 All right. Welcome everyone. This is the wide world of WordPress events. And we are here to talk about what WordPress events are, types of WordPress events and what to expect at these events. And we'll share some resources about WordPress events video. My goal is to keep this discussion within the hour. So that said, here's what we won't be talking about today. We won't be talking about setting up a WordPress site or providing support with any WordPress site issues. Because we're here to talk about events. So let's get started. What are WordPress events? What do we mean when we call, when we say WordPress events? So to put it concisely WordPress events are where WordPress people can connect with each other, learn together and contribute to the WordPress project. There are many types of official WordPress events. So these include the most commonly known meetups and word camps. There are also contributor events. There are kids camps. They're the hackathons that we have called do action. And there's also open source workshops. So we're going to take a closer look at these great programs during this session. So first we have meetups. So I'm just curious if anyone in the chat, if you have attended your local meetup group, or if you've never attended one. Feel free to let us know in the chat quite but feel free to chime in at any time so I will hand this over to Devin to chat about WordPress meetups. Alright, thanks Courtney. I believe everyone here has to some extent in WordPress meetup offline or online right. In fact, some of us here probably meetup organizers. So I just like to say thank you so much for growing your community and always making the best effort to gather WordPressers in your area. Currently we have about 700 chapters across the globe. WordPress meetup is a local end that we encourage WordPressers to organize and what we think a successful WordPress meetup is if it happens consistently. So two people gather, talk WordPress and announce it on meetup.com already an official WordPress meetup. So you are free to organize this event and everyone is also free to join and attend. You probably are more familiar with a lecture type of WordPress meetup event. It's actually an event that you can experiment with. You can have a round back discussion or a co-working or a workshop. You can teach how to create in or themes or blocks these days right. You can also, you know earlier, Courtney mentioned about do action. You can actually organize a WordPress in do action format. So there's a lot of options and I believe that you can try organizing WordPress meetup. In fact, recently in Tokyo, folks organized a photo, I don't know how you call it, but you photo hunting. Yes, you do four things where you actually upload and photo walk. That's there you go. So you can upload it to the WordPress photo. You get a badge for that. So it's, there's a long option for you to do that. So yeah, I'm here to represent the project globally that we are doing this meetup reactivation project. So O'Neal here from the Philippines who has been supporting the project where there's still a lot to do because still many dormant meetups but the challenge now is also keep these reactivated meetups to stay active. So if you have any ideas you have any concerns, right, please let us know and let's let's work together to keep our community active growing. Yeah, back to you Courtney. Great. Thanks, Devin. Yeah, so as Devin mentioned we have the meetup reactivation project. And if there is no local meetup group in the area you can always apply to start one. And we share those links for you in the chat, that link. Excuse me. And feel free to share this with folks too. Oh, the chat is a disable. I just got a message from O'Neal. Hence we see a quiet chat room. Let me chat. Yeah, this is, oh, there we go chat. Can anybody start at us on the meeting chat. Sorry about that folks. I'm so sorry about that. Keep chatting. Yes, keep chatting. Yeah, we had a little bit of a zoom hiccup because zoom updated recently and all the city recently. Okay, so thanks for your patience there folks so we're going to move on to talking about WordPress, or word camps, excuse me. So word camps, what are word camps they are informal community organized events that are put together by WordPress users just like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate share ideas and get to know each other. And so what makes this different from meetups is that they tend to be larger events with more attendees, multiple sessions and sometimes over multiple days. So I have a question for everyone here. Have you tended a local work camp, or have you traveled to attend a word camp, or both. Please let us know in the chat. I'd love to hear from you. I know that there are quite a few folks that are present that have probably done both. I would say O'Neal just attended his very first in person meetup last weekend. That's great. Yeah, it's been a while since I've been to in person meetup myself. And those are starting up again meetups have been largely online for the past few years because of the pandemic so and let's see black aces haven't attended any yet. I'm glad you're here so you can learn about events. Now goes first in person being post COVID was in December and another one coming up at the end of this month. Fantastic. Yeah, the last word camp I went to was word camp us, which was in San Diego in the fall last year so let's move forward here. So let's talk