In this episode, in response to their WordCamp Europe FOMO, Allie and Michelle share their top tips for how underrepresented people can make the most of their time and experience at a WordPress event.
Episode Transcript
Allie Nimmons:
Welcome to the Underrepresented in Tech podcast, hosted by Michelle Frechette and Allie Nimmons. Underrepresented in Tech is a free database, but with the goal of helping people find new opportunities in WordPress and tech overall.
Allie Nimmons:
Hi, Michelle, how are you?
Michelle:
I’m good, how are you?
Allie Nimmons:
I’m great. Tired, exhausted, frustrated by the world, but I’m excited. I’m getting a tattoo later on this afternoon.
Michelle:
I very much look forward to my next tattoo, well, no. I very much look forward to having my next tattoo, not actually the process of getting the tattoo.
Allie Nimmons:
Yes.
Michelle:
Cause that freaking hurts. That stuff as painful.
Allie Nimmons:
I’m excited, but I’m very nervous. It’s going to be a very large tattoo. So, I’m just trying to eat and drink water and keep my energy and my calories and sugar and all that stuff, keep that up so I don’t pass out or anything.
Michelle:
[inaudible 00:01:00] I can’t wait to see.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, I’m so excited. I’ll be posting so many pictures. You’ll be sick of seeing it.
Michelle:
Well, you’re getting a full sleeve of like Wapuu and everything for WordPress’s birthday, right?
Allie Nimmons:
Oh yeah. I’m getting Wapuu across my whole face, his eyes are lined up with my eyes and his mouth is lined up with my mouth and yeah, it’s going to be great.
Michelle:
Okay. But not real. Not really.
Allie Nimmons:
Not really. No. I’m getting a half sleeve with a bunch of flowers, plants and stuff.
Michelle:
That’s beautiful.
Allie Nimmons:
It’ll be fun.
Michelle:
But still Happy Birthday WordPress.
Allie Nimmons:
Happy Birthday WordPress. WordPress is 19 today. Oh my gosh.
Michelle:
To be 19 again. No, wait, I take it back. I’m good. I don’t want to be 19 again.
Allie Nimmons:
I’d be 19 again. I’d be 19 again, if I could remember what it was like to be 30 and all the things I’ve been through, if I could go back and make some better choices and maybe start exercising and eating better.
Michelle:
Okay. So, if I did go back to 19, I would definitely make some different choices. For sure. I would probably be running marathons now instead of whatever, but it is what it is and we are who we are and we can’t go back. But could you believe… So I was on a call this morning. I was on the post status, Twitter spaces and somebody, I think it was taco, but don’t quote me if you go back and listen to it might have been, but said something along the lines of it’s 19 and oh, no, it was David Bisset. It’s 19, and we’re already thinking about 20. 20’s like the milestone year, 19 is like, great, have a birthday, but 20 is like the milestone year. What are we going to celebrate next year? I’m like, can we just get through today, David please?
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, seriously. No, that man is always like eight steps ahead. What I think is really interesting this year and I saw this in a tweet. I have not done my research to confirm, but I saw someone tweet it, so it must be true. That WordPress is now the same age as Matt Mullenweg was when he started it.
Michelle:
Oh, wow. I feel so old right now.
Allie Nimmons:
What? That’s is ridiculous. I’m not going to Google it live on a podcast, but I’m pretty sure that’s true.
Michelle:
Yeah. Yeah. I’m not going to Google it either, whether it’s true or not, it just makes me feel like I didn’t start accomplishing at an early enough age. I like to think I made up for it. So there you go.
Allie Nimmons:
Everyone has their own path and accomplishes things at different times. And I mean, what is accomplishment? Right? You’ve accomplished lots of other things.
Michelle:
I do good in the community.
Allie Nimmons:
You do so good.
Michelle:
But, I do fine. And I’m just getting handed a caramel macchiato and I’m loving life right now so much.
Allie Nimmons:
I’m so jealous. I didn’t drink my coffee this morning because I didn’t want to like additionally dehydrate myself before my tattoo. So I was like, coffee is not going to be the healthiest thing for me today. I should have a green smoothie and a bagel and you know, some fruit, I should be mindful of what I’m doing. But, I really, really want coffee.
