Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners

Be sure to subscribe to all long-form WordPress interviews, The WP Minute+: thewpminute.com/plus Get a weekly dose of your favorite 5 minutes of WordPress news: thewpminute.com/subscribe Stay connected to Matt Report podcast for more "Blue Collar digital worker" content throughout 2023! https://twitter.com/syedbalkhi https://thrivethemes.com/ https://awesomemotive.com/ https://thewpminute.com/support ★ Support this podcast ★

Been a while right?!I'm back with an update to what's going on with Matt Report, and a potential new direction I'll be taking the content through the new year. While I love all of the deep conversations I've had about WordPress, the new home for that is The WP Minute.That's where I've been focusing all of my WP energy these days, with lots more fun stuff to come.I also wanted to take an opportunity to share one of my favorite episodes ever, with Jose Caballer. It's over a decade old but it's SO worth listening to again. While some of the websites and links he's mentioning no longer exist, the content of providing great web services is still very relevant in today's world.I hope you enjoy it (again) and thank you for being a loyal listener of the show! ★ Support this podcast ★

Been a while right?! I'm back with an update to what's going on with Matt Report, and a potential new direction I'll be taking the content through the new year. While I love all of the deep conversations I've had about WordPress, the new home for that is The WP Minute. That's where I've been focusing all of my WP energy these days, with lots more fun stuff to come. I also wanted to take an opportunity to share one of my favorite episodes ever, with Jose Caballer. It's over a decade old but it's SO worth listening to again. While some of the websites and links he's mentioning no longer exist, the content of providing great web services is still very relevant in today's world. I hope you enjoy it (again) and thank you for being a loyal listener of the show!

Heading to a major WordCamp event can be an overwhelming experience for the brand new 'camper. Having hundred if not thousands of WordPress-loving peers under one roof might have you stuck in your tracks, no pun intended. How do you meet new people? How do you get noticed? How do you recharge if you're an introvert? Thanks to Gina, we'll learn about all of that and more! If you enjoy today's episode, please share it on social media, especially if you're headed to WordCamp US 2022 this week! Important links Gina on TwitterGina's WordCamp tweetFirst WordCamp tips and tricksSupport the show; Join our #linksquad membershipCheck out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product!

Heading to a major WordCamp event can be an overwhelming experience for the brand new 'camper. Having hundred if not thousands of WordPress-loving peers under one roof might have you stuck in your tracks, no pun intended. How do you meet new people? How do you get noticed? How do you recharge if you're an introvert? Thanks to Gina, we'll learn about all of that and more! If you enjoy today's episode, please share it on social media, especially if you're headed to WordCamp US 2022 this week! Important links Gina on Twitter Gina's WordCamp tweet First WordCamp tips and tricks Support the show; Join our #linksquad membership Check out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product! ★ Support this podcast ★

Web accessibility was something I was afraid to discuss with clients, when I ran my agency. I didn't know much about it, where to begin, or how much time it would it take to implement the various practices. That fear steered me away from presenting it as part of a web design project. I'm not in the agency space anymore, but I know there's some of you out there faced with the same dilemma. Lucky for us, folks like Anne Bovelett advocate for both sides of the cause. Important links Anne on TwitterAnne's websiteRachel Cherry on Matt ReportAmber Hinds on Matt ReportTaylor Arndt on Matt ReportSupport the show; Join our #linksquad membership⚡️Check out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product! Transcript

Web accessibility was something I was afraid to discuss with clients, when I ran my agency. I didn't know much about it, where to begin, or how much time it would it take to implement the various practices. That fear steered me away from presenting it as part of a web design project. I'm not in the agency space anymore, but I know there's some of you out there faced with the same dilemma. Lucky for us, folks like Anne Bovelett advocate for both sides of the cause. Important links Anne on Twitter Anne's website Rachel Cherry on Matt Report Amber Hinds on Matt Report Taylor Arndt on Matt Report Support the show; Join our #linksquad membership ⚡️Check out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product! Transcript ★ Support this podcast ★

I forget that some WordPress users, even freelancers, don't realize the sheer size of WordPress. From billion dollar hosting companies, to boutique agencies, WordPress is quite vast. It took Yaw a few years to even realize that Automattic, the commercial entity behind WordPress, even existed! We'll explore his story today, starting out as a freelancer and now working for VIP at Automattic. Important links Yaw on Twitter jyoansah.me BlackPress Support the show; Join our #linksquad membership ⚡️Check out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product! ★ Support this podcast ★

I forget that some WordPress users, even freelancers, don't realize the sheer size of WordPress. From billion dollar hosting companies, to boutique agencies, WordPress is quite vast. It took Yaw a few years to even realize that Automattic, the commercial entity behind WordPress, even existed! We'll explore his story today, starting out as a freelancer and now working for VIP at Automattic. Important links Yaw on Twitterjyoansah.meBlackPressSupport the show; Join our #linksquad membership⚡️Check out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product!

Marc Benzakein shares a retrospective on running ServerPress for a decade in the WordPress space. We unpack the history on discovering the beloved software development tool and partnering with Steve Carnam, alongside Gregg Franklin. What makes this WordPress business so challenging from others? What held back some of the development and getting ahead of the market? The answer might surprise you! Important links Marc on TwitterServerPressMarc's coaching websiteWhen it's time...it's timeServerPress is shutting downSupport the show; Join our #linksquad membership⚡️ Check out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product!

Marc Benzakein shares a retrospective on running ServerPress for a decade in the WordPress space. We unpack the history on discovering the beloved software development tool and partnering with Steve Carnam, alongside Gregg Franklin. What makes this WordPress business so challenging from others? What held back some of the development and getting ahead of the market? The answer might surprise you! Important links Marc on Twitter ServerPress Marc's coaching website When it's time...it's time ServerPress is shutting down Support the show; Join our #linksquad membership ⚡️ Check out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product! ★ Support this podcast ★

Just because you're an introvert doesn't mean you can't build a business. It doesn't mean you're afraid to get on stage and talk about your success -- or failures. Ken Elliott knows this role all too well. He's a self-described "networking introvert" that built a WordPress agency with his co-founder, will be emceeing WordCamp US next month, and appeared on this podcast! We dove deep into how he built his agency, lessons learned from servicing clients, and what steps he's taking to grow the business through 2022. If you enjoy today's show, please share it on social media! Important links Ken on Twitter bkreative.net Support the show; Join our #linksquad membership ✨Check out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product!

Just because you're an introvert doesn't mean you can't build a business. It doesn't mean you're afraid to get on stage and talk about your success -- or failures. Ken Elliott knows this role all too well. He's a self-described "networking introvert" that built a WordPress agency with his co-founder, will be emceeing WordCamp US next month, and appeared on this podcast! We dove deep into how he built his agency, lessons learned from servicing clients, and what steps he's taking to grow the business through 2022. If you enjoy today's show, please share it on social media! Important links Ken on Twitter bkreative.net Support the show; Join our #linksquad membership ✨Check out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product! ★ Support this podcast ★

What if you locked yourself in a room and threw away the key to work on your business? Stop the Slacking, the doom scrolling, but forced to focus on the agenda of improving...everything. That's exactly what Kim Coleman, co-founder Paid Memberships Pro & Sitewide Sales, did to re-focus the Sitewide Sales business. Running a business of 2 core products, 14+ employees, and with her husband...it was time to "get away." If you enjoy today's episode, please share it on social media! Links Kim Coleman on Twitter Paid Memberships Pro Sitewide Sales Jason Coleman on Matt Report Support the show; Join our #linksquad membership ✨ Check out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product! ★ Support this podcast ★

What if you locked yourself in a room and threw away the key to work on your business? Stop the Slacking, the doom scrolling, but forced to focus on the agenda of improving...everything. That's exactly what Kim Coleman, co-founder Paid Memberships Pro & Sitewide Sales, did to re-focus the Sitewide Sales business. Running a business of 2 core products, 14+ employees, and with her husband...it was time to "get away." If you enjoy today's episode, please share it on social media! Links Kim Coleman on Twitter Paid Memberships Pro Sitewide Sales Jason Coleman on Matt Report Support the show; Join our #linksquad membership ✨ Check out what InMotion hosting is up to with their new Managed WordPress product!

Corey is no stranger to building product. In part one, we chatted about his legacy of products, and selling his WordPress plugin. Today, we'll be back chatting about what goes into making great products. Important links Corey on TwitterGelformMexican Train OnlineWhere will the WordPress middleclass go?Check out the NEW stuff from InMotion hosting!

Corey is no stranger to building product. In part one, we chatted about his legacy of products, and selling his WordPress plugin. Today, we'll be back chatting about what goes into making great products. Important links Corey on Twitter Gelform Mexican Train Online Where will the WordPress middleclass go? Check out the NEW stuff from InMotion hosting! ★ Support this podcast ★

I'm chatting with Corey Maas, former owner of the Kanban for WordPress plugin. After a few years back in the saddle of day jobbing, he's now running Social Link Pages plugin for WordPress. He also spent some time during the pandemic launching a new online game -- built on WordPress. Come learn what it's like to sell your plugin business and venture back into a day job...and then back again. If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider buying me a virtual coffee or joining the membership. Corey on Twitter Kanban for WordPress Social Link Pages Gelform Mexican Train Support the show! ✨ Try Managed WordPress on InMotion hosting by clicking here. ★ Support this podcast ★

I'm chatting with Corey Maas, former owner of the Kanban for WordPress plugin. After a few years back in the saddle of day jobbing, he's now running Social Link Pages plugin for WordPress. He also spent some time during the pandemic launching a new online game -- built on WordPress. Come learn what it's like to sell your plugin business and venture back into a day job...and then back again. If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider buying me a virtual coffee or joining the membership. Corey on TwitterKanban for WordPressSocial Link PagesGelformMexican TrainSupport the show!✨ Try Managed WordPress on InMotion hosting by clicking here.

In today's episode, I want to chat about the current vibe in WordPress. Compare and contrast the community vibe, to the business vibe. Porto looked like a ton of fun, sad I missed it! The WP Minute showed up in a big way, so I'm really thankful for that. Plus! I couldn't hold off from ranting about the WordPress content space...again. Say THANK YOU to InMotion hosting for sponsoring the podcast. Support the show by purchasing us a digital coffee or joining the annual membership! Links mentioned https://thewpminute.com/ https://thewpminute.com/where-will-the-wordpress-middle-class-go/ https://masterwp.com/ https://poststatus.com/ WP Tavern: Nathan Wrigley & Matt Mullenweg

In today's episode, I want to chat about the current vibe in WordPress. Compare and contrast the community vibe, to the business vibe. Porto looked like a ton of fun, sad I missed it! The WP Minute showed up in a big way, so I'm really thankful for that. Plus! I couldn't hold off from ranting about the WordPress content space...again. Say THANK YOU to InMotion hosting for sponsoring the podcast. Support the show by purchasing us a digital coffee or joining the annual membership! Links mentioned https://thewpminute.com/ https://thewpminute.com/where-will-the-wordpress-middle-class-go/ https://masterwp.com/ https://poststatus.com/ WP Tavern: Nathan Wrigley & Matt Mullenweg ★ Support this podcast ★

Rachel Winchester is challenging us to think about WordPress as a canvas for art. WordPress as a paint brush, not an NFT. In this episode we uncover how she found WordPress and bringing those skills to her day job at DigitalCube. As a loyal Elementor builder, what does Rachel think about Gutenberg and FSE? Tune in to find out! Find Rachel on Twitter https://twitter.com/VisualWebmaster Rachel's Website https://www.visualwebmaster.com/ DigitalCube https://en.digitalcube.jp/ Subscribe https://mattreport.com/subscribe Buy me a coffee to support the show https://buymeacoffee.com/mattreport ✨ Thanks to InMotion for supporting the show. Check out my InMotion deal here: https://mattreport.com/inmotion

Rachel Winchester is challenging us to think about WordPress as a canvas for art. WordPress as a paint brush, not an NFT. In this episode we uncover how she found WordPress and bringing those skills to her day job at DigitalCube. As a loyal Elementor builder, what does Rachel think about Gutenberg and FSE? Tune in to find out! Find Rachel on Twitter https://twitter.com/VisualWebmaster Rachel's Website https://www.visualwebmaster.com/ DigitalCube https://en.digitalcube.jp/ Subscribe https://mattreport.com/subscribe Buy me a coffee to support the show https://buymeacoffee.com/mattreport ✨ Thanks to InMotion for supporting the show. Check out my InMotion deal here: https://mattreport.com/inmotion ★ Support this podcast ★

The most common piece of advice I think WordPress freelancers receive first is to "find your niche." Easier said than done. Niches are still hard to find. Crowded markets together with figuring out what you're best at providing to customers can be a challenge. What if that niche involves web sustainability? That's not a crowded space -- right now. You, a developer, literally saving the planet by coding efficient web applications and optimizing WordPress?! Sounds like a great opportunity to me! That is just a slice of what Hannah Smith does for her clients at https://opcan.co.uk/. Learn about that and more in today's episode with Hanna Smith! If you enjoyed this episode, consider supporting the show by buying us a virtual coffee or joining the membership.

