During the pandemic, the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) has been delivering our Diverse Speaker workshop to the global WordPress community online directly.
Each month, we are reporting at the tag #DiverseSpeakerWorkshopsReports how these workshops are going.
June 2021
Speak up! Black Speakers In WordPress Workshop, June 5 & 12, 2021
By special request, we held a workshop for people in the WordPress community who identify as Black or African American and are based in North America or Europe.
Facilitators: @alliennimmons, Tarsha McCormick, and @jillbinder
Number who attended: 13
From number of cities: 12
From number of countries: 1 (United States)
Self-reported increase in public speaking confidence after taking the workshops: 13%
Testimonials
“Before I took this workshop, I was unable to identify other African-American/Black speakers in various areas of WordPress (Development, Design, Marketing, etc). Thanks to this workshop, I was able to make connections and encourage the next wave of storytellers of our Open Source Project and its Community. I would DEFINITELY recommend this workshop to anyone who is looking to achieve the necessary confidence level and tools to effectively put together submissions for events in tech. I wish that a hands-on workshop like this was available before I submitted my first topic for consideration!”
– Joe A Simpson Jr, UX/A11Y Advocate, Castaic, CA
“As a repeat speaker at WordCamp, I’m always thinking about how to make my presentations better. I came away from the Speak Up! workshop with some practical ways to make my speaker submissions and presentations more effective.”
– Ray Mitchell, Owner – Made for You Media, Winston-Salem, NC
Diverse Speaker Workshop AMER/APAC, June 30, 2021
Facilitator: @volkswagenchick
Number who attended: 4
From number of cities: 4
From number of countries: 1 (Canada, India, Philippines, United States)
Self-reported increase in public speaking confidence after taking the workshops: 36%
Testimonial
“I felt like you were reading my mind on some of these points about what holds us back from speaking. And the brainstorm prompts are all really, really good. I walked away with a ton of ideas and newfound confidence. I’m excited to talk now. This workshop works!”
– Erika Lewis, WordPress Dev, Washington DC
Thank you
A lot of people contribute to making these workshops successful. Thank you to each and every one!
Upcoming
Love this? Come attend a workshop!
Watch https://make.wordpress.org/community/tag/wpdiversityworkshops/ for our next workshop announcement.
If you are holding a WordCamp this year, we would like to help you get more great speakers. Please get in touch with @jillbinder and we will arrange a #WPDiversity speakers workshop for you.