our project?
Discussion: Who is going to WCUSWCUSWordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event.? Meeting up and goals
Discussion: Phase 1 and Phase 2
Train the trainers ironing out details continuation
Happy 1 year anniversary!
A year ago yesterday I hit publish on the announcement of this group and call-out for volunteers:
Thanks to our group, our workshop has been run in 17 cities so far this year, 36 have been trained to run it, and 53 have expressed interest in 24 countries. And the year isn’t even over yet!
I’m really proud of us. Just last week I wrote up an article on HeroPress about how this group came to be, our celebrating 1 year, and what we’ve accomplished!
Celebrating Milan’s results! (featuring on next Meetups newsletter)
To explain what they’ve done, I’m going to show the feature I am thinking of sending to this month’s Meetups newsletter. In addition to celebrating, I’d love any feedback by the next couple of hours after our meeting.
As a note, so far the Meetups newsletters have been our best promotions. We typically get a few more signups after each one goes out.
WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. Milan, Italy
We have had great success stories from folks who have taken our training and run our workshop. For our first region feature, we are highlighting WordCamp Milan!
Last year, they had 4 women speakers out of 19 (21%). They wanted to make a change this year. Simona Simionato took our training and started running our workshop live as well as online for those who couldn’t attend otherwise. She also posted on some digital female groups and personally contacted women in the community who potentially had interesting experiences to share and invited them to apply.
The results: They increased their speaker diversity at Meetups, which is important to build the roster of speakers for WordCamps. And for their WordCamp this year? There will be 11 women out of 21 speakers (52%!). One of them is also an LGBT community member. Nine of these speakers (of both genders) will be first-time speakers! Not only that….. but they had 45% speaker applications from women! Incredible!
“The workshop was useful in two ways: some people found the strength needed to overcome the fear of speaking in public, others simply a way to find topics (solving the ’I do not know what to say. issue)”
Would you like to know more and are you thinking about running the workshop? We’d like to hear from you! https://tiny.cc/wpwomenspeak
(I also have a note before that about this group and a link to our workshop material.)
I ran a “train-the trainers” session on Saturday, and had five attendees – all very active in the chat room! No major new questions, but lots of commentary as we watched the video. Two of them joined the SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. group and have been added to the proper channel.
I’m also helping out with small tasks here and there, as my workload has permitted it.
It has been pretty low key on my end, just a little HS triage every now and then.
@jillbinder Angela, you were very involved in October so pacing seems like a good idea before your next batch of big involvement.
What Meetup cities/regions have you talked to about our project?
We realized while looking through the spreadsheet of Meetups trying to find places who have run our workshop without our knowing, that there are a number who have gone ahead and done the work in other ways because they have heard of the work we’re doing and were inspired.
So we want to include in our year-end report how many cities/regions we’ve talked to.
Right now I have the number who have contacted us in total: 53!
I know that we’ve been talking to folks privately and at WordCamps, so it would be great to add those to our list.
Could you please send me as many cities as you can think of who you’ve talked to about our work?
Either check with our spreadsheet, or just send the list and we’ll cross-reference.
@miriamgoldman This year I’ve talked at Miami, Montreal, and Los Angeles about the project…and Ottawa is a given because well, I live here. I think last year I mentioned us to Rochester?
@simo70 I’ve talked of the project during my speech at WordCamp Verona
@angelasjin I’ve talked about it with folks in NYC, Seattle, Vancouver, Portland. I’ve mentioned the training to folks from Phoenix, Austin, Montreal, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Santa Clarita.
I’d love to organize a meetup for our group for anyone who will be there so we can meet.
And also I’d like to chat about our WCUS goals.
For those of us who are there, if you have the time, these are the goals I am thinking of:
Talk to as many folks at Community Bazaar as we can. Meetups are represented there, and I got quite a few of them interested in our work at the Bazaar last year
Talk about our project when you’re networking and in the sessions where it’s related. It’s a great place to get more interest in what we’re doing!
Last year I held the first Train the Trainers on Contrib Day. This year I won’t be able to attend Contrib Day. I also don’t think it’s as vital as now we are running it regularly as the group online. That doubled as a kick-off to get more volunteers in the group as well.
For those who are there on Contrib Day, though, I have ideas for a couple of projects we can add to Community team.
I want to be mindful that we’re sticking to Phase 1 items (more on that later) so that we’re not adding too much to our plates before it is time.
I learned from WCEUWCEUWordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. that the more we add on that day, the more follow-up work there is. And until I get sponsorships to do this work, my bandwidth is limited.
