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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"Post Status: Launching a WordPress Product in Public: Session 16";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=149596";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"https://poststatus.com/launching-a-wordpress-product-in-public-session-16/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:42284:"<p><a href="https://poststatus.com/planet/feed/#h-transcript">Transcript</a> ↓</p>



<p>In this episode, <a href="https://twitter.com/corymiller303">Cory Miller</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/coreymaass">Corey Maass</a> explore the delicate balance between professionalism and creativity in branding and marketing. They also discuss the importance of incorporating feedback into the product development process, utilizing user testing and testimonials to refine features and continually improve. The impact of their collaborative efforts has led to clarity around the momentum of partnering can bring to the creative process.</p>



<p><strong>Top Takeaways:</strong></p>



<ul>
<li><strong>Balancing Professionalism and Creativity</strong>. The balance between professionalism and creativity in branding and marketing can be difficult. Even for playful, fun brands, there is a need to maintain a level of professionalism. Clean designs, corporate markets, and conveying value to potential customers are important.</li>



<li><strong>Using Feedback for Product Refinement</strong>. There is value in receiving feedback and incorporating it into the product development process. User testing, testimonials, and refining the features offer continual improvement opportunities. Creating a product that meets the needs of the target audience and continually improving it based on user feedback requires commitment.</li>



<li><strong>Leveraging Collaboration for Productivity</strong>. The productive nature of collaboration and bouncing ideas off each other is energizing. Take time to brainstorm, make suggestions, and provide insights that contribute to refining the product and marketing strategies with your teams. A collaborative approach helps generate new ideas, solve problems, and keep the momentum flowing.</li>
</ul>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-mentioned-in-the-show"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f517.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> Mentioned in the show:</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://crop.express/">Crop.Express</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.omgimg.net/">OMGIMG</a></li>



<li><a href="https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt">ChatGPT</a></li>



<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/">WordCamp</a></li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/lindseymillerwp">Lindsey Miller</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-you-can-follow-post-status-and-our-guests-on-twitter"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:</h3>



<ul class="eplus-wrapper">
<li><a href="http://twitter.com/coreymaass">Corey Maass</a></li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/corymiller303">Cory Miller</a> (CEO, <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a>)</li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/lemonadecode">Olivia Bisset</a> (Intern, <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a>)</li>
</ul>



<p class="eplus-wrapper has-background">The <strong>Post Status Draft</strong> podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4dd.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /><br /><br /><a href="https://poststatus.com/category/post-status-podcasts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Browse our archives</a>, and don’t forget to subscribe via <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">YouTube</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Simplecast</a>, or <a href="https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P">RSS</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3a7.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-transcript">Transcript</h2>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Session 16 Corey &amp; Cory Launch a WordPress Product Live</h2>



<p><strong>C&amp;C 16</strong></p>



<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Everything sounds like a country song.</p>



<p>Working from Panera.</p>



<p>Good, I got that</p>



<p>screaming live on.</p>



<p>Apparently country music for me is all, um, ing. Yeah. Is all, uh, what was that show? Beverly Hillbillies. Oh man. Classic. You can tell I don&#8217;t listen to country music. Well, I&#8217;m&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:00:42] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> from Oklahoma, so it&#8217;s kind of wired in.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:00:46] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yes, you&#8217;d have to.</p>



<p>[00:00:50] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> We got song Dance by Corey. This is a great way to start a webinar. Section 16, launching a product. What is on our agenda, my friend? I think I have some two things. Logo and website.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:01:10] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> What&#8217;s on your, uh, for me, the big thing is I. Wound up doing a couple of pretty good re refactors again, of the plugin. Um, I, in in particular, I coded myself into a corner or had coded myself into a corner and then, um, putting things over.</p>



<p>So there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s sort of two versions of. In, in coding parlance you have instances of things, right? So there&#8217;s sort of two instances of the app. Um, one is sitewide and then one is per post or per. Per object. So attached to a podcast episode or attached to a post article or attached to something, you wanna have images, um, and then attached to the entire site, which in WordPress, there is no site thing.</p>



<p>Um, so there&#8217;s, you know, these sort of two instances of apps and I had done a lot of coding initially. Where I had abstracted out for these two instances and then done a bunch of refactoring based on our conversations for the site-wide instance, and then porting that back over to apply to posts and things.</p>



<p>Um, it all broke, um, or I encoded myself into a corner in a number of ways. So I wound up just ripping it all out and simplifying it. So we&#8217;re real close. Um, but I&#8217;m between, uh, allergies and, uh, life getting in the way. I&#8217;ve been feeling a little burned out. Um, I messaged you the other night like I have, uh, you can hear me sniffle and, um, Yeah, and in insomnia that I suffer from once in a while.</p>



<p>And so I&#8217;m staying up all night coding, which is not, I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m coding because I&#8217;m up all night. I&#8217;m not staying up all night coding. But it, because of that, I tend to like burn out and I&#8217;m, I&#8217;ve also, I&#8217;ve solved these problems four times now. I just need to keep cleaning them up and keep revising them. So the truth is I&#8217;m taking a couple of days away from the project.</p>



<p>But we&#8217;re close. I mean, I keep saying that week after week, but um, I do think that we&#8217;re, as soon as we get a logo locked down, which helps to find colors and styles, which helps to find the website, it also lets me go back into the app and plug in the logo in a couple of places and then, you know, it&#8217;s sort of branding complete version 0 0 1.</p>



<p>And then, you know, I think we can roll from there.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:04:01] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Okay. Um, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s a great update. And then transitioning to the logo for a second. So it just made me think as I&#8217;m, I want, I want to talk through those logos that we were just talking through on Slack. I&#8217;ll screen share those in a second, but it just made me think I&#8217;m doing this horizontal one particularly.</p>



<p>Mm-hmm. With the designer. And what are the needs for plugin? Like, do we need just a logo mark, for instance? Brandmark, whatever do we need to, what, what kind of ratios and sizes do you need?&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:04:33] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Right. I, the, the, the one that I, we were talking about the most just a minute ago is horizontal omg i m g next to each other.</p>



<p>Um,</p>



<p>sorry. Um, oh, now we know all your secrets. So, uh, This one. I like the font choice, but the graphic is kind of meh, like it&#8217;s been done before. I like the colors. Um, this one I like conceptually better and I dropped in a few notes. I honestly think that they should take the font from the first one and do this treatment to it, simplifying it, taking out the drop shadow.</p>



<p>And I liked your suggestion of switch or reversing it. Um, and then the color&#8217;s up here. Exactly. So it&#8217;s bigger and bold. Yeah. And then, and then honestly, I think that&#8217;s good enough. Um, okay. The, so yeah, if they swap out the, the, the font, cuz then it&#8217;ll be, the font feels more square, big and bold, simple. And, and at that point, what I guess I anticipate doing is if you&#8217;ve got OMG next to img, um, it&#8217;s easy enough to put one on top of the other.</p>



<p>So you might actually tell them like, you know, here are our notes and please com create one that is horizontal as they&#8217;re doing now, but, but one that&#8217;s stacked with OMG over img. So maybe the OMG is, is in color and the IMG is in black or something. Um, but honestly, that way we&#8217;ve got. I think we, we cover our bases, right?</p>



<p>We&#8217;ve got a horizontal version and we&#8217;ve got a essentially a square version. Hey, you&#8217;re wondering if I&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:06:29] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> remembered? I&#8217;m sharing&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:06:30] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> my screen. I, I did. Yeah. I see that</p>



<p>this is the true ride along entrepreneur ride along.</p>



<p>I like that ride along. Oh yeah. There&#8217;s a, a subreddit called Entrepreneur Ride Along.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s not a great subreddit, but I, I like the, I like the gist of it and some of it there occasionally. There&#8217;s a good question or a good post.</p>



<p>And honestly, I, I will, I think instead of gray, it should be, it should be black and white, so it&#8217;s color going, but it, but we don&#8217;t, we can, I can change that when we get it. That&#8217;s fine. Yeah.</p>



<p>Okay. So yeah, use that font, flip it upside down. Um, remove the drop shadow. I don&#8217;t, I don&#8217;t like that. The 3D effect of it doesn&#8217;t do anything for me,</p>



<p>man.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:08:16] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> I&#8217;m looking at where are you seeing shadow, like right here.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:08:19] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yeah, so that bar has a shadow below it.</p>



<p>Um, and then lastly, if they make those changes, um, create a version where the OMG is above the img.</p>



<p>So it&#8217;s, we, this is a, if this is a, a horizontal, ver horizontal version, we need a, yeah, it&#8217;s essentially a, a vertical version. Ooh, that&#8217;s&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:08:53] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> awesome. The top could be colors, um, g the bottom, and there&#8217;s a bar. Okay, cool. Yep.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:09:00] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Let&#8217;s see.</p>



<p>And for anybody who asks, it&#8217;s, oh my gosh, images. Because we are non religiously affiliated.</p>



<p>I would say another version that is vertical.</p>



<p>Yes. Okay. And I think, I think that&#8217;s fine.</p>



<p>I like the color choices. I like the feel of it and as we&#8217;ve talked about it, like we could, we could spend tons of time and effort, but good enough. It&#8217;s cute, it&#8217;s interesting. Like it, it does what I wanted. Um, whatever it was that I had in my head, I didn&#8217;t have any, you know, the requirements that were in my head.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s like bold and fun and interesting. The big, big heavy font like that to me says like O M G I M G, you know, it feels, it matches the name. Um, I like the colors vi, vibrant. Interesting. So&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:10:21] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> I almost wonder, like on the vertical one, it&#8217;s like leave a little black on the omg. Mm-hmm. Like the bars maybe split a little bit.</p>



<p>Okay, let me, that&#8217;s in, that&#8217;s in progress now. Great. Next thing I had was website and, um, I don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re in the space to be able to do this, but, um, just focused on logo and I only had time for logo, so I didn&#8217;t get website going, but the, I&#8217;m gonna go back on pod squeeze K card. Text content and I&#8217;ll just start getting buckets of text&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:11:06] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> for those blocks.</p>



<p>Yeah, I think if you wanna even just do it, um, flat, so on, you know, open up a Google Doc or something. Let&#8217;s look at the few different, um, websites that we&#8217;ve bookmarked for design and content. Um, and we found this awesome new site this morning, um, called, where&#8217;d it Go? Jelly Laid and their their welcome screen.</p>



<p>Uh, how do we want to, how, how does one say it? Uh, we can be, we can be inspired by. Inspired by, so, Yeah, I mean, and, and big props to Jelly La um, j e l l y l a d e, whether, um, whether we&#8217;re we, we borrow from them or not. It&#8217;s a really neat site, well laid out, well thought out. Um, and there&#8217;s a number of overlap.</p>



<p>Number of overlaps where they, they&#8217;re creating screenshots and beautiful screenshots. So they&#8217;re one of those kinds of tools. We&#8217;re doing something a little different, but, you know, some of the UI elements end up being the same, creating, um, specific sized images and stuff like that, just like we were doing for Crop Express.</p>



<p>So, um, but I like the, what I realized on, on looking at their site, um, where is it about, So here I can share. Maybe don&#8217;t need to do subtitles, I need to share the screen.</p>



<p>Um, so they&#8217;re, they&#8217;re heavy on listing out features, not benefits. So, um, but we did like, uh, some of the, the wording. Um, for your website and social media, um, that resonated. So the, so anyway, we&#8217;ve got that guy and we&#8217;ve got, um, what did you say? Squeeze was the other one we really liked the look of. Yeah.</p>



<p>And then, um, this one I just really liked. Again, running with the, the big, bold colors. Um, I just liked the big, bold fonts, so I think this might be a treatment that we look at doing, um, when we actually sit down and design our site. But it&#8217;s, uh, you know, if so, Yes. I don&#8217;t think we should sit here and, and try to actually mock up the site right now, but if we want to create essentially a, a, just a flat doc, because I mean, most standard websites, you, you have a hero era area with a title, a paragraph, and a call to action testimonials.</p>



<p>You&#8217;ve got, you know, list the three benefits kind of thing. I mean, most of these sites are pretty. Have similar sections. So I think if we go through and we can lock down just some wording. Um, and then once we have the colors and things from the logo set up, like we could just, we have text. We could just drop in.</p>



<p>Hey, I&#8217;m gonna&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:14:49] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> start that. I can share it&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:14:51] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> with you. Cool. I&#8217;ll stop sharing. You could share a dot.</p>



<p>Yeah. Perfect.</p>



<p>With the little back and forth in Slack we came up with.</p>



<p>Yeah. So this is very dry,</p>



<p>but the tagline of, I&#8217;m just opening the doctor.</p>



<p>Yeah, create professional images. Love that. One of the things that I reacted to, I realized thinking about the tagline, um, from, um, jelly La was there&#8217;s those create beautiful something, something and, you know, I&#8217;m like, well, beauty is at the behi in the eye of the beholder. And I always pry really hard not to.</p>



<p>Fall into words that are, it&#8217;s like the, the tagline that every, uh, every website tries at least once of the, the, the dot.dot that you&#8217;ll actually use, you know, and stuff like that. And it&#8217;s all just fluffy. So it&#8217;s like, I, I, I think you and I have talked about this before, like we&#8217;d rather it actually said what it did.</p>



<p>Yeah.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:17:19] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> I&#8217;m trying to go back and find, because you, you made some points, I think in Slack&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:17:25] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> that I wanna</p>



<p>try to scan it.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s like at some point, you know, you wanna, uh, uh, a clever turn of phrase tends to be the big headline and then, excuse me. Um, and then we&#8217;ve got that little. Paragraph underneath. So some of this could get ex extended. Um, the other thing we can do since the world, this is the world we live in now. Uh, we open up chat g p t and we say generate 10.</p>



<p>Whoever we&#8217;re ways to summarize.</p>



<p>Following</p>



<p>right. 10 clever taglines. To summarize the following statements,</p>



<p>I should have shared my screen for people who are not.</p>



<p>See, uh, have not played with chat G p T.</p>



<p>So that&#8217;s what.</p>



<p>Oh,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:19:18] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> you know what? It&#8217;s not on here. It&#8217;s over here, I think.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:19:23] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Oh, there you go. It&#8217;s notes.</p>



<p>So professionalism at your fingertips. Images that speak a thousand words.</p>



<p>Professionalism made easy. Anyway, these are all good phrases to play with. Oh,</p>



<p>[00:20:02] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> something about your image matters.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:20:05] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Hmm,</p>



<p>I stumped chat. G p t</p>



<p>[00:20:27] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> right here. I like this one. Turn your content into captivating social images. Yep. Right there.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:20:35] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Oh my word. Oh my word. All right, so then I</p>



<p>said rewrite them with using puns or light humor. And so version two, humor. You ready for this? I actually really like these. Don&#8217;t let your social media be a blur.</p>



<p>Website, feeling math, spice it up with professional social images.</p>



<p>You just tell it to be funny. Yeah. I said, well, I said Add, add a pun or light humor. Words are great. Images are greater. That&#8217;s honestly fantastic. Yeah. Like it&#8217;s, I mean, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s not funny, but it&#8217;s Right. The kind of</p>



<p>like, to me, words are great, but images are greater as the, the big headline in the hero area. And then below that it&#8217;s saying something like, Use your word, you know, turn your WordPress content into valuable, shareable, professional images,</p>



<p>easily create professional images from your,</p>



<p>because I, yeah, I, one of the concepts that came up right is I, I really like the idea of. You&#8217;ve already done the work, and this is what we&#8217;ve been talking about since Crop Express, which is you&#8217;ve, you&#8217;ve set up a website, great. You&#8217;ve written a blog post. Great. That&#8217;s a lot of work. That&#8217;s a lot of effort.</p>



<p>That&#8217;s a lot of thought. And, and how we, we jumped from Crop Express to OMG is the idea of how do you, how do you not only, um, Make a featured image more compelling, but how do you take the content that you&#8217;ve already written, the work you&#8217;ve already done to add more value? And how do you make an image, um, what do I wanna say?</p>



<p>Direct? Um, share that value, you know, immediately.</p>



<p>[00:23:13] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> You, you created content for your WordPress website. Now you need a package and showcase it.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:23:18] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Mm-hmm. Or showcase it.</p>



<p>Let your images do the talking. Oh,</p>



<p>winners there, our words are great, but images are greater. And let your images do the talking.</p>



<p>Okay.</p>



<p>Yeah, you and your problem statements. I love that. I never think to do that.</p>



<p>[00:24:29] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s our. I love how we do this. So problem is you create content on your WordPress website. Now you want to showcase it, make it shine. The problem is you have to go outta WordPress, you have to do all these, you have to have all these other tools&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:24:49] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> and</p>



<p>uh, common featured images. Don&#8217;t</p>



<p>tell the content. Ooh, what do you wanna say by themselves?</p>



<p>They often are just a nice image and you rely on. The headline or bullet points or quote elsewhere to draw the user in.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:25:39] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> So you created the content. Now make it sizzle, sparkle, shine.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:25:44] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Nice.</p>



<p>I keep talking about the loop and I, I keep coming back to that and I don&#8217;t still don&#8217;t know how to explain that, but it&#8217;s the, like, you create, you create words that are compelling. You find an image that&#8217;s compelling, but the, the problem as it exists now for most websites is if you share a blog post, there&#8217;s a, there&#8217;s an image that&#8217;s compelling, but it doesn&#8217;t have any of the words in it.</p>



<p>And then you&#8217;re relying on the headline and an excerpt. You know, you&#8217;re relying on Facebook to, to present the whole thing. And if somebody just sees an image or fails to skim the little bit, the little bitty headline under the image, they&#8217;re not gonna, they only get half the half the compellingness of it.</p>



<p>And so it&#8217;s like taking, taking your content and, and combining it with your featured image. It&#8217;s like one plus one equals three kind of situation where it&#8217;s like adding a big fold headline on top of that&#8217;s compelling, on top of a featured image that&#8217;s compelling, is more compelling than just sharing the image and the headline.</p>



<p>So you create&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:27:14] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> a content, now you wanna make it shine. Problem is you have to go outta WordPress. You have workflow one. Uh, the internal WordPress stuff doesn&#8217;t really sell the content. Plus they should, they should help entice images, should help entice people summarize and entice something like to get &#8217;em back to the site.</p>



<p>So,</p>



<p>[00:27:45] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> yep.</p>



<p>Typing, boring, featured, featured images don&#8217;t create intrigue. They don&#8217;t sell the content.</p>



<p>They don&#8217;t captivate the imagination. That&#8217;s not the right.</p>



<p>They don&#8217;t. Spark the imagination. Something like that.</p>



<p>So&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:28:26] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> the problem is it goes outta your workload. Boring featured images or afterthoughts Plus, they should make it. They should. They should be&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:28:35] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> enticing. Yeah. It&#8217;s like there&#8217;s lots of different ways that an image can. Add value. And I know like we are, we might be thinking about it more deeply than people often do, but I think maybe that&#8217;s the point, right?</p>



