Wearing Both Attendee and Sponsor Hats at WordCamp US

BobWP: Alrighty, I am continuing my recaps of WordCamp US from this year, and I thought I’d go a little bit of a different angle here, and instead of having just the attendees come on, I thought how about an attendee slash sponsor, and get the perspective from both the sponsor and as an attendee, which I don’t know if it’s split personalities or, when they play which role, but I thought who better than not only a WordCamp sponsor, but a Do The Woo sponsor, Adam from GoDaddy. Adam, how are you doing?

Adam: I’m doing well, Bob. Thanks. And yes, it is totally a split personality event.

BobWP: Yeah that’s one of the things. And I want to start out with this because it’s the overall thing as far as, take away or what really was the highlight of WordCamp US for you, but how about if we take it first from the sponsor perspective and then take it secondly from attendee perspective, which there may be some crossover, I’m not sure, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on just that single takeaway that you really walked away with?

Adam: The single takeaway that I walked away with from a sponsor’s perspective and also from, a longtime WordPress community perspective.

And I’m just gonna go with the professional angle here. I was so pleased that we were able to not only get our core Sponsor booth team, which is the field marketing team here at GoDaddy to of course build and run the booth and talk to attendees and talk about the the topics that we were there to talk about in terms of our product offerings and enhancements and things.

But we were also able to get 16 product and engineering staff out to this WordCamp as well as six of our senior leadership, which traditionally, we’re spearheading all of these events, cities city based events, but also these larger regional WordCamp, U. S., Europe, Asia, et cetera. And I think that was my main takeaway is I was really proud of leadership to recognize the value of what we do, but also the value of the WordPress project in terms of the open source project and the community at large and how important it is that they have a full understanding of all of the things that are involved with attending a WordCamp. For our product and engineering people, it’s really important for them to talk to other product and engineering people just in a professional sense, there’s level set on what’s happening in the space, things are always changing, but then also talking to attendees on their experience with our products, our offerings and our brand and of course leadership

understanding what the project is, not that they didn’t before, but what the community aspect entails, right? It’s so many things. It’s attendees it’s product visibility. It’s also opportunities that are uncovered for partnerships to either enhance the brand or the product or amplify other brands and products that are complimentary to what we offer.

So that would be my biggest takeaway, Bob, on the professional side.

BobWP: And that’s interesting, before you get into the attendee side, that has given them the opportunity, did they like, sometimes hang at the booth for a bit to get that experience and then of course mill around and become an attendee or like you said, have the opportunity to meet up with partners or another developer or whoever, so it seemed like they had this potpourri of experiences for them.

Adam: Yeah, that’s exactly what it was. All of the above I’ll say. Pre event we were very specific in setting up meetings with existing partners, potential partners products and service owners that we wanted to make sure that their solutions were surfaced. And so we set up a series of meetings but everyone spent time at the booth talking to attendees and learning, but also sharing details about what it is we’ve been doing in the last year, two years in terms of products. Yes, all of the above, it was a whole experience. And then you add things like just our team, those people that were there, many of us never having met in person.

And, sitting at the hotel lobby or the cafe or going out to dinner and just really getting to know each other. It strengthens those relationships, which then strengthens our ability to get things done in and have everyone’s input and and find a way forward through the next year or two, whatever it is just the face to face is so important.

BobWP: Yeah, and it almost blends like a retreat slash meet new customers, slash meet existing customers, slash slash, all these different things that you get to bundle all in a what seems like sometimes several days of time, but it goes by so quickly.

Adam: Yeah, it’s definitely a whirlwind for someone who’s just attending the event and experiencing everything, but the sponsors as well.

And it is just a whirlwind of activity and, pre pandemic we used to call those team meetings off sites, right? So the teams would get together in certain location for a week or so, and then really plan a strategy and a roadmap for things. And we’ve lost some of that after 2020, although there’s still the virtual versions, but again, in my opinion, there’s nothing like face to face meetings. But I’m so glad that these events are continuing to happen to give us those opportunities.

