#31 – Milan Ivanovic on the Importance of Real World Versus Online

[00:00:00] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, the importance of real world WordPress events.

If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players. If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, well, I’m more than keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea featured on the show. Head over to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox. And use the contact form there.

So on the podcast today, we have Milan Ivanovic. Milan is a WordPress developer at valet.io. And is a WordCamp volunteer, speaker, and organizer. He’s the wordpress.org global translation editor, WordPress Serbia lead, and is now part of the WordCamp Europe alumni. As if that weren’t enough, Milan is one of the lecturers of the WordPress academy in Serbia, where he has given talks and WordPress workshops. He’s also a member of the Theme Review and Community Gets Involved teams.

It’s pretty clear to see that WordPress and WordPress events play a major role in Milan’s life. And that’s what this podcast is about. We’re drilling down on why the community which surrounds WordPress is a key part in the success of the whole project.

The recent hiatus of in-person events has meant that all the events moved online. Whilst this was a good stop gap, Milan, as you will hear, is pleased that real world events are back.

We talk about the importance of the WordPress community as a whole, as well as exploring what the situation is like in Milan’s home country of Serbia.

We discussed how Milan got started as a community member, and the different roles that events like WordCamp offer people wishing to dip their toes in the WordPress waters.

We also get into the subject of diversity and how Europe as a continent might face diversity challenges which differ from other parts of the world.

Milan is an enthusiastic speaker. And I’m sure that you’ll get some new perspectives from listening to the podcast.

If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all the links in the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast, where you’ll also find all the other episodes.

And so without further delay, I bring you Milan Ivanovic.

I am joined on the podcast today by Milan Ivanovic. Hello.

[00:03:34] Milan Ivanovic: Hello.

[00:03:34] Nathan Wrigley: Very nice to have you with us. We’re gonna be talking about WordCamp Europe, and WordCamps and community in general. First of all, Milan, would you like to just spend a moment introducing yourself? What’s your background in WordPress?

[00:03:45] Milan Ivanovic: Yeah, would love to. I started really early with WordPress and just like looking for community back in Serbia. We, I didn’t know that if you are looking for community there isn’t one, like maybe you can start it. So 2013, I moved to Norway and then all of a sudden they already had the meetups in place. So I helped organize those meetups. You know, just being there as a speaker, as one of the organizers. So I moved back to Serbia in 2014 and I was like, you know what? They already had one meetup and nothing happened from it. And then I just started a little bit with no expectations, like how many people would show up, how many people will jump in.

Just like start it and see how it goes. 2014 was the first official WordPress Serbia meetup. And now we have 16 different cities with meetups across Serbia.

[00:04:33] Nathan Wrigley: Wow. That’s that is really impressive. From everything that I’ve seen, and obviously I don’t really know intimate details about your life, but from everything I’ve seen, you are really committed to the community. Like more so than almost anybody, it feels like.

[00:04:47] Milan Ivanovic: Pretty much. I got hooked up, like the first WordCamp for me was WorkCamp Europe, in Leiden 2013. I immediately knew that I need to help organize. I need, I saw volunteers dedicating their time. They’re passionate. I’m like, yeah. How can I help?

So they explained next year, follow the website, we are gonna open the call for volunteers, and then you can sign up. I think that it passed like one millisecond before I saw it. I’m like, yep, yep. Filling in the form already. So my first volunteering, official volunteering experience was 2014 already, just like, yeah. I was at the registration desk letters A and B. The happiest person at the registration, that’s me just like smiling all over the face. Like, hello, welcome WordCamp Europe.

[00:05:29] Nathan Wrigley: But you’ve really taken it to heart. And you’ve committed an awful lot of time and been involved in some of the biggest events that WordCamp, in particular has to offer. WordCamp Europes, and you were really influential in all of that taking off.

[00:05:41] Milan Ivanovic: I like bringing people. Like, I, believe in like that all of us, together we could like push mountains. And when you see these guys, like they come to the conference and all of a sudden you have like bunch of amateurs, like in organizing the event, but they give it all.