more about word camps. The first word camp was in 2006 in San Francisco. Were you there now. Yeah, I think I volunteered. Oh, you were there. Maybe 2007 I was there but probably. Yeah, and it was small. I mean the first couple word camps were small is just this room full people that you see in this picture here. And a very young looking Matt Mullen leg here. So that was in 2006 and over. I think this number is probably outdated now over 1100 word camps have happened worldwide since then I know that we've had a few since I created this presentation. And just a fun fact that I wanted to share with you all. So the types of work camps we have we have our local word camps so these are the word camps that gather a local community, and sometimes with visiting speakers so they highlight their local WordPress people there. These are the bulk of word camps that you'll see listed on the word camps schedule so that's at central dot word camp.org right. Let's see we could share that link with you. Thank you. Thank you now go. And on the right we have a picture of an example of a flagship or regional word camp. That's word camp Europe. So all flagship and regional work camps are word camps are on a much larger scale than the local work camps. The one on the left there was a word camp Ferrari and like 2017. And it's in Bob ways that was like about 75 attendees. The photo of word camp Europe on the right there was over 2700 attendees. So both of these are word camps, and both are valuable resources for the WordPress community. So both word camp Europe, as well as word camp yes that I mentioned a few minutes ago those are the well known flagship word camps, but this year the very first word camp Asia will take place. What happened to have some of the organizers here from word camp Asia so now could you tell us a little bit more about what folks can expect at word camp Asia. So our camp Asia is happening this February in Bangkok, Thailand, the dates are 17th to 19th February, and it was cancelled in 2020, the first word camp cancelled by COVID-19, but we are regrouping to host this first flagship event in Asia. The reason why we are organizing this, despite, you know, we've been, I've been to US Europe inspired and the idea of Asian word camp flagship word camp came together, because many of the attendees have a unique barrier to go to word camps in European US visa issues, time, money, and time zone even you're joining live stream. So we wanted to create a place for Asian attendees to be easily be able to gather. So our goals are to make it like a community event that inspires Asian community to grow even further. So yeah, that's the goal. And if you are joining, that would be great. And we have O'Neill also is an organizer who's joining here and Hajime is one of the speakers panel discussion speakers. So we'll see you there. And if you're not coming, you can watch us live stream three tracks are going to be live streamed real time. So this time zone friendly time. Fantastic. Yep. Great to hear that. Well, thank you. Thanks, Nako. Looking forward to that. Especially live stream. I'm glad that there will be one. And I will attend to the ones that I that I that overlap with my time zone. Yeah. All right, so back to just talking about word camps in general I'd like to share a typical word camp schedule with you so usually it looks something like this. Begin the day at registration to pick up your badge and possibly some swag. So if you have time before opening remarks, you can browse the sponsor area and say hello to folks that help make word camps happen. And usually the first official session of word camp is usually a welcome and opening remarks from the organizers. So they will tell you what to expect over the course of the word camp where to go and what to do, etc. And then everyone heads into morning sessions these are typically 45 to 60 minutes long with some brief breaks in between each session. So some word camps will choose to have multiple tracks of sessions so sometimes you have to make a hard decision on which session you want to see at a particular time slot. And then after morning sessions comes lunch. If your word camp is a day long word camp. All day long word camps will be providing lunch for their attendees and that's included in the ticket price. Sometimes that means the meal is catered by the venue but sometimes you'll see food carts, or food, food trucks at word camps, or you'll see some word camps giving attendees a gift card for a nearby lunch spot. After lunch the afternoon sessions will take place similar to the morning sessions until it comes time for closing remarks. Closing remarks are a nice opportunity to recollect ourselves wrap up the day and thank everyone for for coming. And finally most word camps choose to host an after party once the day has concluded again this is all included in your ticket price. It can take many different forms it can be as simple as a happy hour hosted at the same venue. Or you can be having snacks or drinks at a nearby restaurants, or even a fun activities such as a museum or a musical performance it's all up to the organizers. After parties are of course a great place to meet and network with other wordpressers. So what kind of sessions will, would you expect at a word camp. So sessions can take many forms. They can be presentations or lectures, including lightning or flash talk so these lightning or flash talks are short presentations that are