Episode 206: What is HeroPress?
Show Summary
In this episode Rob Cairns sits down with Topher and Cate DeRosia to talk about the HeroPress network.
Show Highlights:
- What is HeroPress?
- How and why HeroPress was founded?
- The future of HeroPress.
- Why the WordPress community matters.
Show Notes
Hey everybody, Rob Cairns.
I am here with Cate and Topher DeRosia of Hero Press.
How are you guys today?
We didn’t clear out, thanks.
Doing really well.
I’m glad one of the things I thought we talked about is Hero Press, but before we get anywhere press I’d like to hear both here.
WordPress origin stories.
So let’s start with gate.
How’d you get in or pro skate?
Oh, that’s such a funny question.
So I used it.
A little bit.
When the girls were really young and realized I liked writing more than I liked spending time with my kids and.
Decided I really should spend time with.
My kids so that all kind of.
Went on the.
Backburner I I homeschooled them all the way.
Through and as we were.
Getting towards the end.
I realized that if I didn’t figure something out I was going to be doing nothing all day long while to for finished work, you know, and I felt like I had a little bit.
More to give to life than that.
And he was already deeply involved in WordPress.
We had been involved as as volunteers like at our local word camp.
And so I thought, hey?
WordPress, I’ll take a look around and I’ve spent probably the last seven years kind of wandering around in the community.
Looking for different ways for someone who’s a writer and an editor and the soft business skills kind of person.
To find their place because I knew I didn’t want to develop, I don’t have the training for design.
And it’s been a really interesting journey.
I’ve what I’ve found is that I like community engagement.
And so, just recently, first of the year I joined automatic as a paid.
Contributor on the community team.
So I now get to spend my entire day doing community stuff and it’s it’s really fun.
It’s everything from paper work to help make a meet up happen to, you know, talking to new organizers or doing, you know things like podcasts.
I’m going to still get to do some writing and then I’m also lead.
Organizer of Word Camp USA, and we just have our kickoff call today.
So that was really invigorating.
That’s amazing, and as I was saying before, we went to record it’s great from for the community having Yep it automatic.
So congratulations for that, Kate.
Thanks, I really appreciate it.
You know, as as I told you then it was.
It was kind of a.
Spooky move up.
I wasn’t sure if that would be the right fit for me and it’s been.
It’s been a hit from the day.
You know from day one we have a really amazing team and and really community focused even.
Though it doesn’t always look like.
It at times and.
And so much headway or so much opportunity.
So many resources to do real good in the.
Community, I’m just.
I’m really excited.
And Topher, how did you get into WordPress and how did that come about?
Oh boy.
Well, when he was a young warthog.
Uh, when WordPress first came out?
I took a look at it.
But I could build this.
And so I did.
I actually built my own blogging platform and I used it for.
Maybe 12 years?
But I built it in four weeks and it never progressed beyond that, so it never became what WordPress became by far.
Uhm, and throughout the first decade of the.
21st century I was building custom sites with PHP and my SQL.
Uh, rebuilding admin areas over and over again.
And it was getting really old and so.
In 2010
Somebody asked me to do a WordPress site and it was like 2.9.
And it was OK.
It was a little frustrating.
I I really enjoyed the admin area and then 3.0 came out with custom post types.
And it was the answer to everything that I had wanted in WordPress.
And I jumped in.
Both feet and I I haven’t built.
A site without WordPress, since I don’t think.
I quit my day job and became a freelancer and.
Then I did a startup and worked at a handful of agencies over the years and.
Just been doing WordPress ever since.
It’s funny many of us to forgot into it, not professionally originally.
I mean I was the same way I I often tell the story where I started a website because I registered a domain because my late uncle used to say I change email addresses.
More more than a lady, change your underwear.
Yeah, so I read I registered a domain so I could get domain email and then I.
I got fed up with family bugging me.
I was very much in the technical scene before I started working for myself and I created a website so I could post resources so people would stop calling me on the phone and that static website merged in the WordPress.
And you know, 16 years later here I am.
So we’ve all started non professionally so to speak so.
Yeah yeah, what I wanted to talk about today was Hero Press and I.
I really think anybody who doesn’t know Hero press whereas new in the community should get to know Hero press.
First of all, I think it’s a great resource.
How did Hero Press come to be?
Uh, Kate, do you want to tell her?
Do you want?
Thank you.
Well, I’ll start.
A little bit.
So Topher was at
And then he can clear up what I get wrong.
He was at XWP and they had just gone to work Camp San Francisco as I think the last word came San Francisco.
And they had a.
House together, it was kind of the first time they were all together.
’cause extra beeps?
Out of Australia, everybody is completely distributed, so he got to meet his boss for the first time.
Or like the owner for the first time and then you know his team and they just got.
Into some deep.
Conversations about what tougher, ideal job would be and.
His ideal job.
Has always been helping people.
I mean that’s how he got into WordPress.
Or you know, got into to development at all and and and from there it turned into quite the fantastical ride and all it took.
For take over from there.
Yeah, uhm.
One day a few days before Thanksgiving, I got an email from Dave Rosen, the owner.
It it just said you’re not going to be working for XWP anymore?
I want you to build something great for WordPress.
And that was it.
That was always.
In the email it was exciting.
But that sounds like a challenge beyond belief that.
Yeah, well and.
You know, probably the thing that we don’t usually say in these conversations were until very recently we were a single income family.
So tough job changing was pretty big.
For all of us.
And I’ve heard you say that vary on social media.
Before that you were single income family and I’ve heard you.
I’ve heard you stress that, yeah.
Yeah, it’s important like it’s.
So I asked him what it was and he said that’s your journey to discover.
Oh wow.
And so.
He was thinking a business of some kind.
But uhm, I got talking with, uh, a developer in India and he.
He had some some questions, some struggles, and he asked me and I don’t have an answer, so I went looking and I found some other Indians who had the answers and connected them.
And then I thought, hey, what if?
What we did is.
Connect people.
Uh, at the time I was thinking I.
Was using the the word the fringe of word press, not North America, not Europe, not Australia.
People who have a hard time getting the word camp easily.
That sort of thing.
Uhm, I don’t want to be the great white savior with all the answers.
But if I can find somebody else, one of their neighbors, if I can help them find that person who has the answer, well, that’s going to be a great service.
And so it was originally going to be video like Ted.
Yep, and we were going to travel the world and we would do.
Three to five per year.
And you know, we have a camera crew and.
All that kind of stuff.
So we did a Kickstarter.
And it jumped off the line. We got like $20,000 in four days and it was awesome. And then it just.
Little doubt that was it.
And, uh.
And the project that was his first death.
That’s when the project died.
For the first time.
First time, yeah.
Uhm so.
A part of the deal was that if your press didn’t work out, then.
Then we all just walk away and I didn’t have a job anymore.
Yeah, but I started getting emails from people saying, you know here press is a really cool idea.
We really need this.
You can’t let it go.
And I thought, well, I’m now unemployed I’m I’m not traveling the world with camera crew.
So I thought about how I could.
Make it cheaper, faster, more accessible and text immediately came to mind.
Uhm, there’s limited editing the.
You know the contributors create the posts themselves.
Text is easier to consume on 3G bandwidth and stuff like that, and the places that really needed it.
At the time, yeah.
Yeah, so well still.
So, uh, I went to UM Andre Szewczenko rushed, who is right now in heave?
He was going to be one of the video people and I said, would you do a text post instead and he said, oh sure.
And so he did it, and I posted it and it was a raging success and I’ve been doing it almost weekly ever since.
It’s been seven years now.
Yeah wow and he you said he’s in Kiev, Ukraine.
Are you sure?
Yeah yeah, yeah.
And and and we have I have to take him in and say at the time of this recording we’re all kind of thinking about the people over in Ukraine with the mess.
Of the world.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, he woke up yesterday morning hearing explosions from this.
So I can.
I can tell you not to digress, but the the post status slack yesterday was all about the mess in Ukraine.
So yeah, it was pretty.
There’s there’s a lot of concerned people and we have a lot of people in our community that live over in that part.
Of the world.
So yeah, yeah, automatic was too they a.
Lot of people.
Offering refuge if they needed to get out and.
Just a lot of you know what can we do?
How can we help?
Kind of conversations so.
Yeah, it’s a.
It’s a.
It’s a lot of hard conversations.
Yeah, yeah, so you built europress and that started off with one website, yeah?
And now you have several websites.
Yeah, yes we do.
Yeah, it was just the one for a lot of years.
Yes and.
Oh, last.
Spring uh, we started having discussions about having Kate work on it full time.
But she very wisely thought that we should be offering more than just europress
Yeah, and it was it.
Was a little different than that, like alongside that is, we’ve always been really careful to protect protect the integrity of what Hero press is, and if we’re looking if we’re doing.
For a long term project you have to have some kind of financial support for.
It, which has always been us and we’ve had community community involvement at times when we’ve needed it.
But if we really want to do more with it, we’ve got to have something that.
People make sense for people to put money behind.
Uhm, but also in a way that continues our mission of supporting.
I guess I want to say the least among us.
You know, making it as accessible for the newest, poorest person as it is for the richest most.
You know easily able to person.
Yeah, because it’s always easy for the richest person this to throw $30 at something $40 or something.
And for somebody that’s financially strapped in a developing country, it’s not always that easy.
And and I think what it comes down to.
Honestly, Katie, it’s inclusion.
We talk a lot in our community as you know about diversity and that whole side of it.
And I and diversity doesn’t mean I’m sorry we have a group for females group.
For males, a group for Italians or group, you know you know where I’m going.
Huh, right?
That’s something.
Firstly, diversity means welcoming people into your.
Community with open arms and being there to support them.
