Mid-project Update and Request for Feedback

The Media Corps experimental project already reached its halfway point, so I thought I’d share a mid-project update and start an open discussion to share learnings and feedback.

Goal & current status

As a quick refresher, the Media Corps experimental project aims to enable independent WordPress marketers and media members to produce excellent quality content with less time and effort.

We are currently in Phase 2 (Implementation) and Phase 3 (Monitoring & Measurement) of the roadmap. Since the project began, it has made substantial progress:

Media Corps blog and 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: Created in May for a collaborative space.
Self-assessment process: Shifted from an initial vetting process to a more open model where folks can self-certify their eligibility before participating.
Briefings and support resources: Three briefings have been hosted so far. Based on feedback from the first session, we have also introduced regular updates on Slack and helped provide shareable assets for WordPress 6.6, Learn WordPress, and State of the Word 2024.

Participation

Here are some stats from the Media Corps’ efforts so far:

Media partner interest: The self-assessment form has received 19 responses showing interest in participating in the project and briefings.
Briefing attendance and views:
- WordPress 6.6 briefing: 14 participants attended live, and the recording has received 1,150 views to date.
- Multi-topic and Learn WordPress briefing: 11 live participants and 350 recording views.
- Mid-term goals for WordPress briefing: 7 live participants and 294 recording views so far.

Observations and challenges

Engagement: Around 60% of the media folks who expressed interest in the self-assessment form have shown active participation through briefings, feedback forms, Slack interactions, etc.
“WP media” label: While the team has not been classifying self-assessment responses/outlets, I’ve heard concerns that tagging or grouping all folks as media partners or “WP media” can feel unfair, unbalanced, and not entirely accurate for different reasons, including 1) the different levels of engagement, 2) their different focuses and content interests, and 3) the difference in resources (e.g., some corporate outlets may have more resources/funds that other indie outlets don’t).
Briefings: As an observation, attendance has declined throughout briefings. Beyond time zone and language challenges, and considering the diverse media folks’ needs and focuses, the overall impact that these sessions are having on supporting their content efforts is still a bit unclear.

Request for feedback

To better understand whether the experimental project is delivering value as is or might need future iterations or changes, here are a few questions I’d love to hear your thoughts on:

How helpful have the briefing sessions been in supporting your news or content production efforts so far?
Have you found other support resources, such as Slack updates or interactions, shareable assets, or briefing recaps, useful for your work?
Has the Media Corps helped improve your ability to stay informed and report news or produce content? If so, how?
What do you believe is the most significant impact the Media Corps has had on your work (if any)?
What improvements or changes would you suggest for the Media Corps to support or engage the different types of outlets?

Please share your feedback in the comments below by October 5, 2024. Thanks!

Lawrence 1:07 pm on September 20, 2024

Hi,

Here’s my feedback, bearing in mind that I write about growth topics and not product / dev ones.

How helpful have the briefing sessions been in supporting your news or content production efforts so far?

I don’t really report on product news, so the briefings weren’t so useful to me. It would be great if they could cover more of the business side of things too.

That said, if a new feature or initiative has a business angle to it too, then its useful for me. But this is something I would ‘extract’ from a briefing item, I suspect.

Have you found other support resources, such as 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/. updates or interactions, shareable assets, or briefing recaps, useful for your work?

Not really, for the same reasons I mentioned above.

Has the Media Corps helped improve your ability to stay informed and report news or produce content? If so, how?

It hasn’t, as I mentioned. But, as explained, my focus is not the product.

What do you believe is the most significant impact the Media Corps has had on your work (if any)?

Same answers as above.

That said, if I can ask any question and get some answer, that’s definitely useful.

What improvements or changes would you suggest for the Media Corps to support or engage the different types of outlets?

For what I do, there’s little value in what Media Corps provide. I would suggest extending scope beyond product-related news, but until there is a Marketing function in place that’s not possible.

Also, I think it only really makes sense for the project to invest time in a Media Corps function if scope extends beyond the WP ecosystem. In the current format, it exists to make it easier for WP media to report to… the WP ecosystem. We need messages reaching outside it.
Javier Casares 1:17 pm on September 20, 2024

How helpful have the briefing sessions been in supporting your news or content production efforts so far?

I think the sessions are very useful, although sometimes they are late if the media is “real time” news (or weekly, in our case). Most of the sessions have dealt with topics that have already been published and for which, in general, the information was already known (perhaps without so much detail).

This time lag between the publication and the session makes it more complex to return to a topic that has already been discussed, although, in our case, it is “re-commented” since the post about the session is newsworthy (but not so much).

In any case, personally, I think that the sessions are also very useful to take a global perspective of the project.

Have you found other support resources, such as 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/. updates or interactions, shareable assets, or briefing recaps, useful for your work?

Yes. Being able to clarify with a person certain things that remain in writing or that sometimes have a “lost in translation” have been very useful.

Has the Media Corps helped improve your ability to stay informed and report news or produce content? If so, how?

Yes, in the sense that it adds a perspective that may have helped to clarify situations or things that have already been said previously, and not because of that delay in the information. As I say, this “no” is because of the weekly informative nature of the podcast (understandable that a piece of information is not going to come out and the next day there is going to be a briefing).

What do you believe is the most significant impact the Media Corps has had on your work (if any)?

Have the source-person to know and clarify the information first hand. An example (at least for me) in the last session with Josepha, she explained the shift of what is sought in the attendees to the events that previously had not been very clear (but it seems that she is clear) and that, again, gives that feeling that “something had persisted in the way” between the decision and what has been published. Those details to have that first hand information has been important in being able to explain in detail a decision in the community.

What improvements or changes would you suggest for the Media Corps to support or engage the different types of outlets?

Apart from specific details of each session, I think there is a lack of an overview of the project from the point of view of the teams. In the community there are dozens of open projects in parallel, and although most of them have weekly / quarterly / monthly / quarterly summaries, there is still missing that global vision of communicating the project by parts within the whole, and not only what is newsworthy (which is also). My feeling is that, if we replace part of the Marketing team by the Media, there is a lack of ambition.
- Mariano Perez 10:54 am on September 23, 2024
  
  Already information provided I already knew through the community P2s, 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/., WP Tavern, etc. On the informational side, I haven’t learned about new things.
  
  Yes, those are the means by which I get informed.
  
  No, I was just as informed before because I routinely check all sources.
  
  Being all the informants united in a common forum if I find it interesting and sigfinicative.
  
  I think one interesting thing is to give access to resources such as protagonists to interview or ask questions, to have prior access to the communications that are going to be made public, etc.
Ana Cirujano 9:50 am on October 4, 2024

I find it incredibly useful to have access to firsthand information. It’s also very helpful to be able to access all the updates about what’s happening in Make WordPress from a single source of truth, even if that information is also available on 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/. or the team blogs. I would love to have access to information in advance, before it’s made public.

Thank you for all the work done so far, especially for the summaries that are provided after the meetings. They are greatly appreciated!