Growing Meetups at the WordPress Community Day, Roma 2023

Stefano:
Hi everyone. we thank Bob Dunn for his invitation to us WordPress Community Day Organizers to illustrate the event in the Do the Woo Podcast. In addition to your truly, I’m Stefano Cassone in attendance are Isotta Peira, Francesco di Candia, Margherita Pelonara, Simona Simionato, and Eleonora Anzini. Let’s start to right away with the question that we have heard the many, many people ask. How did they they of the WordPress Community Day that come about the idea for this event came up a few day after the WordPress Meetup in Rome in March when some of the global community and Polyglots mentors of the WordPress community attending to answer doubts and questions about the WordPress community events and ways to contribute to the open source project. Immediately it was clear that it would be useful and interesting to have an event developed over a day in which the organizer of the Italian Meetups could participate as part of the next-gen events, the WordPress Central expressed an interest in our idea, and so we started planning the WordPress Community Day.

Rome was chosen as the host city because of it, geographical centrality, and because it is easily accessible for all parts of Italy three direction were assumed to be taken. The first related two issues facing the by Meetups in the restarting post-pandemic presence in meetings. The second related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, the turn on documentation and tools to be used to simplify the work of organizers. I would like to leave the floor to Eleonora for this event. She did the preparation work based to the graphics she need for the Italian WordPress community. Eleonora.

Eleonora (02:35):
Okay, thanks a lot, Stefano. When we were designing the WordPress community in Italy, I made my motivation were to create modern and appealing visual identity that could reflect the vibrant and dynamic nature of our community. I aim to use modern, clean, and intuitive design elements to make information easily accessible and to foster a sense of, let’s say, precisely group and community. what I tried to achieve was the user-friendly and accessible design that everyone in the community could customize on the basis of their needs. A scalable design to be used across different platforms and socials. For example, a design that could integrate some typical Italian elements. And in this case, we use the color palette of our flag that is highly recognizable all over the world. And last, I was trying to strike a balance between a modern aesthetic and a timeless design to minimize the need for frequent restylings.

(03:50):
And in doing that, we went through a process of observation and adjustment, just like the process I use for a regular work project with a real client. Let’s say the final result of this process is a refreshed mage that we already use on social media and on the web. Two that aligns with the Italian WordPress community is, is visually pleasing, but also functional and create a memorable and recognizable brand. On the other side, I designed this specific visual image for the community day event that we use for that event, which incorporates the color palette of the brand of the community Italian and the style of the community visual, but with a dainty touch for the event. And so let’s talk about the goals of the WordPress Community Day and Francesco, would you like to continue?

Francesco (04:51):
The main part of our own event was to help him in the rest trying to provide as much support as possible because of covid. And then we started to try to share accepting solutions to common problems. For instance the common terms were how to find speakers or how to find interesting topics and activities, finding sponsors finding a venue and problem like, like, and our Italian selected difficulties and requests current had been reported in pregnant months. So we started to put things problems to solve. Another goal was to encourage new people to become united in separate meetups in your cities or to set up new meetups in our representation cities. The three years of online meetups have been very interesting and we, and also some meetups due to the protection from Covid. Another goal in Community was to raise awareness about data to increase diversity and attention, both in meet-up participants and between organizers and speakers. They were has always been crucial to the workers community and now more than ever. Another goal of our WordPress Community Day was to discuss the possibility of organizing the real formats for the WordPress Center to propose and experiment. Isotta.

Isotta (06:42):
Thanks. First thing I’d say that the participation was fantastic, warm and large. it was a really pleasure to be involved in this project with the Italian organizers, and I’m super happy to share that all the goals that Francesco described were meet, were met. we ended up the event with organizers from 15 different meet-ups in Italy, and we opened through new meet-ups and six new organizers had been oriented in addition to this, two new applications were submitted for events in 2024 and other community day and another type of of event format. And we also got the interest from one person outside of the community. So with that being said also one of the, the other goals that we wanted to achieve was to try a format that would’ve been easily scalable and repeatable, not only by the Italian community, but from other communities as well.

(07:56):
So with the possibility of adapting the program, modifying depending on the needs of each community, and also adapting the program based on our needs that might be emerged during the day. So the same the event can be, can be shaped with different size and depending on the spaces available and the program. So we’re really happy that we could provide to the whole like global community a format that can be adapted to all their needs. Then during the sessions we, we wanted to give all participants the possibility to actively participate. So the session were shaped more as a panel of discussions and everyone got the possibility to speak, interact, share feedback, and enjoy the moment creating like something and plans for the future together.

(09:02):
So we divided the event in different sessions, you said. So in the beginning we started with an introduction about the community summit, what happened at the community summit in August from people from my com, our community whom who attended it. Then there was another informative section about WorldCamp Europe where Laura the local team lead and encourage everyone to spread the word, get the Meetups member involved, and participate to the current volunteer that will be will be launched in upcoming months. And also, of course to use Meetups. And with the help of the Meetups member spread the word about the tickets of the WorldCamp Europe of 2024. Then during close remarks another Italian organizer from the Meetup Milan Group, Dennis Plotner highlighted the intention to organize another worker Community Day Milan. So he got an application for it, and Stefano Cassone our lead for this first community day in Rome applied for another new event format to take place in 2024. let’s keep talking a little bit more about the goals achieved, and I ask Francesco if he wants to continue.

