o the same documentation. If a customer has a question that is in the documentation and they didn&#8217;t find a reply, I will rewrite it. I will find a different way to say the same thing. And now I&#8217;m also experimenting with AI just to see if it can help with lowering that burden on support and also just give a quicker answer to my customers.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-average-ticket-when-you-delegate-support-might-take-half-an-hour-to-do">The average ticket when you delegate support might take half an hour to do</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Katie</strong>: It&#8217;s interesting what you say about being able to do 20 tickets an hour because that highlights the most difficult thing that I have found in outsourcing your support and getting help with it because I too, as the founder, very, very fast at responding to tickets at what I think is very high quality. I know the product so well, I know our documentation, I wrote it after all. And so I can provide good responses very quickly, but then as soon as you start hiring out people to do it, whether they&#8217;re in-house or not, you find that that&#8217;s not what you receive. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Typically, and I&#8217;ve talked to many other WordPress product companies, the average ticket when you delegate support might take half an hour to do. They&#8217;re not doing 20 tickets an hour or anything like that. And as a founder, that&#8217;s really frustrating because you don&#8217;t understand why they&#8217;re not as fast as you, but you kind of have to just learn to accept that it&#8217;s one of the inevitable consequences of growing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, at Barn2, we handle 22,000 support tickets last year. So clearly I can&#8217;t do all the support myself, and I would love to, I really enjoy support, particularly pre-sales because it&#8217;s an excellent touchpoint with your customers where you can really learn their motivation, how they see your products, and constantly when I do step into support and talk to customers, I&#8217;m finding opportunities to improve the documentation, improve the products, improve our sales pages. I learned so much from doing the support, but it&#8217;s not realistic. And so you have to get help and as part of that, you just have to accept that nobody is as fast as you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-i-still-go-in-there-and-i-do-a-lot-of-support">I still go in there and I do a lot of support</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Maarten</strong>: Yeah, and I was going to add that I fully agree with you there. It&#8217;s very frustrating in the beginning to find a support agent because you are used to your own speed of doing things, and it&#8217;s like you said, you have to come to terms with it. And for me, it took like six months where I was very frustrated with how things were going, and then I realized that it&#8217;s just all in my head and my expectations need to be different, and now everything&#8217;s going well. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m very happy with the support guide and it&#8217;s all known off my shoulders, so it&#8217;s perfect really. But I still go in there and I do a lot of support, but it&#8217;s on my agenda to lower my burden on support for this year because I&#8217;m doing too much and I&#8217;m spread a little bit too thin, especially if I&#8217;m developing new plugins. So I&#8217;m going to have to let it go this year and do less support</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:17;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"Do The Woo Community: Why Malware Scanner Plugins Do Not Work on WordPress Sites";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=5258";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"https://dothewoo.io/why-malware-scanner-plugins-do-not-work-on-wordpress-sites/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7383:"<p><strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/security-from-the-basics-to-enterprise-with-calvin-alkan/">In a episode on Do the Woo, we had Calvin Alkin chatting with hosts Carl and Kathy.</a></strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kathy asked Calvin this question.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Calvin, I want to get back to why the plugin is, why that whole model doesn&#8217;t really work. Because of how PHP works. There might be some non-technical people who might not understand exactly how that model doesn&#8217;t work, and they might not be able to find time to read your research. But can you just give an overview of why that doesn&#8217;t,</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What happens, I mean, I&#8217;ve seen the malware that&#8217;s done this, that&#8217;s like, oh, well, you can find everybody else&#8217;s malware, but you&#8217;re not going to find mine. And that hacker can modify those files. Can you explain why they can, why they get a site has an intrusion from, let&#8217;s say a SQL vulnerability, that SQL injection that does not have anything to do with anything happening in PHP, but they can still then get access to PHP files and modify them.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-scanner-plugins-won-t-work">Why scanner plugins won&#8217;t work</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>So let&#8217;s start by at the point of through some means your site has been infected, so it doesn&#8217;t matter that infinite attack vectors, how that could have happened, but now your site has malware on it, and you also have a plugin that does malware scanning, maybe like using the WP chron periodically, or you can start it from the UI, whatever. But ultimately this scan, the malware scan runs in the same process, the PHP process and with the same privilege level as the malware. So the most simplest and the most blunt hit with the hammer approach, the malware could just simply disable or delete your security plugin from the file system. This will be like the easiest to understand the first time the malware runs, it just deletes your security plugin. That&#8217;s the easiest after there aren&#8217;t any scans, but obviously you as a site administrator would realize that at some point, yeah, maybe not immediately, but maybe you&#8217;ll realize eventually that your security plugin is gone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><br />So what they do is then because they can read the source code of the plugin, they can see how it works, and since they&#8217;re operating at the same privilege level, they&#8217;re both running inside of WordPress in the PHP process that powers WordPress, they can then alter the malware scanner in a way that maybe imagine this. They&#8217;re very complex operations going on to determine if a file is malware or not, and then the actual malware modifies that final result. It is displayed to you in the UI and just says, yeah, you&#8217;re all clean. Pretty much that&#8217;s how it works. They make the malware scanner lie to you. They make the malware scanner tell you there&#8217;s no malware, but there actually is. And the way to do that depends on malware based on the malware scanner that you have. And obviously we didn&#8217;t disclose what we did there. We don&#8217;t want to make it easier for folks, but it&#8217;s pretty easy, to be honest, like 10 lines of quote maybe to do that. It&#8217;s not hard. So yeah, that&#8217;s the fundamental issue. The system that is potentially infected wants to monitor itself, and that doesn&#8217;t work. It has to be from somewhere higher up or someplace that is more privileged at the server level.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-plugins-that-have-firewalls-associated-built-into-the-plugin">Plugins that have firewalls associated built into the plugin</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So the firewall would be protection, not scanning. I mean, if you have hardware on your side, the firewall can be disabled in the very same manner. That&#8217;s also the, but at that point, you&#8217;re already infected. The firewall usually is there to prevent you from getting infected in the first place. There isn&#8217;t anything wrong in particular with plugin based firewalls. It&#8217;s more so that everything that you can do in a plugin with a firewall, you can do, for example, the Edge at CloudFlare or in the Nix firewall.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><br />Yeah, just it&#8217;s heavy from a CIS admin perspective, especially in enterprise, right? We&#8217;re talking enterprise. So larger WooCommerce stores, larger sites, they need more PHP workers. They want their code to be more efficient so that the response time is faster and all those things. If every request has to be processed as a firewall request, it&#8217;s a lot of processing time dedicated to that. It&#8217;s not. Trivial in itself is a one serious reason to just not use super heavy security plugins like that is if they just do a lot and they put a lot of weight on your WordPress installation, which is a problem again for enterprise because they&#8217;re trying to be more performant, they&#8217;re trying to handle more sales, more everything, and you&#8217;re basically, it&#8217;s like having an ankle weight. You&#8217;re kind of dragging. Every request has this huge ankle weight that you&#8217;re dragging, and that serves not no purpose, but as we&#8217;re discussing the malware scanning doesn&#8217;t work. It&#8217;s more like security theater, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><br />The malware scanning and some other things. Fundamentally, it&#8217;s impossible to perform that at the plugin level. And there are other things that are the same, but for example, the firewall, it is absolutely possible to write a secure firewall in a WebPress plugin. There&#8217;s nothing that makes it conceptually impossible, unlike the malware example. You can do that, whether the existing ones are secure, it&#8217;s a different topic, but it is theoretically possible. The thing is, it will not be performed because as Carl mentioned, at that point where the plugin based firewall runs, you already incur the majority of the cost of that request. You already went through the edge layer. Engine X ran, WordPress was booted, and then your firewall is hit. So it&#8217;s not performant. It&#8217;s possible to do it securely,</p>\n\n\n\n<p><br />Or let&#8217;s go one step further to you&#8217;re trying to mitigate a DDoS. If your firewall&#8217;s, the actual PHP application, you ain&#8217;t mitigating anything, right? Your site&#8217;s blowing up either way. It&#8217;s all cool. You have a firewall, but you&#8217;re still getting hammered by hundreds of thousands of requests, your server&#8217;s not going to be able to handle it, and it&#8217;s not really designed for that either. You can do it on the same machine. I&#8217;ve done work with people that nonprofits where they can&#8217;t use American companies for security reasons, and so they can&#8217;t use CloudFlare or things like that. So you have to do a lot of the protection yourself at the machine level, but it&#8217;s not, you want those requests to be blocked. You can even overwhelm a Linux machine if you&#8217;re not careful, even with a DDoS. So that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s not efficient either, right? Part of the goal of a firewall is to prevent those DDoS attacks, and you basically are not doing that with a PV based firewall.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://dothewoo.io/security-from-the-basics-to-enterprise-with-calvin-alkan/">You can listen to the full episode here</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"Do The Woo Community: Headless WooCommerce: Pros, Cons, and When to Use It";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=5911";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"https://dothewoo.io/headless-woocommerce-pros-cons-and-when-to-use-it/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7873:"<p>Headless WooCommerce is a modern approach to ecommerce websites, where the frontend (the part that users see and interact with) is separated from the backend (the part that processes data and business logic).&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This separation allows developers to create custom, high-performing stores and gives them more control over the user experience. APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are the key to enabling communication between the frontend and backend in this headless architecture.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In traditional WooCommerce websites, the frontend and backend are tightly coupled, limiting flexibility and potentially impacting performance. With Headless WooCommerce, developers can harness the power of decoupled architecture to create lightning-fast websites that are more adaptable to change.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-headless-woocommerce-works"><strong>How Headless WooCommerce Works?</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://bobwp.com/defining-headless-with-woocommerce-and-wordpress/">Headless WooCommerce</a> relies on a decoupled architecture, meaning that the frontend and backend operate independently from one another. This separation allows each layer to be developed and maintained independently, while still communicating effectively through APIs.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The use of <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/">REST API</a> or <a href="https://graphql.org">GraphQL</a> plays a crucial role in exchanging data between the two layers, enabling them to work together seamlessly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When creating a custom frontend for Headless WooCommerce, developers can choose from various JavaScript frameworks such as <a href="https://react.dev/">React</a>, <a href="https://angular.io/">Angular</a>, or <a href="https://vuejs.org/">Vue</a>. These frameworks provide the tools needed to build interactive, high-performance user interfaces while capitalizing on WooCommerce&#8217;s robust backend infrastructure.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-benefits-of-headless-woocommerce"><strong>Benefits of Headless WooCommerce</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There are several major advantages to implementing Headless WooCommerce, including:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><strong>Improved performance and website speed</strong>: Separating the frontend and backend allows for optimization of each layer, leading to faster load times and an overall better user experience.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>More freedom for frontend developers</strong>: With a decoupled architecture, frontend developers can build custom layouts, designs, and interactivity without worrying about conflicts or limitations from the backend.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Better integration capabilities</strong>: APIs make it easier to integrate other services and applications into your ecommerce platform, streamlining business processes and customer interactions.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Enhanced security</strong>: Separating the frontend and backend can create an additional layer of security, as potential vulnerabilities in one layer might not directly impact the other.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Scalability</strong>: A headless setup supports the growth of your ecommerce business by allowing you to easily scale and adapt the frontend and backend independently.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-drawbacks-of-headless-woocommerce"><strong>Drawbacks of Headless WooCommerce</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite its advantages, there are potential disadvantages of opting for a Headless WooCommerce setup, such as:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><strong>Complexity in development and maintenance</strong>: Building and maintaining separate frontend and backend systems can require a higher level of technical knowledge and expertise, increasing the complexity of projects.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Limited access to certain plugins and tools</strong>: Some <a href="https://www.thedotstore.com/woocommerce-plugins/">WooCommerce plugins and tools</a> might not be compatible with a headless setup, which may affect your choice of extensions and features.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Cost factors related to development and hosting</strong>: Customizing and hosting separate systems may increase costs compared to traditional WooCommerce implementations.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Steeper learning curve</strong>: Developers might need to learn new technologies, frameworks, or architectures to effectively work with Headless WooCommerce.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Possibility of creating disjointed experiences</strong>: If the frontend and backend aren&#8217;t well-integrated, it can lead to dissonance or inconsistencies in the user experience.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-when-to-use-headless-woocommerce"><strong>When to Use Headless WooCommerce?</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Headless WooCommerce may not be suitable for all ecommerce stores, but it can yield significant benefits in specific situations. If your business is based on unique user experiences or needs custom interactivity that can&#8217;t be achieved with traditional themes, Headless WooCommerce could be the answer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Businesses that require high scalability and flexibility are more likely to benefit from the separation of frontend and backend.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, those who need to integrate their stores with external systems, such as <a href="https://www.oracle.com/erp/what-is-erp/">ERP systems</a> or specialized CRM software, might find Headless WooCommerce more accommodating.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, it&#8217;s important to remember that implementing Headless WooCommerce does require more development resources and skills. Be sure you have the team and budget to handle the increased complexity.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-alternatives-to-headless-woocommerce"><strong>Alternatives to Headless WooCommerce</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Not all businesses are equipped or need to implement a headless approach. For those who find the concept excessive or unfit for their requirements, there are alternatives available.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Managed WordPress hosting solutions, for instance, provide an easier way for you to maintain your WooCommerce store. They handle technical aspects like security, backups, and updates, so you can focus on your business.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, if WooCommerce doesn&#8217;t meet your needs, there are plenty of other ecommerce platforms available. Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce each have their own distinct advantages and could be worth considering. Though they might not offer the same degree of customization and flexibility as WooCommerce, they may fit your clients needs better.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-final-words"><strong>Final Words!</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Headless WooCommerce presents ecommerce businesses with the chance to maximize the potential of their platforms, enabling them to create unique user experiences, optimize performance, and enhance security among others. However, the complexity of the architecture, a steeper learning curve, and potentially higher costs serve as potential challenges.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decision to adopt this approach will heavily depend on your business type, resources, budget, and specific needs. Those who can meet the demands of a headless architecture can truly unlock powerful possibilities for their ecommerce store. As always, it&#8217;s vital to consider all alternatives to ensure finding the best fit for your ecommerce venture.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Remember, the aim is to provide the best experience for your customers, and the choice of platform should align with this objective.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column5911_f4b5d1-72"><div class="kt-inside-inner-col">\n<p class="has-theme-palette-5-background-color has-background has-medium-font-size">This is a guest post from the team at <a href="https://www.thedotstore.com/">Dotstore</a></p>\n</div></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:19;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:104:"Do The Woo Community: 10 Tips on Why You Need to Do a Marketing Post Mortem with Your Black Friday Sales";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=5842";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:103:"https://dothewoo.io/10-tips-on-why-you-need-to-do-a-marketing-post-mortem-with-your-black-friday-sales/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4064:"<p>In a podcast episode on Do the Woo. hosts Adam and Emma walked listeners through the importance of doing a marketing post-mortem after your Black Friday sales. Though you may feel Black Friday is done and gone, best to revisit this to be prepared for the next time you do a huge sale on your WordPress products or services.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>1. Schedule a time as soon as possible.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>While it might be tempting to wait until the rush of orders and customer service inquiries subsides, conducting a post-mortem as soon as possible allows you to capture fresh insights while memories are still vivid. Aim for a time when things have settled but not too long after the event so that the data is still relevant.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>2. Identify your goals and objectives.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before diving into the numbers, clearly define your goals for Black Friday. Were you aiming to increase sales, reach a specific customer segment, or simply boost brand awareness? Having clear objectives will help you assess whether you achieved them and identify areas for improvement.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>3. Gather and analyze data from various channels.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don&#8217;t limit your analysis to just your website traffic and sales figures. Examine data from email marketing, social media, paid advertising campaigns, and other marketing channels to get a comprehensive overview of your performance across all fronts.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>4. Evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Which marketing channels generated the most traffic and conversions? Which creative elements resonated best with your audience? Identify the campaigns that performed well and explore how you can replicate or enhance their strategies for future events.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>5. Analyze product performance.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Examine which products sold well and which ones fell short of expectations. Understanding why certain items were more popular than others can inform your product development, purchasing, and pricing decisions in the future.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>6. Identify customer behavior trends.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Analyze customer purchase patterns, browsing behavior, and engagement metrics to gain insights into their shopping habits and preferences. This information can guide your marketing efforts and product offerings in the long run.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>7. Gather feedback from customers.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reach out to your customers via surveys, social media polls, or direct messages to gather their feedback on your Black Friday experience. Their insights can help you identify areas for improvement and enhance customer satisfaction.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>8. Document your findings and action plans.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Create a detailed report summarizing your key findings, action plans, and recommendations. Share this report with your team to ensure everyone is on the same page and can contribute to implementing the improvements.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>9. Use the insights to inform your future marketing strategies.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don&#8217;t let the post-mortem be a one-time exercise. Integrate the insights you gained into your overall marketing strategy, including planning for future Black Friday and promotional events.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-medium-font-size"><strong>10. Continuously refine and improve.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>The goal of a marketing post-mortem is not just to evaluate past performance but also to identify areas for improvement. Use the insights gained to continuously refine and optimize your marketing strategies for future success.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://dothewoo.io/a-post-mortem-marketing-analysis-of-black-friday-aka-stuff-you-should-do/">You can listen to the full episode or read the transcript for the show here.</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:20;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"Do The Woo Community: Defining Headless with WooCommerce and WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4761";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"https://dothewoo.io/defining-headless-with-woocommerce-and-wordpress/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2730:"<p>You have likely heard the term headless thrown around as it has encroached on the WordPress space. Personally, I have read several posts and even listened to some talks. I was kind of getting the concept, but let&#8217;s just say I couldn&#8217;t wrap my head around it. (No pun intended.)</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/headless-woocommerce-with-jacob-arriola/">That was until we had Jacob Arriola on the podcast.</a></strong> And it finally made sense to me.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Headless is More Than the Legend of Sleepy Hollow</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ll give you the way I understand it. Right? There&#8217;s a lot of different interpretations. We take WordPress and <strong>WooCommerce</strong> as an example that is a monolithic application, meaning it&#8217;s responsible for a lot of things. It&#8217;s your CMS, right? Your admins, your shop owners log in and add content, you&#8217;ve got media library, it&#8217;s got products, it&#8217;s got orders, et cetera. But it&#8217;s also responsible for serving the front end, the public facing side of your application. The product catalog page, the single product page, the cart page, <strong><a href="https://jacobarriola.com/post/hosted-woocommerce-checkout-headless-application" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">checkout</a></strong>, so on and so forth. So it&#8217;s doing a lot of things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so when you talk about headless, the head really represents that view layer, that UI layer, that public facing layer. When we talk about what is headless, we kind of cut off the head or we decouple the UI, now WordPress, is no longer responsible for delivering the front end of the application. It&#8217;s only responsible for being the CMS, which it&#8217;s really, really good at, right? And then in the WooCommerce case, all the logic regarding ecommerce variations, orders, all that stuff, database facilitation, <strong><a href="https://jacobarriola.com/post/headless-woocommerce-stripe-checkout-graphql" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">payment gateways</a></strong>, things like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so now you are now responsible for building UI in a different kind of context, whether that&#8217;s a different domain, a whole different framework, whatever the case may be, right? So we separate that out the head, the view layer, the UI, what&#8217;s publicly available.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-diving-into-headless">Diving into headless</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that clearly should give you a better idea if you had been confused before. Of course that is only the tip of the iceberg and you may want to listen to the podcast as Jacob takes even deeper into the world of headless and WoCommerce.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:21;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54:"Do The Woo Community: Why Do They Call it Black Friday";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=5399";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://dothewoo.io/why-do-they-call-it-black-friday/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2420:"<p>In all the hoopla around Black Friday, some people think they know why it&#8217;s called such. Or maybe they don&#8217;t. History is fascinating, and podcast host Adam Weeks gives us the story behind it.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-black-friday-sounds-bad">Black Friday sounds bad</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>So Black Friday has a long history that has nothing to do with shopping. There was the term, black Friday was used in some bad things such as stock market crashes such as the plague, different issues. There was the day after Thanksgiving, people would often call in sick because they just wanted to take that Friday off as well. In modern history as a marketing term started about in the eighties and the notion was that essentially Black Friday was the day that retail stores actually started making a profit. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if you think back to your classes of finance or doing the books, when you do not make money, when you are losing money, it is red. When you are making money, it is black. So hence Black Friday, which is mostly true. It&#8217;s a little bit of a folklore of how true that is and I,m sure it is different for different retail outlets, but essentially that&#8217;s the idea is that this is the season when people start to make money.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-friday-didn-t-quite-work">Big Friday didn&#8217;t quite work</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>It was kind of a marketing thing. They started out wanting to call it Big Friday, but Big Friday didn&#8217;t stick and Black Friday is what we are left with and because of its success, we are now also adding Cyber Monday. Do you know why they call it Cyber Monday? Back in the day, people had slow internet connections at home. At home they would have something called a modem that would make, and then when someone would pick up the phone, you&#8217;d get kicked off of the internet. So surfing on the internet was stupid for many people at home. And what they remembered is that my employer pays a lot of money for a really good internet connection at work. So when I get to work on Monday, that&#8217;s when I&#8217;m going to start shopping.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you would like to also hear some tips around selling on Black Friday, like which works better? Percentage off or a dollar amount off? Curious, <strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-wordpress-sales-black-friday-2023/">check out the full podcast here</a></strong>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:22;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:66:"Do The Woo Community: Partnership &gt; First Win &gt;Talk About It";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4971";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://dothewoo.io/partnership-first-win-talk-about-it/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4483:"<p>A large part of what we do over on Do the Woo is help builders with product growth. Now I am no expert in the field, but by osmosis, through our partners, our podcast guests, and yes, our show&#8217;s co-hosts, there is a wealth of knowledge that I facilitate and bring to the table.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-partnerships-are-a-big-thing">Partnerships are a big thing</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Since I have been in business, even before WordPress, I valued every partnership I grew. And when it comes to partnerships and product growth, a lot of us hear tips and insights that are helpful, but seldom do they take a twist on things. That is what I am always looking for.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>My friend and colleague, <strong>Jonathan Wold</strong>, is instrumental in helping me get Do the Woo where it is at today. I could go on and on about Jonathan, but another trait I really value from him is his unique and powerful insights that he brings to the Woo and WordPress ecosystem. And recently I was revisiting a post from last year about the challenges founders face with product businesses being undervalued in the WordPress ecosystem, my ears perked up. It&#8217;s titled, <a href="https://jonathanwold.com/using-the-loop-to-grow-a-wordpress-product-company/"><strong>Using the Loop To Grow a WordPress Product Company.</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<p>The post resonated with me initially as it applies to my own partnerships and how I can help my partners get the most out of it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I really felt Jonathan hit the nail on the head. With as many of these product companies who are struggling with growth, they can take his thoughts and actually step back with an approach that is more refined and strategic.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now I don&#8217;t want to give away the whole post, but I wanted to tease you with these three elements of what he calls the &#8220;loop&#8221;.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-from-jonathan-s-blog">From Jonathan&#8217;s blog</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is a small part of the post:</p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-partnerships">Partnerships</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Our ecosystem is warming up to the idea of growing through strategic partnerships. I spoke about it at WordCamp Europe and published a framework for strategic partnerships that’s served as a starting point for founders.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Within the context of our growth strategy, the idea is that you start with a partnership. Identify another business within the WordPress ecosystem aligned with the audience you’re serving and the problem you’re focused on solving and form a partnership.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Early on, you can’t know whether a partnership will work out or to what extent. Accordingly, it’s critical to focus on your..</p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-first-win">First Win</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Work with your new partner to identify a first win. Given our emphasis on customer centricity, the ideal first win is going to be helping a mutual customer succeed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is where I often see partnerships go wrong. They “partner up”, and wait around for wins to happen. Stay focused on the partnership until you have a win that has all involved succeeding.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A first win is also a great way to gauge the quality of the partnership and decide how much further each of you are willing to invest.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-talk-about-it">Talk About It</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Take the win and keep the customer in focus; it’s about them, not you. With the customer’s blessing, tell the story. Work with your partner to share the mutual win within your spheres of influence.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Talking about the win and keeping the customer in focus gives you an opportunity to both anchor and continuously refine your positioning.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-loop">The Loop</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course the loop is the part that is as simple as this, <em>rinse and repeat</em>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, as I said before, this was just a teaser as there is a lot more to the post that will be helpful to any product company looking to grow, whether it&#8217;s a product for WooCommerce or the bigger WordPress ecosystem. He goes more into his thoughts around this strategy including some solid guidance. <strong><a href="https://jonathanwold.com/using-the-loop-to-grow-a-wordpress-product-company/">Check out Jonathan&#8217;s post here</a>.&nbsp;</strong></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:23;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"Do The Woo Community: Finding Team Members to Fit Your Company’s Culture";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4954";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"https://dothewoo.io/finding-team-members-to-fit-your-companys-culture/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3141:"<p>In a podcast with <a href="https://dothewoo.io/building-an-agency-team-and-culture-for-success/"><strong>Marius Vetrici from WPRider, we dove into his agencies culture</strong></a>. Host Ronald Gijsel asked him, &#8220;How do you find out if somebody is the right fit into your culture? Is that something that you are very conscious on when you&#8217;re recruiting somebody?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-recruitment-into-a-culture-of-values">Recruitment into a culture of values</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Between 2003 and 2013, I had another software company, and there we failed with five different products and made all the mistakes that you can do. That was a product company. So that&#8217;s why this time when we are approaching the new product, we did some research, we looked at positioning and the market and the needs that customers value.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now coming back to the recruitment, we start by trying to attract the right people. WPRiders was just starting up when it was founded as a company. I wrote down the values that I would ideally have that would run our company. These were not only just some words but an explanation of values, what was my understanding of those values at that time, and how does somebody objectively know if a person lives up to the values or not?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we started hiring people, I would just add those values into the job ad because that would communicate to certain people that, hey, these guys are like this, this is their values. And throughout the years we had people telling us that they had created the resume just to apply to your job. I have never had to apply to a job, but something clicked and I wanted to just meet you guys. So this is the effect that you are getting when you are consciously sending those messages, almost like a subliminal message on a certain wavelength. And then during the interview there are questions designed to discuss examples of this or that value, for example, integrity, honesty. And every six months we do evaluate ourselves with a performance appraisal and look at the values again to make sure we allocate some resources and budget in order to support and to foster those values.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-reviews-are-done-for-team-members">How reviews are done for team members</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout the years we&#8217;ve designed a process for this. Actually, that&#8217;s one way that helped me convert myself from a freelancer, one-man show, into a team. Every time I would do a repetitive task, I would just write down a checklist, like a guideline, a procedure. And then I would run it based on that checklist just to make sure I&#8217;m not missing anything. Later on when new colleagues came in, they would just pick up on those checklists and would develop them further.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah, we are doing these reviews internally based on these processes that we&#8217;ve developed. And we have our director of operations who&#8217;s evaluating most of the people because they are in the operational department and I am still doing the performance appraisals for the other areas like sales and recruitment.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:24;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"Do The Woo Community: What Sets a Good Freelance Developer Apart From the Others";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4763";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"https://dothewoo.io/what-sets-a-good-freelance-developer-apart-from-the-others/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3025:"<p>Freelancing is not for the weak-hearted. It takes a lot of grit, <strong>empathy</strong> and courage. Some who choose that path wouldn&#8217;t have it any other way. There are opportunities they are given that would not have been the same if they were working for a company or an agency. And although you might be thinking that the freedom alone is one of the strong points, when it comes to what really sets apart a good freelancer if beyond that creative drive.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-super-power-of-building-relationships">The Super Power of Building Relationships</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of developers start their career opening an agency. You spend your time trying to gain clients, trying to provide solutions, running after different projects. But for some freelancing is the best route. Whether it&#8217;s yourself, or you work for a company like Codeable, it provides the best way to get the kind of clients you want. Ideally, those who are respectful, and they appreciate your work, and they return to you and you build a relationship with them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What many developers have admired the most about the freelancing is the relationship that you can build with clients.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Freelancing Gives You the Ability to Communication with Clients</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>With the ability to communicate with clients, to express yourself, to even talk about technical stuff and not only the technical stuff. All of that together makes it much more sense to as a human being and as a system solver or provider, to work with clients than any other way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What sets a good freelancer apart is the ability to build relationships. It&#8217;s never about what that customer needs now or what that customer might need now, it&#8217;s about supplying them with what they need now in such a manner that they are always going to come back to you for it. You are their trusted partner in this journey that they are making with their website, and they will always come back to you. It&#8217;s about establishing those relationships in very solid manner. And it&#8217;s about the small things. It&#8217;s about saying, please, thank you, or remembering them on a holiday and saying, &#8220;Hey, happy holiday.&#8221; It&#8217;s the little things that make it.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Hardest Part is the Soft Stuff, Not the Technical Stuff.</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result, what sets a really amazing freelancer apart from ones that tackle the hardest part, the soft skills. That&#8217;s the most difficult part to really tone down.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The technical stuff you can learn in a book. Saying it&#8217;s not hard I suppose is reductive. But you&#8217;re capable of learning it with ease, there&#8217;s a structure to it. The soft stuff is the harder piece of it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This post was inspired by the conversation with <a href="https://dothewoo.io/woo-bizchat-with-christopher-churchill-and-marcel-schmitz/">Christopher and Marcel</a>&nbsp;on the podcast.</strong></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:25;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:68:"Do The Woo Community: Thoughts on Translating the WooCommerce Plugin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4967";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"https://dothewoo.io/thoughts-on-translating-the-woocommerce-plugin/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7179:"<p>Last year on a <a href="https://dothewoo.io/translation-community-sustainability-woocommerce"><strong>podcast</strong></a> host <strong>Abha Thakor</strong> had a chat with three Woo builders as they shared their stories around translation, meetups and sustainability. It&#8217;s great to reflect on past conversations as we need to keep these important elements of WooCommerce moving forward.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-translating-woocommerce-as-a-plugin-into-your-local-language">Translating WooCommerce as a plugin into your local language</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When it comes to the WooCommerce plugin, there are thoughts around the importance of translating it into local languages. For example, Simon Kraft from Germany weighed in on this.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He started by stating that WooCommerce is similar to WordPress and any WordPress plugins because people often find their way around English strengths since English is the default in WooCommerce and many other plugins. But in cases like eCommerce, it&#8217;s very important to have that in your local language. This helps any user or developer to understand what you&#8217;re doing and find your way around a shop or a website. Luckily with WordPress there is a large community of volunteers pledging their time to translating enormous numbers of text to their local languages.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-translations-in-german">Translations in German</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When it comes to Simon&#8217;s native language, German, he noted that they are a bit picky with having strange language strings in their websites and WooCommerce shops are no exception to that. Years ago when he started translating WooCommerce, he would find wrong or misleading translation, something that was translated with some automated software like Google Translate, but was not precisely on point in German. At that point he thought, &#8220;Hmm, we can do better than that.&#8221; So Simon moved over to the translation side of things and tried to fix it and not break stuff on my way there.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-getting-started-on-translating-the-woocommerce-plugin">Getting started on translating the WooCommerce plugin</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Vachan from India added how he started translating WooCommerce and how others can start. It started with his team and wanting to help the community. As a project translator the simplest way to do this is to go to the <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/"><strong>translation page on the WordPress official website</strong></a>. There you will be able to easily find what interests you in translation. Just select your language and you can select which project you want to work on. For WooCommerce, once you have chosen your language, search for it. There you will find a complete front end system where you can see what has been translated and what is pending.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In most cases, there are two primary places where you can help contribute to the translation. The first is the stable version, which is actually live and people are using it. Secondly, there&#8217;s a trunk, which is the future release, the immediate future release. Both are equally important because the current version helps whoever is already installed and working on that to ensure it gets updated whenever the user updates their website. And of course, the trunk is for the future release.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He goes on to say that working in both is a good idea. It&#8217;s about your fluency and how comfortable you are picking up any language. If you feel you&#8217;re confident enough to take any language, you can explore it. See what words, which phrases are requiring any translation and you can suggest that translation. And it&#8217;s as simple as just filling up that simple clicking on the word, clicking on that phrase and just in inputting your translated reply. That&#8217;s it.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-do-you-need-to-be-a-woocommerce-developer">Do you need to be a WooCommerce developer?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Vachan does not feel you need to be a developer. You just need to understand WooCommerce enough and have used it. It&#8217;ll help you because you understand where that phrase is being used. Because in some languages, what happens with the same word could mean something differently, such as a different context. So just being aware of the context is a good thing. You don&#8217;t have to be an expert in development as there isn&#8217;t any coding language required. It&#8217;s just the language you know. And understanding the context of where that phrase is going to get used in the software is important.