Yeah, there are a lot.
Of layers when you start talking about diversity and it’s important to look at look.
At all of them.
You know, even small business like there’s a lot of things that can be sponsored in the.
You know, in the WordPress community, and it’s really reasonable for people putting their time into these projects to get as much sponsorship as they can.
But the big companies.
Can easily sponsor things where small businesses like teams of 1 to 3 even up to 10 sometimes, or different parts of the world, you know.
Their dollars don’t stretch quite as far.
And so even though we haven’t necessarily.
Built on it, yet that’s kind of the target market we’re looking for.
But then there’s.
Also a reason that people doing these projects take large sponsorship because you put a lot of effort into it so you know it’s a.
It’s a weird balance to try to find, and we felt like building a lot of.
Kind of self.
Supporting like come like WP podcasts is something that we can keep up and maintain with a a fair minimal amount of effort.
So creating a.
Variety of websites like that that benefit the community but have sponsorship opportunities allow us to go in with lower sponsorship costs and and help those smaller businesses.
Yeah it’s funny. You mentioned WP Podcast, which is one of your newest offerings which you started in late 2021 and I have to tell you one of my favorite offerings.
Being a podcaster you know, and there’s a lot of there’s a lot of podcasters in the word press space, and most people don’t understand that.
In this.
Yeah, we didn’t we.
We were amazed by the number of podcasters that we found that we had no.
Idea where out there it.
Was you know, and I think that’s one of the best parts about being involved even in.
Just you know the original hero process.
But the projects that have come out of it is seeing all these things that they’re all out there.
It’s just getting us connected to.
Them, that’s such a challenge.
I would have guessed there were maybe 25 podcasts.
And how many did you come up with?
There are more than 70 on there now.
Yeah I would.
I would assume and I know some of them are strictly WordPress.
I know I try and do a mix of WordPress and business.
It it it depends right?
And I think yeah, they’re all important and it’s about finding a voice that you resonate.
With yeah yeah, and you never know quite what that.
Voice is going to be.
And I think it’s very, very important.
It’s you know it’s like the healthy bloodlines are, you know, a mix you you don’t want just word press ’cause then you’re in that that you know the contents.
Although you know you’re just here, you need you need to be hearing about how to run a business, how to you know, work with the community, how to.
Hire well, you know it’s it.
It has to be an and.
Kind of approach.
What I’ll tell you guys is on my phone at the time of this record, I have 35 podcasts that I listen to as background when I’m working on a regular basis. I used to be an AM radio guy.
Back in the 70s when I was growing up so the to track, yeah, I was right and so the transition from podcast to podcast Topher was easy for me.
Like it really nice.
Yeah, and and the other thing I really like to for and I often share them in the LinkedIn group by comanage with Courtney Robertson and other places.
Is your hero press tip of the.
Week, how did that start?
Well, that was sort of in connection with with the websites themselves.
We we made a wide variety of sites, but we wanted one place where everybody could find them.
So we made a site called heroesnetwork.com. Yep, and then we thought, well, what else are?
We going to put on there.
Are are we going to start making content or is it?
Only going to be an aggregation of the other sites and we decided to make some content, some blog posts and stuff like that.
And I’ve always loved making videos, training videos. So at the beginning of 2022 I just started doing it once a week.
Just ’cause it seemed like a good idea at the time.
We really did a lot of people.
Approach content creation as if everything has to be huge and brand new and imperfect, right?
And perfect.
Yeah, and if.
You’re looking for perfect.
The Hero Plus Network is not the place for you because there is nothing perfect about the heroes network.
It is authentic.
It is engaging.
And it’s imperfect.
But we knew that life was busy and we are in a transition stage all the way around.
And so we wanted to create things that could be as sustainable as possible.
With minimal amount of effort, because we think that these things actually help the Community, and so we want to keep them going.
But we also are realistic.
About the amount of time we have to invest in it.
I’m I’m a uh.
I enjoy writing.
I’m a writer.
Uhm, I don’t do.
A lot of blog posts on the air bus network right now, because that’s not something I have bandwidth for.
We’re going to be looking to branch out in.
That area, but right now.
That’s on hold with the tips of the week.
Those are pretty easy to put up, so we’ve got a mix of styles of content and then you know.
We’ve got a big audience like we’re really.
We’re doing the one.
Thing nobody should really do with content, and we’re trying to reach everybody.
So that means we need to have a variety of different types of content so that everybody gets a little bit of.
Something right now, yeah, and I think the key, even with video is be authentic.
Don’t worry about down mixing it and editing it.
I mean yeah.
You know, I, I think some of that’s personally not worth it.
I mean, I’ve I’ve had podcasts in past when I’ve had animals, and a dog will show up in the middle of the podcast and there will be a bark or a a meow of a cat jumping on a keyboard.
And it’s like at the end of the day.
I just kind of leave them there ’cause I think it’s more important to be authentic, and if we all look for perfection, we never get any content out anywhere.
I mean, right, you know.
Well, yeah, and if there’s also an inclusion element to this, we want more people being out in in, you know, public in the community.
You want them participating, but not everybody has the resources to have, you know.
A great microphone or space where they can just.
Be quiet by themselves.
And so by allowing imperfection to be a normal, we allow more people to participate because they can just be comfortable and be themselves.
Yeah, I know on the Hero press network you guys have a post that says 2021 was a year of growth.
For your presence.
And you know which post I’m referring to.
Is it so?
Go wait, what was your biggest take away that where you grew and what’s the one thing you think you could?
Have done better.
Oh well, the thing I think I think we could have done better is I could have created more content and and it’s you know it’s kind of funny to say I I really enjoy content creation and I found getting through the pandemic that I didn’t have the capacity.
Even if I had the time I didn’t have the capacity.
To be creative as much as I would have.
Liked to have been and I’ve.
Talked to others who’ve had.
The same struggle.
You just only have so much to give at a given time and you have.
To work with that.
But the growth was not Even so much.
I mean, there’s the obvious growth of getting the different projects out the door, but it’s more about figuring out what the future of Hero Press looks like.
’cause that’s a conversation we’ve been having for a really long time.
It’s over.
Did we lose you?
Well, do you have an answer to for?
Uhm, I do want to make sure.
Robert can hear us.
She’s just muted at the moment.
OK, yeah so.
Uh, yeah Europe growth uhm?
We spent months in 2021 thinking about.
What we were going to do with your breasts.
Uhm, and we considered a wide variety of options.
We considered not doing it anymore.
Uhm wow.
Just because I mean.
If you don’t look around once in a while to see if people are still listening, you’re going to miss it.
If if you get to the.
Point where they’re not, you know, Yep.
So we looked at traffic.
We looked at all kinds of things and we looked at what we wanted to build and what we wanted to do and what we wanted to do with our life.
We were talking before we started recording.
About how Kate and I are looking about to to change, change our life, leave our house to the girls and move on.
Do we want to live in an RV and live on the road?
Do we want to get an apartment?
Do we want to move to Europe?
Who knows?
So even beyond europress it was a big year for us.
It is and I think COVID has forced a lot of people to evaluate their lives in a big way.
And I think that’s important.
That’s something that.
I try to do regularly.
And I think it’s you know, a positive to come out of COVID.
Yeah, I would say so too.
I mean you know I was sharing before I’m I’m in the at time.
It’s record I’m in the middle of a divorce.
I mean, there’s no hard feelings there.
I mean, things happen and and you kind of evaluate where you want to go and even business wise you evaluate I mean.
You know I’m approaching 200 episodes in this podcast and I’ve kind of sat down more than once. Since it do, I want to keep doing this.
Is it still bringing value to people and every time I have this discussion with people I get the.
Don’t stop doing it and and it’s kind of.
OK.
You know it’s interesting and I I was having a discussion with somebody a couple weeks ago and I I said what do you like and they said, oh I like the interviews, but I also like the short tips that I throw out every week or two.
So you know it.
It’s surprising sometimes what people like and what they don’t like until you go to your community and ask.
You don’t have any idea.
Yeah, it’s true.
And that’s interesting and and life, you know, evolution?
You gotta do.
What’s also fun for you and.
You know by that I mean, I made a decision three and a.
Half years ago.
I wasn’t going to write any long form blog.
Go skate.
I I write them for clients or write them for other.
People and I said I’m not doing any more long form.
I haven’t written one long form blog post.
It’s not a podcast on my blog in three and a.
Half years.
Yeah, and you know that’s it.
You’re you’re supposed to be enjoying what you’re doing too.
And if you continue doing something simply because.
It’s what you have done.
It’s not good like it’s not.
He sighed.
It’s not really as valuable as you think and and what idea might you be suppressing?
That would be even more.
Helpful if you moved on to something else, so.
I like, I don’t.
Think you should just wander around abandoning.
Things at will, but.
The idea that you should be stuck with something for the next.
20 years because you started it.
Once, doesn’t that like that’s ridiculous.
No, it’s so true.
You know, we’ve talked about the community before we went to record, and you know, you’re up and automatic in that role.
Kate as well and I know to free you’re pretty community minded and the problem with open source projects is you always get some people bent out of shape.
Uhm, because they don’t like where the community is going and I always say to people and maybe I’m different, but if you’re really that concerned, get involved.
Uhm, stop complaining.
One of my favorite comments lately on Twitter has been when somebody says.
I found the bug.
I said do you know how to open up a ticket to open up that bug?
And do you know how to address?
That, and by the way, if you don’t, I’ll give you 4 developer advocates at different big companies who be glad to help you.
Right, right?
Yeah, like like, let’s help ourselves.
Do you know what I mean?
Well, and that’s it.
You know it’s.
Sometimes people just don’t know what to do.
Sometimes you know we forget that.
People come like.
