The Infinite Monkey Exercise: A Project Planning Framework
The Infinite Monkey Exercise is a way to plan your projects using an iterative, scalable approach to blue-sky thinking based on the infinite monkey theorem.
Building Community in a Post-COVID World
Communities have evolved a whole lot in 2020. The global COVID pandemic has changed the face of the world and the community industry has become more relevant than ever. But what’s going to happen once the pandemic subsides? What will communities look like & how will groups come together?
A Membership Identity for the WordPress Community
I recently presented a workshop on defining a membership identity for your community. I found this to be a valuable exercise and thought I would apply the same principles to the WordPress community since that is the community with which I am most familiar.
Workshop Resources: Defining a Community Membership Identity
Yesterday I presented a workshop as part of the first CMX Global Connect event about defining a membership identity for your community. As promised during my session, here’s a link to the worksheet that we worked through together, as well as the slide deck.
The Art of Impactful Writing
While writing is something we learn at a young age, it continues to be a skill that we all develop throughout our lives. With so much of our work taking place online these daysknowing how to communicate effectively in writing when managing a community is essential.
Empathy and the Feelings Box
You could say empathy is a skill that everyone should develop regardless of their daily work, but the way you employ your empathy is definitely a skill that people working with communities need to work on in order to be successful.
When Good People Go Bad: Mediating Community Conflict
We all know how great in-person communities can be, but what happens when things don’t go so well? What happens when people in your community cause conflict and make things difficult for everyone else? Here is a practical path towards successfully mediating conflict within community.
Too Much, Too Young
When organising events for a community, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that bigger is better. This is an especially dangerous trap when your community is still in the early stages – shooting for a large event before your community is ready for it will inevitably do more harm than good.
The Growth of a Movement: do_action
do_action is a global WordPress charity hackathon event that started in Cape Town in 2014. It has come a long way since that first ambitious event!
Remote Work and Coffee Shops
I work remotely, but I don’t work from home – coffee shops are my preferred working environment. Here are a few tips that I’ve learnt from my experience of doing this for the past few years.
Becoming a Good Open-Source Citizen
A look at a few ways that we can become better open-source citizens, no matter what project or community we are a part of.
Pastoral Leadership and Community Management
Community management, particularly within an open-source project like WordPress, shares many of the same values and ideas as pastoral leadership – a path that I am deeply familiar with from my studies and experiences.
Some Thoughts on Local WordCamps
WordCamps are, by definition, local events. There are many opinions about this within the community, some of which conflict with the guidelines set down for WordCamps. With that in mind, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on it all from the perspective of a long-time WordCamp organiser who used to be critical of many of those guidelines but now works on the WordCamp Central team.
My Experience with a Pixelbook
About 2 months ago I switched from using Kubuntu on a Dell XPS 15 to working full time on a Pixelbook running Chrome OS. Here are my thoughts about using this as my full time work machine.
WordPress Contribution Panel Questions
Earlier this month, I chaired a panel at WordCamp Cape Town that was all about contributing to WordPress. As I wasn’t answering the questions on the day myself, I thought I’d pick out a few of the interesting ones and answer them here.
Developer User Group: Bending WordPress to Your Will
I gave a talk at the Cape Town Branch of the Developer User Group this week that covered the basics of getting started with WordPress development. I have given this…