Organizing doing like all of a sudden, you see someone, you know, in charge for TVs, like, workshops, pushing tables and stuff. Everyone is giving what they have. But if you collect hundred of those, like different people willing to make this event happen, the best way possible, that was like heart touching for me, like in the beginning.

So yeah, I’ve been involved like into organizing. Started really slow, and low, you know, just like being the foot soldier. Working at the doors, or like happened with the registration. Then, you know, my involvement grew over the years. So in 2015 was in charge like for a small registration desk.

And then immediately we knew that we need to make this happen. In 2015, we had the first WordCamp in Serbia, WordCamp Belgrade, almost 200 people. And they were like, yeah, wow, this can really be a thing. Then we started with more meetups, more people got involved, more people willing to help, in Serbia. Expressly we had the growth, like in WordCamp Europe. You see the Seville, Vienna when Vienna happened in 2016, we had like 2000 people. I’m like, whoa, this was a big thing.

[00:07:04] Nathan Wrigley: The listenership, for the podcast is pretty broad because there’s so many people, of all different walks of life consuming WP Tavern content. Just give us an insight into the kind of things that you could do if you volunteered. And the reason I ask that is I know for a fact that many of the people that I now have as very good friends in the WordPress community, they tell the story of, I didn’t know. I didn’t know there was a thing.

I used the software because it was free and I enjoyed it. But no way. What, how could there be a community about software? That’s just not normal and yet here it is. I mean maybe some of the top 10 things that you’ve enjoyed or the jobs that you might find yourself in, if you come to an event like WordCamp Europe, and get involved.

[00:07:45] Milan Ivanovic: So I heard I’m not a hundred percent sure about the data, but looks like that we have like around 60% of first timers at this WordCamp Europe. Uh, we haven’t had like in person events three years now for WordCamp Europe. The last one was in Berlin, 2019. I think the power of this whole thing is our community. Just like people being here, being present, and then the networking simply happens.

Uh, you will see because of that diversity and knowledge and background, different backgrounds. The more diverse we are, the stronger we are. That’s why you end up with, someone sitting next to and chatting with someone who actually put the code in the core of WordPress. And then you see someone who just like installed it and they are simply using it. Not having a clue what’s behind it. Like who put up the code what’s there and then you see those two, the person’s just chatting.

Hey, what would you like to improve? Like, I think that’s the power of this whole mess that we are into. Yeah. So, uh, networking and just like being present. That’s what I think is the power of our community. If you do see like all those after movies or short interviews, when just someone goes, takes a camera and goes around and say like, Hey, what is the only thing that you, that you like here?

I think nine out of 10, we say community, community because of community, we are here because of community, and we are so supportive. We are highly opinionated community about everything, but we are so supportive.

[00:09:15] Nathan Wrigley: I strongly get that impression as well. That’s lovely. This particular event, everybody’s wearing a black t-shirt. And there are black t-shirts everywhere. I mean really everywhere, just in the corridor outside, where we’re recording this, I think there’s three people wearing black t-shirts. These are the people who volunteered their time for free. So there’s people assisting you to find me so that we can have this interview.

There’s people publishing the little lanyards that we wear around our neck. There’s people that are putting up signage. There’s basically people doing all sorts of hidden roles. You know all of this stuff intimately. There must be hundreds of different things, and if I was somebody that had never come across the community, I think there’s a chance that I would think, I don’t code, I shouldn’t go. But that’s not the case. There’s a job for everybody. So give us some of the, sort of the things that you might encourage people to do if they volunteer for a WordCamp, that first time.

[00:10:05] Milan Ivanovic: I got involved into volunteering because I want to make this event happen. when you see that your small role doesn’t matter, like how small it is, makes a difference. It’s amazing. Even if you’re a mic runner. Imagine that someone is expecting that mic and you like, feel so powerful, I brought that mic, like here is the mic. You can ask your question. Those small bits that we had, like in Seville I think we had around 70 to 80 volunteers plus the organizing team.

In Vienna we had 160. It’s an army of people wearing the same coloured t-shirts, This year we, I think they have, 70 to 80 organizers, and then 200 volunteers. That’s why there’s as many black t-shirts because everyone is having their shifts. Everyone is, you know, have a purpose. Everyone is just like enjoying the event and you see that all like happy or smiling, everyone willing to help.

