Although attending State of the Word in person would be ideal, not all WordPress community members get to enjoy the experience of attending the speech live with friends.
This year, as State of the Word is streamed live for the second time, we want to restore that in person camaraderie through State of the Word watch parties for WordPress Community members around the world.
We encourage WordPress meetup organizers and community members worldwide to (safely) host State of the Word 2021 watch parties —read this handbook to learn more.
Why organize a watch party?
If you are a WordPress meetup organizer, many folks in your meetup may be unaware of the State of the Word, and a watch party could be a great opportunity to introduce or remind them.
As meetup organizers slowly bid goodbye to a tough year, the watch party could be an excellent opportunity to revitalize your group, especially if you haven’t had many events this year.
Along with your Meetup group members, you get a platform to ask questions directly to Matt Mullenweg.
And last but not least, even if you are not a Meetup Organizer, a watch party can be the perfect opportunity to reconnect and have a blast with your WordPress friends!
How do I organize a State of the Word watch party?
You can choose to host a watch party online or in person. Check out our handbook for detailed instructions on how to schedule an event (including event templates).
Online
The simplest way to organize an online watch party is to schedule an online event for your WordPress group and add the State of the Word YouTube streaming link directly on Meetup.com. Alternatively, you can schedule an online meeting using tools like Zoom and broadcast the live stream over there by screen sharing––thereby facilitating better engagement.
If your region meets the guidelines for in person events (if vaccines and testing are freely available), you can organize an in person watch party event (for fully vaccinated OR recently tested OR recently recovered folks) for your WordPress Meetup! Group members can hang out together (following local safety guidelines of course) and watch State of the Word live.
NOTE: If State of the Word is happening at an odd hour in your timezone, you can still organize a watch party by organizing a replay of live stream, at a date/time that is convenient for your group.
If your Local WordPress Meetup is organizing an in person watch party, fill out this form so that we can ship some swag for your group to celebrate! Deadline: November 30, 2021
What else do I need to know about organizing a State of the Word watch party?
Excited? To help you get started, we’ve put together a few resources:
Check out this handbook for detailed instructions on how to organize a watch party, be it online or in person.
We have prepared some email templates that Meetup Organizers can use to spread the word in their Meetup groups.
Don’t forget to share on social media about your watch party events using the hashtag #StateOfTheWord so we can join in on the fun!
NOTE: The guidelines in this post are primarily aimed at WordPress Meetup organizers. However, you do not need to be a Meetup organizer to schedule a watch party! You can simply hang out together with your friends online or in person (while following local safety guidelines) and catch the event live!
If you are planning a watch party for State of the Word, and have questions, please drop us an email to: [email protected] if you have any questions. We are happy to help you in the best way possible.
WordPress 5.9 is expected to be a ground-breaking release. It will introduce the next generation of themes with Twenty Twenty-Two joining the fun and over 30 theme blocks to build all parts of your site. In anticipation of the January 25th release, we hope you enjoy this sneak peek of 5.9.
New design tools will allow you to create exactly what you want, from adding filters to all your images to fine-tuning the border radius on all your buttons. With WordPress 5.9 providing more design control along with streamlined access to patterns, you can easily change the entire look and feel of your site without switching themes.
No matter what you’re editing, whether it’s crafting a new post or working on a header, improvements to List View make it simple to navigate content regardless of complexity. More improvements and features for everyone are to come in this release and we can’t wait to see what you create with WordPress 5.9!
To join State of the Word 2021 online, check your Meetup chapter for a local watch party, or simply visit wordpress.org/news, where the livestream will be embedded.
If you would like to participate in person in New York City, please request a seat by filling out the registration form by Sunday, November 28. Not all requests will receive a seat due to venue capacity, but everyone who requests one will receive further notification on Tuesday, November 30.
In person attendees will be asked to show their COVID vaccination card at the venue entrance, and are expected to follow the safety measures in place. Because of these safety measures, there is a maximum of 50 attendees.
Whether you participate in person or online, we are so excited to see you on December 14! Don’t forget, State of the Word will be followed by a Question & Answer session. If you have a question for Matt, you can send your question ahead of time to [email protected], or ask during the event in the YouTube chat.
In this episode, WordPress’s Executive Director, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, answers two recently asked questions. Tune in to hear what those questions were and her response, in addition to this week’s small list of big things.
Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to [email protected], either written or as a voice recording.