Michelle:
It did start the day with pop tarts, which anyway, we should probably move on from this.
Allie Nimmons:
Oh, sorry. Yeah. We’re just catching up at this point.
Michelle:
We are just catching up and everybody’s like, okay, ladies, there’s nothing here worth listening to yeah. [crosstalk 00:04:21]
Allie Nimmons:
We text during the week, but we don’t really talk aside from, we hop onto the podcast. So the desire to just chit chat is very real.
Michelle:
I’m hoping that people are laughing at us right now, and if you’re not, well, you know, whatever.
Allie Nimmons:
Sorry.
Michelle:
But, we did actually have a topic. And we did decide we picked a topic because not only is today WordPress birthday, but next week is the return of something exciting, which is WordCamp Europe.
Allie Nimmons:
I’m so excited.
Michelle:
I have major FOMO because I was planning to go and now I can’t go, but I actually tweeted, “Send me swag”, I love swag. But anyway, don’t really, you don’t have to send me swag, but it’s exciting. And I wish I was there and I love word camps and I love events like that. We thought we’d have some advice about ways you can make the most out of attending an event like WordCamp Europe.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, absolutely. I’m definitely jealous too. I’d never particularly made plans to go, because it’s just a lot to… I’ve never been to Europe at all. So like that would be a huge thing. My passport is totally expired. I need to get that taken care of. I definitely intend on watching live streams, keeping up with things on Twitter. And I love this topic because I remember my first couple of word camps going and feeling like I’m sitting here watching all of these. I mean, at the time I think events have definitely gotten more diverse in terms of speakers, since I first started going a couple years ago. But, you know, I was thinking to myself, I am younger than everybody here, I am less experienced than everybody here, I’m more brown than the people I’m seeing speaking, I’m more female than the people I’m seeing speaking.
Allie Nimmons:
I don’t know how to talk to these people. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to insert myself into this event in a way that I can connect with other people and get things out of it for myself. And, it took me three WordCamp’s and a couple of meetups to really figure that out. And a lot of that was actually due to other people, reaching out to me and pulling me in, which was really great, but that doesn’t always happen. I love this topic because I think as an underrepresented person, we often already just feel like an outsider or an outlier. It’s hard to have the confidence sometimes to really put yourself out there at these events, especially if it’s your first event. That’s a whole pile on of things that makes it hard. But yeah, you go first. I want to hear about your experiences and then I’ll follow up.
Michelle:
My very first ever WordPress, my first word camp, I tweeted, I meant my first WordPress camp because I didn’t even get the terminology right. I didn’t call it WordCamp. I was like “WordPress camp, I’m at WordPress camp.” And I think back at that young naive woman, all of seven years ago, knowing how life was… I was so wide-eyed and an unknown. Nobody was asking to collaborate with me or trying to hire me or anything, because I was new to the community and all of that. I remember sitting in word camp Buffalo and I was sitting in a couple of sessions by people like Mike demo and Chris Lama who were both speaking there. And as I was sitting in there, maybe that was the [inaudible 00:07:53]
Michelle:
In this room with these people who were these WordPress celebrities, right? People whose names were so well known and who spoke at so many places and understood that it was WordCamp and not WordPress camp and all of those kinds of things. Thinking how divided we could be in a way, there’s the celebrities and then there’s us, you know, us regular folks’ kind of thing. But, afterwards talking to people like Chris Lema, Mike Demo, and other people who are bigger in the community whose names everybody knows as well as sitting in sessions with people who were just local people who use WordPress and whose names had no recognition outside of the Buffalo area, so to speak. Everybody was approachable.
Michelle:
I talked to everybody after I listened to their session. I walked up to people, I had conversations and those kinds of things. And I think now about how many people are probably back where I was in the… Gosh, all these people who are friends with each other and they’re in the know and they write for places and I see their names in the WordPress newsletters every week and all of those kinds of things. And I remember being that person and I think we are all just people, right? People say to me, “Wow, Allie Nimmons does so much”, and that kind of thing, or, “Michelle, you do so much, I can’t believe I’m actually talking to you.” And I’m like, oh gosh, I am just a middle-aged woman living in the middle of nowhere, New York.
