Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Within WordPress, the podcast about people inside and outside of WordPress. And with me today is someone who's kind of in between, and we'll get into that later. Welcome, Imran.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Hey, how you doing?
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Good, how are you?
Yeah, sorry, that was too fast.
I was going to ask you to introduce yourself as you were giving a reply, but go ahead.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Hi, I'm Imran from Web Squadron based in the UK.
I've been working with WordPress ever since it launched, really? But I used to do it as a side hustle and I gave up my day job in the NHS two years ago to go full time on web designing and obviously I started my YouTube channel. Allowed me to become a content creator and reach out to people. So thank you very much for inviting. Inviting me here.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you're most welcome.
Before we get into the reason why I invited you, I'd love to know a little bit more, because YouTube channel, what kind of content do you focus on? What is the design, obviously, but there's so many different ways and directions you can go with that. What is. What is what? What makes your heart beat faster.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So YouTube was a little bit accidental because I was using WordPress and primarily elemental PA builder and I was very prominent or, you know, inside of the Elementor Forums and WordPress Forums. And I found myself on a daily basis helping people out, trying to problem solve, be innovative, be efficient.
And what I. I got frustrated by how I had to keep repeating myself over and over again with different answers or the same answer. So I decided to do YouTube videos so I could say to people, just watch this video, it will tell you what you need to do. And that kind of grew and it became a little bit addict.
So from June 2021, I've now released, I think it's two and a half thousand videos, live chats, podcast kind of things as well. And my main aim isn't. Yeah, my main aim isn't to go viral or to be famous or anything, it's just to help people, you know, make a difference, give something back to the community and also to just show people that there are different ways of doing things. Because what can happen is, is that you read an article, you watch a video that someone else has done, and then everyone follows the same way of doing it. So it's been an amazing journey for me and I am very much addicted into creating videos for people in between the web design agency and other things I have going on in my life.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Yeah, so you do the both you have the agency and Alongside content creation in the various form.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I think I can proudly say that I walk the walk, you know, because I do think there are people out there that just do a tutorial video and that's about it. Whereas I can actually talk from experience of getting clients, problem solving clients, difficult clients, scope creep, you know, the feast and famine, all of that. So, yeah, I've been there, done it.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: I think that's interesting to remark because I, I see the same thing now, obviously I have perhaps even a different type of lens because I look performance first, scalability and everything connected to those performance viewpoints.
And then there's a lot of people that I've spoken to that are either content creator or, you know, just very active on any other social platform.
And it's wild to learn how little they know from what I consider a base principle. Like, this is where you start. We don't even look at design before we have a foundation of what, you know, performant WordPress site should be.
If you have no grasp of that, then, then what are you doing next? Right, so.
And I can. And what you just said, I think that resonates with me as well. Like from, from a lot of advice that you hear is like, yeah, but, you know, how much do you really know? Like, are you just repeating or is chat GPT really helping you find a voice or whatever or.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a really interesting point you make because I find a lot of content creators, they sometimes regurgitate what someone else has said. In fact, you can say this about. You could say it's about YouTube generally. You know, one person does a video about how they started their YouTube channel in their 40s, and then all of a sudden you see 30, 40 videos of different content creators jumping on the bandwagon. Whereas I think I've created a bit of a niche for myself in that I try to find new, innovative ways of doing things.
So I, I love developers, I love what people do with plugins and things like that. But if I'm able to create a code snippet or how to show you how. We know Elementor has limitations, right? There's loads of issues for sure, you know, now and again, but is there something you could use in Elementor in a different way that allows you to do something that you thought you could not do?
So I feel like that's. And I feel like that's why people kind of resonate with me and how I've built my following, subscribers and community, because they can see that he's he thinks out the box as well as thinking inside the box. Because we've got to remember we're working with WordPress. You know, there's only so much we can do within WordPress at this moment in time. So we want to be different, but we also have to remember the boundaries of what we're working with.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I always say that you can pretty much build anything with WordPress.
The question should probably more be with, well, it should more be aligned with should I, Are there certain things I probably should just find a platform for?
For instance, I'm looking to launch a community as well and I'm in my preference discovery phase of what am I going to use as a tool?
You know, I can build it in WordPress. In fact, I've for over a decade highly heavenly, focused on heavily not heavenly, focused on building BuddyPress sites.
Now I don't do that much anymore, but I still know how to do it right. So I know if I want to, I can make BuddyPress look like Circle, almost act like circle. It's a lot of work, but I can make it happen. But the question is, should I?
[00:07:04] Speaker B: I have found that in that kind of instance, if I was going to be working on a member website, I probably wouldn't use WordPress.
I love what we can do with it, but I always find that, like you mentioned BuddyPress Member Press, so many other solutions out there, I always find that they come with a lot of complications and when you start to have a mixture of plugins and things going on and plugin updates and WordPress core updates over and over again, things start to feel a little bit unstable sometimes and all it takes is one mishap and it's now your problem to sort out. Whereas if you use a third party solution, I mean, I don't, I don't use Kajabi or things like that, but if I had to, I would consider them because, you know, they're robust enough. And it's a bit like I was talking to someone with how if I knew a client and their intention was just to sell products and nothing else and they wanted a quick and easy solution, I might, you know, suggest maybe they might want to use Shopify, even though I don't build on Shopify. So I always feel like, you know, we do sometimes have to look at the fact that there are other solutions out there and we can't just be biased towards using WordPress even though we are in our comfort area when we use WordPress. But yeah, there are limitations. Things can break.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I Think that's, that's probably the right. There is the downfall of any thinking of I can just do anything in WordPress, the question is not whether you can. The question is how much complexity are you willing to maintain.
