 In the meantime, so how many I think besides one everyone's first word camp am I right everyone's first word camp how are you finding the word camp interesting boring have you all interacted with the community do you find any inspiration of joining the community because community when people join that is the time when people the community grows because one person cannot stay along for X number of years just solely doing it because I feel community grows only when a person contributes and purchase a person reaches out to people and tells you know take over do organize events so to organize word camp first we start with building the local community so there is a local community in Nagpur we conduct they conduct regular meetups so I am a co-organizer in Mumbai I'm from the Mumbai community so we organize meetups meetups can be on any topic related either the word press design development or we even have casual meetups we even have so there are days called translation days and contributed days so we even organize a meetup for translation day so the global community has a team called polygots so in September the full month of September is called translation month so around the entire globe wherever the word press communities are they organize either the full month or one of the days in the month they organize a meetup meetup can be one hour meetup can be ten hours we sit together in a room like that we have breakfast together we have lunch together and we sit and translate translate is nothing but taking the English and putting it into your language you don't need to be a coder you don't need to be a developer neither you need to be an expert in wordpress as long as you know he translates into what in your language it and the sentence makes sense you can submit it because once your once you submit it will go to a GT they will either approve or reject because at the day it needs to make it needs to make sense with whether it is getting displayed so when the wordpress backend is getting displayed in French the mismatch of the wordings is not exactly the translation offense the person will not understand using it so either the GT rejects it or approves it I'll just few minutes so I have been in the wordpress Mumbai community from 2016 I just missed what can Mumbai 2016 by a day or two initially I registered with the community I was excited to know my peer people because I had a problem in my code Google doesn't have answers to everything you need no no this this wires yes but it's okay one my phone I can put it here so a lot of us have experience in indifferent we do a lot of development so I will be doing only focus one or like who commerce someone will be doing donation plug-in so when if I get a donation request from a customer and I don't have full knowledge Google doesn't have all at least you know you have someone to talk to you know you know that even if the person doesn't know you they can give you a brief or they can give you a output outline this is the way it is supposed to go so at least then you your mind starts working that is the reason I joined this community and this community has given me a lot of things it's given me friendship it's given me the opportunity to travel it's actually helped me set up a business with a colleague it is help me girl we are part of global interviews I was asked to be a part of 5.6 the all women's quadrilities I'm not a co-developer but I know where to get the things done I was in documentation I I said let's give it a try like everyone feels contribution is only development I think tomorrow you'll have contributed right participate it's not development this thing that WordPress contribution is only development that's wrong there are a lot of other thing there's marketing there's polygots there is photo there is a ton lot of there is just answering support queries TV if you like video editing if you like if you know the quality of videos there's WordPress TV you can help and upload the videos because post pre-pandemic we had word camps all around the globe and we used to have multiple word camps so the number of videos were very the volume was very high so if word cam say today word cam Naapur is there but there's also word cam in Italy so their videos are videos and these are either self-sponsored contributors who dedicate their time towards the project or paid contributors a lot of people ask me why do you dedicate your time to the project the project has given me so much the product is helping me live a life why not help something to give back and make the software better that's why I contribute okay let me get back to my topic benefits of being a part of a community as most of you all don't know me my name is Mehrabala I'm a WordPress consultant specialized in front-end development I'm a part of a freelance WordPress marketplace named codable I'm a partner at hearty host this is because of the community the partner hearty host would have not been there if I didn't know the community expert at codable would have not been there if I didn't know the community active in open source co-organizer of word cam Mumbai word cam India WordPress translation this is also because I took the initiative of being a part of the community this is my favorite this started in a pandemic and this is no people's story behind like what do you do in your daily life how you got started with WordPress why you still onto WordPress and what is the reason this is my podcast with your podcast so this I will in this talk I will be sharing your learnings and insights of being a part of a tech community during the last seven years of mine so what do you all feel what is a community anyone it's okay if you'll have the wrong answers no problem right so a group of people who interact with one another and check a common goal and vision it can be in a physical place like right now or a virtual place the last two and two and a half years we have been online being a part of an engaging community gives all of us a sense of belonging at times we forget when we interact with someone the the human in us wants to interact with people if you're left by yourself there is no growth there is no growth in your skill set there's no growth in your mindset when you talk to people you understand their culture you understand their background you understand their mindset your mindset changes you understand how the world around you is as a part of a meaning community is important for well-being and mental health because if you're in that one room of usually developers of freelancers I'm the one room code from morning nine nine o'clock to nine o'clock night sometimes we eat drink everything in that one place we don't get up from