Previewing WordCamp Asia 2024 with Community, Networking, and Local Flavor

BobWP:
Well, we are here to talk about a very exciting event. It’s exciting because I’m going to be there. No, not really. That’s not why it’s exciting. It’s exciting because actually I attended WordCamp Asia last year for the first one, and as many word camps as I’ve ever attended over 14 years. I’m going to say this and don’t anybody frown upon me. It was probably one of the best word camps I’d ever been to.

Devin:
Woohoo,

BobWP:
And it just had a different flavor. I just absolutely enjoyed it and so looking forward to it. So I’m going to quit blabbing though and have my wonderful co-host Devin, say hello and also introduce our guests, which are very special.

Devin:
Thanks, Bob. Hi everyone. As Bob mentioned, the wonderful host co-host is here. Devin’s live from Jakarta. Well, not really life, but I kind of want to feel it’s life because so excited to be with Bob again and there’s my lovely, I want to say ex-teammates, but I guess with the community team, we are always a team and we are always community leaders who support each other. So yeah, I have Andy and Eric here with us, so I guess I’ll let you all introduce yourself, please, perhaps starting with Andy.

Andy:
Hey everyone. Andy here, one of the global leads for the WordCamp Asia 2024. It’s good to be here and having a chat with everyone about the exciting events that we are coming up.

Devin:
Yay. Thanks Andy. And next Eric.

Eric:
Okay. Hello everyone. I’m Eric from one of the local leads of WordCamp Asia 2024, and as a local leads, we’re so excited to welcome all of you coming here and we can’t wait to see you in person.

Devin:
Yes, these lovely folks, I can tell you they’re really excited since we started working Asia back in 2020 and then we had the first one in 2023 when Bob attended and had a fantastic time, and we are going to recreate that fantastic time in Taipei. So yeah, it’s been a while. Andy and Eric, how’s everything, how’s the planning going? What are we expecting in the last couple of months? Is there anything that we need to be prepared? Let us know.

Andy:
Yeah, so events happens on 7th of March. Have everyone get the tickets already?

Devin:
Yes of course.

Andy:
If not, there’s still tickets available. Just go to the website to get the tickets so we can see you there.

Devin:
All right. So yeah, I’ve got my tickets. I’ve got my accommodation book. I’ve got my Visa secured. So what else you want to share with us? What can we expect from WordCamp, Asia in Taipei? Would there be any differences? Like main differences from the one we had in Bangkok?

Andy:
Yeah, so year’s we have a special kind of arrangements, for instance of sessions. So it came up with the idea that we invited speakers. So among those that we already announced, Matt is coming. Joseph Jacks the founder from the OSS Capital. They’re also becoming so the other tools, they’ll also be joining us on the stage. Noel Tock from the Human Made. Then everyone knows that the executive director Josepha will also be joining us. And many more.

Devin:
Something that I really wanted to be because in Bangkok I was busy at the back end. I couldn’t go to any of the session. And then this time and Taipei, I really want to check out one of the invited speaker session and also other sessions. Is there anything else different? Is there any workshop or any panel discussion that we are expecting in Taipei?

Eric:
Yes, there will be a couple of workshops so that people can join and we’re also having a family friendly room this time so that if parents bring their children, they will be able to be in a family friendly room and during the conference stage.

Devin:
So this is different from childcare.

Eric:
Yeah, we are not going to hire childcare. We are just having that place. We are just going to have that room be children friendly, dedicated space. Yeah. And we are still going to have a volunteer there to watch everything, but it’s not a professional childcare center.

BobWP:
So if somebody thought Bob needed a timeout and they wanted to put him somewhere, they could bring him over there too and put him in a corner with some toys and just kind of leave them alone.

Eric:
Yeah, because it’s not a professional childcare center. So we still recommend the parents being with their children, but we are going to prepare some toys so that they can play with.

Devin:
Nice. All right. Well that’s good to know. That’s something different from Bangkok because we didn’t provide childcare in Bangkok, but now we learn, we improve, we do things better. Great job everyone. Nice to hear. Not that I have kids that I will bring, but I’m considering taking my cats all. Probably not. Bob and I here are parents, and of course we’d like to have our fur babies everywhere with us, right, Bob?

BobWP:
Right.

Devin:
All right, what else? Okay,

BobWP:
I have a question. Okay. Everybody that goes to any WordCamp, all they talk about, not everybody, but it’s always about food. So I have to personally ask both of you, what is your recommended dish? I mean, this is personal. This is what you really would recommend for someone to try while they’re there.

Andy:
Okay, because I’m not local, I’m considered as a tourist with to the country. So the night markets, you typically have all the delicious food. So the two things that every time I went there I will have the fried chickens and the mobile tea. So these tools are very famous that it’s a mass that we have to have it,

Devin:
But what’s the difference between the fried chicken in Taipei and the other fried chicken we have?