Part of our diversity is that people come from very different backgrounds.
Not everybody was taught how to handle, you know, conflict well, or how to express themselves well.
Or maybe they weren’t even encouraged to express their opinions.
Well and just so or effectively I should.
Say and and so.
Graciousness goes a long ways.
Inside of a community.
I know recently we had a big diversity conversation.
Which of course.
But but I have.
To say that that’s turned into something really good.
The people involved in the conversations began getting engaged.
They had somebody helped them find a way to get involved themselves, and so it’s adding.
It was uncomfortable, but it adds richness to the rest of the community when it’s.
Handled the right way.
Yeah, that that conversations kind of been everywhere.
It’s been on WP Tavern, it’s been on.
It was on WP builds with Nathan Wrigley.
A week ago.
I know it’s been in post status, I know.
Courtney and I have that conversation preview regularly ’cause she works on elevating in the community you you work on elevating.
Yeah, it happened with word camp Europe where the discussion was.
The organizing community was not as diverse as it should have.
Been it’s been kind of everywhere, hasn’t it?
And I think what’s important is that as uncomfortable as those conversations are, and maybe that wasn’t started the right way, they’re really very, very important, like you need those gut checks.
It’s so easy.
Particularly when you’re involved in community, and particularly when you’re volunteering, it’s hard to stretch outside of what’s comfortable just because you have so limited resources.
To work with.
And so if you don’t have somebody helping you stretch, you’ll just kind of stay in the same pattern that you’re in, and so it is very important to have.
Other people from the outside notice things and comment on them and be a good force for change because everybody working on these projects are volunteers largely.
And they really care about diversity. At least you know I’d say probably 90 percent 95% and they’re actively trying to do it.
But again, we have limited resources.
You know, I don’t know everybody, I can’t, I, I just can’t.
I wish I could.
And so you know the more people that get involved, the more diverse and.
And representative of the entire community that it is.
It it’s so true and I and I think I actually think our community is doing a really good job in the long run handling that I think we have work to do.
Don’t give the room, but we’re having the conversations, and if you can’t have the conversation then you can’t work at it and that’s.
Oh yeah.
A big deal.
Yeah, and I I would agree with you there.
I mean obviously and again it’s the kind of thing that will always be a problem because our community is always growing and changing the again one of the best parts of open source is also one of the worst parts.
So open source, you know it is everything always changes.
But you know, if we are willing to stop and have the conversations, we’re willing to try to do it better.
We’re willing to to work to grow, and I think like that’s that’s how to learn.
I have managed to stay married as long as we have and it’s I mean it’s what makes a healthy relationship is being willing to work to grow.
When it’s important or being willing to admit that.
You can’t do.
That and walk away.
Yep, Yep.
Totes topher.
Do you have anything you want?
To add to those sets or.
Not a whole lot.
Kate and I have talked to discuss this a lot between each other and we’re very well aligned.
You guys are actually very in line with me too, and the way I feel about this stuff.
I think it’s almost like we’re in the same conversations, right?
Yeah, but it’s good you.
Know there’s a lot more alignment than we think.
It’s easy for.
To look different from the outside, but when you actually look at it from the inside or have the conversations about what was intended, there’s a lot more conformity than.
We would realize, yeah.
What what other?
Issues since we’re talking about community.
Do to see any hero press community that we could.
Address and do better.
Do you see anything?
Boy, that’s a good one.
I mean, one of our focuses in the europress community is.
Making sure that resources are easy to access for people there is so much and I’m actually finding this.
I just went through orientation with automatic and I was I was amazed at the amount of resources that they have.
Particularly as someone who has been a lead organizer of a word camp twice.
But I didn’t even know existed.
And it should have really.
And it’s there’s so much of.
That out there in the community, you know.
And so looking for ways to take useful beginner level information and make it very obvious and available to new people coming in.
Yeah, I don’t think all even the people like ourselves who have been in this community a long time.
No of all the resources and I’ll give you an.
Example of that.
I you know, before I took on the Co management of the LinkedIn group.
Uh, learned out WordPress door kind of fell off my turn a little bit.
Not that I wasn’t interested, it just kind of fell off and working with Courtney Robertson so much.
One thing her and I talk about is ’cause she’s one of the learning leads we talk about learned a wordpress.org a lot so and then doing some stuff and talking to.
Nick Diego aloud, who’s over at WP engine.
He’s involved in Word learn as well, and several other people so.
It’s really hard for new people coming in.
If us.
I don’t like to use the word Alzheimer’s, but the experience people don’t.
Yeah, I’m gonna make us all sound old before it sounds, but as experienced people don’t understand all the resources.
How do the new people expect to get them?
Yeah, exactly and you know trying to.
Figure out what to.
Google for to find it or to.
Even like we’ve forgotten so many things that you know other people don’t even know exist that you know, finding ways to just make that access to information easier.
And it doesn’t have to be free information like it can just be helping people find really good training.
Regardless of what it costs or.
But just anything that helps people feel welcome and and valued.
Yeah, I think those are two real keywords.
Kate is welcomed and valued.
I think there’s a lot of people who think if they say.
Say I don’t like something that that’s gonna go over bad.
I don’t think saying you don’t like it is gonna go over bad.
It’s all in the delivery and and I think that’s part of it.
Oh yeah.
Like if you don’t like something, why and what would you like us to do to help you?
And how can we help you?
And if you answered those questions, I think.
You know there’s enough people in our community that would be more receptive, I know.
So you know when I get stuck and I say I’m stuck somebody you know, point me somewhere I don’t have.
I don’t seem to have that issue, but it’s also a bit of a give and take to.
You gotta be willing to help the people help you as.
Well, so yeah, there’s some, there’s some.
Misunderstanding, I think, as the Community grows.
So the people who started.
In the community, knew what open source was.
And they had a pretty deep.
Like there’s.
There’s a strong reason why we’re all in here, which is why we have strong feelings and why we have strong arguments sometime.
With the new people coming in, people like my mom who would use WordPress because we use WordPress.
But you know she’s got other alternatives and different things, but she’d use WordPress, but she has no understanding of what an open source community is like and how it works, and.
So getting some more education around that letting people know that you can ask questions you can’t ask for things to change.
You can use things this way, you know and this is how we work.
Those kinds of things like.
It’s almost like guidelines for the society.
Which isn’t so much something.
You have to follow strictly.
But it gives people a place to start.
They have an understanding of how to interact and what’s considered appropriate and what’s not considered appropriate, and it just gets ever be kind of an even playing ground.
It’s it’s, you know.
It’s the rules for football.
It’s the rules for any game that you play.
It just gives you.
A place to.
Start to for what’s the one thing you’d like to see change in the community.
I would still like to see more global awareness.
It was something I started stretching for with your press and it’s something I’ve come to really enjoy and appreciate.
And every now and again I’ll feel like I know a lot of people in the WordPress community.
If you go look at the hero press map and look at those pins, I know people all over the world.
And then I’ll bump into somebody who has been a core contributor for 15 years, and I’ve never heard of them.
And I think how can we be in the same community?
The same circles for that long, and never bump into somebody you.
Know it’s so true.
So, uhm.
I mean, a lot of slack.
Maybe 35.
Would you like to see mine?
But I I tend to join.
Uh, geographically specific slack channels, so I mean the the Nigerian 1, the Australian one, the two Indian ones and the WP Africa one.
Synomous Yep.
The people who tend to hang out on those slacks.
They don’t necessarily go outside of those slacks, so they don’t come to the WordPress make slack, or to my slack.
And so you walk into a whole new community and you’re like, wow, there’s 200 people here that I had no idea exists, and they’re all making their living with WordPress doing what I do.
I I would I would love to figure out a way for everybody to be able to meet everybody.
I I would agree with you, thinking as you were saying that how many people I know in Western Europe and how many people I know in North America and how many people I know in Australia.
In Asia, and then how many people I don’t know.
In places like South America or Africa and that’s interesting.
’cause I, I and I mean Africa and a lot of spots is a developing continent or an underdeveloped continent.
And there I’m sure there’s all kinds of people doing wonderful things and I’m thinking.
Yeah, then.
But I really don’t know anybody.
The Night Fury and WordPress.
The Nigerian WordPress community is very robust.
Yeah, lots of lots of people doing really great.
And if I wasn’t on their slack channel, I wouldn’t know that.
Now part of it is, I think some of those underdeveloped countries are not confident promoting themselves, and I think they need to because I think there’s some really good stuff going on.
And I think one of the reasons why they don’t promote.
Themselves is they’re afraid about inclusion and being welcomed.
Yeah, you know, that’s really interesting, I’m.
Glad you brought that up because one of.
The things that I learned from the diversity discussion that happened is that some people need to be invited in.
And what’s funny about that is I should have known this because I’m somebody who needs to be invited it up.
I came into the tech world when I was barely out of college, not a technical person, and have felt kind of out of place my entire time.
Even when I go almost every word camp I go to.
And I’ve been to so many of them, I still feel like an outsider every single time.
’cause it’s just kind of my person.
And I realized that you know, if you’re someone who’s busy running a business.
If you’re new to the community, if you’ve just got your head down learning.
It may not.
Occur to you to get involved.
You may not realize there’s a place for you to get involved, or how.
To get involved.
And so when we were working on word.
Camp US and.
We just put the organizing team to go.
Rather, we brainstormed and reached out to a number of people who were really excited to be involved.
Who really are going?
To add a.
Ton to the project and gave us a really diverse group of people.
Not just ethnically but also from Canada and from Mexico.
And, you know, like really bringing the continent together.
For the camp that just needed to be asked because they were busy doing other things.
And so you know part of part of opening that door wider is making sure that people know they’re allowed.
To come in.
