 Hi everyone, thanks for joining. Before I get started, I just want to ask How many of you is are there folks here who already participate in 5 for the future? Can you show hands? Okay, so like a handful of people and how many people know what 5 for the future is? More people, okay So as Raquel said, my name is Chris Leopkir, co-founder of Extendify We are working to improve the WordPress experience to help hosts reduce their WordPress churn by helping users to be successful and I live in Denver, Colorado and enjoy biking, hiking, skiing, all the typical outdoor activities there, so I'm excited to talk to you all about 5 for the future and specifically, you know, how not only how you can participate, but how you can get business benefits from it as well, so What we'll talk about today is what 5 for the future is We'll talk about some of the benefits that you can get from 5 from participating How to set a program up for success and what some of the challenges are and how you can overcome those to create a successful program So what is 5 for the future and this is a little bit of context I think we all know that in order for WordPress to Continue to grow and be successful. It's taken a Whole lot of people from around the world to contribute to that across lots of different teams So this bubble chart just shows with a 6.0 release and it shows just development code contributions, but hundreds of people contribute every release from lots of different companies lots of different places around the world and WordPress is supported by people both on their own time and companies that sponsor people so either from their time all of their time To contribute to the project across these 19 different teams And so 5 for the future is an initiative that asks companies to contribute 5% of their resources back to the core project in order to support the longevity of WordPress and there's a lot of the kind of main rationale behind that is to ensure that WordPress continues to be successful is to be a one a great platform for people to use and Given that most of us if not all of us have our livelihoods or some portion of our business relying on WordPress We're all we have but we all have a collective vested interest in that continued success So 5 for the future is really you know, there's kind of an altruistic element to it that supports the future of the platform but what I would actually like to talk about today is not is Not about why it's important for the success of WordPress to participate But what are the real benefits you can get for your business by participating in 5 for the future because we do it at extendify and We do it in order to support Support the program, but we also do it selfishly because we get real benefits from that and so there are ways to set up your contribution in a way that allows you to really Maximize those benefits. So that's what I want to talk about I'm not here to guilt people into you know contributing and In that in that sense So in addition to obviously this warm and fuzzy feeling, you know kind of being excited about Contributing to a platform the power is 43% of the web the the benefits There are three main benefits that we think about one is insights the first is insights and this is you know by being close to the development the growth of the WordPress you can learn a lot about the Platform today where it's going in the future and you can get real insights. It could it could help you to identify new business opportunities it could help you to better understand Yeah, how things work so you can be more efficient in your work if you're developing client sites, let's say right you can you can better understand some of the tooling that's available and new functionality as an example if you're involved there and For us with Extendify what we're doing is we're building an experience on top of Gutenberg at the core editor of that project and full-site editing and so we get you know real tangible benefits from that we are You know as an example like one of the things we want to make sure we're not doing is Recreating things that will also be coming out in core So for us we want to focus our energy on things that are actually differentiated and build on top of the core experience And so by being close to the development and discussions that are going on it helps us to understand where core is heading and so for us it allows us to see you know where we should be focusing our efforts and You know it also helps us to like Ultimately to deliver a better experience to our customers to our users people who are creating a site Like there was an example of just a couple weeks ago where we were You know kind of our our software will essentially create a website based on a series of inputs and part of that is you know navigation and in the navigation we were using the page list block and We were realizing the page list block essentially lists every page in in this block and there's no Way as it exists today to easily choose which pages you want to edit you want included So for us we were trying to figure out it seemed like a fairly simple problem We wanted to display five pages on the navigation not all ten pages How do we do that and we were starting to figure out kind of coming together as a team and different folks were Proposing different ideas. There was an idea of just you're using a regular list block and kind of work around That we were identifying there, but because our team many everyone on our team has you know Did has been contributing has kind of had for understanding of WordPress and the different options that are available. We They're very logical solution that's easier for that just the kind of adding Navigational elements and we could do that automatically as we're creating these sites So it's a very small example in that case but instead of kind of hacking our way around and kind of coming up with our own solution by Being close to the product and platform. We were able to see this opportunity You know another example, I guess for us just to bring this to life a