So my ideas are: – Editing our training video. (I have the notes and times already done.) (Possibly getting someone on the WordPress.tv team involved.) – Make our workflow diagram look nicer (and still be editable)
Although right now @miriamgoldman and I are doing up a new version of that workflow diagram, so that may not be needed. We’ll see.
I’m also open to other ideas of what we could have Community Team working on with/for us. Easy tasks that new folk could work on are best for Contrib Day. Although we could also take advantage of the team’s wealth of knowledge.
@angelasjin I’m going to be volunteering at WCUS, so my time is going to be limited, but I definitely plan on talking to folks about this working group and the training at the very least!
Phase 1 and Phase 2
As I mentioned last time, it’s important for us to get a clear sense of when we can call Phase 1 of our project done. Then for Phase 2 either I’ll get funding to be able to keep leading or co-leading, or we’ll be recruiting a new leader.
I think we are very close to being able to call Phase 1 done. My current goal in my head is wrapping it by Dec 31, 2018.
Phase 1
I think we need to:
Iron out the basic, essential details for our Train the Trainers sessions.
Things we are looking at:
Sending out a follow-up email questionnaire (which is finally composed and @dianewallace has started sending out last week!)
Keeping our scheduled trainings doc up to date: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v0EsrRLXTXr579kDjFE2DmeEeFKpsCxMYyqkUQaC5wg/edit?usp=sharing
Creating a good Helpscout workflow, including our system for Dormant emails
Having a solid pre- and post-train the trainers checklist
Some items that we are working on now but aren’t essential for Phase 1:
Event signups and reminders
A system for those who don’t have their own Zoom accounts
A place to keep all our docs
Also, not related to Train the Trainers but rather related to our main workshop:
Posting our “How to run 5 lessons in 4 hours” document somewhere
Those are my thoughts right now. We’re quite close!
@sheilagomes Sorry, it’s been a long time I was here last, but where’s this “How to run 5 lessons in 4 hours” doc?
@jillbinder Right now it’s in a private Google document. It’s for those who want to run all 5 modules in an afternoon, we have a suggested timeline written out.
For Phase 2, I have written down a wish list of everything I could think of. I’m sure it won’t be all these things. Those leading Phase 2 can decide what is really important.
Phase 2
Would love to hear your thoughts on this Wish List
Main Workshop:
Implement and test improvements suggested in the follow-up email questionnaire we’re sending out
Implement and test improvements to the main workshop material that are in my brain (bios, outlines, “uh”, some instructions needed, a repeating section)
Work with Training team to fix the little logistical details
Test current slides
Slide deck playlists? Do we need?
Adding to the speaker lessons: How to use, how to create lessons playlist
Little logistical details of the speaker series lessons
Translations
Coordinating with Training team how the translations happen
Figure out our system to have designated gatekeepers approve or deny changes to the workshop material.
Train the Trainers workshop:
Work with the WordPress Training team to design and test a better, sustainable, scaleable, easier to understand “train the trainer” curriculum for training the Meetups to do our workshop
Creating a Q&A system that is more robust and searchable
Figure out our system to have designated gatekeepers approve or deny changes to the workshop material.
Our team:
More folks running Meetings, doing Meeting recapsCo-leaders (maybe also new leader… still determining my plans for next year)
Promotions:
More promotions: articles, blogs, videos, etc. and keeping better track of what has been done
Promote my Seattle 2017 WordCamp talk
Important Other:
Get sponsor(s) for Meetups’ venue and other costs who are running our workshop
Article on how to get more diverse folks to come out to meetups
Connecting with related groups to see how we can help each other
This is my “ideal” list. I think it’ll be more like a starting point of ideas for Phase 2.
Idea I just thought of right now:
Phase 1 was simplified when I cut out anything that didn’t support our main goal. Maybe what’s most useful is creating a new main goal for Phase 2. And then the leadership can choose to do only what supports that.
I’ll toss out a couple of ideas for all to mull over and we can continue this next time….
Right now our goal was 27 meetups have run it this year. (Even though it’s unlikely we’ll meet that, we’ve had 17 so far and we will certainly have more by the end of the year, so I’m still calling it a success…)
I think for next year we should pick how many we want to train, how many we want to have run it, and then create the systems that support sustaining and growth.