And for the most, I think for the most part that's. People are fine with accepting because the upside is you have full control, meaning you are dependent on the plugins and the updates and all that complexity and how they interact with each other. Sure. But you still have it under control.
You own the data, you own your platform, everything on it. So from that regard, I still think WordPress answers the question positively in many, many cases.
But it's a question and you need to, you need to ask it.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: I think the thing that we can both agree on, and I think millions of people around the world will agree, is that WordPress gave the power and authority to so many people, empowered us to be able to build websites. So if we go back, you know, before WordPress, I was messing around with Dreamweaver and things like that and you know, I hated it. I really, really hated it because I made so many mistakes and I kept thinking, what am I doing here? You know, I'm a young la. I should be out there enjoying myself. Why am I staring at this screen trying to understand C programming and stuff like that? What is this? WordPress gave us the ability to make magic with our fingertips.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. And it's funny you say Dreamweaver.
I started building my first website, probably 97.
Just raw HTML, bit of front page work.
It was okay for, you know, for what it was. I didn't mind working with it. But then Dreamweaver became the thing everybody was using. I was like, yeah, no. And I actually stopped building websites for probably four or five years. Like, didn't touch them.
I was like, I'm not doing this.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: It's funny you say 19 1. Yeah, sorry, go.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say 2001. I started playing with Mambo and then Joomla and then WordPress, but. But yeah, that whole Dreamweaver thing, I was like, get out of my face. This is, this is not for me.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: No, it's 1997 was actually the first time I experienced the Internet. I just started university. We didn't have no Internet at college or anything like that. And it was the first time I suddenly realized, wow, this is amazing. And of course, 1997 was when every website had the running dinosaur gif, you know, thumbnails everywhere and the Ali McBeal dancing baby, you know, that Was everywhere. As well as Bugs Bunny.
Know every website is like, almost forgot that one. You know, I mean, I mean, now we look back and we go, oh, how ugly. But back then it was like, oh, how do we do that? You know, you thought it was amazing to have dancing gifts.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: CSS probably was the thing that actually pulled me in. Like the ability to change in one sheet, style sheet, just change how a site looked. That. That to me was the magic. That that's what really pulled me back in. And then learning everything around it and with it and all. What?
Yeah, yeah, Fun times.
I. I'll tell you what. I literally know the date that I first got online and how magical it was.
February 1, 1996.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Wow.
Was like. It was. It was like a game changer, wasn't it? You know, the whole.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: I mean, first time I used email as well, you know, it was.
It was unbelievable.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: I. I had done an exchange student year in the United States and that was 1991. I got back in 91 here in the Netherlands.
And then I kept in touch with my exchange student family via mail.
And my, my. My brother, my exchange student brother, he sent me an A mail in which he said, I don't know if you know what an email is, but here's mine if you want to reach me. I go, like, I know. I have no clue. What is an email. I have no idea. And then a couple of months later, and this was end of.
Yeah, end of 95, I saw a magazine and in the magazine they talked about email. I'm like, hey, I've. I've read that word before. What is that? And then I figured out how to get one. Got one. And then I emailed him. And I mean, I literally remember me just signing up for the Internet just to send him an email, like.
And that was February 1st, 1996. That's funny.
Yeah. But the world sure has come a long way since then, right?
You mentioned Elementor. How much are you looking forward to version 4?
[00:13:21] Speaker B: I.
I'm looking forward to it. I'm playing around with it. I've done some tutorial videos on it. I think it's good that they have now embraced, you know, the global class system and all of that. It's about time.
But I do have a few reservations in that I'm not sure if they're going to implement this new setup for every widget or are we going to have a mixture of version 3, version 4 widgets and my big bugbear. And I keep repeating this is that we have now lost the ability to have custom CSS per widget.
Now everyone will say, you can just use the class system. I go, no, but it's not the same.
You know, if I want to put some particular CSS for this heading, I don't want to have to go to Site Settings. I want to only do it for that heading so that I know when I go to that heading, I can see the css. I don't want to have to go to Site Settings or Theme Customizer. So I have concerns that it's not there yet and there's no sign of it coming either, yet.
So that's my biggest concern at the moment because if you don't implement that, then you lose.
You make it harder for designers or developers to bespoke ify personalize a widget, an element, a website, you know, so, sure, don't make it hard for us. Give us that. Give us the ability back.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I could see that.
I think I, for me personally, I would approach it differently, but I can see it boils down to a preference. Right. What do you. What do you like doing? What is what. What fits your workflow?
Yeah, and. And tools. Changing your workflow, That's a challenge.
I mean, I've been using Genesis since the very first beta.
Beta with a lot of pleasure. It just makes so much sense in my head how that theme was designed. Meant to be wielded in whatever direction you wanted to.
Really just made it like my second nature. I didn't think about how to implement something.
So when block themes became a thing and I've played with.
I think I've built one or probably two sites on Elementor, didn't quite like it.
Performance was a thing much more then than it is now.
Beaver Builder was much more performant. So I think I build for about two, three years quite a few sites on Beaver Builder because it allowed me to do something I couldn't do easily.