<p>Like a lot of the time now people like you&#8217;ll see a, if I go to Medium and I see an article about writing code, there&#8217;s some clip art of. A person behind a laptop or of a robot, and it&#8217;s like, then, then why even have the image? And I know why, like human image, human brains are wired to be attracted to images, but, but there&#8217;s no value added there.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s just you&#8217;re just checking a box. And that&#8217;s heartbreaking. So</p>



<p>there&#8217;s our three&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:29:37] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> features. Stay in your workflow? No more boring afterthoughts.</p>



<p>[00:29:45] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Wow. Yeah. Wow. Who canice people to click?</p>



<p>Wow.</p>



<p>We&#8217;re, we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re somewhere here. We&#8217;re we&#8217;re in the range. Yep. We&#8217;ll&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:30:05] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> work on the features next, but. Stay in your workflow.</p>



<p>Something here. No more boring afterthought, smell images. Stale, boring, stale, afterthought. Like there&#8217;s probably something here we can refine. It&#8217;s like put, put your images to work.</p>



<p>Something to the effect of like, Born and still is opposite. Active, helpful prompting is better. Like that&#8217;s where we come in with the, uh,</p>



<p>because we&#8217;re trying to show &#8217;em a vision of what could be better. Like right now it&#8217;s just boring. They&#8217;re afterthoughts,</p>



<p>but you could transform that to help. That&#8217;s where we go. Sell the sizzle or shine.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:31:07] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yep. Make your&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:31:08] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> images shine. Make your content shine&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:31:14] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> fresh. En. Engaging. Engaging. Memorable, engaging,</p>



<p>relevant.</p>



<p>Relevant. Helpful. Ooh, helpful. That&#8217;s a good&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:31:36] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> word, is to keep all these words, because I think we&#8217;ll put a list of things. Oh, here it is. The before and&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:31:43] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> after. Nice. Yep. Nice. Yep. Morning. Thoughts. Still homogenized.</p>



<p>Oh man, what, what&#8217;s&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:32:01] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> the word for like, they&#8217;re just taking up&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:32:03] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> space. Checking a box. Placeholder. Placeholder. No more placeholders.</p>



<p>So we Wow. You, you&#8217;ve seen those, uh, Home pages that have a, like a slider before and after. And on the left we show, you know, an image of a landscape and a, you know, 10 places to go camping. But as it&#8217;s presented in Facebook with just a big, big image that&#8217;s pretty, but it has no value. And the headline that has no treatment and then you swipe and it shows the.</p>



<p>Our treatment of the image with a background and, and, uh, a color treatment to it. And then a clever font or an interesting font and like, so we do a bunch of those where it&#8217;s like, here&#8217;s your boring placeholder, nothing. And here, even if we just, even if that&#8217;s all you give us, here&#8217;s, here&#8217;s how we make it Compelling.</p>



<p>Compelling would love that before and after.</p>



<p>Okay.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:33:35] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> I like this before, Hey, if there, this is a wishlist, not a, but If there was a sample, you know, it&#8217;s almost like, here&#8217;s your. Here&#8217;s your social graph before and, and paid a bar. He goes, pull the bar down. Transformation.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:33:56] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Wow. Wow. Yes. Yeah. That was the kind of UI I was picturing. Like if you go to, they&#8217;re the, they&#8217;re the, the little web apps that are like, we&#8217;re moving a background or whatever, and you, and they have a slider and so you see the image and as you, you move a, move a bar, Back and forth.</p>



<p>And so yeah, in our case, we&#8217;ll, we&#8217;ll have it, you might move the bar up and down or something, but that matches our logo. That&#8217;s amazing.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:34:22] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> See and pull it down and we can share like a post status. We&#8217;ve got this, you know, we&#8217;re using this, so like before they, we looked at it sucks. Pull it down. Here it is like, yep.</p>



<p>Here&#8217;s what we&#8217;ve done to showcase, make the content shine, entice people, comp compelling, I love that word compelling, you said. Mm-hmm. What? Boring to compelling. Boring To&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:34:49] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> compelling. Yeah. And again, I love the idea of, of valuable too. I put engaging. Yeah.</p>



<p>Because it&#8217;s, yeah, we, we, we take, and it&#8217;s also, we take these pieces. And put them together. And that to me is where the value comes from. And it&#8217;s like, so even if, even if you only ever see it, just the image, you don&#8217;t see the headline because the headline can be in the image, then it, then there&#8217;s, um, the image itself, it&#8217;s more valuable.</p>



<p>Like that&#8217;s not, that&#8217;s not the only use case. And it might not even be the most common use case, but like one of the things that. You talked about early on was, you know, creating slides essentially, or slide shows. And so being able to create images that have bullet points that summarize a post or quotes that summarize a quote, a post, you know, so there, there&#8217;s, there can actually, you know, if it&#8217;s um, if you interview somebody and they are really inspiring and you create a bunch of these images and you put them on your social media every [00:36:00] day, like, You are inspiring.</p>



<p>You could be inspiring people. So&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:36:05] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> it makes me think when you were saying that about the, I was trying to capture those again, even though we&#8217;ve done it a bunch. So like, can you see my little cursor here? Mm-hmm. In the copy, in the, uh, text editor part. It&#8217;d be awesome to have these. Oops, this touch, not that touch choices.</p>



<p>You know what I&#8217;m talking about, like here, um, bullets. Numbers, check boxes, because when you said that 50 places to visit mm-hmm. Here&#8217;s 10 in their check boxes. Mm-hmm. The point is where I kind of default to, but I wonder if there&#8217;s a way to do so. Like the arrows.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:36:44] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Sure. Capture this back.</p>



<p>You already know all this bullets. No, it&#8217;s I&#8217;m capture it. We need it captured.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:37:04] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Text boxes, numbers,</p>



<p>[00:37:09] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> emojis. Oh&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:37:10] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> God, you read my mind, but I didn&#8217;t wanna say it because I was like, I don&#8217;t wanna,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:37:15] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Hey, if we, if we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re starting a product with the OMG in the name, like we have to double down on the whole cute, uh, style, you know, emojis and butterflies. And&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:37:30] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> I&#8217;ve been working with Lindsay on, on some of her work for my marketing assistant, and it did dawned on me.</p>



<p>She was like, it was. Uh, her personality is fun. Like she likes to have fun. Mm-hmm. And like, there&#8217;s, you&#8217;re not feeling fun here. And so it was like reintroducing that and I think mm-hmm. Uh, I&#8217;m gonna capture this too, is like, make&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:37:57] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> your content a party. Nice. Yeah.</p>



<p>Everyone wants to go to, Nah,</p>



<p>that&#8217;s an advertising campaign right there, like a whole bunch of ads that are like, do people want to go to the we to your website? Make your website a party that everybody wants to get go to. That&#8217;s really fun.</p>



<p>Okay. I&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:38:42] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> think we got a lot here. I think the benefits we can, we got enough to, like, we can put this back in chat, G B T two, but we just need three benefits and Yep. Um,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:38:56] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> which we ha we have four. I mean, you can always have more, but Yep. Stay within your workflow. Convert these. Well, and it&#8217;s, and we, and I think it&#8217;ll end up being, um, before and after is like the first big benefit.</p>



<p>And then we could do the three underneath of stay. Stay within your workflow, stay in the zone. Create more value, all those things.</p>



<p>That is the technical term thingy</p>



<p>stuff, stuff. It&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:39:45] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> makes me think, I&#8217;ve been doing the, uh, party emoticon, mo emoji. Mm-hmm. I&#8217;m like this little party thing. All&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:39:56] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> right, now I&#8217;m just having fun.</p>



<p>This might be the most, um, productive, midlife crisis anybody has ever had. Bless you, dude,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:40:09] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> about four to five years ago, this has been really timely. Saying, I&#8217;m outta it. I&#8217;m just saying&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:40:18] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> I&#8217;ll take it now. We&#8217;ve learned to manage it anyway. Um, great test. Well, uh, homepages need testimonials, which we&#8217;ll add once we, uh, have them, the features can, we can fill out as we go.</p>



<p>Um,</p>



<p>[00:40:44] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Well, thanks for doing this. This is, I work best like this, planning off, you know, collaborating. Sure. So I appreciate this. Okay. See, do I have access to Omgm? I know I do.</p>



<p>[00:41:05] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> I don&#8217;t. Yes, you do. You have your, uh, Corey Miller account and then, um, so yeah, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s just Beaver Builder. So go drop in blocks or, um, or I can, and then the biggest thing, I mean like any of these websites, uh, Again, the, once the logo is locked down, and maybe we already have the colors, but we can use those colors to define what the, what the boxes on the page look like.</p>



<p>And then, um, the actual images always, usually takes me the longest of like, okay, you want screen, you want product screenshots. Go create the perfect product setup so that you can then take the perfect product screenshots. So, But I need to actually finish the damn thing. Wanna do&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:42:02] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> that? Cool. Dude, we&#8217;re flowing.</p>



<p>Well, I&#8217;m starting to flow with you.</p>



<p>[00:42:13] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Well, and I&#8217;m, yeah, I&#8217;m, there&#8217;s been stuff that for me because I&#8217;m, this is how I work half the time anyway. Right? Like, I build and I rebuild, and I rebuild. And the whole time I&#8217;m thinking, and I&#8217;m, that&#8217;s why I keep trying to throw stuff at you or WeChat during the week, um, because it helps me redefine the product and, and wording and stuff like that.</p>



<p>And so it&#8217;s things that, like at one point we said, what do, what do we call it? And so in, in my mind, the, um, like the name of the company and the name of the product is O M G I M G. Um, which I kind of, it makes me giggle when it&#8217;s like people talk about like I B M or cvs and so it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s just way more letters, but it&#8217;s still like, sound it tongue in cheek in a tongue in cheek way.</p>



<p>It sounds very corporate cuz it&#8217;s a bunch of letters. Um, it,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:43:12] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> but if it makes you smile, that&#8217;s a really good thing, like Right. Hearing that it makes you smile too, because cvs, by the way, is my favorite story ever.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:43:22] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Good man.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:43:22] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> I&#8217;m anti Walgreens, our insurance. Ooh, seriously. I like Walgreens with the number two cvs.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s clean like an Apple store for a pharmacy and I don&#8217;t know, tape some of them that&#8217;s clean. Uh, chips. Yep. Weird dehydrated products in the front anyway. Okay.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:43:47] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yeah, I, I&#8217;m a, I&#8217;m a sucker for those kinds of stores for sure. Uh, little bit of everything. I love a, do I love a good dollar store? Um, five below extremely dangerous for me to walk in.</p>



<p>Oh, dude,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:44:00] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> we, you and I should not go on five below&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:44:04] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> or we should. Um, but so the other thing that, um, I, uh, have been. It&#8217;s like, okay, so I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m not yet using the product, but as I&#8217;m building the product, I&#8217;m thinking about using it, et cetera. Right? And so, um, one of the other things that I realized I was doing was, so O M G I M G, name of the company, name of the product, um, OMG Images is the asset that it creates, right?</p>



<p>So it&#8217;s like, turn your, turn your image into an OMG image. And that&#8217;s where like when we did a demo whenever it was, Um, you know, a few, a few calls ago you were like, okay, change, change the buttons to say, you know, create new whatever it was. And I&#8217;m like, oh, okay. So, so in most of those places now, we, we are saying like, create a new i OMG image, or here is a list of your OMG images, because it&#8217;s basically any image that&#8217;s been enhanced by OMG img.</p>



<p>I love it. And we are going to be OMG people because we&#8217;ve been also been enhanced by OMG I mg. This is&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:45:21] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> totally silly, but in the vein of creativity, ob absurd. Of course the t-shirt on the front might be OMG in the back is, I don&#8217;t know. That&#8217;s the silly thing. But I was like, I love this. The bar coming down.</p>



<p>Mm-hmm. Um, That thought. So like we&#8217;ll need that,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:45:43] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> that front. Oh, I, what I want is the, the T-shirt. I&#8217;m gonna stand up here some, the Panera, the T-shirt where the graphic is, the whole thing. And it&#8217;s going to be, it&#8217;s going to be omg, img, you know, but, but the whole front of the site or whole front of the, sure.</p>



<p>So it&#8217;s huge bright colors. OMG img.</p>



<p>Like, when I was doing conbon, I wanted to be very clean and corporate because I was, I&#8217;m like, that&#8217;s, I think that&#8217;s gonna be my market. You know, it&#8217;s not fun and creative. It&#8217;s project management. Um, and eventually I, I started trying to, like a lot of, a lot of WordPress products have. Little critters, you know, little creatures, logos and stuff.</p>



<p>So eventually I introduced these very austere birds that I had designed, um, anyway, so at some point maybe we need something like that, but it&#8217;s like the, the conbon shirts were black polos with the little logo here and I did have it pretty big on the back cuz I&#8217;m like across word camp us. You need to be able to see it.</p>



<p>But with this, we&#8217;re going the other action as big and as bold as possible, you know? Love it.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:47:11] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Yeah. I don&#8217;t mind being&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:47:14] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> silly, right? Me neither. I. As&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:47:18] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> we have everybody listening going, uhhuh,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:47:20] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> duh. People like, yeah, that&#8217;s what I didn&#8217;t, I, I, I, what I should have said to chat G b t is take these 10 taglines and make dad jokes outta them.</p>



<p>Let&#8217;s see what we got. Um, but anyway, um, so yeah, we can sign off for today. I, I would task you with, um, Jump into the homepage if you&#8217;ve got time, you know, and or even just revise and finalize some of that wording. Um, maybe show it to Lindsay, see what she thinks. And cuz ideally by the time we get to that homepage, we are just plugging it in and going, oh, we need a new section.</p>



<p>We need a new product image.</p>



<p>Uh, I lost you. Can you hear me? Yes. Sorry, I lost you for a second. Yeah, I&#8217;m Panera&#8217;s they&#8217;re doing their lunch rush, so I think the wifi is starting to brown out.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:48:24] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Ison broccoli, uh, chitter soup for me cuz that&#8217;s my favorite. All right.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:48:30] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Thanks brother. Shout product, product placement. Uh, shout out to Panera.</p>



<p>Yeah,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:48:35] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> yeah. Sponsored by Panera. Today everybody skips unlimited broccoli. Dip those chips in the broccoli cheese&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:48:42] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> soup. That&#8217;s a winner.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:48:46] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Hey, let&#8217;s talk about working camps at some point. Um, probably in the next two weeks I&#8217;ll be ready to make some, uh, hotel arrangements&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:48:54] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> and stuff. Okay, great.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:48:57] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Just it&#8217;s on my mind.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s not a priority. We&#8217;ll get it done. Um, but anyway, shaping up&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:49:03] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> plans for that. Yeah, I&#8217;ve got it sort of on the long list. I&#8217;m gonna be taking a train down, which will be fun. Oh, you&#8217;ve read my mind.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:49:12] <strong>Cory Miller:</strong> Ask you that. Oh, I wish I could do that here. I wish I could do that. We have Amtrak. It just takes 13 hours to get to Dallas, which like seriously, I&#8217;ve seen all of this part of Oklahoma in depth.</p>



<p>[00:49:26] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yeah, I&#8217;m sure. But yeah, everybody, uh, we&#8217;ll, we&#8217;ll start. This is, this is the first plug for, um, you know, O M G I M G is going to be, uh, revealed in many ways, uh, at Word Camp Pass with the brightest shirts you&#8217;ve ever seen. Love it.</p>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 08 Jun 2023 22:20:13 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Cory Miller";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:30;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"Do The Woo Community: The Future of the WordPress Community";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=75235";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54:"https://dothewoo.io/future-of-the-wordpress-community/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:407:"<p>When I shared 20 years of WordPress community at WordCamp Lisboa, I touched on the future of the community. Today I elaborate on that part.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/future-of-the-wordpress-community/">The Future of the WordPress Community</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 08 Jun 2023 03:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:24:"Matt: WordPress &amp; AI";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=86874";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://ma.tt/2023/06/wordpress-ai/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:234:"<p class="is-style-matt-rothko-style">I did an interview with <a href="https://www.pootlepress.com/author/jamie-marsland/">Jamie Marsland</a> where we talked a fair amount about AI.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">

</div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 07 Jun 2023 19:35:21 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"HeroPress: Because of WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=5613";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:114:"https://heropress.com/essays/because-of-wordpress/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=because-of-wordpress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:9226:"<img width="1024" height="512" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/060623-min.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Pull Quote: The tech industry needs more boss ladies." />
Listen to Amy read her own story.