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-challenges-of-translation">Challenges of translation</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Everyone on the podcast gave a bit of insight to the challenges not only met with WooCommerce translations, but WordPress as well. Maja gave one example of translating a certain term like <em>tab</em> or <em>field</em>. Once this is done and you translate to a new deposit, this word in the glossary. For instance, if the tab is being translated into my language, if you go and Google that word in my language, you will not find anything actually that explains how to solve your problem. So it would be great if there would be a visual supporting articles explaining this or expanding on the glossary.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Simon, when revisiting translating German, added that here are cases where stuff like that happens. In German, it&#8217;s not so bad because German and English are quite close to a certain degree. The main issue with German is that German words are very long in many cases. Because in German it&#8217;s grammatically sane to just chain words and have like <em>donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftsmützenfabrikant</em>. That&#8217;s a valid word. It&#8217;s about a hat for a sea captain.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So in many, many cases, it&#8217;s actually an issue to find a translation that fits the context. For example, you have a button somewhere and the button cannot be huge. So you have to find a fitting word that meets the context. That&#8217;s hard sometimes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When it comes to WooCommerce or any eCommerce context, translating with localizing the currency is important. WooCommerce, which is America-focused in many cases, we have examples in U.S. Dollars and similar currencies, which is perfectly fine. But if we translated for the German or European market, then we would replace those examples with Euros or Pound or whatever.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Final Thoughts</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>The overall conversation carried a theme as first mentioned. It is important for WooCommerce builders, who have the resources and capabilities, to get involved with helping to translate the WooCommerce plugin. From what I have seen, the growth of Woo is building in countries across the world and here at Do the Woo we want to help you to bring your translating skills to help that growth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, you can listen to or read the full transcript here of the episode <strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/translation-community-sustainability-woocommerce">Stories of Translation, Community and Sustainability with Vachan, Maja and Simon</a></strong></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:26;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:84:"Do The Woo Community: Breaking Into the WooCommerce Ecosystem as a Product Developer";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4747";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"https://dothewoo.io/breaking-into-the-woocommerce-ecosystem-as-a-product-developer/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2986:"<p>If you are a product developer, you may be thinking of moving into the the Woo ecosystem. You may be starting a plugin or extension or have already built it. Maybe you are looking at a big player in the space to acquire it. Or reselling on the <strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-marketplace/">WooCommerce marketplace.</a></strong> Here are three good places to start.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-make-your-product-compelling">Make Your Product Compelling</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>What is compelling about a product is when it&#8217;s really created with customer need in mind. Less breath, and more depth. By that have it focus on this one problem and just really introduce an elegant, simple, easy solution that reflects and understanding of the customer&#8217;s true need.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everyone has seen products out there, plugins, extensions, consumer products that are just patched together, modified from one thing to suit a different need. What is important is the thing that you&#8217;re creating really does meet a real need in the market.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-introduce-an-elegant-solution">Introduce an Elegant Solution</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This is looking at it from the customer perspective and not from a coding or development standpoint If the store owner uses your plugin , they want to with minimal guidance and to be able to feel confident in their use of it. That is the bigger picture.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This may not be feasible depending on the level of complexity of the problem that you&#8217;re trying to solve. But it can be bolstered by really great docs, videos, and how to&#8217;s. With Google these days, people can find guidance out there. If they are using something and it&#8217;s intuitive or it&#8217;s adapting to their skill level or needs, that is really beautiful.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-winning-hearts-with-reviews">Winning Hearts with Reviews</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s not always about market share or numbers. It&#8217;s also about winning the hearts of those that you&#8217;re trying to serve. So the amount of passion that comes through reviews should reflect a love for a brand, or the story about &#8220;hey, it really made my work a lot easier,&#8221; or &#8220;It boosted my sales by 40 percent,&#8221; or, &#8220;it changed how I think about my business, and it changed the opportunity for me.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are just three examples that were shared with from <strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/a-roundtable-chat-with-clara-lee-product-marketing-at-woocommerce/">Clara Lee who leads product marketing at WooCommerce.com</a></strong>. She has a lot of insights she shares more behind the scenes via marketing the WooCommerce marketplace and other products. You can listen to the full podcast. Or if you would like to hear <a href="https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-product-builder-ecosystem/"><strong>my perspective on breaking into the Woo ecosystem, I have a few thoughts as well.</strong></a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:27;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:88:"Do The Woo Community: Four Major Considerations on Shaping an AI Feature in Your Product";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4776";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:72:"https://dothewoo.io/three-major-considerations-on-shaping-an-ai-feature/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4715:"<p>A bit ago we had an episode with host <a href="https://dothewoo.io/wordpress-woocommerce-ai/"><strong>Dave Lockie and Dan Walmsley, Interim Head of Artificial Intelligence at Automattic</strong></a> as they dove into AI, what it means to WordPress and WooCommerce, as well as how the future of AI is perceived within Automattic. Dave asked Dan about the speed of AI and shipping features out whether that be in the next month or the next week or the next year, and probably, at this rate, tomorrow.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-long-term-short-term-long-term-test">Long term, short term, long term test</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Dan shared when it comes to contemplating how to shape a feature, he has at least three major considerations. One is over the long term. Is there something foundational about this? Is there something fundamental about this? For example, they worked on this chat feature for Seth Godin&#8217;s blog and there&#8217;s a few other blogs it&#8217;s on too, and there there&#8217;s a lot of improvements of that coming down the pike. It was very much a first pass, but Dan believes that chatting with a blog, making it possible for someone to take any knowledge base, whether that&#8217;s something they&#8217;re curating or it&#8217;s a long tale of their blog history and making those recipes, those diary entries, those words of advice or whatever else that you filled your blog with accessible through a chat interface, he believes is a fundamental new both user interface paradigm and a much more powerful way to interact with content than we&#8217;ve had in the past.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-every-site-owner-should-be-able-to-tune-for-their-own-use-case">Every site owner should be able to tune for their own use case</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>At Automattic, they believe that this is something that every site owner should be able to tune for their own use case. Much like with ChatGPT, how you can plug in tools, what does it look like to plug AI tools into a chat experience powered by a WordPress website? Dan thinks a lot of people are thinking about that and they&#8217;re thinking about that too. They just think there&#8217;s a huge amount of value. Is there something fundamental, is one question, and then are there many possible different use cases, all the way from a free site up to an enterprise site? Can we imagine that same feature, say chatting with a blog, being useful? Well, yes, if you provide customer support, if you provide advice, if you provide recipes, if you provide stories for kids, those are all different personalities and knowledge bases that can be delivered through exactly the same user interface paradigm and set of tooling. The adaptability of the GPT series of models means that we can use the same stuff to serve all those things, so that&#8217;s great.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-does-it-solve-a-pain-point-people-have-today">Does it solve a pain point people have today?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Then in the short term, the question is, and this is the third piece, does it solve a pain point people have today? Is there something missing in their lives? That part is a little harder. He feels like we are in a moment where people aren&#8217;t quite sure what this AI thing is for yet or how much to invest in it, but he does think that for many products, people are intrigued by AI and willing to try it as an add-on to something they already know. Oh, you were going to buy the pro plan. Oh, it comes with an AI thing. Well, you are definitely going to get it now and try it out for a week and whatever and see what that&#8217;s about because you want to know what AI can do for you and your business.&#8221; So we&#8217;re in a moment like that, that that&#8217;s kind of a bubble where I think that&#8217;s going to tip a lot of AI companies&#8217; conversions over the edge in the time being.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-are-you-actually-providing-value">Are you actually providing value?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>But the long-term test, the long-term tell is are you actually providing value? Do you actually have a moat? Can you be eaten alive by someone else with better data? He thinks at Automattic they have many, many, many possible things they can try that all of which look really, really promising and are based on, again, the reason why they invested in Sync is they asked the question, &#8220;Is it fundamental? Does it enable multiple potential use cases and does it scale from simple sites all the way to the enterprise?&#8221; And the answer for all three was yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/wordpress-woocommerce-ai/">You can listen to the full show or read the transcript here.</a></strong></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:28;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:78:"Do The Woo Community: What Storytelling Means to a WooCommerce Product Builder";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4962";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"https://dothewoo.io/what-storytelling-means-to-a-woocommerce-product-builder/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7390:"<p>Abha Thakor, co-host on my podcast <strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo</a></strong>, has been bringing on guests to tell stories since she joined our team. Before she did that, <strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/building-stories-community-and-woocommerce-sites/">she was a guest herself </a></strong>and took the time to explain why storytelling is such an important part of being a builder.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-reason-behind-storytelling">The reason behind storytelling</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I get really exasperated when people tell me in a professional environment, &#8220;Oh, we do storytelling&#8221; when this storytelling is basically nothing about the person or capturing what it is that it means to them. And it is just a corporately-engineered line. Some corporate blurb that has nothing about the real person or people involved. <a href="https://dothewoo.io/woo-stories-they-are-everywhere/"><strong>Storytelling</strong></a> has been around for thousands of years, the only difference is the tools that we use. A story, to be effective, has to have certain components to help people understand that story, to reach others, and for them to be moved or inspired by that story.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That doesn&#8217;t mean that they should create stuff that&#8217;s not there. This is one of the things that I would really say to WooCommerce businesses, please don&#8217;t create stories that aren&#8217;t true. If you change people&#8217;s stories or what they share in reviews to fit your corporate brief or what you&#8217;re trying to sell, they will come back about it and they will not work with you again. They will also be a lost customer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And actually, you don&#8217;t need to approach it like that because the story they&#8217;ve told you is the one which will inspire somebody else. Storytelling needs to be something that is positive, it needs to have an integrity to it. It also needs to avoid being translated into words that actually people will not understand. People don&#8217;t relate to that, people relate to people.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-storytelling-means-to-a-product-builder">What storytelling means to a product builder</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The best stories are often going to be the people who write to you and give you a particularly strong review, saying why it made a difference. Now, don&#8217;t just use their review and run it as a promotion with all your branding around it. Talk to the person. Because talking to the person will give you more of the context of that story. That story itself is likely to be more powerful. You have empowered the person and the customer, you&#8217;ve made them feel valued, which is important because this customer has taken time to contact you. It is often so easy to give a negative review. In our culture, sadly, people will not jump to pay a compliment. Value that customer who does and help them share their story.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is a really good example. They are a charity in the UK and Ireland, and like many other organizations, they monitor what is happening. They monitor what is being said. But they don&#8217;t just take it, reproduce them and say, &#8220;Hey, this is all about us.&#8221; What they do is actually something that is the same for what you would do for a product.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s, &#8220;Let&#8217;s talk to this person, let&#8217;s see what the context is. Let&#8217;s see what else they might want to say.&#8221; It may be that they want to share more. If you don&#8217;t have the conversation, you could have just missed out on the best story, something that will not only interest your audience, but will also motivate your team or staff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stories can also come from other sources and interactions with your customers. Encourage your team to look out for how to help build your community.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-story-brings-trust-for-newcomers-to-woocommerce">The story brings trust for newcomers to WooCommerce</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>We often say to one of the WooCommerce agencies we work with, &#8220;Okay, if you are working with a charity or you are sponsoring something because you passionately believe in it, what are you want to say about that?&#8221; And not from the perspective of making money off that charity or making money off that cause. But what is it that is part of your story? Because actually telling your story is more than telling the public that you sponsored something.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I&#8217;ve seen it with WooCommerce builders. I&#8217;ve dealt with a couple of sites recently that they&#8217;ve sent me. [These sites in their version of stories]&nbsp; literally talked about what they had in their toothpaste and when they brushed their teeth, what came out of their teeth. And &#8220;Why would people want to know this?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was because the teams looked at social media where people talked about breakfast and things like that. They didn&#8217;t know where to start, so, that&#8217;s what they did too. I have got permission to re-tell that story because the team there said, &#8220;Someone should have told us this.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it&#8217;s telling your story and telling what you are comfortable with sharing. I&#8217;m one of the editors of the People of WordPress series. And we&#8217;ve interviewed lots of people who are from e-commerce, but hear them say, &#8220;Okay, what are you happy to be reading about yourself? What are you going to be happy about someone talking to you about? Is really important and that&#8217;s for any person.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-it-s-about-being-listened-to-and-heard">It&#8217;s about being listened to and heard</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s the joy for me, coming from a PR background where I&#8217;m a Chartered PR Practitioner and that&#8217;s a lot about actually thinking about the ethics of communication and how we deal with things in a positive way and how we involve people. We don&#8217;t do communications to them, we create or we do communications together because it&#8217;s about being listened to and being heard. And <a href="https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-builders-content-creation/"><strong>helping people be listened to and heard is the greatest way to do that</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We talk about ownership a lot. So if I was talking to you as a product developer, I would say, &#8220;Okay, share a little bit about what that means in terms of why it&#8217;s special to you, how and why it excites you,&#8221; because that is your story. And that may be what you invite other people to share as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, with the boats work that we do, we ask the captains to share what it is that they love about taking people on these wonderful excursions. And it becomes much more than this e-commerce thing that you&#8217;re supposed to do. It becomes a living and breathing part of your business and part of your organization. And that is when business really innovates, it&#8217;s when you get fantastic solutions, it&#8217;s where you meet and collaborate with other people. And more importantly, you get to meet exciting customers that makes day with you for the rest of your business career. And that&#8217;s the people that you want to be at your party when you retire. So, it&#8217;s bringing that locality back to you, really.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:29;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:46:"Do The Woo Community: Looking at Code as Words";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4770";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:45:"https://dothewoo.io/looking-at-code-as-words/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2814:"<p>During a past <a href="https://dothewoo.io/cooking-up-some-code-with-kim-coleman/"><strong>podcast Abha Thakor was chatting with Kim Coleman about her journey as a developer</strong></a>. Previously she had talked to her and one of the things that Kim liked about code, it is words and when you look at code, that is what you see. For those who are especially struggling or wanting to learn more she asked Kim to elaborate.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-oh-this-is-code-i-can-t-understand-it">Oh, this is code. I can&#8217;t understand it.</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress itself in the early days and even to today, is largely built in a language called PHP. And it is a human readable language. If you get over the fact that you&#8217;re looking at code, it reads in English words that we all know and we can understand. But I think the hurdle is getting past looking at code and saying, &#8220;Oh, this is code. I can&#8217;t understand it.&#8221; You&#8217;re not looking at zeros and ones, you&#8217;re looking at words you can understand. For me, I got my start doing graphic design. I was creating print products, I was using Adobe tools to create them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And over time I started working more with my husband, Jason. He was my boyfriend at the time, building websites. He was studying computer science and he himself was more doing the backend in the code work. I was designing things as kind of a static mockup of the site and then I realized I could go a little farther, I could take another piece of this from his plate, I could do the actual HTML and CSS markup.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, both languages that really are human readable languages. And then over time started doing some of the PHP work. I would call myself a front end developer at this stage, but it was really a granular process of using the resources I could find on the internet, using Stack Overflow, using what we called the WordPress codex at the time, now, the developer resource library.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And finding examples of code where people were extending WordPress, where people were adjusting the appearance of a theme, copying it, pasting it into my editor, reading the code and deciphering the code enough to say, &#8220;Oh, I just need to tweak this one little bit, this ID or this selector or this location to my term and then it will work.&#8221; So there&#8217;s a bit of a daring aspect to doing that. And it feels scary because you could potentially &#8220;break&#8221; something, but luckily we can undo things. Command Z, control Z often is your best friend when you are beginning to develop and not quite sure if you&#8217;re going to break something.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/cooking-up-some-code-with-kim-coleman/">You can listen to the full show or read the transcript here.</a></strong></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:30;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"Do The Woo Community: Multilingual Sites Are a Good Bet for WooCommerce Shops";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4981";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"https://dothewoo.io/multilingual-sites-are-a-good-bet-for-woocommerce-shops/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5257:"<p>No person is an island, and the same can be said for your WooCommerce store. In fact, you’ll want to make sure any potential customer can find you, regardless of the language they speak. If you run a multilingual WooCommerce store, you have the best chance of finding greater profits, and more success than ever before.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are lots of ways to do this, but if you use WordPress and WooCommerce, you have a stellar foundation. Both are market-leading platforms, and if you extend the ecosystem using plugins, you can create almost any type of store imaginable. What’s more, you have enormous flexibility and power under the hood.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For this post, we’re going to take a look at a number of ideas and thoughts around why you should launch a multilingual WooCommerce store. To set some context, let’s talk about the popularity of WordPress and WooCommerce.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wordpress-market-share-and-how-woocommerce-leverages-it">WordPress’ Market Share (And How WooCommerce Leverages It)</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>First off, WordPress is a huge industry. It is used for <strong>nearly 45 percent</strong> of all websites and sees constant growth. More users come to the platform on a regular basis, despite the competition. There are lots of positives to this, which we’ll discuss later on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for WooCommerce, the statistics still make for good reading and account for several million sites.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-e-commerce-statistics-correlate-with-wordpress-own-numbers">How E-Commerce Statistics Correlate With WordPress’ Own Numbers</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Worldwide e-commerce is also big business. Purchase numbers were around <strong>two billion across 2020</strong>, and with around 25 percent in growth of the market, it’s a channel that lots of stores should be a part of. The good news is that WordPress and WooCommerce can both scale to meet those demands and is continually growing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, WooCommerce has core design and code to help you <strong>scale a store</strong>. This is just one of the many positives of using the platform in this way.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-benefits-of-running-a-multilingual-woocommerce-store">The Benefits of Running a Multilingual WooCommerce Store</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are likely customers, ready and waiting, almost everywhere in the world. By extension, this means there may be demand for your products or services.&nbsp;This is the core benefit of running a multilingual WooCommerce store, but there are lots more to consider:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><strong>User Experience (UX)</strong>. The UX of your site will improve because you will cater to the most number of users. A site in a familiar language is going to be easier to navigate, use, and interact with.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Search Engine Optimization (SEO)</strong>. Each extra page for your multilingual content will have a rank in search engines. At a base level, the greater number of pages you index, the more chance a user will click one.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>&#8216;Social currency’.</strong> This aspect covers a number of areas. For example, your attempt to localize your site (a key aspect of running a multilingual WooCommerce store) will bolster trust in your customers. Also, you stand to earn more credibility, goodwill, and loyalty.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Ahead of the competition</strong>. If your sales are going well in your original market there’s a strong chance your products will gain the same success elsewhere. Perhaps you have several competitors in your home market that aren’t as ready and willing to create a multilingual store, this sets you apart and puts you ahead of the competition when it comes to international conversion rates.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall, a multilingual WooCommerce store can open up new markets, and give your products and services fresh attention from would-be customers.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-to-launch-a-multilingual-woocommerce-store">How to Launch a Multilingual WooCommerce Store</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, you’ll need some tools, services, and platforms in place before you begin to create a multilingual WooCommerce store:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li>Your site will need to run an up-to-date version of WordPress.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>By extension, you’ll also want to run the latest version of the WooCommerce platform too.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>You’ll need some way to translate your content, and display it for users.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Most WooCommerce sites will already have products in place and optimized text, which leaves the translation process.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-conclusion">Conclusion</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Finding new customers is tough. While there’s merit in trying to reduce that churn, you will also need a strategy to find fresh customers for your products and services. A multilingual WooCommerce store is a top-tier yet simple way to do so.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The premise is that the more eyes there are on your store, the greater the chance of a purchase or conversion. However, to get here, you’ll want to run a multilingual WooCommerce store. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>This is a guest post from our sponsor Weglot</em></strong></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:78:"Do The Woo Community: Personalization, the Future of eCommerce and WooCommerce";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4734";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"https://dothewoo.io/personalization-the-future-of-ecommerce-and-woocommerce/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3490:"<p>In a<strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-agency-growth-and-the-power-of-subscriptions-with-kenn-kelly/"> podcast with Kenn Kelly from Never Settle</a></strong>, a WooCommerce agency, he was asked  with all of the changes happening in the e-commerce industry, the different platforms, headless becoming a thing now,  where does he envision the future of e-commerce going? And how does Woo fit into that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kenn shared that subscription based businesses stood out to him. which we&#8217;ve been seeing happen for a long time. Amazon pressed that quite a few years ago. And a lot of people started realizing, it was like, &#8220;My toilet paper&#8217;s going to be on delivery.&#8221; And now everyone&#8217;s like, &#8220;Oh, this makes a lot of sense.&#8221; And people also see, &#8220;Oh, it&#8217;s a recurring revenue stream.&#8221; He thinks when it&#8217;s forced it doesn&#8217;t work. But he absolutely thinks that that segment of e-commerce is going to continue to really expand. And WooCommerce can do that out of the box, really powerful engine, there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the things that his agency sees where they get called into bigger projects are people wanting some sort of advanced subscriptions. So a client that Never Settle is launching right now, Bixbi Pet, they have all these incredible dog foods, and all organic, and all this stuff, and they&#8217;re in most PetSmarts across the country, and pretty large business. But their customers are on subscriptions for their dog food, and their dog treats, and cat food, and cat treats.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But they wanted a really cool checkout engine for people to build their subscription. So his agency had a lot of customization in that, but where they found the most customization, where he thinks it&#8217;d be fun to see us as a community invest more into WooCommerce is my account experience. That&#8217;s the thing that he feels like has the most potential, not just in design and user interface. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>As an example, for these guys, they want their customers to come in and be able to just swap out what flavors they&#8217;re in. So they&#8217;re going to order three bags a month and they want to be able to go in and change those without changing the subscription. And that&#8217;s highly custom. That&#8217;s not something that you can do out of the box, or to set up an auto-rotation where they&#8217;re just surprised. They can just say, &#8220;Hey, of these six flavors, just rotate them for me.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so they built that for them. And Kenn thinks not only are you going to see subscription businesses increase, but you&#8217;re going to see people really pressing into the customer experience of the subscription business. That&#8217;s the ones that they&#8217;ve seen really grow, is they really nurture those people. Clients see them as the goal behind their business and so they invest a lot into that experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it&#8217;s more and more personalization. It&#8217;s going to be leveraging AI, it&#8217;s going to be leveraging market automation tools, but less blanket offerings. They have something that&#8217;s written that says, &#8220;Hey, this person&#8217;s ordered 10 bags of cherry dog food,&#8221; which isn&#8217;t a real flavor, &#8220;and we&#8217;re releasing cherry treats. so we&#8217;re automatically going to present this offer to them to try it free for one month or something.&#8221; So I think personalization is one of the big things.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"Do The Woo Community: Starting Your WooCommerce Business, Know the Ecosystem";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4696";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"https://dothewoo.io/advice-for-starting-your-woocommerce-business-journey/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1449:"<p>Make sure you know it (the WooCommerce business ecosystem). You can&#8217;t just come in and start a WooCommerce product company. You need to be in there whether it&#8217;s just doing a hobby site for yourself, doing websites for friends and families, previous freelance work but you need to really immerse yourself in it and discover the problems and gaps for yourself. Find out what you&#8217;re interested in. That could also be  WooCommerce.events, websites or something, so start setting them up.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s when you will find the opportunities because there are still gaps, even though there&#8217;s loads of people building products for commerce, there&#8217;s plenty of gaps and opportunities to fill them with products, but you will only find them if you&#8217;re truly immersed in it. And also, when you find those gaps, think about what is a realistic product for you. If you&#8217;re going to get venture capital funding or something, then you can aim. high and go for something complex, whereas if you&#8217;re bootstrapped and doing it as a side project alongside other work or job, then maybe go small and think what can you realistically do that there&#8217;ll be some demand for.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This came from an <strong><a href="https://dothewoo.io/katie-keith-new-do-the-woo-host/">episode of Do the Woo</a></strong> with <strong><a href="https://barn2.com/">Katie Keith from Barn2 Plugins</a></strong>.</em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:33;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"Do The Woo Community: Contributing to WordPress with Your Own Unique Skillset";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=4692";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"https://dothewoo.io/contributing-to-wordpress-with-your-own-unique-skillset/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1351:"<p>Here&#8217;s a tip for all WordPress and WooCommerce builders out there, who want to contribute with their own unique skill set: Don&#8217;t underestimate the power of effective communication<strong>.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether you&#8217;re participating in a chat, leaving comments, or attending in-person events like WordCamps or meetups, it&#8217;s essential to remember that your words can have a tremendous impact. Words can hurt or heal. Clear and respectful communication can foster better understanding, collaboration, and innovation within the community. It can help you network, learn, and grow, even if you&#8217;re not a coder.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And when it comes to experiences as a woman in this field, particularly about navigating and communicating in a traditionally male-dominated environment, here&#8217;s a small takeaway: Use your unique perspective to contribute to the conversation. Don&#8217;t shy away from asking questions or sharing your insights. The WordPress community is incredibly diverse, and your voice matters.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This tip was shared by <strong><a href="https://coachbirgit.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Birgit Olzem</a></strong> on a Do the Woo episode titled: <a href="https://dothewoo.io/wceu-2023-speaker-builder-tips/"><strong>Builder Tips from WordCamp Europe 2023 Speakers</strong></a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:34;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:62:"Do The Woo Community: Where in the World are the WordPressers?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://bobwp.com/?p=5138";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:60:"https://dothewoo.io/where-in-the-world-are-the-wordpressers/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1120:"<p>I am all about people and the community. So it shouldn&#8217;t surprise you when it gets my attention that one of our hosts over on Do the Woo launches a project that maps out people, worldwide, in the community. It&#8217;s been in the wild for sometime, but you really need to check out <a href="https://thewp.world/"><strong>The WP World</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href="https://thewp.world/faq/"><strong>backstory and privacy info</strong></a> is shared so you have no worries about that. There are features being snuck in all the time, and you can also <a href="https://thewp.world/wordcamps/"><strong>check out past and future WordCamps</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not sure what other things Marcus has in his plans, but kudos for him helping us stay all connected. And I won&#8217;t keep you any longer with this post, head on over and <a href="https://thewp.world/"><strong>check out his site now</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And btw, we love it so at Do the Woo, we are <a href="https://thewp.world/sponsors/"><strong>proud sponsors of his project</strong></a> along with some other great WordPress businesses.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 29 Jun 2024 10:45:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:35;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:11:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"HeroPress: Voices Of WordCamp Europe: Aida Correa-Jackson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://heropress.com/?p=7088";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:157:"https://heropress.com/voices-of-wordcamp-europe-aida-correa-jackson/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=voices-of-wordcamp-europe-aida-correa-jackson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:887:"<img width="1024" height="616" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/aida2-1024x616.webp" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Aida Correa-Jackson and her grand daughter" /><p>Last year I interviewed Aida, but my microphone gave out on me. This year at WCEU I had someone back out of an interview and as I walked into the volunteer area I thought &#8220;It would be cool if I could interview Aida again.&#8221; </p>\n\n\n\n<p>As I stepped into the room I saw her sitting there! We did the interview on the spot.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Aida is a teacher, wife, mother, grandmother, and all around wonderful person. Here&#8217;s the conversation we had:</p>\n\n\n\n\n<p>The post <a href="https://heropress.com/voices-of-wordcamp-europe-aida-correa-jackson/">Voices Of WordCamp Europe: Aida Correa-Jackson</a> appeared first on <a href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Jun 2024 14:49:33 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:36;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:60:"Do The Woo Community: The Power of Gravatar with Ronnie Burt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=84331";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"https://dothewoo.io/the-power-of-gravatar-with-ronnie-burt/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16821:"<div class="wp-block-group has-border-color has-light-gray-background-color has-background has-small-font-size has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-7 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">\n<p class="has-secondary-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-df14f0e3ece767c29248940486a8055c">This show is sponsored by&#8230;</p>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-group is-vertical is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-6 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex">\n<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-1 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">\n<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">\n<div class="wp-block-group is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-3 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex">\n<div class="wp-block-group has-base-background-color has-background wp-container-content-1 has-global-padding is-content-justification-left is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-2 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">\n<img width="1224" height="1224" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/dothewoo.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Hostinger_Vertical_Purple-e1668465093968.jpg?resize=1224%2C1224&ssl=1" alt="Hostinger" class="wp-image-73505" />\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">\n<p class="wp-container-content-2"><strong><a href="https://hostinger.com">Hostinger</a></strong>: As a builder or an agency managing multiple sites, check out <strong>Hostinger</strong>. Whether you are building a WordPress site or specifically, a Woo store, their infrastructure brings your clients sites speed, uptime and security.</p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-2 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">\n<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">\n<div class="wp-block-group is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-5 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex">\n<div class="wp-block-group has-base-background-color has-background wp-container-content-3 has-global-padding is-content-justification-left is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-4 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">\n<img width="500" height="500" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/dothewoo.io/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Omnisend-square.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-78802" />\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">\n<p class="wp-container-content-4"><strong><a href="https://your.omnisend.com/onlywoo_dothewoo">Omnisend</a></strong>: Whether it&#8217;s for integration into your Woo product, or building sites for clients, <strong>Omnisend</strong> is the solution for email and SMS marketing with their CRM solution for WooCommerce shops and your own website.</p>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\nEpisode Transcript\n<div class="wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">\n<p>Robbie:<br />Hello and welcome to another episode of Do the Woo. I&#8217;m Robbie Adair from OS Training.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />And I&#8217;m Robert Jacobi from Botguard.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie and Robert:<br />And we&#8217;re here to camp you up.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />We&#8217;re thrilled to have Ronnie Burt from Gravatar at the Automattic Sound Stage at WordCamp Europe 2024 Torino. Welcome.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Hey, thanks for having me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />So you&#8217;re supposed to tell us all about some of the cool stuff that Gravatar is doing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Gravatar is 20 years old. It&#8217;s been in WordPress core for a long time, and we are reviving it and making it a profile-as-a-service. For the developers out there, use our APIs to have a much easier way of setting up whatever you need with anything profile-related: avatars, social connections, all that kind of thing. This is another way of building the open web and helping people connect, breaking down those barriers for everyone. We have free profiles and free Linkin Bio pages. You set them up, fill out your details, and that can be another place for you to point people to on the web.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Ronnie, on the spot now. This can&#8217;t just be show and tell. What about single sign-on?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Yes, single sign-on is something we&#8217;re still working on. We want to get it right because when you&#8217;re dealing with something like single sign-on, security is super important. We&#8217;re continuing to test, but our goal is to have another option out there that is passwordless and supports passkeys out of the box for the WordPress ecosystem and beyond.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />Cool. And you have some nice little toys here that you guys are giving out. Tell us about those.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Yeah, these are a lot of fun. They&#8217;re NFC tags, little round tags that you can put on your lanyard or, as I have, in my backpack. You tap them on your phone, and your Gravatar profile pops up. So instead of a business card, it opens up a browser window. Now I have everyone&#8217;s profiles that I&#8217;ve scanned as a tab in my browser on my phone today, and you can easily contact someone or follow them on X or whatever you&#8217;re following people on these days. It&#8217;s just better than the old paper business cards that we often throw away.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />Cool. I use LinkedIn quite often that way, but not everyone is on LinkedIn. So then they&#8217;re like, &#8220;Oh no, I&#8217;m not on that,&#8221; and you have to figure out something else.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Yeah, they&#8217;re not on it, or they&#8217;re not logged in at that moment. So when they click the link, it&#8217;s not there. They can&#8217;t even follow you because it opens up in the browser, and they have the app on their phone or whatever. Ours just opens.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />Awesome.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />There&#8217;s got to be some other cool stuff you could do with this. Maybe like a giant WordCamp at the end of the year where this simple, inexpensive tech could be deployed on everyone&#8217;s badge.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Yeah, badges would be great. We&#8217;d love for everyone to be happy to curate their profile. If you don&#8217;t want your real name on it, contact information, or an avatar photo, that&#8217;s great. That&#8217;s important information for others to know. You want to be anonymous or whatever it is. But when we&#8217;re trying to connect and grow a community or follow each other, this is a much easier way of doing it once. Wherever you go, whatever kind of conference or event, you don&#8217;t have to fill out another profile. It&#8217;s reusable.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />So it&#8217;s not WordPress-specific?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />No, not at all.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />You keep talking about open. What does that actually mean? I can&#8217;t set up a Gravatar server?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Well, not at the moment. We&#8217;ve talked a lot about decentralization. We have a schema of data and how it&#8217;s stored, curated from different sources of standards for storing profile data. We&#8217;re hoping to use things like webfinger and other standards so that if someone wanted to host the data elsewhere, locally, or on their own site, they could do that. We could be the connection, like a switchboard, to have that data accessible via the API if you wanted it to be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Boy, I&#8217;m just hogging the mic here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />You are. It&#8217;s okay.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Except for Ronnie. I&#8217;m hogging. Can I just type in gravatar.com/myhandle?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Yep. That works. You can also, hopefully any day now, have any domain you want point to your Gravatar profile. You can get the domain through WordPress.com, and it&#8217;ll automatically connect to your profile. Eventually, we&#8217;ll open that up to existing domains and domains registered anywhere. It&#8217;s an interesting concept. Services like Blue Sky are using domains as usernames, but there&#8217;s no profile to point to for those domains. I hope more services integrate that so you don&#8217;t have to rush to get a username on every new service that pops up. You can use your domain as your username and another way of logging in, which can be another aspect of your digital identity.