And you could make it work with Genesis in a way. So, you know, hybrids, sure, let's try it.
But my workflow was really changed a couple years ago when the site editor, so full site editing was introduced. And I was like, I'm gonna try this because this is native, this is core, so I'll be certain this is going to stick around for a long while.
But that was. Everything is different. Like everything is different, not everything is better.
I think ultimately it is, but it for sure has a lot of downsides. Have you. Have you played with the site editor in. In.
In earnest?
[00:16:39] Speaker B: No, no. But it is Something that I do see as part of my evolution in that at some point I will have to get a bit dirty with that. I think something that is, it's something that is mentioned qu by some of my community members. And I always say, but I'm okay just working with Elementor at the moment, building what I need to build, but I do think at some point I will have to dabble with it. And I think a lot of that may come from decisions I make once I know exactly what's happening with version 4 of Elemental and also the future as well. You know, I'm thinking three, four, five years down the line in terms of AI, the impact on websites, the younger generation that are using websites less and less, a little bit, and relying on social media and TikTok and things like that.
Where's the direction going and where do we need to pivot, you know, because we don't want to become, not redundant, but we don't want to become like, you know, like, oh, old news. So where do we have to start changing our skill sets? And with AI, you know, it's very much about being able to prompt and code and create agents.
And I feel like every day is just a learning day, which is frustrating because, you know, it's bad enough when you're trying to keep up with your Page Builder and WordPress and WooCommerce version 10 and this changes and that changes, and then you've got AI in the background and you kind of like struggle to keep up. So, yeah, let's just see where things go.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: I think that's a fair assessment. I think I see it pretty much the same now. I do a lot with AI.
One of the things I play with just to understand what it is, the vibe coding thing. So in cursor, build projects and see what it does. But that's more me wanting to understand the types of prompts that are needed in that type of environment with the files and the configs and all that sort of stuff. I want to understand how it works. I don't feel a pull to start building, building all the things I can put in my head.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm, I, I'm not overly keen. So this. So I feel like there's two schools of thought. No, there's three schools of thought. With all the coding, you have those that want to create apps, those that want to create agents to do jobs for them. And the third option, which is where I sit, is I just want to use AI to help me create a code snippet or do Something extra with a Page Builder or WordPress that stops me having to go to a third party solution so I can build it to exactly what my requirements are. So I, I love using AI encoding, but I use it more for, like, what's good for me or my clients or for the community. I'm a little bit scared, if I'm honest, of ever building anything that becomes an app. People keep saying to me, why don't you build a plugin? You know, you built, you built this amazing thing for, you know, converting images or creating inverted border radiuses. No one's ever done that. Why don't you create a plugin and sell it? And I go, well, number one, I'll then be responsible. I'll have to deal with support requests. When there's a vulnerability or a security issue, I have to do it and I don't want to get involved into that. You know, it's stressful enough, you know, making sure I've got Pepsi Max in the fridge without having to handle plug in issues.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: You do like your Pepsi Max, huh?
[00:20:16] Speaker B: I do, I do, yeah.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: The only reason I drink it is because I'm forced, because they don't have Coke.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: I keep asking them to sponsor me, but they won't. They didn't. They never reply.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Sons of riches.
No, but I think, I think what you're saying. So I, I think I kind of land in between. So I do what you do, but I also like to work with the agents. So, but I, and I, I, I've covered this in previous podcast episodes as well. So for those of you listening, hearing me repeat, bear with me. It's just because AI is just the thing we need to be thinking about from every single angle all the time.
But for me, it's more of let me use it to enrich, let me use it to validate, let me use it to find gaps and holes in my logic, my thinking, my even seeing certain solutions and whatnot.
I like for it to do the gathering.
Like, you know, I'll collect snippets left and right and then say, what's the most logical way? And I have a bunch of base settings that say, this is how I want you to build a plugin. This is how I want you to do a snippet, you know, all of these things. And then I say, if I need a plugin, what's the best way to combine these four or five snippets into a plugin, taking into account that I need this, this, this and that as well, and that, that, that's just taking away the labor of me having to work through it, right through it.
I find the logic thing nice. I find it interesting to think of how it would need to look and function and all that.
I don't really care to always write it. I if I wanted to be a backend developer I would have been.
That's not to say I don't do it. It's just more like that's not where my joy is.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: No, I think you're absolutely right. I think you're right there because I don't want to be a full time backend developer either. I want to be creating, I'm more about the presentation, the visual, being able to mess around with things but not just be doing the coding side of things. And I find that now what I would normally go to Google for, I now open Chat GPT.
I want to find out about some holidays with my son. I want to find out about how like I uploaded a photo of my like my camera layout and I said okay, can you just double check? Is it lopsided in terms of the lighting or do I need to put something more on this side? And it starts to advise me and, and it's just, it allows us to ask questions that we never normally would have asked anyone else because they probably couldn't understand or you couldn't do on Google or wherever you went. And you just hope that Google would give you the results of someone who might have touched that topic. And you're going to Reddit and forums and back and forth and comments and comments and you never get your answer. But we are now so much more, you know, efficient in what we can do and solve. I mean on a side story, I went on holiday with my son to Jersey four days ago.
It was a, a self catering lodge. There was an oven, I wasn't sure which setting to use to cook his pizza and my burger so I took a photo of the oven setting and I said to Chat GPT, which one do I need to use for the fan assisted oven? And it went that one.