usually just a few minutes long that cover a single specific idea or topic. I think the longest I've seen a flash talk or lightning talk is like 15 minutes at most. Another example of a session is a panel or a round table discussion or interview or AMA which means asking me anything where folks sit down at the at the front and just answer questions. No particular like presentation. And so that's a great opportunity for folks to connect with the presenter. There are also workshops as well as networking events. Any of these will make a valid for camp session. Has anyone seen any other types of unique sessions at word camps. Other than you know what we see here listed as examples here. I'm trying to think it's been a while so like, what's a, what's a cool event. Can you, you to think of any quiz, maybe. Yeah. No quiz. Yeah, those are always fun. Yeah, as long as it's word WordPress related it, it will count. Quiz sounds fun. I would totally do that. Aside from sessions. What else can you do at a word camp. Aside from, you know, just sitting and watching talks you can browse the sponsor area. And at the beginning, those are the sponsors are the folks that help make word camps happen. And they often have resources to share as well as swag so everyone likes to go around and collect all their goodies from their from the sponsors. There are often what we call happiness bars or help desks at many word camps where you can go and get help with WordPress from folks in the community. There are social events like the after party sometimes if a word camp is on a weekend or if it's multiple days, sometimes there are outside activities that that people choose to do. And finally, what we call the hallway track is the most popular track at a word camp. It's where folks hang out in the hallway like you see here and just chat and network with each other. It is one of the, like I said one of the most popular ways to spend your time at word camp. And I think that's all we have on word camps and I think we're going to go move on to computer events and I'll hand this over to now go. Yeah. Yeah, it looks like a photo that I took. So, yeah, contributor events are one of my favorite part of world camps. And this is a place where you join in usually in like this kind of classroom or like workshops set up, and you sit down, open your computer, or you sit down to chat and work on WordPress project as a contributor. But even if you've never done anything like that, it's a great place to find out what the contribution is about and learn from someone in person. So that's a great opportunity for you to just come show up and learn about what it's all about. And if you're more experienced contributor, this is rare opportunity to meet in person and talk about the work you've been doing. So that's why people really like joining and meeting people because during sessions you don't get to talk to people so much. And this is a good way to get connected and network also. There are, there are, there can be standard events or part of WordPress or WorldCamp or Meetup events. And when it takes place, it usually is called contributor day, but sometimes they have accessibility events or translation event. So it could be any name, it could have any name. There are 21 different teams that you can contribute as part of open source project, and you will whatever skills or experience background you have, you are sure to find a team that you can contribute to. So don't be afraid and come join. And yeah, there'll be a contributor day at WordCamp Asia, is that right? Yes, yes, we are expecting 600 or more people. Oh, that's great. And how many teams will be represented? Yeah, over 21, as long as we can find who we call table lead, someone who teaches how, so over 20 hopefully. Fantastic. Oh, thanks, Nako. So next we have youth events or kids camps and we have Devon to talk about that. So I have actually never been to any kids, but this is something that has been experimented done in, I think, America and Africa. I'm not sure whether we have done it in Asia. This is an opportunity for folks who are interested in investing in the future generation of pressers in your area. So as contributor day, this can be attached to the local WordCamps or it can be a standalone event where you safely introduce WordPress to kids. The curriculum or the content would be based on the ability of the, I would say facilitators or interests of the participants in your area. So it's a kind of casual event, more about engaging the younger generation, the future generation, the young folks of pressers in your area. So yeah, if anybody has tried this in your local community, or thinking about organizing one, why does no, it will be great to hear that these folks trying to invest in the future generation of WordPress. Thanks, Cornie. Yeah. Oh, you know that. Yeah. Yeah, mostly heard about them in North America. Here's an example photo here from WordCamp Phoenix. This was probably, let's see, 2011. So that's like almost 12 years ago. These kids are probably young WordPress professionals now. Yeah, those are fun. I've seen, I've, I didn't attend, but I observed a kids camp. I think it was in Miami and seeing what they do with it is a lot of fun. Yeah. So next type of event that we have is called do action. And so these are hackathons that are organized by the community just like meetups and word camps. So these events focus on using WordPress to give charitable organizations their