I think like in the beginning, when we started the whole army of volunteers. You get to the event, and you don’t know where the registration is. You don’t know what to do after registration. You get the lanyard, like, how is it going? Like, should I just say my name? You say your name and you get a lanyard, you get a small goodie bag.

Everyone is happy, but all the volunteers like guiding you, like, Hey, welcome to event. Here’s the coffee. Here are some sessions, and there is something for everyone, if they’re willing to help. If you say that, I want to help with, I wanna be in a room or I would like to be at the registration, or I would like to help carrying boxes, there is job for everyone.

[00:11:41] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.

[00:11:42] Milan Ivanovic: And that’s a good thing.

[00:11:43] Nathan Wrigley: You basically don’t need to be into the code. You can, like you said, you can carry boxes, you can print lanyards, you can guide people, you can put up signage. There’s just so many things. If I was on the organizing team at the level that you were in Berlin in 2019, in other words, you were really responsible for that event.

How long before the door opened on the first day, how long before did you begin that planning process? And I’m just trying to get a measure of how many hours go into that, and how it trickles down and you know, how you disseminate that and discover the volunteers and basically how does it all fit together?

[00:12:13] Milan Ivanovic: Oh, it’s a, it’s a long process. It’s a long process because, selecting the future city, every year WordCamp Europe changes country. For WordCamp Europe 2018 in Belgrade, me and the local team, we worked on it from September 2015. To make it happen in June 2018. Because it’s a long process. You need to prepare your local team because it’s was a team around 10 of us. You are just investing so much time. The first thing you need to work on is the application, because we have that application process where you submit your application and it’s usually like three to four cities, you know, fully prepared to organize the event.

Then, previous organizers, foundation WordPress foundation. Uh, we go on a meeting and then we talk about, we’ll look at those applications and then we decide which city is that going to be? So, for Belgrade, it was a long, long period because we had to prepare our local community as well, to start with local meetups and just to educate people what actually WordCamp Europe is.

We had the same, like everywhere else. Like people haven’t had idea that you can, all of a sudden, you can have a conference with like 2, 3000 people. That’s creme de la creme of WordPress communities going to be there. we had to like go educate people, do the meetups, do the all kinds of stuff just to prepare it.

For Berlin, their team, like I’m talking about the local team for Berlin. It was again long process for them as well, because they worked on the application. Then they submitted application, they got approved. And then you want that team, future team to be on this year’s team. Because you want them to see how it goes, And yeah, just to educate them by watching and just like being involved. You need to have them in, involved, like you need to educate them. So, is a long process.

[00:14:12] Nathan Wrigley: And presumably you mentioned that you worked a lot. That’s gotta be something that if you volunteer you have to allocate time. It’s not a just show up and do a little bit here and there, maybe depending on where you step into that hierarchy.

[00:14:24] Milan Ivanovic: All the WordCamps where we are going, or I’m talking about the WordCamp Europe, wherever you’re going, like the local team is the basically most important team. I knew that in Belgrade, like the last, I call like photo finish, last couple of weeks, or like couple of months, just like where all the work kept on piling up.

I was getting up like super early, to make it like through all the meetings with the venue. To go through all the notes. Connect all the bits and pieces. And then because all of us, we have the day jobs. Some of us being supported by the companies, some are not. So involvement of the people change through time, and because it’s a long process and specifically for WordCamp Europe, you don’t have all the teams.

All the different teams. We had like 10 different teams working all together. Like at the same time, like the, the high level. You’ll see, like in the beginning you have a huge impact on sponsors because they need to put up a call for sponsors. They need to sell all those packages. They need to see with the venue, how big is going to be expo area.

There are just like so many things, yeah. Volunteers that they are coming into late, like volunteers, team. Communications. Communications team. It’s one that has been hit hardest. And the longest, because they like keep on putting all the things to the event because yeah, we had to like increase the number of organizers, but it is challenging.

[00:15:52] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.

[00:15:52] Milan Ivanovic: Yeah, as I said many times already, like it’s a long process, but it’s an amazing process.