Yeah, and it’s so true I I can even remember when I got involved with the Toronto WordPress meet up group and this is going back over 10 years.
Uh, a friend of mine reached out and said, why don’t you come to a meeting and it’s like I don’t wanna bother and even.
Hi and I’m in and I’m an extrovert personified and I didn’t want to go.
Right?
And a lot of those people now have become like long term friends and you know.
And then.
And that’s the amazing part about it all.
It’s the people we know and you know, the more I look at it and I could be wrong.
But you know the I look at the people I know that have grown and gone on to like major.
Companies in different types of roles and you know it’s hard to put a number on it.
Some days like yeah.
And one of the things I think that makes our community really special, and I’ve said this to many people over the years, is.
Most people and I use the word most ’cause we all can find a few who are not in this community are very approachable and it doesn’t matter if, like I take somebody like a Brian Gardner and I’m gonna call Brian out ’cause I’ve had him on this podcast.
I go to events that he does.
And for a guy that it considers somebody, I’ve looked up to over the years who’s done the world.
He is one of the most humble and appreciative people in this community I know.
And that’s you know, some people would disagree.
With me, but I.
Think Brian is really approachable and.
Yeah, well and you know you can’t, you can’t.
Be friends with everybody.
Not yeah you can be a good person who’s approachable and still not have a personality that you enjoy spending time.
With like we’re we’re with.
People at the end of the day.
But I agree with you completely, I mean.
I’ve had people you know willing to.
Help me with.
Things that you know would take time away from their very busy, very you know, prominent agency to help me get started in my small little things.
You know it’s.
It’s a community of people who kind of remember where they came from and the help that they.
Needed to get to where they are.
And I’m really.
Excited about helping the next person who comes along.
Yeah, I and I I was thinking about a good friend of mine and you guys all know Corey Miller over at post status and Corey founded.
Right?
I think back in the day and for those who don’t know and Corey’s gone through his trials and tribulations with mental health lately, he’s been very upfront and open about it.
And I needed something and I reached out to Corey and despite everything going on in court, his life he got.
Back to me and that you know, people like that are the cornerstone in this community and that matters and what we need to do.
Yeah, yes.
I think we’ve got to get to is developing some younger.
Talent in the community.
Yeah, you know, it’s kind of an interesting thing.
The people coming into the community.
It’s it’s split and I don’t have.
Numbers to back this up because I’m not a numbers person.
I’m a people person.
But you’re seeing a mix of people who are younger, so like our daughter, Sophie is 20.
She’s not interested really in development or design, but she’s very community oriented and has been looking at some different opportunities for herself and and then there are people like me who are coming into the community.
As a second stage of life kind of job.
A lot of people transitioning out of the jobs that they did have that they may have lost during the pandemic, or may have realized they didn’t want to have.
Anymore during the pandemic.
And are transitioning into, you know, a second career or a third career?
Because WordPress is so accessible for them, so it’s a kind of a split between.
Bringing in young talent but also nurturing older, experienced people who might need you know who are just coming at it from a different.
Perspective and tougher I would think the.
You know you being from an agency background.
The problem with just young talent is they don’t always have the business experience to go around with the design skills and that that’s a bit of a problem.
It it can be, but.
I don’t know.
In an agency with a fair number of people, let’s say more than ten, yeah, your tasks are pretty siloed.
You’re not going to ask a developer to do sales or design and and honestly, that’s a reason that a lot of freelancers turn their back on freelancing and go to an agency ’cause they.
They just want to do what they like to do and not mess with all that stuff.
People are, I’m finding their niching down more than they used to be, and you can.
When I got into this business, there was one one title for someone who worked on the Internet and it was Webmaster and they did.
I know that title.
But now.
Then it went to you know, front end and back end and now on the front end there’s a dozen different.
Uh, tasks that you can make a living at doing just that.
Yep, if you’re at an agency.
So I I think people are having the opportunity to to nycz down more.
I think.
And that allows young people to have more options to choose.
It’s not.
Be a Webmaster or not, it’s get on the Internet and do any of those these hundred jobs you know.
It’s true.
It’s true, I’ve got a.
I’ve got a 30 year old son who’s a work placement internship away from graduating College in marketing.
Uhm, thank the pandemic for the two year delay on that one because nobody is doing internships and he came to me last week and said, you know what I wanna do?
I want to start a WordPress blog and I’ve been saying to him for a long time.
Maybe we should.
So there’s all kinds of people getting in for different reasons.
Yeah, and you know that’s that’s exactly what I was going to point out is you can come in as a differently abled business professional, and who can support WordPress businesses and have your own freelancing consulting career.
Or, you know, work in email marketing you know, or you know just you can do the things that you love with WordPress without necessarily being a WordPress person.
And again, that’s so healthy for our community.
O so true, and that’s what gives us different experiences, like when we get in some of these I know post status does like regular huddles where they get people together and we we bat around the ideas and there’s many of that.
There’s a lot of you know people at the pandemic that have created their own little slack.
Groups where they have three or four people they talked every day and sort of.
Shoot the business ideas around and it’s one of the few professions I know truthfully where you’re actually talking to your competitors and you’re working with your competitors without giving up any secrets right till 4.
All the time.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, Coopertition is a big deal in WordPress.
I mean.
Yeah, it’s so true.
I mean I would.
I was joking the other day.
I must have friends at like 5 major hosting companies and.
You know, I know, liquid Web is a a sponsor. You guys with your hosting right? And yeah, I’ve got multiple friends at Liquid web, I mean multiple and I’ve got multiple friends at GoDaddy. I’ve got multiple friends at WP engine. I mean, you know, take your pick and you know.
There’s there’s no.
Resource by the way, I don’t use any.
Of them except for.
Page, except for except for page really.
I have some clients on them, but I don’t use them personally and there’s no animosity because I’m not there.
They’re just glad I’m in the community and that’s what matters at the end of the day.
Right, so yeah, we’re.
All richer for it.
Which are like brownies as opposed to.
Which are like you.
Know billionaires, but that comes too sometimes.
But we’re we’re just all.
Richer when we when we work together because nobody is doing exactly the same thing.
And even if somebody doing the exactly the same thing as you, they’re not doing it the way you’re doing it and.
And so the more we learn from each other, the more the entire community grows, and the healthier and more financially stable.
Our community is, the healthier and more financially stable.
Every business built on top.
Of that is.
So true, so I’m going to kind of wrap up with two questions.
The first question for both is what would you like to see?
Different with WordPress moving forward, Kate?
I’d like to see better conversations, just I’d like to see an assumption of.
Of the positive still ask the questions still have the conversations, but you know don’t assume that people are.
Don’t assume malice.
Uhm, it’s error on the side of ignorance.
That’s what I’d love to see.
Topher, how would you like to answer that?
I’m gonna try and not make this complicated.
It’s OK.
I would like.
Development to return to the simplicity that it was two years ago.
I’m smiling.
It’s it’s much, much harder in Maya.
Union to walk into WordPress development now than it was when I did it.
I I would agree, and then my second question for both years.
What’s the one thing you want to do with Hero Press this year, Kate.
I want to transition control of Hero Press over to somebody else, and it’s probably going to be our daughter Sophie.
It’s something we’re talking about is something we set up when we started all of this.
But that’s that’s my thing.
Is getting getting somebody who’s not Topher and I.
Managing the day-to-day parts of Europress.
Ah, it’s time for the succession plan already, is it?
Yeah, that’s admirable.
Topher, what would you like?
I wanna add to that a little bit.
Then I have my own thing as well.
We’re not gonna stop doing hero press stuff like we’re not walking away and giving it to someone.
Uhm, I’ll probably always do the essays because I like it.
Yeah, but there’s a ton of stuff that happens that that we could send.
You know, have somebody else do.
Uhm, but I.
Would I would like to see.
Each of the assets we’ve built continue to grow healthfully.
Come find it, WP is struggling a little bit right now.
We aren’t getting as many submissions as I’d like, but WP podcast is doing great.
I’m happy with.
The well here press network is getting its content built out via the tip of the week and I want to keep doing some blog posts occasionally.
I just I would.
I would like to see it to continue to grow.
In a in a.
Safeway, that’s really great.
Yeah, we move when we set it up the way we did that there was going to be a flurry of activity and then there was going to be a little bit of settling to see.
Kind of what’s stuck to the wall.
And then invest the resources that we have into either helping something that’s struggling or fueling the fire behind something that’s you know.
More robust.
Yeah, and I’m not surprised that like.
The podcasting side of it is doing well because podcasting is all the.
Rage right now and.
And as all I know from being in that community, there’s a lot of concern over.
Open podcast networks versus closed networks and all kinds of stuff, so I think it’s a really good venue to kind of help and be part of it, and so I’m not as again, I’m not surprised.
Uhm, yeah.
And on the other side with find it WP we knew that that was a really ambitious project that was going to take a lot more time.
It was going to be.
It was going to be a slow grower and we were going to have to figure some things out like we.
Didn’t have.
All the answers when we launched it, but we.
Didn’t want to just.
Leave the idea sitting you know around.
Collecting dust.
So true Cate, if somebody wants to get ahold of you, how is the best way?
Twitter I I’m @mysweetcate
You can find me on Facebook but really empathetic at Facebook.
So and LinkedIn.
You know, I’m there.
I don’t always chat a lot there.
But I’m active on LinkedIn and it’s Kate DeRosia.
And to for what’s best way to get ahold you?
I I want.
To point out that cate is with.
A C Oh yes.
Yes it is.
Best way to find me?
Probably also Twitter@topher1kenobe.
I use that handle everywhere though, so you can find me on a variety of slacks, Facebook, LinkedIn.
You’re not a Star Trek fan.