little bit more is You know we at one point this was about a year ago We were trying to decide whether we needed to create our own styling Options in order to deliver the type of output that we wanted to to or the customers that use our software and you know what we were trying to decide was Can we leverage or style components the Everything was coming out with future iterations of full-site editing. This was about a year ago Or did we need to create our own like how quickly was where things going to evolve? How important was it for us to have our kind of exact level of specificity to what we wanted? Versus leveraging, you know What was going to be in core and ultimately we concluded that we didn't want to create our own styling elements. We wanted to Lean as much as possible whenever possible into core style components that existed and that's been For us like we needed that insight and that information or to make an informed decision and feel good about the decision And it's it's actually been a core differentiating element of extendify so we used to call me we talk about with partners and Those that we work with and so it's it turned out to be a great decision the right decision We're very happy with that approach and having been contributing and having people were close like allowed us to have the insight to make that Make that decision So insights is number one. You kind of learn things. I feel like Any amount of contribution where you'll kind of learn new things about where things are headed or how things work today So insights is the first one Number two is influence and this may you know I don't oversell it. You know, you're not gonna tomorrow become the the new benevolent dictator of WordPress or anything like that You will you know, this is something where Influence can mean lots of different things a lots of different levels But at the very simple level, it's I feel like a lot of us have things that we wish Quote wish were different about WordPress and Instead of just wishing they were different you can actually choose what you go work on and what your Company focuses their energy on and you can fix those things that are either annoyances That are holding back the experience for you or your customers or making things inefficient in some way or another You have control over where your resources go So it's not one of these things where you say, alright, we're here. We show up What do we work on someone's gonna tell you what to work on you actually choose? You know as a company where you focus your energy so you can focus your energy on the things that are gonna have some impact for you and your business and for us like we This isn't something that we solely Were advocating for by any means but for us having style variations in an accessible way within the Editor was really important. We didn't want to create lots of different themes That people would choose from we actually wanted a single theme and to allow people to have lots of different variety In choice with the styles and so as I was coming out It's as simple as like plus oneing. Hey, we support this idea and adding another voice to kind of nudge something forward to Actually working on it and helping to make it a reality and helping to make sure it comes out As quickly as it can, you know, and you can influence that and over time I think as you As you show up as you contribute as you build relationships with people you can actually have broader influence, right? I think, you know It's amazing to me. You know the WordPress powers so much of the web, but Oftentimes decisions are made by just a handful of people who show who those those those people to show up you know, whether it's what something should be named or you know the design of something or You know what features should be prioritized. These are things where over time as you build your own network and relationships with people and demonstrate that you're You know kind of committed to the success of the platform you can have a voice in those decisions as well So I feel like a lot of times it's easy to sit back and watch what happens and then maybe critique later Or I wish this was back to this wish. I wish this would have happened differently just showing up actually can allow you to have that that influence as well so influences second second real benefit and it can mean that WordPress evolves in a way that supports you in your business. It means that you can fix things that Anoy you or make things less efficient for you and you can you can impact where it's going and Then the third benefit is brand and I'm not talking about You know if you participate in private feature your logo goes on the five for the future page along with the other companies that participate You know you're not going to get millions of new leads or customers from that page That's you know that that's a minor element of the the benefit here I think what I mean by brand is by being active and out there in the community You're able to and having your employees and kind of your entire team out there and active in the community It can help from a recruiting standpoint like people see Not only that your company Values contribution and participates in that they see how you work You know most almost all the work in WordPress happens out in the open You know people can see hey, this is a this is a sharp group of people. These are really nice. They're funny I would I would like they can visualize themselves as part of that team being out there and you start to Kind of build relationships with others that are contributing and active and passionate about WordPress You know people who show up tend to be people who are both Experienced and and really excited about the future so you can you can find those people and build those relationships and build that brand that way you can also Find you know value in drive getting new customers or partnerships or things like that. I think there's a Fair amount for people who aren't very deep in WordPress Being able to talk about your and your team's contributions