The most common piece of advice I think WordPress freelancers receive first is to "find your niche." Easier said than done. Niches are still hard to find. Crowded markets together with figuring out what you're best at providing to customers can be a challenge. What if that niche involves web sustainability? That's not a crowded space -- right now. You, a developer, literally saving the planet by coding efficient web applications and optimizing WordPress?! Sounds like a great opportunity to me! That is just a slice of what Hannah Smith does for her clients at https://opcan.co.uk/. Learn about that and more in today's episode with Hanna Smith! If you enjoyed this episode, consider supporting the show by buying us a virtual coffee or joining the membership. ★ Support this podcast ★

Today's guest, Ines van Dijk, is helping WordPress product owners get better at customer support. With over a decade of experience in the WordPress customer support space with WooCommerce and Automattic, Ines knows what it takes to run a successful support team. You can hire her team to help build you a complete plan for supporting users or download some ready-made templates for responding to customers. If you enjoy today's episode please share it on social media and consider supporting the show by buying us a digital coffee.

Today's guest, Ines van Dijk, is helping WordPress product owners get better at customer support. With over a decade of experience in the WordPress customer support space with WooCommerce and Automattic, Ines knows what it takes to run a successful support team. You can hire her team to help build you a complete plan for supporting users or download some ready-made templates for responding to customers. If you enjoy today's episode please share it on social media and consider supporting the show by buying us a digital coffee. ★ Support this podcast ★

There's an entire industry built on selling you the Holy Grail of raising your rates. Courses, memberships, ebooks, videos all assuring you that $10,000 projects are just a click away. Why wouldn't you believe them? They're on the gram throwing hundred dollar bills off a boat or speeding away in a Lambo. To be fair, I haven't seen a Lambo video in some time, but the one that gets me the most now is holding up an iPhone in selfie mode with AirPods and a cleverly placed whiteboard in the background. How about grit and persistence? Patience and confidence? How about going through the paces enough to uncover your self-worth and simply raising your rates. That's exactly what Chima Mmeje of Zenithcopy did…plus a whole lot more. I read her blog post, The Year I Learned Audacity and instantly DM'd her to ask if she'd be willing to share her story here. Luckily for you and I -- she said yes. If you enjoy today's episode please share it on social media and support the show by buying me a digital coffee for as little as $5 or whatever you think the show is worth at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport

There's an entire industry built on selling you the Holy Grail of raising your rates. Courses, memberships, ebooks, videos all assuring you that $10,000 projects are just a click away. Why wouldn't you believe them? They're on the gram throwing hundred dollar bills off a boat or speeding away in a Lambo. To be fair, I haven't seen a Lambo video in some time, but the one that gets me the most now is holding up an iPhone in selfie mode with AirPods and a cleverly placed whiteboard in the background. How about grit and persistence? Patience and confidence? How about going through the paces enough to uncover your self-worth and simply raising your rates. That's exactly what Chima Mmeje of Zenithcopy did…plus a whole lot more. I read her blog post, The Year I Learned Audacity and instantly DM'd her to ask if she'd be willing to share her story here. Luckily for you and I -- she said yes. If you enjoy today's episode please share it on social media and support the show by buying me a digital coffee for as little as $5 or whatever you think the show is worth at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport ★ Support this podcast ★

There's a new cohort of WordPress celebrity hitting the spotlight these days and I'm here for it. When we look back in the Gutenberg history books we'll be able to show that blocks, patterns, and javascript not only rocked the code of the project, but the community as well. Some immediately dropped out, other stayed, and new stars appeared. Born out of the ashes of WordPress old, rising like a Phoenix came our new celebrity (hero?): Aurooba Ahmed! Okay, okay, I know I'm going really heavy with that one. She doesn't consider herself a WordPress celebrity and prefers her collection of plugins and developer chops speak more than her Twitter space or podcast appearances. Today we'll learn how new stars handle their fame, build plugins, host + appear on podcasts, and balance a day job. If you enjoy today's show please share it on social media and consider supporting us by buying a digital coffee at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport

There's a new cohort of WordPress celebrity hitting the spotlight these days and I'm here for it. When we look back in the Gutenberg history books we'll be able to show that blocks, patterns, and javascript not only rocked the code of the project, but the community as well. Some immediately dropped out, other stayed, and new stars appeared. Born out of the ashes of WordPress old, rising like a Phoenix came our new celebrity (hero?): Aurooba Ahmed! Okay, okay, I know I'm going really heavy with that one. She doesn't consider herself a WordPress celebrity and prefers her collection of plugins and developer chops speak more than her Twitter space or podcast appearances. Today we'll learn how new stars handle their fame, build plugins, host + appear on podcasts, and balance a day job. If you enjoy today's show please share it on social media and consider supporting us by buying a digital coffee at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport ★ Support this podcast ★

What does the word entrepreneur mean anymore? To you? I think there's that slightly jaded view of the TechCrunch Disrupt vision of days gone by. Building a unicorn. Changing the world. Buying that Porsche you always wanted. It's about the endgame we so cleverly convince ourselves of. However, some of the best business builders are doing it because they are naive. Wait. Naive? Hold that thought: not in a bad way, but in the way I am guilty of and maybe even you are too. We set out not knowing that the roller coaster ride is going to tip us upside down, spin us in a 360, and do it at speeds in excess of 100mph. If we thought the ride was going to be anything but gentle…maybe we would have never bought that ticket. Entrepreneurs are both lucky and crazy. Joe Howard founded WP Buffs and grew it to a point where it just wasn't for him anymore. He put a CEO in place, retains majority ownership, and he barely thinks about it. He's off building another product called Drifly and blogging at https://blog.driftly.app This might have been my favorite interview ever. Let me know what you think by sharing on social media or buying me a digital coffee at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport ★ Support this podcast ★

What does the word entrepreneur mean anymore? To you? I think there's that slightly jaded view of the TechCrunch Disrupt vision of days gone by. Building a unicorn. Changing the world. Buying that Porsche you always wanted. It's about the endgame we so cleverly convince ourselves of. However, some of the best business builders are doing it because they are naive. Wait. Naive? Hold that thought: not in a bad way, but in the way I am guilty of and maybe even you are too. We set out not knowing that the roller coaster ride is going to tip us upside down, spin us in a 360, and do it at speeds in excess of 100mph. If we thought the ride was going to be anything but gentle…maybe we would have never bought that ticket. Entrepreneurs are both lucky and crazy. Joe Howard founded WP Buffs and grew it to a point where it just wasn't for him anymore. He put a CEO in place, retains majority ownership, and he barely thinks about it. He's off building another product called Drifly. This might have been my favorite interview ever. Let me know what you think by sharing on social media or buying me a digital coffee at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport

From Expression Engine to WordPress, Rob Howard has built his WordPress agency as a flagship for larger agencies to source work to. Unqualified customers are the biggest threat to the early days of building a business. Also known as bad product fit, when we're offering something to the wrong customer, the whole relationship is setting off on the wrong foot. When you're offering your WordPress work to a customer that already gets it, in this case, other agencies, so much more can go right rather than wrong. We'll explore building an agency, hiring, and we'll throw in purchasing MasterWP for good measure. If you love the show please subscribe at mattreport.com/subscribe and consider buying me a virtual coffee or joining the membership at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport

From Expression Engine to WordPress, Rob Howard has built his WordPress agency as a flagship for larger agencies to source work to. Unqualified customers are the biggest threat to the early days of building a business. Also known as bad product fit, when we're offering something to the wrong customer, the whole relationship is setting off on the wrong foot. When you're offering your WordPress work to a customer that already gets it, in this case, other agencies, so much more can go right rather than wrong. We'll explore building an agency, hiring, and we'll throw in purchasing MasterWP for good measure. If you love the show please subscribe at mattreport.com/subscribe and consider buying me a virtual coffee or joining the membership at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport ★ Support this podcast ★

What's the side effect from WordPress changing so rapidly? We're dragging blocks, inserting patterns, and visually building our themes these days. There's been great discussion spurred around themes, where Matt Mullenweg What's the side effect from WordPress changing so rapidly? We're dragging blocks, inserting patterns, and visually building our themes these days. There's been great discussion spurred around themes, where Matt Mullenweg wants 5,000 new themes in the directory while WP Minute Producers like Daniel Schutzsmith and Spencer Forman say we only need one. Even if we split the difference and built 2,500 new themes…who's going to build it? Not only is the code changing, but so are the people writing it all. This is the shift we're quietly seeing happen in the background. So what is a WordPress business owner to do? Find great WordPress developers or train up a willing engineer? Mayank Gupta joins us today to talk about his strategy to growing a WordPress team for his day job over at PerforMedia. He has strong opinions on educating and inspiring an individual -- possibly ignoring the typical WP rock star.

What's the side effect from WordPress changing so rapidly? We're dragging blocks, inserting patterns, and visually building our themes these days. There's been great discussion spurred around themes, where Matt Mullenweg What's the side effect from WordPress changing so rapidly? We're dragging blocks, inserting patterns, and visually building our themes these days. There's been great discussion spurred around themes, where Matt Mullenweg wants 5,000 new themes in the directory while WP Minute Producers like Daniel Schutzsmith and Spencer Forman say we only need one. Even if we split the difference and built 2,500 new themes…who's going to build it? Not only is the code changing, but so are the people writing it all. This is the shift we're quietly seeing happen in the background. So what is a WordPress business owner to do? Find great WordPress developers or train up a willing engineer? Mayank Gupta joins us today to talk about his strategy to growing a WordPress team for his day job over at PerforMedia. He has strong opinions on educating and inspiring an individual -- possibly ignoring the typical WP rock star. ★ Support this podcast ★

When you hear the phrase high performance WordPress websites, what examples come to mind? This is a phrase that I see a lot of companies using in their marketing, which includes Malcare, today's guest and sponsor of this show. Products and services targeting the type of buyer that might be managing a high traffic site like a Buzzfeed or a large WooCommerce store, like, well I can't think of one right now. High traffic or highly functional equals high performance? My vote goes to high value. I know it's not as appealing in the marketing world, but there are lots of website owners that value their site's speed and security that aren't pushing millions or even 10's of thousands of page views a month. And that's what Akshat Choudhary and team are building at Malcare and Blogvault. The catch? Protecting valuable high performance WordPress websites so easily, you don't even have to think about about it. Enjoy the show today, please share it on social media, and if you want to support my efforts here consider buying me a virtual coffee or joining the membership.

When you hear the phrase high performance WordPress websites, what examples come to mind? This is a phrase that I see a lot of companies using in their marketing, which includes Malcare, today's guest and sponsor of this show. Products and services targeting the type of buyer that might be managing a high traffic site like a Buzzfeed or a large WooCommerce store, like, well I can't think of one right now. High traffic or highly functional equals high performance? My vote goes to high value. I know it's not as appealing in the marketing world, but there are lots of website owners that value their site's speed and security that aren't pushing millions or even 10's of thousands of page views a month. And that's what Akshat Choudhary and team are building at Malcare and Blogvault. The catch? Protecting valuable high performance WordPress websites so easily, you don't even have to think about about it. Enjoy the show today, please share it on social media, and if you want to support my efforts here consider buying me a virtual coffee or joining the membership. ★ Support this podcast ★

Hey listener, before we get started, if you'd like to support WordPress community member Andrey Savchenko or anyone else currently in the Ukraine, please donate here or here. (read his original tweet https://twitter.com/Rarst/status/1497516263597387782) I can comfortably admit that I didn't see Artificial Intelligence as the next big thing for WordPress in 2022. The march to Gutenberg and FSE adoption across the product landscape is sure to reveal new opportunities to be introduced to our favorite low-code software. AI, however, wasn't even close to what I was expecting to be the next big thing for us. Bertha.ai is an all-new solution for helping users craft a near infinite amount of text for your WordPress website. From H1's to entire blog posts, what Vito Peleg and Andrew Palmer are creating with this tool is quite impressive. Let's get the elephant (yes, the real one) out of the room first, shall we? Bertha isn't leading us to copywriter extinction. Hearing from Andrew in today's interview, Bertha should still be used as your writing assistant — not your writer. You can give the AI assistant the ideas, the direction, and what you want to focus on, but will still require some editing chops to refine it. It's still a darn good tool. You can download Bertha for free from WordPress.org to try it yourself. Consider supporting the Matt Report before the robots take over at https://buymeacoffee.com/mattreport

Hey listener, before we get started, if you'd like to support WordPress community member Andrey Savchenko or anyone else currently in the Ukraine, please donate here or here. (read his original tweet https://twitter.com/Rarst/status/1497516263597387782) I can comfortably admit that I didn't see Artificial Intelligence as the next big thing for WordPress in 2022. The march to Gutenberg and FSE adoption across the product landscape is sure to reveal new opportunities to be introduced to our favorite low-code software. AI, however, wasn't even close to what I was expecting to be the next big thing for us. Bertha.ai is an all-new solution for helping users craft a near infinite amount of text for your WordPress website. From H1's to entire blog posts, what Vito Peleg and Andrew Palmer are creating with this tool is quite impressive. Let's get the elephant (yes, the real one) out of the room first, shall we? Bertha isn't leading us to copywriter extinction. Hearing from Andrew in today's interview, Bertha should still be used as your writing assistant — not your writer. You can give the AI assistant the ideas, the direction, and what you want to focus on, but will still require some editing chops to refine it. It's still a darn good tool. You can download Bertha for free from WordPress.org to try it yourself. Consider supporting the Matt Report before the robots take over at https://buymeacoffee.com/mattreport ★ Support this podcast ★

If you found your way to this episode from my newsletter, thanks for taking part in one of the areas I lack most in: emailing my list. If you're like me, stuck in a proverbial hamster wheel of self-doubt & content creation, today's episode is for you. In fact, if it weren't for today's guests, I would have never got back into pressing send in MailerLite. (A recent switch from MailChimp, because I have a bad feeling about the Inuit acquisition.) If you need a boost of confidence or a programmatic way to warm up your newsletter engines again, Kim Doyal and Jason Resnick are here to help — with a twist. The duo joins me today to talk about their new co-venture, Deliverit. (use the full link so they know I sent ya, it's not an affiliate! https://getdeliverit.com/mattreport/) This will be a meta approach to building a newsletter list in public. They will share what works and what doesn't, when it comes to growing your email list. Learn straight from the email horses mouth — it's going to be exciting. Thanks to Malcare & Blogvault for supporting the show.