A Star Wars fan, sorry.
All the places, all the places.
Thanks\ guys for a great conversation and have a wonderful.
Day both of you.
And thanks, this was really great.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Hey everybody, Rob Cairns.
I am here with Cate and Topher DeRosia of Hero Press.
How are you guys today?
We didn’t clear out, thanks.
Doing really well.
I’m glad one of the things I thought we talked about is Hero Press, but before we get anywhere press I’d like to hear both here.
WordPress origin stories.
So let’s start with gate.
How’d you get in or pro skate?
Oh, that’s such a funny question.
So I used it.
A little bit.
When the girls were really young and realized I liked writing more than I liked spending time with my kids and.
Decided I really should spend time with.
My kids so that all kind of.
Went on the.
Backburner I I homeschooled them all the way.
Through and as we were.
Getting towards the end.
I realized that if I didn’t figure something out I was going to be doing nothing all day long while to for finished work, you know, and I felt like I had a little bit.
More to give to life than that.
And he was already deeply involved in WordPress.
We had been involved as as volunteers like at our local word camp.
And so I thought, hey?
WordPress, I’ll take a look around and I’ve spent probably the last seven years kind of wandering around in the community.
Looking for different ways for someone who’s a writer and an editor and the soft business skills kind of person.
To find their place because I knew I didn’t want to develop, I don’t have the training for design.
And it’s been a really interesting journey.
I’ve what I’ve found is that I like community engagement.
And so, just recently, first of the year I joined automatic as a paid.
Contributor on the community team.
So I now get to spend my entire day doing community stuff and it’s it’s really fun.
It’s everything from paper work to help make a meet up happen to, you know, talking to new organizers or doing, you know things like podcasts.
I’m going to still get to do some writing and then I’m also lead.
Organizer of Word Camp USA, and we just have our kickoff call today.
So that was really invigorating.
That’s amazing, and as I was saying before, we went to record it’s great from for the community having Yep it automatic.
So congratulations for that, Kate.
Thanks, I really appreciate it.
You know, as as I told you then it was.
It was kind of a.
Spooky move up.
I wasn’t sure if that would be the right fit for me and it’s been.
It’s been a hit from the day.
You know from day one we have a really amazing team and and really community focused even.
Though it doesn’t always look like.
It at times and.
And so much headway or so much opportunity.
So many resources to do real good in the.
Community, I’m just.
I’m really excited.
And Topher, how did you get into WordPress and how did that come about?
Oh boy.
Well, when he was a young warthog.
Uh, when WordPress first came out?
I took a look at it.
But I could build this.
And so I did.
I actually built my own blogging platform and I used it for.
Maybe 12 years?
But I built it in four weeks and it never progressed beyond that, so it never became what WordPress became by far.
Uhm, and throughout the first decade of the.
21st century I was building custom sites with PHP and my SQL.
Uh, rebuilding admin areas over and over again.
And it was getting really old and so.
In 2010
Somebody asked me to do a WordPress site and it was like 2.9.
And it was OK.
It was a little frustrating.
I I really enjoyed the admin area and then 3.0 came out with custom post types.
And it was the answer to everything that I had wanted in WordPress.
And I jumped in.
Both feet and I I haven’t built.
A site without WordPress, since I don’t think.
I quit my day job and became a freelancer and.
Then I did a startup and worked at a handful of agencies over the years and.
Just been doing WordPress ever since.
It’s funny many of us to forgot into it, not professionally originally.
I mean I was the same way I I often tell the story where I started a website because I registered a domain because my late uncle used to say I change email addresses.
More more than a lady, change your underwear.
Yeah, so I read I registered a domain so I could get domain email and then I.
I got fed up with family bugging me.
I was very much in the technical scene before I started working for myself and I created a website so I could post resources so people would stop calling me on the phone and that static website merged in the WordPress.
And you know, 16 years later here I am.
So we’ve all started non professionally so to speak so.
Yeah yeah, what I wanted to talk about today was Hero Press and I.
I really think anybody who doesn’t know Hero press whereas new in the community should get to know Hero press.
First of all, I think it’s a great resource.
How did Hero Press come to be?
Uh, Kate, do you want to tell her?
Do you want?
Thank you.
Well, I’ll start.
A little bit.
So Topher was at
And then he can clear up what I get wrong.
He was at XWP and they had just gone to work Camp San Francisco as I think the last word came San Francisco.
And they had a.
House together, it was kind of the first time they were all together.
’cause extra beeps?
Out of Australia, everybody is completely distributed, so he got to meet his boss for the first time.
Or like the owner for the first time and then you know his team and they just got.
Into some deep.
Conversations about what tougher, ideal job would be and.
His ideal job.
Has always been helping people.
I mean that’s how he got into WordPress.
Or you know, got into to development at all and and and from there it turned into quite the fantastical ride and all it took.
For take over from there.
Yeah, uhm.
One day a few days before Thanksgiving, I got an email from Dave Rosen, the owner.
It it just said you’re not going to be working for XWP anymore?
I want you to build something great for WordPress.
And that was it.
That was always.
In the email it was exciting.
But that sounds like a challenge beyond belief that.
Yeah, well and.
You know, probably the thing that we don’t usually say in these conversations were until very recently we were a single income family.
So tough job changing was pretty big.
For all of us.
And I’ve heard you say that vary on social media.
Before that you were single income family and I’ve heard you.
I’ve heard you stress that, yeah.
Yeah, it’s important like it’s.
So I asked him what it was and he said that’s your journey to discover.
Oh wow.
And so.
He was thinking a business of some kind.
But uhm, I got talking with, uh, a developer in India and he.
He had some some questions, some struggles, and he asked me and I don’t have an answer, so I went looking and I found some other Indians who had the answers and connected them.
And then I thought, hey, what if?
What we did is.
Connect people.
Uh, at the time I was thinking I.
Was using the the word the fringe of word press, not North America, not Europe, not Australia.
People who have a hard time getting the word camp easily.
That sort of thing.
Uhm, I don’t want to be the great white savior with all the answers.
But if I can find somebody else, one of their neighbors, if I can help them find that person who has the answer, well, that’s going to be a great service.
And so it was originally going to be video like Ted.
Yep, and we were going to travel the world and we would do.
Three to five per year.
And you know, we have a camera crew and.
All that kind of stuff.
So we did a Kickstarter.
And it jumped off the line. We got like $20,000 in four days and it was awesome. And then it just.
Little doubt that was it.
And, uh.
And the project that was his first death.
That’s when the project died.
For the first time.
First time, yeah.
Uhm so.
A part of the deal was that if your press didn’t work out, then.
Then we all just walk away and I didn’t have a job anymore.
Yeah, but I started getting emails from people saying, you know here press is a really cool idea.
We really need this.
You can’t let it go.
And I thought, well, I’m now unemployed I’m I’m not traveling the world with camera crew.
So I thought about how I could.
Make it cheaper, faster, more accessible and text immediately came to mind.
Uhm, there’s limited editing the.
You know the contributors create the posts themselves.
Text is easier to consume on 3G bandwidth and stuff like that, and the places that really needed it.
At the time, yeah.
Yeah, so well still.
So, uh, I went to UM Andre Szewczenko rushed, who is right now in heave?
He was going to be one of the video people and I said, would you do a text post instead and he said, oh sure.
And so he did it, and I posted it and it was a raging success and I’ve been doing it almost weekly ever since.
It’s been seven years now.
Yeah wow and he you said he’s in Kiev, Ukraine.
Are you sure?
Yeah yeah, yeah.
And and and we have I have to take him in and say at the time of this recording we’re all kind of thinking about the people over in Ukraine with the mess.
Of the world.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, he woke up yesterday morning hearing explosions from this.
So I can.
I can tell you not to digress, but the the post status slack yesterday was all about the mess in Ukraine.
So yeah, it was pretty.
There’s there’s a lot of concerned people and we have a lot of people in our community that live over in that part.
Of the world.
So yeah, yeah, automatic was too they a.
Lot of people.
Offering refuge if they needed to get out and.
Just a lot of you know what can we do?
How can we help?
Kind of conversations so.
Yeah, it’s a.
It’s a.
It’s a lot of hard conversations.
Yeah, yeah, so you built europress and that started off with one website, yeah?
And now you have several websites.
Yeah, yes we do.
Yeah, it was just the one for a lot of years.
Yes and.
Oh, last.
Spring uh, we started having discussions about having Kate work on it full time.
But she very wisely thought that we should be offering more than just europress
Yeah, and it was it.
Was a little different than that, like alongside that is, we’ve always been really careful to protect protect the integrity of what Hero press is, and if we’re looking if we’re doing.
For a long term project you have to have some kind of financial support for.
It, which has always been us and we’ve had community community involvement at times when we’ve needed it.
But if we really want to do more with it, we’ve got to have something that.
People make sense for people to put money behind.
Uhm, but also in a way that continues our mission of supporting.
I guess I want to say the least among us.
You know, making it as accessible for the newest, poorest person as it is for the richest most.
You know easily able to person.
Yeah, because it’s always easy for the richest person this to throw $30 at something $40 or something.
And for somebody that’s financially strapped in a developing country, it’s not always that easy.
And and I think what it comes down to.
Honestly, Katie, it’s inclusion.
We talk a lot in our community as you know about diversity and that whole side of it.
And I and diversity doesn’t mean I’m sorry we have a group for females group.
For males, a group for Italians or group, you know you know where I’m going.
Huh, right?
That’s something.
Firstly, diversity means welcoming people into your.
Community with open arms and being there to support them.
Yeah, there are a lot.
Of layers when you start talking about diversity and it’s important to look at look.
At all of them.
You know, even small business like there’s a lot of things that can be sponsored in the.