to the platform can really elevate your your kind of status in in other people's minds, so we You know for us like our main partners that we work with our hosting companies and many of them They're a handful of them that come to work camps and are deeply involved but many of them have never been to work camp don't know how any of this stuff works and The idea that they can partner with a company like extendify and they know that we are active contributors They feel like they can get some of the benefits whether it's insights or support and what they need by working with us So it helps to elevate our Stature and our standing in those ways So brand is a is the second one. There's a third one here and So those are the real benefits. I think this Regardless of the type of bent of company it is if you're an agency doing client work if you're a product company if you're a hosting company if you just have a WordPress site yourself that powers your business all these things can apply in different ways and It's it's you know contributing even just a small amount You know it can help you to realize some of these benefits here so What I want to talk about next is how to set the program up for success So you have all these benefits But it can be you want to make sure that you're contributing in a way that allows you to Realize them and get it kind of get get the value that you're hoping to get and this Before we do that we'll do a little bit of math, you know because it's called I wonder if people can guess what this is but You can see 24 minutes a day Is is is one option here two hours per week? one day per month or Two and a half weeks per year Does anyone know what that equals people guess when I'm going with this? What percent of time it is five percent? Yeah, so there's some math majors great So five percent and my point in this is that There are a lot of different ways you can actually get to five percent And there's no like one Perfect solution. There's no one answer that works for every company in every situation. So for us at extendify We do one day per month today So the third Friday of every month is our contributor day. It's on the calendar. That's when we do it The whole team participates in that way We're we take the approach where we have everyone participate in five for the future If you're larger it can be easier for easier to sponsor a person or half of a time of someone or multiple people But as we're talking about here It's you know something about small businesses those that maybe not don't have the resources to hire a person Just dedicated to core can get a ton of value just by having your team Whether it's one day a month or a couple hours a week. You have to figure out what works for your team and your schedule and also what your What your priorities are and what you're trying to accomplish and I think the trade-off here is you know Shorty periods of time more frequent allows you to be there and be Pushing things along in a consistent in a consistent way You know the downside is you just have a little bit of time So you tend not to be able to dive deeper into things, you know if we have You know for us we work in two-week development cycles for Extendify and if we had two weeks or two and a half weeks to dedicate just to core We kind of took that just one time we could get a lot done, you know But you then don't see anything forward and kind of you have this long periods of time where you're not actually Involved in getting some of these benefits. So I think that we've talked to companies that do it a variety of different ways I don't think there's one magical answer and even for us, I think it's going to evolve like one thing we're finding with one day one day a month is that Sometimes it would be nice to be able to follow up with things, you know Maybe submit in the case of contributing to development. You submit a PR. There are some questions You're it's not practical to wait 30 more days before you answer this question and keep those discussions coming So naturally we're already kind of involved a little bit more. So we may try and try shifting to more of a hybrid approach but depending what you're doing, there are different ways to get there and So some of the keys one is planning Advanced planning arrow here. I think it's really hard if you just say everyone should find Sometime every week or every month to contribute if it's not planned out if people aren't if it's not scheduled It can be really hard to prioritize that there are always things that come up and it can also make that time Not very effective. So What we'll do is before that day before that third Friday We will start creating a list of issues start talking about some of the things that we want our team to accomplish Everyone can everyone joins in that collaboration. We try to figure out what people are interested in What they know is going on that they think would be impactful in one way or another to the project or help us as a company and By doing that it also helps make sure that if there are questions We need answered ahead of time we can be effective with our time because I think if you just show up You say okay, great. I'm joining them. You know, I kind of looked at what the marketing team is doing Here's a task that needs to get done I'm gonna do that task, but I have a question about it So you answer ask the question at 9 a.m. Maybe you don't get a response until 4 p.m. Right and you kind of lost your time and you're not able to do that so a little bit of planning can really help to make the time that you do spend contributing whether it's asking that question at a time or Just aligning the team and we're gonna focus that can really make it effective It can also make sure it actually gets done if you schedule it out So planning is is one of the first keys that we think about and we do all the time and extendify The second is hopefully it's fun. Hopefully this is something that you and your team are excited to participate in I think we find a lot of people One of the reasons they join