In June last year I stepped off the stage of Lingotto Fiere after a successful WordCamp Europe 2024, which I led together with Takis and Wendie, ready to take life in a calmer way. It had been months of hundreds of micro-worries, thousands of conversations and a real rollercoaster of emotions. "All I have left is WordCamp Pontevedra in September, and then I'm back in control of my life...". Deluded me.
It is true that I was able to go to the FIB to disconnect. But since the end of September everything was super chaotic again. So much that you are still waiting for my recap post of the year.
"Matt, WCUS, WPEngine and so on" happened. Of which I have many opinions but I'm not going to tell you now. Among the consequences related to that issue, Automattic decided to reduce sponsored contributions to the WordPress project. And that, as far as I was concerned, was something really worrying. Why? Let's start from the beginning...
Question 1: How long have you been doing events all over the world?
No, I don't organize ALL the events in the world. In fact, right now, I do not organize anything. At WordCamp Europe I was given a golden retreat as a mentor to the WCEU25 to be held in Basel in early June. And at the WordCamp Pontevedra Galicia this year I am with sponsors and with the help of people much better than me.
I don't even do much at the local community meetup, because there's a great team that keeps everything going month after month without me even having to show up.
All of these events are organized by a team of local volunteers and are supported by WordPress Community Support, PBC, a public benefit corporation that is a subsidiary of the WordPress Foundation.
This is because there is a need for entities that provide support (fiscal, financial, insurance, liability, technical) to the events and the organizers don't have to worry about anything. Still, most of the work that WPCS relies on is provided by a number of volunteers who dedicate their time to a lot of tasks from the global community team.
How did I get there? By gossiping. After leading the organization of WordCamp Pontevedra in 2018 and 2019 and having learned a lot thanks to my mentor Ibon Azkoitia and having handed over the baton to Wajari, Rocio Valdivia proposed me to become a mentor and join the global team. From then on, I wanted to understand (and find out) how everything worked from the inside. And the only way to do that was to roll up your sleeves and offer to do some of the work.
On the global community team are people who have organized events all over the world, who have mentored and helped others for years, and who are continually coming up with ways to get more people to receive the positive impact of WordPress, open source, and the people who are dedicated to it.
After several years with limited involvement, in the last few months I decided that client work had burned me out and that it was time to bet on this. Great timing, almost as good as becoming self-employed in the middle of the real estate bubble crisis.
Question 2: What is a Program Manager and what does it take to get there?
The theory goes that "Program managers are highly experienced and trusted program supporters from around the world. They are given access to WordCamp financial accounts and extensive access to WordPress event systems."
What about program supporters? They are the intermediate step after the mentors. They have more responsibility within the program and not only mentor events but also help to review applications for all kinds of events, review and train future mentors, answer emails, give all kinds of support and participate in important discussions for global decision making.
At some point I went from one step to another. And, thanks to Rocío's continuous support, to another one. She already knows that I am infinitely grateful to her. But, in addition, I find it incredible how she spreads not only her energy but also that confidence of "you can do it". Even if you think you can't do it at all. I don't know if she is a bit unconscious or if she simply trusts in the human being, but the results are fantastic.
To answer the question more clearly, what is needed is: to be there and do what you commit to. And be careful, it is not easy and we have all failed at times. But it's a thousand times better to raise your hand in time and say "I can't" or "I need help" than to have people looking over your shoulder.
And tell the rest of the team that you are there for whatever is needed, because it is always needed. And do things. And the more you do, the more responsibility you will be given, because at the end of the day in a team of volunteers, knowing who you have at your side to help you is fundamental.
Question 3: But what do you do on a daily basis?
I get up in the morning and make myself a coffee... and by the time I've brewed it I look at my phone and I already have nine emails, twelve messages in Slack and a stack of tasks that can keep me busy for the next four days.
We talk a lot about organizing events and this part can be more or less clear to anyone: to assemble a team, choose a location, a date, a theme, set up a website, sell tickets, make a program, take care of the attendees' experience, get sponsors, book the catering, the childcare...