Andy:
It’s local made then I mean, what do you call the ingredients? They have it. The taste is very different. Although that in Malaysia, where I see though the advertising is originally from Taiwan, but you eat it, the taste is very different. It’s just like when you have the, what do you call the na bar in Malaysia and the ones that have it locally, it’s different.

Devin:
It just tastes better when it’s sourced locally, made locally and eaten locally. Right? So you have to be Taipei to try this Boba tea and the fried chicken Andy’s recommendation. What about you Eric?

Eric:
So as a local, I personally, I’m a soup noodle person, so I would recommend beef noodles. Yeah, we have a lot of good beef noodles and I think we also have a lot of local restaurants which offers different kind of stuff, and it’s called, I’m not sure whether I should just use Mandarin. It’s called Real Top, which means stir frying places. Yeah, it’s the place we brought you before. That’s fried stir fry stuff. Yeah, yeah. The atmosphere there is super good and it’s a best place to have good time with your friends.

Devin:
Yeah, no, I wanted to add if I’m not also local, but I hang out with these folks in Taipei and I enjoyed the sweet potato ball, so it’s fried. Remember we were waiting for the vendor to come back because I really wanted to have that sweet potato bowl. So it’s the purple sweet potato and then also the orange sweet potato, and they’re so yummy and they’re so chewy. It’s hot, it’s just, but it’s really nice when you have it in your mouth. So yeah, I always go for it. I can’t go wrong. It’s something fried. It’s hot and it’s chewy, so I can’t wait to have that.

Eric:
Yeah. So speaking of that chewy, speaking of that chewy texture, there’s a dedicated phrase in Taiwan, it’s called Q. Yeah, it’s Q, the alphabet Q, that texture, we call it Q. Yeah. So if you say, I want something Q, Q, we want something Q and they will give you something chewy.

Devin:
Yeah, today I learned. All right. Okay, so for those of you who like something chewy, then just ask for anything Q, is that correct? Yeah. Okay, let’s do that.

Andy:
Yeah, all the other things that we can brought up is this year, because the events happens in the TICC areas, the convention also, we also managed to secure place media rooms that is dedicated, that we can have partners like media partners like Bob here to the rules. Two, if there’s any interview sessions we want to carry out, we can do it over there. Yeah, I think back in Bangkok, we don’t have the luxury of, they have professional green screens there and yeah, a lot of equipment we can use.

Devin:
All right. Do we have to secure media partners have to secure for the slot for using that room?

Eric:
Yeah, if you want to secure the time slot, you can contact our communication team. Yeah, we will reserve. We reserve the place for you.

Devin:
All right. Nice, nice, nice. All right, let’s talk about the contributor day, because I’ve received several emails about securing the attendance or registering. What can we expect? Is there anything new? How many teams are going to be there? Do you have any information about this?

Andy:
14.

Devin:
Yeah. Great.

Andy:
And this year I think we’ll also be doing the other one, especially the human library projects. So we’ll have a separate tables just for that. So it’s like 15 minutes of sessions, but we still, I mean the contributor team still trying to engage the books to come over so that we can confirm the slots for everyone to make reservations.

Devin:
We didn’t have that right in Bangkok human library. That’s interesting. Yeah, right. Is that something like happiness bar where people can go and ask questions?

Andy:
So happiness bar, we also have a delicate place within the sponsor areas that we try to gather together with the communities sessions. So that’s a place over there. So the human library is more towards, it happens on the contributor day itself, four to five tables separate, just dedicated for that sessions.

Devin:
Excited. Anything else? I think I remember in Bangkok we have this battery pack charger. Do we have anything like that? Something like the attendees can use for free?

Eric:
Yeah, we are still managing the charging stations for our attendees to use, and I think these will be sponsored by our sponsors. Yeah, charging stations.

Devin:
Yeah, that’s a good approach. That’s one way to engage sponsors in a different way that they can contribute in a different form as well. I like that.

BobWP:
Yeah. Yes. But the sponsor, speaking of sponsors, I’m kind of curious because I’m actually a sponsor this year for the first time

Andy:
Your best sponsor.

BobWP:
Yeah, I’m a little sponsor. But anything about the sponsor area that you want to bring up? Anything special this year? The setup of it. I noticed that whether it stays this way, I’m strategically placed across from Woo, which is very nice for me because for obvious reasons. But yeah. Is there anything you want to add about that? I know that as a sponsor, just what you were mentioning, it was very cool because you had several add-ons and some of them were very creative instead of just the typical, you sponsor the coffee or something like that. So yeah, just tell us anything around that particular part that you might want to share.