extendifies because they're excited to not only work on the product that we're building But also to have time to contribute to WordPress as well But they want to know it's so much better if you can do it collaboratively, right? If everyone just goes off and does their own thing and never speaks to anyone for a day it can be You know it can be kind of a lonelier day, you know if they're used to collaborating with people So whether it's teaming up on certain things I know we've done this a couple times and many companies will do if they do it all company contribution They'll have a kickoff, you know kind of get the team together either in person or over a video call or something like that at the beginning Have another kind of social time at the end to wrap up or something like that But I think there are things that you can make it social and make it collaborative So it's not only a time for people to learn and work with others across the community But also to you know for your team to have some bonding and some time to to work together and you know Make have an impact together And then the last thing is to we think about as part of our program is to build in accountability So this is you know, it can be as simple as Sharing and this goes to the social element as well But sharing at the end of whatever time what time period is that you're doing What people worked on and what's impactful and we celebrate, you know If the PR gets merged in even if it's three days later We're kind of sharing that and high-fiving virtual in our case virtual high-fiving and sharing people on and You know kind of seeing the impact that you can have and celebrating those wins and sharing with it and sharing the challenges They exist too so that you can help people to Be more effective as time goes on like that can be a really effective way to make sure that the program feels It both impactful and is delivering on some of these goals and objectives So those are the As we think about the keys to success, but it's it's not it we you know, we've been participating for a while and We still have things to learn. There are still challenges that we see in our participation We're still iterating as I mentioned They're kind of going from the one day a month to trying to figure out as there's some hybrid approach where we can Have our time be more consistent over over any given period And there are real challenges, so it's not easy to get started and for us, you know and from what we hear from from others who participate one of them is Subscribers they could shorten needs get in the way, right? I think it's a small business someone running a small business, you know, you are juggling lots of different hats Juggling different balls wearing different hats. You can juggle your hats too, I guess But you know things come up you need to be adaptable It's it's then it's it comes with the comes with the job, right? Like whether it's some client issue comes up There's some bug that needs to be fixed or a big opportunity that just needs all hands-on duck and everyone to focus on it You know There are gonna be things that come up and I think you need to be okay The only way this program within your company succeeded long-term is you need to be okay with some level of flexibility Right. I'm not gonna say Schedule it first or in period of time never break that schedule. Oh, so you're not gonna be effective And so like we we will certainly have times at extendify where I mentioned we do the third Friday of every month Some days, it's the fourth Friday some days. It's the first Monday of the next month You know, it kind of gets pushed back and that's okay Yeah, we have things come up Just as all of you will have things come up in your business that requires you to be adaptable and If you have a relatively small team and you know, this is a meaningful contribution for you Then, you know, it's it's it's definitely to be expected and you should be okay with it and and recognize that it's gonna happen that you'll be able you'll be moving things around That's cool. That's the first challenge that we see And we've tried to adapt and how we structure the program. The second is not knowing how to get started and I think this is How many of you have ever been to a contributor day or contributed already? I know people participate in five to feature so so Maybe a half almost half of the people here have which means a lot of people haven't and it can be very Intimidating overwhelming, you know, there are like I said, there are 19 different teams and it can be each one of them has You know some way that they on board new members and have Getting started guides and things like that, but it can be overwhelming and sometimes especially at the beginning It can be hard to figure out where to find your Impact, you know, is it on the marketing team or is it doing testing or is it contributing to development? Is it writing documentation? You may try one thing or some people on your team may try one one element one aspect of it Realize that either it's they don't have the skills for it or the interest for it They want to do something else and we'll try something else and so I think the way the best way I can describe this is it's going to be Slow at the beginning. It's probably gonna feel like not as not as impactful as you'd like But you're laying the foundation for the future and ensuring that it's going to be a more effective going going forward. I Don't know if you all watch Schitt's Creek the TV show. She's great It's the first time I watch Schitt's Creek I Hated it. I thought it was a terrible show the characters are very unlikeable I thought they were all very annoying. I was like, but my wife wanted to keep watching it So we watched the second one. I still didn't like it by the third one I was hooked and I think I'm I've watched the whole thing twice now I think I'm on my third time going through the entire series of six seasons And I think about that as like, you know, in that case it took me a little bit of time to Understand and I appreciate the