Michelle:
And I have nothing special over anybody else except that I put myself out there, I ask to meet people, I sit down at tables with people I don’t know, I walk up to tables with people I don’t know, I introduce myself to plug-in owners and sit. And I end up sitting next to people in say, to the Word, who I didn’t know were big names and I just make friends with them, Right? You don’t know necessarily people by face and that kind of stuff. I guess my… I’m being very convoluted about it but, my advice is everybody is just a person. We all do our jobs. We all know people. We just been around it longer and put ourselves out there a little bit more to know each other and to kind of be in that kind of a circuit.
Michelle:
I’m not going to be at WordCamp Europe, but if you see me at WordCamp US, if you see me at WordCamp Buffalo, if you see me walking down the street in a Starbucks, if you see me, if you see me on Twitter, say hi. I love talking to people and I love helping as I can. So, we’re all just people don’t be afraid to ask if that chair is empty at lunch and introduce yourself to some people that you’ve either never met or would like to meet.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. That’s literally what people are there for. You might have a handful of people who are just like, “Oh, this is a business opportunity. I can talk and then I’ll leave.” But, the grand majority, especially at the big camps, Europe and us, the big ones, people are there to be supportive of each other. Nobody’s going to tell you, you can’t sit with us or we don’t want to talk to you. People are… [crosstalk 00:11:08]
Michelle:
There’s no mean girls table.
Allie Nimmons:
There really isn’t. I literally remember going to WordCamp Miami in 2017, or something, and seeing Josh Pollock, Andrew Norcross and Christie Chirinos sitting together in the grass, laughing their butts off, having a great time. And I was like, oh my God, they’re so cool. I wish I could go over there and be friends with them. And I haven’t, to be fair, I’ve not met Norcross in person, but I’m good friends with Pollock, I’m good friends with Christie. What’s funny is the three of them are not really that much in the community anymore. They’ve all kind of moved on to other things, right? I wasted so much time thinking of what ifs or being afraid when, as far as I know, they all like me. So, what was I so afraid of, right?
Allie Nimmons:
I definitely, thinking back to how I felt in those first few camps, I wish I had just gone up to people and introduced myself. I just didn’t know that was the point, right?
Michelle:
Or, acceptable.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, exactly. I would say if you’re going to one of these events and you’re new and you’re feeling unconfident, have an idea in your mind of what you hope to get out of this event, right? Are you looking to build your business by finding referral partners or hiring people? Are you looking for a job? And if so, like what exactly are you looking for with that job? If you’re just looking to network, come prepared with business cards or make sure that your website is ready to send people to, or your socials are ready to send people to so you can feel like, “Okay, if somebody now connects with me, I feel confident that they get what I’m looking for and who I am
Allie Nimmons:
and that connection can be solid” Because it sucks to like… I’ve met people before and then go to their side, or go to their social, and it’s outdated or I could tell they don’t really use it. And then it’s like, okay, well how am I supposed to maintain a connection with you? Where is this going to go? Right. I would say come prepared if even just mentally of what you want to get out of it. And that way, when you do introduce yourself to someone and you start that conversation and you know, they might ask you, “What do you do with WordPress?” or you know, “What do you do? What are you focusing on?” You can share that with them and feel confident that you’re not going to be stumbling over your words or sounding awkward or confused. I think those things are really important.
Allie Nimmons:
I would definitely say, take advantage of as much of the event as you can. And that’s different for so many people, right? So many people have like social anxiety get, overwhelmed really quickly get… all of those things. I definitely can’t go to every single thing every time. I… You’ve seen me be like, “I need a piece out and go lie down in the hotel for like two hours”, because it’s too much. Show up on time, go to the opening remarks, go to as many talks as you can. If there’s a slot where there’s three tracks and you’re not maybe interested in all those things, hang out in the hallway, right? We have those hallway talks for a reason. Those are great opportunities to meet people.
Allie Nimmons:
In addition to getting stuff out of the talks, hang out with people at lunch, find a table, don’t eat lunch by yourself, right; even the sponsor tables. I’ve had great conversations with the sponsors. Not even about their product, just chatting about WordPress or life, right? Or you might bump into somebody who’s also at a sponsor table and that’s somebody that you can start a conversation with. That’s not a faux paw to just stand in front of the sponsor table and chat with someone. They want you to do that. [crosstalk 00:14:45].
