Matteo Enna: I was a shy guy and I didn’t speak English, but then I discovered WordCamps! [WCGVA 2022]

My notes of WordCamp Geneva 2022, might be incomplete or contain errors!

Matteo’s personal story in the WordPress community. First talk outside Italy, non-technical, in English (non-remote)!

Matteo is an open-source evangelist and developer from Sardinia. Moved to Milan in 2018 to join the startup he’d been working for. Worked on a big WordPress site. Sees a 2-day event in the WP admin. Decides to go! It was WordCamp Turin. Leaves with a stack of notes after the day of talks.

Discovers the wider community (developers, writers, designers…), all wordpress lovers. Pacman (?) — leaving a space for others to join the conversation.

Second WordCamp: Zurich. Intense! travels alone for the first time, and it’s in English. On the return trip, signed up for two more wordcamps and made a talk proposal. Verona, and then Dublin. In Verona meets other people of the Italian WordPress community. Dublin was a very big community, multicultural. Problems with accents! Difficult for beginners. Also, if you’re shy, easier to sit in talks than participate in the contribution day. But he did the contribution day (support table) in English (written), because it was his goal.

Back to Italy. Being shy makes it hard to speak in front of many people! Cf. “Anger Management” movie (called “shock therapy” in Italian). Started out by being a volunteer and speaker and WordCamp Milan. In Cagliari (Sardignia), there wasn’t a meetup, so he started one.

Then he went to Glasgow, as a volunteer. And now, in Geneva (Switzerland), he shares his story in the hope it will encourage others to overcome their shyness and language issues!

• it’s important to know and study yourself
• participate! being a speaker is not the only way (volunteer and contribution day are great)
• don’t miss the after party!

Originally published at Climb to the Stars.