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />Will you support third-level domains, like if I wanted contact.RobbieAdair.com to go to my Gravatar profile?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />I hope so. We&#8217;re still working on that. You can definitely do a redirect, but that&#8217;s not the same as it being the domain.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />Oh, note to self: redirect me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Yeah, you just can&#8217;t point an A record to it, I guess, is what you&#8217;re saying.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />But that&#8217;s definitely on our list that our teams are working on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />What about company profiles versus individual profiles? Can I make an OSTraining profile like I do on LinkedIn or any other social media platform?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Yeah, we have a lot of those. Every profile is just an email address, so you can set one up for whatever email address you want. It doesn&#8217;t need to be a person or your legal identity. It can be a persona, a company, or whatever.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />A bot.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />It can be a bot. That&#8217;s an interesting use case for our API. In this era of bots, we have verification. When you connect your Meta account, WordPress.com account, Instagram account, or whatever to your Gravatar, we&#8217;re saying that the same person with this profile has all of these accounts. This helps verify that this profile belongs together, and there&#8217;s not really anything like that. People can use the API to figure out how human or how long this email address has been in use around the web, and how many places it&#8217;s being used.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Is that already accessible?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Yeah, all via our REST API.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />That&#8217;s cool. Sorry, Robbie, before I forget, I have one huge wish. Are we going to be able to change our wp.org usernames?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />I don&#8217;t know anything about .org usernames.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Darn it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />What about the handy dandy chip? Do you also have QR codes it generates for us?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Yes. When you log into your profile, there are QR codes you can download and use. I&#8217;ve seen this a few times at farmer&#8217;s markets, musicians, all these places where people have a Venmo QR code, an Instagram QR code, and a wall of QR codes. Instead, they could have their QR code to their Gravatar profile. At the top of the profile, they can list their Venmo, Instagram, etc. It&#8217;s a much easier user experience. I think that&#8217;s a great free use case for creators and small businesses.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />Awesome. You&#8217;ve mentioned a few things, but can you tell us the roadmap for the rest of this year and maybe next year?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Going back to OAuth and authentication, we&#8217;re still working on it. We have more domain stuff coming and will spend a lot of time on Linkin Bio Service. We were the original Linkin Bio service 20 years ago, but there were no Linkin Bios then. We&#8217;re figuring out what people would like to see on this page. We don&#8217;t want to turn it into a whole website, but you&#8217;ll see a lot of focus on making those more customizable and useful for different use cases.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />That&#8217;s excellent. I&#8217;m excited. I don&#8217;t like using paper cards, so anything that makes my life easier.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />Yeah, me neither. Update everything at once.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />I haven&#8217;t carried cards in so long, and I usually try to default to LinkedIn or something I think people will have. I can&#8217;t tell you how many times I&#8217;ve had to show people how to use LinkedIn that way. Sometimes you don&#8217;t want to send your full contact to someone else. This is nice because it gives them the option of whether they want to save this as a contact, correct?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Exactly. You can enable a contact form so you&#8217;re not sharing your personal data, but they can choose to send you a message. We limit the message to half a tweet or half an old tweet, so like a hundred characters or less.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Half an old tweet, half a UX. 75 characters or something.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />It&#8217;s on purpose. We don&#8217;t want people to send you a bunch of spam and sales stuff. It&#8217;s like, &#8220;We just met at WCU, let&#8217;s follow up in two weeks.&#8221; You get all of their Gravatar contact information and profile data in the email, and you can choose to reply. It&#8217;s a nice handy way of making contacts in person a little smoother.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />We&#8217;re going to need an app for that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />You can&#8217;t see Ronnie&#8217;s face, but that was a wink, wink, nudge, nudge.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />Yeah. I love the little chip, but I don&#8217;t always want to have it with me. Could we have it in our wallet on our iPhone?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ron</p>\n\n\n\n<p>nie:<br />Absolutely. That&#8217;s going to come a lot faster than the app.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />That works for me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />Yeah, works for me too. Great.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Awesome. What&#8217;s the best way to get ahold of you? I hope it&#8217;s gravatar.com/ronnie.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Yes, gravatar.com/ronnie, R-O-N-N-I-E, or Ronnie Link.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Woohoo.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />He&#8217;s already got his custom domain ready to go. I love it. Fancy. Well, thank you so much, Ronnie, for chatting with us. Kudos on it. I love it, and now I&#8217;m going to go get my chip.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ronnie:<br />Thank you very much.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Thank you, Robbie.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robbie:<br />Thanks, Robert. It&#8217;s fun. I will see you on the next episode of Do the Woo.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n\n<p>In this episode of<strong><em> All Things WordPress and WooCommerce</em></strong>, hosts <strong>Robbie Adair</strong> and <strong>Robert Jacobi</strong> have a great chat with <strong>Ronnie Burt from Automattic and Gravatar</strong>, during WordCamp Europe 2024 in Torino. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Their conversation jumps into the exciting advancements and features that Gravatar is introducing as it celebrates its 20th anniversary.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Highlights</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar is being revived and expanded to offer profiles as a service. Developers can use Gravatar&#8217;s APIs to set up profiles, avatars, social connections, and other profile-related functionalities.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar offers free profiles and Linkin Bio pages where users can fill out their details and use it as a point of contact on the web.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar is working on implementing a secure, passwordless single sign-on feature that supports passkeys, enhancing the security and ease of user authentication.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar provides NFC tags that users can attach to their lanyards or backpacks. When tapped on a phone, these tags open the user&#8217;s Gravatar profile, serving as a modern alternative to business cards.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Users can download QR codes from their Gravatar profile, making it easy to share contact information and social media links in a single, streamlined manner.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar will soon allow users to point any domain to their Gravatar profile, enhancing personal branding and simplifying digital identity management.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Users can create profiles for companies, personas, or even bots, not just individuals. This flexibility allows for diverse use cases, including business and personal branding.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar&#8217;s API can be used to verify the ownership and connectivity of multiple accounts (e.g., Meta, WordPress.com, Instagram) to a single profile, helping to establish a verified digital identity.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravatar profiles can include contact forms that allow users to send messages without sharing personal data. The messages are limited in length to prevent spam.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Upcoming features include enhanced OAuth and authentication, more domain functionalities, and customizable Linkin Bio pages. Gravatar aims to refine and expand these services based on user feedback and evolving needs.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Links</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><strong><a href="https://gravatar.com">Gravatar.com</a></strong></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href="https://gravatar.com/ronnie">Ronnie&#8217;s Gravatar </a></strong></li>\n</ul>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Jun 2024 08:17:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:37;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"Do The Woo Community: A Special Host Event and Our Sponsorship at WordCamp Europe";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=84284";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"https://dothewoo.io/a-special-host-event-and-our-sponsorship-at-wordcamp-europe/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:435:"Episode Transcript\n<div class="wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">\n<p></p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n\n<p>Today BobWP, after a bit of conference crud post- WordCamp Europe, has a chance to share his experience at WCEU plus highlighting two special moments.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A party for our new hosts Marcel and Mike via Woo DevChat and what it meant to Do the Woo to sponsor WordCamp Europe 2024.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 27 Jun 2024 08:28:40 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:38;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"Gravatar: .Link Your Gravatar Profile With A Free Custom Domain";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"http://blog.gravatar.com/?p=1527";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:90:"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/06/26/link-your-gravatar-profile-with-a-free-custom-domain/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5304:"<p>Every Gravatar account comes with a free customizable profile page — the original link-in-bio and your home on the web. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few months ago, we rolled out the ability to <a href="https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/03/28/new-gravatar-profile-features-make-it-yours/">customize your profile URL</a>. Based on the positive feedback and overwhelming interest, we decided to take it a step further by partnering with .link to roll out custom domains.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The best part: act now, and your personalized .link domain is on us (as in free!) for the first year. </p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How it works</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>All users have the ability to set a custom “slug” for their profile URLs, which means you can send people to something that looks like this:</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>gravatar.com/yourusername</em></p>\n\n\n\n<p>While that’s a great start, many users, brands, and businesses like using their own domain. That means that the link you share on your profiles, email signatures, business cards, etc. will look more like this:</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>yourusername.link</em></p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why you should be excited:</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li>It puts your brand or identity first</li>\n\n\n\n<li>It’s easy to remember</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Custom domains are more trustworthy and receive almost 30% higher click-through rates than generic links.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Using a custom domain levels up your professionalism and credibility.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>You can use it to connect your presence <a href="https://wordpress.com/blog/2023/03/14/a-social-experience-with-your-domain/">across the web</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 1</strong>: Start by logging in to your profile on&nbsp;<a href="http://gravatar.com/profile">Gravatar.com</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 2:</strong> You will land on your profile dashboard. At the very top left corner of the screen, you will see an area with your current URL and a headline that says ”Your profile URL is” with <a href="http://gravatar.com/yourusername">gravatar.com/yourusername</a>. Just to the right, you will see two text links. Click on the one that says “Change”.</p>\n\n\n\n<img tabindex="0" src="https://blog.gravatar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/cleanshot-2024-06-26-at-10.25.09402x.png" alt="" class="wp-image-1535" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 3: </strong>You should automatically see the .link domain that matches your current username, go ahead and click on the &#8216;Claim domain&#8217; link.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Step 4: </strong>You will be taken to a checkout screen for your domain, but the price will be $0 for the first year of registration. Proceed with the checkout process and we’ll handle the rest. You can search for other available .link domains to use, too.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Then What?</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve secured your custom .link domain, the magic really begins. Here&#8217;s how you can maximize the benefits and make the most out of your new digital identity:</p>\n\n\n\n<ol class="wp-block-list">\n<li><strong>Integrate Across Platforms:</strong> Update your profiles on social media, professional networks, and other online platforms to include your new .link domain. This ensures a consistent and professional online presence.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Enhance Your Email Signature:</strong> Replace your current profile link with your new custom .link domain in your email signature. This looks more professional and makes it easier for contacts to remember and visit your profile.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Business Cards and Marketing Materials:</strong> Include your .link domain on your business cards, brochures, and other marketing materials. This small change can significantly enhance the credibility and professionalism of your brand.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Track Engagement:</strong> Use URL tracking tools to monitor the performance of your new domain. This will help you understand where your traffic is coming from and how people engage with your profile.</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Join the Movement</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Don&#8217;t miss out on this opportunity to enhance your online identity and stand out in the digital space. By hosting your Gravatar profile on a custom .link domain, you&#8217;re not just adopting a new URL; you&#8217;re embracing a new era of digital identity.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>With more services like Bluesky offering domains as usernames, this space will continue to grow.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additional domain extensions (like .com, .me, .blog, and more) will become available for a fee in the future.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Why .link?</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href="https://nova.link/why-link/">.link domain</a> is more than just an address on the web. It&#8217;s a declaration of connectivity, a badge of identity in the digital realm, and a key to unlocking a world where your online presence is seen and felt. By reserving your unique .link domain, you&#8217;re taking full control of your connected identity on the web while building a more memorable and trustworthy brand.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Feel free to share your experiences and feedback with us. We&#8217;re excited to see how you&#8217;ll leverage your new .link domain to elevate your digital footprint. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="http://gravatar.com/profiles">Claim your free .link domain now!</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 26 Jun 2024 15:27:38 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Ronnie Burt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:39;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"WPTavern: #125 – Davinder Singh Kainth on Content Creation and Business Strategy in WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=156506";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:109:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/125-davinder-singh-kainth-on-content-creation-and-business-strategy-in-wordpress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43090:"Transcript<div>\n<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, how to build trust and foster relationships within the WordPress community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and then you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you, and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So on the podcast today, we have Davinder Singh Kainth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Davinder is a WordPress creative, an entrepreneur, and a sharer of knowledge. He&#8217;s been in the online ecosystem for over 20 years, and his journey from blogging to design, development and entrepreneurship is anchored in the WordPress world. He writes about WordPress every week at thewpweekly.com newsletter, and also has a sideline in website creation, coaching and consulting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today we get into a discussion that extends beyond traditional agency work. We talk about the opportunities available in plugin and theme development, SEO, hosting, and more.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Davinder offers his advice on trying to figure out the nuances of the WordPress ecosystem to promote your credibility and ensure longevity. We chat about the importance of having diversified revenue streams, the intricacies of targeting WordPress users with SaaS products, and the vital role that referrals play in agency success.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Davinder also discusses the need for adaptability persistence and carving out one&#8217;s unique path in the WordPress world.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We also touch upon the community spirit found at WordCamp events, and the significant impact of that engaging with the WordPress community can have on professional opportunities.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in practical advice on how the WordPress community can work with you, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to find out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Davinder Singh Kainth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Davinder Singh Kanith How are you doing Davinder?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:06] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Hi, I am doing good. Thanks for inviting me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:08] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You are very welcome. I was lucky enough to bump into Davinda, not that long ago in WordCamp Asia. It was very nice to meet you in person. I think it&#8217;s fair to say that we&#8217;ve had quite a lot of exchanges over the years. I think probably you and I got to know each other in the Beaver Builder community, I would imagine that&#8217;s where it all began for me and you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:27] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Absolutely. Beaver Builder, the awesome page builder that has spread the awesomeness in different fields, be it podcasting, or maybe newsletter.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> We&#8217;ve definitely had our moments, and I&#8217;m very thankful for Davinder talking to us today. And we&#8217;re going to talk about the WordPress community, and much more than that. How to be a good custodian in WordPress. How to sell your products into WordPress successfully. Loads of different things. But before we do that, Davinder, in case there&#8217;s anybody listening to this who hasn&#8217;t heard of you before, do you just want to give us your bio, tell us who you are, where you&#8217;re from, what it is you do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:58] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Okay, I am from India, place called Chandigarh. Which is like six hour drive from the capital New Delhi, North India. I&#8217;ve been into WordPress ever since WordPress existed. Started as a blogger, then went into usual design, development agency world. And now, plus the agency, I do mostly content creation, email marketing funnels, that&#8217;s like my interest area, so all things WordPress as the foundation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you still run a business building client websites, things like that? Or is it more the kind of content creation, the newsletters that you make for the community?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:32] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> You know, for the last two or three years, I did not have any new client, because I didn&#8217;t need one. Because the old clients kept me busy, and I love them because at this stage of my professional career, I only want people who don&#8217;t eat my brain.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You&#8217;ve got various different endeavors. Maybe the one that most people have heard of is The WP Weekly. Anything that we mention in today&#8217;s podcast, where Davinder might have connection, I will make sure that goes into the show notes. But that&#8217;s certainly worth signing up for. If you want a weekly dose of WordPress news, that&#8217;s highly recommended. What day does it drop?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:05] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Monday morning, India time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, so we&#8217;re going to get into the WordPress community, and how to sell yourself into that community, and how to be a good custodian. You suggested this topic, so I&#8217;m just going to throw it over to you and ask you, what was your intention here? What was it that you wanted to get across?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:20] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Knowing WordPress is good, a lot of people know how to install WordPress and, you know, spin up a new website. But knowing the business of WordPress is very critical, if you want to stay in this ecosystem for a long time, financially, creatively and have the overall satisfaction. Now, I understand not everyone is made for working as an employee, and not everyone is made, or has the jobs, or interest of being an entrepreneur.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I think a lot of people join WordPress for the sake of, it&#8217;s a free open source platform, but they soon realise it&#8217;s not free. There&#8217;s a big money making hierarchy, where you spend money, and you make money, but you only discover it way down the line. And all this is coming from running WP Weekly, and getting new people approaching me and saying, oh, I&#8217;ve made this product, can you share it, because I&#8217;m literally lost in how to promote it, right? And how to get eyeballs to it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because creating is just a small part of the overall picture. People don&#8217;t realise that once they create it, and no one actually visits your website, or even interacts with your product.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I think the journey should start from exploring various things in the WordPress world, and finding your sweet spot. Because, again, if you see everyone&#8217;s journey, like majority of people, even you included Nathan, like we all start with an agency, right? Sort of like fancy agency name. We look for clients and figure out how to service them. And guess what? Majority of us actually then jump from agency to something different, something that interests us, like you went to podcasting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, obviously when you were running your agency, you would&#8217;ve never imagined like you would do a podcast like WP Builds. It all came out of your passion for talking to people. And I&#8217;m sure when you started WP Builds, you had a hundred percent idea that it&#8217;s not going to make you any money from it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s how it begins, right? You basically funnel your whole knowledge of running an agency into something you are more passionate about. And suddenly those light bulbs in your path lights up, and it financially becomes viable. Plus you get the creative satisfaction.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I always tell to people like, yes, go into the ecosystem, explore things, but find a channel, find a thing that interests you, rather than copying someone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s okay to take inspiration, like Nathan is doing good with WP Builds, I&#8217;ll start a new podcast called WPBuilding.com. Just take an inspiration. But, again, it&#8217;s not just the podcast, it&#8217;s a personality of a person, how you deliver it, how people interact with you. So find your sweet spot, and then focus on it. That&#8217;s my main foundational advice to anyone who comes to me. And I know it is a very vague thing, but that&#8217;s how it is. I&#8217;m sure even you also did your whole journey until now in the WordPress space like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:08:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think what&#8217;s really interesting is that the WordPress ecosystem is so much bigger than it would appear. And I would imagine that there&#8217;s actually very few people out there who truly have an understanding of all of the different pieces that make up whatever WordPress is. You know, the multi billions, possibly even trillions, I don&#8217;t know, that the WordPress ecosystem per year will generate, across the planet.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But you&#8217;re right. When I began, my intuition was that it was a piece of software used to create websites, and so I followed the playbook of, I must have a business which will make websites, and that was fine. So, you know, I started to follow people on YouTube, and look at that. And then after exploring the WordPress community, and in my case, it was exploring Facebook groups, which were popping up all over the place at that time. I discovered that there were people out there who were like me, but there were a load of other people who were not like me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so in my case, as you said, I began a podcast. You&#8217;ve obviously hived off into content creation in different ways. So that&#8217;s really fascinating. It&#8217;s big enough to not just think that the agency route is the only way to succeed. There&#8217;s probably thousands of different paths that you take, whether that&#8217;s being a plugin developer, a theme developer, an SEO person, into hosting in some way, content creation. Honestly, the list could go on. I could keep talking for ages, and I&#8217;ve talked to many of these people in the past.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the size of the ecosystem is big enough to support all of that. But unless you start to explore and peel back the curtain a little bit, and try to figure out what this community looks like, you&#8217;ll never see it, right? You won&#8217;t know that that exists, and you&#8217;ll think agency, that&#8217;s what we do, that&#8217;s all WordPress is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:09:53] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Even if, when you&#8217;re running an agency, if you recall, your best clients actually came from referrals from your friends, rather than looking at your fancy website, or your Google ads, or Facebook ads during those times.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:05] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s true. There was still a connection to the real world back there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, I think that there&#8217;s something kind of unique about this community. I&#8217;ve talked about it many times before, and I can&#8217;t quite put my finger on what it is, but I think it&#8217;s connected to open source. I think there is something about a person who is willing to spend time in an open source community, that is a little bit different than somebody, not somebody, it&#8217;s more the thing, the open source thing than the person. But the nature of those communities are different.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As an example, if I show up to a WordPress event, so I recently met you at WordCamp Asia. It&#8217;s very open. You&#8217;ve got competitors openly talking to each other when the event has closed down for the evening. You know, you&#8217;ve got hosting companies all going out to have a drink and a meal together.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think in other communities, let&#8217;s say it was, I don&#8217;t know, a Cisco networking event. I think we&#8217;re going to have a different flavour. The camaraderie might be a bit more superficial, and you wouldn&#8217;t be encouraged maybe to go and have a meal with your competitors. So, do you think there&#8217;s anything in that? Do you think the community, the open source nature of it, promotes a different ethos, a different relationship?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:16] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Oh, a hundred percent, because WordPress is the only community where you will see competitors, not just sitting together, but sharing their challenges, sharing their wins, sharing their learnings, and sharing, hey, what am I going to do next?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And even though they have exactly similar products, right? And that is the best part of WordPress. Obviously we have conflicts here and there, but they are very minimal compared to the overall picture.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And WordCamp is an excellent example. Like, you see two hosting companies, you know, booths, sponsor booths, next to each other, and all the employees, all the founders, co-founders, they&#8217;re talking to each other like friends, right? And you may not be using that hosting, but you still would know the people behind it. Because, again, it is not about the end product or the service, it&#8217;s about the people. Because when you talk to people, you learn a lot. If you are a good listener, you can be a good creator down the line, that&#8217;s for sure. And WordCamps and other, you know, local WordCamp meetups, they give an excellent platform and opportunity to do that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:16] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, there&#8217;s absolutely loads of WordPress events going on. It obviously took a bit of a hit after, well, during and after the pandemic, but we seem to be, in some parts of the world at least, getting out of that and getting back into the real world.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So there&#8217;s our first point really, it&#8217;s about exploring the multitude of different things that are out there. Don&#8217;t assume that WordPress is just an agency software. It may begin that way for you, but attend things even if that&#8217;s online. Get yourself in the community. Explore a little bit, and you may discover that there&#8217;s a whole different thing that you are capable of doing. Not just capable, it might be that your superpower is something that you never imagined. And you stumble across it, and it&#8217;s fascinating that I&#8217;ve ended up doing podcasting. Like you said, that was never, ever, the intention, and yet here we are.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But once you&#8217;ve got yourself into the community, another thing that you&#8217;ve written in our shared show notes is about the way that you may pitch yourself, or market yourself. And so I think a lot of people in the community, they&#8217;ll come in, and they&#8217;ll build something, and they&#8217;ll assume that the building of that thing might be the only thing that they need to do. So build a product, build a plugin, build a theme, build a whatever it is. Go to an event, and then just start talking about it, and assume that that&#8217;s going to be all that you need to do. But I feel you are saying there&#8217;s a little bit more, you need to be a little bit different, have a different approach.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:37] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Hundred percent, because before building a product, build yourself. When I say build yourself, it&#8217;s your visibility, your name, your expertise, the value you bring to the ecosystem. And how do you do that? It&#8217;s just start connecting with people in the WordPress ecosystem. And you can do it at various platforms, at various ways, at various times. Because once you start sharing what you know, this initialises the cycle of value exchange. And you can do it at a lot of places.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even if you don&#8217;t want to participate in a Facebook group, just go to official WordPress forums and start replying to questions. Some of them are really basic questions, and you can just reply it and you can build your visibility.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Obviously there&#8217;s LinkedIn, there&#8217;s Twitter, and there&#8217;s other online events, like you had Page Builder Summit. It&#8217;s such an amazing way to get introduced to new people who are doing the same thing in the ecosystem.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So start interacting, start communicating, because, again, there&#8217;s a school of thought. If I&#8217;m going to spend some time listening to a podcast, reading a blog post, or participating in a Facebook group, that&#8217;s like a waste of time. Why would I do that? I would just rather spend it on building my service or a product. But people forget, the time that you&#8217;re spending there interacting is basically you&#8217;re investing. You&#8217;re investing in building your portfolio in the whole ecosystem.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because again, if I run an agency and someone comes to me with a specific requirement, say, I want to build an app that talks to WordPress. Now, if I already know a person who&#8217;s been doing that, I will gladly refer that person to that specific person, because I trust that person, and know that that person has a specific expertise in that specific thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even in your case, if someone comes to you for, say, I want to build a website with Beaver Builder, you already know people who use Beaver Builder, or people who use Elementor, or any other specific page builder, right? Once you&#8217;re there in the ecosystem, you already know people doing what, what, what. So yeah, get into the ecosystem.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, it is a slow process, but slow process gives you returns down the line. So don&#8217;t expect immediate returns. Even your example, like people build, I&#8217;ve seen this in WordCamp also, in recent WordCamps that I&#8217;ve attended. People will build a product or a service, and they will sponsor a WordCamp and sit there, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, if you have initial money, yes, go for the sponsorship route. Because, again, this is also another way, another natural way of getting people introduced to yourself. Because once you have your booth on there, and you have people who are working for you, they start interacting with people who are visiting it. They are also fellow entrepreneurs or service. They might be your customer, but it&#8217;s just like introducing your brand, because once they know your brand, they won&#8217;t feel alien when some of their customers come and ask, hey, I saw this brand, is it good enough? And you will recall back, oh, I saw this brand, I talked to that person from that specific brand at the WordCamp, and yeah, why not? It&#8217;s legitimate, go for it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I have an intuition that it&#8217;s easy for people who are not in the WordPress community, haven&#8217;t been for any length of time, I think it&#8217;s easy to misunderstand what will sell effectively into the WordPress ecosystem. What I mean by that, and I&#8217;m not going to mention any names, either when I talk positively or maybe negatively. But I&#8217;ve definitely come across individuals who have gone from no presence in the WordPress space, to being able to schmooze with everybody, because they&#8217;ve really put in that effort.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that effort that they&#8217;ve done, and schmooze is probably the wrong word because it has a fairly negative connotation, but they&#8217;ve come to the events, in some cases they may have sponsored the events, but they&#8217;ve been available, they&#8217;ve talked to people, they&#8217;ve made connections, they&#8217;ve joined groups, and they&#8217;ve collaborated with people. And the mere fact of doing that, and being a good custodian, means that now everybody knows them. If I want this kind of thing that they offer, I&#8217;m going to at least consider what they&#8217;ve got.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, on the other hand, I&#8217;ve also come across situations where the opposite has happened. As you said, people have built things, come into the WordPress space, and sort of misjudged a little bit about how that would work, and very much hard sell, and what have you. Again, I have an intuition that that doesn&#8217;t work out for the best. And you may have your own personal experiences about that, where people have approached you, and wish to be marketed by you in your newsletter, or whatever it may be, and it just didn&#8217;t feel right somehow. So there&#8217;s a lesson to be learned.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:56] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Exactly. And this is very true for especially SaaS products, or SaaS services that are coming into WordPress ecosystem, targeting WordPress people. I had a interaction, just a normal interaction with someone who built a SaaS service, and they wanted to target WordPress users to come on board.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the interaction started with like, they were telling me all the features, the fancy features and all that stuff. I&#8217;m saying, yeah, that&#8217;s good. And then I asked the very basic question like, if I&#8217;m a WordPress user, how am I going to integrate your service on my website, right? Oh, we provide a piece of code, and you just slap it there and it&#8217;s done.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I said, WordPress people don&#8217;t work like that. You need to have an integration plugin. Oh, we never thought about it. And I said, no, that&#8217;s how WordPress ecosystem works. You&#8217;ve got to have an integration plugin, where a person installs a plugin and your site is connected to your service and it&#8217;s done.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And those people then went away for six months, without anything, then they came back after six months, emailed me, we got the plugin ready, now what&#8217;s next? And I said, yeah, that&#8217;s the first step actually to, you know, you need to be prepared for your entry into the WordPress ecosystem. You can&#8217;t expect WordPress people, obviously they are developers and all that, but average WordPress person would prefer to install an integration plugin to connect to a service, rather than getting a piece of code, and then look where to paste it, right? I won&#8217;t name that service, but they&#8217;ve been doing pretty good in the ecosystem now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:20] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I wonder how difficult it is nowadays to sell into the WordPress space. Because I imagine that if you had a fully functional plugin a decade ago, let&#8217;s say, I don&#8217;t know, 12, 13 years ago, the space was far less crowded. And you probably have been around for a while, so everybody knows you. You&#8217;ve become the incumbent, and what have you. You probably don&#8217;t need to do that work of being a part of the community, and showing up to events because you&#8217;ve already done it, and everybody knows who you are, and you are the incumbent.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I do wonder how fiercely competitive it must be in the WordPress space. Let&#8217;s just pick an example. Let&#8217;s say that I came out with, oh I don&#8217;t know, just random thing, an SEO plugin. And we know that there&#8217;s a bunch of those already, and some of them enormously successful. But you&#8217;ve built the plugin, and it must be hard to then think, gosh, I spend all this time building the plugin. Do I really have to turn up to these things? Do I really have to go and sit through, I don&#8217;t know, watch through Slack channels, and turn up to podcast interviews, and go to events at different points in the world? Can&#8217;t I just sell it? Will somebody not just take it on and make it as success for me?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think maybe a decade ago that might have been much more the case. But now I think that piece of the puzzle, if you want to be a real success in the WordPress space, I think given the competition, you have to do a bit of that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:38] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Absolutely, because building a product is just 30%, rest 70% is marketing. And it&#8217;s not just marketing your product, it&#8217;s marketing yourself. You being a founder, co-founder, or a big team, doesn&#8217;t matter. Because if you look closely, be it a big product or a small product, most of the product has a face. Like we know, oh Yoast, I know this person from the Yoast. GoDaddy. I know this person from GoDaddy, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marketing is very difficult, but if you do it in a natural way. If you&#8217;re looking for immediate sales, and you are completely new to the ecosystem, and you don&#8217;t have any existing product that can bring repetition to your new product, then it would be difficult.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But again, WordPress ecosystem is very welcoming for new people who are ready to mingle, and interact, and share their knowledge.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a lot of examples, like you mentioned about SEO plugin. There&#8217;s so many forms plugin. Now, you see WS form. Where did it come up from? Like last few years, it&#8217;s everywhere, right? Why? Because the founder is proactive, and he&#8217;s proactive about sharing stuff, rather than promoting his plugin. Because once you know a person, you always dig out and see, what&#8217;s the end deal here, right? So, I know it sounds very easy. Go and interact in the community, but mind you, it works.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:21:50] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, okay. That&#8217;s interesting. Where is the community now though? Because I feel there&#8217;s maybe 10 different places that I could mention, where you might find an aspect of the community. I&#8217;ll just rattle a few off. So, WordCamps, WordPress meetups, Facebook groups, Slack channels. You know, if you&#8217;re looking into Trac, you might find something in there. If you&#8217;re into GitHub, you might find something there. There&#8217;s probably all sorts of people on Twitter that you can follow. I&#8217;m on seven and I&#8217;ll stop, because I could keep going. But you get the idea.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you have any intuition these days, in the year 2024, June 2024? Where would you think a good proportion of that time should go? Is there a plan that you would advise people to follow, or is it just use what you&#8217;re already using, and the things that you&#8217;re already good with?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:36] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> You know, in my initial years, Facebook group was the big thing. Like I was in so many Facebook group. And not just I learned and made connections in Facebook group, even my agency business got like 99.99% of referrals and clients from those Facebook groups. And those were amazing. I&#8217;m still part of few Facebook groups, and they are still amazing, and I love them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But again, I personally have stopped investing my time, or I should say bulk of my time interacting, because I&#8217;m already in various other systems now. Last one or two years, I&#8217;ve been enjoying Twitter and LinkedIn more, in connecting with new people. Because if you see, person you will find on LinkedIn would not be there on Facebook. That person may or may not be on Twitter. So the thing is, now there&#8217;s so much fragmentation of platforms, and there&#8217;s one person who would love to be on one platform, one person would love to be on another platform. So you need to be, just to cater to that needs.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like I have a Facebook page for the WP Weekly on Facebook, right? But there&#8217;s always someone who said, I can&#8217;t tag you on LinkedIn. What&#8217;s the idea? So I had to launch a page for WP Weekly on LinkedIn, even though it&#8217;s an extra work for me. But again, if you want to spread your impact, spread your whole ecosystem, then you have to be on different platforms. Again, this is a time consuming thing, but whether you want to look at it as a time consuming thing, or investment, that&#8217;s how the whole perspective of thing goes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if you are starting new in 2024, Facebook groups is still one of the best place to start interacting. But again, you have to be little careful. It&#8217;s not like, oh hello, I&#8217;m this, this is my product, go buy it. That&#8217;s not how you introduce yourself in Facebook group. That still holds true even in 2024.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Follow people on Twitter, which is X now. Twitter has been amazing in the last two or three years for me. Like I&#8217;ve learned so many things. I&#8217;ve interacted with a lot of people there. Yes, the issue is that it&#8217;s a real time, you know, learning and communication. You can&#8217;t dig into archives and all that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But yeah, the only thing that I&#8217;ve dropped off on my radar is Slack channels, various Slack. Because again, I personally found it too difficult because it&#8217;s a real time thing. People pings in, and you leave everything, and then attend it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m only in part of two Slack channel, one is the Make WordPress Slack official, if someone tags and all that. And the other one is like a private slack of just five people. Five WordPress people who share things other than WordPress, because you need that fun element also in your online life.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s kind of interesting, your path is quite similar to mine, in that I&#8217;ve ebbed and flowed. And things that I was really into for a period of time, I&#8217;ve become more disinterested in. Coincidentally, Facebook is one of them. But I&#8217;ve also found that I&#8217;m much more active in the Slack channels, than I ever was.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I forgot to mention that. That is, if you can cope with the UI of Slack, and the linear nature of everything in one thread, which is, it can be quite hard if you blink, or go away for a week and come back, can be a challenge to catch up.