Okay, I think this talk is going to be very moving.
Really, when I met Rocío, we already know, but when I met him, I saw that he was a version of Rocío, but from Italy.
I said, my godmother, my godmother, they are together, really.
Okay, I'm going to go to the formal part. Now is the time to introduce them to Rocío and Sota,
I think they don't really need a presentation, but well, I'm sure they already know them, they are very active in the WordPress community.
And precisely from that, from activating within the community, is what they want to talk to us.
With their return to the future of the WorkCamp, they are going to tell us all the new ideas and intentions that are coming to us on top,
with all the WorkCamp that are being projected to the future.
Rocío has been a conference, more than 80 seminars and events in Europe, America and Asia for the last 12 years.
And Sota, this year, began to completely contribute to the programs of the WordPress community, sponsored by Automatic.
So I think there are great things coming to us and I'll leave them to you now.
Thank you very much.
Good morning to all, it's a pleasure for us to be here.
And this is a very short talk, but we want to make a small introduction, because many of you are new here,
and you don't even know what you're going to do today, and what we're going to talk about and all that.
So, during today's day, you're going to hear a lot about the word community and so on,
and many of you are thinking, but what is that about community? It sounds very strange and so on.
And the reality is that we use that word simply to describe to anyone who comes to a meeting,
comes to a meeting or comes to a WorkCamp, we get together, we coordinate and we create great things,
because the reality is that the majority of the people who are here have decided that instead of being on the couch in the morning,
watching the TV or looking at Instagram, we are proactive people.
We are people who want to put our little grain of sand to create something, to do something,
and that's why we are here today, we have something in common, and we are people who want to do things.
So it's a great community of very diverse people, we are a community where there are no only programmers or informatics,
we are designers, we are architects, we are lawyers, there are people from all over the world,
and we simply have something in common, and we use the same tool, which is free, which is open source,
which is free software, and that gives us the opportunity to do great things, to have visibility on the internet,
and we open the doors and join, we have something in common, so that is how I could define the WordPress community,
and we are going to talk a little bit about the part of the events, because I and Sotello have been working together for a long time,
mentoring, helping, guiding the people of events, my name is Rocío Valdivia.
And we work together in the same team, we work for a company called Automatic, and it gives us,
what Jesus has explained before, we are very lucky to work all the time for that open source project called WordPress,
so we, in particular, work all the time in the global community,
what many people know as Workham Central, which is practically where we supervise, create,
and help and mentor organizers of official WordPress events from all over the world.
So, I'm going to tell you a little bit of history to take the context, okay?
WordPress was created in 2003, and in 2006 the first Workham was created,
because many people around the world started to connect to improve this, to improve the other,
and they used it as a tool at the beginning only to block, then they started to use it a little more for other things,
and a moment came, three years later, one of the co-founders decided to do an event where a lot of people were joined,
and coordinate to do new things or to improve.
So, all the workham topics started there in 2006 in San Francisco,
which became the largest workham in the world at that time, for several years,
and it became a reference event, but as you can see, in 2007,
they started to come from Argentina, from China, etc.
What we would like to show now is a little what happened in the last years before the pandemic,
that happened in 2021 and where we are going.
So, if you look, we arrived in 2018, which worldwide,
143 workhams were organized, which is an infinity, and everything was going well,
that is, everything was going to work, and we were just going to keep the same level, or go up,
but clearly nothing, 2020 arrived, it all joined us, but it didn't really join us completely,
because 32 workhams were celebrated, including 2020, some of them before March 2020,
and then online, and in 2021, when it was very difficult to maintain communities,
19 workhams around the world were celebrated, almost all of them were online,
now we will see the numbers, and in 2024, in 2022, we are already going up with 24 workhams,
which is amazing, is that we go from all in presence, all in presence until 2020,
then online 21 and 11 people between January and March 2020, 2021, 18 online,
and workhams in person, and spectacular,
it is not that yes, 24 workhams in a year, passing from 2018, which was more than 140,
it may seem, oh no, what a mess, but no, what a mess, because it is a 23 in person, there is an online,
then the switch is spectacular, and there is already a lot of workhams next year,
and I wanted you to make a mention here.
Well, yes, before Kisota tells you a little about this map, I would like to mention
that our dear Jesus Yesares of the Workham Granada community has been doing a spectacular job
with us in the last months, he has been taking data, well, a barbarity of data from the last years,
since there is the official Meetups program of WordPress data, which we have on Meetup.com,
and Jesus is a geologist and cartographer specialized in showing data visualization on maps,
on a large scale, on big data, and he has made us spectacular maps,
this is just a small example of the wonders he has created, so I want to thank Jesus.
