The WordCamp Seattle 2017 schedule is starting to take shape (and a mighty fine shape it is if I do say so myself). We had an overwhelming response to our call for speakers this year, so I guarantee we’re going to have some top-notch sessions lined up for you come November.
Invitations to speak are starting to go out, but we’ve already locked down one fantastic speaker that we just can’t wait to announce.
One of the themes the Speaker Wrangling team has been (loosely) focused on this year has to do with Community and Contribution. These are two of the core principles that comprise the very foundation of WordPress, and we are over the moon to announce the remarkable Andrea Middleton, Community Organizer at Automattic and the quiet hero behind many a successful WordCamp, as our keynote speaker this year.
To whet your appetite for the awesomeness to come, we interviewed Andrea to mine some juicy ideas and advice she has about becoming a part of the WordPress community:
WCSEA: How do you fit into the WordPress ecosystem?
ANDREA: I’m one of the people who works on community programs for the WordPress open source project. So I work with the volunteers who organize our monthly meetups and WordCamps, with two goals in mind: to make organizing WordPress events easier, and to make WordPress events better for attendees. To meet those goals, I do a lot of different things: I mentor community organizers, help mediate disputes, pay bills, raise funds, build web tools, and write documentation. Oh, and sometimes I speak at WordCamps. 🙂
WCSEA: What was your first foray into being a ‘contributor’ to the WordPress ecosystem?
ANDREA: I’m a little unusual, in that I was using WordPress as far back as 2006, but I never really participated as a contributor to the open source project until I was hired to work on the WordCamp program back in 2011. Since then, apart from my work with organizers on the community team, I’ve contributed to the development of a number of plugins used by WordCamps, including the registration plugin Camptix. I’ve also answered questions on the support forums, edited a typo or two on the Codex, and filed a bug report or two.
WCSEA: What are some of the most interesting ways you see that people who are not-hardcore coders can contribute to WordPress?
ANDREA: Oh gosh, I just named my favorites. 🙂 First, the support forums are FULL of questions that even a pretty-standard-blogger like me can answer. Most of the longtime forums volunteers get sick of answering the same questions over and over again, so it’s super-useful to have new people come in to handle some of the basic stuff. And then the Documentation team has, like, a million opportunities for people who are good at spotting typos, outdated info or confusing language.
If you’re one of the magical, mysterious people who like video editing, the WordPress.tv team publishes tons of great WordCamp videos every week, and they’re always in need of moderators or volunteer post-production editors to help the events that don’t have any skilled volunteers in their local community.
But wait! There’s more! The Marketing team has super-a-lot of opportunities for people who want to help market WordPress to users, agencies, and developers. The Training team needs people who can help write lesson plans that people can use to provide free WordPress training. Oh, and of course the community team is always looking for people who want to organize events or speak at events. Whew! That’s a lot. Don’t try them all at once folks.
WCSEA: Who are some of the folks you admire in the greater WordPress community and why?
ANDREA: That’s an impossible question. 🙂 All of our volunteers amaze me. It’s so hard to do all the work that goes into the software that powers 28% of the web… in your spare time! How is it even possible?
I especially admire our less-visible contributors, like the people who work on the accessibility, support, and documentation teams. They toil in obscurity for so much of the time, but the work they do is invaluable to millions of people.
WCSEA: And just for grins – what is your favorite WordPress plugin from the repository?
ANDREA: I love Jetpack, and not because it’s made by Automattic. For “regular bloggers” like me, Jetpack is such a ridiculous powerhouse of features that makes working with WordPress so much easier (Publicize! Proton! Galleries! Subscriptions!). And you get all those features without having to uninstall-then-deinstall 24 different plugins when you’re troubleshooting an issue. It’s the plugin I find myself recommending 9 times out of 10 to new WordPress users and even longtime users who’ve never heard of it.
Andrea Middleton has worked with WordCamp organizers since 2011, helping people plan events that inspire people to do more with WordPress, connect the WordPress community, and contribute to the WordPress project. A wine enthusiast and avid reader of science fiction, Andrea lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two kids.
So there you have it. Andrea will most definitely bring a fun, fresh, and inspirational note to kick of WordCamp Seattle this year, and we can’t wait for it.
Stay tuned for more announcements as we confirm speakers and sessions over the next few weeks.
Pssst…don’t tell anyone I told you, but tickets are supposed to go on sale Saturday, September 9th, so mark your calendar so you don’t miss out.