And that's the power of what you can do. Literally there within seconds.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: I, I, my parents, they're both 73, they have a good understanding of how that side of the technology stack that I use work.
But the moment I show them those types of things, you can see them do the steps in their head. So first of all it needs to understand what the picture is. Second of all they need to understand what's in the picture.
Then they need to understand, you know, you see them the whole.
And they go, look, that's really cool. I never would have thought of that.
But that's what it allows you to do.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's so many, so many people. I mean, what frustrates me is there's a lot of people that are asking questions in WordPress forums, on Facebook, other areas.
And my. And all I can think of is, why don't you just ask AI?
Your question's not complicated. AI could help you out. And I think a lot of people still don't understand. Like, they say, I updated a plugin and I got an error message, or I hovered and nothing happened. And I'm like, record a video, upload it to AI. And AI will watch the video and will probably tell you what was wrong or what the error was. And I feel like people still are. They're even nervous or. I think that.
I think there's a slight problem. There's a generational issue. So I've mentioned this in another video where I said, I believe that people aged over 40, we were of the generation where we grew up without the Internet. In a way, you had to go to a library to learn to read a book, to ask questions.
So we are inquisitive and, you know, we, we, we are seeking the answers to our question. So we will go in and ask our question. I feel like the younger generation, because they've grown up with mobile phones, they're so used to just having the answer there that when they have a problem, they don't know how to ask AI.
I feel like they, they don't know how to articulate what they want, you know, so, you know, they're used to just going up to like, you know, to go to McDonald's. They just go, I want this, I want this, I want this. But if they had to go over and ask the person, the customer service, this is what I want. They don't know how to ask. And it's just like people on the customer service side don't even know how to respond either. I feel like, you know, if you think about what people were like in shops 20 years ago. Hi, how are you? How can I help you? Thank you. Now it's just like 2.99, you know.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Yeah, they're processing, yeah, they're processing the, the cart, but it used to be so, so my wife used to work as a cashier check out in, in her teens and from the entire, literally the entire grocery store, she knew everything, what was in it and what it cost.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: Everything by heart.
Yes, not heart, but head, but you.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Know, but no, but they know.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Yeah, and, and they, and, and they actually measured her knowledge by coming up with a cart and just, just start calculating what the total is and then how accurate you were, is how well you were doing your job. That was normal.
Can you imagine having a, whatever the generation is called, but someone young doing that now?
Like, dude, I have like a, I have a phone for this. Can I use the phone, please?
[00:27:34] Speaker B: No. Or. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so, so, so I feel like a lot of the, and this isn't having a dig at the younger generation, but I feel like they slightly struggle with. They got a problem and they just want you to help them because they've always had things given to them easy.
But I feel like that's where in the next five, ten years with AI, it's, it's because I know a lot of web designers are going, oh, my goodness, you know, what if people don't want a website, what will I do for an income? And I say to them, you need to pivot.
You need to kind of upskill yourself. Become an, not an expert, but become someone who's good at prompting, who's good at strategizing, who's good at analyzing data. Yeah, because companies out there are going to want to start to employ, they're going to want to lessen the staff that did the mundane work because AI will now do it for them, but now they want people that can interpret it. It and be able to ask the right question.
So I feel like that's the next area for development for a lot of people.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: I can see that.
I can see that. I think that. I think the, the, the, the understanding that the, the focus of the work shifts more into the analysis side of things, less in the, the mundane, just the doing things. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it wouldn't be for me because I, I'd miss, I don't know, I, I'd like to be the, in the phase before the analytical stuff as well. Not necessarily looking for the mundane, but more of the, the more different things you touch, the more round, well, round you become in, in your general and your, you know, you develop more and more red threads where the whole of the thing becomes more apparent. I think, I think I'd miss that if I was just doing that side of the.
So again, I think I use AI just as a complementary thing instead of a fully generative thing.
But there's a lot of room for where the hell is this going to go in the next three to five years? Because it's going to go wild. And I've said this before, we think with us working with this daily, that this is what Gen Q public is using. They're not. They're just kind of looking at it and maybe they've tried it for this and that, but they're not really using it yet.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: No.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: 90 of the people have no idea what it, what, what AI is.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: No, I, I think a lot of people are just using it to help write their essays, dissertations, and that's it. That's as much as I hear from normal general people. They have no idea the power we have in our hands. And yeah, it is scary. I think it is a little bit scary to think where could we be in. I mean, I'm quite looking forward to a robot. I, I really hope I can one day get a robot.
And really he'll. Yeah. And, and they will know without me asking anything, you know, they will know from looking at me that he needs a Pepsi Max and it will go off to the fridge, get me a cold. And it will. And it will know if it's cold. You know, it'll know with his sensors in its fingers if it's cold enough or not. You know, and something like that.
[00:30:59] Speaker A: I think this is where you and I start to differ a little bit because I at no point in my life want to have a robot. I don't even want the robot vacuum. Well, that said, there is a robot lawnmower doing his thing right now, so.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: But I think, I mean, maybe the.
[00:31:14] Speaker B: Extent of it, I mean, I mean, maybe I don't need a robot. Maybe just like just something I can just have conversations with sometimes.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: You have a kid, right? You have a kid, right? Can't you?