Michelle:
Take your swag. Trust me they do not want to take that swag home.
Allie Nimmons:
It’s annoying.
Michelle:
They bought it to put it in your hands. So, take that pen, take that bag, take that hat, whatever it is.
Allie Nimmons:
Get all of it. What was the other thing I was going to say? Oh, if there’s some kind of an after party or, you know, one of those kinds of events go. Definitely, definitely, definitely go. Because, people have definitely loosened up, they’re going to be more comfortable, they’re going to feel more engaged to talk. They might have a drink or two in them and feel a little bit, even more relaxed. That’s the best place to sit and actually have conversations with people.
Michelle:
I’ll tell you what, I probably attended three years of WordCamp’s before I got myself to an after party, because that was where my anxiety kicked in. Because, I knew at the after party, there was no structure. I’m like, am I just going to go there and sit and watch other people talk. I literally had in my head then nobody would want to come talk to me. And then I didn’t have the confidence to just walk up to people in an unstructured way. After a talk, great. That’s what they’re there for, right? But, a party is different. And so I had huge anxiety about attending the after party. I kicked myself over all the after parties. I didn’t go to now, because it’s so much fun. I’ve met so many people there. And to your point too, about going up to the sponsor tables and things like that, I ended up with a job in WordPress, outside of freelancing. I ended up working at Give WP because of connections I made with Devin and Jason at WordCamp’s. Starting in WordCamp Pittsburgh, which was a small camp, and then reconnected at WordCamp Ottawa. Yeah. Within three months I was employed full time.
Allie Nimmons:
I’ll also say, we’re talking a lot about the in-person portions of it, which are just… that’s most people’s favorite, right? It’s like being there face to face. If you’re the kind of person where that kind of stuff does make you anxious, there’s so many other ways to connect virtually, right? Most events will have, I believe US and Europe do, I don’t know if the like state based ones do or the city based ones do, but if there is a slack channel for attendees, make sure you get in there and you know, follow that conversation, follow folks in there. It’s super popular to change your Twitter label. Because, you can’t change your handle, but you can change your little name thing to, “Allie Nimmons is at WordCamp Europe” and with the hashtag and everything. Make it possible for people to find you. Tweet about the event and retweet other people and engage on Twitter, because most of our community is on Twitter; as far as like the active conversations about things going on. So…
Michelle:
Use the hashtag.
Allie Nimmons:
If you really don’t feel like talking to people during… in between talks, get on Twitter and chat with people that way, because people are going to want to communicate with you there.
Michelle:
One of my other tips is, for WordCamp Europe, I don’t think they have the attendees page in the navigation, it might be in the footer navigation, but literally if you go to the site slash attendees, you’re going to see everybody that’s consented to have their, their contact information, WordPress handle, Twitter handle and their photo on that page. Scroll down through there and make a list of the people you would like to meet.
Michelle:
Whether it’s somebody that works at a small company that you’re interested in, you want to learn more about their product. It’s somebody that you followed on Twitter for years and you want to shake their hand and say hello, whatever it is, make a list of the people that you want to connect with. And, if they’re on Twitter, especially then you could tweet them. Maybe they have DMS open, maybe they don’t, but you can always tweet, “Hey, I’m at WC”, hashtag “WCEU”, and “I’d love to meet at Innerwebs and I want to meet with Devin Walker”, whatever. Devin’s going to see that and if he has an opportunity, he’s going to reply and say, hey, join us at lunch, maybe I’ll see you at the after party, or whatever it is. That’s a great opportunity to meet some of the people without the fear of necessarily walking up to the table they’re sitting at and feeling like the outsider. Because at that point now they’ve invited you to do that. Exactly. So, people tweet at me before an event and I’m like, Hey, I’ll make sure there’s an empty seat at our table come join us at lunch, and then they do. They come and meet up and it’s like, Hey, let me introduce you to people, and it’s just exciting.