<p>When we choose a spouse, we choose someone who matches our values. When we choose a home we choose a space that matches our needs. We look for all the green flags, all the boxes to be checked, and we don’t accept red flags. We say no to cockroaches, no to cheaters, no to leaky plumbing.&nbsp;</p>



<p>When it comes to a job, though, we take what we can get. We fear losing, we let red flags slide and when it’s bad, we still stick around and hope it gets better. We tell ourselves it’s the only option we have.</p>



<p>We don’t imagine that there could be real fulfillment. We believe this is it: the 9 to 5, the endless grind. Work for the man and hope you end up with a retirement plan, at best. Hold on to that job &#8211; you never know how far and how hard you could fall without it.</p>



<p>A space without hierarchy, a space where everyone has a voice, a space where inclusion and diversity are virtues seems like a smoke dream.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Until you discover WordPress.</p>



<p>And so it went for me. Deep in the work, sleep, die cycle. Thinking this was it. I kissed my dreams goodbye, succumbed to being a slave to my paycheck because after all, I have a family to feed. Priorities, Amy. Priorities.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Discovering WordPress</h2>



<p>Sometimes you aren’t even looking and you trip over something, not knowing what you’ve stumbled into. Then suddenly five years have passed and you have lasting friendships and a whole a$$ career. Your kids are fed, your bills are paid and you are happy.</p>



<p>And that’s how it happened for me. I did what I had to, grabbed what job I could, worked hard and then got shoved face first into the lap of WordPress, without a clue what I was getting into. Without a clue that my life had just changed. I was actually quite angry. I was supposed to be promoted from my wildly underpaid tech support job to a wildly underpaid live chat supervisor job. How DARE they change their minds and pigeonhole me as a WordPress Tech!!?</p>



<p>But the reality unfolded rather quickly after that. That when it comes to WordPress, there are only green flags. There is only a match in values. There is only a world where people&#8217;s human needs are met.</p>



<p>The need for community, the need to be part of something bigger than you, the need for connection, the need to learn, to grow, to watch something else grow. The need for one step to lead to the next, where paths are abundant and there are no dead ends. I had no idea what I had just been shoved into.</p>



<p>I made the best of it. I helped form a new WordPress dedicated support team. I fixed websites, I trained other agents, I determined policies and practices, and I started going to WordPress.org team meetings. At first I thought that I was just supporting the endeavors of my employer, but the truth is, it was much more than that.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-finding-the-community">Finding the Community</h2>



<p>My first meeting was with the Hosting team. I hopped on Zoom unaware that I would already know every face in the room. Unaware that I would be going to these meetings every week for the next five years. Unaware that I’d become a Team Rep and get my fingerprints all over the Open Source Project. Unaware that I would find friends, learn so much, build skills and be offered jobs. Unaware that there were 30,000 people on the other end of the keyboard, and 400 million opportunities.</p>



<p>I stayed in that job for years, and I extended myself way beyond my technical support role. I had ideas for how to support WordPress users and brought them to the leadership team. They were interested, though not completely onboard, but still gave me the greenlight to go ahead and try.&nbsp;</p>



<p>I started offering developer services to their enterprise WordPress customers, instead of turning them away saying “we don’t do that here”. The customers were into it. They wanted and they needed that type of support. I stumbled upon more and more customers that needed developer help and offered them that help. I got my teammates involved. We were seeing results and the results were good.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Happy customers, new streams of revenue and increased customer retention. Instead of being angry and at a loss, tech support customers had real options for resolution. They were willing to pay extra and they kept coming back for more. They praised us and our work.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The VP of product and the CEO started noticing. They decided to mentor me and trained me in product development, agile software development and leadership. I started to flush out user journeys, product packages and made a two-year strategy for the growth of the developer service that is now a full blown product offering. After the first year they had me do a win loss report, and we found that the service had earned revenue just through word of mouth, before it was even established. Boom.</p>



<p>And yet I was struggling to buy food. I was living under the poverty line. I was being praised, but not paid. Business owners take heed, this is how you lose good employees.</p>



<p>I was a tech support agent who was helping run a team, fixing customer problems, developing a product, pushing code, creating business strategies and making revenue for the org. All while starving. All while witnessing my developer friends at the same company make six figures. I became disgruntled, I became more vocal about it, and I lost the favor of leadership by complaining &#8211; despite the fact that my complaints were valid. Lesson learned. After a while, I was just too unhappy with what I was paid for my numerous roles and quit out of frustration.</p>



<p>I had no idea what was going to happen next. I started studying code and blogging. I was elected into a Team Rep position on the WordPress Open Source Project. I practiced making WordPress themes and plug-ins. I learned Symfony, I learned some Javascript and Python, I learned how to have faith in myself and how to acquire clients outside of the stream of tech support. I became a Meetups organizer and got involved in WordCamps. I started sharing skills that I had learned and had used to survive in the tech field.</p>



<p>I never wanted to be a freelancer or a web developer though. I actually prefer doing system administration over web development &#8211; so I kept looking for a full-time gig. After a few months, I landed a job as a WordPress Tech Lead. I got to work with design and development and build out pipelines, work with servers, clients and code.</p>



<p>Then Covid happened, and I think everyone can agree what a nightmare that was. I got hit with the first strain of Covid and was so, so sick. I couldn’t move for three months. I lost my job and I was too sick to care. I was blessed that my colleagues in the WordPress community cared, though. They supported me and some of them even prayed for my recovery. One of my hosting teammates suggested applying to a job with his employer. I said “alright whatever”, found an easy tech-support role that I definitely could do and applied.&nbsp;</p>



<p>They interviewed me and turned me away, saying I was overqualified. Bummer. Then a few weeks later, I got a phone call from them offering me an interview for a different position. A job as a Web Development Manager. I liked the idea despite my wicked imposter syndrome, and after some rounds of interviews, they offered me the job. I was there for two years and I loved my team. I was working with designers and developers, leadership and marketers. I got to work with servers, various tech stacks, DevOps pipelines, design systems, accessibility and SEO.</p>



<p>From there, I was recruited into a Solutions Architect position. Then I was recruited again for a Developer role. I didn’t apply anywhere, I wasn’t looking and all I did was work hard, invest in my skills, be open to options and oh yeah &#8211; get involved with WordPress.</p>



<p>Now I keep picking up clients and I have more work than I can realistically handle. I’m going to have to start hiring other people to help me out soon. Maybe I&#8217;ll file for an LLC and take all that knowledge and experience, all that momentum and roll it up into one big future as a boss lady. Bring the WordPress values I feel so aligned with to the table on MY terms. The tech industry needs more boss ladies.</p>



<p>I don’t honestly know what’s coming next, but I know I don’t need to worry because I have the right community, the right skills, the right resources and endless opportunities.</p>



<p>All because of one little package of code. All because of the amazing people behind it. All because of WordPress.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com/essays/because-of-wordpress/">Because of WordPress</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 07 Jun 2023 12:37:36 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"Amy Kamala";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:33;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:103:"Post Status: Improving Visa Support • Event Tooling • WP-CLI Updates • Block Inspector Sub-groups";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=149581";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:102:"https://poststatus.com/improving-visa-support-event-tooling-wp-cli-updates-block-inspector-sub-groups/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:20116:"<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-this-week-at-wordpress-org-april-3-2023">This Week at WordPress.org (June 5, 2023)</h2>


<div class="has-background has-theme-palette-8-background-color wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt">Community team is considering tooling around the building and using the WordCamp websites, in addition to the naming of events.  To help speakers attend WordCamps, additional lead time for visas is requested as well. Share your thoughts now.<br /> <br />WP-CLI has released 2 updates. Get a look at what new features are available. <br /><br />See the dev blog for more ways to use the block inspector.  </p></div>


<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-infobox kt-info-box_94d1bd-77"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-link-wrap kt-blocks-info-box-media-align-left kt-info-halign-left"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-media-container"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-media kt-info-media-animate-none"><div class="kadence-info-box-icon-container kt-info-icon-animate-none"><div class="kadence-info-box-icon-inner-container"><span class="kb-svg-icon-wrap kb-svg-icon-fe_userPlus kt-info-svg-icon"></span></div></div></div></div><div class="kt-infobox-textcontent"><h2 class="kt-blocks-info-box-title">Improving Visa Support • Event Tooling • WP-CLI Updates • Block Inspector Sub-groups</h2><p class="kt-blocks-info-box-text"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f6c2.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/01/early-speaker-and-volunteer-selection/">Early Speaker and Volunteer Selection and Improved Visa Support</a><br /><br /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4c6.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/06/discussion-next-generation-event-tooling/">Discussion: Next Generation Event Tooling </a> <br />> <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/cli/2023/06/05/wp-cli-v2-8-1-release-notes/">WP-CLI v2.8.1 Release Notes</a> &amp; <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/cli/2023/05/31/wp-cli-v2-8-0-release-notes/">WP-CLI v2.8.0 Release Notes</a><br /><br /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f5d2.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/06/using-block-inspector-sidebar-groups/">Using block inspector sidebar groups</a><br />><br /></a><br /><br />><br /></a><br /><br /></p></div></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_b57166-6e"><div class="kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center"><hr class="kt-divider" /></div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news"><a href="https://wordpress.org/news">News</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/the-month-in-wordpress-may-2023/">The Month in WordPress – May 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/episode-57-the-power-of-wordpress-mentorship/">WP Briefing: Episode 57: The Power of WordPress Mentorship</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/people-of-wordpress-stefano-cassone/">People of WordPress: Stefano Cassone</a></li>
</ul>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_8f6276-eb"><div class="kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center"><hr class="kt-divider" /></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-7">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.3</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/25/wordpress-6-3-design-kickoff/">WordPress 6.3 design kickoff</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/25/bug-scrub-schedule-for-6-3/">Bug Scrub Schedule for WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/wordpress-6-3-planning-roundup/">WordPress 6.3 Planning Roundup</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/roadmap-to-6-3/">Roadmap to 6.3</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.4</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/05/wordpress-6-4-development-cycle/">WordPress 6.4 Development Cycle</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2023/06/07/contribute-to-accessibility-at-wordcamp-europe-contributor-day/">Contribute to Accessibility at WordCamp Europe Contributor Day</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CLI</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/cli/2023/06/05/wp-cli-v2-8-1-release-notes/">WP-CLI v2.8.1 Release Notes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/cli/2023/05/31/wp-cli-v2-8-0-release-notes/">WP-CLI v2.8.0 Release Notes</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-community"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community">Community</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/06/updates-to-the-community-team-mentor-program/">Updates to the Community Team Mentor Program</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/06/what-happens-when-a-wordcamp-doesnt-provide-a-transparency-report/">What happens when a WordCamp doesn’t provide a transparency report</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/06/discussion-next-generation-event-tooling/">Discussion: Next Generation Event Tooling </a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/02/wceu-2023-contributor-day-community-team-topics-focus/">WCEU 2023 Contributor Day – Community Team topics/focus</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/01/early-speaker-and-volunteer-selection/">Early Speaker and Volunteer Selection and Improved Visa Support</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/01/wordcamp-mentors-june-check-in/">WordCamp Mentors’ June check-in!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/01/next-gen-wordcamp-talking-points-share-your-ideas-for-a-new-event-format-and-make-it-happen/">Next Gen of WordPress Event Talking Points – Share Your Ideas for a New Event Format and Make It Happen!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/05/31/community-team-meeting-agenda-for-1-june-2023/">Community Team Meeting Agenda for 1 June, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-core"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core">Core</a> </h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/07/wp-feature-notifications-at-wordcamp-europe-contributor-day/">WP Feature Notifications at WordCamp Europe Contributor Day</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/02/contribute-to-core-at-wordcamp-europe-contributor-day-2023/">Contribute to Core at WordCamp Europe Contributor Day 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/02/gutenberg-15-9-1-is-now-available/">Gutenberg 15.9.1 is now available</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/17/command-center-request-for-feedback/">Command Center: Request for feedback</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/16/proposal-retiring-older-default-themes/">Proposal: Retiring Older Default Themes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/22/core-editor-improvement-smoother-site-editing/">Core Editor Improvement: Smoother Site Editing</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-developer-blog"><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/">Developer Blog</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/06/using-block-inspector-sidebar-groups/">Using block inspector sidebar groups</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/02/developer-blog-editorial-meeting-01-june-2023/">Developer Blog Editorial Meeting – 01 June 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-meetings">Meetings</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/06/dev-chat-agenda-june-7-2023/">Dev Chat agenda, June 7, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/06/editor-chat-agenda-june-7th-2023/">Editor Chat Agenda: June 7th 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Design</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/25/wordpress-6-3-design-kickoff/">WordPress 6.3 design kickoff</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/06/06/design-share-may-22-jun-2/">Design Share: May 22–Jun 2</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hosting"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting">Hosting</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/05/15/is-wordpress-compatible-with-php-8/">Is WordPress compatible with PHP 8?</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta">Meta</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/02/matrix-chat-summary-june-1-2023/">Matrix chat Summary – June 1, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/06/02/meta-at-wceu-2023-contributor-day/">Meta at WCEU 2023 Contributor Day</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mobile"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile">Mobile</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile/2023/04/11/contribute-to-the-future-of-the-wordpress-app/">Contribute to the Future of the WordPress App</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/05/31/mobile-team-update-may-31st-2/">Mobile Team Update – May 31st</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-openverse"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse">Openverse</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/06/06/community-meeting-recap-2023-06-06/">Community Meeting Recap (2023-06-06)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/06/05/last-week-openverse-2023-05-29-2023-06-05/">A week in Openverse: 2023-05-29 – 2023-06-05</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-performance"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/performance/">Performance</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/06/performance-chat-summary-06-june-2023/">Performance Chat Summary: 6 June 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-plugins"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins">Plugins</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/05/17/plugin-review-team-update/">Plugin Review Team Update</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/03/21/use-of-code-generators-must-remain-gpl-compatible/">Use of Code Generators Must Remain GPL Compatible</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/03/10/advance-notice-of-retirement/">Advance Notice of Retirement</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-polyglots"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots">Polyglots</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/06/06/experiment-translation-review-assistance-from-chatgpt/">Experiment: Translation Review Assistance from ChatGPT</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/06/05/xpost-come-join-the-training-team-as-a-translation-coordinator-faculty-role/">Come join the Training Team as a Translation Coordinator (Faculty role)</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-project">Project</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/05/30/proposal-establishment-of-a-formal-wordpress-sustainability-team/">Proposal: establishment of a formal WordPress Sustainability Team</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/05/17/wordpress-contributor-mentorship-program-pilot-program-proposal/">WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program: Pilot Program Proposal</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Support</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/05/suggested-stance-on-the-use-of-ai-tooling/">Suggested stance on the use of AI-tooling</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/06/summary-for-june-1st-support-team-meeting/">Summary for June 1st Support Team Meeting</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/06/02/support-team-meeting-updates-for-june-1st-2/">Support Team Meeting Updates for June 1st</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-test"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test">Test</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/05/18/fse-program-testing-call-23-rapid-revamp/">FSE Program Testing Call #23: Rapid Revamp</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/06/05/test-team-update-5-june-2023/">Test Team Update: 5 June 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-theme"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/theme">Theme</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/06/06/themes-team-at-wordcamp-europe-2023/">Themes team at WordCamp Europe 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/06/06/themes-team-update-june-6-2023/">Themes team update June 6, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-training"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training">Training</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/learn-wordpress-june-2023-newsletter/">Learn WordPress June 2023 Newsletter</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/06/02/whats-new-on-learn-wordpress-in-may-2023/">What’s new on Learn WordPress in May 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/06/07/information-sources-for-6-3/"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/06/07/information-sources-for-6-3/">Information Sources for 6.3</a></a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/06/05/training-team-meeting-recap-30-may-2023/">Training Team Meeting Recap – 30 May, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/06/05/come-join-the-training-team-as-a-translation-coordinator-faculty-role/">Come join the Training Team as a Translation Coordinator (Faculty role)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/06/05/announcing-github-updates-for-subject-matter-experts-and-content-translators/">Announcing GitHub updates for Subject Matter Experts and Content Translators</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/06/03/recap-and-next-steps-training-team-onboarding/">Recap and Next Steps: Training Team Onboarding</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/06/02/wordcamp-europe-2023-contributor-day/">WordCamp Europe 2023 Contributor Day</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/05/30/analysis-of-the-individual-learner-survey-results/">Analysis and results of the Individual Learner Survey</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tutorials"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorials">Tutorials</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/templates/">Using Page Templates</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/how-to-switch-from-a-classic-to-a-block-theme/">How to switch from a classic to a block theme</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-online-workshops">Online Workshops</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=wp-dev-livestream-sendig-block-theme-5">WP dev livestream: Sendig block theme</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=new-to-wordpress-getting-to-know-the-dashboard">New to WordPress? Getting to know the Dashboard</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=the-wide-world-of-wordpress-events-3">The Wide World of WordPress Events</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=rescheduled-event-create-a-four-page-wordpress-website-create-effective-pages">[Rescheduled Event] Create a four page WordPress website: Create effective pages</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-courses"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/courses">Courses</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/course/creating-a-4-page-business-website/">Creating a 4-page business website</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wptv">WPTV</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-related-news">Related News:</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://blog.jquery.com/2023/05/11/jquery-3-7-0-released-staying-in-order/">jQuery 3.7.0</a></li>



<li><a href="https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v20.2.0">Node v20.2.0 released</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-04-13-1"></a><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-05-11-1">PHP 8.2.6 Released!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-05-11-2">PHP 8.1.19 Released!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://262.ecma-international.org/13.0/">TC39</a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/composer/composer/releases/tag/2.5.5">Composer 2.5.5</a></li>
</ul>



<p class="has-theme-palette-7-background-color has-background">Thanks for reading our WP dot .org roundup! Each week we are highlighting the news and discussions coming from the good folks making WordPress possible. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, you need to be engaged with them and their work. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. <br /><br /><strong>Are you interested in giving back and contributing your time and skills to WordPress.org?</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/article/contributing-to-wordpress/">Start Here ›</a><br /><br /><strong>Get our weekly WordPress community news digest</strong> — Post Status&#8217; <a href="https://poststatus.com/news/week-in-review/">Week in Review</a> — covering the WP/Woo news plus significant writing and podcasts. It&#8217;s also available in <a href="https://poststatus.com/newsletter">our newsletter</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f48c.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /></p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile has-background"><a href="https://poststatus.com/"><img src="https://poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vertical-post-status-logo-250.png" alt="Post Status" class="wp-image-85823 size-full" /></a><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<p class="has-text-align-left has-normal-font-size" id="h-get-ready-for-remote-work">You — and <a href="https://poststatus.com/#Agency">your whole team</a> can <a href="https://poststatus.com/#choose-membership">Join Post Status</a> too!</p>



<p class="has-text-align-left has-small-font-size"><strong>Build your network. Learn with others. Find your next job — or your next hire.</strong> Read the <strong>Post Status</strong> <a href="https://poststatus.com/newsletter/">newsletter</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2709.png" alt="✉" class="wp-smiley" /> Listen to <a href="https://poststatus.com/podcasts/">podcasts</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f399.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status/">@Post_Status</a> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/post-status-llc/">LinkedIn</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4bc.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /></p>
</div></div>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 07 Jun 2023 10:47:10 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Courtney Robertson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:34;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:34:"Matt: Apple Journals &amp; Day One";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=86717";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:45:"https://ma.tt/2023/06/apple-journals-day-one/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1458:"<p>Apple almost never fails to wow, and they had <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYkq9Rgoj8E">a lot of cool announcements at WWDC yesterday</a>. Apple&#8217;s previously favorite (app of the year!) journaling app was <a href="https://dayoneapp.com/">Day One</a>, one of <a href="https://automattic.com/">Automattic&#8217;s</a> products, but they <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/5/23738869/apple-journal-app-ios-iphone-wwdc-2023">announced their own Journal app</a>. One nice thing about competing with Apple is they only really interoperate with their own devices, and they&#8217;re usually not good at social. Day One is launching Shared Journals soon, a social feature so you can have fully end-to-end encrypted shared private journals with friends and family. It&#8217;s been the thing I&#8217;ve been most excited about since we bought the app. (<a href="https://twitter.com/paulmayne">Paul</a> can attest how much I ask him about it!)</p>