If you found your way to this episode from my newsletter, thanks for taking part in one of the areas I lack most in: emailing my list. If you're like me, stuck in a proverbial hamster wheel of self-doubt & content creation, today's episode is for you. In fact, if it weren't for today's guests, I would have never got back into pressing send in MailerLite. (A recent switch from MailChimp, because I have a bad feeling about the Inuit acquisition.) If you need a boost of confidence or a programmatic way to warm up your newsletter engines again, Kim Doyal and Jason Resnick are here to help — with a twist. The duo joins me today to talk about their new co-venture, Deliverit. (use the full link so they know I sent ya, it's not an affiliate! https://getdeliverit.com/mattreport/) This will be a meta approach to building a newsletter list in public. They will share what works and what doesn't, when it comes to growing your email list. Learn straight from the email horses mouth — it's going to be exciting. Thanks to Malcare & Blogvault for supporting the show. ★ Support this podcast ★

The house that WordPress built…or will build. It can be challenging for new WordPress freelancers to get started in this industry. You have to find the right tools, the right customers, get paid and…actually build the websites! Is there a right path to take? Meet Terry Carter, Manager at Newfold Digital WordPress Live & Blue Sky teams. Terry is also a WordPress freelancer who kick started his side hustle after winning a web design contest at a previous company. Terry joins us to share his experience with supporting WordPress & WooCommerce users at his day job, and what works for him as a part-time freelancer. We'll learn how the market jumped pre-COVID, how things are adjusting, and where you can spot new opportunities coming into the market. Thanks to Malcare & Blogvault for supporting the show. ★ Support this podcast ★

The house that WordPress built…or will build. It can be challenging for new WordPress freelancers to get started in this industry. You have to find the right tools, the right customers, get paid and…actually build the websites! Is there a right path to take? Meet Terry Carter, Manager at Newfold Digital WordPress Live & Blue Sky teams. Terry is also a WordPress freelancer who kick started his side hustle after winning a web design contest at a previous company. Terry joins us to share his experience with supporting WordPress & WooCommerce users at his day job, and what works for him as a part-time freelancer. We'll learn how the market jumped pre-COVID, how things are adjusting, and where you can spot new opportunities coming into the market. Thanks to Malcare & Blogvault for supporting the show.

