All four of us were together in-person - for the first time over two years - at Umbraco in the City, a community-organised event in Manchester. We talked about what contributions look like to a mature open-source product with a team of full time engineers working on the codebase. Are code contributions still the “gold-standard”, were they ever? We discuss this and what other types of contrubitions make a meaningful difference to the Umbraco CMS in front of a wonderful live audience.
Thanks to our guests - Michael Latouche, Paul Seal and our new best friend Kieron McIntyre - for taking the microphone and sharing their contribution stories.
High five to them and the audience, we had a lot of fun! 

Links

• Umbraco in the City
• Core collabs team page
• Paul Seal’s starter kit, and post about the PR from Andy
• UMB.FYI
• Umbraco Spark

In this episode we get personal about what it means to be part of open source and tech communities while navigating major life changes. From returning to work after maternity leave and balancing "mum guilt", to speaking at conferences while seven months pregnant, we explore the realities of contributing through parenthood.
  
We also discuss how brain changes in motherhood can affect our work, how ageing shapes the way we give back, and why normalising conversations about menopause at work matters.
  
Candid, honest, and full of lived experience - this episode shines a light on the evolving nature of contribution and community.
  
Links:  

• Carole's blog post that inspired this episode!

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord server and find this episode in the #news channel!

Last week, we recorded a live episode at the Umbraco Codegarden conference in Odense, Denmark!
  
Emma and Lotte took to the stage at the end of the first day. Carole and Laura couldn't make it this year, but they were with us in spirit! We were joined by three wonderful guests - Richard Ockerby, Andy Boot, and Eli Holderness - to chat about their Codegarden experience so far.
  
A massive #H5YR, SuperTak and thank you to our amazing live audience for making the episode so much fun to record! As always, Codegarden, you never fail to deliver. See you in Copenhagen! ;-)

  
Links:  

• Codegarden - https://codegarden.umbraco.com
• Richard Ockerby - https://bsky.app/profile/rockerby.bsky.social
• Andy Boot - https://umbracocommunity.social/@andy_boot
• Eli Holderness - https://bsky.app/profile/eli.holderness.dev

  
If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord server!

Yes we're back from a break, and delighted to have been the lunchtime podcast hosts at DDD South West in Bristol. We were joined by five fabulous panelists: speakers Dylan Beattie, Jacqui Read and Kevlin Henney, and event organisers Carl Sargunar and Lorraine Pearce. We talk about why we are so willing to give up our Saturdays for events like these, what we wish we knew when we started out in the tech industry, and keeping up to speed whilst on maternity leave, amongst other things…  
  
Plus you’ll hear how being good at out of hours bug fixing might prepare you for parenthood!  
  
Links  

• DDD South West - https://dddsouthwest.com/
• Dylan Beattie - https://dylanbeattie.net/
• Jacqui Read - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelineread/
• Kevlin Henney - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevlin/
• Carl Sargunar - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-sargunar-63b5814/
• Lorraine Pearce - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorraine-pearce-688aba8/
• Lorraine’s website - https://dontbeadick.co.uk   

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can toot us @candidcontribs, or email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord server!

This episode we have a special guestUm, braco MVP and team Skrift co-founder, Erica Quessenberry!
We talk all things hacktober (and preptember) ahead of the busiest month in open source.

To support Umbraco's Hacktoberfest, Candid Contributions and friends are hosting a virtual hackathon. Join us Fri 10th and Sat 11th October for a virtual hackathon, more info here: https://www.meetup.com/umbraco-virtual/events/303390646/

To see more about what happened at Codecabin, check out their Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/codecabinconf/

Checkout Erica's magazine, Skrift, here: https://skrift.io/ and get in touch if you'd like to be an author.

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can toot us @candidcontribs, tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord server!

Last week we recorded live at the Umbraco Codegarden conference in Denmark!   

We were given the honour of closing the show, so we took the opportunity to talk about our highlights of the event, and to invite some friends - old and new - to join us on stage.  

Big thank you to our live audience for giving us the energy we needed (it had been long week!) and making the recording so much fun!  

Links:  

Codegarden: https://codegarden.umbraco.com

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord server!

It's been 18 months since Elon Musk acquired Twitter and there's no denying he changed it irrevocably. We discuss how much we still miss the Twitter of old, and whether the Fediverse alternatives are bridging the gap.  