BobWP: Now, what about as an attendee, when you can’t take off the GoDaddy hat. It’s always there lingering around or hanging on your back or somewhere, but what was the highlight as an attendee?

Adam: Having been in the WordPress space since 2005 when I found the software in the community. And I think my first WordCamp was in either 2011 or 2012 in Chandler, Arizona. It was WordCamp Phoenix . And at that time I’ll just reminisce for a second. I had been very active on the dot org forums and recognized a lot of the names of people who were core committers or who were very active in the project. And I remember going to that event, I was solo. And it might come as a surprise, but I was pretty introverted at the time just overwhelmed with everybody.

And I see all these names the people I recognize. So it was a bit of a. A bit of a starstruck moment for me, but once I had that experience, I knew and I knew before that I wanted to make a career out of this WordPress thing somehow, right? I did freelance and had products on the plugin business, et cetera, and then started working for brands in 2016.

And so I’ve been to a lot of camps was the point I’m trying to make. And for me having. Had so many years of experience of meeting so many people as an attendee, this event in many ways was a kind of a reunion, right? Seeing people that I hadn’t seen either in years or since the last event

I saw a guy named Scott Roomery that I had met at, I think WordCamp Ann Arbor back in 2017 or 2016, one of those. And he came up to me and said, Adam, and I say, Hey, and it’s those moments where, I’ll talk a lot about community and the one to one relationships, but they matter so much.

And it’s so nice. So as an attendee, for me, it was just great seeing a bunch of people that I knew that I hadn’t seen in years, but also meeting new people. And one of the questions I love to ask, and in fact, it’s usually the first question I ask when someone comes up to the booth is how do you use WordPress?

And there are so many different answers to that question. And I always learn something from someone about how they’re using WordPress, whether they’re freelancer or small business owner or hardcore developer. It’s always enlightening to hear everyone’s stories.

BobWP: You and I were talking before we started recording about how it seemed to be a very exhausting event. We were both taking a little longer to recover. And I don’t know if that just, it was a year later and we’re a year older or whatever. But what I was thinking is what you said about so many people, like a big reunion.

That’s what I think I mentioned on another show I did about it was that when I was looking at the attendee list, I thought, Oh my God, there’s people here I haven’t seen for years. And coming out of the woodwork, I thought, wow, I didn’t even really know they were still doing WordPress stuff.

And I think there was one person from the Seattle area and I swear, I probably have not seen him face to face for probably 10, 12 years and he walked by and we just, it was like. It wasn’t like that 10 or 12 years never really happened. It was like, Hey, how’s it going? Great to see you. So I get it. It was yeah, it was like a huge reunion. It was pretty amazing.

Adam: Yeah, it really is nice just making those connections with people, ethereal speaking for a moment. In my experience and as I’ve gotten older and, I have kids now and meeting so many people in this WordPress space, just in life, that’s, what’s important.

These one to one connections are first and foremost. And you learn so much about yourself and reflecting back on how you maybe communicated with someone or didn’t and you learn so much again about how people are living their lives kind of around this open source project called WordPress and this community.

I just love that aspect so much. Cause I think it’s, again, that’s what matters in life, right? People the connections that we make. And I think this community is really special in that regard due to our passion for open source, the software and how it has enabled so many millions of people around the world to not to use a former GoDaddy slogan, but to make their own way.

And that’s what I love about that.

BobWP: When you mentioned new people. One of the days, I can’t remember which day it was when I went to lunch, I sat down at a table. There was about 10 people at it, and I didn’t recognize a single face. So I just, squeezed my way and said, do you mind if I sit here?

And I listened to them for a while before I even introduced myself or talked about anything. And they were all designers. And we ended up having just a fun conversation. A couple of them recognized my name and, Oh, I didn’t know that was you. And we just were talking about different stuff the WordCamp itself, and they were talking, having different discussions about design.