I've known today's guest before I even ventured into the professional WordPress industry. In fact, it wasn't his themes that revolutionized my thinking, it was the checkout process. Brian Gardner launched a theme company using a payment portal and delivery tool called e-junkie. I just checked, they still exist, they were the Gumroad before Web 3.0 was even a thought in Web 2.0's mind. I couldn't believe it. Someone could zip up WordPress code, put it on a website, set a price, and someone could buy it?! I wanted to do the same thing. But until then, I had an agency to run so I used Revolution Themes, then Genesis, then to the whole StudioPress suite to make that happen. Fast forward, Gardner not only sold SP to WP Engine, but he left the gig shortly after, only to make a return with his latest product, Frost. Enjoy today's conversation with Brian Gardner, Principal Developer Advocate at WP Engine, creator of many things and many blogs. Find his newly redesigned blog at briandgardner.com. If you fancy supporting the show, buying me a digital coffee or joining my fantastic private Discord server, head on over to buymeacoffe.com/mattreport — I'll shout your name from the Twitter rooftops. Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Matt: so many folks who sit on the sidelines and Monday quarterback like me I see folks sell their business and , and they joined the team and I know in my heart that as a builder, as an entrepreneur, , they won't be there that long.[00:00:14] And they're there for a year. I think roughly you were at WP engine for a year after selling studio[00:00:20] Brian: press to them longer than that. But it sort of been to which in and of itself as a piece of conversation. Go ahead.[00:00:26] Matt: And then I saw you sort of leave P and L I was like, yep. I knew it. And there's nothing wrong with that because God that we have such a passion to build something, but I don't know of anyone who's who sells it to the company, leaves built something else, sells it back to the company and.[00:00:41] You're going for a hat trick question, mark.[00:00:44] Brian: No. No. And in fact, it's, it's funny, you are the only person who, with the exception of Bob Paul, Lacey, who had months ago made a kind of comment about that. You're the only person in this round when I got hired and when Frost was acquired to actually have.[00:01:01] Pointed that out. And of course I took that bait and this is why we're on the show today. But I talked to our PR team and I was like, look, this is just something that could be a thing that people might talk about or in this context. And surprisingly, and that's fine because it's really, it really was a news event.[00:01:16] This time around Yeah. I was just like, okay, what are the possible negative reactions? People might have to something like this. And I was like, that's about the only thing I can come up with. Well, people may point out that this happened and it, whatever, it's all good. Everyone's happy. You've built a[00:01:31] Matt: lot of stuff from digital products to courses, to eBooks, to blogs, to knit mail email lists and newsletters, like all things that were in some form or fashion, a business, a micro business.[00:01:43] When I saw you. Go back to a WP engine and they had acquired frost in my head. I started thinking, you know what, these, and this is my words, not yours. And I hope it doesn't offend you. But these micro products are almost like a fantastic calling card to get an awesome gig. Right. Ha had it not been you, but somebody else in this position, it could be like, I built an awesome little product.[00:02:11] And sometimes the weight of that is like, oh God, I got to S I get up market. I gotta sell it. I gotta promote it. I gotta support it. I got to take over the world. But then sometimes it's like, no, I can actually use this in place of a resume and get an awesome job somewhere. Is that a fair statement?[00:02:27] Brian: I would think so.[00:02:28] I don't think that that necessarily applies to everybody. We know right now, Matt, that the competitive landscape in WordPress is off the charts, especially in light of the behemoths. And, and we're one of them, right? WP, engine, GoDaddy, liquid web, all those it's really difficult to, and I'll conversely, make a counter argument here after this.[00:02:47] It's very difficult to like create and launch something new and have it be successful and widely adopted and so on now, conversely. That is also, if you have the idea, something really, really brilliant, that really solves a problem that catches a lot of users and stuff like that. Then it becomes because of aforementioned behemoths, a very interesting acquisition piece, right?[00:03:07] Go to liquid web. They've bought a lot of things lately. None of them have been, well, that's not true. Some have been larger, right. Eye themes and so on. And then some of them are just like smaller pieces that kind of fill a niche that allow them to use their sort of their. The abilities to reach and build and support from an infrastructure standpoint, a subset of people.[00:03:28] And so it can work. It can be, I wouldn't necessarily say that should be someone's business plan. Just given my tenure in the industry and the success I've had, it's been helpful to have that sort of be true.[00:03:41] Matt: Web hosts, obviously WP engine being one of the largest, if not the largest managed WordPress hosts in the industry GoDaddy liquid web.[00:03:49] I think a lot of folks myself included have sort of illustrated this picture, that well, we all kind of hypothesized that they're all looking to build and curate their own WordPress experience. Without giving away the secret meetings, maybe at WP engine and the secret sauce. Is that, is that something that you see coming down the pipe, maybe if not WP engine others, and maybe why they acquire fros and studio presses to sort of put these pieces in place.[00:04:19] So when you come to a WP engine, you experienced WordPress. You go to liquid web, you experience it that way. Is, is that something that you see as holding true in the year 20, 20[00:04:28] Brian: a hundred percent, a hundred percent. I think we see it on several levels. And even outside of the WordPress market, just the, sort of the consolidation, the platform building, go daddy sold domains back in the day.[00:04:39] Then they went to hosting. And then when they realized that the people who are buying those things would buy other things or are doing other things. Then all of a sudden they're an email marketing company and then, oh, WordPress explodes. Now we're going to be a WordPress hosting email, but like, like, and so yes, it makes sense.[00:04:54] And everyone's good at what they do. And when you really find what you're great at, then you sort of, I wouldn't say exploit, but then you really sort of double down on that by looking around in the space and saying, Hey, are there products that align with what we're trying to do? And is it, is it better for us to acquire those products?[00:05:10] Because it takes us less time to build. We can go right to market. We can, there's an existing audience as studio press was a huge audience that WP engine picked up and things like that. So yeah, I would say that's a fair state. Do you know,[00:05:21] Matt: there's in the news and the courting eh, in the week of this week, it's January 13th.[00:05:27] And we've seen over the last week, just a lot of discussion of paying contributors in the WordPress space. It's something that I've always thought of too, like going way back, like how. All these folks volunteer. They all have to go through the stress of like a theme developer. Like I was way, way, way back in the day, asking them why didn't this team get approved?[00:05:47] Why are you telling me I have to adjust this tab space in the functions file. Like it's so subjective. I should just be like, lots of stress. That folks don't really need to go through as volunteers now resurfacing again, how to get people paid. I think hosting companies are in a good position since.[00:06:06] Winning off of the back of WordPress, that there could be something there, more sponsored contributions more ways to it doesn't doesn't maybe always have to be about payments. It could be about featuring or highlighting or spotlighting folks because not everybody wants to make money off their volunteer ism with WordPress.[00:06:25] Is, are there any efforts or maybe. Contributing more to core with paid positions, let's say. Is that kind of a topic fall under a principal developer advocate at WP engine? Are those the kinds of things you hear in field for the company?[00:06:41] Brian: Yes. WP engine did not hire me so that I could go write code for WordPress.[00:06:45] Let's let's be clear about that. Damn they did. However, Hire me because of my expertise, my tenure in the field, my ability to understand the value that I could bring through the WordPress and WP engine sort of relationship. And as part of the leeway and the latitude I've been given to go do my thing. I brought on Nick Diego, who is an engineer.[00:07:07] And I learned V and he, he actually was supposed to backfill me with frost before the acquisition for us was going to be a side project. And because of my job, I brought in Nick to help sort of carry the load until I realized how much Nick and I aligned and what a resource he could be. And so I made the recommendation that we hire him as part of a developer relations so that we could do the very thing, right.[00:07:28] Part of his responsibilities and part of what I pitched was. There is an opportunity for us to sort of lead the space from a thought leadership perspective to help contribute code as he and I were both knee deep and code following along, the Gutenberg development where press 5.9 and stuff.[00:07:43] And I said, there's a lot of things that we're finding as we're working through building our thing that instead of just trying to like make a fix or a hack inside of our product Contribute that code or that patch or the fix, or the suggested way of doing things upstream back to WordPress.[00:07:59] And so a lot of the work that we're doing now is in fact core contribution stuff. Nick is also going to be doing some stuff with learn. And so w. WP engine just really understands the value of sort of the five for the future stuff. We've got several members committed to that. We just recently did it contribute to WP day where we really encouraged a lot of the folks in the community to do stuff like that.[00:08:20] And so I'm because like you said, I have one with WordPress for 15 years now. Right. It helped me leave my day job. Provides for my family and stuff like that. So I always have a place in my heart. It's easier now because I have the backing and support of WP engine and our resources to kind of make that move.[00:08:38] And I'm not getting any resistance from the higher ups there. They, I think they see the value and the contributions and sort of the, the PR that comes from that. There's some, there's some benefit there. But we just want to see WordPress get better. So our products and our customers experience.[00:08:54] Matt: How does frost fold into speaking of customer experience? How does frost fold into the. The existing suite of softwares that you sold them studio press. How does that merge? Is, are we still too early on, on those days for those, for those discussions, but how does it fold into the experience of WP engine users or potentially even studio press users?[00:09:15] So[00:09:15] Brian: this pet, let me give some context. So th this past summer after a sort of a failed attempt at doing something in the real estate space I came across an article. Written by Justin tablet on WP Tavern. And in that article, he was talking about block patterns and this is sort of as like the patterns kind of were hitting their infancy and they talk about there being a pattern directory and stuff like that.[00:09:38] I've obviously followed WordPress even while I was sort of away doing some things with real estate. I was like, okay, we sold studio press in part because I had no idea what the future of WordPress was going to be. Right. That was part of the reason we just didn't have the resources. We weren't sure we, we didn't want to compete.[00:09:52] And so we sold that.[00:09:58] We talked, I'm a creator. I'm always thinking I always want to build and do stuff like that. And so, so when I was on this article, I went over to the, the pattern repository or the directory and it, there was like a little tile of patterns and there's a button that said click to copy code or whatever, copied it.[00:10:13] I went into my blog, so I was doing something and I just hit paste. And like this thing showed up like this arrangement of design. And I was like, wait a second. I like that. That's like a theme agnostic design agnostic thing. And I think it was like, at that point was when sort of, it was very, very like original epiphany that kind of backed the frost project.[00:10:33] When I was like, wait a second. Now I understand where we're presses going. Right. These idea of blocks and styles and patterns and layouts that like kind of all these words being thrown around. And I was like, wait a second. So I can create these sections of. Website and in one click allow people to import them into a page.[00:10:50] And like, if you did that five or six times, you could essentially allow people to build a homepage and like literally 20 seconds. And I was like, okay, so that that's sorta was the, the original fire that was lit around frost. And so, because at the time it just made sense. I built frost originally as a Genesis child theme, just because right.[00:11:08] Part of the family. It was what I've always known. And so we launched a paid product called frost and it was a theme and it was a corresponding plugin that had all of the designs and the patterns and stuff like that. And then full site editing started to become more of a thing. And so I installed Gutenberg and realized.[00:11:25] There's going to be life after Genesis the framework, because a lot of what full site editing does is what Genesis did it handled markup and the ability to move things around. And so I said, well, Let's do what I did back in 2006, let's open up a bunch of blank files and start writing a theme from scratch.[00:11:43] And so current version of frost, probably three months ago was literally just sort of modeled after stuff I saw. I think it was on Carolina's full site editing or some tutorial on like, what is. Full site editing theme, look like it's got to have these files, the structure, it's a complete paradigm shift from where it was.[00:12:00] And I was like, let's just see if I could do this. And so I basically replicated the design of the Genesis child theme version of frost and started building out current version of frost. So that became a thing. And we launched it, started selling it. I was trying to extend a little bit of financial runway so that I could keep playing around with what I was doing.[00:12:17] So I reached out to Heather Bruner, our CEO just to say hi to check in and just see if she knew of anybody in the industry who might be looking for some contract work. And at the same time internally, they were talking about WordPress developer relations. And she says, funny, you should ask because we've been thinking of this position and I don't know.[00:12:34] That there's anybody better suited for it than you, which is the intersection of what I told her design community and WordPress. And so, we worked out something that made a lot of sense at the time frost was on the outside which I felt conflicted about because a lot of the work I was going to be doing was around WordPress and building and stuff like that.[00:12:50] And so, ultimately I made the recommendation that we just bring it into. Into the fold so that I can work on it. Full-time we can use that as a way to demonstrate where WordPress is going to teach folks in the community what's going on. And so on.[00:13:02] Matt: So it doesn't detach from you. It's not like, okay, now it's gone into the abyss of WP engine.[00:13:07] My[00:13:07] Brian: is not. And Nick and my F yeah, no, it's under our full control. It's a developer relations project.[00:13:13] Matt: Yeah. Did you, when you sat back, did you have those same feelings of okay. I going to do this again. I have to build, well, you already have a headstart with your brand and recognition and followers and all that stuff.[00:13:26] But even that, I'm sure you're still like, oh God, I gotta, I gotta do this all over again. I gotta set up a checkout system. I have to set up a licensing system. I, I have to market this thing. I gotta support. And I[00:13:36] Brian: gotta do all this stuff a hundred percent.[00:13:38] It was exciting just because it had been since studio press formed way back in the day where I was really fully in control, as we merged into Copyblogger in 2008 or nine, and then for like 10 or 12 years, we had sort of the infrastructure of the company and stuff like that.[00:13:52] So I didn't have to like, bear that load independently. As I had at the beginning of studio press. And so like, it's a different space than it was back then. And, and thankfully I have the cloud, the email lists sort of the reach, the exposure to WordPress. So it made sense. It didn't quite hit the way I was hoping that a studio press did back in the day, but again, we're in different times and that's okay.[00:14:16] But you know, like at the end of the day, what it came down to was for the last 15 years I've been doing sort of the self-employment entrepreneur things start up, you feel sort of a thing. And even like early on into frost, I was like, this is going to be another long thing and that's fine. I like this kind of thing.[00:14:33] And I think it would have done well on its own. But I was just ready. I was ready for, and I wrote about this on a torque article about seasons change. I was just ready to finally work for somebody else to, to have access to team members, to be fully supported, to get good benefits, pay, like all of those things.[00:14:48] I just, I needed a mental break and, I foresee this break being of several years, not just like a couple months, so[00:14:54] Matt: you said, I feel like frost didn't hit. Maybe like studio press fell, but different times, is that a gut feeling?[00:15:02] Did you measure it , instinctually as somebody who's launched so many things, did you just kind of know like, okay. I'm not feeling that momentum as I maybe did 10 years ago, Yeah.[00:15:13] Brian: Like when you sell something, when you build something and sell something, like you kind of get into this mindset, like, oh, I could do it again.[00:15:19] Right. Once lucky, twice. Good. And, and had I stuck with it, like just me and or Nick at that time, it would have taken probably some time to really get it to a point where it was humming WordPress itself sorta was getting in the way, because it just, it wasn't delivering things that we were looking forward to using and stuff like that.