[00:31:25] Speaker B: I do have. I. I do have a kid. But you know what? Sometimes I, I won't lie, it's quite nice when he's at school.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I, I hear you on that. My. I have three kids. My youngest is 18 and. And off to university now, so I will start both be sad about it, but also enjoy the. I can just do with my time what I want.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: I introduced you and reference to a specific reason why I invited you.
It's quite bit different from the topic we've been talking about so far, but I, you know, AI is inescapable.
I don't think I've had a guest on the podcast for the last 15 episodes where AI was not part of the conversation, but I responded to an email. Email. I responded to a video. You did.
Which I'm gonna let you introduce what the video was about, and then we can go into what my response was and how we got here today.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's a topic that's been bugging me for many, many years. I'd probably say way before COVID ever happened as well. And I just started to notice that, like, either events or newsletters or promotional things that were going out, it always felt like either the same people were being promoted or there was always, like, one way of describing how to approach whether you're building a website or. Or plugins and things like that. And it started to feel very much like. Like an echo chamber. Like, people just talk about how to build things in one way and they don't want to embrace the fact that you can build in other ways. And the second part was that I also felt like some people always.
It felt like they only ever promoted the same people.
And it got to a point where I. I started unsubscribing from lots of newsletters because I always fel.
You knew who they were going to promote. And it just felt like you're disregarding that someone else might have done something better or differently.
And it just started to feel very much like a, you scratch my back, I scratch your back.
And I am also aware of how. And I don't want to go into too many details, but I was part of a little group of content creators where it felt like if I do something or I release a new product or whatever, or a course or something, we will promote each other.
But it became very apparent that some people only promote other certain people. And I just felt like I got a bit fed up of it. And I feel like there are some things. Sorry for my long answer, by the way, but there are some things that we. That we do need to talk about. You know, we talk about plugins, we talk about security, Gutenberg, you know, things going on, Elemental performance, xyz, we talk about clients, Scope, creepy, you know, how much do we earn and, you know, what technology we're using. But there are some topics, I feel like in the WordPress community, they almost don't get spoken about much. And I don't know if that's because we just don't want to approach it and we want to be careful. And I felt like it's about time I just said it, put it out there and then deal with the repercussions.
What happens afterwards.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Were they severe the repercussions?
The.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: The replica. They've been mixed. So I, I felt that the way you articulated your blog article was really, really good.
There's been a few others that have also done like, similar, smaller posts. And again, they're very similar to what you've said. And I do completely agree with what you're saying about how, like, you know, it's about putting out, you know, the right message at the right time. And kind of like, you know, there may be reasons why you're not looking at other methods because maybe you're focusing on WordPress core or stuff like that. And that's absolutely right. But there were some other people that I think what they've done is they've latched onto certain parts of what I said. So I mentioned diversity and what I meant by diversity was the fact that there's so many different people out there. It was nothing to do with like, you know, your religion or the color of your ladies.
Exactly. Yeah. Or some people feel like I'm unhappy because I haven't got as many subscribers or I'm not winning awards and stuff like that. And I said it's nothing to do with that. It's to do with the fact that, you know, there's a danger that we only elevate some people and then everyone else that might be just as good, just as talented, they just kind of stay in the shadows a little bit. But it's also just because sometimes some people, they only ever applaud a select group of people. And I just feel like it's, you know, and I don't want to go into it and I have to be very careful because I really don't want to go into it it. Because I don't want to sound like I'm having a rant or being petty, but I always feel like automatic employees only ever promote automatic employees.
And that's. And that's something I've seen for a long, long, long time. And I really feel like you need to accept that there are non automatic people as well. So embrace the community.
Otherwise it's no longer a community. It just becomes pockets that don't seem to mix. Yeah.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah. I mean, first of all, I don't think you're ranting. I think you're, you're touching something that needs to be spoken about. Which is why I left you a long comment on the, on the video, which is why I turned that long comment into a blog post.
Because you are, you are absolutely 100 correct. However, there is an immediate but there's nuance.
And since I am a content creator, I do have a newsletter with, you know, 18 1840, whatever subscribers. So there's a fair amount of people listening to me.
It also touches a little bit on how I see my role in that.
Not as a victim, but more as a.
You know, there's, there's this nuance of how there's different ways of looking at the concept of an echo chamber. So in my particular case, I focus on WordPress core and the, the WordPress way in, in, in. In the vast majority of the items that I feature in my newsletter.
And that for me, for instance, means there's no design. I do not touch community, I do not touch page builders, with the one exception. Now I really enjoy what Etch is doing. So that's pretty much the only one I will feature alongside full site editing.
So that's a conscious decision, right? So, but then your video, it, you know, it automatically forces you to think about the choices that you make. Like, okay, but how much of an echo chamber am I? And how much is. Has. Has that grown into more of an echo than I intend to have?
And you know, that, that, that part triggered me into writing what I wrote.
I'll add it to the show notes. But the, the article I wrote is called the fine line between editorial focus and echo chambers in WordPress.
And I encourage you to read it because I think it. I articulated in the article slightly better than I'm doing here. But the topic itself is something I think we need to put on the forefront of our minds more often.
I don't think it's a bad thing in of itself.
And I agree, I see this.
So there's echo chambers and there's tribes and inside a particular tribe. And whether that's automatic or awesome motive or any of the companies that have a large number of people working for them, you will see them be participating in multiple echo chambers. And sometimes the only thing they echo is their own stuff.