Andy:
Yeah, so the sponsors, I think back in Bangkok we have because of also the place in the C icon, so all the sponsors are get joined together in one place. So this year, because of the TSCC area, we also learned from the 2023 Bangkok, we kind of separate the sponsors to two areas, first floor and the second floor. So that the idea mainly is to trigger the traffic for the attendees to move around instead of just fixing that on one places. Then having say that also that is a call online with the schedules or sessions, we try to change the topics of the categories on their rooms instead of one categories fixed on the second floor. So we move around it also in a way just to also drive the traffic for people to walk around the SCC so that they can engage the sponsors to meet up with other attendees to just communicate and just be social.

Eric:
So this time we’re going to have a room dedicated for some activities. So we’re still discussing some of the activities now, and one thing where we might have are the networking sessions so that people can go into the room and exchange their business cards and so on. Yeah, we’re trying to make to come up with some small activities in those dedicated rooms.

BobWP:
I really like that idea of especially the networking part of it, having different places where you can do the different things and I don’t know if you actually ever get a chance to listen to the speakers, have the time. I’m guessing you probably are pretty busy, but can you give us a little insights on what we can expect from the speakers and what’s happening there?

Andy:
Having opportunities to sit inside, to listen, to catch up with those speakers coming from their own, from the other part of the world coming to share with us, I think that’s a very, very good opportunity because not many peoples will be able to join the flagship in Taiwan. That’s why also I think we brought the WordCamp flagship to the Asia and we have the first one last year in Bangkok. So I mean personally I would recommend that the attendees that came join us for this sales just sit in and then listens to the favorite speakers. And although I mean some of us may not be able to join, then we also be live streaming the entire sessions to the place so everyone can feel it and enjoy the sessions together.

Eric:
And speaking of the speakers, I think from this to encourage local speakers to join. So we also choose some local speakers who we think the topics might be interesting. So please come and share our local speakers up.

BobWP:
What about the first time attendee, especially to a large WordCamp? Any words of wisdom you can share with them? I mean, some people are a little bit overwhelmed. I found that from attending last year, everyone was so gracious and opened arm that it’s like you could talk to anybody anywhere, no matter if they were supposedly the big WordPress person or not. Anything a tip or a little bit of advice for that first time attendee to make them a little bit more comfortable as a join this community?

Andy:
I think the first thing is come early and get your badge. So to avoid the traffic because during the first day, most of the attendees will just come in. And then the queue, well, we have new vendors also coming in this year, so hopefully we’ll have a better sign in check in this year versus 2023. Because I mean, as you mentioned, we keep on improving for each friendship, learning from the past experience. So the tips is I think try to check because it’s an in-person events is very different from all the virtual events that we have. So engage with the communities, the friends that previously you have, maybe have a chat in the workplace, the off slack, then visit the sponsors because those are the sponsors or plugins or teams or solutions that you use. Probably you have in a chat with them in the live chat or emails. So they are here presently, physically here, visit their booth exchange feedbacks or your thoughts of how you use your products. Then for the speakers also as you bump into them, have a photo with them and yeah, and anything else.

Eric:
I would say yeah, try to chat with people, try to chat with people because like you mentioned, it’s a chance that you can meet all your plugins or things developing companies in the manual. And also if you feel the atmosphere in the venue is kind of tense or if you feel nervous, well look forward to the after party because it’s a place you can have casual talks with everybody. And this time personally, I would say our after party venue is going to be often and personally, I’m looking forward to that.

BobWP:
Okay, so after party, you brought it up and you’re not getting away with telling us more about that. I know that de and she’s probably, if I hadn’t asked she be, I can see her smiling. You got to tell us more. Okay. After party, tell us about the after party.

Eric:
So for after party this time we’re going to have different areas for different themes. Yeah, so because just like back to Bangkok, people gather for different types of gathering. Some people like Sudan in the center of the menu and some people just enjoy their drinks in the other side. So this time we are trying to differentiate different kinds of people for different purposes. And also this venue is, it’s heavily open, so our attendees can also build connections with other people in Taiwan, like other local people outside the venue because it’s happily open. So yeah, if you think, okay, I want to change some atmosphere, you can just hop into local vendor, how do you call that? Get some local food outside, local food shop outside the venue. Yeah, it’s pretty close.

BobWP:
Yeah, it sounds like the best of all worlds because I know as many after parties I’ve been to and I did love it last year because I could enjoy the music, then I could go down the other end and actually visit with people and hear the conversation and stuff. So being able to have that different areas that you can go to for whatever mood, and I like how you’re integrating the local culture with it too. So if you just, you’re like, okay, I just need a break, I want to go over into this little shop or this little whatever vendor is nearby, you can experience that and then you can go back in and do your thing. So that’s fantastic. I love hearing that. So now on another side of this, I know on the site you’ve talked a lot about getting there, traveling, things that people should be prepared for. Is there anything you want to revisit and highlight as far as people traveling to Taipei?