humor start to build Love for the characters in the show and I think that's that's how that's how it'll go with with participating as well Like your team the first time it happens the debrief at the end. Maybe I Didn't get anything done. I read a bunch of stuff. I tried to do this This didn't work or can figure that out or I didn't know And you know, I spent all day setting up my environment. So, okay, I've done that But I didn't actually accomplish anything and that's okay You have to think the first few times that is that is the point of of having these having these first to first few Days or hours or whatever it whatever your time period is and you can also So ways to overcome this is you know, like I said, don't worry about the slow start But you can also partner with others. So that's where this a little bit of plans planning comes in I know some companies will invite others to join them. So have You know, you know one of the sponsored full-time contributors from the design team Maybe joining for an hour and helping the design team at XYZ company You know Get an overview of what opportunities exist or things like that So reaching out to people can be really effective or even partnering with others. So If there's another company that you know, like bringing that company together it could you know, kind of increase the benefits as well So I think it can be it can be both in overwhelming intimidating the slow start is to be expected But eventually you'll get to this point By the third episode where you love it and you kind of feel good and it feels like you're actually having an impact and getting a lot of these benefits as well So I Hope this was helpful. I think next release, you know, your company could be listed here if it's not already There are large companies, but there are a whole lot of small companies that as well that contribute to WordPress This is the development Contributions from WordPress 6.0 and I hope you can not only have an impact on the future of WordPress But also reap real benefits for your business and and help you long term as well. So happy to take any questions or If anyone has their own experience in kind of participating in anything to add that that'd be awesome to hear as well, but Questions Hi, Chris Chris. I was born from Codable so in terms of the actual mechanics of Engaging with one of the teams and actually making proposals is there is there a formal way in which you do that? Or is it just about engaging with a member of the team and then just talking to them about what it is that you're interested in potentially? Contributing or how does that how does that all work generally? Yeah, it's a good question and the the answer is there 19 different teams and it varies a little bit based on the team So one of the best ways to do that if you have the opportunity to join a word camp and go to a Contributor day, you know this one as we call mentioned is Sunday So if folks around that's a good opportunity to get connected with the team and understand What their priorities are how you can if how you can contribute in that way as well? But it's going to vary a little bit by team there each team does have if you go to make Dot WordPress you will have you know for the different teams in Somewhere in their documentation how to how to participate how to get involved in that team and I wouldn't think about it as you know It's probably not showing up on day one and saying All right, I'm gonna here's what we want to do. These are our new priorities. Let's get them done I think there's this is where there's this kind of slow start comes in there's real value in learning and you know reading about what the team is working on joining many teams have a periodic Asynchronous kind of slack meeting that happens where they discuss initiatives that are being worked on what needs to get done people can Raise their hand and offer to help with things So those are good ways to do it as well So really trying to understand like what the what the team what the priorities are right now for that team how you can get involved But people are also super nice, too So especially if you're coming to them saying I would like to help people are willing to help you figure that out and so Even if you don't have any these options or you're stuck somewhere just reaching out to someone who has been Participating that team in some way or another can be helpful there. It's a good way to do it And the question yeah their experiences to others have participated What do you think about the argument that's kind of playing out in the public space? about five for the future having to be Dedicated to wordpress core especially if you're at a company that you know you want everybody to participate you might have like Project managers or marketing folks that aren't necessarily technical Well, I think Some people definitely make the art you know kind of describe we do other things to help work help help WordPress grow Which is great? You can do other things you can you can have an impact on the community in a variety different ways, right? There are different ways that all of us come together and And make make a move a move the platform forward I do think five for the future the way Josepha and team have I Described it and defined it on contributing towards these 19 different teams and what their goals are it is important for the Success of the platform right if people don't show up and help support these initiatives They don't get done. They literally there's no one else to do them. So I Think both are important. I think having people who you know If you think you're having a podcast and talking about WordPress is a way you want to contribute fine You know, I think that people can choose different ways to contribute to have an impact But there is real value in contributing to core and there's real benefits I think that you can get as well, and I think to your question about Non-technical teams, I think there's a perception a pretty common ones where you know people feel like I don't have the skills to