We also talk about that most precious resource: time. We share our different approaches to time management and task organisation, from doodle-filled hand-drawn lists to To-Do apps and color-coded calendars. And when we do have some spare time, are we doing open-source contributions out of obligation, or because they bring us joy?  

Links:

• The Umbraco Community Mastodon Server: https://umbracocommunity.social

... is NOT "don't talk about the Microsoft MVP Summit". Quite the opposite, in fact, as you're actively encouraged to post on social media that you're there (#MVPSummit). You just can't share any of the information from the sessions as all the content is under NDA.  
  
Emma and Lotte (aka 50% of Candid Contributions) were at the Microsoft Campus in Redmond for the summit last week. They spent time with a lot of interesting, clever and inspiring people, and were lucky enough to convince five of them to appear in this special not-so-short 'minisode'. Listen to find out what Emma, Lotte and these fabulous five got from being at the event:  

• Shaun Lawrence - Microsoft MVP, author of ‘Introducing .NET MAUI’
• Jamie Taylor - Microsoft MVP, host of The Modern .NET Show podcast
• Hannes Lowette - Microsoft MVP, Head of Learning & Development at Axxes
• Idan Gazit - Senior Director of Research at GitHub Next
• Luce Carter - Microsoft MVP, Developer Advocate at MongoDB

Show links  

• What is the Microsoft MVP Summit?
• Emma's linked in post with the Squad photo

There are many ways to contribute to an open-source software community, such as attending a meetup, giving a talk at a conference or writing a blog post. In this episode we talk to Erica, Janae and Kyle: the team behind Skrift, the online monthly magazine for the Umbraco community. Eight years ago they decided to start this initiative and 100 issues later they're still going strong! Listen to discover how it came about, why they still do it, and perhaps get inspired to contribute an article yourself...

We also discuss some exciting news from Lotte, the challenges of making consistent contributions to open source, delivering technical talks and some delightful tangents into pop culture!

Links:

• Skrift's 100th issue: https://skrift.io/100
• The Umbraco UK Festival: https://umbracofestival.co.uk/

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can toot us @candidcontribs, tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord server!

Last week we recorded live at the Umbraco Codegarden conference in Denmark! Join us as we discuss what we love about the conference and meet our wonderful guests:

Jan Skovgaard - an Umbraco community member with 14 years(!) of contributions: forum posts, packages, core pull requests, accessibility team member and 24 days in Umbraco organiser.

Jonah Andersson - a full-stack Senior Software Engineer, Azure Developer, DevOps Engineer, Microsoft MVP for Azure, and Microsoft Certified Trainer in Sweden.

And a couple more: you'll just have to tune in to find out who!

A big thank you to everyone in the audience for making this so much fun. It's the first time we've recorded live, and we hope it won't be the last!

Links:

• Codegarden: https://codegarden.umbraco.com
• Jan Skovgaard: https://twitter.com/TheRealBatJan
• 24 days in Umbraco: https://24days.in/umbraco-cms
• Jonah Andersson: https://jonahandersson.tech/

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord server!

Conferences, meetups, coding retreats … we discuss all sorts of in-person events and why they’re so important for a healthy community. Organising them is a lot of work, but perhaps this type of open source contribution is the most valuable...

We're delighted to have been joined by Cat Todd from Gibe Digital, and we talk about her recent experience of putting on the excellent Umbraco Spark conference.

We also discuss the 3 day Umbraco developer ‘unconference’ CODECABIN and why you should get your application in before the deadline of July 7th.

Join us to hear all this plus chat about tulip colours, fist-pumps and - hurray - another Laura analogy!

Links:

• Umbraco Spark: https://umbracospark.com/
• CODECABIN: https://codecab.in/
• Umbraco meet-ups: https://www.meetup.com/pro/umbraco/
• Meetup organiser resources: https://community.umbraco.com/events/umbraco-meetups/resources-for-meetup-organisers/

This episode was recorded before Umbraco announced the delay of The New Backoffice to v14. Read more about that decision: https://umbraco.com/blog/umbraco-product-update-april-2023/#backoffice


If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord server!

In this episode Laura has a chat with Felienne Hermans, the creator and maintainer of Hedy, a text based programming language with a community of educators and contrbutors.

• https://hedycode.com/
• https://www.manning.com/books/the-programmers-brain

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord server!

In this episode we chat about the recent Umbraco Spark Innovation Conference that we all attended in person in Bristol. Plot-spoil: it was awesome!