I don't think it's fully inaccurate to say what you said about Automattic, but I think the same goes for quite a few other companies where you just essentially only see them promote, talk about, post, tweet, whatever, on whatever social media channel that is an extension of what the thing is that they do.
I also think there's a big difference between the lurkers and the content creators. Like and I for, for full measurement, I include people regularly engaging and creating either comments or posts on the social media as content creators because if we don't have those, there's nothing to look at at, there's nothing to digest, there's nothing to report on but yeah, I think the problem you highlight is a good one to have highlighted and then for us to be more considerate of. But what does that really mean? Like what am I excluding? And am I excluding it for the right reasons or is it just my favoritism and I just want to push on my idea onto anybody. Now the only thing that I do in that particular case is say you need to start building your site from a performance standpoint. First point. Point done.
And yes, I'm quite annoying in, in. In having that particular first thought.
Yeah, that's a, that's a lot of words saying that you're right. But I think there's a, there's a nuance.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: Well, it's.
And I actually agree with everything you said. And like I said, when I read your post, which by the way, you got out within very quickly as well, you know, it was on the day I released my video and, and I, and I, I actually, I. My son was at a play park in Jersey and I was really bored. Sat there listening to loads of kids making noise everywhere and it was giving me a headache. And then I read your post and I was like, you said it better.
Yours was almost like a perfect script I could have done a video on. So it was really well written. But there was something in my video that I, that I forgot to mention and I keep forgetting to talk about it, is that the, is the issue with WordPress, you know, like, you know, the fact you know things about echo chambers and cliques and do people promote other people? Is that I feel like it's this problem or what I conceive to be a problem actually has infiltrated events.
So I'm talking about, you know, the atrium event, the page Builder event, the wordcamp event, or all of the virtual events that are meant to be about WordPress.
When was the last time you went to an event where it actually felt like the speakers, the talks, the seminars, the workshops were actually about WordPress?
I feel like you could, you could look at the last events we've had in the last three, four years, and maybe 80% of all the speakers on there are just promoting a product.
You know, GoDaddy might be there or another host provider might be there, or someone's there talking about security, but they're not talking about the security of WordPress. They're just talking about a security thing that's nothing actually to do with websites. And what I find is that. And again, I'm not going to name names, but there are some people who seem to be at every event and they're just there to sell their course, which has nothing really to do with Web designer. It's like, how, how can we create a lead magnet that people will buy so you can make lots of money? And I'm one of those people that when you're part of like a product or an ecosystem, which WordPress is, I'm very passionate that if there's going to be in a WordPress event, let's make it useful for the people.
Whether it's a free event or a paid event, make it about WordPress, make it feel like you're now going to learn about clients, you're going to learn about how to sort out malware, you're going to learn about vulnerabilities you need to think about or performance.
Performance for you is so important. Let's get back onto what can make us evolve and learn and become better. Because I just feel like, I mean, when I look at the WordCamp events and I look at the speaker list, I look at it and go, what's the point of going to. That there's an event for the first time in a long, long time. There's an event in London in September.
When it was announced.
Yeah, when it was announced in March, I was waiting for details and now I look at the details, I look at it and go, why would you want to go to that? I'm being really blunt here. What are you really going to get from that?
What are you paying for? You know, you know, is there any benefit, you know, you might network, you might get a drink and a sandwich, but is it really going to make you come out of it a better WordPress designer or a WordPress developer? You know, because how, when was the last time there was a talk about user experience, user interfaces, about be careful with animation, you know, gsap. Just because you can do G sub doesn't mean you put every GSAP animation on a website.
And I feel like I. Oh, I know. I mean, I'm very like, you know, mobile first and all of that. You know, what are you going to do if Apple do introduce, you know, a foldable phone? Does that now mean we got to take tablet horizontal layout more seriously than we currently do?
And I feel like if, if WordPress got back to that rather than sponsorships and who's paid the most money? So we'll make sure they get a talk or whatever like that, or we keep reinviting the same people we had before and before. And that's what I meant by the echo chamber. It just Feels like I don't know what you. I don't know what your thoughts. I'd love to hear what you think, but when it comes, I know you go to a lot of events as well, because I see you on Twitter when you're driving there, and everything, you know, you're giving, you're letting us know about, you know, what you're up to.
And, but, but, but, but do you feel like you go to the events more to just meet people rather than actually attend the. The seminars? Because I don't know you. You're gonna have more experience than me.
[00:46:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I think.
I think for the vast majority of wordcamps that I've gone to, and there it's about 70 in total, the vast majority has been about the people more than the talks.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: And that is partly driven by my ability to check out the talks that I hear have gone really well.
And every single wordcamp, I do see a couple of talks. There are some sometimes friends that I'm curious for their insights, or there's other ones that I go just. This could be really interesting.
So I do see a couple, but I don't sit in the audience from.
From. From Dusk till Dawn.
Part of that is because I can read. I can watch them on twice as fast the speed on WordPress TV afterwards, which is a big plus for me because oftentimes I find it to go too slow.
That's because I'm used to, you know, processing information at a fairly high rate.
So that just helps me personally. But what I absolutely enjoy is the human element of it. And that I find between the talks at the sponsor booth, in the conversation that I have with people. So I get way more out of that. And there's learnings about WordPress in those as well. Right. So we don't just talk about everything. We also talk about WordPress. And so for. I'm probably not the best person to ask specifically about the talks.
