Is there room for community in corporate WordPress, when companies fund more of the project? On WPwatercooler episode 454, one of the hosts asked me about it directly, noting that the show had once been hard on GoDaddy, where I worked. I answered with what I’d just seen at Open Source Summit, outside the WordPress bubble.
🎙️ Episode details
- Show: WPwatercooler, episode 454, “WP.inc: Is There Room for Community in Corporate?”
- Hosts: Jason Tuckercolleague and Sé Reedcolleague
- Guests: Jonathan Woldcolleague, founder of Guildenberg, and me, Courtney Robertson, then an open source developer advocate at GoDaddy
- Streamed live: May 19, 2023
- Topics: what corporate community looks like at Open Source Summit, sales pitches at WordCamps, and recognizing more kinds of contribution
- Watch: EP454 on the WPwatercooler YouTube channel, or read the episode 454 show notes on WPwatercooler
The captions are YouTube’s automatic captions, cleaned for repeated lines and names but not checked against the audio.
🌐 What corporate community looks like at Open Source Summit
First, I described Open Source Summit. For example, tickets cost far more than a WordCamp, and employers had sent nearly everyone attending as sponsored contributors. GoDaddy held a seat on the board of the OpenJS Foundation, where people from companies such as Netflix and Meta work on JavaScript standards together.
In WordPress, people grumble when sponsored contributors fill seats at a WordCamp. Next to other open source communities, that’s how many projects run.
🤝 Why a sales pitch doesn’t work at a WordCamp
However, WordPress audiences are skeptical of pitches, and I think that’s healthy. I credited my manager, Adam Warnerco-workercolleague: the first thing he asks people at our booth is what they do with WordPress, not whether they want a demo. A WordCamp crowd ranges from a first time blogger to a core committer, so a demo pitch rarely fits.
📊 Recognizing more kinds of contribution
Next, the panel noted that Five for the Future hours are self reported and hard to trust. I described a pilot the Training team joined while I was a rep: connecting meetup.org activity to WordPress.org accounts, because hosting an online workshop or running a meetup group is contribution too. The panel also talked about guiding company investment into the project, which is part of why the WP Community Collective exists.
🧪 What can you take about community in corporate WordPress?
- Companies: lead with curiosity at community events; ask what people build.
- Contributors: count meetup and workshop work as contribution, and make sure it’s recorded.
Also, more conversations like this one live in my podcast and speaking archive.
🗓️ Archival note
This episode streamed live on May 19, 2023, per the YouTube listing. The WPwatercooler page shows May 12, 2023, likely when the episode was scheduled, and a podcast directory lists May 28. Then I added this post on November 9, 2026, from the show notes and YouTube’s automatic captions. Those captions have no speaker names, so I attributed only statements whose speaker is clear from the conversation. I didn’t rewatch the stream.