You know, in the WordPress community, and it’s really reasonable for people putting their time into these projects to get as much sponsorship as they can.
But the big companies.
Can easily sponsor things where small businesses like teams of 1 to 3 even up to 10 sometimes, or different parts of the world, you know.
Their dollars don’t stretch quite as far.
And so even though we haven’t necessarily.
Built on it, yet that’s kind of the target market we’re looking for.
But then there’s.
Also a reason that people doing these projects take large sponsorship because you put a lot of effort into it so you know it’s a.
It’s a weird balance to try to find, and we felt like building a lot of.
Kind of self.
Supporting like come like WP podcasts is something that we can keep up and maintain with a a fair minimal amount of effort.
So creating a.
Variety of websites like that that benefit the community but have sponsorship opportunities allow us to go in with lower sponsorship costs and and help those smaller businesses.
Yeah it’s funny. You mentioned WP Podcast, which is one of your newest offerings which you started in late 2021 and I have to tell you one of my favorite offerings.
Being a podcaster you know, and there’s a lot of there’s a lot of podcasters in the word press space, and most people don’t understand that.
In this.
Yeah, we didn’t we.
We were amazed by the number of podcasters that we found that we had no.
Idea where out there it.
Was you know, and I think that’s one of the best parts about being involved even in.
Just you know the original hero process.
But the projects that have come out of it is seeing all these things that they’re all out there.
It’s just getting us connected to.
Them, that’s such a challenge.
I would have guessed there were maybe 25 podcasts.
And how many did you come up with?
There are more than 70 on there now.
Yeah I would.
I would assume and I know some of them are strictly WordPress.
I know I try and do a mix of WordPress and business.
It it it depends right?
And I think yeah, they’re all important and it’s about finding a voice that you resonate.
With yeah yeah, and you never know quite what that.
Voice is going to be.
And I think it’s very, very important.
It’s you know it’s like the healthy bloodlines are, you know, a mix you you don’t want just word press ’cause then you’re in that that you know the contents.
Although you know you’re just here, you need you need to be hearing about how to run a business, how to you know, work with the community, how to.
Hire well, you know it’s it.
It has to be an and.
Kind of approach.
What I’ll tell you guys is on my phone at the time of this record, I have 35 podcasts that I listen to as background when I’m working on a regular basis. I used to be an AM radio guy.
Back in the 70s when I was growing up so the to track, yeah, I was right and so the transition from podcast to podcast Topher was easy for me.
Like it really nice.
Yeah, and and the other thing I really like to for and I often share them in the LinkedIn group by comanage with Courtney Robertson and other places.
Is your hero press tip of the.
Week, how did that start?
Well, that was sort of in connection with with the websites themselves.
We we made a wide variety of sites, but we wanted one place where everybody could find them.
So we made a site called heroesnetwork.com. Yep, and then we thought, well, what else are?
We going to put on there.
Are are we going to start making content or is it?
Only going to be an aggregation of the other sites and we decided to make some content, some blog posts and stuff like that.
And I’ve always loved making videos, training videos. So at the beginning of 2022 I just started doing it once a week.
Just ’cause it seemed like a good idea at the time.
We really did a lot of people.
Approach content creation as if everything has to be huge and brand new and imperfect, right?
And perfect.
Yeah, and if.
You’re looking for perfect.
The Hero Plus Network is not the place for you because there is nothing perfect about the heroes network.
It is authentic.
It is engaging.
And it’s imperfect.
But we knew that life was busy and we are in a transition stage all the way around.
And so we wanted to create things that could be as sustainable as possible.
With minimal amount of effort, because we think that these things actually help the Community, and so we want to keep them going.
But we also are realistic.
About the amount of time we have to invest in it.
I’m I’m a uh.
I enjoy writing.
I’m a writer.
Uhm, I don’t do.
A lot of blog posts on the air bus network right now, because that’s not something I have bandwidth for.
We’re going to be looking to branch out in.
That area, but right now.
That’s on hold with the tips of the week.
Those are pretty easy to put up, so we’ve got a mix of styles of content and then you know.
We’ve got a big audience like we’re really.
We’re doing the one.
Thing nobody should really do with content, and we’re trying to reach everybody.
So that means we need to have a variety of different types of content so that everybody gets a little bit of.
Something right now, yeah, and I think the key, even with video is be authentic.
Don’t worry about down mixing it and editing it.
I mean yeah.
You know, I, I think some of that’s personally not worth it.
I mean, I’ve I’ve had podcasts in past when I’ve had animals, and a dog will show up in the middle of the podcast and there will be a bark or a a meow of a cat jumping on a keyboard.
And it’s like at the end of the day.
I just kind of leave them there ’cause I think it’s more important to be authentic, and if we all look for perfection, we never get any content out anywhere.
I mean, right, you know.
Well, yeah, and if there’s also an inclusion element to this, we want more people being out in in, you know, public in the community.
You want them participating, but not everybody has the resources to have, you know.
A great microphone or space where they can just.
Be quiet by themselves.
And so by allowing imperfection to be a normal, we allow more people to participate because they can just be comfortable and be themselves.
Yeah, I know on the Hero press network you guys have a post that says 2021 was a year of growth.
For your presence.
And you know which post I’m referring to.
Is it so?
Go wait, what was your biggest take away that where you grew and what’s the one thing you think you could?
Have done better.
Oh well, the thing I think I think we could have done better is I could have created more content and and it’s you know it’s kind of funny to say I I really enjoy content creation and I found getting through the pandemic that I didn’t have the capacity.
Even if I had the time I didn’t have the capacity.
To be creative as much as I would have.
Liked to have been and I’ve.
Talked to others who’ve had.
The same struggle.
You just only have so much to give at a given time and you have.
To work with that.
But the growth was not Even so much.
I mean, there’s the obvious growth of getting the different projects out the door, but it’s more about figuring out what the future of Hero Press looks like.
’cause that’s a conversation we’ve been having for a really long time.
It’s over.
Did we lose you?
Well, do you have an answer to for?
Uhm, I do want to make sure.
Robert can hear us.
She’s just muted at the moment.
OK, yeah so.
Uh, yeah Europe growth uhm?
We spent months in 2021 thinking about.
What we were going to do with your breasts.
Uhm, and we considered a wide variety of options.
We considered not doing it anymore.
Uhm wow.
Just because I mean.
If you don’t look around once in a while to see if people are still listening, you’re going to miss it.
If if you get to the.
Point where they’re not, you know, Yep.
So we looked at traffic.
We looked at all kinds of things and we looked at what we wanted to build and what we wanted to do and what we wanted to do with our life.
We were talking before we started recording.
About how Kate and I are looking about to to change, change our life, leave our house to the girls and move on.
Do we want to live in an RV and live on the road?
Do we want to get an apartment?
Do we want to move to Europe?
Who knows?
So even beyond europress it was a big year for us.
It is and I think COVID has forced a lot of people to evaluate their lives in a big way.
And I think that’s important.
That’s something that.
I try to do regularly.
And I think it’s you know, a positive to come out of COVID.
Yeah, I would say so too.
I mean you know I was sharing before I’m I’m in the at time.
It’s record I’m in the middle of a divorce.
I mean, there’s no hard feelings there.
I mean, things happen and and you kind of evaluate where you want to go and even business wise you evaluate I mean.
You know I’m approaching 200 episodes in this podcast and I’ve kind of sat down more than once. Since it do, I want to keep doing this.
Is it still bringing value to people and every time I have this discussion with people I get the.
Don’t stop doing it and and it’s kind of.
OK.
You know it’s interesting and I I was having a discussion with somebody a couple weeks ago and I I said what do you like and they said, oh I like the interviews, but I also like the short tips that I throw out every week or two.
So you know it.
It’s surprising sometimes what people like and what they don’t like until you go to your community and ask.
You don’t have any idea.
Yeah, it’s true.
And that’s interesting and and life, you know, evolution?
You gotta do.
What’s also fun for you and.
You know by that I mean, I made a decision three and a.
Half years ago.
I wasn’t going to write any long form blog.
Go skate.
I I write them for clients or write them for other.
People and I said I’m not doing any more long form.
I haven’t written one long form blog post.
It’s not a podcast on my blog in three and a.
Half years.
Yeah, and you know that’s it.
You’re you’re supposed to be enjoying what you’re doing too.
And if you continue doing something simply because.
It’s what you have done.
It’s not good like it’s not.
He sighed.
It’s not really as valuable as you think and and what idea might you be suppressing?
That would be even more.
Helpful if you moved on to something else, so.
I like, I don’t.
Think you should just wander around abandoning.
Things at will, but.
The idea that you should be stuck with something for the next.
20 years because you started it.
Once, doesn’t that like that’s ridiculous.
No, it’s so true.
You know, we’ve talked about the community before we went to record, and you know, you’re up and automatic in that role.
Kate as well and I know to free you’re pretty community minded and the problem with open source projects is you always get some people bent out of shape.
Uhm, because they don’t like where the community is going and I always say to people and maybe I’m different, but if you’re really that concerned, get involved.
Uhm, stop complaining.
One of my favorite comments lately on Twitter has been when somebody says.
I found the bug.
I said do you know how to open up a ticket to open up that bug?
And do you know how to address?
That, and by the way, if you don’t, I’ll give you 4 developer advocates at different big companies who be glad to help you.
Right, right?
Yeah, like like, let’s help ourselves.
Do you know what I mean?
Well, and that’s it.
You know it’s.
Sometimes people just don’t know what to do.
Sometimes you know we forget that.
People come like.
Part of our diversity is that people come from very different backgrounds.
Not everybody was taught how to handle, you know, conflict well, or how to express themselves well.
Or maybe they weren’t even encouraged to express their opinions.