<p>That complements <a href="https://dayoneapp.com/blog/apples-journal-app-and-day-ones-evolution/">another advantage Day One has</a>, which is being cross-platform. If you have a family member on Android, you don&#8217;t want to ostracize them from your Shared Journal. Apple doesn&#8217;t care, their priority is getting everyone on the Apple ecosystem. You care, and Day One/Automattic does too, that&#8217;s why it works great on all Apple devices, Android devices, and the web itself.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 06 Jun 2023 20:47:26 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:35;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"Do The Woo Community: Blocks, Full-site Editing, Performance and more DevChat with Sean Conklin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=75271";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:60:"https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-developer-chat-sean-conklin/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:405:"<p>Carl, Zach and Sean cover a lot of WooCommerce developer ground in this show. And I mean a lot.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-developer-chat-sean-conklin/">Blocks, Full-site Editing, Performance and more DevChat with Sean Conklin</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 06 Jun 2023 10:17:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:36;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55:"WordPress.org blog: The Month in WordPress – May 2023";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=15100";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/the-month-in-wordpress-may-2023/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15705:"<p>May has been a month of celebrating WordPress and the open source community that makes it possible. In honor of the project’s 20th anniversary, WordPress Executive Director <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/">Josepha Haden Chomphosy</a> reflected on <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/celebrating-20-years-of-wordpress/">this journey</a> and the opportunity to build a better future for those who come after:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>The more our community invests in itself and supports one another, the stronger WordPress and the open source software movement become.</p>
<cite>Josepha Haden Chomphosy in <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/celebrating-20-years-of-wordpress/">Celebrating 20 Years of WordPress</a>.</cite></blockquote>



<p>Read on for highlights of this milestone and the latest updates in the WordPress space.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress at 20</h2>



<p><strong>May 27, 2023, marked the 20th anniversary of WordPress’ first release</strong>. Since its inception by <a href="https://ma.tt/2023/05/wp20-audrey-scholars/">Matt Mullenweg</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/mikelittlezed1/status/1662013891856027649">Mike Little</a> in 2003, the project has transformed the digital publishing landscape and enabled millions of people to craft their stories.</p>



<p>WordPress enthusiasts from all over the world gathered at more than <strong>130 events</strong> to celebrate this important milestone. WP20’s commemorative book, <a href="https://wordpress.org/book/"><strong>Building Blocks: The Evolution of WordPress</strong></a>, was published in tandem and documents some of the most significant moments and changes of the last decade of the project.</p>



<img width="1024" height="576" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/06/wp20-celebrate-desktop-1.png?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1" alt="3D wallpaper of a number 20 formed by words in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of WordPress." class="wp-image-15106" /><a href="https://wp20.wordpress.net/download-3d-wp20-themed-media/">Download the new WP20 wallpapers made in 3D</a>.<br />



<p>The anniversary date may have passed, but the <a href="https://wp20.wordpress.net/news/">festivities and fun aren&#8217;t over</a>. You can still <a href="https://wp20.wordpress.net/">join a meetup</a>, sign the #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks campaign <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2023/05/27/day-20-wp20-from-blogs-to-blocks/">birthday card</a>, or participate in #WP20 social celebrations.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size">
<p>Join Josepha Haden Chomphosy in <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/episode-55-happy-anniversary-wordpress/">Episode 55 of WP Briefing</a> as she looks back at the 20 years of WordPress and how the community made WordPress what it is today.</p>
</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.3 is expected on August 8</h2>



<p>Work on WordPress 6.3 officially kicked off with the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/wordpress-6-3-planning-roundup/">announcement of its development cycle and release squad</a>. <strong>Set for release on August 8, 2023</strong>, this version will be the second major update of WordPress in 2023 and will mark the end of Phase 2 of the project’s <a href="https://wordpress.org/about/roadmap/">development roadmap</a>.</p>



<p>WordPress 6.3 aims to bring a cohesive site editing experience by introducing expanded functionality, richer interfaces, and a dedicated focus on refinement.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size">
<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/roadmap-to-6-3/">Check out the 6.3 roadmap post</a> for a tentative preview of anticipated features.</p>
</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.2.2 security release</h2>



<p><strong><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/wordpress-6-2-2-security-release/">WordPress 6.2.2</a> became available for download on May 20, 2023</strong>. This release was a quick response to resolve a regression introduced in <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/wordpress-6-2-1-maintenance-security-release/">6.2.1</a>, specifically with shortcode support in block templates, and to further patch a vulnerability already addressed in the previous version.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size">
<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/01/core-editor-improvement-strengthening-style-options/"></a><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/04/25/the-benefits-of-prioritizing-and-measuring-performance-in-wordpress-6-2/"></a><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/wordpress-6-2-2-security-release/">Update your site if you haven’t yet</a>.</p>
</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">New in the Gutenberg plugin</h2>



<p>Three new versions of Gutenberg have shipped in the last month:</p>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-7-03-may/"><strong>Gutenberg 15.7</strong></a>, released on May 3, 2023, brings a new direct option to upload and replace a site&#8217;s logo from the block settings sidebar. Other enhancements include easier access to duotone filter controls via the style settings sidebar and an update to fluid typography to refine responsiveness.</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-8-may-17/"><strong>Gutenberg 15.8</strong></a> shipped on May 17, 2023, and includes a new &#8220;Pages&#8221; item in the Site Editor sidebar to edit pages without leaving the interface. Moreover, this version brings the ability to navigate through revisions in the global styles interface and to preview block themes inside the Site Editor.</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/31/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-9-31-may/"><strong>Gutenberg 15.9</strong></a> is ready for download as of May 31, 2023. The latest Gutenberg release comes with a new command tool and several enhancements to the Site Editor experience, including a more intuitive drag-and-drop function for moving blocks.</li>
</ul>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size">
<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/02/01/core-editor-improvement-strengthening-style-options/"></a>The latest <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/22/core-editor-improvement-smoother-site-editing/">Core Editor Improvement post</a> highlights features such as revisions and the ability to preview block themes, and how they enable a smoother site editing experience.</p>
</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Team updates: Next-generation WordCamps, proposal for a Sustainability Team, and more</h2>



<ul>
<li>The Community Team proposed <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/05/08/the-next-generation-of-wordcamps/">broadening the purpose of WordPress events</a> to &#8220;spark innovation and adoption by way of accessible training and networking.&#8221; This opens the door to organizing a more diverse range of formats focused on specific topics and audiences.</li>



<li>WordPress contributors suggested <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/05/30/proposal-establishment-of-a-formal-wordpress-sustainability-team/">creating an official Sustainability Team</a>.</li>



<li>The Polyglots Team rebranded the WP Translation Playground tool as Translate Live and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/05/08/translate-live-updates-to-the-translation-playground/">announced improvements</a> that make translating plugins and themes easier.</li>



<li>The new<strong> </strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/05/17/wordpress-contributor-mentorship-program-pilot-program-proposal/">WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program pilot</a> aims to provide cohort-based and 1:1 mentorship to prepare new and aspiring contributors for success.</li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/2022-annual-survey-results-next-steps/">Results of the 2022 WordPress Annual Survey</a> were announced last month.</li>



<li>The Training Team published a new course on <a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/course/creating-a-4-page-business-website/">Creating a 4-page business website</a>. See <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/06/02/whats-new-on-learn-wordpress-in-may-2023/">What’s new on Learn WordPress in May 2023</a> for the latest learning resources.</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/05/04/stacks-the-first-community-theme/">Meet Stacks</a>—the first community theme born from the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/03/03/hallway-hangout-community-themes-initiative/">Community Themes initiative</a>. This theme is designed for creating slide decks that can be used for a presentation.</li>



<li>This Core proposal explores ways to <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/16/proposal-retiring-older-default-themes/">reduce the maintenance of older default WordPress themes</a> and retire them.</li>



<li>The May 2023 issues of <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/05/whats-new-for-developers-may-2023/">What’s New for Developers?</a>, the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/05/10/polyglots-monthly-newsletter-may-2023/">Polyglots monthly newsletter</a>, and the&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/05/18/meetup-organizer-newsletter-may-2023/">Meetup Organizer newsletter</a>&nbsp;are available for reading.</li>



<li>Find out how WordPress and its global community of contributors made a difference in Stefano Cassone&#8217;s life in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/people-of-wordpress-stefano-cassone/">latest edition of People of WordPress</a>.</li>
</ul>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size">
<p>What is WordPress Playground, and why it matters? <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/episode-56-what-to-know-about-wordpress-playground/">WP Briefing Episode 56</a> discusses the benefits and potential of this tool with special guests Rich Tabor and Adam Zielinski.</p>
</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Feedback &amp; testing requests</h2>



<ul>
<li>Core Team members seek <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/17/command-center-request-for-feedback/">feedback on the new command tool</a> introduced in the Gutenberg plugin and its API.</li>



<li>The latest <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/05/18/fse-program-testing-call-23-rapid-revamp/">call of the Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach Program</a> invites you to test some features being worked on to upgrade and polish the experience of using the Site Editor. Share your thoughts by June 8, 2023.</li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/05/31/mobile-team-update-may-31st-2/">Version 22.5</a> of the WordPress mobile app for iOS and Android is ready for testing.</li>
</ul>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size">
<p>Which next generation of WordPress events would you like to see? <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/05/24/idea-generation-next-gen-wordcamps/">Share your ideas</a> and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/06/01/next-gen-wordcamp-talking-points-share-your-ideas-for-a-new-event-format-and-make-it-happen/">start exploring</a> new event formats this year.</p>
</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress events updates</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/">Get ready for WordCamp Europe 2023</a> from June 8-10 in Athens, Greece! The event will start with <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/contributor-day/">Contributor Day</a> on June 8, followed by two days of presentations and workshops. Attendees can join a <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/welness-track-activities/">wellness track</a> and a <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/wp-connect/">dedicated space</a> to connect, among many other initiatives.</li>



<li>The WordCamp US organizing team is <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2023/wordcamp-us-2023-call-for-volunteers-open/">calling for volunteers</a>.</li>



<li>For another year, the <a href="https://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2023/kim-parsell-memorial-scholarship-for-wordcamp-us-2023/">WordPress Foundation&#8217;s Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship</a> will award funding for a woman-identifying contributor to attend WordCamp US 2023. Applications are open through June 12, 2023.</li>



<li><a href="https://sylhet.wordcamp.org/2023/">WordCamp Sylhet 2023</a>, the second ever WordCamp in Bangladesh, was successfully held on May 19-20 with its first <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/23/wordcamp-sylhet-2023-contributor-day-recap/">Contributor Day</a>.</li>



<li>Join #WPDiversity with a free online workshop on <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-to-own-your-expertise-start-speaking-at-wordpress-events-apac-tickets-648295107117">How to Own Your Expertise &amp; Start Speaking at WordPress Events APAC</a>. The event will take place on July 2, 2023.</li>



<li>Don’t miss these other upcoming WordCamps:
<ul>
<li><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f1ea-1f1f8.png" alt="??" class="wp-smiley" /> <a href="https://cartagena.wordcamp.org/2023/">WordCamp Cartagena</a>, Spain on June 10-11, 2023</li>



<li><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f1fa-1f1f8.png" alt="??" class="wp-smiley" /> <a href="https://montclair.wordcamp.org/2023/">WordCamp Montclair</a>, NJ, USA on June 24, 2023</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-extra-large-font-size">
<p>Join WordPress project leadership on June 10 at WordCamp Europe 2023 to hear about the latest developments and what’s next for WordPress. <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/schedule/">Check out the schedule for details</a>.</p>
</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-text-color has-light-grey-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-light-grey-background-color has-background" />



<p><strong><em><strong><em><strong><em>Have a story we should include in the next issue of The Month in WordPress? <strong><em>Fill out </em></strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/month-in-wordpress-submissions/"><strong><em>this quick form</em></strong></a><strong><em> to let us know.</em></strong></em></strong></em></strong></em></strong></p>



<p><em><em>The following folks contributed to this Month in WordPress: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/rmartinezduque/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>rmartinezduque</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/nahidsharifkomol/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>nahidsharifkomol</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/chaion07/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>chaion07</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/devinmaeztri/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>devinmaeztri</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/bsanevans/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>bsanevans</a></em></em>, <em><em><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/ninianepress/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>ninianepress</a>.</em></em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 06 Jun 2023 10:15:56 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15:"Reyes Martínez";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:37;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:78:"WordPress.org blog: WP Briefing: Episode 57: The Power of WordPress Mentorship";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://wordpress.org/news/?post_type=podcast&p=15089";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/episode-57-the-power-of-wordpress-mentorship/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7747:"<p>Join WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy in the 57th episode of the WordPress Briefing as she discusses the Contributor Mentorship Program to help increase the success of new contributors over time.</p>



<p><em><strong>Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to&nbsp;<a href="mailto:wpbriefing@wordpress.org">wpbriefing@wordpress.org</a>, either written or as a voice recording.</strong></em></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Credits</h2>



<p>Editor:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dustinhartzler/">Dustin Hartzler</a><br />Logo:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/javiarce/">Javier Arce</a><br />Production:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/bjmcsherry/">Brett McSherry</a><br />Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Show Notes</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/">WordCamp Europe 2023</a>, Athens, Greece. This event includes a <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/session/matt-mullenweg/">special Keynote from Matt Mullenweg, Josepha Haden Chomposy, and Matías Ventura</a>. </li>



<li>&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/05/17/wordpress-contributor-mentorship-program-pilot-program-proposal/" target="_blank">WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program: Pilot Program Proposal</a>&nbsp;</li>



<li>Make WordPress Community: <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/05/24/idea-generation-next-gen-wordcamps/" target="_blank">Idea generation: Next Gen WordCamps!</a></li>



<li>WordPress &#8216;Milestones&#8217; volume two book <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://wordpress.org/book/" target="_blank">Building Blocks: The Evolution of WordPress</a> is available in <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://github.com/WordPress/wp20-book/tree/trunk/Formats" target="_blank">several formats for download on GitHub</a>.</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Transcript</h2>


<a class="wp-block-read-more" href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/06/episode-57-the-power-of-wordpress-mentorship/" target="_self">Read more<span class="screen-reader-text">: Episode 57: The Power of WordPress Mentorship</span></a>


<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:00]&nbsp;</p>



<p>(Intro music)</p>



<p>Hello everyone, and welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks.&nbsp;</p>



<p>I&#8217;m your host, Joseph Hayden Chomphosy. Here we go!</p>



<p>(Intro music)</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:40]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Over the course of this year, there has been a lot of research and examination of the contributor funnel in the WordPress community. That research confirms some assumptions about what most contributor stories have in common: the hurdles, the general paths taken, and the way that problem-solving was done. Then in February of this year, Hari Shanker published a proposal for a mentorship program for WordPress.&nbsp;</p>



<p>And now we&#8217;ve got a pilot program that&#8217;s been defined and is waiting for your feedback. If you&#8217;ve not read the post about the contributor mentorship program, for one do it. But if you would rather hear a synopsis from me, don&#8217;t worry, I&#8217;m about to give you a 10-cent tour.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:01:22]&nbsp;</p>



<p>First up, who is doing this? This pilot program has been outlined by a community working group. We often have working groups in WordPress, and they almost always have specific projects around events or programs, or code updates. Since this working group is focused on a project-wide program, there is project-wide representation in it. All the names are at the bottom of the post, which you can find in our show notes. But it&#8217;s got folks who contribute with code or contribute with time or contribute with design folks who are self-sponsored or corporately sponsored, just a nice mix of people. The program as a whole, though, is being stewarded by Hari Shankar, a longtime supporter of and contributor to WordPress. </p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:02:06]&nbsp;</p>



<p>So next, what is this for? There are a few goals for the program. But the overarching goal is to increase the success of new contributors over time. We can all agree that if we were to have 1000s of new contributors every day, but they couldn&#8217;t find their way to impactful contributions or meaningful connections quickly, then we would have done them a disservice. And they probably won&#8217;t continue to be part of the community without a bit more effort.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The when and the where are essentially “right now and right here,” so that brings us finally to Why. Why are we doing this mentorship program? Apart from to help people who want to contribute have an easier path to success – which frankly is enough of a reason anyway – the why is wrapped up in our overall philosophies in the project. If we believe that good ideas can come from anywhere and that contributions of any size matter. And that open source is an idea that can change our generation and that we are democratizing publishing, then bringing new people brings new ideas, and beginner contributions can grow over time. We can maintain this idea, this concept of open source, into the next generation and to future generations. And always keep our sights on the open web. To learn more about this and other project-wide initiatives, swing by make.wordpress.org/project or check the links in today&#8217;s show notes on wordpress.org/news/podcast.</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:03:53]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Which brings us now to our small list of big things.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:03:56]&nbsp;</p>



<p>First on the list is WordCamp Europe. That&#8217;s coming up at the end of the week on June 8 through 10th in Athens, Greece. There will be a major update from Matt and friends, so even if you aren&#8217;t there in person, keep an eye out for those recordings. But for those who are there and you&#8217;re curious about the mentorship program or anything else to do with WordPress and contributing to the project, you can come find me or Angela Jin, Hari will also be there, Chloé will be there, Héctor will be there, lots of people, and we want to hear your thoughts and answer your questions.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:04:27]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Second is a call for brainpower! A call for your brainstorms! On the subject of the next generation, we&#8217;ve got a discussion going on about the next generation of WordCamps. We&#8217;ve been discussing what new types and varieties might be available, and that might make sense for people as we get back to in-person events. So if you&#8217;ve got a kind of WordCamp that you&#8217;ve been desperately wanting to try, now&#8217;s the time to let folks know about it. </p>



<p>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:04:54]</p>



<p>And the final thing is the second volume of The WordPress history book called Building Blocks: The Evolution of WordPress is now available for download in several formats as well as on GitHub. Stop buy, give it a read, and relive some of the highlights of the past ten years of the WordPress project.&nbsp;</p>



<p>&nbsp;[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:05:12]</p>



<p>And that, my friends, is your smallest of big things. Thanks for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I&#8217;m your host Josepha Haden Chomposy, and I&#8217;ll see you again in a couple of weeks.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Brett McSherry";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:38;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"Matt: Coltrane and Dolphy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=86465";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"https://ma.tt/2023/06/coltrane-and-dolphin/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:303:"<p>Check out this <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/31/1179098682/john-coltrane-eric-dolphy-village-gate-1961-lost-album">great article on an exciting discovery of John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy playing together</a>. The album comes out July 14<sup>th</sup>. <cite>Hat tip: Aaron Wieczorek</cite>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 05 Jun 2023 08:31:16 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:39;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:121:"Gutenberg Times: Block themes are the future, bibliography block, a dynamic block with AI and more –Weekend Edition 256";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=24348";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:127:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/block-themes-are-the-future-bibliography-block-a-dynamic-block-with-ai-and-more-weekend-edition-256/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:17696:"<p>Howdy, </p>



<p>Before, I got the reward of seeing my WordPress buddies, friends, and colleagues in Athens, I had to work hard with the moving company to get our furniture organized in our new flat. I wasn&#8217;t hopeful, if I will find the packed lanyard with all my pins in time for WordCamp Europe, so I will start a new one. Get ready sponsors, I will hunt for swag again ?</p>



<p>Have a fantastic weekend! </p>



<p>Yours, ?<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>






<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost"><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-plugins-themes-and-tools-for-nocode-site-builders-and-owners">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-icymi-new-tutorials-on-learn-word-press-for-users-br">New tutorials on Learn.WordPress</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </a></li></ul></div>
</div></div>




