Marketing Team Notes — September 11th, 2019

Today’s Meeting

Meeting Attended By: @yvettesonneveld, @maedahbatool, @jenblogs4u, @markus burk, @Ryan Bickett, @Gtarafdar, @Daria Gogoleva, @siobhanseija, @Maziar, @miker, @abhanonstopnewsuk, @harryjackson1221, @marybaum

Notes Taken By: @Daria Gogoleva

Task Updates

  • @yvettesonneveld: I must admit that I haven’t had time to go through the survey input yet. I have blocked some time on Friday. I will create a card then, too, and get back to you all next week. We were involved in editing and publishing another HeroPress story on 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//news last Friday. Kudos to @jenblogs4u and @Ali-WPFiddlyBits.
  • @yvettesonneveld: https://trello.com/c/ZpY2v9Ew.
  • @Maziar: I’ll come back with the questions sheet and a survey about social media very soon Yvette. (Sorry but in the verge of releasing two products this month that’s why I’m delayed).
  • @abhanonstopnewsuk: I have updated various TrelloTrello Project 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. cards I am involved with. Thanks, everyone for doing the work on these.

New Business Discussion

  • @yvettesonneveld: I wanted to use this time to discuss the project @chanthaboune brought up: content to post on /news around Digital Citizenship.
  • @yvettesonneveld: https://trello.com/c/sq89mgQv
  • @yvettesonneveld: Well, one of the thoughts behind posting more human interest content on /news is to show the human side of the WordPress software. We have a huge variety of users, so not all posts will resonate with everyone. Which is why, in my opinion, we should determine what audience we’d write for each article.
  • @yvettesonneveld: So, one of the questions/requests I have: who of you has experience with writing article outlines way that it is a proposal that gives an idea of what we’d like to discuss and what sort of conclusion we’re thinking about? I think that would be really helpful for Josepha and would make sure we’re not running into a direction that doesn’t feel right for her. And also helps to make sure we’re not stepping onto any toes…
  • @Daria Gogoleva: Firstly, can you please give some examples of segments what WP have?
  • @yvettesonneveld: Good question, let me name a few:
    • hobby bloggers
    • solopreneurs who build and/or maintain their own websites
    • Solopreneurs who generate revenue by offering WordPress related services
    • Business owners of small, medium & large businesses whose business websites run on WordPress who are not directly involved in managing it but have their needs and concerns
    • Employees of these businesses who use WordPress to publish content
    • Employees of businesses offering WP related services, like agencies, hosting, pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party developers, etc.
  • @yvettesonneveld: I’d suggest deciding upon different TA for each of the articles. That way we have something interesting for a wider audience.
  • @yvettesonneveld: Another approach could be to speak to the mothers and fathers of the WordPress community. How can we all help raise a generation of confident, friendly, helpful, encouraging digital citizens?
  • @siobhanseija: Here’s some info about Digital Citizenship Week: Digital citizens think critically about what they see online and learn to make their own smart choices online and in life. That means understanding the benefits and risks of sharing information, knowing the difference between a credible news source and a sponsored ad, and balancing screen time with other activities. Cultivating these skills is essential for anyone to thrive in today’s increasingly tech-driven world. But digital citizens aren’t born — they’re taught by teachers like you (source: https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship-week).
  • @yvettesonneveld: Ideally, I’d like to share 2-3 outlines with Josepha early next week. And, once we agree on the direction we’re taking, we can start fleshing the articles out.
  • @Daria Gogoleva: maybe we should brainstorm ideas right now?
  • @yvettesonneveld: Once the copy is finished, we may want to involve the design team to get some illustrations that we can also use for content distribution.
  • @yvettesonneveld: I have found the document in the meanwhile. Please all head over here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TgBuCxzbPZ4d7pKO_D-wnLrmXi69Xdu2ITUYjHrgHiQ/edit.
  • @siobhanseija: @yvettesonneveld Do you have an idea of how many articles we’d need? And will we publish all of them in that week? Or are these things we can discuss and decide on together.
  • @yvettesonneveld: We’re looking for 5 articles. One for every day.
  • @siobhanseija: Josepha asked us, as a team, to think about blog posts WordPress could publish in relation to this week. Please check Yvette’s Trello card and thread above if that’s something you’d like to join in on!
  • @miker: Hello all, apologies for being late! I do have some updates on the upcoming 5.3 release.
  • @miker: So the big update is that the beta1 version of 5.3 will be released in 12 days.
  • @miker: This includes the new theme Twenty Twenty (spelled out). For more information, check out this blog post: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2019/09/06/introducing-twenty-twenty/.
  • @miker: For this betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. release, we (marketing) have an opportunity to help create the About page, which includes the copy. This includes specifically highlighting the new features for the editor (GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/). Once the beta1 is released, the other beta releases will be bug fixes (meaning the feature list will not change).
  • @miker: To align with our conversations from the past several weeks, I want us to approach the initial draft in a collaborative fashion.
  • @marybaum: Right. We have a nice opportunity to introduce some benefit-oriented language to the features descriptions since we’re Marketing!
  • @miker: First, I want to confirm the team contributing to the release. Currently, myself, @marybaum, @jenblogs4u, and @abhanonstopnewsuk have all volunteered for the release. Are there any others that would like to be included?
  • @markus burk: Would love to contribute to that
  • @miker: Well-timed @Marcus Burk!
  • @Daria Gogoleva: I could also participate but as I’m new, I need clear guidance.
  • @miker: So, right now, the features for 5.3 are almost finalized. I would like us to find time to collaborate on the content outline as a team. I think it is important we all align on the objectives for the release, and can then break the individual areas into sub-tasks.
  • @marybaum: Given that the overall focus is on polishing the 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., I’m thinking we might want to get up to speed on the tickets that are on the milestone, to see exactly what enhancements are making it into the beta.
  • @miker: With that being said, I wanted to raise the idea of doing a 5.3 release “office hours” on Friday during the same timeslot as this meeting. My objective is for us to complete the outline, and then who will be working on each piece. My goal is to have a draft we can discuss in the meeting next week. So first off, from the 5.3 release team, does this seem viable? I know we are all volunteers and I don’t want to be too aggressive with timelines.
  • @marybaum: Maybe we could make a list of the ones that excite us as users, and start our discussion from there?
  • @marybaum: Two days from today sounds good. 9 Central, or 16:00?
  • @miker: @marybaum 9 am CST
  • @jenblogs4u: Are we meeting here or?
  • @miker: Yep @jenblogs4u, here on this channel!
  • @yvettesonneveld: I’d suggest adding any meeting times to the card description so anyone could join?
  • @miker: So for Friday, I will create the doc we will use, and add it to Trello today. I’ll post the link here in the channel shortly.
  • @marybaum: Also, the tickets in the 5.3 milestones, labeled enhancements.
  • @marybaum: Okey dokey. Here’s that ticket list of enhancements milestoned for 5.3 with the keyword has-patch: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?keywords=~has-patch&type=enhancement&milestone=5.3&groupdesc=1&group=type&max=1000&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&order=priority
  • @yvettesonneveld: We’re past the top of the hour already. That went fast! Thanks, everyone for pitching in! Any questions, thoughts or concerns we can help out with? Anyone looking for (additional) ways to contribute?
  • @miker: One thing I wanted to share, looking at the tickets for 5.3 today, this one stood out: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/14459. This ticket was originally created NINE YEARS AGO and is finally making it into WP. There have been a number of people contributing to it over the years as well. To me, this is an inspiring example of what makes this community special. It takes a lot of dedication to keep on something for that long and keep pushing at it.