[00:15:35] So it was part gut. , okay, this isn't going to make me a hundred million dollars. Like maybe even a hundred dollars would be great sort of a thing. But I just, as like, like I wanted, I wanted power behind it, not just to have to rely on me. And like I said, I was ready, it was serendipitous me reaching out to Heather, her coming back to me, presenting the offer.[00:15:55] And it's kind of like, she was like, basically let you do what you want to be doing and what you've been doing for 15 years, just under the guise of WP engine and, having gone through the acquisition and the transition for the year afterwards. I had a ton of insight into their culture. And that made it a really easy decision to make, because that was not, is this a company I want to work for?[00:16:15] Cause the answer is hell yeah, I knew, I know how the cultures there. I think a lot of people on the outside don't understand how, how cool and great it is, especially we're 1200 strong. But I was like, wow, this is like almost a dream.[00:16:26] Matt: Yeah. I remember people talking about WP engine, just like when, when they hit 400 people, they, wow.[00:16:32] Like, that's amazing. And now it's like triple and probably just chasing automatic, which I, I think just hit the 2000 mark or just under 2000. So, it's pretty amazing to see like pure. Play companies. Because again, WP engine is only doing WordPress, right? You haven't introduced at other CMS yet.[00:16:50] Right? There's nothing they're getting into headless that might introduce some stuff that might be outside of the realm of WordPress, but you're certainly not hosting Drupal anytime soon,[00:16:59] Brian: correct? Correct.[00:17:01] Matt: That's awesome. Can we chat about the real estate endeavor for a moment? You said it fair.[00:17:09] Anything that you can point to as to maybe why wrong time global pandemic, what was going on with that, with that real estate endeavor of yours. And why did you decide to just exit it?[00:17:21] Brian: So I've always been interested in real estate. We've bought and sold houses over the years, probably 10 over the last 20 years and an agent press, which you may remember was a thing that we did a copy of.[00:17:31] For a few years. So we dabbled in it and I realized just how bad design and marketing is in that space. Generally speaking compass being the exception and maybe a few others. And so I was like, okay, well I have, through the years, I've made several relationships with people sort of higher up in the real estate industry.[00:17:50] So I knew I'd kind of have like an easy launch pad. I get design. I could build it on a WordPress. I've got some spokespeople people who could sort of be advisers to the company who are, experiencing Zillow and all that kind of stuff. And then the pandemic hit and what happened really was probably a couple of things.[00:18:04] One, it probably just wasn't built in packaged the right way. But number two real estate agents got really, really busy because of the housing. They, they, everyone, you would follow it. Oh, I have 36 offers today. Like nobody has time or at the time they didn't feel the need to have a website because their business was exploding.[00:18:24] I don't have time for a website I'm standing in line at open houses. Like, and the sad thing is like in six months or a year, whenever the housing market comes back to earth. Done dental need it, then they'll be like, oh crap. Cause now that you've got a bunch of new agents, people who jumped into the market because of all of what was going on.[00:18:41] So then like the, the demand will go down, but like the supply of agents then is there. And so there's more competition, but I was like, I, I don't have time to weather, all of that. And then frost kind of came up and, things with agent engine, just kind of, weren't really doing its thing. And I was like, I was okay with that.[00:18:55] It was a good college try[00:18:57] Matt: because it was more like it was more agency. Experience than just a product, right? Cause[00:19:02] Brian: you were, I know it was more product based. It was more, we call it digital spaces where we sort of built Jason Schuler of WordPress fame sort of built this profile management system, which I thought was really gonna take off with like associations or, brokerages that had teams of people that wanted to sort of showcase them individually.[00:19:21] Like the idea on paper was really, really good. I think we just poorly executed at the wrong time. So. But I'm okay with that. Like lessons learned, right. We're here where we are.[00:19:29] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. I tell you it's what an interesting time, because you had real estate agents who, you know, probably whatever, maybe not immediate at the pandemic hitting, but a couple months in just being just the fish were jumping into the boat.[00:19:44] You didn't even have to cast a line in they're like website. I don't have time for a website, but then. This whole range at an opposite end of an industry restaurants who are like, oh, we never launched that website. And now we have to do takeout a hundred percent of the time. I know I had, I haven't been in the, my data.[00:20:04] I, my dad runs the agency. I'm well beyond that at th at this point, but it still runs. And I had tons of people calling me at that moment. Literally watching the news restaurants are shutting down, calling me up. Like, I need that website, Matt. , where, where are you? Five 10 years ago when we were telling you to do this a crazy, crazy time for web and for people who haven't caught up at that point.[00:20:26] When I look at. You were saying before, like one of your aha moments with Gutenberg was I copied and pasted and it was kind of like, wow, I can see where the vision is going. Matt Mullenweg could always talk, has always talked about WordPress being like the operating system of the web. That was something that was always interesting to me is what really kept me motivated with WordPress.[00:20:48] I now see this hearing him say that Gutenberg is bigger than WordPress, sort of, kind of nonchalantly in the state of the word. I kind of see maybe that same thing of fusing, like the operating system with code. So Genesis studio press remember back in the day, you're building it all through the functions.[00:21:06] PHP file. I can imagine a world where now you're just copy pasting snippets of code, like the query blocks and stuff like that. Pre pre queried for you. Like all the codes there. Boom, copy paste it. And now I'm developing air quotes to the listener. Who's only listening to audio. Developing by copying pasting snippets of code and dropping blocks in do you have any other future out look on, on where Gutenberg might be going?[00:21:31] Maybe things you might be looking at to build into Gutenberg. Into frost that would push the boundaries.[00:21:38] Brian: Nothing monumental. I We're just obviously following along where WordPress is going, this it's taken us three years to get here. We're working through this now full site editing thing, which I th I think is still gonna take some time.[00:21:50] Right. Which we've already seen the delay from December to January. And I was in full support of that. Cause I didn't think it was going to be ready and I'm more than okay. Especially now that I don't have to. Like obsess over building a product and like put food on the table based on what I sell. Now it's like kind of a kickback and just follow along as it's happening.[00:22:09] And, Nick and I are on get hub and select daily, oh, do you see this commit? Do you see this change? And I'll be honest. I don't know that there are many people in the group of people who are at the forefront of what's going on with WordPress. Then he and I right now, because we are so. We practically have alerts going off, in our own heads.[00:22:27] I just posted 30 seconds ago. How would I see that? Because we, we love it so much. We, we absolutely are infatuated. We call ourselves black editor, fanboys. Like it's, it's kinda crazy and almost embarrassing the extent, but 15 years later, I'm still in love with WordPress. The way that I was and even more so now, because I'm starting to see.[00:22:46] WordPress itself, starting to solve the problems that we tried to solve back in the day with like magazine style themes and stuff like that. It's so easy to want to still primarily build your own thing and around it. And, we're presses now making it so easy with where it's going. It's not perfect and never will be, but they're doing things in a way that make it really easy for people like me to sort of identify where the opportunities are.[00:23:10] And especially those who love design. I could do so much with just WordPress core and a simple theme so much. And that's how I felt back when I launched revolutions. Like, Hey.[00:23:20] Matt: And as a product owner and business owner, software developer, you kind of get that this stuff iterates over time.[00:23:28] And when Gutenberg first launched and everyone just like flipped the table, which, I was one of those folks too, but it was more about how, it was being communicated, how it was being like, whatever the Pictet at the time and enrolled that it had nothing to do about. You know the features of Gutenberg.[00:23:43] Although I still struggle with trying to like grab a block and put it in between two columns is like still a thing that I have to like wrestle and throw my computer with. I always knew like, Hey, this thing's going to get better.[00:23:54] It's just version 0.0 0, 0 1 that we're at like, don't we all like, there's so many software people in this space. Why was everybody losing their mind? That it wasn't good enough yet? This software's never good enough day one. It always gets better over time. Any thoughts on like the iteration of Gutenberg or how you looked at the launch of Gutenberg when that.[00:24:12] Yeah,[00:24:12] Brian: I was the same way. I wasn't sure it was very clunky. I think it kind of got rushed out back in that, that one December. But I think it had to be, I at some point we met that's written before about 1.0 and shipping and iterating and stuff like that. And so I think it was a necessary evil I think Gutenberg, the plugin being a thing now sort of, kind of pulls up.[00:24:30] From the core and like the general consumer standpoint, like seeing these sort of iterations and breaking changes and things like that, they've put it in the plugin, which, which is helpful because it allows people who are developing for WordPress to see what's coming to know how to address it. When it looked like a lot of people, when 5.9 launches, they'll be like, oh, w what's changed since 5.8.[00:24:50] Oh, my God, if you even knew, like so much has changed, but like, we'll be ready for it. Like frost will be 100% production ready when five, it is already, but you know, when 5.9 ships will be fully taken advantage of all the things. Cause we've been on the Gutenberg daily trail ever since then.[00:25:06] But speaking of Sarah McLaughlin, one of the 11 tweets I've favorited in my 15 years of Twitter was her response. She did ask me anything and I said, what's your favorite quote? And she quoted Gandhi's be the change you want to see in the world. And , obviously that that's sort of ubiquitous and we see it all the time.[00:25:21] But when it comes to WordPress and the direction, and this is sort of like Nick and my north star, which is, oh, this isn't working, we're frustrated with how this works. Well, you could do two things. You could piss about it and like, go on Twitter and talk about how bad it is. Or you can roll up your sleeves and figure out how to make it better.[00:25:36] And that is a lot of what we're doing. With developer relations at WP engine, we're teaming up with people on automatic side where other people's sides, rich Taylor is a good friend and we're trying to figure out how do we, universalize some things and just like really be that change.[00:25:50] And, we hope not only will that make WordPress better, maybe some of the people on the sidelines, these Monday quarterbacks as you call them, maybe it'll say, Hey, maybe there's something to like, Approach that they're taking, and maybe it's less about, dogging the platform that helped us win and helping it when, when, when for others and stuff like that.[00:26:09] Matt: Yeah. I can tell you that the one thing that Sort of afraid of is just the the pollution, I guess, of the block directory and what that potentially leads to in a customers. I say customer, I'm thinking I have agency on my mind, but thinking of you logging into somebody's website, who's not a WordPress aficionado.[00:26:28] And then. You have a thousand plugins installed. What's wrong with you? I can see that same thing happening with like the block directory, especially some of the things I've already starting to see where product companies are starting to inject their icon into like a, I don't know. I'll call the task bar.[00:26:46] I don't know what the official WordPress name is for that tray that sits above the editor where you can expand in different. And then, like I w installed a couple of themes the other day on one of my test sites. And it was just like, it looked like the bottom of my windows machine. Like all these icons, , oh, crazy.[00:27:01] We go again. , I don't want this. I can see some people doing like animated gifts now. And , oh, come on. , this is bad enough. Notifications already bad enough. Those types of things that you, you hope to maybe standard eyes across other product companies, is there like an official place you start to document this kind of thing to get everybody together or in a perfect world.[00:27:20] Is there a place you'd like to have for folks to rally around these types of things?[00:27:26] Brian: A good question. W we are guilty of that. Nick, Nick built a black pattern Explorer plugin. That adds a very I think we just recycled one of the core icon components that are part of WordPress. So again, we're not trying to do anything proprietary, so, we've created.[00:27:41] Block pattern, explore that very much is maybe maybe inspired what WordPress itself did in core. And we're looking to sort of expand on that and use that sort of in an experimental sense to help inform how things work, how it can be used, and then to take the things that we're building and push them upstream into WordPress, via pull requests.[00:28:01] And so, we are trying to, again, it's easy because for us, it's not a product that will. WP engine over any kind of metric. Like this was sort of brought in with the intent of, it's not gonna make any money, just use this to help go and grow and do all these things. And so, we've always back when Nathan and I Nathan Rice and I built Genesis, like we always sort of defaulted to WordPress core practices and standards and design and UX and all that kind of stuff.[00:28:28] And so. It's just an eight and eight at this point, for whatever we're working on to not be like a blinking Marquis across an admin notice thing. But I understand that it happens and why it happens. And, I think WordPress adding more capabilities to the core software, kind of. To be perfectly honest, that it knocks out the need for a lot of things.[00:28:49] Some of the black libraries that exist and things like that, like we're pressing now has that in core. So like, I'm hoping to, like, as we're press gets stronger with functionality that some of the needs to, to like to do what you said, won't be there. And I don't know if I answers the question, but are you happy to see the customized.[00:29:08] 1000%. I, I hated it from day one. I hated it from day one. I know we did some stuff with it and studio press. I was never a part of that. Cause I refused I've used it for a few things like custom CSS when I was in an emergency or, header, photo, script kind of stuff. But like I hated it. I never liked it.[00:29:27] I'm thrilled.[00:29:28] Matt: Yeah. . Amazing times, Ryan, what would help you and your role at WP engine call to action? Where can folks find you to connect with you to help the cause to join you at WP engine?[00:29:41] Anything or anywhere you want to point people[00:29:42] Brian: to a yes, the Twitter is probably the place that I'm most I'm most active and most available. At B Gardner, you could put that in the show notes, if you want. Tweet me, follow me, DME, whatever. Twitter is usually where we hang out. I'm on Instagram, that's more personal Starbucks shots and baseball things.[00:30:00] So that's less interesting to people in the space might not be tweeting about baseball. Yeah, no kidding. I'm on LinkedIn and I think it's B Gardner 27 and I was late to that party, so I didn't get the handle I wanted, but but Twitter is the place. I'm, periodically dunking around@briangardner.com actually working on a new design, kind of using that as a sandbox.[00:30:19] Yes. Oops. I'm doing it again was always sort of the tweet when you saw that tweet, I redesigned it. And so people have, I've trained people to never, ever think that there's going to be the same design as, as was there the last time, but that that's how products get built because I use my own site as a sandbox.[00:30:34] So, but yeah, Twitter is the best place. Obviously or for WP engine, we're always looking to build our team, not necessarily developer relations quite yet, but The Genesis team is hiring for an engineering person. And just whether it's support. I We see a number of people come up through the Genesis community who are now working there, lots of rock stars.[00:30:52] Like it's just a great place. So, if you're a WordPress person and you're looking for a job, hit me up on Twitter and I'll see if there's something that's Always hiring great people. I think David Vogel, Paul once said we don't hire something to the effect of, we don't hire qualified people. We've hired great people.[00:31:07] Like it kinda just works itself out that way. So, or we don't hire out. I can't remember what he said. I don't, I don't wanna mess up that quick, but it was really, really good. And I was like, wow, that's really cool. So quote here[00:31:17] Matt: pretty much. My report.com maryport.com/subscribe. Join the mailing list.[00:31:22] Number one way to stay connected. If you want to support independent WordPress content like. Buy me a coffee.com/maryport. Not only do you support the show, you can join as a member for $79 a year. Get access to the private discord and join our Merry band of WordPress Newsies, which we chat about. The WordPress news that goes out every Wednesday.[00:31:41] Five minutes is your favorite five minutes of WordPress or on the WP minute.com. Check it out. Join the. Get your name heard in the credits of the show. Talk about WordPress news. That's fun stuff. Thanks for hanging out today, Brian. I'll see everyone else in the next episode. ★ Support this podcast ★