@sheilagomes So, I have this article I wrote in Portuguese that I can translate to English, talking about the workshop done in the last WordCamp São Paulo. It kind of breaks the workshop down for people to know what it’s about and what is typically done, incuding the motivations and expectations we have with the workshop. I’ll translate it by the end of this week and send it to you, then you let me know what you think. It’ll need to be proofread anyway.
Train the trainers ironing out details continuation
These are the things we are working on currently, as far as I know.
Q&A doc
Event signups and reminders
Pre and post checklist
Email questionnaire
Keep our doc up to date: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v0EsrRLXTXr579kDjFE2DmeEeFKpsCxMYyqkUQaC5wg/edit?usp=sharing
I share my zoom account
Dormants
Any quick thoughts since our last meeting about any of these that we could do now?
Ok we can chat between meetings or in our next meeting.
@sheilagomes I’m a bit lost right now, not having participated in the last months’ meetings.
@jillbinder You rejoined in a meeting where I’m throwing in everything! Here is a P2P2P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. post to help people catch up to where we are quickly. We are still where this doc says we are, we are just in some of the details of it now.
@jillbinder We have a full meeting today. We have so much high impact activities going on in our team right now!
Agenda:
Reports and updates on things you all and I are working on
Report on our speaker roster essay
Upcoming trainings statuses
How we should manage the Helpscout queue when there are trainings lined up
Get your feedback on the “a meetupMeetupMeetup 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. has run a workshop” followup questionnaire
If time: Start talking about how Phase 1 is going, when we consider it to be complete, and what should be saved for Phase 2
Open floor for questions, comments, concerns, etc.
Reports
@jillbinder So first, how is it going? What things have you been working on and how are they going?
@miriamgoldman I just got back from WCLAX where I spoke about our group in various conversations. I’m preparing to lead my first training this weekend, and then I’m going to get up to speed on Helpscout.
@jillbinder Great work, @miriamgoldman! How were the conversations about our group at WCLAX received?
@miriamgoldman Very well! WCLAX seems to have one of the more receptive and open crowds at camps I’ve been to
@jillbinder Lovely! I know they have done a lot of work around Women in WordPress already. They founded the group of that name and are pioneers in this area for WordPress. Did you moderate a Women in WordPress panel at this one?
@miriamgoldman Yep. Forgot to mention our group during the panel though. Had a bit of anxiety right before due to the previous speaker cutting it way too close with timing
@jillbinder Oof, sorry to hear that happened! And glad you were still able to talk about it in other places.
@cguntur and @angelasjin We are working on the Meetup titles spreadsheet to find any workshops that have been run that our team doesn’t already know about.
@angelasjin I’m communicating and scheduling the trainings in Helpscout for the MeetupsMeetupMeetup 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. who would like the trainings coming up, and sending out confirmations and logistics. I’ve scheduled a training for October 17th. I’m also working on creating some documentation for using predefs in HelpScout.
@laryswan Had a couple of conversations at WC NYC about our work and pitched us in my session (thanks for attending, @angelasjin).
@laryswan I get the sense that NYC is ahead of the curve on diversity and inclusion, so sort of gratifying to see it not be something novel
Our speaker roster essay
@jillbinder After our team gave feedback that I incorporated, we sent out the essay to the WordPress community to look over for two weeks.
We had one person reply. It was @mrwweb from Seattle. They did a lot of great work in Seattle last year in particular where with their huge focus on getting more women speakers at their WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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., they broke the record with 60%.
I need to look over and incorporate his feedback.
This week my focus is on the follow up email questionnaire, so it won’t be this week. Likely in the next week or two, and then we can publish it and promote it.
So if anyone else has feedback, you still have time!
@jillbinder We have three trainings scheduled coming up!
Saturday, September 29th at 16:00-18:00 UTC @laryswan and @miriamgoldman are running this one. I believe we have 2 confirmed. There may be some more after Angela wrote to more folks about it.
October 17, 2018 at 18:00-20:00 UTC @angelasjin is running this one. I think we have a few signed up for it.
Saturday, October 27, 2018 at 16:00-18:00 UTC @laryswan is running this one. It was by special request. We have that Meetup confirmed for it. There may be more from Angela’s new Helpscout replies.
It looks like we have more confirmations this time, so I’m expecting (hoping) for a higher likelihood of folks who said they’d be there show up. ;D And on that note…
How we should manage the Helpscout queue when there are trainings lined up
@jillbinder So far when people write in, @cguntur lets them know that we’ve received their response and that we’ll get back to them with training dates.
What I’d like to see happen now that we are planning trainings out a month or more in advance, we start replying with the upcoming dates.