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But essentially there&#8217;s no right answer. But what was kind of curious about what you said there was, there is an etiquette sometimes. There is a way of behaving, especially at the beginning. Where, if you show up to, let&#8217;s say one of the Facebook groups, and you join and you get accepted and all that, and you immediately start hitting that Facebook group with obvious sales and promotional content, it&#8217;s kind of interesting the reaction that you can have.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whereas if you posted that exact same post two years after you&#8217;ve been in that community, and you&#8217;ve been really helpful, and you&#8217;ve obviously been a good citizen, and you are kind of now owed by the group, if you like. That&#8217;s the wrong way of describing it, but you know what I mean. You&#8217;ve put so much in, that maybe it&#8217;s time to get something back. That sort of stuff seems to be a little bit different. So, you do have to learn the rules of the road for each of these communities.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I feel like Twitter&#8217;s more broadcast. It&#8217;s more, hit a button and just say what you want to say, and if you wish to reply, so be it. But the Facebook groups and things like that, there is much more commentary, and things going on, so that&#8217;s interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:39] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> That&#8217;s why I tell people, make friends. If the owner of Facebook group is your friend, you can get away with a lot of things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s interesting, yeah. So not everybody&#8217;s going to succeed, right? You may have a product to service, and you build it, and despite all of that, despite all of the efforts that you make, you show up to events, you participate, it just somehow never finds its way. That product was never destined to be a success, and it wasn&#8217;t.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What do you say about this? Do you think that it&#8217;s okay in WordPress to pivot, if you&#8217;ve been doing something for a long time? Is there anything in that? Just keep trying. It&#8217;s a worthwhile community. So instead of saying, okay, that plugin didn&#8217;t work, I&#8217;m going to abandon WordPress, and I&#8217;m going to go and build something for Shopify, or just build a SaaS app. Do you think that WordPress is a place where you can have a number of goes, even if the first few are failures?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:25] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> You know, if you dig the history of founders, or co-founders of very popular plugins in the current times, you will be surprised to know that plugin is, or was, not their first plugin. They had so many failures, so-called failures. I don&#8217;t call it as a failure, I call it as a learning step, learning process. Every failure, or everything that didn&#8217;t work is a learning, there&#8217;s a learning in there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If I have to give my example, besides running an agency, I ran a theme shop that worked for me, and that really did wonders. I used to sell custom Genesis themes. It worked really well. Obviously Genesis ecosystem has gone in 10 years now, so that is not a relevant project. But I&#8217;ve done so many, so many projects that did not work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there&#8217;s a difference between me at that time and now. Like, earlier I used to cling to my projects. No, it&#8217;s going to work. I&#8217;m going to stick with it for three, four years.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But now I have a strict timeline. If that thing does not work, or I&#8217;m not interested in that thing for one year, I&#8217;m going to put it in a snooze mode, and get onto something that I might be interested in doing something else, right? So if you launch 10 different things, don&#8217;t expect even two of them working, it would be mostly one or zero. That&#8217;s how real life works, even in WordPress ecosystem.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if you&#8217;re launching a plugin expecting, oh, I&#8217;m going to make triple, or four or five figures in one year, don&#8217;t even have the target. First step is launch a plugin for free, the free version. Because, again, if you see the WordPress ecosystem, the free model to the pro model, that&#8217;s the golden journey of even a customer, and even for you as an entrepreneur of a product. Obviously there are plugins which are pro only, and still work. But if you notice, those are mostly plugins that are like five or 10 years old, when the ecosystem was pretty much different.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:17] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So, one curious thing that came out of that was that, you&#8217;ve had things that were successful. You just described things where it was a failure, and so you move on because you can&#8217;t keep sustaining a failing idea, or a failing product forever. But also, you said that you&#8217;d had things which were successful, and you mentioned themes and Genesis.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if you&#8217;ve been in the WordPress space for any length of time, you&#8217;ll know that Genesis was all the rage. There was this theme called Genesis, and there were loads of things built on top of it. It almost became like a default for a significant amount of the community. And then, fast forward 5, 10 years, it had gone away. Other things had come along, usurped its place in the marketplace. We were talking about other themes and things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s interesting as well. Your success might not always be a success, and you have to be open to that as well. You know, just because you once were doing gangbuster sales, doesn&#8217;t mean that you always will. So be prepared to let go of an idea which worked, but maybe isn&#8217;t working.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:30:13] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Yeah, move with the times. Because if you see the WordPress ecosystem, it changes every two, three years. The popular themes, the popular plugins, they all change within two, three years. That&#8217;s like mostly the shelf life. When I say change, it&#8217;s just them being in the popularity bracket, and then being removed from popularity bracket, and tagged as legacy, or the old school kind of products.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yeah, move with the times. Because, again, even if you see the page builder stuff, that&#8217;s like the most hotly contested topic, there&#8217;s a new page builder who are all the rage. People use it, but not everyone uses it. There are people who still use the old page builders, and it works for them. But there&#8217;s a section of audience who loves to jump on new products. But then there&#8217;s a section of old people like me, maybe you also, who stick to the old products.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because my school of thought is like, if the product that you&#8217;re using is working on foundational level, there&#8217;s no reason to change it immediately. Because if you change a product, it&#8217;s not just changing a product, it&#8217;s changing the whole learning process around it. And then, you know, if you&#8217;re serving client website, you&#8217;re rebuilding the whole thing. So be smart there. It&#8217;s good to follow the buzz in the ecosystem, but don&#8217;t get carried away with it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I do think that&#8217;s really interesting because, I mean, obviously if you have a really successful product in the WordPress space, then it does make sense to just invest all of your time and efforts into that one thing, because clearly that&#8217;s working. And we know that there are companies out there who, for decades or more have focused on one thing, and it&#8217;s been really successful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, interesting that in the back of your mind, is always the thought of, what&#8217;s the next thing? What could I be doing next, just in case? So you&#8217;ve, kind of got this insurance policy idea really that, you know, I&#8217;ve got a kernel of an idea, and it&#8217;s just sitting in the back there, and if I notice that this thing declines, then I&#8217;ll start to operate on that. And I think that&#8217;s a very sensible approach to take. So that&#8217;s interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:59] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> You know, having multiple streams of revenue in this time, or any time in the WordPress space, is very critical. Because, if you have two or three different places that is bringing or generating revenue for you, they will always fluctuate. But when you have multiple, they will all compensate with each other. And then you end up making the same amount of revenue.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, a person working in a WordPress product company as an employee wants to launch a new plugin, or new product of their own. By default, hunch of a human nature is, I&#8217;m going to leave the job, and I&#8217;m start working on a product, and I&#8217;m going to sell it. That sounds very interesting. That sounds very, very attractive. But in real life, that can be a disaster for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the best idea is, yes, work on a product while you&#8217;re working on a job. Find a free time, and run it in parallel, and validate it, whether it&#8217;s going to work or not. Because you don&#8217;t want to come from a hundred to zero. Come from a hundred to 70, and then try to experiment things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:54] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s really nice advice. Fascinating conversation. So the WordPress community is big, broad, there&#8217;s lots of success. There&#8217;s probably a fair amount of failure as well. But I think the lasting message from here is keep trying, keep pivoting, be a good member of the community, explore the different ways that the community operates. Figure out what the rules of the road are, and hopefully you&#8217;ll have some success.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Davinder, where do we connect with you? I mean, I know you mentioned the platform specifically. I think Twitter and LinkedIn are your favorites at the moment. But I know that you&#8217;ve got a newsletter. We mentioned it at the beginning. So, anywhere that you want to tell people to go to find you?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:27] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> My username is, I, I as an iPhone, followed by Davinder, D-A-V-I-N-D-E-R. I&#8217;m iDavinder on every platform, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook. And also I have a website called iDavinder.com, which is a legacy, old, vintage looking website, which needs a makeover, you know? Own websites never get loved, but I plan to redo it someday. So yeah, iDavinder, I&#8217;m happy, say hi, happy to connect with, I love connecting with new people.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Perfect. So we will put all of that into the show notes, along with the links to the WP Weekly as well. And it just remains for me to say, Davinder Singh Kainth, thank you very much for chatting to me today. That was really interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:34:04] <strong>Davinder Singh Kainth:</strong> Thank you. Always nice talking to you, and yeah, thanks for inviting me.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://x.com/idavinder">Davinder Singh Kainth</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Davinder is a WordPress creative, an entrepreneur, and a sharer of knowledge. He’s been in the online ecosystem for over 20 years, and his journey from blogging to design, development, and entrepreneurship is anchored in the WordPress world. He writes about WordPress every week at The <a href="https://thewpweekly.com/">wpweekly.com newsletter</a>, and also has a sideline in website creation, coaching, and consulting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today we get into a discussion that extends beyond traditional agency work. We talk about the opportunities available in plugin and theme development, SEO, hosting and more. Davinder offers his advice on trying to figure out the nuances of the WordPress ecosystem to promote your credibility and ensure longevity.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We chat about the importance of having diversified revenue streams, the intricacies of targeting WordPress users with SaaS products, and the vital role that referrals play in agency success. Davinder also discusses the need for adaptability, persistence, and carving out one&#8217;s unique path in the WordPress world.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We also touch upon the community spirit found at WordCamp events, and the significant impact that engaging with the WordPress community can have on professional opportunities.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you’re interested in practical advice on how the WordPress community can work with you, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Useful links</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://thewpweekly.com/">The WP Weekly</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://asia.wordcamp.org/2024/">WordCamp Asia</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Davinder on <a href="https://x.com/idavinder">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/idavinder/">LinkedIn</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/idavinder/">Facebook</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://idavinder.com/">Davinder&#8217;s legacy website</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 26 Jun 2024 14:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Nathan Wrigley";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:40;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"Do The Woo Community: Embracing Lifelong Learning with Bud Kraus";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=84273";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"https://dothewoo.io/embracing-lifelong-learning-with-bud-kraus/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:33207:"<div class="wp-block-group has-border-color has-light-gray-background-color has-background has-small-font-size has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-15 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">\n<p class="has-secondary-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-df14f0e3ece767c29248940486a8055c">This show is sponsored by&#8230;</p>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-group is-vertical is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-14 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex">\n<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-3 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">\n<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">\n<div class="wp-block-group is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-11 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex">\n<div class="wp-block-group has-base-background-color has-background wp-container-content-5 has-global-padding is-content-justification-left is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-10 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">\n<img width="500" height="500" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/dothewoo.io/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Omnisend-square.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-78802" />\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">\n<p class="wp-container-content-6"><strong><a href="https://your.omnisend.com/onlywoo_dothewoo">Omnisend</a></strong>: Whether it&#8217;s for integration into your Woo product, or building sites for clients, <strong>Omnisend</strong> is the solution for email and SMS marketing with their CRM solution for WooCommerce shops and your own website.</p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-4 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">\n<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">\n<div class="wp-block-group is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-13 wp-block-group-is-layout-flex">\n<div class="wp-block-group has-base-background-color has-background wp-container-content-7 has-global-padding is-content-justification-left is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-12 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">\n<img width="1224" height="1224" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/dothewoo.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Hostinger_Vertical_Purple-e1668465093968.jpg?resize=1224%2C1224&ssl=1" alt="Hostinger" class="wp-image-73505" />\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">\n<p class="wp-container-content-8"><strong><a href="https://hostinger.com">Hostinger</a></strong>: As a builder or an agency managing multiple sites, check out <strong>Hostinger</strong>. Whether you are building a WordPress site or specifically, a Woo store, their infrastructure brings your clients sites speed, uptime and security.</p>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\nEpisode Transcript\n<div class="wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">\n<p>Sophia:<br />Hey guys. Welcome back to the Next Generation with Sophia DeRosia and Allison Dye. Today our special guest is Bud Kraus. Bud, do you want to say hi?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />Hello everybody, and thank you for having me on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />We were just talking with Bud, who was wondering why our first guest is him because, as he said himself, &#8220;I am the oldest person there is for the Next Gen podcast. Why me?&#8221; Sophia and I talked about how everyone was young once and everyone was in a similar position to what we are in now. Every generation has its differences. We may have different-looking obstacles than the ones you faced, but in the end, we face similar challenges. As you have gotten older, you&#8217;re facing similar challenges again in a way. We all face ageism in the workplace: &#8220;Oh, you&#8217;re too young,&#8221; or &#8220;Oh, you&#8217;re too old.&#8221; In tech, there seems to be this idea that you have to be this perfect ever-young age, but not too young. Do you want to talk a little bit about that experience and maybe compare it to when you were younger and older? Do you see similarities with those two periods of your life?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />Well, you call to my mind that when I was your age, I didn&#8217;t have any idea what I wanted to do. All of this technology, the internet, the web, all that was not around, of course. It was very hard to find my way in the world. In fact, I worked in a totally different industry for 17 years waiting for all of this to begin. Once it did begin, I said, &#8220;That&#8217;s where I want to go.&#8221; But you&#8217;re right. You&#8217;re either too old or too young, and maybe you&#8217;re just right for a couple of years when you think about it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />So what made you change from that career of 17 years to doing something entirely different?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />This is really important because, as people will see over a period of time, they will change their careers multiple times whether they want to or not. The world being what it is will force you to. I think part of my story is to take charge of that and not let events and changes take charge of you. It&#8217;s easier said than done, I understand that, but that&#8217;s something that you should keep in mind. I was actually an insurance broker in New York City, and my clients were in the entertainment industry, so that was all good. Over time, I just grew to hate the insurance industry.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I first saw the web in 1994, I said, &#8220;How do they do that?&#8221; This was at a time when websites were gray backgrounds, black text, blue links, and maybe a few gifs, and that was about it. I was fascinated by what I was looking at. I think I was looking at a Hungarian library website or something, and I just said, &#8220;I want to do that.&#8221; Of course, I didn&#8217;t know what &#8220;that&#8221; was. It took me quite a while to figure out what that was. In the beginning, it was just making websites. If you went to somebody and said, &#8220;I can make a website for you,&#8221; they either said, &#8220;Great,&#8221; or &#8220;What&#8217;s a website?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s how I got started. Then I realized shortly thereafter that I was not really much of a designer. I had no experience. So what do you do if you can&#8217;t do anything? You start teaching, right? I found myself teaching in businesses and at Pratt Institute and FIT in New York City. I was teaching HTML and CSS and then eventually WordPress. That was really my first love. Well, my wife is, and then teaching, and then my kids. Alright, let&#8217;s get the family out of the way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But education is really the first thing that I really like to do, and I&#8217;m always learning new things myself. I think that&#8217;s really important for anybody at any stage: to keep your mind open to the possibilities of growing and learning. We&#8217;re all going to be lifelong learners. You want to make that very much a part of your life. The idea that you&#8217;re going to be learning the rest of your life, you&#8217;re going to want to and embrace it. Embrace that challenge of learning all your life. If you look at the WordPress community, the people there really embrace the idea of lifelong learning from a very young age to well, whatever.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I once talked to a president of a college in New Hampshire, and we were talking about the idea of changing careers. She said, &#8220;It&#8217;s not that you&#8217;re going to switch jobs 20 times in your life. You&#8217;re going to switch careers 20 times in your life.&#8221; But you see, here&#8217;s the beauty of that kind of thing. You might think that there&#8217;s no connection between being an insurance broker and working in web design. Oh, wrong. You couldn&#8217;t be more hopelessly wrong because the skills I learned in business—negotiating contracts, insurance, accounting—whatever I learned, I could bring that all into my new world, and I did. Those 17 years, while they weren&#8217;t my happiest years, certainly taught me a lot to bring forward into what I do today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had a lot of very good mentors in those days. If you&#8217;re a younger person, you want to find mentors to take you under their wing and help you navigate the world. In your early twenties, you&#8217;re still kind of raw. Sorry, you&#8217;re not a finished product. I guess I am a finished product. Of course, I change, but I pretty much am who I am. When you&#8217;re in your early twenties, you want to take the advice of somebody who&#8217;s been around, who knows how to deal with people, who knows what to say, and who understands what you do and don&#8217;t do. I was very fortunate in the insurance business to have about two and a half tremendous mentors. The lessons I learned from them I practice today. So if I&#8217;m 25 or 30, I&#8217;m definitely looking for somebody who will, in a certain way, have my back and look after me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />That is something that I found as well. The start of my career has been absolutely left and right, zigzag. Nothing has been what I thought it would be, but I have learned an incredible amount that will last me. Not even just about jobs, but about life things. I&#8217;ve learned a lot from coworkers and employers and all these things that I definitely never thought I would learn from where I&#8217;m at, but I&#8217;m very grateful for it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />Absolutely. We were just talking about this the other day, Sophia, about how I worked as a nanny for a long time, and then I ended up in sales. I was like, &#8220;Oh, everyone, no matter the age, can have a tantrum.&#8221; You learn these skills along the way, and even though they may not seem connected at the time, they do connect at some point. They do feed into what you&#8217;re doing next, regardless of if they&#8217;re related or not. So I think that&#8217;s a really important thing to keep in mind no matter what age we are. It&#8217;s maybe only in movies where you start on one career path and stay on the same path the entire time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />Something that we have yet to see is people retiring from internet or WordPress jobs. We&#8217;re jumping into this world with really no expectation of what it&#8217;s supposed to look like or what it&#8217;s going to look like.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />Well, that&#8217;s a ways for you guys to go. The whole concept of retirement is changing and will be radically different in 40 years. You can be sure of that. It might be radically different in the next four minutes. Who knows? But Allison, I have a question about sales. Are you in sales now? What do you sell?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />No, I was in sales for a time at a WordPress agency selling WordPress services. It was interesting to see the skills that I didn&#8217;t quite expect to come in handy when they did.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />My point is that I think everybody along the line should or probably will take some kind of position in sales because I think sales is the number one of all the things that we do in the business world. If there are no sales, there&#8217;s nothing else. To me, it&#8217;s the most important job. They are all important, but sales make the world go round. Without commerce, which is sales, we don&#8217;t really have much for business. So no matter what we do in life, we are going to be selling ourselves, a service, or something else. That&#8217;s really important. I always felt most people get to the point in sales when they&#8217;re not selling, that&#8217;s when they&#8217;re the best.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />When they&#8217;re not sitting around going, &#8220;I got to sell this.&#8221; There are all kinds of techniques. I&#8217;ve seen all kinds of different salespeople. I&#8217;ve been exposed to some tremendous salespeople, which I don&#8217;t claim to be. I&#8217;m sort of average. But the people I&#8217;ve been exposed to were tremendous. That&#8217;s the kind of thing you want to learn from as many people as you can. I was very fortunate to see a lot of really great salespeople.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />Well, and sales isn&#8217;t even just commerce or money. It&#8217;s learning how to sell yourself, how to present yourself.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />Well, it&#8217;s convincing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />Yeah, it&#8217;s communicating.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />Exactly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />And that can take you very, very far.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />Yeah. I always saw one of the common threads of people who are really good salespeople is that you, as the buyer, want to do business with them. They&#8217;re fun, they&#8217;re interesting, they&#8217;re exciting, they&#8217;re silly, they&#8217;re whatever, and they&#8217;re knowledgeable. You can&#8217;t be just a joke; you have to know your product and service. But what makes it different, one from another, is maybe the price, whatever. It&#8217;s just, I would say, &#8220;Oh, I love that guy. I want to work with him. I want to do business with him.&#8221; To me</p>\n\n\n\n<p>, that was always a huge advantage if you had that personality. A lot of salespeople do have that A-type personality. I have an F-type personality, whatever. They don&#8217;t even have a scale for that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />I would love to know what similarities you see having been really young in the tech space versus now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />Well, I wasn&#8217;t really young. I was in my early forties when I decided no more insurance. I wanted to be in the industry of my time. Now, I didn&#8217;t think that then, but I think that&#8217;s what makes what we do, or being in the WordPress community, so special. We are in the industry of our time. If it was 1940, we&#8217;d be making cars. It&#8217;s just more exciting. It&#8217;s more relevant and important to people&#8217;s lives. I just found that to be… What was your question? You&#8217;re lucky if you can be that way. Going back to what Sophia said, you can expect, especially in the early years, that your career will zigzag. Unless you&#8217;re like my son who knew when he was 10 years old what he wanted to do, that&#8217;s a blessing. It really is. My wife is that way too. But it doesn&#8217;t mean that we&#8217;re cursed if we don&#8217;t know. It just means that our path is going to be a little different, maybe a little rockier, but in some ways more adventurous and unpredictable. That can definitely be unsettling.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />Builds character.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />But also rewarding. Only through time can you look back and say, &#8220;Oh,&#8221; and make some kind of observation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />Tell us about your kids a little bit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />I have two children, a son who&#8217;s older than you guys and a daughter who&#8217;s older than you guys. Fortunately, they were raised by my wife. That&#8217;s not to say I wasn&#8217;t around, but I did too many wrong things as a dad, quite frankly. She did all the right things. Fortunately, they turned out more like her than like me. But that&#8217;s okay. They&#8217;re not WordPress or tech people per se, although we&#8217;re all in tech in one way or another. Just because you&#8217;re not in WordPress doesn&#8217;t mean you&#8217;re not in tech.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But what is really special right now is my grandboys. Today I&#8217;m wearing a hat that they gave me for Father&#8217;s Day, which says &#8220;Papa Buddy.&#8221; I have a grandson who&#8217;s three and a half, and another one who&#8217;s 14 months. They&#8217;re just like medicine. My mother said grandchildren are the dessert of life. Well, I&#8217;m getting overstuffed on dessert. In fact, my oldest grandson went to his mother the other day and said, &#8220;Papa acts like a baby.&#8221; And she told me. So I go back to my grandson and say, &#8220;I heard you think I act like a baby.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We were talking earlier before we started recording about transitioning. There&#8217;s this guy named Bob Dunn. I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve heard of Bob. Maybe not. Most people…not sure. Most people don&#8217;t know who he is. I remember I met him at a WordCamp Philadelphia. It was prearranged, like a prearranged marriage. That&#8217;s a whole other story that I don&#8217;t want to get into. We had a really long talk, and one of the things Bob said really impressed me. He said, &#8220;If you&#8217;re doing something and it doesn&#8217;t work, then do something else. Don&#8217;t keep trying to fix something that probably isn&#8217;t worth fixing.&#8221; If you look at Bob&#8217;s trajectory, he&#8217;s really the embodiment of that, and I am too, becoming an embodiment of that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if I was doing something in my work, like web design, and eventually I came to understand, it&#8217;s not that I don&#8217;t like it. I love the craft, but I hated dealing with waiting for clients to make a decision or send me deliverables. I realized I had to sort of retarget. I wasn&#8217;t conscious of this, but a few years ago, I started saying, &#8220;I have all these connections in the WordPress community, but they&#8217;re not really doing me any good.&#8221; By that, I meant I couldn&#8217;t make any money off of these guys. It&#8217;s really nice to know all these people, but I just can&#8217;t make a dollar from them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then one thing led to the next, and Vikas from InstaWP said, &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you make a video for me?&#8221; And that&#8217;s how it started. I realized, &#8220;Oh, I could create content for WordPress businesses and leverage my connections with the WordPress community and web hosts.&#8221; That&#8217;s where I am today and where I will be now until the end, because I love doing it. It is the right thing for me to do. The only web projects I do now are if they beg me and it has to be a perfect fit. It&#8217;s not going to be a startup. It&#8217;s not doing any of that stuff. You have to have an ongoing business that needs work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was recently begged to get involved with something, literally, because I don&#8217;t want to go through the working-on-the-website journey anymore unless it fits my needs. Now I&#8217;m in a position where I can do that. If I&#8217;m 25 years old, I may not be in a position to do that. You&#8217;re going to take jobs and gigs and do stuff that you&#8217;re going to look back on and go, &#8220;Oh God, I did that for money.&#8221; But that&#8217;s okay because even though you did it for money and it might have been a sort of waste of time or a painful experience, only over time will you see that maybe it wasn&#8217;t so bad. Maybe it was pretty good because it led you to think, &#8220;Oh, I don&#8217;t want to do that again.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You are absolutely going to take work that you have to take, and it&#8217;s okay to do that. But hopefully, when you reach the grand old age of… you can say, &#8220;I&#8217;m only going to do what I want to do.&#8221; At my age, if you&#8217;re working, you hopefully don&#8217;t want to do stuff you don&#8217;t want to do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />I think there&#8217;s a lot of value in learning what not to do as well. There are a lot of things that you learn in your twenties, like &#8220;Oh, I never want to be like that manager,&#8221; or &#8220;I really don&#8217;t like doing this.&#8221; It is just a lot of trial and error to figure out what those things are.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />Absolutely. Especially at your age, keep your mind open to learning new things and new directions. If you&#8217;re going to work in the WordPress space, you already have the connections, the experience, and the exposure to move forward if that&#8217;s the direction you want to go in. I never had a network like I have now in the WordPress space when I was in the insurance industry. Things were different then. We didn&#8217;t have the ability to connect like we do today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />You had to send carrier pigeons to each other across town.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />You got it. I mean, that&#8217;s about what it was. Imagine a world that didn&#8217;t have fax machines. Forget about email and computers. We couldn&#8217;t even send a fax to somebody.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />That&#8217;s wild.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />Everything moved at a much slower pace. For some people, that&#8217;s good. I think today things work too fast. My daughter, who&#8217;s a little older than you guys, is very fearful of the rapid change we go through all the time. Things that would take 10 years to change now take six months. It&#8217;s very hard for people to adapt. Even young people, I think, if I&#8217;m 25, what am I going to do with AI? How am I going to work with AI? How am I going to get better at working with AI than anybody else? Because that&#8217;s your challenge. How do I work with it? It&#8217;s only going to grow in importance in our lives.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even though I am my age, I look at things as if I were 25. Maybe that&#8217;s why I am the first guest that you had, because why would they choose me? Come on. But I try to see things as a younger person would see and adapt. I&#8217;m learning new things, and that&#8217;s the whole key: not just to settle and say, &#8220;There&#8217;s no reason for me to learn how to create a custom block. I&#8217;m not a developer. I&#8217;m not going to be one. Why should I learn?&#8221; The answer is, I&#8217;m trying to learn because I want to know more about the process. What do developers go through? Maybe I could actually do something. I&#8217;m not going to relearn stuff I already know. I&#8217;m going to push myself to learn more. Even if you say, &#8220;That doesn&#8217;t mean anything to me now,&#8221; you don&#8217;t know that in 5, 6, 7 years, the thing you&#8217;re learning today may be the reason why you get that job. Learning is really number one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>God, I wish I had known all this stuff when I was 25. I say that all the time. Boy, I wish I was, but I wasn&#8217;t. Only through life… I would say things like, &#8220;If I was 25, I&#8217;d ask her out on a date.&#8221; When I was 25, I don&#8217;t think I had kissed anybody. You just change. If you&#8217;re lucky like me to have lived as long as I have, you get to my stage, and you hopefully say, &#8220;This is the best time of my life.&#8221; A lot of people say, &#8220;When you&#8217;re old, you&#8217;re going to die.&#8221; Okay, I get it. But why not make this time the best time of your life? Quite frankly, the roughest times are the earliest times.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s why your show is important because you have the opportunity to help others understand that, hey, you&#8217;re not alone. We&#8217;re here, and these are the things that we think we can help you with. I&#8217;m speaking on your behalf, obviously, which I do a lot. But you really have that opportunity to help not just the younger generation but any generation move forward. Maybe they&#8217;re looking for inspiration, looking for ways to better themselves, improve their career prospects, things like that</p>\n\n\n\n<p>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />What I really admire about you is that you are surrounded by younger people, whether they be toddlers or your kids. I think that does help give you a different perspective on things. I love that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />When you&#8217;re my age, almost everybody is younger, but that&#8217;s not the point. I am so fortunate to have you guys in my life and people like you. Whereas I talk to people my age and their circle of friends and influence gets smaller and smaller, mine keeps going the other way. It&#8217;s not supposed to be that way. Well, why not? Why can&#8217;t I grow? Why can&#8217;t I meet new people? I&#8217;m not ready for a nursing home where I&#8217;m going to see the same 10 gray hairs all day long. I have a lot of friends who are my age and older who just watch TV, play golf, and read books. Nothing wrong with that, but if that&#8217;s all you do…</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />You get tired of it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />For whatever it is, I&#8217;m just attracted to new ideas, new thoughts, new people, new everything. A lot of people my age are just done. I think it&#8217;s very important. I like to do what I&#8217;m doing, let&#8217;s just say. If you&#8217;re really fortunate, you get to this stage of life, and you&#8217;ll say, &#8220;These are the best years of my life.&#8221; If I was 25 and I heard that, I&#8217;d go, &#8220;Huh, you&#8217;re so old. How could this be the best time of your life?&#8221; Well, you can make it. I&#8217;ve made it the best time of my life. I worked at it. I thought about what to do to make it the best time of my life. I changed over the last recent years to make it the best time. It wasn&#8217;t just a straight trajectory. It got better every year. There are certain things that happened along the way, particularly in the last five or six years, that got me to the point where…</p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the reasons, it&#8217;s pretty obvious, is Bob Dunn. He gave me the courage to realize if I was doing something in my work that wasn&#8217;t working, then find something else to do. He&#8217;s living proof of it. I&#8217;m becoming living proof of it too. That&#8217;s such good advice for anybody at any stage. Chances are if you&#8217;re doing something that is not working, you&#8217;re miserable or you&#8217;re not as happy as you should be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />Absolutely. Absolutely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />So I&#8217;m a Bob Dunn disciple. Alright. Enough of this. Bob, who is this guy? Who is this guy anyway?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />We should start making t-shirts with his face on them. We can all pass them around.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />He&#8217;s liable to want me to be one of his hosts. No, I don&#8217;t think so.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />Maybe.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />No, I doubt it. We know that&#8217;s not going to happen.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />No. But I love how you surround yourself with lots of people of different ages. I think it keeps your perspective open to everything. I love your attitude towards life, a continual learning journey. I really admire that. We all need to embrace that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />Yeah, it is really, I think, the key to happiness in this world. I think it&#8217;s the key to staying relevant, current, useful, productive, whatever. There is no other way to do this. The world is changing so fast that if you don&#8217;t grow with it, then you are going to be left behind, and chances are you&#8217;re not going to be very happy about that. Isn&#8217;t it about being happy? When you think about it, somebody&#8217;s always going to have more money, more clothes, more this, more that, whatever. If that&#8217;s what you&#8217;re chasing, you&#8217;re never going to be happy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />I feel like that&#8217;s something that, Allison, you and I have learned through our unschooling.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />Absolutely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />School looked different. Sometimes school looked like going to the library and getting a bunch of shark books, learning about what you enjoyed at the time. Who knows why sharks might be valuable, but you&#8217;re going to learn everything there is to know about sharks and have the best time doing it. It teaches you how to learn and encourages you to learn.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />See, that&#8217;s so important, Sophia: how to learn. The fact that you were homeschooled and learned how to learn, well, that&#8217;s fabulous. How to learn is really to learn. Maybe that&#8217;s a problem with a lot of people: they just don&#8217;t know how to do it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />Or even where to start.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />And everybody learns in a different way. So obviously you have to learn your way, but how to learn is crucial.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />Yeah, absolutely. It was great talking with you today, Bud. I admire that you surround yourself with people of all ages, that you never stop learning, and that your message for everyone is to make the life you want. You can change it. You can change your career, you can change your job, you can change your routine, you can change what you want to learn. I love that, and I think it&#8217;s applicable to everyone of all ages. I really appreciate you sharing that with us today. How can people find you on the internet?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />You can find me anywhere…well, not anywhere, but first of all, I&#8217;m on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and whatever. I have a website. Actually, I have two. One is Joy of WP—not Joy of WordPress. It&#8217;s Joyofwp.com. This is my business site where I talk about and demonstrate the things that I do for clients, creating WordPress content for WordPress businesses. Then I have this podcast called Seriously Bud, where I interview a person from the WordPress community each week. It comes out every Friday. I also have a newsletter. If you go to seriouslybud.com, you can see and listen to all the past episodes. Currently, there are 15. It&#8217;s just been a joy to do that podcast and continues to be. Sophia DeRosia has appeared on that, as well as Cate DeRosia.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />I know.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />I have the first family of WordPress, and I have this Topher guy. Eventually, I&#8217;ll have him on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />Eventually.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />That&#8217;s also been part of my transition and journey: creating that podcast. It&#8217;s just been fantastic. SeriouslyBud.com, don&#8217;t forget to go.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />Awesome. Thank you so much, Bud. And thank you, Sophia.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia:<br />Oh yeah. Thank you, Allison.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud:<br />Thank you, ladies, for letting me do this, and good luck on your journey to do something that&#8217;s really important not just for the Next Gen but for all generations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Allison:<br />Thank you.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n\n<p>In this episode of A<strong><em>ll Things WordPress and WooCommerce, The Next Generation</em></strong>, hosts <strong>Sophia DeRosia</strong> and <strong>Allison Dye</strong> sit down with <strong>Bud Kraus</strong> from <strong>Joy of WP</strong> and the podcast, <strong>Seriously Bud</strong>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bud shares his unique journey from being an insurance broker to becoming a known figure in the WordPress community. He offers valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities that come with changing careers multiple times, emphasizing the importance of lifelong learning and adaptability in a rapidly evolving world.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Highlights</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bud Kraus&#8217;s Career Transition</strong>: Bud shares his journey from being an insurance broker for 17 years to discovering the internet in 1994 and transitioning to web design and teaching. His fascination with early websites led him to a new career in the tech industry.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Importance of Lifelong Learning:</strong> Bud emphasizes the significance of continuous learning and staying open to new opportunities. He discusses how learning new skills can be beneficial, even if they don&#8217;t seem immediately relevant.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mentorship</strong>: Bud highlights the value of having mentors, especially in the early stages of one&#8217;s career. He reflects on how his mentors helped shape his professional journey and the importance of seeking guidance from experienced individuals.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sales Skills</strong>: Bud discusses the universal importance of sales skills, not just in commerce but in everyday life. He believes that learning how to sell oneself and communicate effectively can greatly impact one&#8217;s career.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Adapting to Change:</strong> The conversation touches on the rapid pace of technological change and the need to adapt. Bud shares his thoughts on how young people can leverage new technologies like AI to stay ahead.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Family and Grandchildren</strong>: Bud talks about his family, particularly his grandchildren, and the joy they bring to his life. He humorously recounts how his grandson thinks he acts like a baby.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bob Dunn&#8217;s Influence:</strong> Bud mentions Bob Dunn&#8217;s advice on career changes, emphasizing the idea of moving on to something new if what you&#8217;re doing isn&#8217;t working. He credits Bob for inspiring him to find new directions in his work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Networking in the WordPress Community</strong>: Bud discusses the strong network he has built within the WordPress community and how it has supported his career. He contrasts this with his earlier career in the insurance industry, where networking was more challenging.