the table for hours and hours I have done that myself and I'm guilty as well I will not say that when you get up when you see the world you know okay something is happening around you when you talk to people in your own community oh this event is there I did not know like a lot of time my colleague virtual he keeps on pinging me this event is there I'm like really okay I will check I will register a lot of events like cloud fair cloud bazaar I have been introduced to because of my colleagues around me you don't know everything and everyone and everything on the internet internet is vast why join a tech community this was my first word camp so we as teenagers and kids I'm sure all of us were part of any community be it religion be it sports be it academics we were a part of a community we used to interact but somehow I feel when we come into adult and work a nine to five job we don't want to join our community because after five we just want chill we don't have time and a lot of people have told me community is boring tech community is boring there is no fun you only talk about code code code code but no it is a lot of things if you stop talking about code everyone will stop talking about code but if you only talk about code it is difficult for the other person to talk anything else beyond besides code so the first time when I joined the Mumbai community I did not know what to expect I joined because I needed new friendship I needed new opportunities this is your first word camp and you feel this is this can be my community if I put a little attention to it stick with it but if you are uncomfortable and if it this doesn't feel your home don't push yourself find a community which makes you feel safe which increases your skill set growing a community takes ample of time and energy if you become a part of word camp now put community after this before starting to think that the community is this way community is that way first understand the community around you understand the people around you understand what they do how they work how they organize events because it's easy to say events is nothing you can organize it's it's very easy but it goes a lot of time effort taking out your time from your work busy schedule your life and organizing things for a community so first try and understand the community around you once you're part of the community and if you're confident get yourself involved try and grow the community when I entered I was the only woman I was hesitant I'll be honest I was like there is no one I could have backed out it would have been my loss it would have been no one else's loss I gave the community a chance when I started speaking to the organizers they were nice they made me feel like home they didn't make me feel like an outsider they approached me they spoke to me my colleague Alexander grounder he approached me via meetup and said that you know you are part of this meetup you know why are you not coming to next meetups he made me feel comfortable everyone around me made me feel comfortable though at times there were I got lost with addresses which I'm bad at but eventually everything comes in place when you're part of something you're greater than yourself I always feel that we have a lot of choices around ourselves we can be a part of multiple communities I'm a part of multiple communities be it WordPress, Mumbai community, WooCommerce community, international communities you can either be a part of everything or one but choose which makes you feel safe and comfortable there is no sense in pushing yourself just because you want your name to be out there because if you do that you will never attract the right signals you will always attract the signals which you don't want so try to be comfortable it takes time to mingle around with people I understand give it time take that first steps be open if someone is saying something against what you're saying be open mind don't shut it everyone has its own opinions why am I an advocate of a community I believe community can help each other in many aspects community can help us reach our goals and even build our confidence when I first started and now my confidence level has increased gradually because when I talk to people when I meet people when I interact people and they tell me you're good you're good you're good that time you start believing in yourself and then you say okay I can do this I wanted to speak on wordcams I know a lot of my colleagues have been pushing me since last four or five years I didn't want to because I didn't know what to speak but when you start talking to people when you know what to talk to then you gain confidence in yourself and I applied one of the main reasons for me to be advocate is this community has given me the opportunity to travel it has let me travel on my own two places like Naapur, Nasek, Kolkata, Kochi maybe Asia next year I don't know but when I started traveling I understood I can do it a lot of us a lot of us women feel that we cannot travel around because a lot of people around us women cannot travel around they cannot make the decision but today's generation is different today's generation we do things ourselves we take the first step so travel was my biggest plus point though my family doesn't approve of travel but eventually they've learned to approve it so often I get questions why are you joining the local community is community a waste of time and energy there there seems to be a few women how will I survive what are the benefits of the WordPress community joining my local community one gave me an opportunity to learn that besides plugins and themes there are a lot of other things you can do with WordPress you can set up a multi-site you can put the backend as WordPress the front as front end as react you can do a lot of things not only blogging company sites corporate sites you can create a donation plugin you can create a membership plugin just a second you can create a membership plugin you can let people pay on what they download is community a waste of time no but if that's your thinking then you will never get out of it you will never give your attention to the community you'll be like this is this is not my this is not where I want to be so even if the community is giving you it'll be a brick wall against your face where you don't want to do anything there are a few women how will you survive yes I agree there are few women I'm not denying it but if you don't put your first step seeing you a lot of others will follow but you someone needs to be the first step someone needs to take that bold decision of fine if I am one woman around 25 men I will fight it and today's woman a lot of today's women