[00:15:57] Nathan Wrigley: I’ve had a really interesting slight window into what is involved at this event, just because of the location of where we’re at and seeing all the sort of backstage stuff. Really fascinating, and just as an example, the attention to detail to allow us to be in this room at this exact moment. The coordination that goes on there, you know, great big spreadsheets. And, and although I knew that on some level that was happening, that’s a tiny part of a tiny part of a tiny part of the bigger event. And yet, somebody’s had to deal with that and take care of it. And it’s absolutely amazing.

[00:16:27] Milan Ivanovic: Through the years we learned, we from our mistakes. I’ll call it mistakes. I’m doing the air quotes Because how the number of attendees grew, our problems grew as well. In Seville all of a sudden we had an amazing, amazing thing. People bringing their kids. We’re like, oh, we need to provide childcare service for the event. So we have, since 2016, we have the free childcare service for every WordCamp Europe. Then all of a sudden you have like more volunteers.

You want more bigger exposure like in media. So you need to organize one room. Then all of a sudden that room is too small, then organized two rooms. Then you need to be like, Hey, the venue is quite big. We need someone guiding. It’s like, okay. So we need dedicated volunteer who will take speaker or whoever to the stage. Will take to media room and how the number of attendees grew, our problems went.

[00:17:25] Nathan Wrigley: Genuinely in awe of the amount of things that are going on. Really remarkable. We’re very lucky though to be back. 2022, we’ve had a couple of years where, well, that hasn’t been the case for the reason that everybody knows. We’re all delighted that we’re back, but we’ve had a real moment where everything got a bit shaky, the community, every community, not just WordPress, but every community forced online.

And I just wondered what your thoughts were about the impact of that. Fatigue of zoom calls and whether or not local events have kind of taken a hit in numbers. Certainly I think where I live, the interest in turning up monthly or whatever it might be to these meetups, when it’s been online month after month after month, it seems like the interest is sort of slowly waning.

So maybe we’re an inflection point where it will begin to pick up again. But yeah, just interested in your thoughts on that.

[00:18:12] Milan Ivanovic: Oh yeah. When we started, I was so glad when we switched to online. I was in Bangkok, waiting on the WordCamp Asia. And it was like, Hey, it’s gonna happen. And then the team made the best decision ever that will turn out to be like the best decision ever not to have it. Even though everyone, we like super sad. We were like in Thailand, you know, just like waiting for that conference, and it’s been in the making for so long and the local team and everyone involved wanted so badly that conference to happen.

And then when we were there and someone said like, well maybe, maybe just, maybe we are not going to have it. And then they canceled. I’m like, yeah, what are we gonna do? So we stayed in Thailand, came back. Then when online happened, every day I have two meetings. It’s a Zoom meetings, I’m like, I’m not doing this.

Again, like a conference. I can’t do it. And then I was so happy, like, when it happened that I, again get to see all the people involved. I was amazed by the number of people who signed up. Like, I think 2020, 8, 9,000 people signed up. The good thing is that you have way more people being able to attend.

To just join the event. But I was super sad after it ended.

[00:19:28] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.

[00:19:28] Milan Ivanovic: Because, being involved so many years back, to see all those people hug everyone, talk to everyone. When it ended, I was like, whoa, no. It felt so empty. I’m like, no, no, this is not happening.

Yeah. I was glad that this was happening online, also for, for us in Serbia. Couple of guys decided like, Hey, we are not gonna go with online, but couple did. And I was so glad that it did because it kept something happening throughout the years. We are now in the limbo between those online events, someone wants to, someone is waiting on the in person events, like to start happening all over again, meetups with the restrictions over.

But yeah, in Serbia as well, you are going to a few now online, but yesterday on contributors day, as a part of the community team, we formed a plan that we gonna contact all the meetup organizers asking how their involvement is now, because it’s been so long, two or three years that, no in person meetup happened.

So we’re just gonna remind them, ask them about the help, how we, as a community can help them. People change jobs, a lot of things happen. In the meantime during COVID I got married, I got kid, but I’m still gonna be involved and see how we can help. So now the focus is on community to revamp and to see just like, Hey, how we can do with the meetups in person.

Is it possible? Are those organizers who are like organizing those meetups, they gonna do it, or we need to look for someone else from that meetup group?