And afterwards, when I got up to leave the table, I just looked at them all and I said, Thank you. This was an absolute joy sitting here and talking to you. And it was because I didn’t know a single one of them, but they all had their own little piece in the WordPress place, and they were all excited about it.

And a few of them, it was their first time they’d been at a WordCamp and were really enjoying it. So it just, it made my day. It was like one of those things they say, go to lunch, find a table where you know no one and you will make 10 new friends or something. So it was good.

Adam: Yeah, that’s it. And that’s a really important aspect of these WordCamp events as well as putting yourself out there, right? Introducing yourself asking the Pac Man, the circle to open up to make room for others. And again, it’s just so interesting to meet new people, especially.

A lot of the regional camps, I won’t say a lot of, but what happens at these regional camps is that you do see a lot of the same people, from a sponsor’s perspective, we know many, if not all of the other sponsor teams, right? Cause we’ve seen them at other events. So it’s a nice moment for us to catch up to on what we’re doing in the space and that, but speaking of exhausting, Bob I think first and foremost huge, thanks to the volunteer organizers, the volunteers of the event. As a sponsor, I have the opportunity to see a few things from the inside and how things come together and all of the fires and last minute things that come up that need to be addressed.

So just a huge kudos to the organizers of these events. And also the other sponsors, not To mention the attendees who, who come to these events. The reason I prefaced all that was one of the reasons I think for the exhaustion was a, the excitement, right?

And we all had a bunch of things to do pre event as a, an example of that, Marcus Burnett who’s on our team and I, the day that we landed the next day we went shopping to get some last minute items and we ended up going to four or five different stores and it was pretty much the whole day. So stuff like that, but then the event location, I really love this location. Anytime that we can have an event in the hotel where it’s being held at is so convenient for everyone, but including sponsors, cause we have a lot of stuff shipped and that we have to bring up and down from the room and those kinds of things.

And I understand that depending on the location, there are hurdles like I think one of the hurdles for this one was it was such a large venue and there were other conferences going on. And I think and organizers please correct me if I’m wrong. But I think the location of the sponsor area versus the locations of the sessions, it was very far apart. As an attendee, and even as a sponsor I had to make a decision constantly. Okay. What location am I going to be in and where do I need to be next? And I have to account for the time between. So there was a lot of back and forth between the room and the session area and the sponsor area.

But. That’s negligible, right? You can’t really control that as much as you want to. But the fact that we were all in the same location, I think was really great.

BobWP: Yeah. I was going to ask you about that because one thing I agree it was, it’s almost like that when I walked in, I’ve never been on a cruise ship, but I almost felt like I was on one of those huge cruise ships because of the inner, almost a little tiny town with all the little shops down there and stuff, and you didn’t really have to leave hardly for anything.

Everything was right there, which made it really nice. And I did think about that. I’ve been, and I don’t know, you probably have experienced other conferences outside of WordCamp.

And I’ve been to these kind of conference centers where there’s multiple conferences going on in the past, and I know, they usually have like expo halls in a certain area, then they have these sessions, often it doesn’t make for the easiest moving around, because you’ve got, yeah, a bit of a distance between that.

And one of the things I was wondering is if, did you hear from any attendees comment on that because I think we’re so used to going to, especially if it’s in a hotel, we’ll go to the bar or the restaurant . And you’ll expect it to be filled with WordPressers. You go to any bar or restaurant there and it’s filled with, three or four different conference attendees.

So they’re all bunched around in areas. So that was, I think for some, a few actually said, wow, I’ve been to this bar and half the people I didn’t know. Yeah, it was that other conference going on or the other two conferences. So there was for people that maybe don’t go to a lot of other, really gigantic conferences.

I think that was a little bit noticeable for them that it was different, and I don’t know if you heard from any of the people that came up to the booth, or if that was, like you said, almost negligible, where it’s not a concern, I’m just going to get from here to there.