@angelasjin created a “predef” (aka template) in Helpscout that is accessible via one of the icons in the Helpscout toolbar.
The predefs are available from here:
@angelasjin Yep! I made two predefs: one for sharing dates and times for upcoming trainings, and the second for confirming that folks are signed up for trainings. I’ll put together some instructions on how to use them
@jillbinder Yes! Following on what Angela said, the other thing I’d like to see is timely follow ups when people say yes to a training, giving them the info with their confirmation, the webinar link (or as in Angela’s case, letting them know that she sent them a google hangout invite), and that they should wear headphones if they can. She’s written this up in the other predef.
@cguntur I can do that as I am the one replying to people when we get the initial emails
@jillbinder That would be excellent, @cguntur. So when you’re doing your daily checking for the new, initial emails, you could use the predef letting them know about upcoming workshops to reply to them in place of the current message you’ve been using.
I believe there’s a spot to change the dates of the upcoming workshops. So we need to make sure that you know all of the dates.
@cguntur Maybe we can have a shared Google doc where everybody can post the upcoming training sessions? I can check that doc and update the predefs as required?
@angelasjin The info should also be in the shared calendar
@jillbinder Ok! How about: We keep the list in the shared calendar, and we also pingPingThe 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.” you any time we schedule a new one? That way you’ll know when there’s been a change.
@jillbinder
I’m thinking that for the scheduled trainings, the person(s) who is running the training should send the confirmation.
Would that work?
And do folks think that just looking through the messages themselves is enough, or should we create a system to keep track of who we said yes somewhere? (Which still means going in and reading the messages anyway!)
For writing new trainings to people already in the queue, and for following up with folks who say yes,
each trainer should also know which trainings are available so that they can include all the dates in their messages.
Well, also we’ll have the predef. @angelasjin, does the predef save the dates or do they need to be written in each time?
@angelasjin
They’ll need to be written in each time
@jillbinder
Ok. I’m wondering now if there’s a way to save them so that each time one is created, it can be added. And then the person sending it out would just need to remove any that have passed.
What do you think?
And maybe remove any that the individual they are writing to has already indicated wouldn’t work for them.
@laryswan
Thinking out loud and haven’t thought this all the way through, but . . . Maybe use Meetup to let folks RSVP for classes. Or Eventbrite. Or set up a site and use a class-registration pluginPluginA 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.
@jillbinder Yeah. Instead of sending the dates in the email, we could send a link to something where they choose which one they would like to attend. And then bonus, we have an easy list created for the trainer. The trainer still needs to follow up with the details, if the tool we choose doesn’t include that. Who can look for something simple for us to use? Until we have that sorted, let’s continue with our email system that we’re creating. Easiest way to keep going, for now.
“A meetup has run a workshop” Followup Questionnaire
@jillbinder Next agenda item is exciting to meee. It’s been something I’ve been working on here and there for months, and now we have a deadline of end of this month so I’ve put more focus on it.
@miriamgoldman and @dianewallace said yes to writing this and sending it out back in the summer, and there have been delays. I’m happy we’ll be able to start doing this soon.
So the quick background is:
Several of us were thinking that we support Meetups up until the workshop, and then they don’t hear from us anymore.
It would be great if they could have a way to tell us how it went, tell us about any suggested changes, etc.
And then I learned that it would be even better if we can collect data for reporting to the bigger WordPress community at the end of the year some important stats about what we’re doing.
And that delayed me. Heh.
It’s a much bigger thing to think through the strategy of combining both of these needs.
And so finally I thought through the strategy on this and then @andreamiddleton and I fleshed out how to get these questions answers both quantifiably for our global report as well as get the qualitative info that our team wants.
I’d like us to take a few minutes now to look over what we’ve done up, please!
After we have created the Google Form, it would be great if one of the people on our team who has run the workshop in their city could fill it out and then tell us how long it took, so that I can include the time in the message. Hopefully people knowing how long it will take will encourage a higher response rate.
I will want everyone on our team who has run it to fill it out anyhow so we can capture your info too.
@angelasjin Can you remind me when we send this out? Is it immediately after a group runs the training?
Plus the ones who have already run it in the past so that we don’t lose them.
@angelasjin It would be tricky for folks to answer questions 10 and 11, but it is also important to capture that info
@jillbinder Good point! @andreamiddleton and I were thinking we could flag those ones in Helpscout and then write to them again after they’ve done their WordCamps. eta 3-6 months later.
