Our 2023 journey
December has arrived, the month in which I can slow down and stop to take a moment to look back on everything I've experienced this year.
January was a month full of news and in which I started this new path as Community Program Manager Europe in Codemotion, if I think that all this time has already passed it makes me really strange.
It seems like yesterday that I started to get to know the great Codemotion team and that Mara told me about the growth objectives for this year.
The results we have achieved on the community side are not few and by no means trivial and I would like to celebrate them with you by sharing them:
Events
First of all there are the events, the result of the work of the entire Codemotion team who achieved truly exciting results!
Codemotion Workshop Fest Italy
Opening in person
+ 120 attendee in person
+ 400 attendee online
9 speaker
Live online
+ 3700 attendee
2 track
2 days
19 workshop
+ 25 speaker
+30 streaming hours
Satisfaction 4.6 out of 5
Codemotion Madrid
+ 1800 attendee
7 track
2 days
+ 100 speaker
+ 80 talk
Codemotion Milan
+ 2400 attendee
8 track
2 days
130 speaker
+ 90 talk
+ 25 Tech Buddy
+ 90 partners
+ 10 community activities
Satisfaction 8 out of 10
Codemotion Workshop Fest Spain
Opening in person
+ 100 attendee in presenza
9 speaker
Live online
+ 3000 attendee
1 track
2 days
14 workshop
+ 15 speaker
+16 streaming hours
NPS 78
During Codemotion Milan we dedicated an area entirely to the community where we had:
+ 25 Tech buddies: people who are experts in various technologies who were available to answer doubts and discuss the various topics;
a new scholarship program dedicated to members of groups under-represented in the tech world and to those who cannot afford the costs of the conference;
a photo contest with fantastic prizes made available by community sponsors;
lightening talk sessions in which those who participated in the conference had the opportunity to go on the codemotion stage and propose their speech, prize quizzes, a slide roulette improvisation session in which we challenged each other with jokes on random slides and random topics with a single objective: to entertain the audience;
a community wall that gathered the presence of all the communities present at the conference;
live shows in the presence of all the ongoing series;
the wannabe speaker program in which our team of Ambassadors followed people who had never brought a talk to a conference stage;
a section dedicated to videos to collect your impressions of the event;
a dedications book;
the presentation of the book Open Surce, a workshop on how to program a Telegram bot to do a retrospective (thank you Manuel for making this dream of mine come true), and a panel on the presence of women in managerial roles in the tech world.
Contributor
We have launched the new Codemotion Contributor program and two initiatives to actively take part in the Codemotion community:
Become Codemotion MC (in Italy);
Become Codemotion Writer
+ 12 active contributors who regularly organize online meetups and write articles in the online magazine between Italy and Spain,
+ 50 online meetup (you can find the next ones on the DevCalendar) and series hosted by our MCs:
Devs Book Club - Andrea Maietta, Savino Carlone, Arnaldo Morena
Devs Meet Ethics - Mauro Bennici
Wannabe CTO - Enrico Maria Cestari, Giuseppe Santoro
Road to Dev - Ludovico Besana
Product Management: incontri e scontri - Matteo Guidotto, Raffaele Colace
+ 20 articles in the magazine and 10 new columns
Ambassador
We have reviewed and improved our Ambassador Program
18 Ambassadors between Italy and Spain represent our community
10 mentorships for our Wannabe Speaker program to bring community members who have never done public speaking on stage after a mentorship journey thanks to Ambassadors, Dev Talent partners and Codemotion Community Team
Partner
We have launched a new partnership program
+160 tech community partners support our activities
Seeking/Offering locations for meetups was a new initiative launched to support our partners (in Italy)
Community
Launch of 3 sites in English, Italian, and Spanish to collect and describe all the community initiatives we have developed
5 in-person meetups traveling around Italy with the collaboration of +10 partners
+15 in-person meetups organized in Spain
Launch of a new CTO community both in Italy and Spain with +5 networking events organized in person
Furthermore we have:
participated in +25 events organized by our partners between Italy and Spain
created a page dedicated to discounts for our community from our partners
wrote an article on how to apply for the various CFPs with useful information on all the tools to be able to do it easily
State Of European Tech Communities
This year we launched a new project that I had the opportunity to challenge myself with, the State Of European Tech Communities. + 250 tech communities at European level gave their contribution to the creation of a report in which we have:
analyzed the problems that tech communities are facing at European level;
including the health of tech communities;
had the opportunity to have a tool for those involved in community management that allowed us to have a clear understanding of the international panorama in which we are moving in order to also have data with which we could compare;
understood the impact that tech communities have on the life of every developer.