Adam: Yeah, I did hear comments from attendees and others that, the distance between the sessions and the sponsor area was I would say maybe frustrating at times because you want to do all the things, right?

You want to attend the sessions, but you also want to check out all the different companies that are there and what they have to offer. And I will say from a booth traffic perspective, I was pleasantly surprised that we had steadier traffic than I thought we might because of the distance.

But again, I think attendees had to make a conscious decision. Okay, now I’m gonna go here and spend the next hour here and miss this thing, but I don’t think there’s really any way that you can solve that. Even if the sponsor and sessions areas were right next door to each other, you still have to make a decision on what you’re going to do and when.

I don’t think it was a huge concern. We did see like most events day two sponsor booth area traffic was a little bit less. And there’s always some kind of a drop off either they’ve spent a good portion of time the first day checking out all the sponsors and learning about everything and now they’re just in sessions or, people who aren’t used to big conferences, they get a little tired and they start a little late and, or they stay out too late. But I didn’t hear any real negatives about the number of people from other conferences or things like that.

In fact I had the opposite experience when I came back from, I forget what I was out some event or dinner or something. And I came back to that main bar area, the Harbor social. And I walked down there to meet two people. And then when I got there, it was like, two huge long tables with probably 50 or a hundred WordCamp people, attendees, sponsors, organizers, whatever.

And my intent was to go down there, say hi to the two I was going to say hi to, and then go to my room. Cause I, just a side note at this event, I was very focused on making sure that I was practicing self care for this one, because I’ve done in the past where you do all of the networking late at night and all of those things.

And, as a sponsor, we’re up at 5 AM most days, regardless of what time you go to bed. Anyway, long story short, I tried to get back to my hotel room and it took me about an hour and a half of, Hey, how are you doing? And cutting every conversation short.

BobWP: Yeah. Those good intentions of getting back to the room. Yeah. I experienced that. So when you’re there. As a sponsor, what hat are you wearing? Are you always wearing the GoDaddy hat. I know one night Cami and you and I sat down and we had a great conversation, fun talking about crazy stuff and everything there’s gotta be this constant, am I Adam the guy just hanging at WordCamp US having fun, or I’m Adam, the sponsor. But it seems like with WordCamps, they go hand in hand.

Adam: Yeah. So my approach to that, Bob is, first and foremost, I’m Adam Warner, WordPress enthusiast. Because it’s what I fell in love with long ago.

When I started representing brands at WordCamps, the first one was of course the plugin business, Foo Plugins that I co founded back in 2011. So I was a brand representative. But then when I started working full time in 2016 for brands before, and then GoDaddy in 2018, I still use that approach.

It’s first and foremost, Adam, who loves WordPress and wants you also to succeed. But then of course I am representing a brand and we do have really great WordPress solutions. So I try to work that into the conversation when it’s appropriate. I offer people to ask me questions about either the brand or products or the many years of evolution that we’ve gone through and iterations of our WordPress offerings through GoDaddy. I think that answers your question. First and foremost, it’s me talking to you about WordPress and how you’re using it and what solutions you’re using, and then finding a way organically and honestly, and with trust to talk about what it is we offer, because I’ll tell you this I don’t represent any brand or product that I don’t believe in myself or that I don’t use myself.

And, with any brand there’s the ebb and flow, the ups and downs through the years of things that happen or don’t happen and those sorts of things, but, I’m really confident in what it is I talk about with the GoDaddy products and services because I use them myself and they work.

BobWP: That’s interesting because it’s a little bit different more recently because I’ll usually have several of my Do the Woo sponsors there, but in the early days, like when I first, ironically enough, the very first WordCamp U S, I was sponsored by GoDaddy.

Adam: Oh, I didn’t know that.

BobWP: I didn’t know if I was going to be able to go and at that time Mendel Kurland was working there.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah. Mendel.