@jillbinder The other thing to mention is why there is a timeline now:
On the small chance that our findings might be reported at WordCamp US, that is two months from now. We want to give folks time to get their responses in to us. So two months is a good amount of time to give them and consolidate the info.
I’d like to get more feedback from our team before we create it and start using it. I think maybe a week from now? Is that enough time?
@jillbinder
I am officially bringing the meeting to a close. We can always chat about any of the items after the meeting, as always.
I’m really proud of how much our team is doing. Lots of folks working on what I call “high impact” activities right now! All for forwarding our singular goal of getting 27 Meetups to run the workshop this year, and the important support items around that.
Hello! The Diversity Outreach Speaker Training group is creating a document for WordPress MeetupsMeetupMeetup 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 entitled: “Building A Diverse Speaker Roster.”
Before we post it in the handbook, we would like to get your feedback on it, please.
Deadline: 11:59pm Pacific time Sunday, Sept 23 (6:59am UTC Monday, Sept 24)
I am posting the content below. You can make suggestions by commenting on this post or by doing it directly in the Google doc: https://t.co/I9kqujqHpq
Document: “Building A Diverse Speaker Roster”
Lack of Diversity
Have you noticed that there is mainly one kind of speaker at your WordPress events?
It is a common phenomenon in technology for those who belong to the major population of an area to become the ones to do most of the public speaking. Those who do not fit into that group have many reasons not to step up to speak, – for example, they may not view themselves as belonging to that group, or they may not believe they have anything of value to contribute. As a result, the kinds of speakers at tech events – in our case WordPress events – can frequently become homogeneous.
In North America, for example, many speakers at WordPress events are young, white, cisgender, straight men. There are so many other voices that aren’t being heard as much: women, non-binary and trans folk, genderqueer folk, LGBTQ+, people of colour, people of various physical abilities, people with varying mental health, folks who are older, etc.
Why?
Why does it matter who is at the front of the room speaking?
The audience is not represented by the speakers
Many WordPress events are successfully expanding the kinds of folks who are in the audience. For example, there have been more women-identifying WordPress event attendees in Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal, Canada. That doesn’t mean that everyone in the audience is reflected in the speaker roster – a different group may feel like they don’t belong there. But there are many folks with a wide range of knowledge to share and everyone can feel included.
Users are not represented by the speakers
WordPress is amazing in that it is open sourceOpen SourceOpen 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 so all sorts of people use it. We want a more fair representation of our users among the people who are speaking.
Our speakers help shape our technology
One of the ways in which WordPress is being shaped is by the people who speak about it publicly. Many diverse folks, by nature of having had different life experiences, would approach problems differently. Just as how a developer’s point of view is different from a user’s point of view, so are our viewpoints vs the standard speaker. Many people have experiences that aren’t necessarily being shared right now.
Diverse technology needs
If only one kind of person is speaking about the technology, they may be missing key issues that don’t affect them but would prevent other kinds of folks from having the same, positive experiences and success. Size of text and color contrast are two simple, but significant examples. There is much more that can be considered if folks who are affected have the opportunity to speak up.
Unique perspectives benefit everyone
Different kinds of people bring in different kinds of ideas that benefit everyone. A famous example in the physical world is the curb cuts that were first installed to help disabled veterans in the 1940s. They turned out to benefit many more people than the group for which they were originally intended.
By bringing in more diverse people, there’s also an increased chance of bringing in folks who straddle several roles, thus creating unique things with unique perspectives. Power users who use technology in interesting ways, front-end developers, business people who use plugins to make specific kinds of sites, typographers who use WordPress to do cool things with typography… People to talk about running a business in WordPress, how developers can communicate with designers, different things you can do with WordPress… etc.
Now that you know why it is a great idea to build up a diverse speaker roster, let’s look at some challenges in doing so and some potential solutions.
None In My Community
There are no diverse folks in my community
There are no diverse people coming out to your events, and you don’t know any personally who do WordPress.
Solutions:
Ask your network for folks they know of those groups who do WordPress that they could introduce you to.
Find those communities in your area – online and in person. Try to form genuine, friendly relationships with members so that they can then help you reach the WordPress enthusiasts in their communities.
None applied to speak
No diverse people have applied to speak for my event
There are diverse folks who do WordPress in your community, yet they are not applying to be speakers.
Solution: Ask them directly. They may tell you their reasons they wish not to and if they do, listen. The following replies can help. See the next few points.