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Links</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><strong><a href="https://x.com/joyofwp">Bud on X</a></strong></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/budkraus/">Bud on LinkedIn</a></strong></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href="https://joyofwp.com/">JoyofWP.com</a></strong></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href="https://seriouslybud.com/">SeriouslyBud.com</a></strong></li>\n</ul>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 26 Jun 2024 09:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:41;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:102:"HeroPress: Defeating silence and stigma with WordPress – Sconfiggere silenzio e stigma con WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=6907";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:160:"https://heropress.com/essays/defeating-silence-and-stigma-with-wordpress/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=defeating-silence-and-stigma-with-wordpress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30444:"<img width="1024" height="512" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/062524-min.webp" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Pull Quote: The universal and accessible web is there, the WordPress community is proving it to me day by day." /><p><a href="https://heropress.com/feed/#italian">Questo saggio è disponibile anche in italiano.</a></p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-about-me">ABOUT ME</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I am Elena, Italian, and I have been working in digital products’ accessibility since the early 2000s.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I’ve been blind since birth and no matter how many obstacles brought by such condition, my solid network of friends and family allowed me to develop interests and curiosity from the very beginning, including a preference for detective stories, which I could practice in the first small &#8220;investigation&#8221; of my existence: HIV and AIDS.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was the end of 1980s and despite still being a child, I felt that AIDS-related advertisements on TV were projected more to scare than to give explanations about a disease, so continuing to ask uneasy questions to family members and teachers, by the time I was 13 I had already realized that dividing people into &#8220;right&#8221; and &#8220;wrong&#8221;, made no sense because the virus could affect anyone.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">\n<p>So I made a promise in front of a poster of Freddie Mercury, and no matter if I couldn&#8217;t see it: I vowed that I would make any effort to allow other teens like me to avoid fear and get correct information.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And so I did, because in high school I wrote some articles concerning HIV in the school journal, then continued to keep awareness of scientific advances, within my means, even after I finished my studies.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-my-love-for-writing">My love for writing</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I always hated doing essays in school because they made me feel &#8220;scrutinized&#8221; and judged by my teachers; in fact, I always had very low grades in written expositions in which I was asked to talk about myself; it was different, however, if current events were discussed or, better yet, if I had to use my fantasy.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In my teens I wrote a lot of stories and unfortunately I was unable to preserve the material, paper Braille does not last long and gets ruined, and so do floppy disks &#8211; early magnetic media for computers; then came CDs but transferring the material to those media did not allow me to edit files in them and I instead wanted my most important fictional character, the sentient HIV virus that speaks to humans, to grow with me so editing and rewriting were essential.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-advent-of-blogging">The advent of blogging</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Late 1990s. Mail, chat, forums, and newsgroups were already allowing me to be a world’s active participant more than I had ever done before: no barriers in discussing topics from the funniest to the most difficult, including politics, even without necessarily talking about my visual disability. A dream was coming true!&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">\n<p>But how to open a personal space in which to expose myself without obeying rules written by others?&nbsp;</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I had learned how to build my first websites in HTML but maintaining all that code, and asking sighted people for help with graphics, had become an unsustainable commitment. Until I read about some platforms where people wrote a personal journal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>From splinder to blogspot, then live journal, there were quite a few but none gave me full satisfaction because the web was beginning to suffer from what later came to be called sensory barriers, resulting in the nullification of the &#8220;universal web&#8221; utopia; they were more concerned with having a pretty, colorful interface rather than an easy-to-use platform.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-welcome-wordpress">Welcome WordPress!</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It was the year 2004 and I had learned about a system that allowed me to create my own blog, in my website it was only necessary to buy space, it was even possible to choose the custom interface.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was called WordPress and an Italian community composed of volunteers with passions equal to mine was beginning to develop.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was my chance, I would be able to discuss with a proper community and really collaborate to raise awareness and overcome accessibility obstacles; I got in touch with <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/wolly/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Paolo </a><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/wolly/">Valenti known as Wolly</a>, the first to bring WordPress in Italy.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">\n<p>An extraordinary person who died in 2022 because of cancer. He always struggled for life and so he did for WordPress so if I am where I am now, it’s thanks to him.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Over time he’s always urged me to persevere, never completely abandon WordPress despite the obstacles I might have encountered; and there were many barriers then, because since 2004 when I started my first site about songs and audio editing, my relationship with WordPress has been quite conflicted because of a visual editor that was creating difficulties rather than helping me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not to mention themes, where you had to work on code any time you had to modify a small detail.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I accepted the compromise of building a site with questionable graphics, and I went on like this for a few years: having exhausted my interest in blogging about audio, I had started one in which I shared my experiences with the game of chess, use and abuse of technology, book reviews, joys and sorrows of my personal life including the possibility of starting again with HIV and AIDS activism because in the meantime my former boyfriend, less comfortable with technology than me, had expressed a desire to blog about his experiences as a person living with HIV.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Too bad about the editor which still, in the years 2009-2018, was complicated for me and I had to write articles by hand with HTML view instead of GUI view, and if I found it uncomfortable let alone him who had no knowledge of web languages.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The blog concerning HIV was a failure, but together we had recorded a video talking about our experience on an Italian YouTube channel where they talk about sex education.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, on the personal blog I was posting more and more infrequently some articles about my technological frustrations, including the one due to pay TV services that do not pay enough attention to the needs of people with disabilities.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-from-zero-to-the-atom">From zero to the atom</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2019 all hell broke loose: relationship ended after 10 years, other unpleasant events happened to me one after another, I was brain drained; until one day an email came from a person with HIV who wanted to contact me to talk about the video I made together with my ex, but looking for information about me he found the personal blog with the article concerning pay TV!</p>\n\n\n\n<p>From there a solid friendship was born and we call ourselves the electron and proton of the same atom, having different opposite points but a lot of common interests including a passion for making up fantasy stories! We were born. Elettrona and Gifter; just needed to decide where to publish and most importantly what.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-talking-virus-get-mine">Talking virus? Get mine!</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Alex &#8220;Gifter&#8221; and I had just seen See, a TV series where blindness was the norm while sight was considered an exception &#8211; a dystopian story where an epidemic had altered people&#8217;s genetics depriving them of sight. With the due exception of a man born sighted after centuries of human beings born blind&#8230;.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inspired by that storyline, we set out to consider the idea of a setting where, opposite to reality, the ordinary condition was living with HIV while those who do not have the virus in their blood deserve to be ostracized by other humans after HIV itself has decided, in its own unquestionable judgment, to reject those who are too violent, rude, selfish or abusive to humans or animals according to virus’s own taste.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">\n<p>This fantasy world is aimed at creating greater empathy toward people with HIV: if you, HIV-negative, are offended because a fictional HIV-positive character calls you &#8220;empty box,&#8221; let alone how a person living with the virus in the real world feels when they are called a &#8220;pest,&#8221; &#8220;toxic,&#8221;, “dirty” or other discriminatory terms.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>My greatest satisfaction was telling Alex about the talking virus as a subject I had been writing about since at least 1996, and he responded by giving me a big smile: &#8220;If you want to make a virus talk, let it be mine! But with what microphone?&#8221;&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-choice-name-and-setup">The choice: name and setup</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>With Alex &#8220;Gifter&#8221; who knows nothing about the web except what he learned from me, it was difficult to choose how to make the site work and we switched from WordPress to Drupal, assuming that the latter would better meet our publishing needs. How wrong we were!</p>\n\n\n\n<p>After numerous adventures and backups, the decision was finally made: WordPress, because the editor was improving week by week. Gutenberg was going to be my future, and I didn&#8217;t know it yet.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And for the name? The talking virus interacting with humans through music, brotherhood between characters carrying the same HIV strain? Plus Brothers was perfect. So that it would also fit in English.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-gutenberg-s-versatility">Gutenberg’s versatility</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Between 2020 and 2021, Gifter and I got busy writing stories and becoming familiar with the various ways to manage WordPress: the mobile app with its block editor, exchanging text documents whose formatting was always lost, until I learned about MarkDown syntax.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It didn&#8217;t even seem real to me, Gutenberg supported it almost automatically! I could write very long documents on my tablet or smartphone even from the beach if I wanted to, then transfer them with a simple copy-paste to the website.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gifter and I could work together on the same document in plain text without losing formatting as was the case with proprietary formats, and Gutenberg would take care of that later!</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wordpress-what-s-missing">WordPress: what’s missing</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In years of experience with WordPress I became conscious about how its community tries to cover web accessibility requirements, both in frontend and backend.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But unfortunately it’s not the same for themes and plugins. Third-party products developers, commercial and free, in many cases don’t own much expertise on accessibility so installing a component is often a risk; when dealing with a disability it’s frequent to have multiple plugins where a user with no disabilities can just rely on one.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The result is a mixed and messy WordPress backend, made of accessible and inaccessible components that could even require help by a paid expert who makes the changes we are not able to perform on our own.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This situation causes frustration for sure, and we have two choices to face it: one is complaining about it with our limited circle of friends, solving the problem on our own or giving up, the other is opening a dialogue with plugins or themes developers to make them aware of accessibility, doing our best to prevent others from living what we experienced.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Needless to say that the second option is the best, as community matters and only spreading knowledge and skills can create a better world in the long term.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-people-believing-in-me">People believing in me</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When you get familiar with a product, you are pleased in helping others to learn its usage because sharing is caring.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>First experience has been a blind friend, Roberto, I helped him building his WordPress-based podcast where he shares inclusion stories about other visually impaired people all over the world, and Japanese culture. Motto Podcast &#8211; with &#8220;motto&#8221; as a fusion of two meanings:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Italian: &#8220;motto&#8221; is a slogan used as an encouragement, incentive to do something.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Japanese: &#8220;motto&#8221; means &#8220;more&#8221;.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fusion between these two meanings gives &#8220;encouragement to do more&#8221;.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Motto Podcast&#8217;s first success encouraged me to do even more, so I joined an Italian community called SOS WP to share experiences about WordPress and Gutenberg; that&#8217;s where I met her, Gloria.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Web designer, WordPress trainer, Gloria Liuni became curious and interested in how I could use computers and smartphones without sight. She wanted to understand the concept of a &#8220;screen reader&#8221; program, how Braille and voice feedback behaved on WordPress, so she gave me the contact information for the first WordCamp I spoke at &#8211; the one in 2021.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">\n<p>I demonstrated Gutenberg editor’s usage with the keyboard only, and during that event I learned about the future of WordPress: Gutenberg could break even the last barrier I found to full site customization: themes.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It took another two years (and one more WordCamp I spoke at, Verona 2023 this time I attended in person) and I finally took courage: that&#8217;s it, I&#8217;m abandoning the old theme with code and moving to the new Gutenberg based site editor!</p>\n\n\n\n<p>An experience that WordPress trainer Gloria and I are having together, because we realized how Gutenberg somehow has the same logic as the programs used by the blind, to interact with computers. I almost feel like I&#8217;m playing with toy bricks, then Gifter with his working eyes tells me if something has gone wrong and Gloria helps me put it right in case of need.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>All in all, the universal and accessible web is there, the WordPress community is proving it to me day by day, and I am glad to be an active part of it.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="italian">Sconfiggere silenzio e stigma con WordPress</h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chi-sono">CHI SONO</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Sono Elena, italiana, e lavoro nell’accessibilità dei prodotti digitali fin dai primi anni 2000.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dalla nascita sono priva della vista e per quanti ostacoli una simile condizione possa portare, la mia solida rete di amici e familiari mi ha consentito fin da subito di sviluppare interessi e curiosità compresa la passione per i polizieschi, che ho messo in pratica nella prima piccola “indagine” della mia esistenza: HIV e AIDS.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Era fine anni 80 e malgrado fossi ancora una bambina sentivo che gli slogan mandati in tv fossero costruiti più per far paura che per dare spiegazioni su una malattia, così a forza di chiedere a familiari e insegnanti già a 13 anni avevo capito che dividere le persone tra “giuste” e “sbagliate” non aveva senso perché il virus poteva colpire chiunque.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">\n<p>Così feci una promessa davanti a un poster di Freddie Mercury, e pazienza se non potevo vederlo: giurai che avrei lavorato con ogni mezzo a disposizione affinché più ragazzi possibili avessero accesso alla corretta informazione su HIV e AIDS.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>E così è stato, perché al liceo tenevo una rubrica a tema sul giornale scolastico continuando ad aggiornarmi sui progressi scientifici, nel limite delle mie possibilità, anche dopo aver terminato gli studi.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-la-passione-per-la-scrittura">La passione per la scrittura</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Ho sempre odiato svolgere i temi a scuola perché mi facevano sentire “esaminata” e giudicata dai miei insegnanti, infatti avevo sempre voti molto bassi nelle esposizioni scritte in cui mi si invitava a parlare di me; diverso invece era se si discuteva di attualità o, meglio ancora, se dovevo inventare storie.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In adolescenza ho scritto tantissimi racconti e purtroppo non sono riuscita a conservare il materiale, il Braille cartaceo a lungo andare si rovina e così anche i floppy disk &#8211; primi supporti magnetici per computer; poi sono arrivati i cd ma trasferire il materiale su quei supporti non ne consentiva la modifica e io invece desideravo che il mio personaggio di fantasia più importante, il virus HIV senziente che parla agli umani, crescesse con me quindi modifiche e riscrittura erano fondamentali.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-l-avvento-dei-blog">L’avvento dei blog</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Fine anni 90. Mail, chat, forum e newsgroup mi permettevano già di essere parte attiva del mondo come non lo ero mai stata prima: nessuna barriera nel discutere di temi dai più leggeri ai più impegnati, politica compresa, anche senza per forza parlare della mia disabilità visiva. Un sogno che si stava realizzando! Ma come fare ad aprire uno spazio personale in cui esporsi senza obbedire a regole scritte da altri?&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Avevo imparato a costruire i primi siti web in HTML ma mantenere tutto quel codice, e chiedere aiuto a persone vedenti per la grafica, era diventato un impegno insostenibile. Fino a quando ho letto di alcune piattaforme in cui la gente scriveva un diario personale.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Da splinder a blogspot, poi live journal, ce ne erano parecchi ma nessuno mi dava piena soddisfazione perché il web cominciava a soffrire di quelle che poi sono state definite barriere percettive, con conseguente annullamento dell’utopia “web universale”; facevano più attenzione ad avere un’interfaccia carina e colorata, piuttosto di una piattaforma semplice da usare.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-benvenuto-wordpress">Benvenuto WordPress!</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Correva l’anno 2004 e avevo appreso di un sistema che mi consentiva di creare il mio blog, nel mio sito web era sufficiente solo comprare lo spazio, era addirittura possibile scegliere l’interfaccia personalizzata.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">\n<p>Si chiamava WordPress e stava iniziando a svilupparsi una comunità italiana composta di volontari con passioni uguali alle mie.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Era la mia occasione, avrei potuto confrontarmi con gli addetti ai lavori e collaborare davvero per far conoscere e superare gli ostacoli di accessibilità; mi misi in contatto con Paolo Valenti conosciuto come Wolly, il primo a occuparsi di WordPress in Italia e che è morto nel 2022 per un cancro.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Una persona straordinaria che ha sempre lottato per la vita e per WordPress quindi se ora sono dove sono, lo devo a lui.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nel tempo mi ha sempre invitato a insistere e non abbandonare mai del tutto WordPress malgrado gli ostacoli che avessi potuto incontrare; all’epoca erano tante le barriere, perché dal 2004 che iniziai il mio primo sito sulle canzoni e la manipolazione audio, il mio rapporto con WordPress è stato parecchio conflittuale a causa di un editor visuale che mi metteva in difficoltà anziché darmi soddisfazioni.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Per non parlare dei temi, che per qualunque banale modifica bisognava mettere le mani sul codice PHP.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Si sopravviveva con un sito dalla grafica discutibile, e sono andata avanti così per qualche anno: esaurito l’interesse per il blog sull’audio ne avevo aperto uno in cui raccontavo le mie esperienze col gioco degli scacchi, uso e abuso della tecnologia, recensioni di libri, gioie e dolori della mia vita personale inclusa la possibilità di ricominciare con l’attivismo su HIV e AIDS perché nel frattempo il mio ex fidanzato, meno a proprio agio con la tecnologia rispetto a me, aveva espresso il desiderio di condividere in un blog le sue esperienze di persona che vive con HIV.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Peccato per l’editor che ancora, negli anni 2009-2018, mi era ostico e dovevo scrivere gli articoli a mano con la visualizzazione HTML anziché quella a interfaccia grafica, e se lo trovavo scomodo io figuriamoci lui che non aveva alcuna conoscenza di linguaggi per il web. Progetto HIV e blog sfumato, ma insieme avevamo registrato un video che parlava della nostra esperienza su un canale YouTube italiano dove si parla di educazione sessuale.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Invece sul blog personale pubblicavo sempre più di rado alcuni articoli sulle mie frustrazioni tecnologiche, compresa quella dovuta ai servizi di tv a pagamento che non pongono sufficiente attenzione alle esigenze delle persone con disabilità.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-da-zero-all-atomo">Da zero all’atomo</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Nel 2019 è successo il finimondo: relazione finita dopo 10 anni, altri eventi spiacevoli uno di seguito all’altro, avevo il cervello svuotato; finché un giorno è arrivata la mail di una persona con HIV che voleva contattarmi per parlare del video fatto assieme al mio ex, ma cercando informazioni su di me ha trovato il blog personale con l’articolo sulle pay tv!</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Da qui è nata una solida amicizia e ci definiamo l’elettrone e il protone dello stesso atomo, avendo diversi punti opposti ma un sacco di interessi in comune tra cui la passione per inventare storie di fantasia! Siamo nati noi. Elettrona e Gifter; serviva solo decidere dove pubblicare e soprattutto cosa.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-virus-parlante-prendi-il-mio">Virus parlante? Prendi il mio!</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Io e Alex “Gifter” avevamo appena visto See, una serie tv in cui la consuetudine era la cecità mentre la vista era considerata un’eccezione &#8211; storia distopica dove un’epidemia aveva modificato la genetica delle persone privandole della vista. Con la dovuta eccezione di un uomo nato vedente dopo secoli di ciechi…</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ispirati da quella trama ci siamo messi a valutare l’idea di un’ambientazione in cui, contrariamente alla realtà, la condizione ordinaria fosse vivere con l’HIV mentre chi non ha il virus nel sangue merita di essere emarginato da altri umani dopo che HIV stesso ha deciso, a proprio insindacabile giudizio, di rifiutare chi per i suoi gusti è troppo violento, maleducato, egoista o prevaricatore verso umani o animali.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">\n<p>Questo mondo di fantasia è finalizzato a creare una maggiore empatia verso le persone con HIV: se tu, HIV negativo, ti offendi perché un personaggio HIV positivo finto ti dice “scatola vuota”, figuriamoci come si sente una persona che nel mondo reale vive col virus, quando viene definita “untore”, “tossico” o altri termini discriminatori.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>La mia più grande soddisfazione è stata aver raccontato ad Alex del virus parlante come soggetto su cui scrivevo almeno dal 1996 e lui ha risposto facendomi un grande sorriso: “se vuoi far parlare un virus, lascia che sia il mio! Ma con quale microfono?”&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-la-scelta-nome-e-ambiente">La scelta: nome e ambiente</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Con Alex “Gifter” che nulla sa di web salvo ciò che ha imparato da me, era difficile scegliere come muoverci e siamo passati da WordPress a Drupal, credendo che quest’ultimo rispondesse meglio alle nostre esigenze editoriali. Quanto ci sbagliavamo!</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dopo numerose avventure e backup, finalmente la decisione è stata presa: WordPress, perché l’editor stava migliorando di settimana in settimana. Gutenberg sarebbe stato il mio futuro e io non lo sapevo ancora.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>E per il nome? Virus parlante che interagisce con gli umani grazie alla musica, fratellanza tra personaggi positivi? Plus Brothers era perfetto. Così da farlo andar bene anche in inglese.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-versatilita-di-gutenberg">Versatilità di Gutenberg</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Tra il 2020 e 2021 io e Gifter ci siamo dati da fare a scrivere storie e prendere confidenza coi vari modi di gestire WordPress: l’app mobile col suo editor a blocchi, scambiarsi documenti di testo la cui formattazione veniva sempre perduta, fino a quando ho conosciuto la sintassi MarkDown.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Neanche mi sembrava vero, Gutenberg la supportava in modo pressoché automatico! Potevo scrivere un testo molto lungo sul mio tablet o smartphone anche dalla spiaggia volendo, poi trasferirlo con un semplice copia-incolla sul sito web.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Io e Gifter potevamo lavorare assieme sullo stesso documento in testo semplice senza perdere la formattazione come succedeva coi formati proprietari e, dopo, ci avrebbe pensato Gutenberg!</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wordpress-cosa-manca">WordPress: cosa manca</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In anni di esperienza con WordPress mi sono resa conto di come la sua comunità cerchi di soddisfare i requisiti di accessibilità del web, sia nel frontend sia nel backend.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ma purtroppo non è lo stesso per i temi e i plugin. Chi sviluppa prodotti di terze parti, commerciali e gratuiti, il più delle volte non possiede molte competenze in materia di accessibilità, per cui l&#8217;installazione di un componente è spesso un rischio; quando si ha a che fare con una disabilità è frequente avere più plugin, laddove un utente senza disabilità può affidarsi solo a uno.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Il risultato è un backend misto e disordinato, fatto di componenti accessibili e inaccessibili tanto da richiedere anche l&#8217;aiuto di esperti a pagamento per modificare ciò che non si è in grado di eseguire in autonomia.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Questa situazione provoca sicuramente frustrazione e abbiamo due scelte per affrontarla: una è quella di lamentarci con la nostra ristretta cerchia di amici, risolvendo il problema da soli o rinunciando, l&#8217;altra è quella di aprire un dialogo con gli sviluppatori di plugin o temi per sensibilizzarli all&#8217;accessibilità, facendo del nostro meglio per evitare che altri vivano quello che abbiamo vissuto noi.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inutile dire che la seconda opzione è la migliore, perché la comunità è importante e solo la diffusione di conoscenze e competenze può creare un mondo migliore a lungo termine.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-le-persone-che-credono-in-me">Le persone che credono in me</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Quando si prende confidenza con un prodotto, si ha piacere di dare una mano agli altri nel suo utilizzo perché la condivisione è aiuto reciproco.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>La prima esperienza è stata col mio amico Roberto, anche lui privo della vista, guidandolo nella creazione del suo sito e podcast basato su WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://www.mottopodcast.org" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Motto </a><a href="https://www.mottopodcast.org">Podcast</a> racconta &#8220;storie inclusive&#8221; di persone con disabilità visiva da tutto il mondo impegnate nella vita quotidiana, nel lavoro e nello sport, oltre a varie informazioni sulla cultura giapponese e Roberto ha scelto il termine &#8220;motto&#8221; perché fonde due significati:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>motto, in italiano: slogan di incoraggiamento, incitamento</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Motto, in giapponese: vuol dire &#8220;più&#8221;.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Il nome del podcast diventa &#8220;incoraggiamento a fare di più&#8221;.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Esattamente quello che hanno fatto i primi successi di Roberto: mi hanno incoraggiato a fare di più, così mi sono iscritta a una comunità italiana chiamata <a href="https://www.sos-wp.it" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">SOS </a><a href="https://www.sos-wp.it">WP </a>per confrontarmi e aiutare altri su WordPress e Gutenberg; è qui che ho conosciuto lei, Gloria.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Web designer, WordPress trainer, <a href="https://www.gloweb.it" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Gloria </a><a href="https://www.gloweb.it">Liuni</a> si è incuriosita e interessata su come io potessi usare computer e smartphone senza la vista. Ha voluto comprendere il concetto di programma “lettore di schermo”, come Braille e feedback vocale si comportassero su WordPress, così mi ha fornito i contatti per il primo WordCamp in cui ho parlato &#8211; quello del 2021.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">\n<p>Ho dimostrato l’uso dell’editor Gutenberg con la sola tastiera, e in quell’occasione ho avuto modo di conoscere il futuro di WordPress: Gutenberg avrebbe azzerato anche l’ultima barriera che c’era per una personalizzazione completa del sito: i temi.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Ci sono voluti altri due anni (e un altro mio WordCamp, Verona 2023 stavolta in presenza) e finalmente ho preso coraggio: adesso basta, abbandono il tema vecchio col codice per passare al nuovo editor Gutenberg!</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Un’esperienza che io e la WordPress trainer Gloria stiamo vivendo insieme, perché ci siamo accorte di come Gutenberg abbia in qualche modo la stessa logica dei programmi usati da chi non vede, per interagire col computer. Mi sembra quasi di lavorare coi mattoncini, poi Gifter con gli occhi funzionanti mi dice se qualcosa è andato storto e Gloria mi aiuta a mettere a posto.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tutto sommato il web universale e accessibile c’è, la comunità di WordPress me lo sta dimostrando giorno dopo giorno e io sono contenta di esserne parte attiva.</p>\n<p>The post <a href="https://heropress.com/essays/defeating-silence-and-stigma-with-wordpress/">Defeating silence and stigma with WordPress &#8211; Sconfiggere silenzio e stigma con WordPress</a> appeared first on <a href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 26 Jun 2024 06:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15:"Elena Brescacin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:42;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:11:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:61:"HeroPress: Voices Of WordCamp Europe: Karolína Vyskočilová";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://heropress.com/?p=6920";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:159:"https://heropress.com/voices-of-wordcamp-europe-karolina-vyskocilova/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=voices-of-wordcamp-europe-karolina-vyskocilova";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2496:"<img width="1024" height="684" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/53807858473_113f3d82ea_k-1024x684.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Topher and Karolina" /><p>One of the great opportunities of being a Media Partner for WordCamps is the official interviews they help set up. This year I specifically wanted to interview attendees to get their unique perspectives, and I also wanted to interview people I didn&#8217;t know. This last one only kind of worked out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>My first interview was with <a href="https://kybernaut.cz/en/">Karolína Vyskočilová</a> from Prague &#8211; she is a WP dev and Czech WordCamp and meetup organizer. At WCEU, she was a backup speaker and volunteer.</p>\n\n\n\nListen to the interview.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div class="kb-row-layout-wrap kb-row-layout-id6920_c13ce3-f3 alignnone wp-block-kadence-rowlayout"><div class="kt-row-column-wrap kt-has-3-columns kt-row-layout-equal kt-tab-layout-inherit kt-mobile-layout-row kt-row-valign-top">\n\n<div class="wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column6920_baaa8f-71"><div class="kt-inside-inner-col">\n<a href="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/1000019584-scaled.jpg" class="kb-advanced-image-link"><img width="769" height="1024" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/1000019584-769x1024.jpg" alt="Karolina and friends posing for fun" class="kb-img wp-image-6935" /></a>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column6920_af6d28-42"><div class="kt-inside-inner-col">\n<a href="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_8348-scaled.jpg" class="kb-advanced-image-link"><img width="768" height="1024" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_8348-768x1024.jpg" alt="Karolina pointing at her name on the contributor wall" class="kb-img wp-image-6929" /></a>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column6920_189944-16"><div class="kt-inside-inner-col">\n<a href="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_8321-scaled.jpg" class="kb-advanced-image-link"><img width="1024" height="768" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_8321-1024x768.jpg" alt="Karolina and a friend holding a Wapuu car." class="kb-img wp-image-6930" /></a>\n</div></div>\n\n</div></div><p>The post <a href="https://heropress.com/voices-of-wordcamp-europe-karolina-vyskocilova/">Voices Of WordCamp Europe: Karolína Vyskočilová</a> appeared first on <a href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 25 Jun 2024 22:29:18 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:98:"WordCamp Central: Announcing the Shortlisted Projects for Uganda Website Projects Competition 2024";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:39:"https://central.wordcamp.org/?p=6985776";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:123:"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2024/06/announcing-the-shortlisted-projects-for-uganda-website-projects-competition-2024/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7031:"<p>We are thrilled to announce the shortlisted projects for the Uganda Website Projects Competition 2024, where creativity, innovation, and digital prowess take center stage, under the theme, &#8220;<em>Problem Solving With WordPress</em>&#8220;. Out of the 16 exceptional submissions received, 10 projects have been selected by our esteemed adjudicators through a rigorous vetting process.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">\n<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">UPDATE: For those who submitted their projects for the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WebsiteCompetitionUG?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WebsiteCompetitionUG</a> and have been eagerly waiting, good news is that the vetting process has been completed this evening and the long awaited pitchday Shortlist will be published soon, thanks to our wonderful adjudicators… <a href="https://t.co/lJ0WQOtGrG">pic.twitter.com/lJ0WQOtGrG</a></p>&mdash; Mukalele Rogers (@mrogers4christ) <a href="https://twitter.com/mrogers4christ/status/1805686577441784138?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 25, 2024</a></blockquote>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Shortlisted Projects &#8211; <strong>Rising Stars Category:</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><strong>Provok</strong> &#8211; St. Mark&#8217;s College Namagoma<br /><em>Provok</em> is a dynamic platform aiming to democratize IT education globally, offering a variety of courses and hands-on learning experiences.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Big Green</strong> &#8211; St. Edward&#8217;s SS Bukuumi<br /><em>Big Green</em> is an environmental conservation and awareness website dedicated to educating global audiences on environmental protection and pollution control through informative articles and blogs.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>STEGS Smart Study</strong> &#8211; St. Elizabeth Girls&#8217; Secondary School<br /><em>STEGS Smart Study Project</em> provides academic resources such as eBooks, educational videos, and links to online courses, aimed at bridging the gap in access to traditional learning materials.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Skyray</strong> &#8211; Iganga Secondary School<br /><em>Skyray</em> offers educational resources and support for students, parents, and teachers to navigate Uganda&#8217;s new lower secondary curriculum effectively.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>News Shelf</strong> &#8211; New Jerusalem Mixed Junior School<br /><em>News Shelf</em> features a kids&#8217; news portal, an art gallery, and interactive quizzes, all created by students to enhance learning and engagement.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Shortlisted Projects &#8211; Explorers Category:</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><strong>Local Farmers&#8217; Market Website</strong> &#8211; Kampala International University, KIU<br />The <em>Local Farmers&#8217; Market Website</em> promotes local agriculture by connecting consumers with fresh produce and handmade goods through an online marketplace.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Afrinova Creations Website</strong> &#8211; Makerere University Kampala<br /><em>Afrinova Creations</em> showcases African culture through a curated collection of clothing, crafts, and foods, supporting African artisans and entrepreneurs.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Diving into WebDesign and WordPress in Luweero Diocese</strong> &#8211; CoU Anglican Luweero Diocese Education ICT<br />This project empowers ICT teachers within Luweero Diocese to teach web design and create active websites for schools using WordPress.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Innovative Tune and Watch Pitch Awareness Wave</strong> &#8211; Makerere University Jinja Campus<br /><em>Innovative Tune and Watch Pitch Awareness Wave</em> aims to provide entertaining media resources and informative community connections through an intuitive user interface.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Edutech Blog</strong> &#8211; Kyambogo University / EduTech Club<br />The <em>Edutech Blog</em> addresses the challenge of accessing educational technology awareness, offering valuable insights and resources through WordPress.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>For those who did not make it to the finals:</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To all participants whose projects did not advance to the finals, we extend our sincere appreciation for responding to our call for projects. Your have showcased remarkable commitment to leveraging WordPress for positive change. We encourage you to view this as a stepping stone in your journey of innovation. Register to attend via <a href="http://bit.ly/websitecompetitionug">bit.ly/websitecompetitionug</a> and join us at the Uganda Website Projects Competition 2024 to learn from presentations, gain valuable insights, and network with fellow enthusiasts.  Let this experience fuel your determination to excel, and we look forward to seeing your continued growth and success in future competitions. Be sure to try again at the Uganda Website Projects Competition 2025!</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Event Overview:</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href="https://events.wordpress.org/uganda/2024/competition/">Uganda Website Projects Competition 2024</a> is a next gen WordCamp that challenges students to solve real-world problems using WordPress, fostering innovative thinking and essential skills in web development and design. Participants will present their projects to a panel of judges, honing their communication and presentation skills.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Date and Venue:</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><strong>Date:</strong> Friday, July 5th, 2024</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Venue:</strong> National ICT Innovation Hub, Uganda Institute of ICT (UICT), Nakawa, Kampala</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Join us as we celebrate the ingenuity and dedication of these young minds at the Awards Ceremony, where outstanding projects will be recognized and awarded prizes in each category. Tickets can be purchased online using PayPal or bank cards. Alternatively, you can reserve tickets via the Google form to pay in Ugandan Shillings using Mobile Money. Here are the <strong>ticket categories</strong>:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><strong>Discounted Attendee Ticket:</strong>&nbsp;$5 or UGX 20,000. Includes access to all activities, attendee tag, swag, workshop resources, internet access, breakfast, and lunch coupons.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Actual Cost (Microsponsor) Ticket:</strong>&nbsp;$26 or UGX 100,000. Includes all benefits of the discounted ticket, plus a VIP treat, an event-branded T-shirt, and publicity.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Community Sponsorship Ticket:</strong>&nbsp;$130 or UGX 500,000. Helps to discount tickets for more students to learn, innovate, and collaborate with WordPress! Includes two attendee tickets, two event T-shirts, a dedicated sponsor table, and logo publicity.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://events.wordpress.org/uganda/2024/competition/tickets/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Get your ticket today!</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>NB: 3 free tickets will be given to each of the shortlisted project representatives!</em> </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 25 Jun 2024 21:12:23 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15:"Mukalele Rogers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:37:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 6.6 RC1";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=17429";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/06/wordpress-6-6-rc1/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10779:"<p>The first release candidate (RC1) for WordPress 6.6 is ready for download and testing!</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This version of the WordPress software is under development</strong>.<strong> Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites.</strong> Instead, please evaluate RC1 on a test server or a local environment.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reaching this phase of the release cycle is a worthy achievement. While release candidates are considered ready for release, testing is still vital to make sure everything in WordPress 6.6 is the best it can be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can test WordPress 6.6 RC1 in four ways:</p>\n\n\n\n<table><tbody><tr><th>Plugin</th><td>Install and activate the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).</td></tr><tr><th>Direct Download</th><td>Download the <a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.6-RC1.zip">RC1 version (zip)</a> and install it on a WordPress website.</td></tr><tr><th>Command Line</th><td>Use the this <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/cli/">WP-CLI</a> command:<br /><code>wp core update --version=6.6-RC1</code></td></tr><tr><th>WordPress Playground</th><td>Use the <a href="https://playground.wordpress.net/#%7B%20%22preferredVersions%22:%20%7B%20%22php%22:%20%228.0%22,%20%22wp%22:%20%22beta%22%20%7D,%20%22features%22:%20%7B%20%22networking%22:%20true%20%7D,%20%22steps%22:%20[%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22login%22,%20%22username%22:%20%22admin%22,%20%22password%22:%20%22password%22%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22importFile%22,%20%22file%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22url%22,%20%22url%22:%20%22https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wpaccessibility/a11y-theme-unit-test/master/a11y-theme-unit-test-data.xml%22%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22importFile%22,%20%22file%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22url%22,%20%22url%22:%20%22https://raw.githubusercontent.com/WordPress/theme-test-data/master/themeunittestdata.wordpress.xml%22%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22query-monitor%22%20%7D,%20%22options%22:%20%7B%20%22activate%22:%20false%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22create-block-theme%22%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22debug-bar%22%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22health-check%22%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22test-reports%22%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D,%20%7B%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20%7B%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22user-switching%22%20%7D,%20%22progress%22:%20%7B%20%22weight%22:%202%20%7D%20%7D%20]%20%7D">6.6 RC1 WordPress Playground instance</a> (available within 35 minutes after the release is ready) to test the software directly in your browser without the need for a separate site or setup.</td></tr></tbody></table>Please test WordPress 6.6 RC1 in one or more of these four ways.\n\n\n\n<p>The current target for the WordPress 6.6 release is <strong>July 16, 2024</strong>. Get an overview of the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-6/">6.6 release cycle</a>, and check the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/">Make WordPress Core blog</a> for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/6-6/">6.6-related posts</a> in the next few weeks for further details.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Two notes about changes in the RC period</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hard string freeze:</strong> From now until July 16, there is a <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/handbook/glossary/#hard-freeze">hard string freeze</a> in place—no strings may change, and no new strings may be committed. That&#8217;s to give the Polyglots team time to translate WordPress 6.6 into as many languages as possible before final release.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Two-committer signoff:</strong> Commits in the RC period also require two Core committers to sign off on every merge. Since release candidates are supposed to be ready to go, only major fixes and blessed tasks should merge at this late date.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What&#8217;s in WordPress 6.6 RC1?