State of the Word is the annual keynote address delivered by the WordPress project’s co-founder, Matt Mullenweg. Every year, the event allows us to reflect on the project’s progress and the future of open source. This year will include that and more.
Due to the pandemic, we moved the State of the World online for the first time ever in 2020. This year, the event will be livestreamed from New York City. That will enable us to take as many folks as possible along for the ride!
Join Matt as he provides a retrospective of 2021, discusses the latest trends he’s seeing, celebrates the community’s amazing wins, and explores the future. Expect to hear about a range of topics, from WordPress 5.9 and Openverse to Web3 and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
How: If you’re watching from the comfort of your home or local watch party, the livestream will be embedded on wordpress.org/news.
Have a question for Matt?
State of the Word will be followed by a Question & Answer session. If you want to participate, you can either send your question ahead of time to [email protected], or ask during the event in the livestream chat on YouTube.
If you’re new to State of the Word, the previous years’ recordings (below) will help you get a sense of what the event is about. Check them out:
Each year, members of the WordPress community (users, site builders, extenders, and contributors) provide their valuable feedback through an annual survey. Key takeaways and trends that emerge from this survey often find their way into the annual State of the Word address, are shared in the public project blogs, and can influence the direction and strategy for the WordPress Project.
Simply put: this survey helps those who build WordPress understand more about how the software is used, and by whom. The survey also helps leaders in the WordPress open source project learn more about our contributors’ experiences.
You may also take the survey in French, German, Japanese, Russian, or Spanish. These are the top five languages (other than English) based on the number of WordPress locale downloads. For 2022, additional languages may be considered for translation.
The survey will be open through the end of 2021, and the results will be published in a future post on this blog for anyone to view. Next year, there will be a new format for this survey, including which segments and questions are included, so that your valuable time spent responding results in equally valuable information.
2020 Survey Results
For the 2020 survey, more than 17,000 responses were collected, representing the highest submission volume in four years, up three times from the prior year. In the inaugural year of the survey (2015), over 50,000 responses were collected. Given the reach and adoption of WordPress, there is a significant number we have not reached. As you take the 2021 survey, consider sharing the link on social media and with other colleagues who use WordPress. Gathering feedback from more folks who benefit from WordPress will strengthen our project.
The 2020 survey results show that the pandemic has had a major impact on how we operate as a community. With few in-person events, many community members continue to find it challenging to balance community contributions with their own personal and professional obligations.
Footnotes:
Data security and privacy are paramount to the WordPress project and community. With this in mind, all data will be anonymized: no email addresses nor IP addresses will be associated with published results. To learn more about WordPress.org’s privacy practices, view the privacy policy.
Like last year, the 2021 survey will be promoted via a banner on WordPress.org, and throughout the make blogs. However, taking a moment to amplify these posts through your own social media and Slack accounts will ensure broader participation. Each of the translated surveys will be promoted through banners on their associated localized-language WordPress.org sites.
This security and maintenance release features 2 bug fixes in addition to 1 security fix. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 5.2 have also been updated.
WordPress 5.8.2 is a small focus security and maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.9.
You can download WordPress 5.8.2 by downloading from WordPress.org, or visit your Dashboard → Updates and click Update Now. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, they’ve already started the update process.
October 2021 brought a lot of new things to WordPress, from release updates to new versions of Gutenberg. More notably, in the latest episode of WP Briefing, Executive Director Josepha Haden reminded us about the importance of freedom in open source platforms like WordPress.
Free speech has with it a lot of responsibility, just like being a part of a community. Governments or communities, or in our case, this software is built by the people who show up.
For WordPress, at 42% of the web, every small choice we make can cause huge changes in the way that people experience the web today and tomorrow.
Josepha Haden, Executive Director of the WordPress project
Last month was yet another chapter in this journey. So keep reading to learn what’s new.
WordPress 5.9: All proposed updates will likely be included
We announced thego/no-go for WordPress 5.9 featuresin mid-October. The release will probably include all the proposed features—though not all of them are ready yet, they should be by the proposed release date (December 14, 2021).
WordPress 5.9 will include a new default theme called Twenty Twenty-Two! The theme’s foundation will be strong, and the unpredictable yet reliable behavior of birds inspired the intentionally subtle design.
5.9 bug scrub sessions began in September and will continue each week until the release on December 14, 2021. View the full bug scrub schedule.