It is possible to view the complete report here: stateoftechcommunities.codemotion.it
The team
I mention it last, but not least, in fact, far from it, it would not have been possible to achieve all this without this team. It is one of my greatest satisfactions to have had the opportunity to build a fantastic community team with which to collaborate, develop ideas and initiatives.
The harmony with Alessia is fantastic and the ability we have to support each other in times of need is what I love most, she really put herself on the line this year and receiving the always positive feedback from the Italian contributors and partners is for me great source of satisfaction.
After my first month in Spain to accompany Natalia into this world with which I had the pleasure of sharing not only a great desire for growth but also passions on a personal level, I was very happy to have had Julieta on board who took the helm of the Spanish community and together an excellent job was done in Spain for our "Revamp" project.
The affinity with Francesco in managing the Ambassador program and conference activities was extremely stimulating, especially in the management of large unforeseen events that were resolved in a very short time.
Being part of this team under the protective wings and guidance of Mara has made 2023 extremely rich. I believe that it is not at all trivial to have affinity, understanding and work in a team that shares exactly the same community spirit that truly puts people at the center.
Good resolutions for 2024
The results achieved this year have been truly many but we certainly won't stop here. 2024 will be a year of consolidation but we will do our best to grow the community more and create new opportunities for members.
So here are our good resolutions for 2024:
develop a mentorship program from the community for the community in which the exchange of skills and knowledge can be promoted thanks to the support of Contributors and Ambassadors;
expand the Wannabe Speaker program for Codemotion Madrid;
continue to meet in person at our meetups organized with partners and have stimulating moments of discussion;
grow more community members thanks to the Codemotion Contributor program and by sharing content of interest;
forge an even stronger relationship with partners by carrying out valuable initiative activities that can generate impact on the territory;
organize moments of discussion between members, contributors, ambassadors and partners in order to carry out new activities together during the conferences in Madrid and Milan;
continue with the second edition of the State Of European Tech Communities and receive the support of more European communities who want to take part in this project.
And this is all.
Stopping for a moment to put your ideas together, understand what happened, seems stupid but it is not trivial. Very often, caught up in the whirlwind of the activities and projects in which we are involved, we struggle to realize the successes and leave everything in the background. We are focused on doing and we lose the small results we achieve along the way. I believe that celebrating certain goals does extremely well, because it is the result of a year of work, of many people, a great team, who day after day with the desire to grow and test themselves have created and are creating, in my way to see a great impact in this world: from raising companies' awareness of certain issues to mentoring for the professional growth of every developer who wants to change their career, from the creation of interesting content to the creation of new friendships and connections.
This 2023 has been an extremely intense, rich, challenging and full of great satisfaction year. I can't even count the people I've met, laughed with, and helped and supported me through it all. Community is not just a word, for me it is a lifestyle that shapes our path. The value that people have on our journey is not measurable with numbers, but the impact they have, well that is indescribable.
And for that I want to say thank you. A small word but with a big meaning. Thanks to all the people who helped me, gave me feedback, spent time to understand my questions and supported me, thanks to the community members who actively support all the initiatives, thanks to the trust of the partners and thanks to my fantastic team where you really feel at home.
I would like to conclude with a phrase from Michele Riva, during the closing keynote of Codemotion Milano 2022 which resonated with me extremely strongly: "Wherever you go, conference or meetup, there is only one lowest common denominator that will change the your life forever: it's the people. What will change your life won't be the book you never read, or the course you didn't finish but the people you never had the chance to interact with."
A big hug and... let 2024 begin! 😊