</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to your testing and many other contributors‘ up to now, this release includes more than 40 bug fixes for the Editor and more than <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&changetime=02%2F27%2F2024..03%2F05%2F2024&milestone=6.5&col=id&col=milestone&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&order=id">40 tickets for WordPress Core</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Get a recap of WordPress 6.6’s highlighted features in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/06/wordpress-6-6-beta-1/">Beta 1 announcement</a>. For more technical information related to issues addressed since Beta 3, you can browse the following links:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/commits/wp/6.6?since=2024-06-18&until=2024-06-24">GitHub commits for 6.6</a> since June 18</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&changetime=06%2F18%2F24..06%2F24%2F2024&milestone=6.6&max=1000&col=id&col=milestone&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&order=id">Closed Trac tickets</a> since June 18</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Want to look deeper into the details and technical notes for this release? These recent posts cover some of the latest updates:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/21/wordpress-6-6-css-specificity/">WordPress 6.6 CSS Specificity</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/20/site-wide-background-images-in-wordpress-6-6/">Site-wide background images in WordPress 6.6</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/24/section-styles/">Section Styles</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/20/roster-of-design-tools-per-block-wordpress-6-6-edition/">Roster of design tools per block (WordPress 6.6 edition)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/25/wordpress-6-6-field-guide/">The WordPress 6.6 Field Guide</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/dev-notes-6-6/">All 6.6-related developer notes</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How you can contribute</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people who collaborate on and contribute to to its development. The resources below outline a wide variety of ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, whether or not you have any technical expertise.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Get involved in testing</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Testing for issues is critical to making sure WordPress is speedy and stable. It’s also a vital way for anyone to contribute. <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2024/06/03/help-test-wordpress-6-6/">This detailed guide</a> will walk you through testing features in WordPress 6.6. If you&#8217;re new to testing, follow <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2024/06/03/help-test-wordpress-6-6/">this general testing guide</a> for more details on getting set up.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you encounter an issue, please report it to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">Alpha/Beta area</a> of the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can also report it on <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">WordPress Trac</a>. Before you do either, you may want to check your issue against a list of <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major">known bugs</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/">testing initiatives in Make Core</a> and join the <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/core-test/">#core-test channel</a> on <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/">Making WordPress Slack</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Search for vulnerabilities</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>From now until the final release candidate of WordPress 6.6 (scheduled for July 16), the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/security/2024/06/04/wordpress-6-6-is-coming/">monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities</a> doubles. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the <a href="https://hackerone.com/wordpress">HackerOne page</a> and in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/about/security/">security white paper</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Update your theme or plugin</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you build themes, plugins, blocks or patterns, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 6.6 beta releases. With RC1, you’ll want to finish your testing and update the <em>“Tested up to”</em> version in your <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/how-your-readme-txt-works/">plugin’s readme file</a> to 6.6.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">support forum</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Help translate WordPress</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本語? हिन्दी? বাংলা? You can <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp/dev/">help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Release the haiku</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re here already?<br />RC1 means three weeks left.<br />Have some fun—come test!</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Props to <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/meher/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>meher</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/audrasjb/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>audrasjb</a> for collaborating on this post.</em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 25 Jun 2024 16:23:50 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8:"marybaum";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"Do The Woo Community: In the Hosting Cloud with Jesse Friedman, Joshua Goode and Kevin Walker";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=84255";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:91:"https://dothewoo.io/in-the-hosting-cloud-with-jesse-friedman-joshua-goode-and-kevin-walker/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:45096:"Episode Transcript\n<div class="wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">\n<p>Robert:<br />Welcome to another Do The Woo Special. I am thrilled to have here today Jesse Friedman, Joshua Goode (as in food, not goody as I&#8217;d like to say it), and Kevin Walker from Bluehost. I&#8217;m Robert Jacobi, and we&#8217;ll be talking about the recent partnership between Bluehost and WP Cloud. Jesse, let&#8217;s do some quick introductions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />I&#8217;m Jesse Friedman. I&#8217;m running WP Cloud. I am a Rhode Island native, well, I shouldn&#8217;t say native. I grew up in New York, but I live in Rhode Island now. I&#8217;ve been working at Automattic for nearly 10 years, mostly on Jetpack and now with WP Cloud, and really just focused on helping to provide better services to hosting companies so they can succeed in WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Excellent. Kevin?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />Hey, good morning. Kevin Walker here. I look after marketing at Bluehost, based here in Austin, Texas, and I really spend most of my time figuring out how to make sure our current and future customers are fully aware of what&#8217;s going on from a product perspective. I&#8217;m looking forward to our chat today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Yeah, and it&#8217;s great that you&#8217;re in Austin. I should mention that we&#8217;re here at Cloudfest US and NamesCon, and so it&#8217;s a very exciting and dynamic crowd, especially with the NamesCon folks on the domain side. Josh?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />Yeah, Joshua Goode. I am the partner success manager/technical account manager. We&#8217;re still figuring it out. I do a lot of the technical side of things, but I&#8217;m also just there to help people onboard, integrate, and handle any rare issues they might encounter.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Excellent. So this has been in the making for a long time and was announced back in March during WordCamp Asia and sort of semi-concurrently with Cloudfest in Germany. Let&#8217;s start with how this discussion began about Bluehost working on a platform that isn&#8217;t theirs, if I can put it that way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />Yeah, I mean, it&#8217;s a fair assessment. Outside of Automattic, Bluehost is the largest contributor to the WordPress project, and we&#8217;re proud of that. Our WordPress-centric brand, if you read Review Signal and other benchmarking studies, is also very, very good at delivering well-performing, shared hosting. The reality, though, is shared hosting doesn&#8217;t meet the needs of some very demanding users, particularly agencies and people who have high-traffic websites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was a part of the market that we knew we needed to develop into. We certainly looked at building things internally but came to the ultimate decision, why build when we can borrow, partner, or buy? I don&#8217;t know what the right words are with WP Cloud. It&#8217;s a fantastic infrastructure that ultimately perfectly meets the needs of the demanding customers and new customers we&#8217;re going after. With an existing partnership already in place on so many fronts, it was just a natural progression to continue into the infrastructure as a service agreement that we did with WP Cloud and Automattic.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />So before I get to your side of the equation, Jesse, as I talk with my hands, which no one can see on an audio podcast, what does that look like to some degree that you don&#8217;t actually have to worry about your infrastructure?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />Oh, it&#8217;s fantastic, right? Certainly we did our due diligence and made sure that the commitment around 100% uptime, speed, and all the other things that we care about are there, and they certainly are. What we get to do is focus on what we do, which is the service and support, which is not part of WP Cloud.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So when you put Bluehost and Automattic together, you really do have a great marriage in that you&#8217;ve got the infrastructure people worrying about the infrastructure, scale, and all the things that we&#8217;re worried about there. We&#8217;ve developed a dedicated support team that&#8217;s specific to this product and these customers. So if you&#8217;re using Bluehost Cloud today, when you pick up the phone and need support, you&#8217;re not going through the typical triage.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I always think about the equivalent when my internet goes out; the first thing they ask me is to restart my router, and I&#8217;ve already done that three times. You skip right to the experts who are knowledgeable not only about the product but also about WordPress in general.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ll just end by saying a lot of hosts, well, their support team candidly, quickly tries to make sure it&#8217;s not their fault and then passes the customer off to a plugin vendor or somebody else. We&#8217;re trying to instill in our support team at Bluehost Cloud the mindset of getting to a resolution regardless of whose fault it is. We&#8217;ve hired experts in the WordPress space that can help our customers dig into things that are beyond the hosting layer and into plugin compatibility and other issues that WordPress users often find challenging.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />And so, which of course leads to the question I always want to know, how did WP Cloud even get going? Obviously, Automattic does a ton of hosting. There&#8217;s WordPress VIP, which is another flavor of hosting, WordPress.com, and so on. Is this sort of almost like something that&#8217;s been in the works for five years, similar to Amazon saying, &#8220;Oh, we have a bunch of servers, and now we&#8217;re going to make AWS?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />Yeah, you nailed it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />This will be our shortest podcast ever.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />The WP Cloud team began as an internal company product called Atomic. It was our effort to redefine the way in which we provide cloud hosting for WordPress. We knew we have so much knowledge and experience from our teams hosting hundreds of millions of sites on WordPress.com and the highest traffic sites in the world on VIP. We took the brilliant people behind that to build out the next platform that we wanted to use for ourselves.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because WordPress.com or Automattic is wholly focused on hosting WordPress, we have some side ventures, Tumblr, PocketCasts, and things like that. But when it comes to websites, we only focus on providing WordPress. That opportunity for focus and those guardrails we put up allow us to do something that other people just can&#8217;t. When you look at other cloud platforms, they have a universal solution for everything, from warehouse logistics to virtual reality gaming. WordPress site hosting is a small fraction of their focus.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we knew that we needed to build something that would revolutionize the way in which we&#8217;re serving WordPress. We wanted to do that internally. And so yeah, five plus years, we released it internally as our cloud platform. Then a few years ago, we started to look at ways in which we could bring it to the rest of the ecosystem. We knew what we had. It was working unbelievably well, billions of pages a month already. These sites are incredibly fast, highly reliable. We&#8217;re offering 100% uptime with our partners. The reason we&#8217;re able to do that is because the platform is tried and tested.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The newest part about it is really the brand. WP Cloud has really only been out in the wild since just before Cloudfest 2023. That was our effort of saying, &#8220;Hey, how do we bring this great thing that we built that we know works really well to the rest of the world?&#8221; We wanted to identify hosting parties that we knew would be excellent candidates in the WordPress space. Bluehost has been a great WordPress or internet citizen as a company for many years. They do a great deal of contributions to WordPress, sponsoring events around the world, and we knew that partnering with them as a flagship partner would be an opportunity for us to make sure that we&#8217;re aligning ourselves with someone who has the same focus on success.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Nice. So we&#8217;re going to want to know the tricks of the trade. I&#8217;m glad Josh is here to tell us what makes that infrastructure a bit more compelling than saying, &#8220;Oh, we&#8217;re just going to roll up a managed WordPress service on AWS or Google Cloud.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />Jesse kind of hit a good point on that. WordPress.com, millions of WordPress sites, WordPress VIP, some of the highest traffic sites. We took all of our knowledge and experience from those things and built this platform to where it&#8217;s just for WordPress and had everything that we needed for performance, security, and those core needs baked into the platform.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So as Bluehost Cloud launched, it automatically had a firewall, DDoS protections, SSL certificates for every site, global caching right out of the box. There are no plugins to install, nothing to configure. You have a Global Edge cache. It&#8217;s going back to our Automattic core backbone network that we have all around the world with our edge centers and servers, putting WP Cloud on that and beefing it up. We&#8217;re essentially offering this thing to where someone can just go create a site and, whether you&#8217;re in Australia or the US, you have amazing speeds.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Every decision on database caching, our decisions on how our global edge cache works, our decisions on just normal page cache. I&#8217;m talking a lot about cache because that&#8217;s kind of our bread and butter, and our global network is a big chunk of that. The full stack of how simple it should be for a user to create a site and it just works and performs the way they expect and want it to as a user. And then from a host perspective, how easy it is to create those sites and how easy it is to support those sites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Yeah, I&#8217;m curious about the API, the platform, but is there any kind of… Is this running on Kubernetes? Is this running here or not? Can we get a little more of the secret sauce? I think folks might just be interested in that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />No, with Kubernetes and different parts of Automattic, no. WP Cloud essentially avoids that type of containerization. We actually keep it as complex as it can be, and again, I&#8217;m towing the line here, but…</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />But that&#8217;s why we are on Do the Woo.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />Right. We have a lot of experience with Nginx, and we have a very advanced network</p>\n\n\n\n<p>of load balancers, server pools, and individual servers. It&#8217;s just a very advanced network on there. If you want to know something, DVN, Engine X, however it&#8217;s said, that&#8217;s kind of there. But no, we actually avoid containers. I will say we have a unique SSH proxy where there may be some containerization there just for security purposes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />The key thing to take away from all this is that we built it up from the ground up and we&#8217;re not outsourcing. We make sure that we&#8217;re highlighting the fact that we&#8217;re partnering with open-source software, PHP, MariaDB, things like that. But for the most part, everything is homegrown.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />That&#8217;s brilliant. So then of course, reading into the APIs and connectivity, from the Bluehost perspective, what does it look like to actually all of a sudden integrate on top of this huge platform?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />I mean, so you&#8217;re talking to a dumb marketer and not a technical engineer, but I&#8217;d take the position that it doesn&#8217;t really matter from a customer perspective. What matters is that it works, it&#8217;s fast, and if I do have an issue, I can get ahold of the right person quickly to help me resolve it. We put a financial commitment behind the 100% uptime. So WP Cloud and Automattic say, we&#8217;re going to guarantee you 100% uptime. We then put a financial commitment to our customers on top of that promise. So if there is, for some reason, downtime, they&#8217;re going to get their money back, depending on how long the outage is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>From an API perspective, we have our own console on top of the infrastructure. That&#8217;s what I was curious about. It&#8217;s an account manager where you can go in and provision sites and manage plugins. You can go into WP admin directly and do most of that as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We took the initial path forward that less is more. Let WP admin do a lot of the heavy lifting that people are used to working with and really just keep to the basics around provisioning, scaling up to larger accounts if you need more space or websites, and leave the rest to the native functionality of the project.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />I think one thing that&#8217;s really interesting is that because WP Cloud or Automattic is handling the infrastructure, managing the platform, making sure that sites are up and running efficiently and fast, that gives Bluehost Cloud the opportunity to reinvest back into the tools they provide for agencies. We&#8217;re taking on everything below that API layer and managing that for Bluehost Cloud but also for the end user as well. We do a remarkable amount of management and work around keeping WordPress instances up to date, making sure there aren&#8217;t plugin conflicts anytime there&#8217;s an issue. When we do run an update, we have regression testing to make sure that there aren&#8217;t problems with that. We take care of all of that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That allows Bluehost Cloud to really focus on the tools they want to provide to agencies, which I think is where the next phase of this innovation is going to be. We&#8217;re going to focus on providing the fastest, most secure, and reliable platform. Bluehost Cloud is going to be focused on providing tools that help agencies run their business, save them money, make them more money per hour, be more efficient, and grow. The list goes on from there. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m super excited about this opportunity because it&#8217;s leveraging something we built to build something even better for the ecosystem.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />To get there, this is a fairly new segment. Agencies have been using Bluehost since we created the business, but it was in more of the &#8220;I just need some simple shared hosting for my simple client to use&#8221; mode. We&#8217;re moving essentially upmarket to the more complex, advanced needs of larger agencies. We&#8217;re not going to pretend that we know everything about agencies. So we&#8217;re taking an approach to, again, start with less is more. We&#8217;re having an advisory council that&#8217;s been built out that&#8217;s going to input into the needs of agencies so we can actually create something that&#8217;s valuable, meaningful, and helpful rather than assume that we know everything. By the time this is posted, we&#8217;ll have announced that we are launching a program that gives additional benefits to our agency partners in the form of financial benefits, commissions, discounts, and access to certain levels of support.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />That&#8217;s amazing. I have a couple of questions swirling around in my head. You just mentioned support, so let me tackle that. Is there a point where a Bluehost customer would actually speak with support at WP Cloud?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />No.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />No? So that would never happen?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />No. We certainly, as a customer of WP Cloud, have access, and we have regular standups and we&#8217;re very closely working together. Our engineers and their engineers are on a first-name basis and are close working partners. But the support that you&#8217;re going to require, you would contact Bluehost Cloud support. So far, we have 100% resolution on the first call. We&#8217;re not seeing any challenges with that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />I&#8217;m going to make a huge assumption, and Joshua or Jesse can set me straight. Is there sort of a semi-walled garden around what kind of WordPress hosting you can do? I&#8217;m just going to make a crazy example. Say I wanted to launch my WordPress 3.1 site on WP Cloud. Would that even be possible?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />You might get away with it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />No. We really focus on keeping up to date and staying in line with the WordPress launch schedule. For performance, security, and just the general progression of WordPress, if we all keep up and continue moving together, it just helps the ecosystem so much more. We do offer some transition windows, but no, if you spin up a site right now, it will be the latest release version.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />So back to the sort of agency side of the universe, I&#8217;m an agency with a number of core legacy WordPress sites. Those would probably all have to be updated. At a minimum, if not, depending on how legacy or what plugin issues there might be. So tying to that plugin thing, do you actually have sort of an allow list of plugins, or can I just create my Bitcoin miner plugin and drop it off?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />We have a very small list of blacklisted plugins, plugins that we know are doing something either malicious or so outside the box, strange and poorly done that it&#8217;s causing performance issues. For the most part, you can put any plugins you want onto it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />We work quite a bit with plugin developers to actually help them spend a good chunk of time if we do notice issues. Given our scale, we can see trends in certain plugins. So I do spend a bit of time reaching out and working with plugin developers, not just to be compatible with our platform or more compatible, but to be better on any host.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />Yes, and I think it&#8217;s important to recognize that I do understand that there are agencies out there who are running sites for clients that may have older versions of software because the client doesn&#8217;t have the budget to upgrade it or it&#8217;s a really complex build. When you get to a place where you are allowing these older versions of the software to exist, then again, you get back into a lack of focus. Because we have a very strong focus on providing the sites for the most up-to-date version of WordPress, I think we allow a version or two, we have a transition. So it&#8217;s not like the day that the new WordPress version comes out, you have to be ready to move. The point is that when we narrow our focus to provide support for one or two of the latest versions of WordPress, we are able to provide even better performance and security. The minute you start doing dozens of versions, it just increases the amount of work ahead of you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />We want to help improve the standards of the WordPress ecosystem. I work with plugin developers and theme developers, but overall we want to push the whole community forward. The more sites we can keep on the most recent version, the better it is for everyone. We all want to push forward together and make it the best experience for the end user, to the point where the end user really shouldn&#8217;t have to worry about their WordPress being updated.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Oh yeah, the best kind of hosting is the kind you never think about. I love that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />This is a trend across the industry. I think all hosts, at least reputable ones, are realizing that the financial benefits of supporting a long, long, long list of versions aren&#8217;t worth the expense. You&#8217;ve got to narrow that focus. You&#8217;re paying for it as a customer. I worked at Dell during the whole Microsoft Windows XP situation, and this is reminiscent of that. If you have to support multiple versions, that gets extremely challenging.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />Think of that when you call in for support. If you&#8217;re training your team to make sure that they&#8217;re providing the best support for the most recent version of WordPress, they don&#8217;t have to worry about the complexities that went into 3.1. That allows them to provide more efficient, better, and faster support, making sure you&#8217;re successful. But I&#8217;ll also tell you, we&#8217;re sitting right across from the expo area at Cloudfest, and I guarantee you that if you threw a hat in the air and it landed on any one of those tables, that host would have a story about having thousands of out-of-date WordPress sites. The process of upgrading those and keeping them secure, and what that means for the rest of their infrastructure, it&#8217;s a terrible process to have to go through.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />It&#8217;s a customer support headache. It&#8217;s a resource like physical resource, meaning hardware, whether it&#8217;s on some other cloud provider or on your own infrastructure, that you&#8217;re probably wasting energy cycles and whatnot from bad code.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />To go back to your original question, for the most part, we&#8217;re able to host anything here. In fact, we just released domain-based multi-site as well. Previously, we had subdirectory multi-site only.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Nice.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />So we&#8217;re continuing to innovate</p>\n\n\n\n<p>in that area and what we can provide support for.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />I&#8217;m curious about agencies who may have legacy content. Is part of the Bluehost agency partner program there to also help onboard existing or new agencies with these sites?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />It certainly helps onboarding new agencies. The question of agencies with outdated WordPress sites is one I actually haven&#8217;t considered. If there was a meaningful need and we heard from our customers that it was something of value, we&#8217;d absolutely figure out how to address it. We&#8217;ve partnered with a third party and now have a white-labeled version of a very successful migration tool. We can help customers migrate from our own shared infrastructure into the cloud infrastructure or from a different host onto Bluehost with the push of a button with well into the 90% success rate. We&#8217;re really excited about that because the switching costs are getting lower and lower. It&#8217;s getting easier and easier. Hopefully, we have an opportunity to be the beneficiary of that ease of movement. We hope to benefit as we bring better and better products to market.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />I see that as a huge direction for hosting overall. The baseline expectations are commoditized. Everyone can get their WordPress site up for at least a little bit. What&#8217;s the value add? Obviously, we&#8217;re seeing here today the Bluehost service level and user experience value add. You can&#8217;t beat a WP Cloud infrastructure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />You put your site on Bluehost Cloud, stress test it, objectively observe, measure, and benchmark it. You won&#8217;t find a better hosting experience or performance at the price point we have it at. Then you layer in a 100% uptime guarantee, financial guarantee, and the premium support that comes with it. I&#8217;m well aware that Bluehost does not have the best reputation in the agency space. I think that&#8217;s a function of people historically trying to put a round peg through a square hole and using shared hosting, which is not meant for a lot of client-facing needs. That&#8217;s where that reputation comes from. Give us a second chance. I think you&#8217;ll be really, really, really impressed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />As a customer of Bluehost for almost 20 years now, I signed up for my first Bluehost account in 2005 when you were three years old. I&#8217;ve seen Bluehost provide shared hosting to millions of customers and do a really great job of it. I think they became synonymous with providing that service to these customers. Shared hosting is a fantastic solution, especially for WordPress. If you&#8217;re running your own site, running a blog, or even an eCommerce shop, shared hosting can be very successful, and Bluehost does it really well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I think that has created a slight barrier of entry for an agency considering this product. They may be thinking, &#8220;Oh, it&#8217;s Bluehost. They&#8217;re really focused on shared hosting. It&#8217;s not going to be what I need. I have this incredibly high traffic site, or my eCommerce shop is getting thousands of transactions a day.&#8221; But if you&#8217;re on the fence, if you have a high traffic site like that, reach out to me or Kevin. We&#8217;ll figure out a way to get you on there so you can test it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The migration tools that they have make it a lot easier. If you are on the fence, let us talk to you about it. Let us give you some assurances. We&#8217;ll make sure your customers are happy, your clients are happy. At the end of the day, when you try it out for yourself and put some traffic behind it, it&#8217;s just going to speak for itself. The biggest problem you&#8217;re going to have is how to get the rest of your clients on it as fast as possible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Since this is a WooCommerce-focused podcast, and Kevin has mentioned multiple times this 100% uptime guarantee, is that just per minute it&#8217;s out? If I&#8217;m running a WooCommerce shop and based on, let&#8217;s say, monthly average sales, I&#8217;m out for a day, which we know won&#8217;t happen, are you saying that a day of sales would be insured?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />Not at this time. At this time, it&#8217;s to the cost of the infrastructure and your service cost on Bluehost Cloud. But we are talking in seconds and minutes, not in hours or days at all.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />But put aside the financial guarantee for a second. Let&#8217;s talk a little bit about how we&#8217;re providing the 100% uptime guarantee.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Yes, please.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />First off, we scale vertically, not horizontally. We have the ability to add resources to a site in real-time without having to wait for services and additional resources. That is on top of the fact that we know exactly what we&#8217;re doing in terms of supporting hosting for e-commerce. I mean, we do own WooCommerce. If anybody&#8217;s going to know how to do it, it&#8217;s going to be us.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, we have baked into every single WP Cloud site, and that means every Bluehost Cloud site has this, we have something called automated real-time failover. It live syncs your site from one data center to another. For example, if you are requesting an e-commerce website, you are a visitor to a website in middle America, and it&#8217;s pulling from our Texas Data Center. If something catastrophic were to happen, like the pipe gets cut or an asteroid lands on Texas, something terrible happens, that whole site is live synced to another data center, including e-commerce orders. If you place an order on the site and then instantaneously something happens, we will have live synced it there. We can reroute the traffic to that secondary data center so the visitors to the site won&#8217;t even feel the transition.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have four origin centers and 28 data centers around the globe. We&#8217;re doing a ridiculous amount of redundancies in terms of backups, which automatically come with this product. We are taking special care to make sure we are putting processes in place that no one else can really replicate to offer this level of service.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />I&#8217;m the database geek, and I&#8217;m going to put Josh on the spot here. How do you do that with the databases?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />Every site is doing constant real-time replication to another region. Getting into some of the technical specifics…</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />But you&#8217;re not copying the files. You&#8217;re doing split queries across multiple…</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />Yeah, that&#8217;s one way to put it. I will say maybe it&#8217;s not always the easiest. We&#8217;ve had to look in and make sure our binary logs or our bin logs aren&#8217;t just exploding in size, but we&#8217;ve got it kind of perfected to where every site on WP Cloud has real-time database replication to another. The file system&#8217;s already there. If one server or the data center goes down, that site instantly flips to another region.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for how we&#8217;re doing that, I&#8217;ll just say it&#8217;s real-time database replication.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />I&#8217;m going to say it can&#8217;t be just what we think of as traditional replication. So I have to imagine that there&#8217;s some kind of SQL abstraction layer that&#8217;s potentially data…</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />There is a level of abstraction there. I would say every single query is logged there in our binary logs, and that&#8217;s kind of how it&#8217;s handled and pushed out to its secondary database server.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />For end users on Bluehost Cloud, it just looks like a MySQL database.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />If you have an agency that wants to explain it to their client, you can just let them know that we do live sync, which means real-time replication of the data from one data center to another. That gives them the assurance to sell this to their high-end e-commerce clients.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />So I assume that those talking points from WP Cloud get passed over to Bluehost Cloud, which then, as part of your partner program, gives them that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />I&#8217;ll tell you something right now, for everybody at home who wants to sign up for Bluehost Cloud and then sell it to their clients, there is no a la carte or piecemeal parts of WP Cloud that Bluehost Cloud doesn&#8217;t have. So anything that you ever hear anybody talking about WP Cloud, whether it&#8217;s at a conference like this, another podcast, or whatever, if WP Cloud has it, then Bluehost Cloud has it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Okay, that&#8217;s really cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />The only thing that I think is unique to Bluehost versus some other small hosts that we see around the world, who have also started to leverage WP Cloud, is the packaging and the pricing and how we&#8217;re thinking about our packaging. It could vary from host to host, but again, the infrastructure is going to be the same.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve taken a different approach. Instead of a per-site model where we allocate resources per site in a predetermined fashion, you buy a number of sites and with a number of PHP workers, you can assign those workers to sites at your discretion. Maybe the small little site you put two PHP workers on, and this other site that your client has that has really high demand, you might put eight. Where others have taken more of a &#8220;every site gets two PHP workers&#8221; approach, we&#8217;ve added a lot more flexibility in our approach.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />This is the beauty of us being able to provide what we&#8217;re doing. We&#8217;re purely focusing on the platform. Our engineers are not getting into the business of WP Cloud. They&#8217;re focused on providing the absolute fastest, most secure platform. What that allows us to do is to partner with hosts and cultivate or even grow the diversity in hosting that we need for WordPress to be successful. This is speaking to something a little bit more philosophical, but the reality of the situation is there are more than enough WordPress websites to go around.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we&#8217;re aiming to do with WP Cloud is raise the bar for the way in which hosting is done. We want WP Cloud to become synonymous with the best cloud platform for WordPress anywhere. The beauty of partnering with Bluehost or anyone else we might partner with is that they have the ability to bolt on additional services, partner with companies that they want to partner with. For example, Yoast, right? With Bluehost Cloud, you get Yoast bundled with it. There are opportunities for them to go beyond that and do deeper integrations into Yoast, things like that. They can bundle their pricing differently. This</p>\n\n\n\n<p>gives them the opportunity to really carve out an opportunity to provide better service to agencies, whereas somebody else might be focused on something else specifically. That allows for innovation and solving specific problems.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />I like that. We talked about the partnerships. What does it cost? I know I&#8217;m not going to get the real secrets here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />What Bluehost Cloud costs or…?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />What does it cost for Bluehost to work on top of or partner with WP Cloud? What does that look like for Bluehost?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />I would love for Kevin to talk. I&#8217;ll touch on this briefly. I would love Kevin to talk about the pricing for Bluehost Cloud because I think people will be interested in that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The model we have for WP Cloud is making it accessible. We&#8217;re trying to keep our prices generally very affordable and significantly cheaper than trying to replicate this with AWS or Google Cloud. Right now, our pricing is focused on a per-site, per-month cost based on a snapshot of the resources allocated to that site, like the number of PHP workers, things like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would love to go more in-depth into how WP Cloud operates from a partnership perspective, but for today and the audience in the room, I think what&#8217;s more relevant is, what does this actually cost the agency?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />It&#8217;s a huge deal, literally, and it&#8217;s just interesting to see how some of the sausage is made.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />Before we transition, Jesse likes to highlight that there&#8217;s no upfront cost. You pay for what you use. Your costs should be diverted to building out your side of the equation, marketing, selling, and supporting them. There&#8217;s nothing to sign up and work with us just to get started and to test things out. That&#8217;s not a cost. Then it comes from your usage.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />To be super clear, he&#8217;s talking about WP Cloud, not Bluehost. If you&#8217;re a host and listening to this podcast, that was for you. For everyone else, because of what you just said, Josh, you&#8217;ll see packages that scale. The price will scale with usage, with some sort of resources allocated to that package. That&#8217;s because hosts are being charged based on the amount of resources they&#8217;re consuming. Their packaging is probably going to be linear toward price and resources will be somewhat correlated to each other.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For Bluehost Cloud, our early access pricing, which is still live today, a single site plan is $29 a month, and a 50-site plan is $190. Those are the two guardrails. There are 10 and 25 site plans in between. You go compare that to the market, and I promise you, we are extremely cost-efficient at those price points. We&#8217;re one of the largest hosts in the world, one of the largest WordPress hosts in the world. Because of that scale, we have the opportunity to give some of that value back to our customers through really advantageous pricing. You&#8217;re getting the same infrastructure that another host may be selling at twice the price, but it&#8217;s the same infrastructure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />The only place you can get the bat phone. I love calling it that because it&#8217;s the blue phone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />Or you&#8217;re getting a host that isn&#8217;t using WP Cloud, and we can talk about the disadvantage of that. AWS is amazing as a general cloud infrastructure for all these varying needs, but if you were building a WordPress site, why would you not want an infrastructure specifically built for WordPress and WordPress performance? You should test it out and really put us through the ringer. Put a site on our plan and see how it goes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />I was just saying one thing. Sorry, we didn&#8217;t go into too much detail about the database. I didn&#8217;t want to take too much time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />It&#8217;s also important to keep some things close to the vest, not necessarily for IP, but also for security.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />That&#8217;s right. And for the sake of time. But taking a step back, PHPMyAdmin access is available, but overall, there&#8217;s no… As Bluehost Cloud uses this, they use the WP Cloud Atomic API. They spin all the sites up via API, configure them, and make all their adjustments over an API. There&#8217;s no setting up a server, no &#8220;What&#8217;s the database credentials and what&#8217;s up with that?&#8221; It&#8217;s all done with one API call.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />Our very first customer. We announced at 10:00 AM Eastern that day. At 10:06 AM, we had our first customer. They bought a Cloud 10 package. They migrated their site. They&#8217;re based in British Columbia, Canada, in about nine minutes, I think, is what it took them to get the site live on the infrastructure. They must have realized things were going well because they had nine more sites. Second plan. I mean, it is really, really easy and simple.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />We are seeing sites that are incredibly fast. When we pull up a new WP Cloud site, it&#8217;s an average of six, seven seconds before you&#8217;re in the WP admin. It&#8217;s nearly instantaneous. There are a lot of sort of warm sites ready to go.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />No, this is all kind of on-demand. The infrastructure is all there, warm and ready to go. But the sites, no. I mean, that&#8217;s all new and it&#8217;s all provisioned.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />You&#8217;re absolutely right. The thing that&#8217;s really intriguing about that is that we have the ability to provide pools for agencies to really build these things into their workflows. For example, if you&#8217;re using the SSH to spool up sites, things like that, manage and configure them. We also have templating tools, things like that. You can create, man, I forget the term, but somebody gave me the perfect one for template sites. If you&#8217;re an agency and you run a hundred e-commerce shops, you&#8217;re probably starting with the same plugins and the same configuration every single time. Those are things you can just clone, and it&#8217;s the same amount of time. Think about how much faster that makes your workflow.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />Oh, yeah. Stuff you don&#8217;t have to worry about. You can actually focus on your customers with an agency, what your value add will be as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />If Bluehost support is helping an agency that maybe is coming off an old WordPress version and they&#8217;re needing quick access to the PHP logs, that&#8217;s an API call. You have SSH access if you want to go in and do some other things. But if Bluehost Cloud wants to provide that directly to users or their support team needs it, there&#8217;s an API call for that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />No, that&#8217;s fantastic. Let&#8217;s wrap this up so people can actually use it for building out their site. I found the cloud. Any final thoughts?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joshua:<br />Yeah, I&#8217;m really passionate about this project. I wish we had more time to go into even more technical detail. It&#8217;s something I&#8217;ve had the pleasure of working on across Automattic for years now, and I&#8217;m so excited to have partners like Bluehost and just getting more people looking at the platform. Jesse may have some other stuff they might want to bring up.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse:<br />It&#8217;s too bad he won&#8217;t hear this if you&#8217;re actually at Cloudfest because it&#8217;ll take a little time to publish this. But in a couple of hours, I&#8217;m giving a talk and unveiling a new soon-to-be open-source platform UI. The idea there is to really encourage people to rip it apart, extend it, expand on it, or help us to understand it&#8217;s in the same light and narrative of what Bluehost Cloud is trying to do, which is that we are trying to provide tools and resources so that we can allow our clients, our agencies, to tell us what it is that they need next, what it is that they want. That&#8217;s in total alignment with what Bluehost Cloud is doing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To that point, I&#8217;m on Twitter as @Professor. Although if you go to the WP Cloud website, you&#8217;ll see ways to get in touch with me. If you have any questions about this, if you want to talk more, if you want to tell me about your current situation and what you&#8217;re faced with and you just want to chat about whether or not Bluehost Cloud or WP Cloud is right for you, please don&#8217;t hesitate to reach out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />That&#8217;s awesome. Jesse and Kevin, you have the last word.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kevin:<br />I think you&#8217;ll have the last word if I know you well enough. But okay. I think this is an exciting time, and we&#8217;re really seeing some really cool stuff happening with the customers that have come over and started using the product. I encourage anyone listening today, if you need a high-performance site, give us a shot. What&#8217;s to lose? $29 and some time? I think there&#8217;s a lot to gain when you see the performance. The price-to-value ratio is excellent. If you&#8217;re an agency, Kevin.Walker@NewFold.com, or go to our website and fill out a form for the agency program, and we&#8217;ll get you signed up with a free account to test it yourself. If you don&#8217;t need high performance, just a reminder, our shared hosting is Review Signal top best in class. We&#8217;re proud of that too. Thanks for having me on, Robert.