<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>



<p>Release lead, <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/c4rl0sbr4v0">Carlos Bravo</a></strong>, published <strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/31/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-9-31-may/">What’s new in Gutenberg 15.9? (31 May)</a> </strong>. the release included 171 PRs by 56 contributors, eight of them new. Congrats to all. </p>



<p>The highlights: </p>



<ul>
<li>The command center  (working title: Wayfinder) is now out of experiments, and needs further testing and feedback. You can find details in Riad Benguella&#8217;s post <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/17/command-center-request-for-feedback/">Command Center: Request for feedback</a></li>



<li>More enhancements to the Site Editor experience: resize your site editor window, improved drag and drop (? ?), simplified switching between different styles and menus and so much more</li>
</ul>



<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>?️ </strong> New episode:  <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-84-gutenberg-15-9-and-16-0-wordpress-6-3/">Gutenberg Changelog #84 – Gutenberg 15.9 and 16.0, Developer Blog Updates, and WordPress 6.3</a> with special guest, Isabel Brison and host Birgit Pauli-Haack</p>
</div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="1-plugins-themes-and-tools-for-nocode-site-builders-and-owners">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>



<p><strong>Nick Schäferhoff</strong> published for the Torque Magazine: <a href="https://torquemag.io/2023/06/gutenberg-vs-classic-editor/"><strong>Gutenberg vs Classic Editor: 29 Reasons to Switch (Or Stay Put)</strong></a>. &#8220;You might be one of those people asking yourself whether you should switch from the Classic Editor to Gutenberg or stick with what you know. To help you make an informed decision, this post looks at key differences and features of the two editors and offer advice on which one is right for your website. Whether you’re a novice or experienced developer, by the end you’ll have all the information you need to decide which editor to stick with.&#8221; He wrote. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> released a new version of his <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-query-loop/"><strong>Advanced Query Loop plugin</strong></a>.  With this version, you can now inherit the default query and still control the post count and sorting options! </p>



<p>If you want to <strong>connect with Ryan Welcher at WordCamp Europe</strong>, he made his calendar public, too. He <a href="https://twitter.com/ryanwelcher/status/1663218595118174208">tweeted</a>: I&#8217;m going to be attending WCEU 2023 and would love to chat with you! If you&#8217;re interested, please grab some time <a href="https://calendly.com/ryan-welcher/wceu-athens-2023"><strong>on my Calendly link</strong></a>!</p>



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<p><strong>Sarah Snow</strong> just published a short tutorial on <strong><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/how-to-switch-from-a-classic-to-a-block-theme/">How to switch from a classic to a block&nbsp;theme</a></strong> on Learn.WordPress. &#8220;Are you curious about the process of how to switch from a classic theme to a block theme? If so, this tutorial is for you! Watch to discover what you can expect when you switch from a classic to a block theme, learn the recommended steps to switch a site safely, and find additional resources to get you started in a block theme’s site editor.&#8221; </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/hluehrsen"><strong>Hendrik Lührsen</strong></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hluehrsen/status/1659549030337196033">tweeted</a> about his new plugin:  <a href="https://github.com/luehrsenheinrich/wpm-citations"><strong>Citations for WordPress</strong></a> (GitHub). Make sure you download the zip-file from the release, and not the source code. If you use proper HTML &lt; a /&gt; tag notation.  you can add links into the citation field popping up. I tested it, and it works as an MVP, it has it&#8217;s quirks. The block is a starting point for customization. I hope this might come as a plugin to the repository. </p>



<img />



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>On again, off again, <a href="https://twitter.com/ellatrx"><strong>Ella van Durpe</strong> </a>has been working on a Footnotes feature for the Gutenberg project. The latest PRs are: </p>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/50124"><strong>Footnotes stored in the FN block</strong></a> &#8211;  this PR also links back to earlier conversations around this feature, and </li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/51201"><strong>Footnotes: try with post meta</strong></a>.</li>
</ul>



<p>If you have some time, maybe you can help test it. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/carolinapoena">Carolina Nymark</a></strong> published a new lesson: <a href="https://fullsiteediting.com/site-creators/creating-sidebars-with-blocks/"><strong>Creating sidebars with blocks</strong></a>. &#8220;If you want to use the same sidebar in multiple places, I recommend using the template part method because it will save you time. Editing a template part is similar to adding block widgets to a traditional sidebar. The difference is that you now choose exactly where you want the sidebar to show without depending on a developer to add the code.&#8221; she wrote. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="2-icymi-new-tutorials-on-learn-word-press-for-users-br">New tutorials on Learn.WordPress</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/building-a-page-with-only-patterns/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Building a page with only patterns</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/how-to-add-a-blog-or-news-page-to-any-wordpress-website/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">How to add a blog or news page to any WordPress website</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/wordpress-editor-modes-for-streamlining-content-creation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">WordPress editor modes for streamlining content creation</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/exploring-category-templates-with-block-themes/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Exploring category templates with block themes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/introduction-to-wordpress-multisite-networks/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Introduction to WordPress Multisite Networks</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/managing-a-wordpress-multisite-network/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Managing a WordPress Multisite Network</a></li>
</ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>



<p><strong>Bill Erickson</strong>, freelance developer and early adopter of the block editor, just posted <a href="https://www.billerickson.net/hybrid-wordpress-theme-starter/"><strong>A starter theme for building Hybrid WordPress Themes</strong></a>. Erickson also explains the interdependencies between Theme.json and Figma Design tokens and how to work within such a design system. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Brian Gardner</strong> took a deep dive into <a href="https://wpengine.com/builders/responsive-wordpress-websites/"><strong>Intrinsic Design: Building Responsive WordPress Websites</strong></a>. He walks you through the built-in responsiveness of the Block editor with  fluid typography as well as fluid spacing. Gardner also anticipates &#8221; that future updates to Gutenberg, and consequently WordPress core, will give builders the flexibility to modify targeted media queries and even the scale factor.&#8221; </p>



<p></p>




<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2022&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test and Meta team from Jan. 2021 on. Updated by yours truly.  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/"><em>The index 2020 is here</em></a></p>




<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<p><strong>Nathan Wrigley</strong> discussed with <strong>Mike McAlister</strong> on <a href="https://wptavern.com/podcast/78-mike-mcalister-on-why-block-themes-are-the-future"><strong>why Block Themes are the future</strong></a> in episode 78 of the WPTavern Jukebox podcast. In the introduction, Wrigley wrote: &#8220;Mike explains what the key differences are between a block-based theme and a classic theme. How it’s possible to create themes inside the editor, and how you can do this without needing to know much code. We talk about the fact that, if you’re a coding expert, you could always create complex themes, but this fresh approach opens up the possibilities for those with less technical backgrounds. The experience in the editor might not be exactly what everyone wants, but it’s evolving quickly and maturing with every new release of WordPress.&#8221; It&#8217;s definitely worth listening to, and checking out the resources shared. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>For the third part of the Twitch Stream series <em>Building a developer-focus block theme</em>, <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> teamed up with <strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> to take a deep dive of theme.json and block theme development. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d6tqqlBVvo&t=1s"><strong>Building a developer-focus block theme. Part 3.</strong></a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=264Z-YfV6J0"><strong>Part 2</strong></a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJGWb1ZYLMY"><strong>Part 1</strong></a> are also available on Welcher&#8217;s YouTube channel. </p>



<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d6tqqlBVvo&t=1s"><img /></a>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </h2>



<p>While redesigning his blog, <strong>Rich Tabor</strong> wanted to add a link that navigates to a random post. I created a custom block using the Create-Block script and ChatGPT. It only took a few minutes. He recorded a YouTube video, so you can follow along: <strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1bs8g9OdRU">How to Build a Dynamic WordPress Gutenberg Block with AI (ChatGPT)</a></strong></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>In his latest posts on the WordPress Developer Blog, <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> posted a tutorial on <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/06/using-block-inspector-sidebar-groups/"><strong>using block inspector sidebar groups</strong></a>. With the introduction of block inspector tabs in WordPress 6.2, block developers have more control over where custom controls should appear by leveraging the group of the InspectorControls component.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/rmors_">Ross Morsali</a></strong> wrote <a href="https://rm.codes/slotfills-and-fillprops-in-the-block-editor/">SlotFills and fillProps in the block editor</a>. After explaining briefly what SlotFills are and offering some user cases for their implementation, Morsali shows an example of how to use is in combination with  opening a modal. </p>



<p>To go deeper on SlotFills, take a look at the WordPress Developer Blog post: <strong><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2022/11/how-to-extend-wordpress-via-the-slotfill-system/">How to extend WordPress via the SlotFill system</a></strong></p>



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<p><strong>Jeremy Felt</strong> built an <a href="https://happyprime.github.io/wphtml-converter/"><strong>HTML Converter</strong></a> &#8211; It parses WPHTML into JS/JSON with a direct&nbsp;copy&nbsp;of Gutenberg&#8217;s &nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/tree/trunk/packages/block-serialization-default-parser">Block Serialization Default Parser</a>. Felt explains the workflow on the <a href="https://github.com/happyprime/wphtml-converter">GitHub repo</a>: &#8220;When first building a template of blocks to be used as part of a block variation or other template, it is useful to do this work in the block editor. When adding the template to JavaScript in an&nbsp;<code>innerBlocks</code>&nbsp;property, it needs to be formatted differently and again differently when reusing it in PHP. As your templates get more complicated, so does this translation—when done manually.&#8221; Hence, the Converter tool. </p>



<img />




<p><strong><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. <br />Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.</p>



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>




<p class="has-text-align-right has-small-font-size"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">them via email</a> or send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>. </p>



<p class="has-text-align-right has-small-font-size">For questions to be answered on the <a href="http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />




<p>Featured Image: <em>Greek architecture of a rock archway in Crete</em> by Lusp (Luke) found on WordPress Photos</p>



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<p class="has-text-align-left"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>



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<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 03 Jun 2023 12:30:30 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:40;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"Post Status: Launching a WordPress Product in Public: Session 15";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=149540";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"https://poststatus.com/launching-a-wordpress-product-in-public-session-15/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54110:"<p><a href="https://poststatus.com/planet/feed/#h-transcript">Transcript</a> ↓</p>



<p>In this episode, <a href="https://twitter.com/corymiller303">Cory Miller</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/coreymaass">Corey Maass</a> discuss their progress on a project related to image generation and sharing. They explore the use of Open Graph (OG) images, social media platforms, and the importance of consistent branding. They mention the need for a logo and discuss the design concept, leaning towards a fun and vibrant style. They also touch on website development, pricing, and marketing assets. The conversation revolves around simplifying the image generation process and creating a user-friendly product. Overall, they aim to finalize the project&#8217;s features, branding, and logo to move forward with the launch.</p>



<p><strong>Top Takeaways:</strong></p>



<ul>
<li><strong>Logo and Branding: </strong>The importance of creating a logo and establishing a consistent branding for your project. You want a logo that represents image generation in a fun and vibrant way, potentially incorporating bright colors and a big, fun font. It should look good on different merchandise items like t-shirts and baseball caps.</li>



<li><strong>Image Generation and Sharing:</strong> The main focus of your project is image generation and sharing. Using a logo generation tool and exploring concepts related to image generation, sharing, and open graph images. The goal is to make the process of generating and sharing images easy and efficient for users.</li>



<li><strong>Project Progress: </strong>The progress of the project, including bug fixes and updates. The plan is to address the bugs and implement additional features and improvements. Once the sitewide and post-level functionalities are handled, the project will be ready to share with others. Defining the project&#8217;s style, including the logo and overall branding, is an important next step</li>
</ul>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">

</div>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-mentioned-in-the-show"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f517.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> Mentioned in the show:</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://crop.express/">Crop.Express</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.com/">WordPress</a></li>



<li><a href="https://openai.com/">OpenAI</a></li>



<li><a href="https://poststatus.com/">Post Status</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.wpbeginner.com/">WP Beginner</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.fiverr.com/">Fiverr</a></li>



<li><a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/">WordCamp</a></li>



<li><a href="https://makelogo.ai/">MakeLogo.ai</a></li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/vovafeldman?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Vova Feldman</a></li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/syedbalkhi">Syed Balkhi</a></li>



<li><a href="https://ogp.me/">Open Graph Image</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-you-can-follow-post-status-and-our-guests-on-twitter"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:</h3>



<ul class="eplus-wrapper">
<li><a href="http://twitter.com/coreymaass">Corey Maass</a></li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/corymiller303">Cory Miller</a> (CEO, <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a>)</li>



<li><a href="https://twitter.com/lemonadecode">Olivia Bisset</a> (Intern, <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a>)</li>
</ul>



<p class="eplus-wrapper has-background">The <strong>Post Status Draft</strong> podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4dd.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /><br /><br /><a href="https://poststatus.com/category/post-status-podcasts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Browse our archives</a>, and don’t forget to subscribe via <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">YouTube</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Simplecast</a>, or <a href="https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P">RSS</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3a7.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading eplus-wrapper" id="h-transcript">Transcript</h2>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Session 15 Corey &amp; Cory Launch a WordPress Product Live</h2>



<p><strong>C&amp;C 15</strong></p>



<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> All right. Hold on before we go live. Okay. Um, what&#8217;s on your mind&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:00:21] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> today to talk about? It looks like you&#8217;re streaming to YouTube, but I&#8217;m not recording.</p>



<p>[00:00:33] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Okay, I&#8217;ll just push record.</p>



<p>Hey everybody. Welcome back to Corey and Corey on launching a product lot has been happening in the background. Mainly Corey&#8217;s been on a manic work streak, but we have a working version of the plugin on post edit and uh, he gave me a walkthrough yesterday setting stuff. Corey, what are we, what&#8217;s on your mind today to talk, talk about?</p>



<p>[00:01:03] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Uh, I think we are, uh, getting close to the first milestone of actually having a product that you, you specifically could start using. My clients could start using maybe, um, I&#8217;m gonna install it on all of my websites. Um, But I think we can start. I&#8217;ve got a, after the installing it on post status yesterday, which we chose not to do live, which worked out just fine.</p>



<p>Um, but we&#8217;ve got a, a pretty slick little product, um, a short punch list of bugs to fix that I&#8217;m working on, um, over the next couple of days. Um, But I think we could start pivoting to how we&#8217;re gonna present this publicly. Um, you know, start setting up the marketing site. I&#8217;ve got the e-commerce set up. I think it works to actually take money.</p>



<p>We haven&#8217;t tried that yet, but that&#8217;s okay. Um, so yeah, I think it&#8217;s the, the next steps to talk about here now are, you know, what we need. So, I mean, for us, but also talking abstractly about. You know, once you have a product, uh, what do you do? So&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:02:33] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> yeah, with the product, we&#8217;re in this interesting phase, which is working.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s working. When we put it up on a live site, yesterday, we were both making notes about where the product is. But I, I still go back to, I think this is so valuable. Me putting on the client customer hat and actually using it. And more so than I think any product I&#8217;ve had before is really using it and thinking about it creatively.</p>



<p>How I want those things to come out, I think is gonna formulate back to products. So, so while it already has like our initial OG image, open graph image for site wide. We did some reviews in the past episode. Um, I did some work and I, I really saw some patterns in the synthesis. Mm-hmm. What, like, it is gonna go do.</p>



<p>Well, you, you were like almost simultaneously building it, which is awesome. Um, I gotta tell you from yesterday, um, we got, we got some polish that we, we know we&#8217;ve been working on, um, that you even saw and were like, oh, we need this. Um, I love your openness again about hearing feedback and, Hmm, before using it just shows how good of a data of an entrepreneur you are.</p>



<p>But the, the one I&#8217;m really eager to is getting to the blog posts because for this product, uh, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s more so than just an open graph image. It&#8217;s like a social image to share with the post to make it compelling. I think all that work we did with Crop Express, So it&#8217;s all good. Mm-hmm. Helped, like think through what we&#8217;re doing now.</p>



<p>But I, I got giddy, you know, that I did some of the work when we did the pattern for the home, home or site default. Uh, I went on with some of the blog posts and I was like, this right&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:04:34] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> here is the money. Yep. Yeah. I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m with you. I think I, one of the. Pivotal moments for us with crop.express was you said, you know, I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m mental octopus.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m all over the place, you know? Yeah. Over here we do this and then we could do this, but it could do this, and over here it&#8217;ll do this and, and you&#8217;re like, what if we start with the feature image? I was like, that&#8217;s. You know, brilliant dart to the center of the dart board kind of thing. Um, and so with this, I really liked you, you did essentially the same thing where you&#8217;re like, OG image for the site.</p>



<p>And it was an easy lift for me to add that. So on activation, the plugin takes you to a little welcome screen, which doesn&#8217;t look pretty yet, but that&#8217;s fine. You upload a logo and you click a button and your site has an OG image. And so we are, I love that you install the plugin and a handful of clicks and we are offering value.</p>



<p>We are taking it already to um, Bringing, bringing your site. You know, we keep de debating about how we actually do this wording, um, but, or, or how we word this. But, you know, within a few clicks, our plugin makes your website more professional. Um, if you&#8217;ve got Yost installed, maybe you&#8217;ve already got an OG image.</p>



<p>If you don&#8217;t, we provide one, um, and our plugin will override. The image. So it&#8217;s like whatever you&#8217;ve done in Canva or elsewhere, you know, you can update, you can update regularly, that kind of thing. Um, so yeah, I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m with you. We&#8217;re, we&#8217;ve, we&#8217;ve reached that minimum viable product mentality in that we are immediately offering value, which I think is really cool.</p>



<p>Um, and then, The next, next thing following that OG image thread is, yeah, for each blog post, for each product, um, figuring, you know, again, initially it&#8217;ll be a, uh, a manual process of like, oh, you&#8217;re, you know, essentially for every blog post you, you are adding going forward, um, Once you&#8217;ve set up the blog post, you then can go set up your OG image.</p>



<p>Um, so we get there and that, that honestly is about 60%, 70% of the cleanup I need to do anyway. I. We are product complete, we are ready to sell a product. Um, and then, yeah, down the road, uh, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s obviously lots of fun and, and interesting things. One, you know, like I wanna be able to, we&#8217;ve talked about, but I wanna be able to, like for you on post status, you&#8217;ve got, you know, dozens or hundreds of posts that already exist and so they will benefit from the Sitewide OG image.</p>



<p>But wouldn&#8217;t it be nice if you set up a template for a stand, you know, a template that goes with a blog post and click a button and it retroactively goes back and creates OG images for each of those blog posts, stuff like [00:08:00] that. Um, but I kind of think that that&#8217;s one that&#8217;s neat. You know, that&#8217;s icing on the cake.</p>