fight it and the next generation don't feel scared to put yourself in that position because seeing you a lot of us will join woman encourages women and this is sorry this is the woman wapu symbol fits of joining community friendship network who comes to this community everyone comes to you will get projects you will get work work relationship or work collaboration is friendship if you don't develop the friendship with a person how will the person trust you and give you a project how will the person trust you this is my person he's going to do with me he's going to do the work and I fully trust him first build the friendship build the network the work opportunity follows if you have knowledge and if you expect the opposite person also has knowledge and everyone in the community has knowledge and you're only to gain knowledge but no you also need to give knowledge you also need to share your knowledge you don't need to be right on everything but you need to share your knowledge if someone is asking and you keep quiet and you know the answer you keep quiet that's wrong on your part because you're hiding information which you don't want to but then you expect others which have the information to share it with you that's not right be a mentor to someone travel my best part of being a community inspiration in this community I have a lot of people who are inspiration there are people from the global wordpress communities who selflessly do a lot of things for everyone look up to them do what they are doing maybe someone someday will look up to you someday they will tell you you are an inspiration for me support people if you know someone is going alone to a word camp support them a lot of times when I am traveling alone or when I'm speaking or whether I'm alone in a meetup my friend Vajran he whether he has work he's drowning in work he will always be there even if he's on a phone he'll be there he's not well he's still traveled with me from Bombay to Nagpur today if he's the support for me I am the support for him whenever he needs me he knows that it's always a two-way street what you've got your knowledge with people and this is the most important one I believe community is a two-way street if you only believe people will give you give you give you and you're not going to give back it is never going to work it has to be reciprocal and it needs to be reciprocal because at some point the person who keeps giving will get frustrated that relationship will get bitter so learn to give and take an equal amount whether you're a male or female the amazing community is I am part of the WordPress Mumbai community the WooCommerce Mumbai community the big orange heart community so this is a community which helps this is the community which helps people who are freelancers and who don't have anyone to talk to they've created a slack channel you can come and share what you're going through if your day is as worst as minus two you can just put minus two in the slack you don't need any explanation you don't know any explanation it's just a place where you can be safe and pour your heart it is a place where you feel safe and you can say anything there are difference of opinion there are people who've had bad days even I've had bad days I've just gone and put a number some people explain it hello some people express what they're going through because when you express and write down in words your heart feels a little lighter you know you feel you feel okay you've taken it out and then your mind starts thinking the hero press or slack community the last two are the slack communities the ladies are WordPress this is an international slack community remote India this is a community for all people in India who are freelancers or who want to work this community has increased dramatically in the last two and a half years it started with five people today there are two thousand plus people on that slack though if you're on linkedin if you're a linkedin fan there's a group called WordPress product community if you're a facebook crazy person web creators community or wp bills community these two communities on a daily basis they put out you know how's your monday going and people take out two seconds or two minutes of the time and write my monday is going bad i have a lot of workload oh my monday is fantastic i'm on a holiday and they put pictures they put their desk pictures the owner of these communities taking effort from their time to do this but a lot of people have gained trust in him and is sharing personal information as well and for me last but not the least is my codable slack i have never seen these people it's 800 people i have never seen but the slack is amazing i have realized what food good foods and italy italy the best places to eat ice cream in italy the food in china town what to eat where to go the movie ratings the serial ratings share they share everything we share memes on a daily basis we pull people's leg for the past six months we've been continuously wishing someone happy birthday happy birthday just to irritate him and sometimes all 800 people go in that one channel and all irritate him this is if you are an agency or community create a place where your employers can't talk to themselves without any filtration without thinking oh my boss will look at this oh my colleague will feel bad create that place for them to chit chat to talk whatever to share their memes even if people don't like the movies we put an honest opinion but don't go into gender distinguish because when gender distinguish happens the seniors in my codable pull them up because we all are equal we don't need to treat women down or we don't need to treat women high because when that happens then it blows up because everyone's opinion is different and that is the time the owner should stop it personal achievement I think I've said most of them I started with meetups I went to do action word camps I did do action I did word press event 2019 leading word word camp word camp Mumbai my first I never thought I would go so fast from 2016 to 2019 I still remember 2017 I was continuously tweeting about word camp because 2016 I didn't know what is this craze why is people tweeting why are people taking pictures why is this craze like every two second people are putting on Twitter 2017 I was amongst them because I understood social media someone came and approached me on Twitter officially and said we want to interview you because you are the other part of the world three days I didn't answer for the answer one of the question was what is your bucket list this was my bucket list being a lead organizer of word camp Mumbai 2019 interview by international podcast