And can we talk a bit about your current role at your agency, maybe in the name and what your day to day activity looks like?

the name of the web agency is Nevma. It’s a small boutique-like web agency. We focus on, you know, a few customers at a time trying to tend to their needs as best as possible, and we try to be, you know, the creative type and enjoy the work we’re doing. That’s the most important thing for for us.

So Takis, we heard that you are handling the community team. So you’re the team leader of community team in Europe. Is that correct?

No, that’s correct. I mean, we saw at Contributor Day yesterday; there were like 800 people who joined.

Well, you got that number correct. I really went way ahead of ourselves this time. I mean, the planning was for something like 600 people and of course, the contributor needs to always be open to more and more people, the more as we can, and finally 800 people arrived. I mean, it was it was amazing, it was exciting. it was a challenge, but, I think in the end, you pulled through. the idea of the contributor days is that everybody gathers around in a room, we, divide ourselves in, teams that make, WordPress teams. Everybody joins the team and they start contributing on the spot and it’s actually really, really amazing. When you see it for the first time, you know, entering a huge room, seeing 500 or 600 people together in something like a big workshop contributing to the WordPress ecosystem. I mean, the first time I saw that I was, you know, it blew my mind. I’m really, really happy that I got to organize one yesterday.

I mean, it was beautiful if you think of it that those 500, 600 people are working towards the future of work.

Exactly, exactly. They’re creating the future of the workers, in, in so many aspects. I mean, supporting others, marketing, designing, coding, you know, organizing events, so many aspects, and they’re all coming from all sorts of places around the world to gather at one place each year where work of Europe, you know, is taking place and all this is, you know, coming together. when you see that, yeah, it’s, it’s really rewarding.

It is, it is. But normally this this year, 800 was the highest till low, or was it before higher?

I don’t have all the numbers, but I think it’s the highest date. Yeah, it was the biggest one.

That that’s that’s a big number.

Absolutely. So we also talked about the community booths and the WP cafe. Can you tell us what, what this was about?

yes, of course. So the community booth is a booth in the expo area along with the other booths of the, of the regular sponsors, but it’s dedicated to the WordPress community itself. It’s an opportunity for the community to present itself to the attendees. the attendees to get to know the activities of the community, be, attracted to the community so that they can contribute and learn as much, for the community as, as we can possibly give them. And it was also a nice opportunity this year to use the community booth to celebrate the 10th anniversary of World Camp Europe, which if we didn’t mention, is actually this year. we, this is the 10th edition of World Camp Europe which we’re super happy about and we’re trying to celebrate that in the, in the WordPress booth, the WordPress community booth as well. now, the WP cafe is another thing. it’s a cafe, it’s a place where, you know, you can, gather with friends, hang around and discuss, but in a little more organized way, when you do it here, you can discuss about all things WordPress. There are round tables of discussion, we have, some, discussion moderators that are, you know, managing the discussion. but the idea is to promote open discussion, about the WordPress in everything that has to do with WordPress, developing plug-ins, marketing, SCO design. We’ve got all the topics, in these tables and we also have them. arranged in levels so that levels, intermediate, beginner, intermediate, and expert so that everybody can, participate and everybody can take, you know, a place in that. And we’re also serving some nice hot, espresso coffee on the side.

That sounds fun. I mean, I was there also yesterday. The, the coffee is really good here.

Coffee.

Absolutely. The coffee keeps us developers running, I believe

it does. It does

Anyways, so, my next question is, how one can start contributing to WordPress.

well, there are many, there are many ways and there, there is no official process. the only official thing that one would need to do is, you know, register to WordPress.org, get a username there, probably register at the WordPress Slack channel so that they can, get a hold of all the rest of the contributors there. And then all they would need to do is find a team, you know, that suits their interests and skills. And the nice thing is that there are teams for everyone. There are teams that have a really, really, really low learning curve so that anybody can contribute. it’s very easy to enter the support team because support requests vary from the very basic, you know, to the very, very expert level, so one could help supporting other beginners. the polyglots team that runs WordPress translation, all you need to do is speak, you know, one language as your mother tongue, and another relatively well, and you can just Start contributing, you know, translations there. the photos theme where you just need to have, you know, your cellphone and take some nice, some nice photos, of a specific topic and just upload them there. So, actually it’s really, really easy to, to start continuing the two at rest and attending, attending a Kumbu today is a really, really great opportunity to find all these people together in a room as we, as we said before, and, you know, ask questions, find out whatever, you know, you might need.

Guys, I definitely recommend attending the Country today. It was beautiful yesterday. It’s all the people being together. Thank you for your Tatis and your team for pulling this off.

You’re welcome.

So, you have been or spoken or I mean, organized multiple work camps, if I remember correctly.

I’ve been involved in many, yeah.