<p>That&#8217;s a version 1.1 kind of feature. Um, but also I, I do think we want a little bit of validation. Before that happens. Um, and or if we find ourselves twiddling our thumbs and you&#8217;re like, yeah, for post status, I we really need this, then we can call that validation and I can implement it. But, um, but yeah, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s flushing out.</p>



<p>Being featured complete as far as OG images is, is the way to start. And obviously right along with that, it&#8217;s easy enough to create, um, a duplicate image that is square so you can throw it on Instagram or whatever. Yep.</p>



<p>Um,</p>



<p>behind the scenes, I think what&#8217;s really cool is. We kept, but after doing the, the first install yesterday on post status, Corey set up a first basic OG image. And then due to caching, we couldn&#8217;t see it. We could verify that it was there by viewing the source. And we knew the image was there, but we couldn&#8217;t see it.</p>



<p>And just now during our call, uh, Basically what&#8217;s funny is our Slack, private Slack conversation is just us posting post status.com back and forth, back and forth, trying to see the damn thing work and uh, Corey just posted it and adjusted it did just show up and that is one of the most satisfying things ever.</p>



<p>So yeah, it&#8217;s working.</p>



<p>[00:09:48] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Absolutely. I do think if I just put on the post status as a customer hat, Um, we do a fair amount of content and we want to, we have a significant following on Twitter and in, uh, LinkedIn and I particularly camp out on LinkedIn for a second. It&#8217;s really compelling to me and, and I, a couple years ago, I kind of, okay, I&#8217;ve just accepted invitations over the years.</p>



<p>Now I&#8217;m gonna see what this is about. I, I really think, especially with Twitter&#8217;s implosion, There&#8217;s a real value back to LinkedIn. Um, even more so than was there. But when I think about post customer for a second, we do a piece of content. We could just do the typical thing, copy, link, paste into Instagram, put a couple of words in it, do that thing.</p>



<p>Um, I think there&#8217;s value though, that image of like, I was just thinking like we do these weekly roundups with tech and business and like, or make wordpress.com for instance, or make WordPress, um, having like just the headlines. Mm-hmm. You know, like weekly roundup is the tech roundup and then there&#8217;s three or four bullets of like what goes into that.</p>



<p>So they&#8217;d know a preview of like, oh, I&#8217;m interested, I&#8217;m gonna click through, go to the link. That&#8217;s valuable to me because right now I&#8217;m just gonna take a link post in there. Hope the featured image looks decent, cuz it always pulls that. So, like, to me that&#8217;s value for, for post status. Client hat is like, it&#8217;s just right there.</p>



<p>Um, I can take a couple steps while I&#8217;m in the post. When I get it done is when I usually put it over there. And now somebody, somebody might schedule that, that&#8217;s cool. However, I kinda like post share it. Sure. Uh, and having that right there with like, I keep going back to my slide content slides I&#8217;ve done for talks and do different things and you know, some header with wall points and, and I think what I worked on the.</p>



<p>Image templates that you also mentioned was like holding in an actual image to that. Right. That&#8217;s always capture thought to me. But if it&#8217;s there, pulled in, adds a little visual pair pto where it&#8217;s just not like a slide.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:12:20] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yeah. We&#8217;re gonna, it&#8217;s, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s all these, from a text standpoint, there&#8217;s these, these loops that, or these circles we&#8217;re gonna want to close.</p>



<p>Um, Because it&#8217;s the, and, and we&#8217;re gonna have to think through the, the workflow, the UI for this, um, which, and it might be as simple as a button, but there might be some setup beforehand. So, we&#8217;ll, we&#8217;ll have to walk through this, but it&#8217;s like, that&#8217;s why I tried to wa I tried to talk this all out. I, I don&#8217;t know, two or three calls ago where I was like, okay, the first step.</p>



<p>And just a minute ago, in fact, the first step is the OG image. For the site. The second step is the OG image per post, which you&#8217;re gonna have to set up manually. Fine. Like we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re building a product. The, uh, one of the, the circles that I want to close for you and for, for the product pretty quickly is you, you&#8217;ve created a blog post or, again, I, I want to keep harping on product too.</p>



<p>Neither of us are in e-commerce. Particularly, but I, I think this is gonna be a lot of value. Um, but whatever it is, a post of some kind, you up upload a featured image. That featured image gets used in an OMG I M G, an OMG image. We&#8217;ll call &#8217;em that. And then a, and then there&#8217;s an option to replace the featured image, right?</p>



<p>So it&#8217;s like you&#8217;ve uploaded a temporary featured image that then gets incorporated into a template. And generated as an an OMG image that then replaces the featured image so that the, essentially the headline on the blog post, wherever, however the featured image was used, which like you said, a lot of the time when you share.</p>



<p>The featured image comes up and I, I, there&#8217;s going to be instances where an OG image is almost moot because the featured image works has two purposes. One is as a featured image, like if you&#8217;re looking at a blog post, and the second is if somebody shares it. You know, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn will automatically pull in the first image, usually the featured image, which will be, which will act as the OG image.</p>



<p>So, so it&#8217;s one asset, multiple purposes. Um, but in both instances, I think that there&#8217;s, you know, when we were first really exploring this, we went and looked at, um, WP Beginner, I think we looked at, um, Prius&#8217;s blog and, and we saw that a bunch of them, or the two, I think the two of those, and a and a bunch of other sites, the featured image, it was almost redundant, but the featured image itself was s shareable because it had the blog post title and stuff in it.</p>



<p>Um, and I liked what you said a minute ago of like, often, right now you upload a featured image of. You know, business person at laptop looking businessy, you know, it&#8217;s, you know, and it might be a photo of, of somebody. But, but then you go and you share it and you hope that it&#8217;s relevant and you hope that the people will see a title that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s, you know, links the image to the content.</p>



<p>Whereas we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re talking about is, um, Yeah, is inserting, inserting the title right into the image. So again, it might end up being a little, it might feel redundant, or as you&#8217;re doing the workflow, it feels redundant, but you&#8217;re, you&#8217;re guaranteeing that every image has more value. Um, and then, yeah, here you&#8217;re illustrating the second.</p>



<p>Loop that we wanna close, which again, feels kind of meta, but it&#8217;s the like, create a blog post, take a picture of the blog post, pull that that picture in, um, to an, an OMG image, and then use that to share, or even as the featured image. So you&#8217;re gonna end up with, and in theory if you do this, uh, A couple if you, if you create a template using the featured image or create an OMG image using the featured image, and then take a picture of it, you could end up with, you know, a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture all the way down, which is kind of fun.</p>



<p>Anyway. Um, But I think that that&#8217;s, you know, we&#8217;re talking about value and, and a, one of the ways that we achieve value is information. So, headlines, excerpts, bullet points. The other way we, a, we add value is something com is, is by creating a compelling image. And I think at least right now, with the way or a current trend, That achieves, this is exactly what you&#8217;re showing, which is, um, an image of content, but in the context of a device.</p>



<p>So on a screen or, um, yeah, on a cell phone, on a desktop, that kind of thing. Yeah.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:17:37] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Was, uh, just looking at this for a second, thinking about when you&#8217;re saying the featured image, Is how, like I don&#8217;t mm-hmm. Feel like super, uh, energized by what I did here on these two. And I was like, okay, well, you know, when you go, like there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s two parts.</p>



<p>There&#8217;s the social value, we&#8217;ve already talked about that, but there&#8217;s the search value. Mm-hmm. The image is a piece of content that summarizes mm-hmm. Inspire someone to click through, but like almost go, like that&#8217;s thinking of it as a piece of content that is an image piece of content, but it has valuable stuff on here.</p>



<p>Um, and like it&#8217;s really that slide format is, you know, everybody takes a picture of really good presentations when they&#8217;ve got slides. Cause they&#8217;re like, this is cool. I don&#8217;t know what this is called in Google, Emmett Google search, Google Images, but, Makes me think when we get to this part, we need to have a caption.</p>



<p>Mm-hmm. Um, that when the image is out there, there&#8217;s a caption. It seems like, I don&#8217;t know what this is called within Google, the image side of things, but like, it&#8217;s an opportunity I haven&#8217;t seen really explored that I would mm-hmm. That I would like. You&#8217;re, you&#8217;re searching and those, that image side comes up too, um, where there&#8217;s.</p>



<p>Interesting content summarized for you, like right there, right. Um, that&#8217;s really valuable. So I was trying to think like, okay, how would you really want that to look like if you don&#8217;t have a featured image, which is my problem easily. Um, you know, would we put, even if there&#8217;s, I I was just thinking about&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:19:33] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> that for a minute.</p>



<p>Well, I like the idea too of, um, And I hadn&#8217;t thought of this before, uh, essentially a default featured image like we are using a logo. So let&#8217;s, like for post status, you&#8217;ve got, you&#8217;ve got the little PS infinity symbol everywhere. Um, but also the ev I think a lot of people associate like the homepage of post status has that image of people at.</p>



<p>One of the, the, you know, the post status conference years ago, um, that hasn&#8217;t changed in 10 years, excuse me. Um, but, uh, you know, but that&#8217;s, it&#8217;s now, it&#8217;s now it&#8217;s a bit of your branding, right? Like that&#8217;s now a photo that, that people might actually associate with post status. So if that was, um, if that was the standard featured I, the default featured image that got pulled in everywhere, you know, even if, like one of the things that we&#8217;ve talked about is.</p>



<p>Image, uh, is, is tr image treatments. So it&#8217;s like as a ba if the background was two women chatting with that was, you know, converted to black and white and had, and had an orange filter over the top. And so it was just, again, these are, these are all of the things that humans find compelling, even if it&#8217;s not obvious or.</p>



<p>Upfront or obtuse. Um, you know, having, having two eyes and a s and a smile is known to be compelling to humans at a subconscious level. So it&#8217;s stuff like that that, um, these little simple effects that we can start to explore down the road, or, I mean soon, sooner than later, but it&#8217;s like, as we&#8217;re going along, as we&#8217;re learning about this stuff, we can go, oh, right, let&#8217;s just add a default option for, you know, these background treatments.</p>



<p>Yeah, just looking at seeing.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:21:35] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Mm-hmm. Some publications like, obviously these&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:21:38] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> are,</p>



<p>it&#8217;s interesting. Yeah. I mean these are, you know, most of these featured image as a background. Yeah. Title pulled in and selected. Put this at the top of the bottom, and some of them have an excerpt below the title. That&#8217;s the whole thing. You know, and so it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s up to the authors or you know, publishers since this is New York Times to find compelling images.</p>



<p>Yeah. I mean, and so un you know, we&#8217;ve talked about that at various points. That&#8217;s not a problem we&#8217;re choosing to solve right now. Um, so as the publisher of a given blog, you still have to go find that compelling image. But once you do, we give you all these options to do something with it. And what I really like is we&#8217;re defining a, a process.</p>



<p>So it&#8217;s once you, yeah, that&#8217;s the picture. Um, once you essentially define your style, So it&#8217;s like I, I, I&#8217;ve talked about, I&#8217;m a musician as a hobby, and I actually have a, a new track coming out tomorrow. And so I&#8217;ve put that on my band camp and, um, you know, for every track that I finish, every re you know, release that I do, I now go into Canva.</p>



<p>I hit copy or duplicate from the last. Release image that I created. Yeah. And I changed the title, the text, and I changed the image. But that way the font is always the same. The font size is always the same. The colors, font, colors are always the same. So that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re talking about here is like you creating exactly what you&#8217;re doing.</p>



<p>Say this, you created this and saved this for a first blog post. The idea would be then to say, save this as the default. Blog post featured image template. So then you go into, you, you say word in WordPress, you say add new, you write a new blog post. When you jump in to OMG I M G, this is gonna come up first.</p>



<p>Do you want it, you know, right away create your, you know, A an OMG image from your saved default blog post OMG image template, and you say, yes. And it sucks in the headline, it sucks in the featured image and you might go in and tweak it a little bit. You know, like if the headline&#8217;s really long or it&#8217;s more fun to have like, just like you showed on that New York Times Instagram a second ago.</p>



<p>Depending on the image, you might want the title at the top or the bottom, but most of the work is done with you done for you. You tweak a couple of things, you know, move a couple of sliders and then you&#8217;re good. Um, I&#8217;m excited about that. I think that that&#8217;s gonna be neat. I think that it&#8217;s going to be, it&#8217;s one of those things that</p>



<p>one of the challenges is going to be for, because it, because they are associated with publishing. It&#8217;s. It&#8217;s a, it&#8217;s a hurry up and wait kind of product. That&#8217;s one of the only things, red flags that I have. So it&#8217;s like, if there&#8217;s a button for creating these images for all existing posts, that&#8217;s huge value.</p>



<p>Right? But this is also one of those, like you install it. And then you have to go write a blog post. And that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m really glad that we&#8217;re creating a sitewide OG image. We can create sitewide social images, you know? But if you don&#8217;t have, if you&#8217;re not gonna write a blog post until tomorrow, you don&#8217;t have a reason to use the plugin until tomorrow.</p>



<p>Now we talked&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:25:32] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> about assigning. Mm-hmm. You could go back to a previous post. Mm-hmm. So I wonder if there&#8217;s a thought where we put a preview of a post, you know, To get &#8217;em started or&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:25:43] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> something. Mm, that&#8217;s awesome. So what I took,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:25:47] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> one of the big things I took for that is the fact that people do are in the rhythm of doing a featured image.</p>



<p>I think I defaulted to these templates because I don&#8217;t. Mm-hmm. That&#8217;s my mindset. So I just was trying to play for a second. I go, I think these things still apply, you know? Oh, for sure. Image on left. Image on right image as background with opa. I was trying to find an opacity here, but, um, yeah, and then you want headline, like pin on the photo.</p>



<p>Do you want it up here?&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:26:18] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Right. You don&#8217;t want it, you wouldn&#8217;t want it to cover a person&#8217;s face, so you&#8217;d move it to the bottom left. But if the image has people on the bottom, then you want it at the top or whatever. So, yeah.</p>



<p>Yeah, I&#8217;ve, you know, as I&#8217;ve been developing, so I, I did a, for anybody listening to this who didn&#8217;t watch the last one, go watch the last one. Um, because we did a, a little walkthrough, um, and, and showed my initial approach to the product specifically, we are not, Canva, we are not drag and drop like I and I at various points.</p>



<p>Like the developer in me wants to take this to the obvious extreme. Um, and, and that in many respects is Canva, which is drag and drop and, and infinite options. And. And I think, I mean, part of that, it it part of, I don&#8217;t want to go down that path because it&#8217;s just a hell of a lot of work and I want to just get this damn thing out the door.</p>



<p>But I also do think objectively that I, at least for now, prefer this approach because of what we&#8217;re talking about. Like if you want to go, if you wanna be in Photoshop, be in Photoshop. If you don&#8217;t, if you&#8217;re, if that&#8217;s a bit too much. Go jump into Canva, get creative, go wild. But this is, to me is meant to be quick and dirty as underselling it, but you know, quick and useful.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s just another step in your workflow. And that was, which is kind of the conclusion we came to out of Crop Express was like, you&#8217;ve got this workflow, here&#8217;s a pain point in your process, but it shouldn&#8217;t be the entire process. Yeah.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:28:14] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Well, just like playing with this, I go, okay, I get it. You know, put it in the background.</p>



<p>We&#8217;ve got left and we&#8217;ll have a right version of all this stuff. Yeah. But there&#8217;s an option of like set featured image as background. Then they can play with the color options you&#8217;ve given them. And I mean, I call that pretty good. Yeah. If, if you&#8217;re in the, if you just want headline and photo. This is an option if you want, I think, which is gonna be even BA could be even better, is like there&#8217;s a piece of content, like&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:28:53] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> mm-hmm.</p>



<p>Yeah. Again, I think that that&#8217;s like, that&#8217;s version 1.2, right? Where we, you know, one of the things that got us really jazzed talking about this early on was you brought up slides. Um, we&#8217;ve talked a few times about, um, drop, uh, poll quotes, drop quotes, block quotes, whatever you call &#8217;em. And so, you know, I&#8217;m excited about, again, version 1.2 or whatever, where.</p>



<p>We actually have a little wizard that says like, here are the quotes from the page. Ah, and this is where we bring in ai and that&#8217;s why we, we make 2 million. Um, but, you know, throw this content at, at our integration with ai and it come and it comes back with three different bullet point summaries of the content.</p>



<p>And then we, as we automatically just drop that content in. There you go. We figured out the AI integration. I knew it was just a matter of time.</p>



<p>[00:30:10] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> I&#8217;m using in a service called podway. Test it out. Yep. Um,</p>



<p>I can see how something like this&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:30:24] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> would look. Yep. Exactly. And this is where, again, like once, once a, once a template is defined, cuz these are all placeholders, right? So you&#8217;ve got a placeholder for the photo, the, the, the image of. The content, you&#8217;ve got a placeholder for the title, and then you&#8217;ve got a placeholder for a three bullet point summary.</p>



<p>Now either you can write that summary or again, we could have something write it for you, or you could have something write it for you. Um, but I love the idea. So one of the things that, so I&#8217;ve been playing with chat g p t, like everybody else for one of my products. I went into chatGPT, and I said, Write 20, um, 20 tweets.</p>



<p>Yeah. Broadly speaking, you know, for the topic of my product. And then I said, write 20 tweets that target creatives. Specific to my product and then business people, you know? And so it was very similar content, but slightly different. And so in the end, instead of 20 tweets over and over again, I wound up with 60 tweets.</p>



<p>And so I scheduled them one a day. Right. And so I&#8217;m picturing something very similar here where it&#8217;s like, you know, If you, if you had your featured image for the, for the, you know, the, the one you&#8217;re doing in right in front of us, you&#8217;ve got three bullet points. You&#8217;ve got a title, you&#8217;ve got a featured image.</p>



<p>Right. But like this is just one and. In, in our world now, you can&#8217;t, you&#8217;re never going to, or you shouldn&#8217;t, uh, just tweet about something once. You don&#8217;t write a blog post, tweet about it, and then forget about it. You need a long tail of content to be able to share, right? And so ideally, Not only would you say generate, like, say if this, what&#8217;s in front of us right now is, is your, you know, saved template.</p>



<p>Not only would you say generate this, but you would say, generate five variations of this. And you, I, this is again where I think I AI is a perfect candidate. You&#8217;d say, you know, Hey, chatGpT, here&#8217;s my article. Summarize it. With three bullet points in five different ways, and then we suck all that in. And then picture a page that just has this template with the different content.</p>



<p>You know, so there&#8217;s six versions right down, and you, and you go, which ones do you wanted to use? Bang, bang, bang. Save them all, you know, and then schedule them all. And that way, and you&#8217;ve got one that goes out each day or you do two days, four days, eight days. 16 days. So again, you get this long tail of content that isn&#8217;t identical but is all relevant.</p>