own online presence. So each do action event will include participants from the local WordPress community that come together to create and build brand new websites for a number of local organizations in one day, usually one day. So it's a full day event. So the goal of do action is to support these charitable organizations by giving them a fresh and dynamic online presence. This enables them to get on with the work that they already do so well without basic website management getting in the way of their productivity. So these are very worthwhile events to go to. Fun fact that I learned last year. So why is this called do action. So with do action being a WordPress focused event and made sense for the name to come from WordPress itself. Do action is a function that is used throughout WordPress core and the name of the function really fits well with the goal of the events to allow the nonprofits to ramp up their own activity and really get down to business. And I think this is our last type of event. This event is structured to open source workshops so we don't see this as often so it's probably the least known event that you see happen but open source 101 workshops spread knowledge and understanding of the open web and open source through these two hour training events. These events are financially supported by the WordPress foundation and their staff and organized by local communities. The workshop is available on learn WordPress so learn dot WordPress dot org. And that is there along with a lesson plan for people to use in their local communities. So as Devin mentioned earlier you can run this as a part of your, your meetup event or your meetup group, excuse me. But if you do. Yeah it is fully supported by the WordPress foundation. And we have a quick note on pandemic guidelines. So now go to you. Can you share a little bit there. Sure. So, I just pasted in a handbook page. So, basically, this has been changing over the time but right now at the moment. The guideline is to basically for the local rules. There's no restrictions from the community team or to not have events or to wear masks or having vaccination. It's not required as long as you follow all the local rules. So, yeah, just to be careful but the community team is happy for people to meet in person as long as it's safe in that scenario. So, but we still encourage providing masks and hand sanitizers on the venue and as part of swag packs or press community sport will provide a sticker to indicate, you know, if you want you don't want to be near people without mask. People can wear that sticker to signal their preference. So that's basically what it is. Thank you. And finally, there are many ways to get involved with WordPress events. So how do you do that. You can just attend that's getting involved with WordPress events. Of course, WordPress events like meetups are largely free. You have tickets at an affordable price to cover their expenses. And that depends on the the local currency on what the cost is going to be but we try to the community tries to keep it very affordable for people. You can become in skills to share you can become a speaker you or you can volunteer to help at an event. You can even become an event organizer so you can find more information at make dot word press dot word slash community about all the ways that you can get involved with WordPress events. But yeah the first step is just to attend see you see how that feels for you and volunteer be a speaker. And if you have any questions about them to that WordPress community will be very happy to have you. Oh, something I want wanted to mention one more time. And if definitely if you had any more information to share on the meetup reactivation project. I think there was an update on that last month or something. Yes, we are actually sharing sort of like status updates of the reactivated. But these would be an ongoing projects because we would call it still lingers a little bit here and there and new variants we need to be in full of folks who are probably not comfortable. So, what I wanted to say when we say about reactivation is not we're pushing people to meet offline like a son, but we also appreciate if you keep your community active by meeting online, and we do have a discount that we can share with you all to do that. And it can host to 100 people. And if you feel so thinking of moving forward me person and it's a very new support, you can also and ask a, you can there's a form that you can and then reach out to us and as a message and email to support at what cam.org. If anything you wanted to share with us you need our support anything to keep your community active again and it about meeting as what pressures. Thank you. And now goes shared to the email to the community team there in the chat so thank you. So I think we went we motored right through our content there so we're at the end of what we had to share with you. I'm curious if there's anything new that you've learned today as an attendee to this workshop today. And if you'll be attending a WordPress event soon. I know that now you'll be at WordCamp Asia and O'Neill. Folks if you're attending your local meetup. I'd love to hear if you'll be attending soon. Or if there's any of the events types that we mentioned during this presentation that sounded interesting to you and you'd like to see happen in your local community. So it's going to be your first word camp. I find that hard to believe but