Well and just so or effectively I should.
Say and and so.
Graciousness goes a long ways.
Inside of a community.
I know recently we had a big diversity conversation.
Which of course.
But but I have.
To say that that’s turned into something really good.
The people involved in the conversations began getting engaged.
They had somebody helped them find a way to get involved themselves, and so it’s adding.
It was uncomfortable, but it adds richness to the rest of the community when it’s.
Handled the right way.
Yeah, that that conversations kind of been everywhere.
It’s been on WP Tavern, it’s been on.
It was on WP builds with Nathan Wrigley.
A week ago.
I know it’s been in post status, I know.
Courtney and I have that conversation preview regularly ’cause she works on elevating in the community you you work on elevating.
Yeah, it happened with word camp Europe where the discussion was.
The organizing community was not as diverse as it should have.
Been it’s been kind of everywhere, hasn’t it?
And I think what’s important is that as uncomfortable as those conversations are, and maybe that wasn’t started the right way, they’re really very, very important, like you need those gut checks.
It’s so easy.
Particularly when you’re involved in community, and particularly when you’re volunteering, it’s hard to stretch outside of what’s comfortable just because you have so limited resources.
To work with.
And so if you don’t have somebody helping you stretch, you’ll just kind of stay in the same pattern that you’re in, and so it is very important to have.
Other people from the outside notice things and comment on them and be a good force for change because everybody working on these projects are volunteers largely.
And they really care about diversity. At least you know I’d say probably 90 percent 95% and they’re actively trying to do it.
But again, we have limited resources.
You know, I don’t know everybody, I can’t, I, I just can’t.
I wish I could.
And so you know the more people that get involved, the more diverse and.
And representative of the entire community that it is.
It it’s so true and I and I think I actually think our community is doing a really good job in the long run handling that I think we have work to do.
Don’t give the room, but we’re having the conversations, and if you can’t have the conversation then you can’t work at it and that’s.
Oh yeah.
A big deal.
Yeah, and I I would agree with you there.
I mean obviously and again it’s the kind of thing that will always be a problem because our community is always growing and changing the again one of the best parts of open source is also one of the worst parts.
So open source, you know it is everything always changes.
But you know, if we are willing to stop and have the conversations, we’re willing to try to do it better.
We’re willing to to work to grow, and I think like that’s that’s how to learn.
I have managed to stay married as long as we have and it’s I mean it’s what makes a healthy relationship is being willing to work to grow.
When it’s important or being willing to admit that.
You can’t do.
That and walk away.
Yep, Yep.
Totes topher.
Do you have anything you want?
To add to those sets or.
Not a whole lot.
Kate and I have talked to discuss this a lot between each other and we’re very well aligned.
You guys are actually very in line with me too, and the way I feel about this stuff.
I think it’s almost like we’re in the same conversations, right?
Yeah, but it’s good you.
Know there’s a lot more alignment than we think.
It’s easy for.
To look different from the outside, but when you actually look at it from the inside or have the conversations about what was intended, there’s a lot more conformity than.
We would realize, yeah.
What what other?
Issues since we’re talking about community.
Do to see any hero press community that we could.
Address and do better.
Do you see anything?
Boy, that’s a good one.
I mean, one of our focuses in the europress community is.
Making sure that resources are easy to access for people there is so much and I’m actually finding this.
I just went through orientation with automatic and I was I was amazed at the amount of resources that they have.
Particularly as someone who has been a lead organizer of a word camp twice.
But I didn’t even know existed.
And it should have really.
And it’s there’s so much of.
That out there in the community, you know.
And so looking for ways to take useful beginner level information and make it very obvious and available to new people coming in.
Yeah, I don’t think all even the people like ourselves who have been in this community a long time.
No of all the resources and I’ll give you an.
Example of that.
I you know, before I took on the Co management of the LinkedIn group.
Uh, learned out WordPress door kind of fell off my turn a little bit.
Not that I wasn’t interested, it just kind of fell off and working with Courtney Robertson so much.
One thing her and I talk about is ’cause she’s one of the learning leads we talk about learned a wordpress.org a lot so and then doing some stuff and talking to.
Nick Diego aloud, who’s over at WP engine.
He’s involved in Word learn as well, and several other people so.
It’s really hard for new people coming in.
If us.
I don’t like to use the word Alzheimer’s, but the experience people don’t.
Yeah, I’m gonna make us all sound old before it sounds, but as experienced people don’t understand all the resources.
How do the new people expect to get them?
Yeah, exactly and you know trying to.
Figure out what to.
Google for to find it or to.
Even like we’ve forgotten so many things that you know other people don’t even know exist that you know, finding ways to just make that access to information easier.
And it doesn’t have to be free information like it can just be helping people find really good training.
Regardless of what it costs or.
But just anything that helps people feel welcome and and valued.
Yeah, I think those are two real keywords.
Kate is welcomed and valued.
I think there’s a lot of people who think if they say.
Say I don’t like something that that’s gonna go over bad.
I don’t think saying you don’t like it is gonna go over bad.
It’s all in the delivery and and I think that’s part of it.
Oh yeah.
Like if you don’t like something, why and what would you like us to do to help you?
And how can we help you?
And if you answered those questions, I think.
You know there’s enough people in our community that would be more receptive, I know.
So you know when I get stuck and I say I’m stuck somebody you know, point me somewhere I don’t have.
I don’t seem to have that issue, but it’s also a bit of a give and take to.
You gotta be willing to help the people help you as.
Well, so yeah, there’s some, there’s some.
Misunderstanding, I think, as the Community grows.
So the people who started.
In the community, knew what open source was.
And they had a pretty deep.
Like there’s.
There’s a strong reason why we’re all in here, which is why we have strong feelings and why we have strong arguments sometime.
With the new people coming in, people like my mom who would use WordPress because we use WordPress.
But you know she’s got other alternatives and different things, but she’d use WordPress, but she has no understanding of what an open source community is like and how it works, and.
So getting some more education around that letting people know that you can ask questions you can’t ask for things to change.
You can use things this way, you know and this is how we work.
Those kinds of things like.
It’s almost like guidelines for the society.
Which isn’t so much something.
You have to follow strictly.
But it gives people a place to start.
They have an understanding of how to interact and what’s considered appropriate and what’s not considered appropriate, and it just gets ever be kind of an even playing ground.
It’s it’s, you know.
It’s the rules for football.
It’s the rules for any game that you play.
It just gives you.
A place to.
Start to for what’s the one thing you’d like to see change in the community.
I would still like to see more global awareness.
It was something I started stretching for with your press and it’s something I’ve come to really enjoy and appreciate.
And every now and again I’ll feel like I know a lot of people in the WordPress community.
If you go look at the hero press map and look at those pins, I know people all over the world.
And then I’ll bump into somebody who has been a core contributor for 15 years, and I’ve never heard of them.
And I think how can we be in the same community?
The same circles for that long, and never bump into somebody you.
Know it’s so true.
So, uhm.
I mean, a lot of slack.
Maybe 35.
Would you like to see mine?
But I I tend to join.
Uh, geographically specific slack channels, so I mean the the Nigerian 1, the Australian one, the two Indian ones and the WP Africa one.
Synomous Yep.
The people who tend to hang out on those slacks.
They don’t necessarily go outside of those slacks, so they don’t come to the WordPress make slack, or to my slack.
And so you walk into a whole new community and you’re like, wow, there’s 200 people here that I had no idea exists, and they’re all making their living with WordPress doing what I do.
I I would I would love to figure out a way for everybody to be able to meet everybody.
I I would agree with you, thinking as you were saying that how many people I know in Western Europe and how many people I know in North America and how many people I know in Australia.
In Asia, and then how many people I don’t know.
In places like South America or Africa and that’s interesting.
’cause I, I and I mean Africa and a lot of spots is a developing continent or an underdeveloped continent.
And there I’m sure there’s all kinds of people doing wonderful things and I’m thinking.
Yeah, then.
But I really don’t know anybody.
The Night Fury and WordPress.
The Nigerian WordPress community is very robust.
Yeah, lots of lots of people doing really great.
And if I wasn’t on their slack channel, I wouldn’t know that.
Now part of it is, I think some of those underdeveloped countries are not confident promoting themselves, and I think they need to because I think there’s some really good stuff going on.
And I think one of the reasons why they don’t promote.
Themselves is they’re afraid about inclusion and being welcomed.
Yeah, you know, that’s really interesting, I’m.
Glad you brought that up because one of.
The things that I learned from the diversity discussion that happened is that some people need to be invited in.
And what’s funny about that is I should have known this because I’m somebody who needs to be invited it up.
I came into the tech world when I was barely out of college, not a technical person, and have felt kind of out of place my entire time.
Even when I go almost every word camp I go to.
And I’ve been to so many of them, I still feel like an outsider every single time.
’cause it’s just kind of my person.
And I realized that you know, if you’re someone who’s busy running a business.
If you’re new to the community, if you’ve just got your head down learning.
It may not.
Occur to you to get involved.
You may not realize there’s a place for you to get involved, or how.
To get involved.
And so when we were working on word.
Camp US and.
We just put the organizing team to go.
Rather, we brainstormed and reached out to a number of people who were really excited to be involved.
Who really are going?
To add a.
Ton to the project and gave us a really diverse group of people.
Not just ethnically but also from Canada and from Mexico.
And, you know, like really bringing the continent together.
For the camp that just needed to be asked because they were busy doing other things.
And so you know part of part of opening that door wider is making sure that people know they’re allowed.
To come in.
Yeah, and it’s so true I I can even remember when I got involved with the Toronto WordPress meet up group and this is going back over 10 years.