<p>That&#8217;s gonna be huge.</p>



<p>Yeah. Assuming that people are actually promoting their content the way they&#8217;re supposed to. Right.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:33:33] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Which is, is is part of the challenge.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:33:37] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yeah. Yeah. I think that I, you know, your emphasis we&#8217;re on call 15, right? So your emphasis throughout all of our conversations on agencies and on professionals, teams, et cetera, while it&#8217;s not, I&#8217;m very much like the solopreneur in entrepreneur.</p>



<p>Whatever other funny way you wanna say the preneur word. Um, but I think small, I build small products for myself and so other people in my shoes. And it&#8217;s not at all that I won&#8217;t use this, but again, I, you know, I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m working with clients that have dedicated social media managers. They&#8217;re the target agencies that are doing full-blown marketing campaigns.</p>



<p>They&#8217;re the, they&#8217;re the target because again, it&#8217;s these, this long tail of content that that&#8217;s going to require variation, that are going to benefit the most from this. Yeah.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:34:49] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Yeah. I&#8217;ve been thinking really much in that regard as like, okay, what would I want? How do I, it&#8217;s like, This slide for that post, you know, something like this, like a treatment over here doesn&#8217;t take up too much space for the the brand, but at least brands it.</p>



<p>Yep. This is a post status thing, and then this is really informative content like mm-hmm. It&#8217;s really that summary. Too long, didn&#8217;t read. Yeah. Take this for any post. It&#8217;s like you said, you can throw that into Chatgpt and get a bunch of these things, but like, yeah. I don&#8217;t know if I worked on something like that, but I go, this case study warrants a lot like headline.</p>



<p>This is a roundup we do about what&#8217;s happening in WordPress core based. Basically, she has these every, every week. These are the things you would just pull from it. Three things you need to know. Have chat. ChatGPT, help you with that if you want, and then to put it here and then you go, okay. What I would normally do is say, save this as an image, and I&#8217;d go over to what if I should do that real quick.</p>



<p>Uh, there we go.</p>



<p>Stay right there. I need to work on the image, image size, of course, but then you&#8217;re just putting in alt text. I dunno why the logo didn&#8217;t show up. Oh, it&#8217;s right there. So you know, if you think about it, right there. You&#8217;re okay. You&#8217;re, you&#8217;re a member of Post, so select the idea is you can look at this and see it a glance, some of the things going mm-hmm.</p>



<p>And then decide to click on. That&#8217;s value for the social right there. We&#8217;ve already mm-hmm. We&#8217;ve already talked about that, I think, but I think philosophically, I&#8217;m shaping this a little bit up and my mind is, it&#8217;s the too long, didn&#8217;t read now. Mm-hmm. You get this and whatever this. Uh, Google image. Like what would be example where if I, here, lemme see how to change a light pole, light switch.</p>



<p>Something. You, you know what I&#8217;m saying? Like this, people also ask, there&#8217;s some, uh, search criteria. They come like this, you know, the video content that shows up. There&#8217;s sometimes, I guess it&#8217;s more pinteresty type stuff like,</p>



<p>Like of a better word, video show up. But isn&#8217;t there a section where images show up sometimes?&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:38:08] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yeah. Search for a product, search for, um, say like that. So, um, there you go.</p>



<p>So it&#8217;s like in shopping is what I found. Okay. This one. So now hold on, hold on. Um, click and start dragging one of those images like this. Yeah. Did it? Yeah. I just discovered this this morning. So you can drag an image into Google Lens to do, uh, to find out more meta information about. That image and whatnot.</p>



<p>Oh, really? Which I think is, so right now it&#8217;s sort of a hidden feature, but I think that that&#8217;s coming down the road too. But it&#8217;s like, you know, Google, pretty much any, any of these services now can do image parsing, or excuse me, text parsing from images. So they&#8217;re also going to be reading these images, which is really, really cool.</p>



<p>Regardless of what alt text you might provide. Do you know what this&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:39:20] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> is called in Google? Is this&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:39:21] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> og? Uh, I would assume so.</p>



<p>[00:39:34] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Img, but it&#8217;s 92 by 92.</p>



<p>Anyway, I, I felt like there was, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s more of the Pinterest thought. You know, it&#8217;s like you go, oh, office.&nbsp;</p>



<p>So when we think about the blog post stuff, This is pulling something here. It&#8217;s gotta be OG based, right? That&#8217;s what I&#8217;m trying to find. Say look at that six is, and then give it a little icon.</p>



<p>[00:40:43] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Be honest. There&#8217;s no direct way to make your images show up, but somebody has to have figured this out.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:40:48] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Yeah. Because if we can get the specs we haven&#8217;t, we give the client a per a potential to let that show up. Yeah.</p>



<p>Because man, that&#8217;s compelling. I don&#8217;t know. Like this is Zoom ideas. So look at all these images in this display. There we go. See this. Well, I don&#8217;t know how they&#8217;re getting all that. This, this search comes up sometimes. See this? Mm-hmm. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re unlocking. Whatever this is, we&#8217;ll figure it out and say This is what you want.</p>



<p>This is what it&#8217;s called. And um, OMG mg does it? Yep. Do the possibility to do it, because I think this is where you start going into, I wish I had an idea for this, but I mean, the PINTERESTY type content. Mm-hmm. Recipes.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:41:52] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Oh, there you go.&nbsp;</p>



<p>All of these are really interesting, um, personality tests too, to see what you come up with on the spot. No, I&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:42:08] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> was like, they&#8217;re gonna know I&#8217;ve been liking an celery recipes,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:42:14] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> but see they as one does.</p>



<p>Yeah, so there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s an I that that image is right there. How do we,</p>



<p>and it looks like&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:42:29] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> it&#8217;s 92 by 92 or that ratio, whatever, that Nope, that&#8217;s not.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:42:34] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> That&#8217;s not it. It&#8217;s a slightly rectangle, but it&#8217;s not. And so what&#8217;s, what would be interesting is, um, view the view the actual source rather than inspecting. So just right click anywhere and say view, source</p>



<p>and search for OG colon image.</p>



<p>Keep typing image. It&#8217;ll pop up. Oh, sorry.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:43:00] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Hey, so this is interesting. Is this the action type&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:43:04] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> content so that, that you&#8217;d populate by like description you&#8217;d do in Yost and we certainly could do more. Um, like if you don&#8217;t want to have Yost installed since we&#8217;re already adding header, we could add more headers.</p>



<p>But again, not I, I don&#8217;t want to chase that if we can help it.</p>



<p>Same. Go to this. Yeah.</p>



<p>You missed a two on the end, so it re cropped it. Oh, interesting.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:43:52] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> So it&#8217;s live&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:43:52] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> cropping, that&#8217;s all it&#8217;s doing is Google. So the ogn, yeah. So it&#8217;s right. So, um, but it&#8217;s, but where is it? Why, why does it take the square? Because it doesn&#8217;t necessarily know, I mean, not all these websites are gonna have that auto cropping, right?</p>



<p>So, so somewhere too, it&#8217;s saying there&#8217;s a square image. Let&#8217;s, let&#8217;s throw that into the search results. Look at this. They&#8217;re, they&#8217;re pulling the Twitter card too. Mm-hmm. It&#8217;s&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:44:24] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> already baked in, I think. Yep. Interesting. I I just go, man. Um,</p>



<p>you know, some of this, like, these are appealing photos for sure, but I go, if you can put some piece of content right here, That&#8217;s helpful. Yep.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:44:52] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yeah, I mean, and that&#8217;s the presumption, is that, so actually before you jump, um, go click on the one you just talked about or ultimate click on Ultimate, you know, any of these with that, that has a title, right?</p>



<p>So go to that website. Oh, it&#8217;s you. That might be YouTube. That&#8217;s not gonna help us.</p>



<p>So they&#8217;ve got these big pictures, but I, what I&#8217;m trying to determine is if they have, like they&#8217;ve explicitly set an OG image that has this extra value in it.</p>



<p>Yeah, so they&#8217;ve got two two, oops. Oh, that&#8217;s fine. I&#8217;m sure the first one just gets sucked in</p>



<p>the article.</p>



<p>Yeah, I, so we&#8217;ll do a little research. We&#8217;ll find one of these, find a good example of this, and then see if we can&#8217;t decipher, you know, and or, um, do some more Googling to find out a, you know, when and what is what, when, and why does Google pull in an image in their actual search results? And, and not others.</p>



<p>You know, is it, is it just an OG image and they&#8217;re cropping? It, is it, is there some other tag we don&#8217;t know about,</p>



<p>but I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m anxious to get. This like when the first couple of templates done and out the door and in front of people, because I think it&#8217;s, you know, kind of like how your brain has said, oh, but what about this? And then, oh, I found this other thing over here. Like, it&#8217;s also, you know, but we started with, here&#8217;s what post status is.</p>



<p>Branding already looks like we want recreate that as a starting point. Um, other people are gonna come to us. Vva from FIUs and Sayed from WP Beginner and whoever are gonna be like, okay, but you know, we need a way to accommodate our, our branding or the way the treatments we&#8217;ve already decided on in Canva if we&#8217;re gonna, you know, because we want our images to be pretty consistent, you know, across all socials forever.</p>



<p>You know, how do we create recreate hours? And it&#8217;s like, oh, okay, so we need the option to do background treatments or turn the whole thing 90 degrees, whatever. It&#8217;s, you know.</p>



<p>Yep. But that means that one Corey needs to finish the thing once and for all, and then two. Yeah, we wanna start getting the, the marketing asset aspects, assets out there, um, shopping cart finalized and stuff like that. Cuz it&#8217;s like, even if we get some beta testers, um, and we give them licenses or let them sign up for free or discount or something, you know, first year free, whatever it is, like we wanna get that sorted out.</p>



<p>[00:48:30] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Started with that yesterday and we didn&#8217;t need it. Didn&#8217;t get it finished. So I&#8217;ve got my screen up here where I started it, the logo, and then the website is part two. Uh, going back&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:48:43] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> to pause, squeeze, I started, um, flushing out just putting rectangles on a page for the homepage of O M G I M g.co. So it&#8217;s quite literally just boxes of color, but ready to have, [00:49:00] um, content float into it.</p>



<p>Okay. All right. I&#8217;m gonna try to&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:49:08] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> carve off some time. Gotta get the logo going in process and then, uh, the website stuff. So&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:49:16] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> I think, yeah, it&#8217;s like I&#8217;m, I think standard, standard formula, you know, compelling tagline, value prop, a buy now button, you know, three icons with. With compelling value, props good enough.</p>



<p>I mean, that&#8217;s all we need to start, so,</p>



<p>okay. Yeah. If&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:49:45] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> I have an hour, um, I can get that cranked, cranked enough to start flushing out our page.</p>



<p>[00:49:57] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Simpler is better. So, you know, feel free to delete or [00:50:00] hide rows. Like yeah, but just enough that we, it looks like something, um, like&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:50:08] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> here a box headline, what it does for you, how benefits you, three things show up in social.</p>



<p>Yeah. And then features are like the nuts and bolts things and Yeah. Pricing. Yep. Yep.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:50:31] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> And yeah, and I&#8217;ve been waiting to do, like, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s, at this point I&#8217;ve used e d D enough that I&#8217;ve got standard styles that I copy from site to site and ways to set up, like being able to sign in and manage your subscription kind of thing.</p>



<p>Um, obviously they make it very easy, but I have a way that I like to lay things out. Um, but I&#8217;ve been waiting to do that. We, we need a logo, which helps us define a style and colors. To then carry that throughout the rest of the site. So our branding is somewhat consistent. So I&#8217;ve, I&#8217;ve been holding off on that.</p>



<p>Um, you know, but all that takes an afternoon once we&#8217;ve got, yeah. The general look and feel</p>



<p>back in our&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:51:16] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> conversation to, uh, put into there, do we want to go, I know we talked about this in Slack. Do we want to go with a. The eighties funky thought.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:51:32] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> I, I mean, because of the OMG part, like I definitely think we want something fun. Um, but I don&#8217;t have any religion around how the rest of it, since I&#8217;m not creating the logo, like I&#8217;d rather.</p>



<p>Anybody grabs, whatever, whatever comes to their mind, like, that&#8217;s why we pay them. It&#8217;s like when I get on Fiver, I hire five people to do logos because I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m honestly paying them, not so much to create a logo, but to apply their own thinking to, you know, here&#8217;s a, here&#8217;s the color palette that, that jumps out at me when you tell me what the, the product does kind of thing.</p>



<p>So</p>



<p>idea is,</p>



<p>[00:52:23] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> It&#8217;s kind of almost like a Mac app. You know, you&#8217;re, it&#8217;s the thing that&#8217;s solid that helps you look, look good and do things faster. Yep. Um, with images, Paula Showcase, I&#8217;m looking at some of these icons in my tray&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:52:44] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> here.</p>



<p>Yeah, I started walking through, um, uh, product hunt, uh, um, featured, uh, uh, what was it? Make logo.ai. And I started plugging things in to kind of, and they, they want to charge you for the actual logos, but it was kind of neat that they came up, they present you with a bunch of concepts and so it was like, um, A magic wand over an image.</p>



<p>So it&#8217;s like image generation or, um, cuz I, in the description I put in sharing and I put in, um, open graph image, you know, image generation. And so it was like, you know, do you want. Uh, a canvas or the, you know, the, the thing that the artist uses to put the paint on, um, the palette. I was like, eh, you know, do you want a magic wand to poof, an image appears?</p>



<p>Eh, that&#8217;s getting closer cuz I want it to be that easy. You know? Do you want an icon of, they had one that was like, um, you know, a picture like a. A fake painting that had people all around it, like, you&#8217;re sharing that? I was like, no, definitely not. That&#8217;s terrible. You know, so it&#8217;s like these concepts of, um, of what we want, want it to represent.</p>



<p>To me it&#8217;s image generation, because that&#8217;s part of, that&#8217;s the, if you&#8217;ve got a workflow in the middle, you know, you&#8217;ve gotta write words, but you&#8217;ve also gotta generate images. And to me, that&#8217;s the problem we&#8217;re solving. But that&#8217;s also, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s feature not benefit. Yeah. I,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:54:36] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> I&#8217;m looking to pro probably kind to get some thoughts here to put into the designer.</p>



<p>Okay. I think I&#8217;ve got enough here. I&#8217;ll riff on. Cool.</p>



<p>Okay.[00:55:00]&nbsp;</p>



<p>All right,&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:55:00] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> man. I, I just need a logo that looks really good because I&#8217;m gonna have a t-shirt made for Word camp us.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:55:06] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> Yeah. Oh, that, that&#8217;s even better. Um,</p>



<p>it&#8217;s almost like, huh? Okay. How would we want that to lick on the shirt?&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:55:19] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> That actually helps me frame it to me, to me again, because of. Because of the OMG in the name, and we talked about going all, all caps, it&#8217;s like not a rainbow, but gradient of bright colors, you know, big fun font. Like I don&#8217;t want it to be goofy.</p>



<p>I don&#8217;t want it to be clown like, um, and that&#8217;s why I guess I&#8217;m shying away too from. Um, actually your, your MAC icons concept is, is a good idea of like, over to me. A lot of them are overwrought, three-dimensional, big drop shadow kind of thing, and it&#8217;s like, eh, I want, I want something, you know, more fun than that.</p>



<p>Like if you, if you were gonna have a magic wand, like you&#8217;d want a bend in it, you&#8217;d want it to be almost cartoon-like or something. But then it&#8217;s, but then it&#8217;s not professional enough, so I don&#8217;t know. I don&#8217;t know. Uh,</p>



<p>it has to, it has to look good on your baseball cap there and it&#8217;s gotta go look good on my chest here. Yeah.</p>



<p>The swag is more important than anything, let&#8217;s be honest. It is&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:56:45] <strong>Cory Miler:</strong> a good frame for me though, is like, how would that pop and how would we want that to look?</p>



<p>[00:56:54] <strong>Corey Maass:</strong> Yeah.</p>



<p>All right. Let&#8217;s be done today. Um, I should have an update for you soon this week. Um, addressing all the, um, the bugs and extra bells and whistles that we talked about. Um, And in particular, I want to, like we said, I want to cut everything over to we&#8217;ve, we&#8217;ve got the sitewide handled, we need the post per post handled, like you said today.</p>



<p>Um, and then plug in a logo, plug in a little, uh, style once we&#8217;ve got a style defined and then the plug-ins, I think ready to share. So that&#8217;ll be cool.</p>



<p>Okay. Cool, man. Keep me posted. All right. Well thank.</p>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 01 Jun 2023 23:17:16 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Cory Miller";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:41;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"Do The Woo Community: Builder Tips from WordCamp Europe 2023 Speakers, Part 2";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=75230";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:59:"https://dothewoo.io/wordcamp-europe-and-speak-session-tips/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:399:"<p>The second in our series where we hear more about the sessions and tips from WordCamp Europe 2023 speakers. </p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/wordcamp-europe-and-speak-session-tips/">Builder Tips from WordCamp Europe 2023 Speakers, Part 2</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 01 Jun 2023 07:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:42;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"WordPress.org blog: People of WordPress: Stefano Cassone";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=15030";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/people-of-wordpress-stefano-cassone/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13126:"<p><strong>With <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2023/">WordCamp Europe 2023</a> in June, we feature Stefano Cassone, a web designer, photographer and volunteer translator, who believes his life has been transformed through WordPress and its community.</strong></p>



<p><strong>The&nbsp;<em>People of WordPress</em>&nbsp;series shares inspiring stories of how people’s lives can change for the better through WordPress and its global community of contributors.</strong></p>



<img width="1024" height="535" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/05/stefano-featured-img.jpg?resize=1024%2C535&ssl=1" alt="Stefano with a laptop covered in WordPress event stickers" class="wp-image-15027" />Stefano with a laptop covered in WordPress event stickers



<p>Stefano has always been fascinated by the internet. His initial learning in the 1990s was through joining friends at a local pub where they could explore how websites were structured and learn to use chat software.</p>



<p>This led to Stefano creating websites for fun in 1998, and his first paid job was for the shop where he bought comics. He turned to content management systems (CMS) to speed up the creation process for sites, but found he needed more documentation to really understand their capabilities. Then he read a magazine article about WordPress, a CMS which was being used to make incredible blog sites, and was supported by an international community and documentation. Over time, Stefano started using that documentation to work on websites in Italian.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress provides a life-changing turning point&nbsp;</h2>



<p>Stefano describes himself as an introvert. He found that WordPress helped him to work from home, to develop his skills and the quality of what he could produce, as well as build his self-confidence.&nbsp;</p>



<p>A catalyst for the turning point in his life and career was the discovery of an area for events on the WordPress dashboard. On this page, he found a forthcoming local meetup in Rome.&nbsp;</p>