And thank you very much, Jesus helped us, he created this map, which we hope to share soon,
which is an interactive map that shows that we have been able to collect data from Meetups
until today, the evolution, then the real map moves, this is a screen, it moves and you can see
the evolution of where new Meetups have been created, and then the path from only presence to online and both.
And this seems super interesting to us because it connects with what we are showing now,
which is a bit of a gap between the number of Meetups in the whole world and the number of Workhams,
to explain the graphic that can be understood better.
We see each year, the columns represent years, we start to see them since 2018,
in 2018 we have a total number of Meetups in the whole world of 582,
and 24.23% of all these cities that have active Meetups groups has become Workhams,
that is, cities that have had their Workhams. We are more or less stable in the number of Workhams,
but in 2019 it increases a lot the number of Meetups, and then what happens in 2020?
You can't meet us in person, but the number of Meetups continues to rise,
because many Meetups are still doing online, and it has clearly lowered the number of Workhams
for obvious reasons, but what we want to say is that it would be spectacular,
hand in hand, that the number of Meetups continues to rise, to inspire, to support smaller cities,
to smaller Meetups groups to do their own Workhams, and to try to raise the ratio,
and ideally we have almost the same number of Workhams as Meetups,
because there may be a smaller Workhams for local people and in many different cities,
but now at this point...
And now what? So, when we talk about this ratio, thanks to Sissota,
it's not because our only... we only think about numbers,
and we say, let's raise that...
No, but we are aware that the vast majority of the audience wouldn't learn about Workhams,
or we can't reach a lot of people, if the events don't happen in their town or city.
A lot of people won't take the car, and because there is a Workham in Málaga,
or there is a Workham in Almería, or in Madrid, they won't get there, they won't go there.
So, it's true that we reach a lot of people when there are more local events.
So, a lot of people will think, well, in life I could organize something like what I've organized,
the crazy people from Ponte Vedra, to do it in my town.
And that's the thing, you don't have to do something like this.
Our idea is that small events, or small meetings, or small workshops,
or if you just want to meet with people to have a beer or a coffee,
or a coffee from your town, or from your city, to meet and do networking,
with the entrepreneurial people from your town, people who like the internet,
people who move around the world, well, that already creates an ecosystem.
That will create connections, it will create future relationships, future partners, etc.
And that's what helps us all to improve the internet ecosystem in our areas.
So, that's why we often look at that there are more local events,
we know that it really has an impact.
Not having four big events a year in a city, in a country, sorry,
makes us reach more people.
It's really the small events and the small communities of people
that really have more impact in the end.
And now what? Well, we're in 2022, there are 12 workshops worldwide.
If you want to look for it, it's in central.workamp.org
and there in the menu you will find the schedule of all the next workshops, central.workamp.org.
There you can always see which ones are the next ones, go to the website,
buy whatever you want, if you want to go.
And if you don't, if you put meetup.com, if you look for meetup.com WordPress,
you can find the group of meetup of your location,
which you can usually join for several weeks or monthly or whatever,
and meet people from the world of WordPress or the world of the internet
if you want to create connections or continue learning,
just every month.
You've heard a lot of stories, these are already familiarized,
but many others are the first time you're here,
you have no idea what we're talking about.
When we talk about work camps, you already know that this is more or less a work camp.
But when we talk about meetups, the most classic events are the meetups,
the meetups are simply stay. We call them meetups
because we use a platform called meetup.com,
and they're basically stay of people who want to learn together,
create workshops, seminars, talks, to follow everyone.
I share, you share, one day I teach, another day you.
We look for an opponent from another city, that kind of thing.
There are also work camps, there are also contributor days,
which are days like today, where we simply join and share knowledge
and learn from each other.
And online events also keep happening,
they've become a trend with the pandemic,
and many groups have decided that they still want to keep them.
I haven't put the URL, but I should have put it,
so if you're interested in knowing where online events are organized,
there are many groups,
and there's a place where the global director is,
where you can look through the language.
So if you want to say, there's a talk of, I don't know, e-commerce,
it's the same, they do it in Chile, but I can see it online,
so everyone is welcome to attend.
And Do Actions, what are the Do Actions?
For those who were here on Friday,
maybe you've seen or participated in the Do Action,
organized by the Ponte Viedra community.