[00:21:03] Nathan Wrigley: It’s a kind of reevaluation, where you’re gonna start again and see where we’re at right now? Yeah, it does feel like the involvement has gone down, but curiously, as you said at the top, 60% of the people who showed up to this event are new to the community. So there’s clearly some hanking for it. And so maybe when those events get rebooted with whoever they are, then maybe it’ll be the same, you know, 60% in the meetups will be new people, and that’s very encouraging.

[00:21:27] Milan Ivanovic: starting the day after tomorrow, we are gonna see so many new meetups and like so interested.

[00:21:32] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. We’ll see, see where we are next year. Let’s just change focus a little bit. You mentioned a, a moment ago about the fact that you’re based in Serbia. And Europe is a, is an interesting continent. Lots and lots of countries, some big, some very small. Lots and lots of languages, so that the barrier literally may be impenetrable. For example, if you are in Serbia, that may be the only way that you can engage.

A few months ago, there was some sort of coverage about diversity and whether or not the community organizing the team for WordCamp Europe had addressed that well enough. We actually did a podcast episode in which we aired those thoughts. So there is that to listen to. But the whole diversity debate, isn’t quite as straightforward, is it in Europe as it may be elsewhere, because, it’s not about the same things. Diversity might be language diversity, or it might be which country you’ve come from, or what have you. So, let’s just get into that.

[00:22:21] Milan Ivanovic: Europe is a strange place. Europe is a strange place. Every year we try so hard. I know even when I was involved, and we as a community, we just need to keep on, keeping on about diversity.

We need to educate people. I know that I had to educate myself first. I had to go for all the meetups. So when we start the meetup I’m doing, the first talk I’m doing, is about diversity. Is about code of conduct . And then yet again, people need to be reminded about it. I’m sure like this year as well, organizing team did a great job.

But there’s always, like every year, there’s a, just a little bit of that sense that we could do a bit more, every year. And I’ve been haunted, you know, when you are like selecting teams, you’ve been involved in some decisions.

I always had, just a a little bit like, maybe we could do more. When you see the organizing team, when you see event happening, I was like, yeah, well just maybe if we started early or maybe if we change this, or maybe if we put up a blog post, or maybe if we did something, something will be better.

But what we are not noticing that is getting better, it’s never going to be perfect. But as long as we are talking and we are constantly repeating and like wanting to change, sooner or later, like we gonna be so close to that perfect. So yeah, I know the difficulties. I heard about. Uh, wasn’t involved, but heard about difficulties, this year organizing team, and like, just that limbo of that is it going to happen? You know, so they organized like local team for Portugal. They organized in 2019, for 2020 and then like, yeah, it’s not happening. Online.

Then should we do like this year? Then, you know, some, some people from organizing team dropped off because life happened the meantime. So 2021, you kind of lost the momentum. Like 2022, you need to just like, Hey, this year is actually happening. You know, when you do like two tries and you fail, I’m doing the air quotes again. You fail, like you just need to pick everyone up. You need to form a team because as I said, like, this is a long event.

Now we need someone ready who will dedicate a time. Who will dedicate a passion. Who will be willing to help. But yeah, I’m totally supporting the organized team and all the decisions they made. So happy for them. Again, we are not gonna reach that perfect, but as long as we are like longing for that, we’ll be good.

[00:24:52] Nathan Wrigley: A couple of follow up questions from that. The first one is, do you, on a personal level, when you sort of hear these, criticisms from people, does it get you on a personal level or can you differentiate? Okay, that’s what somebody thinks over there. That’s fine. Okay. We’ll try our best next time. You’re giving up a lot of free time here.

[00:25:08] Milan Ivanovic: Yeah. So in the beginning it was harder. You know, in the beginning it was harder because, you know how much you give yourself into, you know, organizing and, you know that we all have different backgrounds. And you know the what’s the backstory of organizer being, or the organizing team.

And you know that people are sacrificing their time, sacrificing their families, relationship with friends. They can’t be with their friends, families. And then you hear that someone says like, Hey, well, maybe that. team, they could change this, and you’ll be like, because you know the both sides of the story. You can’t be like, no, like that’s not, but yet you can’t get into argue.