And what's behind it? A lot of invisible work.
For example, review all the requests that are sent worldwide to organize meetups, WordCamps and all kinds of events. Train mentors and other supporters so that they can give guidance and help the teams they organize. Doing the onboarding and offboarding of new people and people leaving. Train the organizers so they don't have to reinvent the wheel for each event.
Answering doubts of all kinds in email (blessed HelpScout) or Slack. Review event budgets to make sure everything is feasible and sustainable. Create the agreements for the organizers to sign, assign mentors, create the event websites, emails and Workspaces that each community has. Review applications for grants to cover the cost of locations for meetups. Maintain the event tracker we have with all the updated information... what else?
Occasionally stop by the Supporter Hours weekly, for the monthly team meeting. Give the famous badges to all those who help in the team. Review all invoices that are sent and send them to be paid, as well as reimbursements and income through invoices to sponsors (which we now also have to review in more detail in a new process). Sending insurance information, drafting documents if needed, troubleshooting invoices, Camptix, sending out camera and A/V kits, helping with the global sponsor program, conflicts between people... what do I know! I'm sure I'm forgetting a few tasks.
And, if there is also some extra time, analyze everything that is being done, look for trends, problems and processes that can be improved and discuss and implement solutions. Stop and think about the program as a whole and how to make it better and better and attract more people to the events and the community.
Question 4: How do you get someone to pay you for this seemingly so voluntary?
I've told you that all of this is usually volunteer work. But let's face it, who in their right mind would spend hours of their life reviewing budgets for events all over the world in foreign currencies and then making sure that every invoice that is sent out matches the estimate? Not many people, really.
For this reason, for this type of tasks, so little visible but very necessary (you don't usually get applauded for it on a stage like after giving a talk) there have always been a number of Program Managers who mostly worked for Automattic and, besides creating the program from scratch, have maintained it for many years, whose 40 hours of work per week -or at least part of them- were assigned to the project.
And here we link with what I was telling you at the beginning. What happens if these people stop doing this work? Ouch. The program falters. Because they have the knowledge and, moreover, the ability to spend hours and hours in all these tasks.
Luckily for me, Weglot is a company committed to the project. Very committed. And full of fantastic people. Weglot could devote its entire budget to marketing actions as many companies in the industry do without giving anything back to the open source project that we all benefit from. But they decided to bet on Five for the Future.
They decided to support me (and later Pedro, Francesco and Celi) so that a number of hours that we were dedicating for free to this, would be paid for. And with the certainty that all this voluntary work would now also serve to pay the bills and the rent, we were able to dedicate even more hours. And, above all, to do it in a constant way(what I was telling you about "being there and gaining responsibility") without depending on workloads or factors that would make you stop collaborating in your free time.
And at the moment when the alarms went off, I was able to do a bit of "calm down, here I am!". Obviously, knowing that it is unaffordable to do it 'just me', but learning to involve many more.
Question 5: And how are you doing?
Okay, thank you (runs out to update the tracker).
This is being a crash course in mess management. Which has always been a position I've loved. I now call it WordPress Community Engagement because it looks better on LinkedIn, but don't be fooled.
I miss Rocio, Isotta (🤌), Devin, Hari and Harmony, although I know they are always there to solve me any doubt, dilemma, lack of context or miscellaneous need. I am delighted to work hand in hand with Junko, Kevin, Aditya and Timi. Also with Mary, of course. We have a fantastic team of supporters who help us on a daily basis (like Lidia, Pooja, Ganga, Nilo, Moses, Luis Miguel, Kel, Felipe, Francesco, Arthur, Taco, Patricia, Thabo, Milan, Michelle, Fernando, Denis and a few more that I'm forgetting, sorry).
I have an almost endless list of tasks to do and, in addition, another almost endless list of projects that I would like to carry out in the coming months. This is being quite an adventure. And I will tell you more chapters of this adventure in future posts. Count on it.
Header photo by Fede Padilla.
Leave a reply