contribute I don't have I'm not a developer. I can't be on this the bubble chart that we were looking And that may be true But there are a lot of different ways for people with any variety of different skills can have an impact So that could be you know off the top of my head. I imagine like testing Which is something nearly everyone can participate in and in fact having people with different levels of technical expertise Can be even more important with testing right understanding how people who are newer to the platform maybe not as technical See things and what challenges they see all the way up to people who have more advanced needs and tend to you know Be more familiar. There's marketing. There's writing documentation, which could be technical documentation It could be more Like it could be less technical as well. So there I think if you I'd be hard to imagine someone who would look at the 19 different teams and all the different things They're working on where they can't find something that is both interesting to them and something they feel like they can have an impact on and in fact, ideally You know we have our team a lot of our contribution goes to development or design but Spreading out and finding and learning and kind of having broadening the impact and Can also increase your learnings. You can better understand what's going across across the whole Community that's this working towards it. So it could be you know Benefits you get from expanding how people are contributing as well. Does that make sense or you guys? Is there another question to add? Yeah, it makes sense and actually we participate and I think a lot of our non-technical people have found Doing captioning for WordPress TV, which is one of the teams to be like a valuable thing to contribute their time to you. So Thank you. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, yeah Translations is another one if your team is global and have different languages that people speak that's something a lot of people can do as well So yeah, it's a good example Hello, I'm Ali from AJ Parka. So just wanted to share my experience. So this is my first Word camp first word press event that I'm attending. Welcome. Thank you and so my in into Being a contributor really was the sign-up form for the word key up and having to pick what I was like going to do on contributor day And as a non-tech person, I was like well in my head at you know, I was familiar with Fire for the future But I always thought that that was really, you know core working on The releases and that there wasn't a place for non-tech people so it was really eye-opening when I learned about all the different teams and went to I Chose to volunteer with the community team because that's my jam And so it was great because I started volunteering You know a few hours a week in the two or three months leading up to this and it was just a great in to feel like already You know was participating and helping and new people before I even showed up. So that was that's you know that there was other Other benefits as well just in terms of you know getting a little bit oriented before Yeah, so that's cool, right make friends, right? Online friends that become in-person friends and see them in life. Yeah, and it can make you feel connected to the community Yeah, and be involved. That's cool Hi, I'm Courtney Robertson, I am the training team co-rep, and I'm a dev advocate at good eddie-pro As part of the training team we help make the content that goes out on learn.wordpress.org so It is a resource That especially as I think about the small business owner perspective maybe in this talk It's a resource you can use with your clients and so by showing up and participating with the training team you're having input into What resources you need to help train your clients along with that we host events Teaching people the basics of how to use WordPress. There are essentially an online meet-up And I would highly encourage people to check those out as well if you go to learn.wordpress.org slash Events I believe in the address bar. We'll get you there and then Or it would be listed as online workshops would be another term that you might see The other thing to take note of is that every few weeks or so it seems that the test team There's 21 teams and the test team in particular has these calls for testing And it's basically a new user experience testing session that you don't need to have a lot of Skills in that in fact sometimes it's better that you don't When when you're too familiar, it's hard to remember that creating certain parts of WordPress can feel a little challenging So those are opportunities to invite your co-workers in that's something that I've done internally is Get people involved in those new user type of testings. They they list them as FSE call for testing So if you see any of those being published make.wordpress.org slash test look for posts Let's say FSE call for testing and that's a good chance to get in and see What's happening and tests that you can go through there's a whole series of them Some that have happened in the past Even though those calls are done go through it anyway if you're still working on helping staff get up to speed learning What's happening in WordPress? Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I've done I've done those personally a lot of our team have done those call for testing And you learn a lot because oftentimes it's testing kind of this functionality that's out there So often, you know a lot of times it's oh cool. I didn't even know this was possible You know reading other people what other people are doing too. So yeah and on the learn I mean imagine how cool would be if you're talking to a client and you're sending them some documentation Oh, by the way, we helped to write this documentation and here it is on learn.wordpress.com You know like the wordpress.org. Sorry that like allows, you know That's a kind of branding we were talking about and how to really continue elevate yourself as a leader in the WordPress community