I've known today's guest before I even ventured into the professional WordPress industry. In fact, it wasn't his themes that revolutionized my thinking, it was the checkout process. Brian Gardner launched a theme company using a payment portal and delivery tool called e-junkie. I just checked, they still exist, they were the Gumroad before Web 3.0 was even a thought in Web 2.0's mind. I couldn't believe it. Someone could zip up WordPress code, put it on a website, set a price, and someone could buy it?! I wanted to do the same thing. But until then, I had an agency to run so I used Revolution Themes, then Genesis, then to the whole StudioPress suite to make that happen. Fast forward, Gardner not only sold SP to WP Engine, but he left the gig shortly after, only to make a return with his latest product, Frost. Enjoy today's conversation with Brian Gardner, Principal Developer Advocate at WP Engine, creator of many things and many blogs. Find his newly redesigned blog at briandgardner.com. If you fancy supporting the show, buying me a digital coffee or joining my fantastic private Discord server, head on over to buymeacoffe.com/mattreport -- I'll shout your name from the Twitter rooftops.

Welcome back to the Matt Report, where we continue our special 2-part series with Josepha Haden Chomposy. If you haven't listened to the previous episode, I suggest you go back and learn what the WordPress Executive Director does on a day to to day basis. Today, we'll be exploring some meatier topics that come up in the community like contributor compensation and Five for the Future. If you didn't already know, Josepha leads a podcast of her own. We'll find out why Matt Mullenweg nudged her into that journey. Thanks to folks over at Malcare for supporting this episode of the Matt Report. If you want to support me, you can buy me a digital coffee or join the super-not-so-secret Discord group for $79/year at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport Episode transcription [00:00:00] Matt: my words, not yours. , the bottleneck at mid-level management. Is that because most, if not if, if, because most of them are volunteers.  [00:00:07] Josepha: I, in my copious research about this. Last I took any, any kind of canvas of it was that in-person events. So 2019 in my research about this, there are a number of things that do this for one, when you are a contributor and, and it's clear what you're supposed to be contributing to, you can submit your changes and then something else helps it get done. [00:00:34] Something else helps it get into core or to get into the handbook or whatever it is. It's really difficult to know how complicated that that middle area is. And so it's a little bit that the it's a bunch of volunteers and, and I hate asking them to do that kind of work because it's hard and in a lot of cases, The community of users is mean to you. [00:01:02] So like who does want to ask volunteers to do that? But it's also a little bit that there is some sticker shock. When you, when you get there, like you have shown up as a contributor, you have just kind of low access, low knowledge. You don't really know what's going on, but you're ready to give back to this thing that made your business possible. [00:01:19] And like the more that you learn things, or the more that you gain trust in the ecosystem, there is this moment. That's like a cliff where you're just like, okay, now we're going to talk about conflict resolution. And people are like, oh, no,  [00:01:36] Matt: yeah. Right.  [00:01:38] Josepha: like there's the step between between really active and valuable contribution and helping to keep WordPress moving is, is quite steep. [00:01:50] And so it's a lot better. [00:01:51] Matt: Some of the topics that I've heard people talk about myself, included on con contributors or, or folks who are not just contributing to core, but writing support docs, answering questions, helping with the learn team. So on and so forth is the the idea of some form of compensation. [00:02:08] And I'm curious if that ever gets talked about in any, any meetings ways to compensate. It doesn't always have to be, I guess, money but a trade a coupon, Right. [00:02:18] To a learning, a learning curve or something for thanks for your time. You get this and I'll say I'll preface this with yes. Contributors are taking the heat for things that they're just given their time. [00:02:32] Like, why are we yelling at them or the real extreme sides we've seen with folks who are on like the.org and plugin, repo and theme repo who actually get threats. And I say look at that level, we should actually have employees who are in the way of that kind of communication who are getting paid to deal with some of this stuff. [00:02:55] Not that anyone should be dealing with it and any of that stuff, but folks who are, Hey, we're [00:03:00] getting paid to do this, and we're going to shut this person off. Have rules, have channels, et cetera, et cetera, on the topic of compensating contributors. Has that ever come up? And is there anything we can  [00:03:11] Josepha: Oh, constantly. It comes up constantly. It's a good question.  [00:03:15] Matt: Get an NFT?  [00:03:18] Josepha: everyone gets a word press coin now. So there, there are two things I want to address here. And the first thing that I want to address is only semi-related, but it's short. There is a misconception about what I hope five for the future. [00:03:33] Company sponsored contributors are offering to the project in that it's like doing all of the things that just, I don't know, Google wants our automatic wants. And that's like, that's, that's not the bulk of the work that I want those contributors to be doing the bulk of the work that I want those contributors to be doing. [00:03:54] Is that kind of really not glamorous fully in service to self sponsored, volunteer kind of actions that we have to take to make sure that everything's moving forward. And so like, I agree that in the cases where we have people who are actively getting harassed or receiving threats, like that should not be a self sponsored, volunteer every single time. [00:04:18] That should be somebody who is sponsored in full by a company. And I, and I will believe that forever. And so there's that blanket statement. I know that there is a lot of, of mistrust of my many years running a call to increase the fight for the future program, but it's not a nefarious call for me. [00:04:38] It is to cover situations like that. Absolutely. Every single day. That's why I want that program to be bigger. So period,  [00:04:46] Matt: And nefarious in what like that fight for the future is just to give back to go upstream, to.  [00:04:52] Josepha: yeah, go upstream to automatic or to have an unnecessarily large voice for corporations because if you've got. 10,000 contributors who each can give one hour or 10,000 hours, which are in 40 hour chunks. [00:05:11] Like you can accomplish more in a 40 hour chunk of time for a lot of reasons for one, because like it's just been 10 years, since one person could see everything that was happening in WordPress all the time. And, and probably longer than that before, since you could just be like, I have an hour, so I'm going to go research the history of this, write a patch and submit it to be committed and get that done in an hour a month. [00:05:38] Like that's like, there is an imbalance in that. And so there is a healthy distrust of that, of that reality, which I understand, and there should be. And I never tell people to start. Asking me those questions, because it's important for everyone to feel like they can help [00:06:00] provide checks and balances for, for their leaders. [00:06:03] I think that's true. But anyway, I got really sidetracked on the question of compensation. Yeah, it comes up basically every year and has come up basically every year since I started doing this work. And, and I don't ever have a good solution and, and the primary solution that people offer to me every year, which is a fine solution at a specific scale is to just like, make a. [00:06:30] And give money to people and yeah, I appreciate it. That's a great suggestion at a specific scale, and that's not necessarily the scale that WordPress can function at at this point. Like there probably was a time when that would have worked for WordPress, just like it works for various other open source projects that, that handle supporting their contributors that way. [00:06:51] But if you look at WordPress like estimating and, and I don't have much in the way of data because we collect almost no data on anyone, but estimating based on the number of, of contributors that we list per release. And also the activity of contributors that I see on the make network of sites in slack, things like that. [00:07:13] We have probably 15 or 1600 active contributors over the course of the year.  [00:07:18] Matt: Yeah.  [00:07:20] Josepha: And that includes also the, the teams who are sponsored by companies. But that's a tiny fraction of them. If you've got 150 people who are sponsored by companies and 1600 active contributors over the course of the year, like, yeah, that's a teensy teensy group and there is not a good way to manage a program like that at a global scale while also paying attention to all of the rules and regulations that exist in the world. [00:07:48] Like we would need to have a WordPress HR department, which we don't have  [00:07:53] Matt: Right.  [00:07:54] Josepha: is no one is here that way. And so like, yeah, it. It's a good idea. I want it, I want more companies to, to sponsor more people and I don't have a sustainable way to do that for WordPress as a project from a WordPress back to entity. [00:08:16] Matt: Yeah.  [00:08:16] Josepha: That's a good answer, but it is the true answer. [00:08:18] Matt: listen, so as more and more. That I talk to more people outside of like the WordPress entrepreneurship bubble. There are folks that, like you said, let's just use the number 1600. Not everyone wants money. [00:08:32] Number one, like that's not what they're there for. Two you probably couldn't pay them enough anyway. It'd just be like a nice little thing and you can, oh, here's a Starbucks card. Great. I don't even have Starbucks in my country,  [00:08:43] Josepha: Right, [00:08:44] Matt: right. [00:08:44] Okay, great. So there's that, that thing. And like not it's difficult. [00:08:48] I get it. I, I also look at.org as as the repo anyway, as a way that, that. a ton of money. If it were a true marketplace, like a ton of money, [00:09:00] because there's billions of dollars or a least a billions, a billion of dollars that, that actually funnels through that by, by upgrades and upsells. [00:09:09] So if there was a 20, 30% tax the foundation could have enough money to employ people is one way is, is how I has as I, how I would approach it. But to maybe there's something there where folks can be recognized, which I, I, again, I also know is very difficult. And I don't want to simplify it as like, Hey, there's a leaderboard, but if folks could get recognized for their efforts in some kind of way, then we'd all see. Or have the ability to shine spotlight on people who are contributing their time that don't want to be paid, but they're like, Hey, I wrote 15 documents this month. I'm winning the document leadership, round or whatever, something like that, that shines light. And like I said, it doesn't have to be here's $5 for your contribution. [00:09:51] It could be you get a Skillshare as the first thing that comes to my head. Like you get a free Skillshare account, Matt knows the CEO and hooks up, a hundred free accounts for people, right. And they get to learn and educate and make improve themselves.  [00:10:04] Josepha: yeah. [00:10:04] Matt: So, again, I also know it's, it's insanely difficult to, to rally that together, wrangle  [00:10:09] Josepha: worth, when I'm going to tell, I'm gonna tell all y'all listeners, cause like, I'm sure you have hundreds of thousands of people. So when the fight for the future program, 5,000 episodes, that's really good. When the five for the future program, Was was being architected. So like Andrea Middleton and her team were the primary drivers in that one of the, so they did a bunch of research by going out and looking at how other open source CMS is like ours. [00:10:40] We're not necessarily incentivizing their contributors. But certainly how they were recognizing them if there was an incentive involved what sort of alternative economies were available in there and how it compared to WordPress. And one of the suggestions that that team did bring forward at the time was like, what if we had a leaderboard where every month we could just like snapshot the top 10 contributors on the thing. [00:11:07] And. I don't recall why we didn't move forward with that at the time. And I will have to see if I can go back through my thousands of pages of notes from, from working with WordPress and see if I left myself a breadcrumb anywhere. But that was at the end of the day, something that, that was decided against. [00:11:30] I know that Drupal does that and at their Drupal con they're US-based Drupal con I think every year when they have the DreeZ note, they put up the leaderboard for who was the best this year. And, and we, we decided to go against it. I think it's a little bit, because like, there's this feeling of excessive. [00:11:50] Competition there that we don't necessarily, we don't want to instill in the community. Like we want co-op petition where we make [00:12:00] each other better.  [00:12:00] Matt: Right, right.  [00:12:02] Josepha: but not necessarily people being like I have a thousand hours to give to WordPress. I'm just going to make a bunch of tiny polar requests and get to the top of the leaderboard. [00:12:10] Like, I don't know how that would work, but yeah.  [00:12:13] Matt: Not, not easy for sure. Wrapping up I want to talk quickly about the podcast that you do. How do you fit that into your crazy schedule? What do you record fortnightly? Is it,  [00:12:22] Josepha: Yes. Yeah. [00:12:24] Matt: Is that one of your initiatives? Was that something that somebody was like, Hey, you should really do a podcast. [00:12:28] And you're like, eh, okay. I guess I'll try it. Is that something you've always wanted to do for, for the WordPress,  [00:12:32] Josepha: I've never wanted to be a broadcaster. It seems so hard. [00:12:37] Matt: One day, Matt was like, come on, just do this podcast. And you're like, you do a podcast. He does. It's called distributed. I can't wait to be on it.  [00:12:44] Josepha: He does. Yeah, he actually is the one who suggested that it would be useful. And a good thing for me to do for the project. And he was right. But at the time I was like, oh no, I don't want anyone to see me. And I don't want them to be looking at my work. And, and like knowing how hard it is. I don't want them to know how hard this is, which is not fair. [00:13:03] Like people should know how difficult it is to manage a project of this size because it is incredibly difficult. But yeah, I just, I don't, I, I worried a lot at the start that it was going to look like this vehicle for me to use WordPress's success to my advantage. And, and I just struggled so much with that. [00:13:25] It took  [00:13:25] Matt: Why not everyone else does it.  [00:13:26] Josepha: Not everybody else. Wouldn't be holding themselves to their conflict of interest, internal policy that I hold for myself.  [00:13:33] Matt: True.  [00:13:33] Josepha: But yeah, it actually took me like six weeks to really commit to doing this. Like he suggested it, he, he made an excellent argument for why I should, and I was like, okay, but I'm going to make it, you and me. [00:13:47] And he's been on it with me twice, but he was like, sure, make it, you and me just slowly boiling this frog of not wanting to do podcasts, but to answer your question of how I get it all done. Obviously it's quite short, but. I sit down at the start of the year and map out the most likely major conversations that are happening in those moments across the year and do light outlines and also make notes for myself at the start of the year of the events and, and likely incidents that I should probably look to to inform that particular podcast. [00:14:23] And then I take about 30 minutes, write it down and record it in about 17 minutes. So, yeah.  [00:14:31] Matt: Cool. Yeah. [00:14:32] it's great. I, I tune in as I, as as I do. And as I mentioned before, I've, I've clipped, you have quoted you a on the WP minute and I appreciate the fact that you do it. I've said it for, oh, I say, I say a lot of people have said it that they're, that they're should have, there should be another vehicle for communication coming out of.org. [00:14:50] Because your average user, the thousands of people I've helped get online before with WordPress are not logging into slack. They're certainly not going to make that wordpress.org. [00:15:00] Good luck getting them on a newsletter. Maybe they'll listen to a podcast. Where are you going to do all the things to reach, all, all the people,  [00:15:08] Josepha: Yeah. I used to be in marketing, as I mentioned before I got here. And, and one of the guidelines at the time was that, like, you have to say things to people seven, seven different ways or seven different times, depending on who you're talking to before.  [00:15:28] Matt: so well.  [00:15:28] Josepha: Exactly before, like they're ready to give it any attention and, and WordPress. [00:15:36] Has always really thrived on, on word of mouth marketing, but you don't have any opportunity to like put forward your best foot as a product when you're just like, Hey, tell your friends what you love the most about us. And it could not possibly be 100% of the time. The thing that I love the most about WordPress, cause you're a different person. [00:15:59] Like I, there are many things that I think are the best parts of WordPress that probably half our users don't even know exist.  [00:16:07] Matt: Yup.  [00:16:08] Josepha: And so like, I don't want to say that, that maybe I just shouldn't say it if I don't wanna say it. I think that WordPress as, as an entity, as a community of contributors and also users. [00:16:23] They're they're owed a bit more dignity than to have people say, like WordPress is my least favorite thing, but users wanted, I guess, so I guess I have to use this stupid software. Like there's so much more dignity to what these contributors are enabling in the world. Then, then those people that benefit from their time are willing to comment on either because they don't know that these 1600 strangers made sure that we patched the latest vulnerability or built the future of content management or whatever it is. [00:16:56] Like they maybe don't know. But even when they do know it's the same sort of problem with helping people move toward a different type of leadership in an open source project. Like you think, you know what it is all the way until you move the curtain aside. And then you're like, oh no close that up. [00:17:13] It's not what I bought it was. And then it's, it is. Really, it's a really big problem, I think that can be solved by having more vehicles for WordPress to say who it is and who it wants to be. I think this is all in my opinion. Anyone can have a different opinion today. But yeah, I think it's, I think it's more important for the world to know what these great group of volunteers and contributors are doing. [00:17:42] Then, then for me to be an important person of WordPress. And so like around the whole, like, did you always want to do a podcast? No. Did I do it anyway? Yes. Why did I do it? Because I know that these people deserve more than just a stack exchange, [00:18:00] a survey that says we suck every two years or whatever it is. [00:18:04] I don't mean to call anyone out. [00:18:05] Matt: Yeah. [00:18:05] You've got to, you need to write because a Wix is going to hire a Kevin Hart to do a commercial at the super and Squarespace is going to pay every YouTube personality to advertise Squarespace. So there has to be they, you just have to, you just have to kind of make that effort to be everywhere and everything.  [00:18:24] Josepha: And from a final philosophical thought on it, like the freedoms of open source and of WordPress and the open web. Are are there within everyone's rights. And it doesn't matter whether people know that or recognize it. They still deserve to have that. And the rights of anything, the rights of any one person that they should have that are inalienable to them, only matter as much as they can apply them. [00:18:52] And so like, just because WordPress believes that there is a bill of rights that exists for the open web and for anyone who wants to use our software and are willing to fight about it only is as important as, as getting people to come to WordPress, for whatever reasons they have. Like, they don't care about the overall philosophy of open source and they don't have to in order to be able to take those rights that exist and apply them in their own lives. [00:19:25] And I think that that's why we have to do that. [00:19:28] Matt: A hundred percent, a hundred percent last question of the interview comes from it comes from the WP minute, comes from a producer over the WP minute, Michelle for chef, actually what, what also happens over at the WP minute is we syndicate content from around the community and actually have coming up next week. [00:19:46] How a Shaya talking about the learn.wordpress.org, how to get involved, how to contribute and she can, as she contributes to that that theme a one minute clip once a month. It's pretty awesome. Okay. Michelle. [00:19:59] for shit asks, would you consider starting a taskforce for engaging a younger demographic and using, and contributing to words?  [00:20:10] Josepha: I have tried test runs of that in the past. Yes, I would. [00:20:15] Matt: He started, he started a Fortnite league and you say, Hey, jump in with me. Have you heard of this thing called WordPress? Do you have a blog blog? I've  [00:20:24] Josepha: What is that? So yes, I, I want that actually aging, aging out and age-ism in general was one of the first questions that I had when I came to automatic in 2015. Like, do we have anything on our radar about that? Do we have any concerns? Is there a reason to be concerned? And I was told at the time that there wasn't, and, and it may be true that there's not. [00:20:47] But I, despite being told there wasn't I have done two or three pilot programs, one directed by somebody else. And one that I [00:21:00] directed where we got into middle schools one in a high school, one just kind of like a community space and then one in a college where we. People from, from the automatics.org, not.org open-source group go out and like teach these kids and teach these students about what it is to be a good citizen of the web. [00:21:23] And also how WordPress can help them build skills for the future. And also how contributing can help them to learn things passively or learn things actively, depending on what's happening to kind of build the 21st century skills that everyone needs now in order to be an excellent employee. But certainly in the current context, things that, that are wildly important for people who are learning to work remotely for the first time they did not necessarily turn out the way that I, that I wanted. [00:21:54] Like I didn't meet any of those metrics in the, I. I was directed to run about four of them. And then I directed someone else to lead the fifth one. None of my metrics landed where I wanted them to. And so I didn't, I didn't feel like I could continue and say like, okay, let's give it a second try. Cause I didn't necessarily have the skillset to make that more fruitful in those, in those environments. [00:22:18] The collegiate one actually went really very well but was so much time from the person who was managing it on our side, that it basically was a second job. And like we really just needed them to be able to do their job of working on WordPress. And so yes, I've entertained it over the years. I have tried a few different configurations. [00:22:39] We as a group have tried a few different configurations and nothing that I feel really. Made the impact that I wanted it to make. That doesn't mean that it's not worth trying again in the future. But I, I don't know that I, I could confidently say that I would know what that needs to look like, especially right now with a lot of distance learning happening. [00:23:00] So did that answer it? [00:23:02] Matt: maybe some blue hats to say, like make blogging. Great. Again, that's a terrible idea. [00:23:06] Match. Jesus. Why would, why would we do that? Although, what you could do is. you could get Matt to say, Hey, maybe we introduce Gutenberg to tumbler and maybe make Tumblr more of a social thing for fun in young kids and be like, oh, what's this word? [00:23:18] What's this Gutenberg thing, powering tumbler. And maybe that's the gateway drug, huh? Tumbler. Oh,  [00:23:25] Josepha: I went on record somewhere that I have never been able to find again, saying that tumbler was the last bastion of the indie web and, and we should be good stewards of the platform. I can't remember where I said that or why. [00:23:39] Matt: listening to a three doors down album while you, while you said that Joe Joseph, a Hayden chump, Posey Joseph, thanks for hanging out today and talking about what you do as an executive director. Where else can folks go to say.  [00:23:54] Josepha: They can find me on Twitter at Joseph Hayden. You can also find me over on my blog where I talk [00:24:00] mostly about leadership stuff often in the context of WordPress, but general leadership knowledge to know@josepha.blog. And of course in slack where I have a screen name, John to Boone, which is very difficult. [00:24:13] But if you look for Joseph you can probably find me I'm waving from a presidential thingy. What are these podium? Yeah.  [00:24:20] Matt: And everybody else, Matt report.com mat report.com/subscribe. Shout out to Jeff. Who also asked the same question we were talking about paying contributors. That was his question from the w P minutes go to the WP minute.com/subscribe. Listen to that five minute weekly WordPress news, and don't forget to support WordPress news over@buymeacoffee.com slash my report. [00:24:41] Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you in the next episode. ★ Support this podcast ★