like do the Wu or WP water coolers so a lot of you all must be not knowing what is hero press so hero press is a website where the owner of the website tofu he contacts people in the word press community and ask them to write a write-up about their story long back he contacted me I wrote about my story yes I'm a dyslexic I'm a graphic love I wrote my story my family didn't like it I never knew it'll come in people in wordpress people in wordpress is a campaign run by the global marketing team in which we show the globe that there are these people who are supporting who have done a lot in the community last month there was a wordpress accessibility event there's a guy from Bangalore no no he was from Bangalore now he's relocated he has a lot of issues he's blind he has a lot of other physical issues he became a speaker in what came in Mumbai he went on to learn accessibility because when you have a lot of challenges in life especially with the eyesight you need to know how to learn the laptop you need to know how to read the laptop he studied code he studied html he got into developing websites for his friends and his families he started learning theme coding today he owns a company which is dedicated to accessibility last year he went he underwent through a major surgery as a part of the marketing global marketing team I made sure that before the accessibility event his article comes up because he is a true inspiration today he is learning react he is learning things which we developers have 10 things to think about he needs to learn because if his developer screws up something he needs to figure out a way and give it to another developer so he needs to learn the logics but whatever his circumstances is he's not focusing on his circumstances he's focusing on what is priority and for him wordpress accessibility is the main priority my second best wordpress 5.6 release squad for me before this I never thought I would be a part of the release squad for me it was like okay it's core based I will never be a release squad team Josepha the cco of wordpress she had put a tweet years back she was thinking about a release squad dedicated to women I said I don't mind I can be a part of it these all people said yes and that is why 5.6 is dedicated to the woman like marketing somehow being a developer marketing is not a plus point for everyone but somehow marketing fascinates me I joined the global community I got into the marketing team I contributed and eventually my name up my name came as a came for the nominations for a team rep I was not ready because I did not know how much effort and time a team rep takes because when you are just contributing you contributed your own time but being a team rep you need to do a lot of you you need to invest a lot of time I was not sure whether I would I did it and for two years I did it being a part of the marketing team helped me realize and get an opportunity to know the people around the globe a lot of people from go daddy I came to I came to know through the marketing team they put my name in front of page builder summit to talk with their three employees just about how to handle your WooCommerce site from for holiday season they didn't have to she just knew me and there was a spot available she knew I could do it she knows I work with WooCommerce she recommended it I was a part of the summit and the best part of the summit was we were live it was 10.30 in the night I finished entire summit last two minutes my internet crashed and none of them came to know because I was frozen on screen so thankfully that slight error went off bluehost contacted me to be a jury in the wordpress creators award wordfest since y'all are new I'll tell you what is wordfest wordfest is an event like wordcam but it is run by big orange heart the money they get if anyone sponsors or big big company sponsor them it goes into a fund where if anyone needs help with contacting if anyone needs help with mental health and they don't have the finance they contact big orange heart and big orange heart gives them the numbers of people to get in touch when they had the first word cam when they had the first wordfest I was the media partner second wordfest I was interviewed as a community interview third wordfest I was the speaker sadly for wordfest I will not be able to attend but fifth is on my list as I said partnered with community friends opened up businesses I have worked with people in the UK I have got to know the UK clients I got to know how they speak how to deal with stuff I've created a website for pets best example Hathi host community business part of the wordpress translation day one I have not added which is my recent thing I got Yoast sponsorship for my contribution towards the wordpress community what is Yoast sponsorship Yoast is a plugin we all know which is dedicated into SEO they are a company which looks at a lot of people who are self sponsored self sponsored is my time contributing is not paid by any company is my time I am cutting from my own payments and contributing to the company that self sponsored company contributors they give they encourage these kind of people and give them motivation and interview them and give them an X amount as a small token of appreciation I never thought anyone would nominate me after this talk you're inspired and you continue with Naapur community and you want to share your journey with me after X amount of months or years get in touch with me on Twitter I would love to host your online plug tech I would love to share your story your journey with the rest of the world because when your journey is shared other people realize that other people are also doing the same thing you can contact me on Twitter at Mehrabala.com or you can contact me by my website Mehrabala.com that's all thank you for being very patient audience any questions okay I'll definitely encourage everyone to join the community because Naapur community gave me mail so please be forward and join any community that you wish to join now it's time for high tea high tea will be served here and later on we'll be having panel discussions thank you and if you're scared now talk to people call Abhishek Abhishek I also met my husband through community so please do a lot of stories I've heard you can gain your partner through the community as well but don't make that as primary please because then that's very creepy Abhishek hello I thought you were Abhishek what yeah okay if you all want to talk the organizer Abhishek is there he's nice he's sweet he'll listen to you talk to him if you're confused talk to Nikita she's a new member of the community she's my she's a representative woman in the Naapur community