The Test Team shared an overview of the team’s approach to testing WordPress 5.9.
Interested in contributing to WordPress core? Join the #core channel, follow the Core Team blog, and check out the team handbook. Also, don’t miss the Core Team’s weekly developer chat on Wednesdays at 8 PM UTC.
Gutenberg releases: 11.6, 11.7, and 11.8 are here
We released three new versions of the Gutenberg block editor between the end of September and October:
Version 11.6brings site logo cropping and rotation, block-level locking, improvements to Query Pagination block, support for child themes and thunks, template focus mode, and enhancements to the writing flow.
Gutenberg version 11.7includes bug fixes and polishes to the navigation block and editor, global styles and full site editing (including a handy back button that lets you quickly return to the site editor), and columns block support, among other improvements.
Finally, Gutenberg 11.8 is the second to last version to make it into the WordPress 5.9 release, and it comes with plenty of developments to the editing experience: featured Block Patterns, new animations for a few elements (like Dropzone and Insertion Point), spacing tools for heading blocks, and a lot more.
WordCamp US returned virtually this year with more than 3,600 attendees
WordCamp US 2021 was on October 1, and it was online for the first time. The event drew more than 3,600 attendees, 27 sponsors, and 18 remarkable speakers on topics ranging from accessibility and sustainability to e-commerce, to name a few.
Matt Mullenweg’s “State of the Word” is expected to be held as a separate event later this year, rather than being part of WordCamp US.
If you missed the live event, you can still watch the Yukon Track and the Columbia Track of WordCamp US 2021.
Team Updates: Polyglots monthly newsletter, a new Performance team, and more
The October 2021 edition of People of WordPress, featuring WordPress e-commerce specialist Ronald Gijsel, went live.
Following excellent responses to the initial proposal, members of the Core Team announced the next steps in launching a performance team that aims to increase the performance (speed) of WordPress.
A sprint is planned on November 10-12 to explore a dedicated volunteer program for the Training Team, similar to the Deputy program in the Community Team.
The Docs Team is consulting with independent legal experts to explore whether there are issues with having Gutenberg (which is dual-licensed GPL + MPL) coexist with other contents in WordPress (our documentation has a CC0 license and the code is GPL).
WordCamp Italia 2021 was held online on October 22-23, 2021. The event had 23 speakers, 17 sponsors, and more than 1,000 registrants. Check out its YouTube channel to watch the event replay.
Another highlight of the month was WordCamp Nicaragua 2021 which was held on October 8-9, 2021.
A two-day contributor event focused on Learn WordPress, took place on October 29 and 31, 2021. There was also another contributor day on October 8, 2021, which involved working groups across the board, from accessibility to user testing.
The Test Team organized the following Hallway Hangouts this week—check out their recaps:
In this nineteenth episode, WordPress’s Executive director, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, discusses and expresses gratitude for the inspiration behind the People of WordPress series, HeroPress.
Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to [email protected], either written or as a voice recording.
In this series, we share some of the inspiring stories of how WordPress and its global network of contributors can change people’s lives for the better. This month we feature a WordPress e-commerce specialist on the difference it makes.
Empowered to make a change
For WordPress contributor Ronald Gijsel, open source is a lifeline and a perfect place for people with creative minds. It led him on a transformational journey from chef to WordPress e-commerce specialist. Originally from the Netherlands, where he trained in hospitality, he was to find a restorative and energizing power within the WordPress local and global community.
Ten years ago, life took a sad turn for Ronald and his wife Nihan when their baby daughter passed away only a few days after she was born. At that time, Ronald was a restaurant owner in the UK, working hard in a challenging economic environment. Discovering open source was in many ways his lifeline and helped him and his wife through their considerable heartache. Through this community, a journey to understand the opportunities of the web and new career paths began.
Ronald believes that working together in WordPress and other open source communities can lead to massive benefits for a large number of users. Not least, an online presence has been essential to the survival of many businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic.
During recent years, he has visited open source events worldwide as a partnership manager at a WordPress e-commerce plugin company and community supporter. His enthusiasm for WordPress has steered him to being part of local support, solutions and collaboration as a co-organizer of WordCamp Bristol, the WordPress Cheltenham Meetup and more.
Moving forward
When Nihan enrolled in the UK’s Open University to complete her computer science degree, Ronald found her course materials stirring his own interest. He started to follow the lectures with her and even attempted some of the course work for himself – all whilst he continued to work as a chef in various local pubs.