So how do you think things have changed over time in the community as well as in wordcamps?Yeah, well, indeed they have. I think that the biggest thing that has changed since 2012 that I have been, you know, started organizing meetups and being involved in organizing and organizing work camps is the scale of the project. I mean, back then, you could have a regular meetup with, you know, 2 or 3 or 5 people and just start off doing a regular meetup. But, as you move along, you find that, there are so many other people, you know, interested in what you’re, in what you’re doing, and, the thing starts to grow and when it starts to grow, you need to find the bigger venues. You start thinking about, you know, managing and finding sponsors. And it, it becomes a bigger thing and WordPress community has been growing along with the WordPress project. I mean if you’ve seen the statistics, WordPress, you know, powering more than 40% of the, of the web, this has an effect on people as well. So it has scaled along and managing that scale, is a challenge, I think, for the organizers but also for the, for the central, for the welcome center. Yeah, So that’s, that’s the short version of it.

No, I totally understand. And if somebody is interested in organizing a WordPress meetup or a WordCamp, what does the process look like, or can you suggest some people?

The first thing that you could do is, you know, look around in your own hometown or city and see if there are other people being interested in that. that would be the easiest thing to do. There are tools like Meetup.com where you just, you know, you enter your city and you see if there’s already a meetup or Wordcamp, going there. There’s Wordca Central where you can search for, Wor comes close to you and, actually organizing a meetup is pretty, pretty easy. You just do it. You just find a couple of friends, announce it in your social media and you can start it off and if it, you know, grows and catches on. you can, enter the meetup program of Welcome Central, be an official meetup, and Welcome Central can also, you know, help you find other organizers, perhaps find sponsors, venues, etc. and then even go to a Wordcamp, which is, you know, the, the annual bigger version of a, of a WordPress meetup. So, the, you know, the, the entry process is actually pretty simple. You just, you just do it. You just need to realize it that it’s that simple.

Absolutely. So guys, if there’s no WordPress in the area, I would encourage you to try.

Just do it. Gather some people, announce it in your social media, create a Facebook event so that others might find out, announce it, create a Meetup.com group there so that others can find about you even if you don’t know them, and it will happen.

All right, so yeah, you, you said it right. It’s the annual biggest WordPress meetup in a way

in a way, it is yeah.

or a festival also.It actually, that’s one of the things that, you know, word camps have evolved to. They’re more than, you know, gatherings and conventions and, you know, in the, in the usual way. They, they’re becoming a little bit like festivals indeed because people Need and want to have fun in them, right? So, being in a festive mood is also, part of the process, yeah.

So let’s, let’s call it safely annual WordPress festival.

We could, we could. The word from Europe definitely is.

Absolutely. OK, so let’s move to our next question. What is the one thing you love about WordPress?

Well, I would, if I would have to pick one thing because I love working with it. I love coding in it, you know, I love the philosophy of it, but ultimately, the one thing I love most is, is the community. I mean, it’s an ecosystem where you find so, so many nice people wanting to contribute, on the same, on the same subject, on the same target, working together, and, you know, they all do it, you know. Organically, voluntarily, and yeah, that would be its community and its people.

All right. So, OK, so let’s move on to our next question. So the next question is, what is the one thing that you would suggest to the person who just entered to the word of WordPress?

OK, it’s a cliche and I’m sorry for that, but you, you, you just need to do it, really, really, I mean, it’s, as I said before, it, it’s an ecosystem that’s really, really open to, to newcomers. So if you just try it, the community is there and it’s open, it’s open to, to accept you. so if someone, you know, has some reservations, if they can overcome them, you know. Please do, and there will be people to help you there.

Guys, just do it.

Yeah, I mean, that’s what it is.

You heard the band, just do it. All right, so the next question is, so let’s go, look at it life outside WordPress. So what do you do other than WordPress?Other than the WordPress, yeah, you know, I do, I do work a lot because running your own company doesn’t leave you much time, outside of it, but you know, I’m a regular person. I like, you know, reading books, listening to music as much as I can. I used to like going, you know, to the cinema when there were no restrictions, which I I hope I can do next year again. And for the last couple of years, couple of years, I’ve also been a father to a young, little guy and, yeah, that was a big, big part of my life during the last couple of years and obviously the years to come. And I’m really enjoying that. I’m really enjoying that.

But running a company can be stressful sometimes. So how do you de-stress yourself?

It is, well, I don’t have a particular process, you know, I just try to do a lot of things so that, as many of them are also, you know, not just about work. But also about feeling, you know, rewarded. being part of the WordPress WordPress community, you know, is one of these because I’m doing it voluntarily. I meet new people, most of them are becoming in the end friends. So, this is a way, you know, to, to really distress, yeah, doing nice stuff, nice stuff.

All right. so we are almost at the end of the interview, so we have our very last question. It can be surprising maybe because not many people would expect it. I hope.

Let me hear it.

All right, so what is your favorite song?

Favorite song? OK, well, I’m an old school type of guy when music is concerned. I love, I like, you know, bands like the Pink Floyd, and I would pick the song Time. from there, yeah, from 1972. It’s, it’s an amazing long piece that builds up and up and, yeah. I love it all, I love it all the way.

Guys, do listen to it. So it’s a good recommendation. I’m gonna listen to it just after this.

Try to listen to its lyrics as well.

Awesome. So thank you so much, Takis, for this interview. It was lovely hosting you.Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Vineet.

All right guys, till next time and bye-bye.