Uh, a friend of mine reached out and said, why don’t you come to a meeting and it’s like I don’t wanna bother and even.
Hi and I’m in and I’m an extrovert personified and I didn’t want to go.
Right?
And a lot of those people now have become like long term friends and you know.
And then.
And that’s the amazing part about it all.
It’s the people we know and you know, the more I look at it and I could be wrong.
But you know the I look at the people I know that have grown and gone on to like major.
Companies in different types of roles and you know it’s hard to put a number on it.
Some days like yeah.
And one of the things I think that makes our community really special, and I’ve said this to many people over the years, is.
Most people and I use the word most ’cause we all can find a few who are not in this community are very approachable and it doesn’t matter if, like I take somebody like a Brian Gardner and I’m gonna call Brian out ’cause I’ve had him on this podcast.
I go to events that he does.
And for a guy that it considers somebody, I’ve looked up to over the years who’s done the world.
He is one of the most humble and appreciative people in this community I know.
And that’s you know, some people would disagree.
With me, but I.
Think Brian is really approachable and.
Yeah, well and you know you can’t, you can’t.
Be friends with everybody.
Not yeah you can be a good person who’s approachable and still not have a personality that you enjoy spending time.
With like we’re we’re with.
People at the end of the day.
But I agree with you completely, I mean.
I’ve had people you know willing to.
Help me with.
Things that you know would take time away from their very busy, very you know, prominent agency to help me get started in my small little things.
You know it’s.
It’s a community of people who kind of remember where they came from and the help that they.
Needed to get to where they are.
And I’m really.
Excited about helping the next person who comes along.
Yeah, I and I I was thinking about a good friend of mine and you guys all know Corey Miller over at post status and Corey founded.
Right?
I think back in the day and for those who don’t know and Corey’s gone through his trials and tribulations with mental health lately, he’s been very upfront and open about it.
And I needed something and I reached out to Corey and despite everything going on in court, his life he got.
Back to me and that you know, people like that are the cornerstone in this community and that matters and what we need to do.
Yeah, yes.
I think we’ve got to get to is developing some younger.
Talent in the community.
Yeah, you know, it’s kind of an interesting thing.
The people coming into the community.
It’s it’s split and I don’t have.
Numbers to back this up because I’m not a numbers person.
I’m a people person.
But you’re seeing a mix of people who are younger, so like our daughter, Sophie is 20.
She’s not interested really in development or design, but she’s very community oriented and has been looking at some different opportunities for herself and and then there are people like me who are coming into the community.
As a second stage of life kind of job.
A lot of people transitioning out of the jobs that they did have that they may have lost during the pandemic, or may have realized they didn’t want to have.
Anymore during the pandemic.
And are transitioning into, you know, a second career or a third career?
Because WordPress is so accessible for them, so it’s a kind of a split between.
Bringing in young talent but also nurturing older, experienced people who might need you know who are just coming at it from a different.
Perspective and tougher I would think the.
You know you being from an agency background.
The problem with just young talent is they don’t always have the business experience to go around with the design skills and that that’s a bit of a problem.
It it can be, but.
I don’t know.
In an agency with a fair number of people, let’s say more than ten, yeah, your tasks are pretty siloed.
You’re not going to ask a developer to do sales or design and and honestly, that’s a reason that a lot of freelancers turn their back on freelancing and go to an agency ’cause they.
They just want to do what they like to do and not mess with all that stuff.
People are, I’m finding their niching down more than they used to be, and you can.
When I got into this business, there was one one title for someone who worked on the Internet and it was Webmaster and they did.
I know that title.
But now.
Then it went to you know, front end and back end and now on the front end there’s a dozen different.
Uh, tasks that you can make a living at doing just that.
Yep, if you’re at an agency.
So I I think people are having the opportunity to to nycz down more.
I think.
And that allows young people to have more options to choose.
It’s not.
Be a Webmaster or not, it’s get on the Internet and do any of those these hundred jobs you know.
It’s true.
It’s true, I’ve got a.
I’ve got a 30 year old son who’s a work placement internship away from graduating College in marketing.
Uhm, thank the pandemic for the two year delay on that one because nobody is doing internships and he came to me last week and said, you know what I wanna do?
I want to start a WordPress blog and I’ve been saying to him for a long time.
Maybe we should.
So there’s all kinds of people getting in for different reasons.
Yeah, and you know that’s that’s exactly what I was going to point out is you can come in as a differently abled business professional, and who can support WordPress businesses and have your own freelancing consulting career.
Or, you know, work in email marketing you know, or you know just you can do the things that you love with WordPress without necessarily being a WordPress person.
And again, that’s so healthy for our community.
O so true, and that’s what gives us different experiences, like when we get in some of these I know post status does like regular huddles where they get people together and we we bat around the ideas and there’s many of that.
There’s a lot of you know people at the pandemic that have created their own little slack.
Groups where they have three or four people they talked every day and sort of.
Shoot the business ideas around and it’s one of the few professions I know truthfully where you’re actually talking to your competitors and you’re working with your competitors without giving up any secrets right till 4.
All the time.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, Coopertition is a big deal in WordPress.
I mean.
Yeah, it’s so true.
I mean I would.
I was joking the other day.
I must have friends at like 5 major hosting companies and.
You know, I know, liquid Web is a a sponsor. You guys with your hosting right? And yeah, I’ve got multiple friends at Liquid web, I mean multiple and I’ve got multiple friends at GoDaddy. I’ve got multiple friends at WP engine. I mean, you know, take your pick and you know.
There’s there’s no.
Resource by the way, I don’t use any.
Of them except for.
Page, except for except for page really.
I have some clients on them, but I don’t use them personally and there’s no animosity because I’m not there.
They’re just glad I’m in the community and that’s what matters at the end of the day.
Right, so yeah, we’re.
All richer for it.
Which are like brownies as opposed to.
Which are like you.
Know billionaires, but that comes too sometimes.
But we’re we’re just all.
Richer when we when we work together because nobody is doing exactly the same thing.
And even if somebody doing the exactly the same thing as you, they’re not doing it the way you’re doing it and.
And so the more we learn from each other, the more the entire community grows, and the healthier and more financially stable.
Our community is, the healthier and more financially stable.
Every business built on top.
Of that is.
So true, so I’m going to kind of wrap up with two questions.
The first question for both is what would you like to see?
Different with WordPress moving forward, Kate?
I’d like to see better conversations, just I’d like to see an assumption of.
Of the positive still ask the questions still have the conversations, but you know don’t assume that people are.
Don’t assume malice.
Uhm, it’s error on the side of ignorance.
That’s what I’d love to see.
Topher, how would you like to answer that?
I’m gonna try and not make this complicated.
It’s OK.
I would like.
Development to return to the simplicity that it was two years ago.
I’m smiling.
It’s it’s much, much harder in Maya.
Union to walk into WordPress development now than it was when I did it.
I I would agree, and then my second question for both years.
What’s the one thing you want to do with Hero Press this year, Kate.
I want to transition control of Hero Press over to somebody else, and it’s probably going to be our daughter Sophie.
It’s something we’re talking about is something we set up when we started all of this.
But that’s that’s my thing.
Is getting getting somebody who’s not Topher and I.
Managing the day-to-day parts of Europress.
Ah, it’s time for the succession plan already, is it?
Yeah, that’s admirable.
Topher, what would you like?
I wanna add to that a little bit.
Then I have my own thing as well.
We’re not gonna stop doing hero press stuff like we’re not walking away and giving it to someone.
Uhm, I’ll probably always do the essays because I like it.
Yeah, but there’s a ton of stuff that happens that that we could send.
You know, have somebody else do.
Uhm, but I.
Would I would like to see.
Each of the assets we’ve built continue to grow healthfully.
Come find it, WP is struggling a little bit right now.
We aren’t getting as many submissions as I’d like, but WP podcast is doing great.
I’m happy with.
The well here press network is getting its content built out via the tip of the week and I want to keep doing some blog posts occasionally.
I just I would.
I would like to see it to continue to grow.
In a in a.
Safeway, that’s really great.
Yeah, we move when we set it up the way we did that there was going to be a flurry of activity and then there was going to be a little bit of settling to see.
Kind of what’s stuck to the wall.
And then invest the resources that we have into either helping something that’s struggling or fueling the fire behind something that’s you know.
More robust.
Yeah, and I’m not surprised that like.
The podcasting side of it is doing well because podcasting is all the.
Rage right now and.
And as all I know from being in that community, there’s a lot of concern over.
Open podcast networks versus closed networks and all kinds of stuff, so I think it’s a really good venue to kind of help and be part of it, and so I’m not as again, I’m not surprised.
Uhm, yeah.
And on the other side with find it WP we knew that that was a really ambitious project that was going to take a lot more time.
It was going to be.
It was going to be a slow grower and we were going to have to figure some things out like we.
Didn’t have.
All the answers when we launched it, but we.
Didn’t want to just.
Leave the idea sitting you know around.
Collecting dust.
So true Cate, if somebody wants to get ahold of you, how is the best way?
Twitter I I’m @mysweetcate
You can find me on Facebook but really empathetic at Facebook.
So and LinkedIn.
You know, I’m there.
I don’t always chat a lot there.
But I’m active on LinkedIn and it’s Kate DeRosia.
And to for what’s best way to get ahold you?
I I want.
To point out that cate is with.
A C Oh yes.
Yes it is.
Best way to find me?
Probably also Twitter@topher1kenobe.
I use that handle everywhere though, so you can find me on a variety of slacks, Facebook, LinkedIn.
You’re not a Star Trek fan.
A Star Wars fan, sorry.
All the places, all the places.
Thanks\ guys for a great conversation and have a wonderful.
Day both of you.
And thanks, this was really great.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you.
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