Nothing to talk about
I ask them directly and they say no because they think they have nothing to talk about
Typically, when member of the dominant group of a region knows a little bit about a topic, they feel like they know enough to give a talk about it. Conversely, frequently when someone from an underrepresented group knows a little bit about a topic, they don’t feel they know enough to talk about it.
Thus, when we ask diverse people: “Would you like to apply to speak at our WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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 often get these two answers:
“What would I talk about?”
“I don’t know enough to give a talk,” or “I’m not an expert in anything”
Solutions:
MentorEvent SupporterEvent 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. them on the spot. Suggest things you know they could talk about. Explain that you don’t need how-tos but rather stories. Stories are more engaging for audiences. Everyone’s an expert in their own story. Ask if they have a good story about something that they’ve learned or mistakes they’ve made. If they feel they haven’t learned anything yet, one idea is to suggest that they take notes as they start to learn so that they can tell their story about it.
Run our Speaker Training [& Diversity Outreach] workshop that will help them see they have many things they could talk about, and also helps them through many other obstacles they may have currently to public speaking:
http://diversespeakers.info/
(Please tell us you’re running it so we can track how many trainings happen in a given year and/or request help with it here:
I ask and they say no because they don’t feel comfortable public speaking yet
They have no experience with public speaking or have had bad experiences with it and are not feeling comfortable doing it (but they do want to).
Solutions:
Small steps to build confidence are valuable. Suggest that they speak first to:
the mirror
a video camera
pets
friends and family
smaller Meetups
your local WordPress MeetupMeetupMeetup 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. (before speaking at a WordCamp)
etc.
Suggest they be the moderator of a panel of a topic that they are interested in.
Suggest they give a lightning talk. Ten minutes is a great way to start.
Suggest they give a duo talk with someone who is a confident speaker.
Remind them that just about every public speaker is nervous, even if they don’t look like it!
Q&A
I ask and they say no because of the Q&A section
Handling the Q&A section is preventing them from being willing to speak
Solution:
Read through our info about that in our workshop material. We have solutions for:
How can we write our Call for Speakers in a way that encourages a diverse range of applicants?
You don’t know how to write up the speaker call-out on your WordCamp website to encourage more diverse applicants
Solutions:
Let them know they don’t need to be experts. You’re interested in all range of experiences. Everyone’s voice is valuable and interesting.
Encourage stories.
Encourage them to talk about anything in WordPress that they are passionate about. Remind them that non-technical talks are also welcome, such as users, community, design, marketing, and others.
Folks with impostor syndrome – which is more common amongst people of diversity – will self-select themselves out when they see words like these:
Rock star
Superhero
Ninja
Jedi
Guru
Genius
Use a tool like https://textio.com/ to make your writing more inviting for more people.
Be mindful of using photos throughout the site for your event that show different types of people so that it is clear that diverse people are welcomed at the event. Be sure to include them on the call for speakers page.
Accessible Events
What invisible things are preventing a more diverse group of people from attending and speaking at our events?
We don’t know what invisible things are preventing more kinds of people from attending and speaking at our events
Solutions:
Don’t use gendered words like:
Guys
Girls
Women
Men
Ladies
Gentlemen
Etc.
Instead opt for words such as:
Folks
People
Friends
Assembled guests
Colleagues
Esteemed colleagues
Y’all
Guests
Esteemed Guests
Collaborators
My companions
Partners
All assembled
etc.
Offer childcare.
Have the event at different times that work for people with families. Don’t hold them all at 9pm at night. Weekend afternoons may work. Ask those with children what works for them.
Elevators and ramps rather than stairs.
Washrooms:
Have washrooms that are trans friendly
Have single stall toilets available for trans women who may prefer it and for non-binary folk.
Washrooms that are power wheelchair accessible
Request no one wear scents for the folk who are allergic.
Live captioning.
Sign language interpreters.
Pronouns on your name badges so that people who don’t use the binary pronouns feel welcome. One suggestion is to make this optional so that folks who don’t feel comfortable outing their pronouns in public yet won’t feel obliged, and those who don’t feel comfortable without proper pronouns will feel included with the majority of folks sharing theirs.
Not everyone may want their photos online. It could be for personal reasons or even in some cases, safety reasons. Allow a way for people to opt out of being photographed, such as having a different color lanyard.
Anything else you can think of that expands the kind of person who can speak at and come to your event.
Following these suggestions will help in the road to including more people; that kind of radical inclusion creates an amazing space of respect and innovation for everyone.