Francesco (10:35):
Sure. So we can say without a shadow of a doubt that reviewing the drones we have set for ourselves the main purpose of the event, for instance, to help the Meetups and their staff and their team was largely surpassed. We give something to the organizer for the reason value problem was faced by the various Meetups providing shared, we started helping our other Meetup people. I was busy in the morning with Don additional sessions for New York organizers and New Meetups while in the a with two other sessions, two different sessions regarding sponsors and next-gen payment. The first section there was common results and where to find out in this session. The discussion overall was focusing on ways in which activities, the activity that each of us does in our, we discussed it in different ways. We talked about events in which we don’t have the intellectual confidence or attention to confidence.

(11:46):
That kind of confidence is also a sort of a need in the fight future and how these activities are so important, the WordPress community. The second session was about the mixture of events. The WordPress community that we are speaking about was one of the first next year events organized by the Italian WordPress community. And that this event was a great event that touched on the community’s ability to evolve During this panel discussion, we thought that we’re talking about how from now on we decided to go beyond the WordCamp, the WordCamp, and the Meetup skills. We’re trying to go further, organizing events that are market are dedicated to precise categories such as community given offers and translators, for instance. So it’s of now, can you describe again, session that are changed by unit in track one?

Isotta (12:50):
Sure. Francesco, thanks. In track one during the morning I was in charge of the first sessions of the day where we hosted discussions about the future of work mis WordPress meetups and meetup venue tips and resources. As these were two of the focus that we thought that our community needed more support on, but we discover where we were like discussing the same in the same discussions that all meetups who will participating to the event didn’t have any problem regarding the venue. Great. So we could extend the first session and we digged in a little bit more on the on different topics. So we we focus on identifying recurring issues common to most meetups. So for example, the challenges about finding co-organizers or speakers, we then discuss possible alternative formats to overcome to overcome these challenges.

(14:10):
For example starting organizing contribution sessions instead of instead of talk experiments with do action events, which are still mostly uncommon in the whole community in Italy. And we then explored new possibilities for collaboration between meetups. For example, the idea of creating an editorial calendar shared among all meetups, and also way to connect speakers to different meetups. At the end, we close the session with an exercise to identify organizers personal goals and meet-up members goals in so, so that we can find a way as organizers to create an annual program that would match organizers goals and community goals. In this way, we aim to bring people together and enable the group to achieve all the goals as a whole.

Francesco (15:25):
Oh, thank you. So Margherita, can you explain about the what happened, track two?

Margherita (15:34):
Yes, sure. In Track two, which I run together with Simona Simeonato, the focus of the sessions was DEIB, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. In light of the growing debates and conversation within the WordPress community on crucial issue as the represents representativeness of underrepresented groups in the speakers line-up at WordPress events and in the leadership of the contribution themes or the equity of access to resources for disadvantaged people who want to attend the work camp or collaborate. For example, during the morning, I led a panel discussion between three experts, Andrea Fercia, Web, content Accessibility specialist, and WordPress Core Committer. Since the beginning of the year, Laura Sacco GTE and leader of the local WordCamp Europe team finally Elina Pancera expert in inclusive and accessible communication and languages. During the discussion, some topics were covered as the benefits of growing and nurturing a community, more diverse and inclusive, and also the benefits of organizing more diverse and inclusive events such as meetups or work camp, the challenges that need to be faced in ensuring that a culture of acceptance and coexistence of diversities become more pervasive among people in the community.

(17:35):
And also recommendation and best practices for making events more diverse, accessible, and inclusive in all aspects, such as the choice of the venue, how to make slide accessible to all. How to choose the words and tone of voice to use in communication on social media or in meetup.com invitations. This panel fueled so many conversations. So in the Run-Up, we decided to modify the track to agenda, expanding the time dedicated to this panel. We made it a time for a constructive discussion between speakers and attendees, and tried to extend our discussion as much as possible to include our aspects that we’re part of the program of the next workshop, organizing more diverse and inclusive events. this workshop is reworking of one of the workshops designed by Jill, Binder and WP Diversity Group. I have to say thanks to them for their support and for sharing all the documentation for this type of content. I only had to re-adapt it to the Italian con context, but a lot of the work is already ready to be replicated everywhere. We have, however, promised it to retrieve this workshop probably in line mode for a whole our community in Italian or at the next WordCamp, or surely at the next Community day. Simone, do you want to add the part about your session?

Simona (19:41):
Yes, thank you, Margherita. Just a few things to say in the afternoon. In the room two I led the shortened version of the WP Diversity Speaker Workshop that was created by Jill Binder many years ago. the topic covered where the fears and false media, public speaking, different type of talk, why to speak at the WordPress event, meet-up a work camp finding your areas of expertise, how to find a topic and defining and presenting the talk there was, was not only for participants, but also to teach those who run meet-ups, how to engage people in the field and to to have a, the diversity of the community even in meet-up.

Francesco (20:35):
This is great. Thank you, Margherita. We also had a session track three, but it’s time.

Stefano (20:48):
Thank you, Francesco. In the afternoon, we have the session together with Cristiano Zanca and Lidia Pellizzaro, with the purpose of exposing all the collaborative tools used the, within the Italian WordPress community so that we could get a list to be published on Rosetta. The planned duration of the session was not enough, so so it was decided to complete it during one of the meetings of the Italian Community Channel. In fact some topics have animated questions and attempts at complete answers on how to facilitate certain activities such as, as how to translate, help-up documentation or how to participate in solving of testing a WordPress bug. These will all be good points to take back to the various Italian teams to have ma material produced to facilitate the increase of new contributors. I say we haven’t done. Thank you again, Bob, for giving us the opportunity to let people know about WordPress Community Day. Thank you, Bob.