I was couple times being part of the WP drama. And I realized that because of the language barrier, because we all different that, defending yourself, you’re only going deeper. Like deeper into the problem. So I always try to talk to that person. Hey, there are things that you are not aware something. But, yeah, as I said, like highly opinionated community about everything. That’s what I love about, and that’s what I hate a little bit.

[00:26:19] Nathan Wrigley: When this event is over, presumably there’s a process of going, okay, let’s figure out what we did. What we did well. What could have been improved.

Is there a thing like that? And can people like attendees, somebody like me, for example, can I put my opinion forward about, okay, next time, less of this and more of this.

[00:26:36] Milan Ivanovic: Yeah.

[00:26:36] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. There’s a process for that?

[00:26:38] Milan Ivanovic: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a process in place that you put up the form. Hey, give us the feedback. My personal opinion is that like you are not reading the, you know, the worst possible things. Luckily, we never had those and you’re not reading all those, the best things ever, like best WordCamp ever. You are looking, at least I am looking, for something that was constructive criticism. Yeah. You go through there and you know that you failed. I don’t know with food could be better or something could be better.

You are aware, but you’re looking for the constructive criticism. And we always like, till now, like waited for about two weeks because two weeks is, um, a period of time that people need to just think about everything. Because if you give like today, if you give that form to attendees and be like, oh my God, it’s so crazy.

If you give that form to me, I just won the hat on the claw machine, but is going to be like the best WordCamp ever, because I just won. We are waiting about two weeks just for people to breathe in, decompress, you know, sell their thoughts and then you’ll give the attendees a survey to fill in.

We did that every year and it turned out to be an amazing thing for the future reference. Team will also put up the handbook. They will put up the handbook of all the things that they’ve learned, challenges that they faced. What could be better, what could be improved? Because we have the internal P2 for organizers, for teams to communicate. So yeah, that’s their life, probably at next month. They would just like decompress and just all the thoughts put together in one place for the future organisers.

[00:28:21] Nathan Wrigley: Are you here as an attendee this year? Or do you have any?

[00:28:25] Milan Ivanovic: Yeah, well, I’m, I’m speaking, I’m speaking because, we started that and I love that rule actually. Whoever was like the global lead for the previous year, you’ll be like the keynote, speaker for the next WordCamp Europe. Like on track one, you’ll do the talk. My talk was about community and I knew that it’s going to be emotional.

But I never knew it’s going to be this emotional. Yeah. So yeah, I had, I had tears, but I’m proud of those. It was emotional talk because those are all the things that I’m super passionate about. I’m super passionate about diversity. I’m super passionate about community in general. I’m super passionate about changing myself first and then helping change community for better.

So many times, so many stories that I’ve heard about people just like attending one single meetup, and then they realize that, you know what, this is good. This is a solid foundation for the career change or changing life. I had one guy in Serbia attended our meetups. He was a hairdresser and I knew his face.

He was constantly attending our meetups, but he was always super silent. He’s like, no, no, no. All good. I’m just like listening to talks. But he’s a good guy. So after two years he switched roles and he said like, finally, I’m doing the front end work. I got my first job. Thank you so much.

Thanks to community. It changed me in so many levels. So I did this talk and I completely stopped because all those images flashed in front of my eyes. I have slide that how many, uh, how much this community and being involved, this whole involvement changed me as a person. I had all these images just like flashing because I’ve been through some like tough times, like everyone.

And then I knew how much this whole community’s been listening and helping, supportive. And I basically stopped just like froze at the stage. I’m like, oh my God, I’m gonna cry. You’re not gonna cry. You’re gonna continue. I got the applause and just like, and that’s the support I’m talking about, and I continued, but really personal talk for me and I loved it. I loved the subject that I was sharing and, people say that I’m quite passionate and that can, I can make something happen.

[00:30:47] Nathan Wrigley: Final question. And it’s a quick one. Will you be back next year?

[00:30:52] Milan Ivanovic: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:30:54] Nathan Wrigley: Milan. Thank you for chatting to me today.

[00:30:56] Milan Ivanovic: Thanks so much Nathan for having me.