For those who have no idea what it is,
Do Action is basically an event in which people join,
they form a team to build web pages to local ONGs.
So, non-profit associations that still don't have a web,
and we join, and one day we send them and we give them the web.
And what happens in those events?
People with different abilities join,
there's a boss, a project boss,
who helps organize the work, and who leads,
and the idea would be to help as many ONGs as possible,
while we join, share our knowledge,
and also learn some cases.
What they did here has been phenomenal,
because they did an initiation workshop first,
and then the teams formed,
it was the second Do Action of this year in Spain,
the first one they did in Grignon in May.
We'll have one in Barcelona in May next year.
And we really encourage you all to participate,
and also to give us feedback,
because Do Action is so well known,
maybe because the name is weird,
and maybe we don't understand each other well,
or because we're not talking too much,
but I invite you all to join,
because we have a lot to improve,
in terms of documentation,
because it's related to OJAR,
and the organizers are supposed to do things,
but we haven't documented it perfectly.
So we're working on it,
and the more feedback the participants get,
we'll be able to offer better resources
so that all the organizers have it much easier,
and then we can replicate it.
We don't need a Do Action to have a Workup,
absolutely not,
as in the case of Meetups or Contributor Days,
you can organize it in your communities, one day.
And we don't need to do six webs either,
helping five NG of one.
For example, in Barcelona,
as we've never done it,
and we want to learn and see how it goes,
we'll do it small, with one,
a single NG, we do it,
we wait, and we can help more and more.
So I wanted to thank the Pontevedra community
because they've done an amazing job,
and with all the organization behind the Workup,
and Grignon,
because Grignon gave the push this year
so that Spain can do the Do Action again.
So...
A small mention,
I don't know if you've always mentioned it,
I've been very grateful,
a category of sponsors that is called
the Global Sponsors,
because they finance
the main programs of the Workup community.
They're the people behind the Meetups,
because the groups in Meetup.com
are not a free group.
You have to pay to keep them.
And these companies are keeping all the Meetups,
and they also take care of each part,
of each of the budgets,
and of the things that they carry,
creating a Workup.
And, well, they support us in everything,
in the whole world,
so we thank them one more time.
Thank you.
And about the future,
and this is the only part we want to finish,
we want to innovate.
We are in a perfect moment,
in a point of inflection after the pandemic,
in which a lot of people are reinventing themselves
with the issue of events,
to connect, to create communities,
community building,
and we just want to reach more people.
So, when a lot of people think about the Workup events,
they think about the classic Meetup group,
or the classic Workup,
and we want to encourage,
from the global community team,
to innovate, to experiment,
to play,
and to involve people
interested in all this,
in your circles, to create new things,
or to do new initiatives,
to do more do-actions,
to do more networking events,
where people just connect,
because that's what it's all about,
to do more workshops.
People really want to learn,
they don't want to waste a whole day
to be alone talking,
which sometimes also depends on the day,
but you should know that you have
the Learn.workupers.org platform,
where there are professional teachers
who are uploading weekly
workshops from scratch,
in the middle and advanced level,
there are also people
who are taking pictures,
like in Lisbon a while ago,
because, I don't know if you know,
but in Workupers.org,
it has created a photo directory
of open license,
where anyone can use those photos
for their websites.
You can now put it directly from your editor
on your website,
but you can also go there and look at it,
and people can upload their own photos
with an open license.
You can also put your own photos,
not to say that they are the best faces,
but landscapes, etc.
Then there are initiatives,
like the World Press Late Night Show
of Work in Spain,
Francesca was the leader
of that,
and our dear Paolo Moratinos,
who were some crazy people
who came up with ideas
like this one,
and what's your idea?
What can you do
with your own initiatives?
And one of the things that are working
a lot is the theme of the World Camp
for themes,
and many more people want to learn
about a specific niche,
and if they want to go to an event or two days,
they don't want to be learning
programming,
they are a digital marketing,
and why not?
An entire event, an entire weekend,
about digital marketing and about that topic.
Or, for example, the World Camp Valencia,
where you learn about design,
which doesn't mean that it's just for designers,
no, it means that it's about design,
so maybe you are what you are,
but you want to learn
about design, because it's a perfect World Camp
for you, or Grignon, which is in Madrid,
now in November,
it's a World Camp that is specialised in e-commerce,
so if you want
to do this kind of thing,
we invite you to the community table today,
thank you very much.