BobWP: And he’d come to Seattle and we were walking along. He says, you going to the first WordCamp US. And I said I don’t know if I’m going to be able to swing it. He says maybe we could help you swing it. And it just worked into me being sponsored.

And so for the first three WordCamp US, I think I was sponsored by a brand or maybe two or three brands. And when you were saying, who do you represent? I always told them you don’t really want me wearing one of your shirts because that’ll be a misrepresentation because people come up and start asking me questions I don’t know and that’s not going to be best for your brand It’s better if I come and hang at your booth or do something like that I’d be who I am BobWP first.

I could always talk about hey, you know who sent me here so and so or GoDaddy sent me here or I could take them over and introduce somebody so they never expected that.

Adam: Yeah. Yeah, I get that. So a couple of things first of all the credit and kudos again. And I say this as often as I’m able to, to Mendel Kurland as far as I know, he was the one that brought GoDaddy into the WordPress space, said, we need to be here.

We need to listen to this community. We need to be involved. And at the time when Mendel was representing GoDaddy at these camps, I was representing another brand and saw that was a valid career option. But and through the years we have had what we call GoDaddy Pro Ambassadors.

So people that use our products that help us staff the booth. And we have no hard requirements. Like you must talk about this thing and this thing, and you must wear our t shirt and none of that even really comes up because it’s a one to one relationship there. And there’s a trust there.

So why should we need to be that prescriptive? But there’s nothing as valuable as having an actual user at your booth talking to another attendee on how they use your products. It’s so valuable. And I think what you touched on there, like declining to wear, a branded t shirt or something.

I think in some ways it’s more authentic if you don’t. If you’re talking about a brand’s product or services as a user, I think that holds more value than if you were, wearing a beanie hat and a t shirt and backpack and a cape and you know everything like total brand outfit.

BobWP: So I want to swing back just a couple things before we slide on out of here and I want to go back more to Sponsor side of things and just maybe something that if anybody’s thinking about sponsoring a WordCamp or they’ve done it and they have their own questions first of all, do you see any changes in swag.

Is swag going in different directions? What do you think?

Adam:

Happy to talk about this. Just like you’ve described through the years, you see the ebb and flow of swag items come and go, right? How many of us have the Yeti branded water bottles?

How many of us have notebooks and pens and all of those those things that people might be used to seeing. Some of those things are really useful. Some of them end up just going in the landfill. And the community as a whole has a focus on providing more sustainable swag. And I’ve had that focus not always successful for several years.

We’ve done things like we had air plants on like hot glued to shells for WordCamp Miami. That was really great. People love them, but they were very fragile and a lot of them broke. We’ve done the boxes with the seed packets, right? Cause it’s important to have plants and around you in your house and notebooks and pens are always a hit places like StellarWP, I think it was, might’ve been WordCamp Europe or WordCamp US 2022, they did a really great swag presentation with the candles. So they had candles and they each had really funny kind of meme sayings that were industry specific. That was really great. But one of the things that we’ve been discussing here and that we are moving forward with is getting even more sustainable.

So we’ll likely be more digital based swag items. And not only that, but, here at GoDaddy, we have a huge focus on sponsoring contributors to the WordPress project. And that is expanding, has been expanding for the past year or two. And I’m really excited to talk about some stuff in 2024, but where I’m going with that is the amount of money that we spend on swag for all of these events, isn’t sustainable in the fact that we’re spending money on things that may not be necessarily useful to the end user and the attendee and doesn’t have a positive long term effect on their lives, their careers. So one of the things that we will be doing. And we’re setting it up now with the WordPress Community Collective.

And this is breaking news.

BobWP: Good. I always like breaking news.

Adam: Is that we’ll likely be matching donations or, othewise funneling our typical swag budget toward contributors and toward underrepresented folks being at WordCamps as speakers or attendees or what have you.