Eric:
I think the most important part will be the documents. So if you are from the visa exempted countries, it’s fine, but for people who need visa, please be aware of the visa. And also there’s another law in Taiwan that pork products is prohibited in Taiwan for importing. So please, please be aware that do not bring anything pork, any pork things like sausage, edge or ham. I mean you’re coming to Taiwan, so just try to enjoy our food. Yeah, you don’t have to bring your own,

BobWP:
Thats the whole point of it.

Andy:
Yeah, you don’t have to bring your own. And yeah, the food is pretty affordable in Taiwan.

Eric:
Taiwan sausage jersey is very famous

Andy:
And we have some of the important regulations, but I think the most important thing to highlight is the pork because it’s strictly prohibited.

BobWP:
So that’s really good to know. And next thing you said, there’s a lot of great food to eat there. We don’t need to bring our own food. So how do we get around to try out all this great food? What’s the transportation options option for everyone?

Eric:
So for Metro, I think Travelers can buy a one day card for the metro. You can just hop in and hop out for most of the metro stations. And I think the metro system in Taipei is pretty convenient. So you can go to any places you want to visit in Taipei City with Metro system. And as for the bus, you can also look up on Google Map because it’s pretty well connected. And if you want to call a cap in Taiwan, we use Uber rather than grab in Taiwan, we use Uber. So yeah, be prepared with your Uber app. And if you are a bicycle lover, we have a service called Ubi, you can register in advance and you can rent a bike in Taipei City and it’s really affordable. I think the first 30 minute would cost you five Taiwan dollars, which is like, I think, well, it’s like 0.16 US dollar kind of. Yeah, it’s pretty affordable.

BobWP:
That’s great. It sounds like there’s plenty of options. I don’t know if anybody wants to deal with me riding around on a bike, but hey, it’s good that there’s the different ways to get around. Let’s talk a little bit about the organizers, the organizing team. How many of you are there? Just give us a little bit more around the organizing team.

Andy:
So we have total about 47 of us co-organizing events. So in between, there are some people because of the commitment, so they left, but we are also on board. There are some folks that join us as well. So today we are about 47 of them joining us, the teams from fries. This year, the changes we have done is that we kind of changed the names of the speakers team to the program teams because we thought about speaker team is kind of like the names can be better with the program because of the schedules and et cetera. So that’s why actually the change is there. The other new changes actually we brought in is we form operation teams. So the operation team actually they took over the items like the tickets, registrations, then others also we talked about the, and on the actual event by itself, we need folks that actually know most of the staff in the TCCS conference. So when something goes wrong, main stage or the food goes wrong, registrations go wrong, sponsors need some informations, where do we find all those pieces? So the operation teams, they are the big folks that actually helps to gather all these and answer questions because the local teams, if we are just relying on just one or two persons, it may not be sufficient example, like Eric will be running here and there, he cannot be on the stage. At the same time, he also sponsor taking care of some of those logistic issues. Yeah,

BobWP:
Cool. And what countries are actually represented by the organizing team?

Andy:
Yeah, we have folks from India, Maylasia, Australia, Philippines, Nepal, Bangladesh, Japan, Singapore, what else? Let me think. India.

Eric:
Yeah, Taiwan. I think there’s one more difference between this work camp Asia and Bangkok is that we try to separate our local team members into each global team. There are four team members and they are including the other local lead uni. There are four dedicated local team members and the rest of them support each team.

Andy:
Yeah, I think one thing to add is the entire events is just not, the organizing team members is also being supported by the volunteers that join us. So without them actually the organizing committee members, it’s just not sufficient resources on the ground, on the event itself to make all these event happens. So it’s very important because it comes from what everybody mentioned is a strong communities. So we love to see everyone.
So organizing, I mean all the organizers, we have shirts. So easy to recognize and then just came and say hi.

Eric:
So I think I want to share an important concept this time because this is from the whole local leads. So an important concept of this work, Asia is experiment. So try to make new friends, it’s also kind of experiments and try to explore the venue, try to explore our sponsors and other, try to build friendship with different people. I think this is also important in the community. We keep improving, we keep trying new experiments, we explore new things and I think I hope we can bring this kind of atmosphere to all our attendees.

BobWP:
Alrighty. Well this has been fantastic. It makes me even more excited now talking to the two of you about everything that’s going on. And yes, everybody out there, if you’re going to be at WordCamp Asia, find one of us, say hi, hang out a bit, go to the party. Just yeah, overall, just have a fantastic time and want to thank Devin for pulling this together and for both of you joining us, it’s been an absolute pleasure. So thank you. Thank you so much.

Andy:
Thank you.

Eric:
Thank you Bob. Thank you Devin. See you in Taipei.

Devin:
Thank you so much.

Eric:
See you.