Through this, he discovered how to generate affiliate commission earnings through blogging on different platforms. “Creating websites was slowly becoming a passion. In these first few years, I enjoyed every part of the steep learning curve, from tackling the basics to more advanced coding and designs,” said Ronald.
The Start of a Web Career
Ronald reduced his hours as a chef and devoted more time to online courses learning coding, e-commerce, SEO, and online marketing. Yet when he applied for a job as a WordPress designer, he had only heard of the platform in the context of blogging. This was all to change when an online tutor on one of the training sites revealed the many functions available with WordPress. It was the start of a new career and life journey. This tutor was Topher DeRosia, who went on to create HeroPress.
Ronald with Topher at WordCamp London in 2019
To learn WordPress, Ronald ‘binge-watched’ webinars on various development topics and over time he became more familiar with it. Securing a job as a designer was only the beginning of his journey into the WordPress ecosystem.
A year later in 2015, after landing the job as a WordPress designer, Ronald’s boss asked him to consider taking on the business and its clients. With his wife, Ronald decided to take on the firm and to expand their work in WordPress e-commerce and online marketing.
As an advocate for learning new skills and practicing them, Ronald encourages others to continue to expand their knowledge through study, attending talks at Meetups and WordCamps, and using the new Learn WordPress resource.
“WordPress has evolved in so many branches that require different skills. There are hundreds of areas of expertise, roles, and jobs that complement WordPress to make it what it is.”
“WordPress is an essential tool in my box.” Ronald Gijsel
Ronald believes WordPress thrives on diversity, with many contributor opportunities and jobs in the ecosystem that require a wide range of skills.
“A big part of this is that each person’s personal background complements their skill sets. Who you are and what you do is influenced by what you have done and learned. We need to cherish this. These things also add to our culture, language, experience, and knowledge,” he said.
A journey into WordPress e-commerce
Ronald shares his enthusiasm for building WordPress and e-commerce websites at WordCamp London in 2019
Ronald initially extended his interest in the WordPress ecosystem through representing a plugin company at WordCamps in the UK. He became hooked and went on to attend events in many different countries.
In 2018, he realized he could do more with his connections and create meaningful partnerships. Within a few weeks, he had crafted his dream job and sent a proposal to the CEO of a WordPress e-commerce firm.
But pitching to strangers wasn’t an easy task, as he did not know if they would understand his vision.
Ronald said: “The doubts went through my head for months. ‘Do I give up my business and work for the benefit of another company? What if I don’t get on? What do I do with my customers?’ But I decided to take the leap.” His pitch proved successful, joining his current firm in 2019.
In the firm’s CEO, Ronald found a mentor, supporter, and a friend. He explained: “Nando Pappalardo never tells me what to do, but instead, he asks questions to make me realize what is achievable, or could be even better. He simply makes suggestions that I read something and reach my own conclusions.”
Looking back at the journey
Taking risks or changing directions in mid-career often involves a giant leap. In Ronald’s view, through WordPress, you don’t need to be alone. He believes its community can offer support and help to process thinking.
Ronald said: “I often think back to the moment my daughter passed away. She only lived for a few days. Every day, I wonder how events would have unfolded if she had survived. Maybe her memory lives on in every decision I make and the paths I decide to take.”
From his experience, he found that changing a career can sometimes take a few years and have a period of transition. He said: “Only looking back do I realize that each small step slowly made a difference in my life.”
“It was WordPress that made the online world easier to navigate and empowered me to make a change”
Ronald Gijsel
He added: “Feeling welcomed into the WordPress community through Meetups and WordCamps added a human dimension and confidence that I can do ‘this’ too.”
Ronald’s wish is that his story will offer support to others who may have experienced tragedy in their lives. “I hope that I can give you the hope and strength to try and put your energy into something else that can lead to more significant changes in your life. Try to take it as one positive decision at a time.”
Share the stories
Help us share these stories of open source contributors and continue to grow the community. Meet more WordPressers in the People of WordPress series. #ContributorStory.
Contributors
Thank you to Abha Thakor (@webcommsat), and Surendra Thakor (@sthakor) for the interviews and writing this feature, and to Ronald Gijsel (@just2ronald) for sharing his story.
This People of WordPress feature is inspired by an essay originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. It highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories might otherwise go unheard. #HeroPress
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