A really good example, I give a shout out to Pressable. And again, I think it was WordCamp US 2022. It might’ve been Europe. They were doing a donation match as well.

BobWP: Yeah, I do remember that.

Adam: Yeah. Kudos to Jessica Frick and others there behind that brand for that, and we’ll be doing something similar, but something, the end result is that we want to make an impact in people’s lives in the WordPress space and also to the project. So more details on that in the coming months.

BobWP: Excellent. That’s great to hear. And it really makes sense to go in that direction. I think more and more people are, I don’t think it’s going to affect people one way or another at a conference. Sometimes I think even, some people just seem happy picking up a tiny little sticker and walking away with it.

So it’s yeah, t shirts are, one of the things that we won’t even go into that. And I won’t even tell you about my move from the States to Portugal and all my t shirts.

Adam: It’s funny you mentioned that because that is one of the things I really love about these events is it being able to provide and also get some new shirts.

And I have two boxes that are labeled WordCamp t shirts that I need to do something with, but as a sponsor I know Bluehost has been doing this for years, Gravity Forms and others, getting the number of t shirts that you need, and it’s a guesstimate, it always is a guesstimate with any swag, but then having the sizes that you need, but then also accommodating for not only unisex, but also cuts for different genders.

It’s a bear, and it’s costly and we have avoided t shirts for the most part from us, but we’ll be focused a hundred percent on sustainable swag, but we still will have things at the booth because that’s important. oh yeah.

Yeah.

BobWP: There’s gotta be stuff there. So there’s a lot to this and hopefully we can talk about this more in the future on some shows, again, going back to somebody that’s thinking of, should I sponsor WordCamp? Is there one piece of advice you could give somebody for that first time business, even considering it.

Adam: That is a..

BobWP: …loaded question.

Adam: There’s so many answers to that. We’ll save most of it for future episodes maybe . But the question is, why should I sponsor a WordCamp? What are the benefits to my brand and my business? For the first thing that any brand or business should know is that there, you should not sponsor a WordCamp or anything in the community with a financial ROI as your main goal, right?

It’s brand awareness. It’s brand affinity. Do I like this brand? I went to their booth. Do I like the people there? What are they talking about? There is a trailing financial ROI on doing events, not just in WordPress, but any events. But that should never be the main focus.

The other tip that I’ll give is that for anyone sponsoring a WordCamp, come there with someone from your care team who can handle problems right there on the floor. I’ll just spew some things, try to set up meetings with people beforehand that where you don’t say just come find me at the booth, because chances are you’re going to be already talking to someone and the other people are standing off and I see them looking at me and I’m looking at them going, okay, I acknowledge you, but I’m going to try to get over there.

So try to set up some pre meetings, which isn’t always easy, but also product demos, right? Don’t be too wordy in your messaging on what you’re trying to get across bullet points, I think are best, but an actual product demo, whether that’s looping on a monitor or you have a dedicated space with your laptop for them to learn about your products.

One of the things that we’ve been doing pretty successful and we’ve seen other brands do is using trivia games to be lighthearted, have a little fun because it’s WordPress focused, but also have questions about your brand and your products. And then on the back of that trivia, which is usually a contest entry, right, cause most people do some kind of a giveaway. But then on the back end of that. We’ve put on a survey link, which got you an extra entry, but it was a simple, I think, three to five questions about the brand. And that gives us some anecdotal data on what attendees are experiencing from GoDaddy at these events and just in general, and if their opinions are changing through the years and those sorts of things. And there’s a whole bunch more , but I think those are my top tips. Yeah.

BobWP: So really enjoyed this great information. I know we have some stuff we can be doing in the future here. You’ll be able to share a lot more of yeah, your insights and all your experiences and you have a lot of it. So that’ll be great.

Adam: Bob, thanks for the opportunity it’s always a pleasure to talk to you. And I just hope we can do it more often. I know we’ll see each other at a future WordCamp sometime soon.