Carole, Laura and Lotte were on the speakers list so we discuss the talks they gave, everyone's highlights from the day, and just how good it is to be with other Umbracians again. Roll on Codegarden!

• Visit the Umbraco Spark website (includes links to talk slides, nothing was recorded)
• Check out Lotte's "opinionated" package starter template
• Sign up to the "Packages Question Time" meetup (virtual, March 24th)
• Check out the Codegarden 2023 programme (Odense, DK, June 13-16)

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord server!

We take a look back at the best of 2022 (spoiler alert, July was THE month for us) and look forward to 2023. We discuss how we plan to spend our energy and how to do so without draining our reserves. Which conferences will we get to this year and what exactly is an 'authentic boundary?'

We are also joined by Allen Smith, the newest addition to the Developer Relations team at Umbraco. We talk about his experiences at GitHub, how he defines developer relations, what he's looking forward to in the year ahead, and what not to name your record label...

• Find Allen on the Umbraco discord server: https://discord.gg/umbraco
• Allen Smith's Linked In profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loranallensmith
• Allen Smith's Twitter: https://twitter.com/loranallensmith
• DeveloperWeek, San Francisco : https://www.developerweek.com/
• Umbraco Spark, Bristol: https://umbracospark.com/
• Lotte's cryptic crossword article: https://24days.in/umbraco-cms/2022/christmas-crossword/

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord server!

Having a good workplace culture leads to happy, productive developers. But what makes it 'good'? It’s not the same for everyone. We talk about workplace culture and the different environments we’ve witnessed from Silicon Valley to Denmark via the UK...

We also chat vegetables (of course), paddle boarding and the tennis/squash hybrid called padel!

We’d love to hear from you if you have any thoughts on this episode, or any comments in general! You can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord and find us there.

We are back and chatting about our (hybrid) attendance at Umbraco Codegarden conference. Join us as we interview some remote conference attendees on how the event was for them.

Let us know what you think #theCodegardenEffect is!

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Discord!

We’re very excited to be joined by Maria Naggaga from Microsoft for this episode. Maria has been breaking down barriers both personally, being a woman of colour in tech, and professionally with projects focused on making it easier for people to learn and use .NET.

We discuss her achievements at Microsoft, what it’s like working in open source on such a large scale, and what effect we - the open source community - have on Microsoft.

* Coding .NET in the browser with Try.NET - https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/platform/try-dotnet
* Minimal APIs available in .NET 6 - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/minimal-apis
* Minimal APIs work in progress docs - https://minimal-apis.github.io
* Maria on Twitter - https://twitter.com/ladynaggaga

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Community Slack channel #candid-contributions.

We are back!... and little rusty at this podcasting thing!

In this episode we catch up with what we have been up to in open source since last time, discuss Umbraco 9 and .Net 6 releases, real life conference attendance, aswell as the now traditional neuroscience and vegetable updates.

* https://umbraco.com/blog/migrating-from-umbraco-8-on-premises-to-umbraco-9-on-cloud/
* https://umbraco.com/blog/umbraco-9-release/
* https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/announcing-net-6/
* https://umbraco.com/blog/learnathon-learnings/

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Community Discord channel #candid-contributions.

This week we chat about finishing things - and in some cases struggling to finish them! Tune in to hear us chat about shipping minimum viable products, using to-do lists to get that "finished a task" feeling and navigating side projects when there's so many interesting technologies to try.

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Community slack channel #candid-contributions.

Show Links:

* "Now we can iterate, right?" - https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/o9xgjj/well_if_it_works/

* Polywork - https://www.polywork.com/

* The Developing Dev - https://thedevelopingdev.co.uk/

* "Sorry for rushing this a bit, but got home yet?" - https://github.com/gkoberger/stacksort/pull/4#issuecomment-747656340

This week we get together for a post-codegarden natter. How did we experience the conference from afar and from behind the scenes? Listen to find out. Naturally, we talk veg, because it's us, a bit of football and we also talk about representation, why it matters and how the most recent event fared with it.

If you have any feedback, comments or questions you can tweet us @candidcontribs, email hello@candidcontributions.com or join the Umbraco Community slack channel #candid-contributions. Especially if you can think of any other songs that relate to open source and development!

Show Links:

* Codegarden videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG_nqaT-rbpx6wIDr5ufUlbHkg6qB3sxH