Allie Nimmons:
And even building off of that, if maybe this is your first event, but maybe you’ve met other people through Twitter that, you know, and you feel kind of comfortable with, or maybe you have coworkers that are also going. It is great to have a WordCamp, buddy. The WordCamp Miami, 2019. That was the last… That was the first camp I went to that I met all of the right people that sparked my ability to really thrive and grow in the community and meet way, way, way more people, right? That was the first time I met Adam Warner. That was the first time I met Angela Jin. I met all these people and it opened up all these opportunities and I almost didn’t go. I went because my friend Louise, who… She lived in Miami, we would go to meetups and stuff together.
Allie Nimmons:
She actually lives a couple blocks away from me. We decided, we’ll go together, we’ll drive together. We’ll carpool. And it’s nice to be like, okay, you want to go to this design talk? I want to go to this dev talk, but we’ll meet up for lunch. Or maybe we both want to go to this talk together. And so you have someone to sit with and that feels really nice to not have to just kind of find a seat and sit by yourself. If there’s one person that you already know and feel comfortable with, have that person kind of be your event anchor and then you can go off and talk to other people for sure. But, then it alleviates so much of the anxiety. To have another person. [crosstalk 00:20:48].
Allie Nimmons:
If they know other people, they can introduce you to the people that they know. It benefits everybody. It breaks my heart to think that there are people out there who could go to a word camp or meet up and don’t go because they’re nervous, or anxious, or feel like they’re going to be the only “X type of person”, that’s there. It just breaks my heart. There are some jerks in this community, there’s going to be jerks everywhere, but the grand majority of people want you to be there.
Michelle:
Right. Absolutely. Like I said, neither one of us are at WordCamp Europe. So we can’t make this offer for that camp. I will be at WordCamp Montclair and we are both going to be at WordCamp US. Open invitation, message us beforehand, approach us at camp. I’m, I’m speaking for you too, Allie, but…
Allie Nimmons:
Yes, for sure. I’ll be busy because I’m an organizer and I’m probably going to be helping with a lot of the logistical, local stuff, like getting signs, getting badges, and that kind of stuff. I’m an organizer. I just want to preface that with like, we definitely want to meet you. If you come up to us, we might be busy and might not be able to stop and talk to you in that moment, but we will try to make time to be able to do that when we’re not busy.
Michelle:
Right, or message us in advance and we’ll tell you where we’re going to be when we have a break or, “Hey, I’m going to be taking lunch at such and such a time. Come find me.”, that kind of stuff. Or if you know us and you want to be introduced to somebody else, I’m always happy to do a Twitter introduction or Slack introduction to people. So, we’re your resources. Use us.
Allie Nimmons:
I’m sorry, I’ve been so distracted. There’s a cat making biscuits on the couch behind you and I have not been able to stop.
Michelle:
His name is Tabs. I’m at a friends house. Like I said, I’m in Tennessee. They’re showing my dad’s house today, the realtor is. So I had to get out and I’ve made a lot of friends here through my brother’s church-friends and everything. So Amy invited me over to use her house for our podcast today,
Allie Nimmons:
Thanks, Amy. I like your cat.
Michelle:
Mr.Tabs is over there making biscuits.
Allie Nimmons:
Hard at work, making biscuits this whole time. So cute.
Michelle:
He’s so cute. He’s so cute. Well, if you all have any questions, if there’s anything to do. I also wrote a post on post status about some ways to make the most out of attending WordCamp Europe, as far as, things you could do while you’re there and how to use hashtags and that kind of stuff. So, obviously pop over there and take a look there, too if you have other questions or DM us. Or, even better, we say this every week, comment on our Twitters stuff. When we put this out and we’re happy to answer questions publicly as well so that other people can benefit from the answers too.
Allie Nimmons:
Exactly. Awesome.
Michelle:
Well, whoever’s going have fun at WordCamp Europe. Happy birthday, WordPress and Allie, as always, thank you so much for sharing this opportunity with me that we have with underrepresented tech. I really truly appreciate you and the works that we do.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. Same here. All of that. Just thrown back at you.
Michelle:
Awesome. I’ll take it. Cool.
Allie Nimmons:
All right. We’ll see you all next week. Bye.
Michelle:
Bye.