I mean also share a few things we also have local words. Kind of mushrooming. We have a lot in India. There's in Kathmandu in Indonesia one grassy. I think in before right before what can Asia with what can she do in the Philippines. And then after that we'll have what can Kerala in India. And then there's more occasion coming in at the moment and in pre planning stage. So what I'm trying to say is, we have a lot of local word camps and if you have the chance to attend and and as Courtney mentioned you can attend you can on tears as speakers, or in fact you can join the organizing team of your local word camps, or just pick a one day organizer which we call volunteers for organizers you probably need to meet your time before the camp before the events, but it's volunteer you can commit to contribute only that particular day what can date. So check out the link that I think earlier Courtney also shared. So it's what can think that was I'm going to do it again later. And also talk with local meet up organizers and sources get together to organize local work camps with your meet up organizers if you're not yet joining the meet up groups. I was just reading a comment in the chat from Richard that this was the same time as the Seattle WordPress group so it was assuming that they were rebroadcasting this. I am. I'm not sure. Sometimes I know that some meet up groups do play videos of other workshops at their media group but you know with over 700 meet up groups in the world. I think that sometimes events are going to overlap. Unfortunately, but thankfully we record ours. The ones that we have on learn WordPress. So another thing is a lot of what can WordPress events are published or like announced on the WP dash admin dashboard. So check out that there's this plugin the event plugin that you can see on your dashboard and see I think the nearest WordPress meet ups or what's happening in your area. Great. I think I shared a screenshot earlier of the, the meet up. The WordPress meet ups, but here is the site meet up comm slash pro slash WordPress. These are all of the WordPress meet ups around the world so I just did say over 700 we have 780 groups now and over 500,000 members worldwide so that's really impressive. Yeah. And you are all of it. We are all part of it. Mm hmm. Now what's the name of it. 500,000 people Wow. 113 countries, still none in Antarctica. I always look down there. We used to have up here in Greenland I thought we used to have one but probably no longer. That was just a fun little diversion there. So something I want to mention is that we have this survey for for everyone that attends and uses the resources on learn WordPress. And here is a link here should only take you a few minutes but the so background behind this is that the training team, which is the team that puts on workshops like these does video tutorials that you'll find on learn WordPress as well as courses and lesson plans. This team is currently working towards updating the needs analysis for for learn WordPress which is a free resource for everyone. So this survey is going to be the first phase of this project and it will help the training team as we continue to grow and improve the materials that are produced by the community. So if you can take a moment and let us know, like your learning needs and what, what types of WordPress learning materials are useful to you really would really appreciate your input there and your input will help improve the resources that we have on learn WordPress in the future so thank you if you're able to do that. And finally, I just wanted to say thank you for learning along with us links shared during this session as well as a link to the recording will be shared via meetup.com so keep an eye out for that message. And as I mentioned at learn.wordpress.org is where you can join more online workshops and watch some video tutorials. We're constantly updating that content usually there's multiple new bits of content every week. So, in addition, if you'd like to connect with more WordPress contributors like us. You can join the making WordPress slack and if you have a WordPress dot org account you can easily join and that's going to be at chat WordPress.org. And yeah if you have any questions any input that you'd like to share you can find us in in that slack. Do you have any questions or anything anyone wants to share in the chat before we wrap up for today. Yes, thank you Richard. Thanks for doing the survey that'll be very appreciated. Spread the word to share that with your local meetups and your local WordPress community. Yeah, so that link did not quite work so chat wordpress.org will lead you to the sign up page. This is actually the expanded link. And if you're logged in on your WordPress dot org account that should be a fairly straightforward process. And so news if you're maybe creating an account and you might have forgotten about it it'll tell you that you that page should tell you if you have an account. Speaking of that I will be having another workshop in a couple weeks about WordPress dot org accounts so keep an eye out for that. So thank you everyone for joining. And I think that'll be it for us for today. So thank you. Thank you Courtney and sharing the space. Thank you everyone. See you in the next event. Yeah, thanks Nicko and Devin and for everyone else for being here. Thank you Devin O'Neill for the word the wordpress diversity AIPAC meeting on slide. You see day.