Welcome back to the Matt Report, where we continue our special 2-part series with Josepha Haden Chomposy. If you haven't listened to the previous episode, I suggest you go back and learn what the WordPress Executive Director does on a day to to day basis. Today, we'll be exploring some meatier topics that come up in the community like contributor compensation and Five for the Future. If you didn't already know, Josepha leads a podcast of her own. We'll find out why Matt Mullenweg nudged her into that journey. Thanks to folks over at Malcare for supporting this episode of the Matt Report. If you want to support me, you can buy me a digital coffee or join the super-not-so-secret Discord group for $79/year at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport

If you're like me, you know Josepha Haden Chomposy is the Director for WordPress the open source project in title, but you probably don't know what she does on a day to day basis. Or that she's part of the Open Source Group Division inside of Automattic. Something I always knew, but once framed that way in discussion, was more interesting to hear. I was lucky enough to chat with Josepha for nearly an hour, so I'm breaking up the conversation in two parts. Today, part 1, we'll cover the logistics of her role, bringing WordCamps back, and the challenges with Gutenberg. Thanks to folks over at Malcare for supporting this episode of the Matt Report. If you want to support me, you can buy me a digital coffee or join the super-not-so-secret Discord group for $79/year at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport Episode transcription [00:00:00] Josepha: You say that's the easiest question, but like anyone who has spent any time with me knows that I also spend a lot of time, like, considering, like what, what, what are my, what am I doing? What, what purpose do I bring to the world? Who am I when I'm not trying to accomplish things? Like, yeah, it's easy, but it's not easy. [00:00:17] So yeah. I show stuff. I Hayden jumbo, C a WordPress projects, executive director since 2019. So I'm starting my what third year of it is that right? Yeah. Starting my third year of it, time flies.  [00:00:29] Matt: That's 30 years in COVID years, by the way.  [00:00:32] Josepha: ain't that true? Isn't that true? And before I did this, I actually was as my Twitter bio suggests very much into. [00:00:43] Digital literacy and making sure that that communities were safe and sound, because I think that communities are the foundation of everything that we try to do in the world. And so, yeah, that's me. [00:00:53] Matt: There's a lot of folks who think of community as well. It's a big marketing buzzword for sure. Right. Everyone who has a product company wants a community. But they are looking at community in probably a very lesser form definition in a silo and something to just kind of prop up either their brand or product. [00:01:12] Maybe get some feedback and get really interested. Customers. Community is a whole different ball game and scale at your level. Give us a sense of just like the daily routine. One has to go through to manage what you have to manage.  [00:01:29] Josepha: Gosh, from a community aspect or just from like me as a  [00:01:33] Matt: you wake up and you're and you look at your wall-to-wall meetings. Cause I, I imagine largely that's what you're doing is meeting talking to people, fusing ideas, together, shaking hands, dealing with folks, maybe crying and laughing and arguing. How do you do it?  [00:01:50] Josepha: I'll tell you, number one, that only about a quarter of my time, these. Is spent in meetings, which is really different from, from how it used to be. I used to spend about 60% of my time in meetings. And that was really hard just cause when you're in a meeting, you really have to stay present to, to really support the people that you're there with. [00:02:09] And, and also to really get that work done and be as fruitful as you can with it. And so about, about a quarter of my time now is in meetings. And actually like I've got, I've got a number of hats obviously, cause I'm the executive director of the WordPress project, but I also lead the source practice at automatic. [00:02:29] And so there's a lot going on there. And the best way that I have to manage it at the moment is to just kind of set focus intentions for my day. Like I used to have a day where I just worked on automatic things or when I just worked on community things. And like that's still documented out in the world, like the, the themes that I have for each day, so that like, if people had had to work with a deadline, they knew what. [00:02:55] Going to probably get to on various days so that they could time their information. To [00:03:00] me, it was super useful when I didn't have quite as big a job as I have now. But now I kind of have a day where I focus on meetings. I have a day where I focus on the strategy. I try to make sure that if I have any community things that I'm blocking, I try to get those accomplished, like before the big meetings, which generally is like Wednesdays and Thursdays. [00:03:19] So try to get and get everybody the information that they need to keep moving on time. But I actually start basically every day with about 30 minutes of mindfulness. Just no meetings, no slack open, no anything else. And just making sure that I understand what my goals are for the day, what my tasks tend to beat for the day. [00:03:41] And then I end every day with about 30 minutes of what I like to call my ta-da list instead of a to-do list, things that I got done and that I need to get done tomorrow. [00:03:51] Matt: Little positive affirmation to end the and the day you say that the open source practice is sort of a different approach. Maybe something that you wrangle are managed differently. Can you give us give the listener a sense of what that might be  [00:04:04] Josepha: At automatic or just generally do I approach open-source differently?  [00:04:07] Matt: You mentioned that you, that you either manage or work on the open source practice of WordPress is that something different than the, than the day-to-day role of the executive director?  [00:04:17] Josepha: Huh. Yes and no. So on the one hand I do, we technically are referred to as a division inside automatic. It's the open source group division. And I just, I don't know, saying division seems very clinical and. Very divisive, like splitting things into when maybe we, we need to do a bit less of that right now. [00:04:38] And so when I refer to it as open-source practice, it's a little bit, because I'm trying to make it clear that it's like an ongoing thing that we work on an ongoing thing that we do, but also to identify that it is that yeah, we do. We kind of approach it differently. So open source as a practice rather than open source as just a general methodology, I think has a wider application than just software or adjust your product. [00:05:04] I think that open source, many of those 19 lessons of open source that exists out there could be seen as just like core intentions for how to accomplish things. And when you move it away from just like, this is a core directive for how to build software and instead think of it as this open source methodology that you can use to coordinate an. [00:05:30] I think it makes a big difference to how you accomplish things in open-source projects. And so, yes, that's, I wouldn't say it's different from my work as the executive director, but I do know that people don't necessarily identify that work.  [00:05:44] Matt: Right. How big is that division?  [00:05:46] Josepha: that particular division is just over a hundred people at this point. [00:05:50] And then we also have we, the WordPress project also have the five for the future contributors who work with me and that's a little lighter [00:06:00] touch. They get about a ping or two a week from me just asking what I can help them work through. And just checking in with them generally. And there's probably like 20, 25, maybe 50, if we're generous outside of automatic that are doing that. [00:06:16] So yeah. [00:06:16] Matt: And do the core contributors that contribute to WordPress open source, open source wars, WordPress from automatic. Do they fall under that division or can folks be from any division in, at automatic to contribute?  [00:06:28] Josepha: Yeah. Most of them do a lineup in this division, but there are also because so many of automatics products are, are part of the WordPress ecosystem. There are also plenty of people that are just in automatic as a whole that are contributing to core. So, [00:06:43] Matt: And if I could just illustrate that from a non not automatic company, this could be something like a GoDaddy might have a open source division  [00:06:53] Josepha: Right. [00:06:54] Matt: and their objectives or mission would be to give back to open source. And they would say, Hey, let's give back a little bit to WordPress. Let's give a little bit to whatever Joomla or PHP or something else. [00:07:06] That's open source. You'd have this collective that, that their mission is to, Hey, we're part of this bigger company, the bigger company, isn't all about open source and we're missioned to go out and contribute to open source.  [00:07:18] Josepha: Exactly. Right. So blue host has a group like that. Goat GoDaddy does have a group like that. Google also Yoast all those, all those folks in there, others as well. I'm not, I'm not intentionally leaving other people out. It's just that there are probably like a hundred different companies and I will not be able to just rattle them all off that way,  [00:07:38] Matt: Eh speaking of GoDaddy, looking at con core contributors I don't have the pie chart in front of me. In fact, it wasn't even a pie chart, but there were lots of circles. with automatic representing the largest piece. If you were to give advice to other companies to, I don't know, spin up divisions, give more spin up open-source divisions, give back more to whether it be WordPress or another division. [00:08:00] Are there one or two, like key things. If I want to form an open-source division or to contribute more, what's the best step forward for an organization? To either measure it or approach it to rally people around it. Do you have like one or two things that you look to as a north star?  [00:08:20] Josepha: Yeah. So, firstly, if you're, if you are thinking about creating an open source team, who's either planning to give back to WordPress or just planning to give back to open source in general. There is actually a five for the future white paper that exists to just like essentially take to your, your corporate entity that says, like, this is what it means to give back to this product that has given to us. [00:08:45] And it's, I think on wordpress.org/five, I think there's a link to it right there. But if not, We'll get it done.  [00:08:53] Matt: sure.  [00:08:53] Josepha: And, and that in the end does direct you kind of, to me to make sure that you have all of the information about [00:09:00] the open source philosophies that we're working with in the WordPress project. [00:09:03] And also make sure that that, that we all kind of understand what the goals of the WordPress project are at the moment. And so there is kind of just like a kickoff call with me to see if everyone agrees, it's like any, any relationship that you're entering into, everyone should understand what we're working with first and then make that choice together. [00:09:20] So that's one thing that anyone can take a look at also if. As an employer or just as yourself, want to contribute from like a five for the future pledging perspective, but don't necessarily have the time or resources to commit like a whole team's worth. There is actually a contributor training series that you can go through that gives you the basics of like how WordPress does open source, how open source functions in software, and also covers things like how we make decisions in WordPress, all of that stuff. [00:09:54] I believe that's on wordpress.org/contributor, hyphen training or something like that. We can find the link for your show notes, but yeah, those are both excellent ways to just like take stock of what that kind of contribution tends to look like. And see if it's a good fit. [00:10:11] Matt: I I'd imagine that part of your role or part of your efforts are to knock on the doors of, of big businesses that might be leveraging WordPress and saying, Hey, I think you can donate another person or two or 20 to the cause. Do what, what, what is that like? Are those efforts fruitful for you or are there certain strategies you try to put in place before you knock on the door of, I don't know. [00:10:35] I use GoDaddy just because it's the top of mind Right. now, but I'll go daddy or Bluehost or whomever [00:10:39] Josepha: Right. Yes.  [00:10:40] Matt: government.  [00:10:42] Josepha: the government,  [00:10:43] Matt: Right.  [00:10:43] Josepha: I have never knocked on the door of the government to ask them to contribute  [00:10:46] Matt: me know when you find that door, which door is it? I don't know. Neo find another one. [00:10:51] Josepha: find another door. Yeah, no. So, yes, there is general. I don't, I call it fundraising just because I understand that like, there are. Four-ish different economies in the WordPress ecosystem and not all of them are about money. A lot of them are about time and, and other things. But so yeah, I do that outreach every year for the most part. [00:11:14] And actually met does that as well. So Matt often we'll start with like the highest decision-making levels. Cause you, you do kind of have to get some buy-in on that. Not, not this Matt, dear readers other Matt, Matt Mullenweg what was I saying? Yeah, he frequently will start at like the CEO levels of having those conversations and then they move to me to kind of have a better understanding of what it looks like, what it could look like, what we want it to look like, all of that stuff. [00:11:42] As far as like, do we, do we, do I do anything to like prepare companies for that? Not really. The fight for the future program has been an excellent experiment and has been growing for years. And, and I don't know that I have ever [00:12:00] felt the need to like prime prime, anyone for the ask of like, do you have anyone who can help us with these security patches? [00:12:09] Do you have anyone who can help us with these design issues that we have? Like, I've never felt the need to do it necessarily. But that doesn't mean it's not happening. As I mentioned, like Matt does that also, he does that outreach as well. And so if there's priming for that call from that, that outreach from me, it's probably happening there. [00:12:27] Matt: Forgive my not understanding fully of how the inner workings of automatic works, but from executive directors that I've worked with in my local community, a lot of them are for nonprofits and a lot of them are, are raising money and that's a whole large part of their job. [00:12:44] Do you do that at all for any degree of the work for the WordPress foundation or is that completely separate? Not even in your purview.  [00:12:52] Josepha: I used to do that. Yeah. is not in my purview anymore. We actually have some community folks that really have done excellent work to keep that program moving all of this, the global sponsorship programs. They do that work these days. I did use to, but, but not now.  [00:13:09] Matt: Okay. Fantastic. And speaking of the, of the foundation word camps coming back. Question, mark. We just had word camp us last year. And now I think Birmingham is next. If I, if I have that correct. Is there other others coming? Is that something that you're looking forward to proceeding cautiously with? [00:13:32] Again, I know there was something on the Tavern about no or little to no masks at the last camp. A lot of folks worried about it. What's your prediction or what's your outlook on local meetups or local camps? Sorry,  [00:13:45] Josepha: So word camp, U S actually was, was a virtual this year where it can't one state of the word  [00:13:50] Matt: state of the word, sorry. Yep. It felt like a word camp because everyone Was. celebrating it.  [00:13:55] Josepha: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was it was an excellent experiment and it actually was not our first in-person event. There was a word camp in severe. I want to say that that weekend right before state of the word, that was our first one back. [00:14:09] And then yes, we've got Birmingham on the calendar. We have WordCamp Europe on the calendar as an in-person event. And we have word camp us 20, 22 on the calendar as, as an in-person event. Cautiously with cautious optimism. Is that a thing I can say? We're proceeding forward with cautious optimism about it. [00:14:27] Matt: in San Diego was cautious. Optimism.  [00:14:31] Josepha: Excellent. I'll let them know. Yeah, like. I have been, I've been talking to people about this a lot this week. So much of the information that we get from, from everyday users of WordPress, about what they love and what they don't love, what they need and what they want with the software comes from those events and not having them has certainly been very difficult for the community as a whole, to, to keep on [00:15:00] top of their own resilience. [00:15:01] But, but the community of contributors, as it relates to the support of the community of users, like it really, it's very clear to me that all of our contributors feel a little bit, I don't want to say hamstrung, but like they don't have the same touch points that they used to have to make the decisions that we all have to make. [00:15:22] And so. That's the optimistic side. Like I'm optimistic that we can get back to in-person events so that we can have that, that high value information from our users of the CMS more and, and faster and better. And the cautious side is of course, that everything is changing with this from week to week. [00:15:42] At this point, like for a while, it was month to month, things were changing and now it's week to week, things are changing and, and I never want to put people at undue risk and so am prepared to make the best call that we can make in the moment. And as things move as quickly as they are. It has made it more difficult when things were just kind of progressing on a month to month scale, you had time to, to cancel things or to move them or, or whatever you had to do. [00:16:15] But in the case of Omicron that moved so quickly that, that there was a little bit of blind sightedness happening on it. So  [00:16:24] Matt: is  [00:16:24] Josepha: I don't know if I've answered your question. [00:16:26] Matt: no that you have, or you've let us to at least maybe the next question. or the maybe just helping me define a better question. Is is there more stress on the local volunteers to raise more? Because one, there might not be enough ticket sales for enough people to maybe businesses have retracted from sponsoring camps in three. [00:16:50] I think that there's less money at hand, right? To, to Dole out to word camps in the fund, for lack of a better phrase.  [00:16:57] Josepha: in the fund. Yeah. So, That's such a complicated question. We, the, so the, the WordPress community support entity has been providing still a good portion of, of the infrastructure that people need in order to organize a WordPress event. And as far as like getting fiscal sponsorship, getting financial sponsorship from local entities, I am sure that it is more stressful, but I don't know that, that we, as like the stewards of this community have said, like, you have to find more local sponsorship because we cannot commit to as much global sponsorship. [00:17:40] I don't, I don't recall that happening with any of the events that we've seen lately.  [00:17:46] Matt: got it. Got it. Let's let's shift gears back to to WordPress to Gutenberg we think back well, we have WordPress 5.9 in 19 ish, 19 [00:18:00] ish days. Right?  [00:18:00] Josepha: no one be scared. That's great. [00:18:02] Matt: Thinking back three and a half years ago, whenever Gutenberg was announced, there was mass chaos, massive stereo. My God, we've got this Gutenberg thing. [00:18:10] What is it? Don't want it everyone up in arms about it. I, for one while maybe I didn't enjoy the way it rolled out and the way it was communicated as a non-developer. Yeah. [00:18:22] And when people started using it, I was like, this is, this is, this is just software. It's going to get better. I think here we are three and a half years later, it's a much different product. [00:18:32] It's much more refined from obviously when it started. Cause it's been three and a half years. Although  [00:18:37] Josepha: you've been working on it in the background. [00:18:39] Matt: Yeah. if you were, if you were, if you were in the early beta access, you were, you were playing with it. If you knew how to download it from GitHub [00:18:46] Josepha: Those fancy people.  [00:18:48] Matt: Those fancy people. [00:18:49] I don't even know above my pay grade. [00:18:50] Although I still struggled to drag some blocks in between columns. Sometimes that's a little bit frustrating, but do you think the the time that you think it'll take the same amount of time basically is what I'm getting at for full site editing to mature and to be adopted? Or do you think this is going to be fast paced because now we've kind of experienced Gutenberg.  [00:19:08] Josepha: My short answer is I do not think it's going to take as long and I'm going to give you a long answer now. So on the one hand, I think it's true that people are now a bit more bought in. Like our users are quite a bit more bought in on on this. Change than they were in 5.0, there's, there's a reason for them to trust that it's the right direction. [00:19:29] We have consistently been showing that ever since 5.0, came out and so like, yeah, I think that on the one hand, there's a lot more willingness in public sentiment and public grace that we have at the moment. And so from that aspect, I think that that we're in a much better position than we were when we were merging things in 5.0, but also between 5.0. [00:19:50] And now we have actually heard and by we I'll just be super clear. I have heard so much that it's not necessarily the change that upset people. It was how we made the change. And I totally understand that people felt left out. They felt like it was forging ahead without them, like, there was no way they could keep up with it. [00:20:10] And I, and I understand that it like it's the Gutenberg project was and is moving along a lot faster. Then WordPress core moves along from the, from the standpoint of like how frequently they have releases. So releases every two weeks is very different from releases every four months. And so having heard from so many people in so many different areas of the project, that, that it was the way that we did it. [00:20:37] That was so upsetting. Between 5.0, and now we actually have done together a lot of work to change the way that we talk about it. And so there are a lot more consistent updates from the folks who are working consistently within the core Gutenberg spaces of things, including stuff like our performance metrics that we are [00:21:00] gauging all of the features that we're planning, the features that did get in there. [00:21:03] And the last two weeks, like we're just communicating more in that space, but also we have really re-invigorated the testing area and the triage practice, both of those practices across the WordPress EcoSys. And created a number of different places for anyone to get this kind of information and sponsored a number of different spaces, where users and developers and agency owners and, and decision makers, technical, or not have been able to get better information about what they need to know about the software. [00:21:37] And so when was 5.0 at the end of 2018? Yeah. So. Yeah. Since 2018, I would say that there are probably four or five really big projects that have helped us to move past that whole, like it's the way you did it. Like we figured out the ways that we did it, that made people mad and we've made changes to fix them. [00:21:59] They're four or five large scale things that you can see, but also a lot of just small individual things that each team or any contributor does to make that whole process a little less scary, a little more tidy, little easier to see everything that we're doing on learn right now with trying to get more and more workshops and courses and lessons out for people like, yeah, we've done a lot of work based on the feedback that I got. [00:22:24] I did a six month listening tour after 5.0, to hear how mad  [00:22:29] Matt: That was. said with a big site.  [00:22:31] Josepha: Yeah, it was, it was hard. I it's like a listening tour is hard anyway, but I spent six months going to the events with people who were the maddest at WordPress and at me and at Matt and, and did nothing, but like tell me how much you hate this. [00:22:50] And that's all I wanted to hear it. I didn't have reasons or explanations or excuses for anything like their feelings of anger were because they felt like we hadn't heard them. And so I was showing up to hear them and, and in that six months time, that is when I identified, these are the things we need to fix in the future. [00:23:10] And we have spent years fixing them and I'm very proud of that work, so.  [00:23:13] Matt: It's a perfect segue to a couple other questions. Let's get the pitchforks and the torches out folks. No, I'm just kidding. Surprise. You're on a game show. Have you seen running, man? No, I'm just kidding.  [00:23:20] Josepha: No. [00:23:21] Matt: On the listening tour I'm sure you heard things like, Oh, what we're doing here is we're just competing against Squarespace and Wix. [00:23:28] Why do we want to, this is, I'm sure you've heard that. Right. We're Prestos wants to compete against Squarespace and Wix. My response is duh  [00:23:36] Josepha: of  [00:23:36] Matt: duh. Yes, I do. Like, I want to compete against Squarespace and Wix so that we can, because I want WordPress to survive. Do you think that did one, did you hear that sentiment two, do. [00:23:48] you think that's kind of going away and feeling like, Yeah. [00:23:50] actually we do want to compete against them to, to win.  [00:23:53] Josepha: I definitely heard it a lot and I hear it a lot even now. There are, there are two sides to that [00:24:00] conversation. Cause sometimes people are like, you're competing against these things that are so tiny, why bother. And sometimes it's, you're competing against something that is not the group of, that's not catering to the group of people that WordPress wants to cater to. [00:24:14] And so like, there are two different takes on that particular argument and I see both sides of it. But also like, technology always, you have to stay relevant and you have to move fast enough to be if, if not a competitor to a tiny thing that exists now. Cause like, sure, it's not a threat if it's 1% of usage across the web. [00:24:36] But, but there is something to be said for self disruption in that way, like I like this is my favorite example to use. So like when the iPad came out and there were just. Tablets everywhere. And the iPad mini came out and everyone was like, there's no point in having an iPad mini, we do not know why apple is doing this. [00:24:56] This is the most useless thing. Like people were like, why are you even bothering? No one wants this one. Plenty of people wanted it. And to taking the opportunity to, to, to disrupt what's happening in your own ecosystem before other people can show up and, and do that disruption to you, like that's smart. [00:25:18] That's a good idea. And so I do know that Gutenberg has been a really disruptive change and that for a lot of people, it also has been a breaking change. Even if it's not like breaking websites or breaking the code or breaking your dashboard, a broken workflow is still a breaking change for you. [00:25:35] And like, that is why Gutenberg is, is as a project being done over so many years. Right. If, if you feel like asking me about, about the reason that that was the right call, I would tell you, but most people don't care. But yeah, like moving fast enough to stay relevant, slow enough to bring people with you where you can is so smart and not only for the project, but for the people who rely on the project to have better lives. [00:26:05] So, [00:26:06] Matt: True or false. This is this is not about open source WordPress, but this is about automatic. And I would say that about true or false, the challenge true or false in your opinion  [00:26:14] Josepha: We're building some caveats in here. I like it. [00:26:17] Matt: I don't wanna, I don't wanna like put you too much on the spot, but you have walls. Your opinion. [00:26:22] The challenge for automatic is on innovation and pushing the software forward and fricking everything. Woo commerce, Gutenberg, wordpress.org, jet pack. The challenges still not enough people I'd imagine to, to help produce push code to, to improve everything across the board.  [00:26:42] Josepha: you threw so many pieces in there that I cannot give a true false cause that's probably true for some and less true for others would be my guests right now.  [00:26:50] Matt: let's talk about, let's say Gutenberg true or false, not enough people to, to really refine the whole thing. Fast enough,  [00:26:59] Josepha: I don't know if you [00:27:00] can hear my stomach growling. Cause like my microphone is right down by my stomach. I apologize if you can, like, I don't have a monster in the room. It's  [00:27:06] Matt: your, your stomach. cannot answer the question.  [00:27:10] Josepha: It tried real hard. It had so many things to say. Yeah. So for gluten, so you're asking true false for gluten. Is the limiting factor that we don't have enough people. [00:27:18] Matt: Let me frame some context around it. When I interviewed Matt when I interviewed Matt back in January, 2021 [00:27:24] There's just, there's so much on the plate for automatic in terms of.com jet pack, VU, commerce, which is just a sleeping sleeping giant we don't have anything close to a WooCommerce Shopify yet. And I look at automatic and I say the biggest problem for Matt right now is just, there's just not, he can't hire fast enough to, to iterate and develop these products. There's just. It's just impossible for somebody to hire this many folks and get them up to speed to push these products. [00:27:53] I feel the same for Gutenberg. And I guess the open source answer is yeah. [00:27:58] more, maybe more people should step up or more brands and organizations that have the money hosting companies should step up to to contribute to this right. To refine the product. Like I wanna be able to drag my block in between three columns without me losing my mind.  [00:28:14] Josepha: Oh man, I have a very complicated false for you. I know. So, okay. So there are a lot of people contributing to Gutenberg and, and while we can always use more people contributing that we can not contest there is actually a different limiting factor. That's not necessarily about developers. And so. [00:28:37] I'll just get real clear. So I don't, I don't know that other people agree with me about this and, and that's their prerogative. But as someone who is looking across our entire ecosystem across our entire project from a substance, a pretty high level, with a huge number of, of data points that are coming to me from, from the community, I can say with pretty high confidence that some of the more pressing limiting factors are things like we don't have enough. [00:29:11] Essentially mid-level deciders who can say confidently, these are the black and white questions that have already been answered. This is the answer and move everybody forward. Like we have a lot of bottlenecks that are still built into that, into that product. There is also an incredibly limiting factor of our user outreach, like are unactivated community members, as I like to call them in my notes to myself are the, the community members that represent our community of users. [00:29:42] So people who don't necessarily know that the project exists, they don't necessarily know that they can like provide feedback about what is working. What's not working, what's broken. What is what could be made better? Like the lack of feedback from them. Frequently is something that is more of a [00:30:00] limiting factor than not having enough developers. [00:30:02] Now, if the entire WordPress user base showed up and was like, here's all of our feedback, like for sure, we would suddenly discover that we don't have enough developers to get those things done can confirm.  [00:30:13] Matt: Yeah.  [00:30:13] Josepha: But, but yeah, I think that our more pressing issue is around the people who can help us, like confidently say, this is the most likely decision based on what we know from Mathias, who is our primary kind of Gutenberg architect or Riyadh or whoever it is. [00:30:31] We just have such a small group of people who can do that. And that's true to an extent in the WordPress project as well. There are various things that we could blame that on COVID is a great example of a thing that might cause people to be less. Less engaged in that level of, of contribution. [00:30:52] But yeah, I think that in the hierarchy of things where I would say, yes, we definitely have a dearth of those. Those two would come up prior to developers on the open-source side.  ★ Support this podcast ★

If you're like me, you know Josepha Haden Chomposy is the Director for WordPress the open source project in title, but you probably don't know what she does on a day to day basis. Or that she's part of the Open Source Group Division inside of Automattic. Something I always knew, but once framed that way in discussion, was more interesting to hear. I was lucky enough to chat with Josepha for nearly an hour, so I'm breaking up the conversation in two parts. Today, part 1, we'll cover the logistics of her role, bringing WordCamps back, and the challenges with Gutenberg. Thanks to folks over at Malcare for supporting this episode of the Matt Report. If you want to support me, you can buy me a digital coffee or join the super-not-so-secret Discord group for $79/year at buymeacoffee.com/mattreport