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Robert:<br />That&#8217;s why Kevin&#8217;s in marketing. We make sure to cover everything. Fantastic. I&#8217;m sure we&#8217;ll have more podcasts, especially around the technology. Do the Woo has a tech podcast as well, so that would be really interesting to have you guys on board for that. Thank you all for listening to another Do the Woo.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n\n<p>In this episode of <strong><em>The WordPress Way</em></strong>, host <strong>Robert Jacobi</strong> talks with <strong>Jesse Friedman </strong>and<strong> Joshua Goode from WP Cloud, </strong>and<strong> Kevin Walker </strong>from<strong> Bluehost</strong> about their new partnership. Jesse explains WP Cloud&#8217;s development within Automattic, emphasizing its optimized infrastructure for WordPress hosting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This partnership aims to enhance Bluehost&#8217;s offerings for high-demand users, particularly agencies and high-traffic websites, by leveraging WP Cloud&#8217;s specialized infrastructure and support features like automated real-time failover and vertical scaling.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Highlights</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse Friedman introduces himself, running WP Cloud and working at Automattic for nearly 10 years. Kevin Walker oversees marketing at Bluehost, based in Austin, Texas. Joshua Goode is the partner success manager/technical account manager at WP Cloud and Automattic.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The partnership between Bluehost and WP Cloud was announced in March during WordCamp Asia and Cloudfest in Germany.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bluehost is the largest contributor to the WordPress project outside of Automattic.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shared hosting doesn’t meet the needs of some demanding users, particularly agencies and high-traffic websites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bluehost decided to partner with WP Cloud instead of building their own solution.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WP Cloud is a specialized infrastructure focused solely on WordPress, leveraging Automattic&#8217;s experience with WordPress.com and WordPress VIP.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WP Cloud offers features like automated real-time failover, vertical scaling, and specialized support.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bluehost can focus on enhancing tools and services for agencies due to WP Cloud handling the infrastructure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WP Cloud avoids containerization like Kubernetes, using advanced networks of load balancers and server pools.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Integration with WP Cloud is done via APIs, making provisioning and managing sites easy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WP Cloud sites have built-in features like firewall, DDoS protection, SSL certificates, and global caching.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Automated real-time failover ensures high availability and reliability.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Links</h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><strong><a href="https://wp.cloud/">WP Cloud</a></strong></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href="https://www.bluehost.com/hosting/cloud">Bluehost Cloud</a></strong></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href="https://wordpress.com/blog/2024/03/07/wp-cloud-bluehost/">WP Cloud Is Powering the Future of&nbsp;WordPress</a></strong></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href="https://x.com/Professor">Jesse on X</a></strong></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href="https://x.com/joshuagoode">Joshua on X</a></strong></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesserfriedman/">Jesse on LinkedIn</a></strong></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jgoode/">Joshua on LinkedIn</a></strong></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinpwalker/">Kevin on LinkedIn</a></strong></li>\n</ul>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 25 Jun 2024 09:23:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 6.5.5";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=17426";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:51:"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/06/wordpress-6-5-5/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5089:"<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.5.5 is now available!</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This release features three security fixes. Because this is a security release, <strong>it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. </strong>This minor release also includes <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?component=!Build%2FTest+Tools&milestone=6.5.5&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=status&col=priority&col=component&order=priority">3 bug fixes</a> in Core.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can <a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.5.5.zip">download WordPress 6.5.5 from WordPress.org</a>, or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress 6.5.5 is a short-cycle release. The next major release will be version 6.6 which is scheduled for July 16, 2024.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For more information on WordPress 6.5.5, please visit the <a href="https://wordpress.org/documentation/wordpress-version/version-6-5-5/">HelpHub site</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Security updates included in this release</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The security team would like to thank the following people for <a href="https://hackerone.com/wordpress?type=team">responsibly reporting vulnerabilities</a>, and allowing them to be fixed in this release:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li>A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting the HTML API reported by Dennis Snell of the WordPress Core Team, along with Alex Concha and Grzegorz (Greg) Ziółkowski of the WordPress security team.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability affecting the Template Part block reported independently by Rafie Muhammad of Patchstack and during a third party security audit.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>A path traversal issue affecting sites hosted on Windows reported independently by Rafie M &amp; Edouard L of Patchstack, David Fifield, <a href="https://hackerone.com/x89">x89</a>, <a href="https://hackerone.com/apple502j">apple502j</a>, and <a href="https://hackerone.com/mishre">mishre</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Thank you to these WordPress contributors</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This release was led by <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/jorbin/">Aaron Jorbin</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress 6.5.5 would not have been possible without the contributions of the following people. Their asynchronous coordination to deliver maintenance and security fixes into a stable release is a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class="is-style-wporg-props-medium"><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/jorbin">Aaron Jorbin</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/xknown">Alex Concha</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/azaozz">Andrew Ozz</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/bernhard-reiter">bernhard-reiter</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/costdev">Colin Stewart</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/davidbaumwald/">David Baumwald</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dmsnell">Dennis Snell</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/grantmkin">Grant M. Kinney</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/gziolo">Greg Ziółkowski</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/audrasjb">Jb Audras</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/desrosj">Jonathan Desrosiers</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/matveb">Matias Ventura</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/mcsf">Miguel Fonseca</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/peterwilsoncc">Peter Wilson</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/rajinsharwar">Rajin Sharwar</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/coffee2code">Scott Reilly</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/hellofromTonya">Tonya Mork</a></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How to contribute</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To get involved in WordPress core development, head over to Trac, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/report/6">pick a ticket</a>, and join the conversation in the <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02RQBWTW">#core</a> Slack channel. Need help? Check out the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/tutorials/faq-for-new-contributors/">Core Contributor Handbook</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Already testing WordPress 6.6? The fourth beta is now available (<a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.6-beta4.zip">zip</a>) and it contains these security fixes. For more on 6.6, see the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/06/wordpress-6-6-beta-3/">beta 3 announcement post</a>. Learn more about <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2024/06/03/help-test-wordpress-6-6/">testing WordPress 6.6 here</a>.</em></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Props to <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/paulkevan/">Paul Kevan</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/ehtis/">Ehtisham Siddiqui</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/xknown/">Alex Concha</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/hellofromTonya">Tonya Mork</a>, and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/angelasjin/">Angela Jin</a> for reviewing.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 24 Jun 2024 19:10:30 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Aaron Jorbin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"WordPress.org blog: WP Briefing: Episode 82: WCEU Hallway Track";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://wordpress.org/news/?post_type=podcast&p=17409";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:65:"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/06/episode-82-wceu-hallway-track/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10092:"<p>Big events create big moments, and WordCamp Europe 2024 was no exception. Join host Josepha Haden Chomphosy on this episode of the WordPress Briefing as she shares her top insights  and favorite highlights from the event. Discover what the WordPress community focused on during this exciting three-day gathering.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Credits</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Host:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/">Josepha Haden Chomphosy</a><br />Editor:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dustinhartzler/">Dustin Hartzler</a><br />Logo:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/javiarce/">Javier Arce</a><br />Production:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/bjmcsherry/">Brett McSherry</a><br />Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Show Notes</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/">WordCamp Europe</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Small List of Big Things</strong>\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-6/">WordPress 6.6 RC1 (and upcoming schedule)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2024/05/31/wordpress-project-contributor-handbook-v2/">WordPress Project Contributor Handbook v2</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/2024/06/12/the-sustainability-teams-handbook-for-events-is-here/">The Sustainability Team’s Handbook for Events&nbsp;is here!</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/volunteering-at-wordcamp-us-2024/">Volunteering at WordCamp US 2024</a>&nbsp;</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Have a question you’d like answered? Submit them to&nbsp;<a href="mailto:wpbriefing@WordPress.org">WPBriefing@WordPress.org</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Transcript</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:00:00]&nbsp;<strong>Josepha:</strong>&nbsp;Hello, everyone, and welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:00:28] (Intro music)&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:00:40]&nbsp;<strong>Josepha:</strong> My friends, another WordCamp Europe is in the books. We had the second-highest number of tickets sold in the history of our event series, with the first being WordCamp Europe in Berlin. But even with that number of tickets sold, that number of people gathering together to talk about WordPress and related things, there were still a lot of people who didn&#8217;t get to join us.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:01:01] <strong>Josepha:</strong> For some, that came with experiencing FOMO, but some of you embraced the JOMO of it all. Either way, at this point, there are a good collection of wrap-ups and round-ups going around, so I&#8217;m here to tell you a bit about what was buzzing in the hallway track.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Firstly, everyone was so excited to see old friends and make new ones. Everywhere I turned, I saw WordPressers in clusters catching up, most included new to the crew faces. So we know that we were using the Pac-Man rule that we love so much. But even while they were catching up on the last two, three, four years, they were also talking to each other about how to get more folks to things like this. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since we all generally agree that your first time meeting other WordPressers can be a truly pivotal moment in your WordPress journey, it was a delight to hear so much brainstorming focused on that. From mentorship to community introduction and the future of our events, the question of how to keep our ecosystem healthy and thriving was a big topic. Does any one of us have all the answers to this? No, but fortunately, we&#8217;ve got a global set of thinkers working on this global question. So, together, I&#8217;m sure we can come up with some good guesses to try out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:02:21] <strong>Josepha:</strong> Secondly, I saw a ton of talks and discussions about career development, not only about how to learn more but also how to be a champion for open source in your company, how to advocate for contribution as a best business practice. And what other communities can teach us about how they commit to their user&#8217;s continuing education, for lack of a friendlier term.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And boy, do I love a good conversation about how to make working in open source easier, make it more meaningful, and more impactful. I&#8217;m in favor of anything that helps to dignify our profession. The front-facing, easy-to-use experience of WordPress, in particular, has been misunderstood to mean that we are a simple piece of software for simple tasks. And that is the way with our mission really. If we succeed at democratizing publishing or learning or commerce for that matter, we are taking the arcane and making it mundane. But simple to use doesn&#8217;t mean simple to create. And I want all of our future employers and clients to see that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:24] <strong>Josepha:</strong> And then the final thing that I saw lighting up the hallway track was the idea of bringing life and excitement back to the web. WordPress has been fighting against closed systems for a long time, but as Matt alluded to in his keynote, merely having an open web is still not quite as fun as having an active and dynamic one. And we saw that both in general desire to bring fun back to being online, but also in the fresh variety of demos and workshops that we saw in the fun that was brought to the event. There were new and shocking implementations of Playground, I must say. Which, as far as I can tell, will basically be able to run everything one day.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:03] <strong>Josepha:</strong> But at WordCamp Europe, it ran; it powered our second massive hybrid translation event, where we translated something like 50,000 strings. We also had an amazing speed-building duel with an accepted future challenge between Jessica Lyschik and Matt Mullenweg. And not for nothing; the way we designed; the way the event area was put together included ways to stop and just have fun.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was a little grassy area with yard games and smaller pods of chairs for those quick hallway catch-ups that you just don&#8217;t get anywhere else. And for me, it was simply lovely to see everyone embracing the fun that was there, but also hearing about how much they wanted to help the web embrace the fun that could be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:48] (Music interlude)&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:55] <strong>Josepha:</strong> Thanks for listening to my hallway track recap. Hopefully, it caused JOMO, not FOMO. And now, let&#8217;s turn our attention to the small list of big things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:05] <strong>Josepha:</strong> First thing on my list is WordPress 6.6 update. So we are reaching the release candidate phase tomorrow. WordPress 6.6 RC1 will be released, so download and join the community helping us to get this release out the door. It is scheduled for July 16th. If you have plugins or themes or any sort of business that uses WordPress, now is the time to get in and test it on a test site. I don&#8217;t recommend putting it in production at any point, but come and test it. Help us break it so that we can make sure that it doesn&#8217;t break for other people, for the, you know, 43% of the web that uses it when we get it out the door on the 16th.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second thing on the list is that we have a WordPress Project Contributor Handbook V2 out there. It aims to be the quintessential resource for everyone in our community. And it will provide a bird&#8217;s eye view of where to find key information and different aspects of our community. How it all kind of connects together. And, just like a release, we really need some feedback from you. There is the repo on GitHub where you can go and kind of make inline comments, join the discussion about it. It can be a go-to resource if we look at it together and make sure that it has as much information as clearly stated as you wished you had when you were learning your way around WordPress for the first time.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:27] <strong>Josepha:</strong> The third thing on the list is actually another handbook. So, the Sustainability Team has put together a handbook specifically for events. It&#8217;s their first version, and over the past few months, members of that team have been sharing their ideas and experiences on how WordPress community events can be held more sustainably. All this input created a first draft, which eventually became this first version. And so we&#8217;ll put a link in the show notes, wander over there, take a look at it, see what some best practices for sustainable events are in the WordPress ecosystem.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:02] <strong>Josepha:</strong> And then the final thing on my list is about WordCamp US. I realize this is a podcast about WordCamp Europe right now. And so it&#8217;s odd to think that I&#8217;m moving right along into WordCamp US. However, there is a deadline coming up. July 1st is the last day to sign up to be a volunteer at this event. It&#8217;s taking place this year in Portland, Oregon, on the west side of the US. And it should be a really fun time. It&#8217;s middle of September. Come on out there. Learn about WordPress. Learn about contribution. Maybe get some voodoo donuts. You know, the important things.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that, my friends, is your small list of big things. Don&#8217;t forget to follow us on your favorite podcast app or subscribe directly on WordPress.org/news. You&#8217;ll get a friendly reminder whenever there&#8217;s a new episode. If you liked what you heard today, share it with a fellow WordPresser. Or, if you had questions about what you heard, you can share those with me at WPBriefing@WordPress.org. I am your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Thanks for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing, and I&#8217;ll see you again in a couple of weeks.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:08:06] (Music outro)&nbsp;</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 24 Jun 2024 12:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Brett McSherry";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog #102 – WordCamp Europe, WordPress 6.6 and Gutenberg 18.6";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?post_type=podcast&p=29022";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:108:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-102-wordcamp-europe-wordpress-6-6-and-gutenberg-18-6/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54368:"<p>In this episode, Jessica Lyschik and Birgit Pauli-Haack discuss WordCamp Europe, WordPress 6.6 and Gutenberg 18.6. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Add a summary/excerpt here</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-102-wordcamp-europe-wordpress-6-6-and-gutenberg-18-6/#shownotes">Show Notes</a> / <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-102-wordcamp-europe-wordpress-6-6-and-gutenberg-18-6/#transcript">Transcript</a></p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li>Editor:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-reed/">Sandy Reed</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Logo:&nbsp;<a href="https://markuraine.com/">Mark Uraine</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Production:&nbsp;<a href="https://icodeforapurpose.com">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-larger-font-size" id="shownotes"><strong>Show Notes</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Special guest: Jessica Lyschik</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://x.com/jessicalyschik">https://x.com/jessicalyschik</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@jessicalyschik">https://www.youtube.com/@jessicalyschik</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=channel_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa2tsT25ETnVSM20xS3ZoNDhpTkhwUVhlM2J0UXxBQ3Jtc0tsY2NmeEdxT01xdEMzMlR4WWxjYll2bGoyMXlSZVZFZm82alVtS3hpdW01Y3U1R3U0RGVBT19lbEhQeXNYeTcxZ0EwaVg4YUlYV2ZGR085ZXA1U0pYYzdSelRnejR5cDBHUm1pZDRpQi1fdHRPbkw3UQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fprofiles.wordpress.org%2Fluminuu">profiles.wordpress.org/luminuu</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordCamp Europe</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/seven-talks-about-blocks-block-themes-and-beyond-at-wordcamp-europe-2024/">Seven talks about blocks, block themes and beyond at WordCamp Europe 2024</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Playlist: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiPorWuYVbztG5kfpP98ME_SumRyjaZq8">Speak Build Challenge on YouTube</a> by Jamie Marsland</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://youtu.be/RxQ5yhsxig4">&nbsp;Q &amp; A of Matt Mullenweg’s Summer Update</a>,</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Upcoming events</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/301469831/">Developer Hours: What&#8217;s new for theme developers in WordPress 6.6</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1pJFUVKQ7ETApyQQlt3pLNjPx2HrQwl5">Developer Hours playlist</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/19/hallway-hangout-exploring-grid-layouts/">Hallway Hangout: Exploring Grid Layouts</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.6</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/06/wordpress-6-6-beta-3/">WordPress 6.6 Beta 3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Dev Notes\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/20/site-wide-background-images-in-wordpress-6-6/">Site-wide background images in WordPress 6.6</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/19/theme-json-version-3/">Theme.json version 3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/18/grid-layout-type/">Grid layout type</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/18/editor-unified-extensibility-apis-in-6-6/">Editor: Unified Extensibility APIs in 6.6</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/21/wordpress-6-6-css-specificity/">WordPress 6.6 CSS Specificity</a></li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Other posts\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/20/roster-of-design-tools-per-block-wordpress-6-6-edition/">Roster of design tools per block (WordPress 6.6 edition)</a> &#8211; a snapshot of all the additions since WordPress 6.1&nbsp;</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Developer Blog: <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/06/18/an-introduction-to-overrides-in-synced-patterns/">An introduction to overrides in Synced Patterns</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/13/data-views-update-june-2024/">Data Views Update – June 2024</a></li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Gutenberg 18.6</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-18-6/">What’s new in Gutenberg 18.6</a></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What&#8217;s in the works</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/08/proposal-bits-as-dynamic-tokens/">Proposal: Bits as dynamic tokens.</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Sync Pattern iteration for WordPress 6.7 &gt; &nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/62566#issuecomment-2180749161">Proposal by Riad Benguella</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-large-font-size">Stay in Touch</p>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-group"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow">\n<ul>\n<li>Did you like this episode? <a href="https://lovethepodcast.com/gutenbergchangelog"><strong>Please write us a review </strong></a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ping us on Twitter or send DMs with questions. <a href="https://twitter.com/gutenbergtimes">@gutenbergtimes </a>and <a href="https://twitter.com/bph">@bph</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>If you have questions or suggestions, or news you want us to include, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. </em></li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Please write us a review on iTunes! <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/itunes/">(Click here to learn how)</a></em></li>\n</ul>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-large-font-size" id="transcript"><strong>Transcript</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Hello and welcome to our 102nd episode of the Gutenberg Changelog Podcast. In today&#8217;s episode, we will talk about WordCamp Europe, WordPress 6.6, Gutenberg 18.6. I&#8217;m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at Gutenberg Times, and a full-time core contributor for the WordPress Open Source Project sponsored by Automattic&#8217;s Five for the Future program. As co-host, I&#8217;m thrilled to have again Jessica Lyschick with me. She is a Front end and WordPress Developer at GREYD, co-lead of development of Twenty Twenty Four theme, and was the co-lead organizer of WordCamp Germany last year. We both just returned from WordCamp Europe in Torino. Welcome to the show again, Jessica, how are you today?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Well, I&#8217;m good. I finally got some much needed rest the past couple of days. Some extra sleep because you do not get that during Wordcamp Europe as always, or any WordCamp. Yeah, but I&#8217;m doing good. Glad that you have me on the show again.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, I had the same thing. It took me about a day and a half to really recover.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Monday was hard. Monday was hard. It was like, &#8220;Ugh, I don&#8217;t want to get up at all.&#8221; But I had to go grocery shopping because the fridge was empty.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. So in that case Lieferando is also a good place to get food delivered.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik</em>: Oh, I did have sushi in the evening, so I did not cook on Monday at all. It&#8217;s like, &#8220;No, not today.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">WordCamp Europe</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. So one of my takeaways from WordCamp Europe is that Jessica is one of the most courageous people I know. Not only did you prepare a presentation on the Twenty Twenty Four theme pushing default themes forward, you also participated in a live onstage speed building challenge against Rich Tabor. And then during Q&amp;A, you challenged Matt Mullenweg to also participate in one. So let&#8217;s talk about that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>On this show, we talk quite a bit about the Twenty Twenty Four theme and appeared with you as also with Maggie Cabrera. So we covered how versatile it is and also about the kudos it received around the community, so contract relations. And in the post on the Gutenberg Times, seven talks about block themes and beyond at WordCamp Europe. The talk is listed, your talk is listed. Including a link for the recording. So if you don&#8217;t know dear listeners, much about Twenty Twenty Four or the nature of open nature of default themes, that&#8217;s a great talk to watch on the rerun. So let&#8217;s talk about the speed building challenge, Jessica.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik: </em>Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> For those listeners who don&#8217;t know, Jamie Marsland, a longtime WordPress educator and YouTuber invented a format and invited WebPress community members to recreate sites on his YouTube channel. I&#8217;ll share a playlist of the five that were already done in the show notes, but you can see Rich Tabor, Justin Tadlock, Nick Diego, and others competing with fellows from the page builder community. I&#8217;m sure Jessica, you also noticed that they&#8217;re all dudes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik</em>: Except for one. There was, I think it was Kim Coleman.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Oh, right. Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Was in the second one, but that&#8217;s what I complained to Jamie. It&#8217;s like, &#8220;There&#8217;s not so much diversity in your lineup there.&#8221; And then Jamie was like, &#8220;Oh, can you come to work in Europe and do it there?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Nice. So you went against Rich Tabor and how did that work out? What did you have to build and how did you go about it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik</em>: So that was a really fun thing to do. So before we started, Jamie teased us with the Lingscars website. If you don&#8217;t know this one or maybe you have seen it before, lingscars.com, I think is the link. It&#8217;s a very crazy website. It&#8217;s like something from the early &#8217;00s with overstuffed images everywhere and patterns and crazy going on website. Which is like a cognitive nightmare, you could call it maybe. And I saw it already and I was like, &#8220;Oh no, please not this one. Anything but not this one.&#8221; But Jamie was just kidding. So he was trying to tease us there. And then he actually picked a website from the WordPress Rock Showcase, which is for the Noguchi Museum. And at first when you look at it looks like very simple, but it has some interesting details to it. So yeah, that was a great challenge and something definitely doable in 30 minutes as a rough sketch or more detailed sketch depending on how skilled you are.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. All right, so then how did you start?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> So we got first a couple of minutes where we could look at the site ourselves to get the first idea in your head, what blocks do I use for this part or how do I make this part? And I&#8217;m usually someone who starts with the header, so I have to get the header done because otherwise it feels like the site is not really done. And then I moved on to the content and I didn&#8217;t pay so much attention to what Rich was doing because I was so much in my own tunnel and I need to get stuff done. I cannot look over what is he doing. But Jamie interrupted every now and then, so of course you cannot go like, &#8220;Ah, shut up.&#8221; But yeah, that was a really, really fun thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, I can imagine that it was a little bit of a disconcerting because we are all people who are in our bubbles when we work hard, concentrated, and then interruptions are actually setting us back. But Jamie had a different job. He needed to entertain the audience there, yeah. So yeah, it was really interesting to see. But you did very well. So the header that you&#8217;re talking about, there was a sticky header, right? No, there was a sticky column.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik: </em>There was a sticky column in there. And I must say we looked at, it was like, &#8220;Oh my God, how I&#8217;m going to do it?&#8221; And then Rich explained it before going into it. I was like, &#8220;Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I&#8217;m going to do that too.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> And that&#8217;s what I really found that watching you and Rich, it taught me a lot how to approach building websites, building themes or websites in the site editor. And that happens with every speed building challenge session that I watched. It&#8217;s a special way of building in public and problem solving in public. The time constraint is added. It&#8217;s an added thrill of course, but to show what&#8217;s possible once one gets over the learning curve because starting out with block themes and site editor, there&#8217;s certainly a learning curve there, yeah. And the difficulty that you encounter needs to be separated vs is that part of my learning process or is it going to be that way when I know how to do it? Is it still difficult? And I think a few people think that the learning process is part of how it&#8217;s always going to be and it never will be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You&#8217;re going to get faster and faster, and you both did a great job recreating the website in 30 minutes. But it&#8217;s how fast you can get with a prototype. That was really astonishing for me and the visual idea out of your head. But of course you were all following a site that was already built. So all the discussions with the client beforehand were already done. What&#8217;s the color? What&#8217;s the content, what&#8217;s the image going to look like? But with the site, you can go very fast with your first prototypes and have a conversation started with the client. So this is definitely a good thing to watch.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> And I think it&#8217;s also a good exercise for anyone who wants to try this themselves, especially if you&#8217;re a developer. Because I had this discussion with Collina I think before WordCamp Europe that if you code and are just in the code every day, all day, like I am usually. Using the site editor is so different because it brings you to another level of how do I implement this? How do I recreate visually what I have in my head? So I need to know, okay, I can use this block or that block, this block has this setting or feature I can use there. And I think it&#8217;s also very useful if you go on the other side, on the user side if you will, so you understand, okay, what are people struggling with and how can you make the code or the user experience better so that the users at the end of the day will also have it easier to create something.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> That&#8217;s a very good point. And with WordPress having a set of UI components, I think it&#8217;s really important for a developer to see how they work from a user perspective because that&#8217;s the learned experience that users come to WordPress with. And as a developer you don&#8217;t have to make those decisions anymore on the UI. But sometimes you need to make them, but then you have to decide, okay, where do I part from the WordPress components and build my own components. But I think knowing how far you can push the WordPress components in a user interface is really interesting to see, yeah. So that was the speed building challenge on live stage. So what on earth drove you to challenge Matt during the Q&amp;A to participate in one?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Well, sometimes you have these stupid ideas that are just randomly popping up in your head and you&#8217;re like, &#8220;Not bad.&#8221; I do have to say though that I did text my colleagues, &#8220;What do you think if I asked Matt this question?&#8221; And immediately I got three replies, &#8220;Do it, do it.&#8221; It was like, &#8220;Okay, I&#8217;m not the only one who thinks it&#8217;s a good question.&#8221; So I went up to the mic and I intentionally asked the question, not that I am challenging him to do one, but I intentionally said it, &#8220;When are you going to do one without adding me to the part of it?&#8221; So yeah that, maybe you can say escalated quickly into a challenge against Matt positively.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Positively. Yeah, it came to an actionable thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Yes. And yeah, I&#8217;m going to do it. So I&#8217;m not backing out of this. I mean, I&#8217;ve done one already on a stage in front of a couple hundred people. The room was so full but I didn&#8217;t really notice it.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> You got into your flow, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik</em>: &#8230; got into my flow. And then you ignore the audience. I heard the questions. Sometimes people ask questions specifically, but that&#8217;s like my world ended at my screen during that 30 minutes. I&#8217;ve done it already so I can do it again.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> To catch up with our listeners. So what happened on stage was Matt said, &#8220;Are you going to be the one I&#8217;m going to do it against? Are you in?&#8221; And Jessica said, &#8220;Yes.&#8221; And then there was a side note from Matt to Matías Ventura who was sitting in the front row said, &#8220;You&#8217;ve got to train me.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> No, I don&#8217;t think so.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> And, yeah. After the conversation, was there any back and forth from stage? Was there any conversation afterwards yet about that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> No, nothing in particular. I did meet Matt at the after party for a quick, &#8220;Hi, what was that?&#8221; No, it was very funny. We took a few pictures, his sister took a few pictures of us and I will do a video on my YouTube channel about this fairly soon. Maybe it&#8217;s already out once this podcast is published. If not, you will find that on my YouTube channel.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Excellent, yes. And we definitely share the link to the YouTube channel in the show notes. And well, this comes out Saturday or Sunday. We are recording this on June. What&#8217;s the date? 21st?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> 21st, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> 2024. So it&#8217;ll come out either 23rd or the 24th, so yes. You can also follow along on the summer update by Matt Mullenweg in the show notes with the video to the keynote presentation. But there&#8217;s also a link to the Q&amp;A part of the keynote presentation that&#8217;s always separated out where you can recreate or revisit the exchange between Jessica and Matt. So I haven&#8217;t finished reflecting of WordCamp. Have you any first takeaways that you&#8217;d like to share?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> No, I try to relax this week mostly, to be honest. I did think about a couple things. So first of all, it was an intense week for me as well. We were there with a great team. So that has been a really fun week, hanging out with everyone and WordCamp Europe was, again, so fast, passed by so fast and was so exhausting. But even if it&#8217;s physically and mentally exhausting, it&#8217;s also you always have these positive emotions afterwards because you talk to so many people. You see them, some even just once a year at WordCamp Europe because that&#8217;s the place where you all meet at that time and it&#8217;s just so positive to see everyone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, having conversations in person, which is so different from even if you do it in Slack or on Twitter or wherever else. So I was also very happy to see that booth of grade was fairly well visited and many people come around and ask what are we doing? What&#8217;s going on? What our next plans are? And also having conversations with other companies&#8217; developers. It&#8217;s like on everyday things. It&#8217;s not just about what are you doing and how can I copy you? Or whatever bad things you might think of. But it&#8217;s a very often very interesting conversations to hear other people&#8217;s point of views and see what are they struggling with, what have they success with? Yeah, overall it was just so much fun again and yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, meeting all the people that you are friends with in the word community, but always mostly see on Slack or in GitHub on issues and PRs and all of a sudden you sit next to them and have coffee and eat with them. And it&#8217;s just almost like a big family reunion. But there were, I think about 70 sponsors there. So I think the WordPress communities is really coming back from what happened in the pandemic, really interesting to support those in-person meetings. And I&#8217;m not done yet, but I think playground is something that I&#8217;m going to play with quite a bit. And it was part of the keynote as well. There was also a talk by Adam Chylinski and he also had a question for Matt about documentation with playground. Yeah, so that&#8217;s certainly one takeaway for me, but I have so many conversations about things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don&#8217;t know if I get them all together into just a list to follow up on things. Yeah, so that&#8217;s about WordCamp Europe. I think there&#8217;s a lot of recap posts coming out of the community. I saw a few from sponsors already, also from community members that were new at WordCamp, I like that. I met quite a few people that were new to WordCamps at all, and they were really amazed on how the community reacted, how they get in contact very quickly with people and have the conversations be around what they care most about. Then that&#8217;s a business and WordPress.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Announcements</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So now we get to the announcements that I have for our listeners. If you listen to this over the weekend, there are two events that are happening next week. One is the developer hours, what&#8217;s new for theme developers in WordPress 6.6, that&#8217;s on June 25th.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it&#8217;s Justin Tadlock and Nick Diego talking about anything and everything about WordPress 6.64. Block themes, website builders, and maybe also a little bit about plugin developers. If you listen to this episode after June 25th, you can always catch the recording on the YouTube channel of WordPress. There&#8217;s a developer hours playlist where you can also find the one for next week, but also the 24 previous developer hours, just in case you were looking for those. Also, next week, and you can join me, Isabel Bryson and others at the Hallway Hangout. When we explore the grid layouts, that&#8217;s on June 26th, a day later at 11 UTC. The developer hours are on 1500 UTC. But hallway hangouts are 11 UTC, and there will be a short demo of what&#8217;s coming to WordPress 6.6 and what cool layouts you can create with this new grid layout feature. And we also chat about what&#8217;s in the works for the following WordPress releases because the WordPress way is to release fast small version, a minimal viable product kind of thing, and then iterate involving the feedback from users and other developers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So in contrast to the developer hours that are entail formal presentations, Hallway Hangouts are more like an informal discussions to get feedback from the designers and from the developers and from site builders on what&#8217;s worked on and to see what people think about things. So these are two events for next week. Also, Hallway Hangouts are always recorded and will be shared in a recap post on the make core blog and also in the outreach channel. That&#8217;s fairly, it&#8217;s not new, but there was a FSE outreach experiment, but that was transformed into an official outreach channel where people who are not contributors can come in and ask questions. Ask if something that their experience is wanted or is the right way or if that&#8217;s a bug. That&#8217;s before you actually get your information together to file a bug report, you first need to know is it really a bug? What do other people think? And also if it&#8217;s not clear, if there&#8217;s some confusion. That really helps, those discussions really help inform the developers on what&#8217;s not working right yet.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And most of the time we put the bug report together and put it together in the GitHub repo. Yeah, that&#8217;s about outreach channel in the WordPress make slack. Come and join us or just come in and if you have a question. That&#8217;s also where we announce the Hallway Hangouts the developer hours, and also share some links from GitHub repo about things that need to be discussion. There&#8217;s also a GitHub team where extenders signed up or are added to it that want to give feedback on work in progress. So Gutenberg developers can then just ping that team and say, &#8220;Well, we need some feedback here. Can you come in?&#8221; And right now there are 20 people in the team, but we can always use more because not everybody has time to answer the ping when it comes because we all have lives and we have work to do. So all right, you are in the group, Jessica? In the outreach group?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> I&#8217;m in the outreach channel. I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;m in the team. Probably I&#8217;m in the block themers team. It&#8217;s a different one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, that&#8217;s a different one. Yeah, but I can check and would you want to go on it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Oh, for sure. Absolutely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Okay. Yeah, then I&#8217;ll add you to it if you&#8217;re not-</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> I mean, I&#8217;ve been asking many questions in the outreach channel already.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Oh, so you said somebody needs to. You want to return the favor and give feedback on something.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik</em>: If I can.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Oh, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> &#8230; post my 2 cents, why not?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, you have opinions. We&#8217;ll travel.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What’s Released &#8211; WordPress 6.6</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking of which, WordPress 6.6 beta 3 was released this week. And the post lists four different ways you can test the new version and it&#8217;s definitely time to go and make sure your sites plugins and themes are compatible. That&#8217;s always due diligence before a release. And if you do that and you report the bugs that you find. Well, what&#8217;s not working right, there might still be a chance to change it, but the window is closing. I hear rumblings that there will be a silent beta four because there were a few things that still needed another beta. But the release candidate is set for June 25th next week, release candidate one, which stops all development mostly, and one or two bug fixes might get in, but it&#8217;s also the time where the field guide comes out, and that&#8217;s also string freeze. So the translation teams of the 70 to 200 polyglots teams have a chance to translate the new version in their respective languages. So there string freeze, so there&#8217;s probably nothing&#8217;s going to change a lot after that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So there are four ways to test the version, and I think the easiest one is to use playground for it. There&#8217;s a link on it too. And if you use the playground plugin on your own site, you can actually create a sandbox of your current site so you don&#8217;t have to spin up a staging area or locally install and make all the copies and blah, blah, blah. So you install that. It&#8217;s still experimental so it might not work with your site, but if you use it, you can spin up a site and then add the new beta version to the playground and then you can test your site right there. So that&#8217;s definitely a great testing ground for playground. I say playground a lot.