That said, I do have an opinion on it.
I think we are indeed deviating from certainly the original idea. Not maybe not even idea, but the. Certainly the. The original type of work camps we had.
And when I say original, the first one I went to was in 2009, is the one I organized. And then for the next seven, eight years, the. The. The types of conversations were very much aligned in the.
Excuse me, very much aligned in the. Let's make the web better, let's make WordPress better, and let's help you understand how to be a better WordPress user, designer, developer, whatever. And I think Somewhere along the lines, we started to forget that those types of talks because the assumption is everybody kind of knows how to do that already.
You're more focused on design from a design perspective. That is the relatively smaller crowd at a wordcamp generally.
So you'll have less focus on those topics because the demand is just not that high.
Yeah, but I think there's certainly something to be said about the argument you're making in that the types of conversations are. Are changing the type. Sorry. The types of presentations and talks.
I don't know if I necessarily agree with the speakers being of sponsors because certainly at a WordCamp that generally doesn't happen because that the group of people that select who is to become a sponsor and that select who is to be a speaker. There's never been, certainly not at any of the Word camps that I've organized, and I've organized over 16, 17 of those.
There's never been a connection like, oh, you sponsor us, we will let you speak. So none of that has ever happened on, on my watch, so to say. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it certainly isn't the way it works for a WordCamp. Now, any other event, yeah, you can assume that something like that happens.
I don't think I've seen any blatant cases of it. I have to correct myself. The very first WordCamp we organized, we had a speaker from Microsoft because they sponsored. I was the horrible decision. That was a horrible talk.
But yeah, in General, you know, 2009, I didn't know any better.
None of the organizing team knew any better.
But the.
I don't know. I think I see slivers of what you're saying, just not as, as large and as highlighted as you see it. So. And part of the reason might be because you, you don't go to that many events as I do. So my, my pool of what I see is much larger.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And I, and I am, I'm guilty of that. And I do get asked this question quite a lot with why don't you go to them? And it's mainly because I'm juggling.
So there's the, the web design agency, there's the YouTube side of things, but there's so many other things that I don't always talk about that I have other income streams and other things I'm involved in business consultancy, health analytics, looking after my son.
He has a lot of mental health issues, so there's a. There's almost on a daily basis I have to look after him and be there for him. So trying to get away is extremely difficult for me and I wish I could go to some events and that's why I was a little bit, bit disappointed with the Loop conference that's happening in London because we just haven't had any good, you know, WordPress events in the UK for such a long time now.
[00:52:13] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: That I was looking forward to it, but it, it just didn't grab me enough to want to go. But I hope, I hope very soon one day we will have a word camp in the UK and I promise that if there is, I will definitely be there.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: Yeah, there will be a word camp in, in the uk. Again, word camp London didn't happen because of budget reasons and things changing and dragging on and then changing. So yeah, I know that, I know the background story there, I'm not going to share that because it's not my place, but I know there's been a valiant effort to make it happen and for sure it, it'll happen again. But I, I suspect it's not going to be London. I suspect it's going to be like Manchester or Leeds or at Umbra or something like that. But, but yeah, I mean, there's a difference, right. When, when and, and you know, first of all, I'll never claim that you have to go there. I think it's an enrichment if you can.
And, and that's essentially how I, I would advise anybody. If you can find the time, then you will for sure. And I, and I'll even include Luke, Luke Khan for that for you.
I think you will find that if you were to go, you will get way more out of it than you can possibly judge from the roster or whatever.
And that's because I know Brian, the, one of the organizers, Brian Richards, main organizer, and I know how he values actually the exact same points that you're raising. So, so from that perspective, I would recommend you to go. But, but yeah, the, the, the, the thing is real.
Where you know from, from the outside looking in and you're not getting the stuff that's in between, you know, the layer that's in between, then it's very difficult to derive value from that. I.
[00:54:18] Speaker B: No, you make a fair point. You do, you make a fair point.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: I try to, I'm going to say. Having said that, I also don't see the solution out of this because the types of WordPress in the last, let's call it six, seven years has begotten quite a bit more professional, meaning there's a different crowd that goes to the events than it is when than in its early days which was very much open source driven, a different person was common. There's a different type of person coming now I feel. And, and that's something that inherently means there's different topics, there's different speakers and they're, they are looking for the familiar voices and they are so you know, it's a mix. It's like you want to have something in innovative, you want to have something that brings the added value. You want that out of the box. Person, person.
But if they're not presenting themselves as hey I'm available or they have some bit of a following, it's, it's kind of hard to putting them on, on, on, on a roster where people potentially looking into coming are going to go, yes, I want to see that person because I know they are knowledgeable about what they say.
You know, if you were to have somebody like John Ollison, you know, for sure you're going to, you're going to get be, you know, you're going to be treated really well on the topic of SEO like thoroughly.
And so Jono is a good reason for, you know, having him on stage is a good reason for somebody to join the, the event.
Just an example. Right. But Jon is a good friend of mine and, and I, I, I can vouch for the quality of the types of presentations he does and there's more like him. So if you have one of those that for sure is going to be on the, what do you call it, it's a lever to get people to come so their commercial side of things is for sure something that's, yeah, it's inescapable. I think it might be that because there's events that I long for.
