Month: November 2018

Happiness Bars For WordCamp US 2018

Posted on by David Bisset

Got some GREAT response from this post on Twitter made on November 20th (see above). So i’m posting some information here (and anyone can reach out to me on Twitter or email me directly).

What Are Happiness Bars?

They are Hersey chocolate bars wrapped in a custom made label, a play on the term ‘Happiness Bar’ which you find at most WordCamps (except this one is an actual bar – candy bar). They started at WordCamp Miami a number of years ago, and the wrapper was made open source so any WordCamp can use them.

What varieties are there?

Usually whatever we can get at Sam’s Club – standard chocolate (no nuts, due to potential allergies), dark chocolate and white chocolate. But if someone wants some vegan or other variety and can point us in the right direction we would love the support to make this a more diverse thing.

Why Give These Out At WordCamp US?

I think – after drama and stress this year in and out of the WordPress community – we need to spread a little more happiness. Especially to volunteers, contributors, testers, and to the youth. But we all deserve it.

What costs are involved?

Approximately $150 for the candy bars and $150 for the printing of the labels. Labor (putting the labels on) and transport/shipping will be handled by me, so there’s no cost there!

How Are These Distributed?

In the past this has been done a bit guerrilla style, so not to distract from sponsors or the event itself. Usually they are personally handed to sponsors, given to official volunteers to place in the Happiness Bar or other tables, attendees (especially youths). This is usually done on Friday and Saturday (the main days) of the conference.

What Do I Get If I Sponsor?

Short answer is that the labels are already designed, so we won’t likely be able to print logos or anything like that on the labels. However we will make sure to mention sponsorships on Twitter, blog posts, and when we hand them out. Would also consider offering small stickers as we hand the bars randomly if you can get that to me by the Thursday before the event. Open to ideas as long as it doesn’t interfere with the sponsorship system at the conference itself, and it doesn’t attract unneeded attention.

Gutenberg And Youth (“Generation Z”)

Posted on by David Bisset

In preparation for my WordCamp Orlando talk tomorrow entitled “The Next Generation Of WordPress Users” I conducted a small survey via Google Forms at a local public high school with approximately 40 students to see what they thought of Gutenberg (the version of Gutenberg was 4.2, which was tested with WordPress 5.0 Beta 2). A quick background on the students:

  • This test was sent as a link to a WordPress Beta website already built (I was not physically present with the students and the students didn’t need to setup or install the WordPress site). Tests were done on their own computers.
  • Students tested the example site for approximately 10-20 minutes.
  • Students were high school age, and most if not all had a least one Computer Science class.
  • No reward or compensation for the test – purely voluntary.

After Spending A Bit Of Time, Did You Understand The ‘Block’ Concept?

Vast majority did, relatively quickly.

Were you able to do any of the following?

Overall, even though you spend a short period of time, what was your impression if you had to use this to write content for a website?

Any comments or feedback?

What’s Your Experience With WordPress?

Do you have a blog or your own personal website? If so, what powers it (or what runs it)?

What social media do you use (even if it’s not frequently)?

Conclusion

While there was some interesting and critical comments, overall it was a positive reaction to Gutenberg.

Is a sampling of 40 students from the same area a good sampling for Gutenberg? Not really, but this matches with my personal experience i’ve seen with Gutenberg over the past year. Those especially new to WordPress (young or old) or those younger even with a little bit of experience with WordPress tend to favor Gutenberg in a positive light. When I say younger I am counting Generation X and Y (anyone younger than 30, let’s say). I would contrast that to some reactions from Gutenberg online from the “older generation” or those who have been using WordPress for a long time.

My theory is that the young are more open to how Gutenberg works and change itself. But I thought these results were interesting – and I would like to see further study go into this regarding WordPress (and Gutenberg) towards the next generation of WordPress users.

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