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>J<em>essica Lyschik:</em> It happens.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Have you experimented with playground and how you can use it for your development?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> I have researched a bit about it, how we can use it actually for internal stuff at GREYD. An idea we came up with was for support, maybe if you need to quickly spin up a site and make sure that you can recreate this in a complete default state, for example. But that was shortly before WordCamp Europe, so we haven&#8217;t dug into it that much yet. But there are definitely ideas how we can make use of playground to also work within our company with it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> So I had an interesting conversation just this week with Beatrice Fialo and Sarah Norris. They were showing off the workflow that Autommattic uses for theme development and version control, and they start with Playground, install the Gutenberg plugin and create block theme plugin and then save everything through the create block theme plugin save. Because that allows you to save everything that&#8217;s in the database through the global styles and all the settings into the fire system of a theme. And then connecting playground to GitHub. It automatically uses the changes and creates a pull request on GitHub. And that was really, it&#8217;s almost like magic. I&#8217;m putting together a recap post for that, but that&#8217;s going to be on make core blog. But then the outreach channel, you can already see the videos and the discussion about that. So just a side note about playground and what you can do with it and how mind-boggling that can be.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> That&#8217;s also very interesting. I think. I&#8217;ll have to check that out because we did have some struggles on working with the great theme, when we prepared it for the repository. It&#8217;s like how do you bring those changes that someone makes in the editor inside the patterns, how do you actually bring that into version control? So yeah, that&#8217;s definitely something to check out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, one caveat, create block theme team that creates a block or works on the plugin. They haven&#8217;t integrated patterns yet, so the pattern saving that doesn&#8217;t work yet, but that&#8217;s definitely on the roadmap for one of the future versions, especially after WordPress 6.6 they&#8217;re looking at the sync pattern part. But they also probably need to wait until the core team has a first version about the theme related patterns, sync patterns in themes so they can…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Yeah, makes sense.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> &#8230; work with that as well, yeah. So there is a little bit of a time delay between what core is doing and then how the create theme block plugin team. Wow, that&#8217;s a muscle. Is catching up with it and working with it. They were ahead on the font library. They were testing the interfaces already in the plugin and then they had to take it out again once the core was having a block library feature in there. But we&#8217;re getting a little sidetracked. I just noticed playground, as I said, playground is what I&#8217;m going to say a lot about. But the dev notes for 6.6 are coming out already in preparation of the field guide, which will be published around, not always exactly when the release candidates publish, but it&#8217;s around next week. I will put in the show notes, the list of the already published dev notes. So we have four of them about the block editor. One is about the side wide images in WebPress 6.6, how you can…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Background images.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> What did I say?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> You said only side wide images.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Right. Yeah, I forgot the keyword in there. That was the background images in reference 6.6, how you can make it in theme JSON as well as online with a site editor, how you can add it. Also, the grade theme block plugin also saves that into the assets folder if you want to. There is a little feature for that already built in the plugin. Then the next one is about the theme.json version 3 schema, which will be expanded with features from 6.6. There&#8217;s a caveat there. If you are building themes that are used for older versions, don&#8217;t upgrade yet to your theme JSONs yet to version 3 because that only is for WordPress 6 and younger. And I think the dev note, I think it explains that quite a bit. So look at that. And then grid layout type summarizes all the things that come in for grid layout with Drag and Drop, with the Rowspan, Colspan and others.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then we have the unified extensibility APIs in 6.6, that&#8217;s a little cryptic. And the unified word actually refers to unifying post editor and site editor. And the extensibility is about the slot fills or the inspector controls that in the sidebar. And now you can, as a plugin developer, your sidebar items will now also show in the post editor, site editor and template editor. So the only thing you need to do is figure out if you don&#8217;t want them to show in all the three of them, you need to figure out where in the editor experience your users are. So you can switch them on and off. But yeah, Riad has put in a comprehensive dev note about the slot fields that are available and where you find documentation about that. Anything strikes you as really, &#8220;Oh, I need to root this.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik: </em>Oh, I definitely have to check on everything basically. So yeah, I&#8217;m looking forward to the background images. I think this may enhance the overall design process a little bit now that you can, and you do not have to make one group block around everything and then put a background image in there because that&#8217;s already possible. That you can now just define it&#8217;s like what? And do not have add extra blocks to tackle this. Theme.json version 3 is definitely interesting because that was what was I struggling with even during the speed build because of a mistake on my own, but not a big deal at all. I got around it. And yeah, Grid is something I&#8217;ve been looking forward to, so I&#8217;ve been already experimenting with it a bit. So I will definitely come next week to the Hallway Hangout, was it right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> The Hallway Hangout, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Yeah, you will see me there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And just as a side note, Hallway Hangout is something that tries to recreate the experience in a WordCamp hallway track where you just go from the sessions to the sponsor area and all that and you meet people in the hallway and you start conversations about things. So that&#8217;s the hallway, why we like that so much.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So there are also other posts around 6.6 that are not necessarily dev notes for the release. There is a roster of design tools per block. It says it&#8217;s the 6.6 edition, but it&#8217;s a snapshot of all the additions since WordPress 6.6. And it gives you a table of all the core blocks and what they support. Do they support borders? Do they support the background image? Do they support shadows or alignment or typography color? Because not all the design tools are available for all blocks. And it&#8217;s always really hard to, not hard, but it&#8217;s an additional hassle to find out which one it is you put on list.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Because sometimes you expect one setting at one block and it&#8217;s not there. And I remember we discussed this probably a year ago or even more, I don&#8217;t know. And I was like, &#8220;Ah, why isn&#8217;t there a list where I can see what&#8217;s available where?&#8221; And there was a list.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Now is there…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> So thank you for working on this.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Oh, you&#8217;re welcome. You&#8217;re welcome. Yeah. It gets me to study the source code of Gutenberg quite a bit on the block.json there to put this together. We are also working on an idea on making that available dynamically so not somebody has to go through all the code and because it&#8217;s already there. Riad had a nice site together that&#8217;s called Block Book as a prototype for that, but he of course didn&#8217;t have the time to pursue it any further. So maybe we&#8217;re going to revive that too, because that took quite a few hours to put together.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik: </em>I&#8217;m sure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Maybe I missed something too. Humans available.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> We all make mistakes, no worries.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> That&#8217;s how I learn. Another post that&#8217;s out there is on the developer blog, that&#8217;s the introduction to the overrides in sync patterns by Nick Diego. And he put a nice introduction together and nice examples on how that works with the block bindings, API, and certainly something to look at. Although it&#8217;s mostly user interfaces, but the custom fields still need to be created and registered in PHP. So it&#8217;s a hybrid thing, but once they&#8217;re there, your users are enabled to assign patterns and to the custom fields.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the third one that I wanted to point out and share in the show notes is the update on the data views by Anne McCarthy. And she just put together a very comprehensive post about what can be used, how you can use it, where the documentation is for, and also where you can follow along and leave feedback. So that&#8217;s certainly interesting for everyone. All right. Oh, I saw a prototype of a notes app for Max that uses Gutenberg outside of WordPress as well as the data components outside of WordPress just in a Mac app. That&#8217;s really cool that those things can happen without WordPress being involved.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Oh, interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Yeah, it&#8217;s bigger than we ever thought it would be.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Gutenberg 18.6</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So that brings us to that latest Gutenberg plugin release, 18.6. And I think it&#8217;s always confusing for people to figure out, okay, which feature from the plugin goes into the next release? And the 6.6 release is between Gutenberg plugin release 17.8 to 18.5. So with 18.6, all the new features don&#8217;t go into 6.6. Some of the bug fixes will make it into 6.6 with a certain backport process that the core lead and the core editor leads from the release decide upon.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Enhancements</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So what&#8217;s new in the Gutenberg 16.6? I think the biggest piece for it is that the post content block, quote block and verse block, also getting the background image feature assigned to it. They&#8217;re supported now. So you can add background image and for a quote that&#8217;s really cool because that&#8217;s what you do for social image for instance. So you can put the quote in a block, put a background image there. Take a screenshot and share it on Mastodon or X or Blue Sky or something like that. And it really is cool. The same with verse block for some of our poets and the post content block is the block that is in the loop for…</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Or in the templates.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Oh, in the templates. Pulling out the content from a post. Of course the background image there shouldn&#8217;t probably it be a whole lot of distractions in there, but that&#8217;s a different story. Yeah, that&#8217;s a design tool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> That&#8217;s true.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Have you been waiting for this feature?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> I don&#8217;t think I would need it immediately, but maybe in the future it might become useful. I think the quote blocks one is definitely the one where you or where people will make most use out of it. But for the post content block, I mean you can imagine there might be some very subtle background like small dots or small dashes or something like that. It&#8217;s just giving a texture to it. Maybe an interesting design idea to work with.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, I have seen some websites. Not recently though, but it was more in the &#8217;90s and early &#8217;00s where there was a paper background on top.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik: </em>Oh, yeah. I remember.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> So maybe we get those back. Yeah, it&#8217;s a nostalgic way of thinking going things, yeah. Do you have seen anything in the change log that you wanted to point out?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Yeah, I think this custom CSS handling to be consistent with block global sites. I did not notice it was inconsistent to be honest. But it&#8217;s a good change that things get aligned and work the same way as other parts of it. Because sometimes it&#8217;s the most frustrating thing when you expect something to work a certain way and it doesn&#8217;t, for whatever reason. There might be historical reasons or nobody thought of it yet. So yeah, that&#8217;s definitely an interesting change to see.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, definitely. Reducing the element of surprise that if something happens you didn&#8217;t expect and then you wonder why on, yeah. It also goes in together with the 18.5 feature that custom CSS styles are persistent through theme changes or style variation changes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Style variation, yeah. Oh yeah, that was something I didn&#8217;t even realize before, but then when I thought of it like &#8220;What, why is this happening? Why?&#8221; But I&#8217;m glad it&#8217;s now fixed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: It&#8217;s fixed now. And that came from user feedback who were also surprised about a few things. And I think one of the start they&#8217;re like, &#8220;In WordPress, we start small and then iterate on things,&#8221; and sometimes I hear, &#8220;Well, nobody was asked what they think about it. And it started however, three, four months ago,&#8221; and that&#8217;s the place where feedback would&#8217;ve been needed and for the team to move forward or to get input there.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">New APIs</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So I would point this out that now there is a bootstrap, has nothing to do with the bootstrap on Twitter kind of thing. A basic action extensibility API for the data views for those who want to start working with that. And I quote from the release post, so it&#8217;s very early work. So the very early means inconsistent, not bug free surprise happenings. But the data views is the component that powers some post listing views available in the site editor.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not only post listing but also page listing, pattern listings. In the future it will become an important part of the new admin design project. We all know that is coming. And now there is an API to allow registration of actions for different entities. Could be post types, could be other types of data representation by the listing. And right now the API is private in the Gutenberg plugin and will undergo further development and testing before being made public for third parties. So right now you can only look at it but not use it. Find out more in the pull requests that I will share. And also the recent update for data views we already talked about, but it&#8217;s the time where it starts and where you can read up about it. I&#8217;m not sure if it&#8217;s even behind an experiment flag, so we&#8217;ll figure that out.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Bug Fixes<strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>And then there was in 18.6, there&#8217;s a ton of bug fixes. One is add custom CSS for block style variation. So block style variation is something that will come to 6.6 or is already in there that you can add additional block styles to custom blocks. And now you can also do custom CSS for that. Cool. In 18.6, so it&#8217;s not going to come to 6.6, did you look at that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik: </em>Yeah, it looks promising that you can add. So it&#8217;s basically adding custom CSS with the CSS property within theme JSON at that specific style variation. We have that for&#8230; I think for regular blocks it&#8217;s already available. I remember there&#8217;s something in Twenty Twenty Four that does exactly that. There&#8217;s just a little CSS snippet somewhere and the theme JSON, and again, I thought this was possible but obviously it was not for style variations. So yeah, that&#8217;s a cool change. So you can even more fine tune style variations if there&#8217;s a setting not existing for that specific CSS property yet. So that&#8217;s cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. Yeah, you need a feature in a block that can be done with an animation that can be done with CSS, but it&#8217;s not available through theme.json or through any variables or something like that. Totally get it. So this is really cool. It opens up the editor to a lot of more creativity that is not yet built into the interfaces.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Experiments</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Talking about experiments, Riad Benguella is one of the lead architect on Gutenberg because the only thing that is not yet in the data views new data views interface is the post management. So when you add a post from the admin top, you get into the block editor. But if you&#8217;re in the menu and click on posts that you don&#8217;t get through the site editor, you always have to go back to the other WP admin menu and go to posts.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And of course that needs to migrate into the new design and that is now an experiment that you can switch on in Gutenberg and see what it is. Right now it&#8217;s only a one page and said, have I come to the post management? But that&#8217;s where it&#8217;s going to be in the future. Gutenberg plugin releases to find out how the post dashboard is going to look in there. Again, we start small and these are the beginning of things and there&#8217;s a lot of documentation changes as well, especially for the slot fields that are both editors that we are all put together so they can be linked off in the dev notes. And that&#8217;s pretty much it. I think we are all through the most important things from 18.6 unless you found something that stood out for yourself.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Nothing in particular, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What’s in Active Development or Discussed</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Cool. That brings us to two more things and one is that they are in the section of what&#8217;s an active development or what&#8217;s discussed. And I wanted to point people to a proposal about the bits as dynamic tokens by Dennis Snell. He put together a very technical proposal. So the first part of it is very good, explaining what it does. And so when blocks came to the scene, shortcuts were largely abandoned. But shortcuts had its values, have their values and they had many problems but they have value. And part of it is, so there was always a recommendation if you have a short code in your plugin, try to make a block out of it that has a functionality so it&#8217;s much user-friendly because most users don&#8217;t get the square brackets with the attributes and all that. They are not coders. So blocks is definitely a better interface.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But sometimes you just can&#8217;t use it because it&#8217;s a subscriber&#8217;s name in an email form or it&#8217;s the author display in a query loop template or you want to have that name in a full sentence kind of thing. Or you want to date in a full sentence. So for those, there is no equivalent to short codes yet and this proposal is going to start exploring that bit of it, pun intended.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Yeah, sounds quite interesting. I mean maybe it has a little bit of overlap for the block bindings maybe in some, if you think of it, in some ideas like at the post authors display name in a query loop template. I mean, you can pull that basically from the database. So that would be something interfering with the block bindings feature that we have. So yeah, we have to check out, I think to discuss where are bits going, where are the block bindings going, what is the difference? Because I think even if you haven&#8217;t heard of block bindings yet, this can also be a confusing feature for people. So that&#8217;s definitely interesting to see. I mean, putting in some variables within existing text. That&#8217;s the interesting part of bits actually. So also where you&#8217;re pulling this from. So previously you would have to create a block and then maybe put in some magic to make that happen. And now if you would have a core feature doing that. Sounds great.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. So he had a little two paragraph thing, what about block bindings? To answer your thoughts, I&#8217;m not sure if it&#8217;s entirely answered, but bits and block bindings he writes are related, but complimentary systems. Why block bindings can be thought of primarily as a developer oriented API where a developer can open up a given block or a subset of the block attributes to be replaced by some other source of data. Bits are primarily author oriented, giving end users the ability to add source content anywhere. There&#8217;s likely a large overlap in the data sources that power each system. Ideally the registered sources will be compatible with both.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Yeah, sounds good.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah, if you have any other thoughts, the post is open for comments and there have been quite a few comments already. So that&#8217;s a great discussion to have. Don&#8217;t just read the block, also read the blog post, also read the comments with it so you get a better idea about it. And I shared of course in the show notes. And another thing that&#8217;s being discussed or worked on is, and we mentioned it before, is Sync patterns iteration for WordPress 6.7. So that&#8217;s the next version. And Riad Benguella had a proposal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So there is the need that sync patterns are available for theme developers that they can deliver those with their themes and also sync pattern overrides with that. And Riad Benguella, after Dan Danos wrote an iteration, what are the issues that are pattern oriented already in GitHub and what to make of it? There was a discussion among developers and then Riad put together a summary for that and that&#8217;s the comment that I will link to in the show notes where said, so what patterns are and how they should work. And I think it&#8217;s a good summary of what&#8217;s already possible and what needs to work on. So a pattern is always a pattern. It works the same regardless of where it comes from, comes from the theme, does it come from the user, does it come from a template part or something like that? Or does it come from a PHP or from HTML kind of thing. And can be registered with a theme file. Can be registered directly in the database. That&#8217;s the user part, sync to unsync.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So he has the whole list of what a pattern is and how it functions and what is already existing and what is for the future or later. So I really like this post and he did a great job in putting it all together. Of course the discussion continues, hopefully with your input too. That&#8217;s why we talk about these things that are discussed so you can again be part of the discussion and chime in.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So this is then coming to the end of the show of our 102nd episode. Jessica, thank you so much for being here. Is there anything that you want our listeners to know about and if they want to get in contact with you, how would they do it best?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik</em>: I think that&#8217;s it for today. So I mean I shared a lot about WordCamp Europe and what happened there. We had quite a few interesting topics on what&#8217;s going on in Gutenberg and their development. Yeah, you can find me on Twitter. I always call it&#8217;s still Twitter or it&#8217;s now called X, under my name Jessica Lyschik. Everything will be linked down below, don&#8217;t worry. Because I know my last name is a bit hard to pronounce or write down, but links will all be provided. And yeah, definitely reach out on Twitter or on Slack if you have questions. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack: </em>Excellent. Yeah, thank you so much. So just for my, is it Jessica or Jessica?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik</em>: I don&#8217;t mind any. I&#8217;ve been used to both, so whatever you prefer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Well I&#8217;m going either way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> I&#8217;m fine with both.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Good, thank you. Thank you. So dear listeners, as always, the show notes will be published on gutenbergtimes.com/podcast. This is 102. And if you have questions or suggestions or news you want us to include, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. That&#8217;s <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. And if you also want to have additional links and places to go to learning about Gutenberg or what&#8217;s new on Gutenberg, the weekend edition comes out every Saturday with a ton of links and a ton of new information. You can subscribe to it on gutenbergtimes.com and I&#8217;m really happy about any new subscribers I get. All right, thank you so much. Thank you Jessica.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Thank you for having me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> It was wonderful to have you and have all your insights here and until the next time. Bye bye.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jessica Lyschik:</em> Bye.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 23 Jun 2024 02:36:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:127:"Gutenberg Times: WordPress 6.6 Dev Notes, Theme building workflow, Section Styles, dynamic tokens #WCEU — Weekend Edition 296";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=28910";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:130:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordpress-6-6-dev-notes-theme-building-workflow-section-styles-dynamic-tokens-wceu-weekend-edition-296/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23604:"<p>Howdy, </p>\n\n\n\n<p>it&#8217;s been a week that I returned from WordCamp Europe, and I am still looking at photos of Torino, and my notes. There were so wonderful conversations in Torino with colleagues, long-time friends, I made new friends again. You can follow along via <a href="https://x.com/search?q=%40bph%20%23wceu&src=typed_query&f=live">my Twitter (now X) feed #WCEU</a> to get a tiny glimpse. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a day and a half of recovery I worked on what&#8217;s next: WordPress 6.6, Gutenberg 18.6 a podcast episode, a Hallway Hangout, this newsletter, Q 2 recap, planning for Q 3. Welcome to the fast lane.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The good news is that after five weeks of traveling or preparing to travel, we will stay put in Munich until early August, and hope to get back to our &#8216;normal&#8217; life, whatever that might look like.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow">\n<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordpress-6-6-dev-notes-theme-building-workflow-section-styles-dynamic-tokens-wceu-weekend-edition-296/#0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordpress-6-6-dev-notes-theme-building-workflow-section-styles-dynamic-tokens-wceu-weekend-edition-296/#0-p">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordpress-6-6-dev-notes-theme-building-workflow-section-styles-dynamic-tokens-wceu-weekend-edition-296/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a><ol><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordpress-6-6-dev-notes-theme-building-workflow-section-styles-dynamic-tokens-wceu-weekend-edition-296/#upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</a></li></ol></li><li><a class="wp-block-table-of-contents__entry" href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordpress-6-6-dev-notes-theme-building-workflow-section-styles-dynamic-tokens-wceu-weekend-edition-296/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </a></li></ol>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> publish the <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/06/10/whats-new-for-developers-june-2024/"><strong>What’s new for developers? (June 2024)</strong></a> on the Developer Blog. In the latest monthly round up he looked at the progress made towards WordPress 6.6 and more.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/06/wordpress-6-6-beta-3/"><strong>WordPress 6.6 Beta 3</strong></a> was released this week. The post lists four different ways you can test the new version. It’s definitely time to make sure your site’s plugins and theme are compatible.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p> in preparation for the Field Guide, Dev Notes are coming it as well. The Field guide will be published around Release candidate 1 scheduled for June 25, 2024</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the list of the already published Dev Notes.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/20/site-wide-background-images-in-wordpress-6-6/">Site-wide background images in WordPress 6.6</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/19/theme-json-version-3/">Theme.json version 3</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/18/grid-layout-type/">Grid layout type</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/18/editor-unified-extensibility-apis-in-6-6/">Editor: Unified Extensibility APIs in 6.6</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/21/wordpress-6-6-css-specificity/">WordPress 6.6 CSS Specificity</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In their <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/13/data-views-update-june-2024/">update post about Data Views,</a> Anne McCarthy shared a progress report on the new feature that is right now only available through the site editor and used for pages, template, and template parts and patterns. The post covers what will be available in WordPress 6.6 and beyond. The below screenshot shows a mock-up of how the media library views could look using the new Data view components. </p>\n\n\n\n<img width="652" height="437" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Data-view-beyond-6.6-edited.png?resize=652%2C437&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-28967" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dan Richards</strong> release Gutenberg 18.6. It&#8217;s mainly a release with bug fixes during WordPress 6.6 Beta phase.  In his release post <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-18-6/">What’s new in Gutenberg 18.6</a> Richards highlighted </p>\n\n\n\n<ul class="wp-block-list">\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-18-6/#background-images">Background image support for Quote, Verse, and Post Content blocks</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-18-6/#dataviews-extensibility">DataViews: Extensibility APIs</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jessica Lyschik</strong> and I had a great time recounting our WordCamp Europe experiences, discussing upcoming events, WordPress 6.6, Gutenberg 18.6 and also what&#8217;s being worked on for the next major WordPress version. We recorded it all as the next Gutenberg Changelog episode (#102) that will arrive in your favorite podcast app over the weekend.</p>\n\n\n\n<a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast"><img width="652" height="184" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Screenshot-2024-06-22-at-17.16.39.png?resize=652%2C184&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-29005" /></a>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-accent-color has-light-background-background-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-elements-f61a6e38efafe8fffcffd52c26500075">🎙️ Latest episode: <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-102-wordcamp-europe-wordpress-6-6-and-gutenberg-18-6/">Gutenberg Changelog #102 – WordCamp Europe, WordPress 6.6 and Gutenberg 18.6</a> with special guest Jessica Lyschik</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-p">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Punted from WordPress 6.5 and refactored, synced patterns overrides are now coming to WordPress 6.6. Nick Diego posted <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/06/18/an-introduction-to-overrides-in-synced-patterns/"><strong>an introduction to overrides in Synced Patterns</strong></a> on the Developer Blog. As a side note, we are still looking for a better name and the window is closing. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p>During the latest <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNU2Nhw2QE0"><strong>Developer Hours: Exploring Synced Pattern Overrides in WordPress 6.6</strong></a>, Nick Diego and Ryan Welcher explored how you’ll be able to implement overrides in 6.6 (or today using the Gutenberg plugin) and how they work under the hood.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">\n<div class="toolbelt-video-wrapper"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WordCamp Europe</strong> was the first WordCamp where <strong>Jamie Marsland</strong> brought the <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2024/session/gutenberg-speed-build-challenge/">Speed Build Challenge</a> to a live stage at the event, and <strong>Rich Tabor</strong> and <strong>Jessica Lyschik</strong> competed in recreating the <a href="https://www.noguchi.org/">Noguchi Museum</a> home page in 30 minutes. Watching Lyschik and Tabor and other <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiPorWuYVbztG5kfpP98ME_SumRyjaZq8">Speed build challenges on YouTube</a> taught me a lot about how to approach building themes with the site editor. It’s a special way of problems solving in public. The time constraint is an added thrill, to show, what is possible once one gets over the learning curve. The video of the session will be available on WordPressTV in a few weeks, unless Marsland publishes a version sooner. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href="https://youtu.be/RxQ5yhsxig4">During Q &amp; A of Matt Mullenweg&#8217;s Summer Update</a>, Lyschik asked Mullenweg when he will take part in a Speed Build Challenge. Mullenweg quick on his feet, throw down the gauntlet and challenged Jessica Lyschik to be his opponent. Or course she said yes. Then Mullenweg whispered to Matias Ventura sitting in the first row: &#8220;Matias, you need to train me.&#8221; <em>You can learn the details on our next Gutenberg Changelog podcast episode (102). </em></p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nathan Wrigley</strong> interview <a href="https://wptavern.com/podcast/123-jamie-marsland-on-the-wordcamp-europe-speed-building-challenge"><strong>Jamie Marsland on the WordCamp Europe Speed Building Challenge</strong></a> in the 123rd episode of the WPTavern Jukebox podcast. &#8220;Jamie shares how this concept evolved from his website recreations and how it quickly gained popularity within the WordPress community. He elaborates on the insights and feedback that both participants and viewers have gained from these speed builds, making it more than just a fun challenge.&#8221; Wrigley wrote. </p>\n\n\n<div class="ngl-articles colored ngl-articles-50_50 ngl-articles-frontend">\n\n	\n	<div class="ngl-articles-wrap ngl-articles-webview">\n	\n						\n			<div class="ngl-article-mobile">\n				<div width="100%" border="0">\n					<div>\n						<div valign="top">\n							<div class="ngl-article-mob-wrap">\n							<div class="ngl-article-featured"><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/seven-talks-about-blocks-block-themes-and-beyond-at-wordcamp-europe-2024/" target="_self" rel=""><img src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/wceu2024-1920x1080-1-scaled.jpg?w=652&ssl=1" /></a></div><div class="ngl-article-title"><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/seven-talks-about-blocks-block-themes-and-beyond-at-wordcamp-europe-2024/" target="_self" rel=""><span>Seven talks about blocks, block themes and beyond at WordCamp Europe 2024</span></a></div><div class="ngl-article-excerpt">A curated list of block related talks at WordCamp Europe 2024. NOW with direct links to the recording from the Livestream</div>							</div>\n						</div>\n					</div>\n				</div>\n			</div>\n			\n			\n			\n\n		\n		\n		</div>\n\n</div>\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Vikas Singhal</strong> of <em>InstaWP</em> explored the WordPress landscape of tab solutions and shared the <a href="https://instawp.com/alternatives-wordpress-tab-plugins/"><strong>6 Best WP Tabs Alternatives: WordPress Tab Plugins</strong></a>. &#8220;This comprehensive guide delves into some top WordPress Tab Plugins that serve as great alternatives to the default WP Tabs plugin.&#8221; he wrote. <br /></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dan Richards</strong> posted about <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/19/social-links-block-changes-in-wordpress-6-6/"><strong>Social Links block changes in WordPress 6.6</strong></a>. This is particular interesting for theme developer styling the Social Link blocks nested inside a Navigation block. as it includes some class name changes. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nick Diego</strong> announced that the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2024/06/19/the-theme-directory-gets-a-refresh-and-is-now-powered-by-blocks/"><strong>Theme Directory gets a refresh and is now powered by blocks</strong></a>. &#8220;It’s important to reiterate that this refresh was not a complete redesign. The aesthetic and architectural updates in this iteration purposefully did not alter how the Theme Directory works at a fundamental level. Future updates should build on this work and address the&nbsp;<a href="https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=assigned&status=new&component=Theme+Directory&order=priority">functional changes</a>&nbsp;requested by the community.&#8221; Diego wrote. </p>\n\n\n\n<img width="652" height="360" tabindex="0" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/theme-directory-previewer.webp?resize=652%2C360&ssl=1" alt="Before and after of the theme previewer." class="wp-image-28981" />\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p>This week, I was facilitating the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/05/hallway-hangout-theme-building-with-playground-create-block-theme-plugin-and-github/"><strong>Hallway Hangout: Theme Building with Playground, Create-block-theme plugin, and GitHub</strong></a>. Beatriz Fialho demo&#8217;d her workflow when updating a theme that is housed on GitHub.  You can view the <a href="https://videopress.com/v/xTHYC5eX">demo on VideoPress</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n		\n			<div class="jetpack-videopress-player__wrapper"> <div class="toolbelt-video-wrapper"></div></div>\n			\n			\n		\n		\n\n\n<p> The full one-hour session discussing the various pieces of the workflow is <a href="https://youtu.be/ttvTdLfyIxk">available on YouTube.</a> I am working on a Recap post for the Make Blog that will be available next week. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p>In his latest post, <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/06/21/styling-sections-nested-elements-and-more-with-block-style-variations-in-wordpress-6-6/"><strong>Styling sections, nested elements, and more with Block Style Variations in WordPress 6.6</strong></a>, Justin Tadlock walks you through how you can add styles for your block variations to your theme.json file. Now you don&#8217;t need any more additional block style sheets for your block variations and can manage them all in one space. You still need to register the variations via the functions.php. Follow along the post to also learn about Section styles for a set of nested blocks via additional .json files. WordPress 6.6 opens up a new layer of design for theme builders, including the user interface for site editors to enable them for their sites. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WPBeginners</strong> editorial staff published a tutorial to answer the questions: <a href="https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-is-theme-json-file-in-wordpress-and-how-to-use-it/"><strong>What Is theme.json File in WordPress and How to Use It</strong></a>. &#8220;The theme.json file is a crucial part of the full site editing experience in WordPress. As block themes become more widespread, it’s important to understand what theme.json does and how to edit it properly&#8221; they wrote. This comprehensive guide covers all sections of theme.json: settings, styles, patterns, templates, and template parts. It also touches on how to use the Create block theme plugin and how you can modify the theme.json file via the Global Styles interface.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rich Tabor</strong> blogged about how he <a href="https://rich.blog/720-themes/"><strong>made 720 WordPress theme styles</strong></a>. &#8220;Typically, WordPress themes come with a handful of theme style variations at most. But by leveraging the new capabilities of theme style variations landing in WordPress 6.6, this theme shatters the norm.&#8221; he wrote. </p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> and <strong>Nick Diego</strong> will hold live <a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/301469831/"><strong>Developer Hours: What&#8217;s new for theme developers in WordPress 6.6</strong></a> on <strong>June 25 at 15:00n UTC</strong>, and will cover this topic as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p>Also next week, you can join me, <strong>Isabel Brison</strong> and others at the <strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/19/hallway-hangout-exploring-grid-layouts/">Hallway Hangout: Exploring Grid Layouts</a> June 26 at 11:00 UTC</strong> &#8211; There will be a short demo of what’s coming to WordPress 6.6 and what cool layouts you can create with these features. We also chat about what is in the works for following WordPress releases. <br /></p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2024&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. The previous years are also available: <strong><strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/">2020</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2021/">2021</a></strong>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2022/">2022</a></strong></strong>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2023">2023</a></strong></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In his Developer Blog post, <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/06/13/how-to-create-an-animated-timeline-plugin/"><strong>How to create an animated timeline plugin</strong></a>, <strong>Damon Cook</strong>, developer advocate for WP Engine, walks you through the process of  creating a timeline effect by extending core blocks and adding in some custom CSS and JavaScript.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p>In his <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/06/08/proposal-bits-as-dynamic-tokens/"><strong>Proposal: Bits as dynamic tokens</strong>.</a>, <strong>Dennis Snell</strong> explains a plan to bring inline shortcuts to the block editor. &#8220;A Bit is a small token of semantic meaning. It references content sourced beyond the post or content in which it’s found. It could refer to metadata about a post, a post&nbsp;meta&nbsp;field, a stock price sourced from an API call, a countdown to a particular date, the local time of a given timestamp in the reader’s timezone, a plugin URL, a view counter, a render for a math formula, or any other bit of knowledge that is provided by the server when rendering a post.&#8221; Snell explained. If I understood the timeline correctly, some foundational work was already committed to Core to be in WordPress 6.6, so this feature can be tested in the next Gutenberg plugin releases. If all works as expected, the feature might make into WordPress 6.7.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> livestreamed about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYlwhkVIHZk"><strong>Connecting ACF/Pods to blocks using Block Bindings</strong></a> and explore how he can use some experimental features of WordPress to connect meta frameworks like Advanced Custom Fields and Pods to block using the change to Block Bindings that will ship with WordPress 6.6. </p>\n\n\n\n<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">\n<div class="toolbelt-video-wrapper"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hardeep Asrani</strong> wrote a <a href="https://wpshout.com/wordpress-interactivity-api/"><strong>Beginner’s Guide to the WordPress Interactivity API</strong></a> and added two examples: A live search block and how to set up communication between two blocks by using the same store. </p>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now also available via <a href="https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/playnightly.json">WordPress Playground</a>. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">Email me </a>with your experience</p>\n\n\n\n<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>\n\n\n\n<p class="has-text-align-center has-small-font-size"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? </em><br /><em>Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">them via email</a> or</em><br /><em> send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />\n\n\n\n<p class="has-text-align-center has-small-font-size">For questions to be answered on the <a href="http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, <br />send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p>Featured Image: #WCEU Speed building challenge: Rich Tabor, Jessica Lyschik and Jamie Marsland. Photo by Birgit Pauli-Haack</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />\n\n\n\n<p class="has-text-align-left"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>\n\n\n<form class="wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait" action="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/" method="post"><div class="ngl-form-container"><div class="ngl-form-field"><label class="ngl-form-label" for="ngl_email"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class="ngl-form-input"><input type="email" class="ngl-form-input-text" name="ngl_email" id="ngl_email" /></div></div><button type="submit" class="ngl-form-button">Subscribe</button><p class="ngl-form-text">We hate spam, too, and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone <br />except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay"><div class="ngl-message-svg-wrap"></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay-text">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type="hidden" name="ngl_list_id" id="ngl_list_id" value="26f81bd8ae" /><input type="hidden" name="ngl_double_optin" id="ngl_double_optin" value="yes" /></form>\n\n\n<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 22 Jun 2024 02:06:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";O:48:"WpOrg\\Requests\\Utility\\CaseInsensitiveDictionary":1:{s:7:"\0*\0data";a:9:{s:6:"server";s:5:"nginx";s:4:"date";s:29:"Mon, 01 Jul 2024 15:58:42 GMT";s:12:"content-type";s:8:"text/xml";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Mon, 01 Jul 2024 15:45:43 GMT";s:4:"vary";s:15:"Accept-Encoding";s:15:"x-frame-options";s:10:"SAMEORIGIN";s:16:"content-encoding";s:2:"br";s:7:"alt-svc";s:19:"h3=":443"; ma=86400";s:4:"x-nc";s:9:"HIT ord 2";}}s:5:"build";s:14:"20220426192028";}', 'no');