I wish this would have been one of those early events because just it's more loose.
Quality may vary, sure. But there's a different learning component and I go to events where there's a hint of it, but I don't quite grasp and maybe this is an old man ranting Now I'll turn 52 in a week or what.
So maybe that's part of it as well.
But I think I have to come to the conclusion that I kind of agree with what you're saying and you're kind of agreeing with what I'm saying.
Meaning it has so many aspects of what is the preference, what is the requirement, what is the need.
[00:57:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I feel like WordCamp just become needs to become or events generally need to become more of a chilled out area. Whereby you don't have to be a veteran or an expert or, or be, or know lots of people.
Because it's great to see the photos from WordCamp and other events. You know, people always, you know, seeing old friends, old associates, but sometimes you feel like if you, if you're brand new, you might not know anyone and you know, you're gonna, you know, you might feel like you're just mingling and you know, you're, you're moving in between crowds and I feel like if it, if it had more of a chilled out vibe to it and it really embraced and got back to what is WordPress and what can it do for you and what can you get out of it, you know, no matter how long you've been using, might bring in, in more people.
Because I thought, you know, I feel like there's a danger where, you know, in 10 years time will it just be the same faces that keep going and there's nothing wrong with that.
But, but, but there's a, there's like, will new users kind of look at it and go, well, I'm not sure if I really fit there.
I mean my, my problem is just traveling. My problem is traveling and getting away from work and stuff like that. That, you know, that I've got so much, there's so many other things going on that I have, I've got to keep my eye on. But I, I think it needs to be more open, I think to let people know that you don't have to be a developer, you don't have to have used this company. You don't have to be friends with, you know, with you or, or Matt Mullenweg or anyone like that. You don't need to have met them or spoken to them.
You can come along. And I feel like, you know, whenever Word Camp or some events are advertised, I don't get that feeling like this is for, this is for you, this is for the community. I feel like that's, that's. There's a messaging that's somewhere lost and you, you touched on.
Feels like it's become more formalized, you know, and it's, it's, you know, it's more people.
[00:59:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it's natural because the WordPress is for sure a business like business.
The white.
No.
Who was it?
WP Engine did a report not too long ago, a couple of years back when it was I don't know how many billions, but ridiculously high amount of money is what the market is worth. So that's going to have its effect I'll be going to work Gdynia in Poland. And this is, this is a premonition, but I think I'm going to see more of what you're referring to at that word camp than I have in quite a long time.
So I think that, you know, it's, it, where it's happening is also determining the types of people you see and all of that. But look, I don't. It's a, It's a very difficult one to, to, to, to solve, I think, because.
[01:00:54] Speaker B: Yeah, can I just, Can I just touch on that? So what you just said, there is something that I had considered a while ago in that when you have, I don't want to say the lesser events, but when you have the more localized events, maybe it's a city or a particular country, you do find they are more intimate and they seems more chilled out and, And I feel like this is where you have a range of people now. It's not just the, the business acumen, the business folk who are there to make deals and work things out with each other, but when you get to the, you know, like the, the bigger events, WordCamp US, WordCamp Europe and all of that, that's where it feels like, like, do you belong there or should you leave that now for the, the, the king makers, the people that really, you know, who make the deals kind of thing? You know, are you going to feel out of place because you're not going to be able to go up to someone and go, oh, what page builder do you use? Because the person will go, no, no, no, I'm, I'm, I've got meetings, I've got to speak to so and so you're going to feel like, you know, where is it?
Word Camp?
[01:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think it's quite that bad.
[01:02:02] Speaker B: I know it's. I'm over generalizing.
[01:02:04] Speaker A: I'm exaggerating, I know. But, you know, as one of the co founders of WordCamp Europe, we had an idea of what such a WordCamp should be.
We certainly hit that goal and then beyond. And then it grew beyond of what we imagined.
If you're asking me is it where you would want it to happen it, have it be like. No, I, I prefer the. Let's call it the first five or six, whatever.
At a certain point they just became so big and then indeed all of the, like, I, first of all, I don't think everybody there is, is looking to just do meetings and business and all that, but it does become large. Large where it just becomes more difficult to meet all the people you want to see.
[01:02:53] Speaker B: See.
[01:02:53] Speaker A: And if it's a WordCamp that's around, let's call it a Max, maybe 1200, 1300, you get to see a fair amount of people you want to see. If it's 2, 300, you're absolutely going to see whomever you want to see.
So it's also a matter of choice of where do you go? But, yeah, I think for sure there's a big change that has happened since the first wordcamps, the first big wordcamps and now what we call flagship and regular Word Camps.
I think it's going to be very difficult to roll that back to where it was.
[01:03:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I agree.
[01:03:32] Speaker A: I also don't know if we should want that, but either way, it's going to be very difficult.
Yeah.
So I guess we're reaching the conclusion that we see the problems from your end. From my end.
We don't see the solution just yet.
[01:03:52] Speaker B: Not until we put it into AI. No.
[01:03:55] Speaker A: No.
[01:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:59] Speaker A: Well, let's do that separately and. And converse later on what we find there.
[01:04:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:04:07] Speaker A: I want to thank you for. For jumping on as quickly as you did, and I appreciate you having on as. As a guest.
Thank you so much.
[01:04:17] Speaker B: No, thank you for having me.
[01:04:19] Speaker A: You're most welcome.