<p>In November 2017, Stefano took the step to go along to this event, led by a curiosity of what he might discover and intrigued by how a software could be supported by a vast community. The topic at the event was on <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/cli/">WP-CLI</a>, a command line interface for WordPress. He recalled that he felt outside his comfort zone as he did not regard himself as a developer and at that point, had only used the software for simple jobs. He wondered whether using the software as his only CMS was going to be a long term option and if these meetups were suitable for him.</p>



<p>At the meetup, people were talking about a forthcoming event, called WordCamp Rome. Through his research, he saw that there was a lot of enthusiasm for this event. This intrigued him and he wondered if it would show him that he could have a career using the software after all.</p>



<p>Unfamiliar with WordCamps, Stefano found it difficult at first to know what he could go to and how to get involved, but he persevered and attended the event.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>&#8220;The WordCamp was a great discovery: talks at all levels from basic to those for developers, advanced and very advanced. I was immediately struck by the enthusiasm of the volunteers. It was an environment where I felt very comfortable, so much so, that I asked myself how I could participate in some WordCamps.&#8221;</p>
<cite>Stefano Cassone</cite></blockquote>



<p>From this event, Stefano was encouraged by those he met to consider applying as a volunteer for a future WordCamp.</p>



<p>There was also much talk at the event about ‘Slack’. It was new to Stefano, but with help from those attending, he signed up for the messaging tool Slack, used by the WordPress community. He was still unsure how he could contribute, and if he would be welcome.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Joining thousands of volunteer translators of WordPress</h3>



<img width="800" height="600" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/05/stefano-wc-italia-2022.jpg?resize=800%2C600&ssl=1" alt="Italian General Translation Editors at WordPress Italia 2022" class="wp-image-15028" />Italian General Translation Editors at WordPress Italia 2022



<p>Stefano took the plunge and was excited to find there was a team called Polyglots. In this team, people from across the world<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/"> translate the WordPress software into many different languages</a>. He started with translating a theme he was using in his work. Little by little he became more interested in plugins and attended meetings with other translators. He offered his skills to translate into Italian themes and plugins in general and as his experience grew, he took on the volunteer role of a General Translation Editor. He also took care of the translation into Italian of the WordPress Core. More recently he has joined the group of translators for the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/handbook/helphub/">HelpHub</a>, which is part of the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/">WordPress documentation</a> system.</p>



<p>He said: “Participating in the WordPress Slack has helped me enormously: I’ve met a lot of people who I now call friends. Moreover, by translating, I learned a lot about how themes and plugins work.</p>



<p>“It&#8217;s a great way to contribute to WordPress, especially for someone like me who is not a developer. Translating also allows me to fully understand how WordPress works.&#8221; </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>&#8220;I always say that translating themes, plugins, and the Core software is the best way to learn WordPress, better than any course or book.”</p>
<cite>Stefano Cassone</cite></blockquote>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Sharing skills to support Open Source WordPress</h3>



<img width="667" height="500" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/05/stefano-at-WC-2019.jpg?resize=667%2C500&ssl=1" alt="Stefano volunteering as a photographer at a WordCamp in 2019 with other contributors." class="wp-image-15026" />Stefano volunteering as a photographer at a WordCamp in 2019 with other contributors.



<p>Stefano’s growing commitment to the open source WordPress project was further boosted through his volunteering. He was a volunteer at WordCamp Rome 2018 and participated there in his first Contributor Day where he had the opportunity to translate the software with others.&nbsp;</p>



<p>He was also able to bring his own hobbies and skills to help the project grow and reach others. One example was his passion for photography, and he volunteered as a photographer for many other events in Italy organized by the WordPress community. He said: “This commitment to the community also allows me to have fun: being a photographer means having the opportunity to walk around the halls and capture moments of the life of a WordCamp.” The more WordCamps he attended, the more he wanted to be part of and keep contributing to the wider WordPress community.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Contribution to WordPress is inspiring</h2>



<img width="1024" height="683" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/05/stefano-at-the-support-table-contributor-day.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1" alt="Stefano at the Support Table at a WordPress Contributor Day" class="wp-image-15025" />Stefano at the Support Table at a WordPress Contributor Day



<p>When Stefano was asked to become an organizer for the WordPress meetup in Rome in October 2019, he knew he wanted to be part of reaching and supporting more people in his area. He faced challenges with finding venues, but a greater issue was to come: the Covid-19 pandemic.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Spurred on by the <a href="https://it.wordpress.org/">Italian WordPress community</a> as a whole, he was determined that the meetup was still needed. The regular event was transformed into an online meeting. He was able to gain help from people he had met as a volunteer to share their expertise with meetup attendees.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The community in Italy also worked together to put on WordCamp Italia online. It brought together the organizers of previous meetups and WordCamps, and new contributors too. Stefano volunteered in both online editions of this camp, including being part of the social and communication team. He found it to not only be a fun experience but also one that helped him grow professionally and learn from so many others.</p>



<p>He went onto help restart the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/romawordpress/">Rome WordPress meetup</a> in-person meetings in May 2022, was an organizer for the third WordCamp Italy, and has been volunteering for camps in 2023.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What will WordPress bring you?</h3>



<img width="533" height="800" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/05/stefano-at-a-wc.jpg?resize=533%2C800&ssl=1" alt="Stefano inspired by his journey at WordCamps asks what will WordPress bring you?" class="wp-image-15024" />Stefano inspired by his journey at WordCamps asks what will WordPress bring you?



<p>“Persona and professional growth and friendship” are some of the things they have brought Stefano. Contributing boosted his confidence and willingness to try new opportunities in his work.&nbsp;</p>



<p>He said: “The best thing I got out of joining the WordPress community was the chance to collaborate with some people on a working basis and, I have to say, that was incredible. Being with many of them you have an incredible opportunity to grow in knowledge, you just have to be ready to learn. With WordPress you never stop learning.”</p>



<p>His top recommendation is: “Join your local meetup or think about organizing one, it will introduce you to an amazing world. Don’t be afraid to meet people at WordCamps and Contributor Days, because you will learn more there than in dozens of courses. Talk to people at those events and don’t worry. The WordPress community is inclusive so you’ll always feel welcome, and you will see enthusiasm like you’ve never seen at other IT events. Sign-up and get involved.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Share the stories</h2>



<p>Help share these stories of open source contributors and continue to grow the community.&nbsp;Meet more WordPressers in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/category/newsletter/interviews/">People of WordPress series</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Contributors</h2>



<p>Thanks to Stefano Cassone (<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/deadpool76/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>deadpool76</a>)&nbsp;for sharing about his adventures in WordPress.</p>



<p>Thank you to Abha Thakor (<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/webcommsat/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>webcommsat</a>), the late Surendra Thakor (<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/sthakor/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>sthakor</a>) and Meher Bala (<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/meher/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>meher</a>) for interviews, writing the feature and collaborating on images, to Chloe Bringmann (<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbringmann/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>cbringmann</a>), Mark Smallman (<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/marks99/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>marks99</a>), Nalini Thakor (<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/nalininonstopnewsuk/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>nalininonstopnewsuk</a>), Mary Baum (<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/marybaum/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>marybaum</a>), and Maja Loncar (<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/majaloncar/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>majaloncar</a>) for help with reviews.</p>



<p>The&nbsp;<em>People of WordPress</em>&nbsp;series thanks Josepha Haden (<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>chanthaboune</a>) and Topher DeRosia (<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/topher1kenobe/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>topher1kenobe</a>) for their support.</p>



<div class="wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile is-vertically-aligned-center"><img width="180" height="135" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2020/03/heropress_logo_180.png?resize=180%2C135&ssl=1" alt="HeroPress logo" class="wp-image-8409 size-full" /><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<p class="has-small-font-size"><em>This People of WordPress feature is inspired by an essay originally published on </em><a href="https://heropress.com/"><em>HeroPress.com</em></a><em>, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. It highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories might otherwise go unheard. </em>#HeroPress </p>
</div></div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 31 May 2023 20:48:58 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Abha Thakor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"Post Status: WP 6.3 Planning • WP20 • AI Forum Replies • LearnWP Survey Results";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=149526";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:84:"https://poststatus.com/wp-6-3-planning-wp20-ai-forum-replies-learnwp-survey-results/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:19172:"<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-this-week-at-wordpress-org-april-3-2023">This Week at WordPress.org (May 29, 2023)</h2>


<div class="has-background has-theme-palette-8-background-color wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt">How did you celebrate WordPress&#8217;s 20th birthday? Read Building Blocks: The Evolution of WordPress, now available on GitHub and e-reader formats. <br /><br />WordPress 6.3 is underway. Core has shared the planning roundup, and the Design team is starting to prepare now.  <br /><br />Support forums recently discussed considerations on using AI to respond to forum issues. Human intervention is still necessary for the foreseeable future. <br /><br />Training team surveyed attendees at the last 3 flagship WordCamps and any additional respondents.  The data is in with feedback on the content and site functionality of Learn.WordPress.org. </p></div>


<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-infobox kt-info-box_94d1bd-77"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-link-wrap kt-blocks-info-box-media-align-left kt-info-halign-left"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-media-container"><div class="kt-blocks-info-box-media kt-info-media-animate-none"><div class="kadence-info-box-icon-container kt-info-icon-animate-none"><div class="kadence-info-box-icon-inner-container"><span class="kb-svg-icon-wrap kb-svg-icon-fe_userPlus kt-info-svg-icon"></span></div></div></div></div><div class="kt-infobox-textcontent"><h2 class="kt-blocks-info-box-title">WP 6.3, WP20, AI forum replies, and LearnWP Survey Results</h2><p class="kt-blocks-info-box-text"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f973.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/celebrating-20-years-of-wordpress/">Celebrating 20 Years of WordPress</a><br /><br /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4d4.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/wordpress-6-3-planning-roundup/">WordPress 6.3 Planning Roundup</a><br /><br /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f916.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/05/suggested-stance-on-the-use-of-ai-tooling/">Suggested stance on the use of AI-tooling</a><br /><br /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f469-1f3fb-200d-1f3eb.png" alt="??‍?" class="wp-smiley" /> <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/05/30/analysis-of-the-individual-learner-survey-results/">Analysis of the Individual Learner Survey results</a><br /><br /></p></div></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_b57166-6e"><div class="kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center"><hr class="kt-divider" /></div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news"><a href="https://wordpress.org/news">News</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/celebrating-20-years-of-wordpress/">Celebrating 20 Years of WordPress</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wp20.wordpress.net/celebrate-20-years-of-wordpress-by-exploring-the-20-year-written-history-of-the-project/">Celebrate 20 Years of WordPress by Exploring the 20-Year Written History of the Project</a></li>



<li><a href="https://wp20.wordpress.net/download-3d-wp20-themed-media/">Download 3D WP20-Themed&nbsp;Media</a></li>
</ul>



<div class="wp-block-kadence-spacer aligncenter kt-block-spacer-_8f6276-eb"><div class="kt-block-spacer kt-block-spacer-halign-center"><hr class="kt-divider" /></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-10">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.3</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/25/wordpress-6-3-design-kickoff/">WordPress 6.3 design kickoff</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/25/bug-scrub-schedule-for-6-3/">Bug Scrub Schedule for WordPress 6.3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/wordpress-6-3-planning-roundup/">WordPress 6.3 Planning Roundup</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/18/roadmap-to-6-3/">Roadmap to 6.3</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2023/05/31/accessibility-team-meeting-agenda-june-2-2023/">Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: June 2, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-community"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community">Community</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/05/26/notes-of-community-team-discussion-on-may-25-2023/">Notes of Community Team Discussion on May 25, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/05/24/recap-of-the-diverse-speaker-training-group-wpdiversity-amer-emea-on-may-24-2023/">Recap of the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) AMER/EMEA on May 24, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-core"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core">Core</a> </h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/17/command-center-request-for-feedback/">Command Center: Request for feedback</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/16/proposal-retiring-older-default-themes/">Proposal: Retiring Older Default Themes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/22/core-editor-improvement-smoother-site-editing/">Core Editor Improvement: Smoother Site Editing</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-developer-blog"><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/">Developer Blog</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/05/customizing-core-block-style-variations-via-theme-json/">Customizing core block style variations via theme.json</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-meetings">Meetings</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/31/dev-chat-agenda-may-31-2022/">Dev Chat agenda, May 31, 2022</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/30/editor-chat-agenda-31-may-2023/">Editor Chat Agenda: 31st May 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/27/editor-chat-summary-24-may-2023/">Editor chat summary: 24 May, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Design</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/05/25/wordpress-6-3-design-kickoff/">WordPress 6.3 design kickoff</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-docs"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs">Docs</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/05/29/documentation-team-update-may-29-2023/">Documentation Team Update – May 29, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hosting"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting">Hosting</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2023/05/15/is-wordpress-compatible-with-php-8/">Is WordPress compatible with PHP 8?</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-marketing"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing">Marketing</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2023/05/27/day-20-wp20-from-blogs-to-blocks/">Day 20: #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2023/05/26/day-19-wp20-from-blogs-to-blocks/">Day 19: #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2023/05/25/day-18-wp20-from-blogs-to-blocks/">Day 18: #WP20 From Blogs to Blocks</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta">Meta</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/05/31/agenda-biweekly-matrix-chat-thu-june-1-2023-10am-utc/">Agenda: Biweekly Matrix Chat – Thu, June 1, 2023 (10AM UTC)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/05/31/two-factor-auth-available-to-test-on-wordpress-org/">Two-Factor Auth available to test on WordPress.org</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mobile"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile">Mobile</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile/2023/04/11/contribute-to-the-future-of-the-wordpress-app/">Contribute to the Future of the WordPress App</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-openverse"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse">Openverse</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/05/29/last-week-openverse-2023-05-22-2023-05-29/">A week in Openverse: 2023-05-22 – 2023-05-29</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/05/24/community-meeting-recap-2023-05-22/">Community Meeting Recap (2023-05-22)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/05/23/openverse-monthly-priorities-meeting-2023-06-07/">Openverse Monthly Priorities Meeting 2023-06-07</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/05/22/last-week-openverse-2023-05-15-2023-05-22/">A week in Openverse: 2023-05-15 – 2023-05-22</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-performance"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/performance/">Performance</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/05/30/performance-chat-summary-30-may-2023/">Performance Chat Summary: 30 May 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/05/31/core-performance-team-update-may-2023/">Core Performance Team Update: May 2023</a></li>
</ul>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow">
<p></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-plugins"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins">Plugins</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/05/17/plugin-review-team-update/">Plugin Review Team Update</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/03/21/use-of-code-generators-must-remain-gpl-compatible/">Use of Code Generators Must Remain GPL Compatible</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/03/10/advance-notice-of-retirement/">Advance Notice of Retirement</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-polyglots"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots">Polyglots</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/05/31/improving-translation-suggestions-other-languages/">Improving Translation Suggestions [Other Languages]</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/05/31/agenda-weekly-polyglots-chat-may-31-2023-0700-utc/">Agenda: Weekly Polyglots Chat – May 31, 2023 (07:00 UTC)</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-project">Project</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/05/30/proposal-establishment-of-a-formal-wordpress-sustainability-team/">Proposal: establishment of a formal WordPress Sustainability Team</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/05/17/wordpress-contributor-mentorship-program-pilot-program-proposal/">WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program: Pilot Program Proposal</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Support</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/05/suggested-stance-on-the-use-of-ai-tooling/">Suggested stance on the use of AI-tooling</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/05/agenda-for-may-18th-support-meeting-2/">Agenda for May 18th Support Meeting</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-test"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test">Test</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/05/18/fse-program-testing-call-23-rapid-revamp/">FSE Program Testing Call #23: Rapid Revamp</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/05/29/test-team-update-29-may-2023/">Test Team Update: 29 May 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-theme"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/theme">Theme</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/05/31/themes-team-meeting-notes-may-30-2023/">Themes Team Meeting Notes – May 30, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/05/26/summary-curating-the-editor-and-building-block-themes-for-clients/">Summary: Curating the Editor and building block themes for clients</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/05/18/hallway-hangout-curating-the-editor-and-building-block-themes-for-clients/">Hallway Hangout: Curating the editor and building block themes for clients</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/05/17/theme-handbook-overhaul-phase-2-creating-content/">Theme Handbook Overhaul: Phase 2 (Creating Content)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/05/30/themes-team-update-may-30-2023/">Themes team update May 30, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-training"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training">Training</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/05/09/brainstorm-wordcamp-europe-2023-contributor-day/">Brainstorm – WordCamp Europe 2023 Contributor Day</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/05/24/training-team-meeting-recap-for-may-23rd-2023/">Training Team Meeting Recap for May 23rd, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tutorials"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorials">Tutorials</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/managing-a-wordpress-multisite-network/">Managing a WordPress Multisite Network</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-online-workshops">Online Workshops</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=live-stream-creating-a-block-theme-for-developers-part-3">Live stream: Creating a block theme for developers. Part 3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=training-team-wordcamp-eu-contributor-day-online-session">Training Team WordCamp EU Contributor Day Online Session</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=using-the-row-and-stack-blocks">Using the row and stack blocks</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=nesting-blocks-and-advanced-block-layouts-2">Nesting blocks and advanced block layouts</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=wp-dev-livestream-sendig-block-theme-4">WP dev livestream: Sendig block theme</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=wordpress-coding-standards">WordPress Coding Standards</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=custom-css-in-the-site-editing-era">Custom CSS in the Site-Editing Era</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=%E3%82%A2%E3%83%83%E3%83%97%E3%83%87%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88%E3%81%A8%E8%84%86%E5%BC%B1%E6%80%A7">アップデートと脆弱性</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-courses"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/courses">Courses</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/course/creating-a-4-page-business-website/">Creating a 4-page business website</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wp-cli">WP-CLI</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/cli/2023/04/05/wp-cli-v2-8-0-release-date/">WP-CLI v2.8.0 release date</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wptv">WPTV</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-related-news">Related News:</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://blog.jquery.com/2023/05/11/jquery-3-7-0-released-staying-in-order/">jQuery 3.7.0</a></li>



<li><a href="https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v20.2.0">Node v20.2.0 released</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-04-13-1"></a><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-05-11-1">PHP 8.2.6 Released!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-05-11-2">PHP 8.1.19 Released!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://262.ecma-international.org/13.0/">TC39</a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/composer/composer/releases/tag/2.5.5">Composer 2.5.5</a></li>
</ul>



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<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 31 May 2023 16:48:19 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Courtney Robertson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"WPTavern: #78 – Mike McAlister on Why Block Themes Are the Future";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=145590";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/78-mike-mcalister-on-why-block-themes-are-the-future";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55259:"Transcript<div>
<p>[00:00:00] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>



<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, a journey inside creating a block-based theme.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast, player of choice. Or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>



<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you all your idea featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox, and use the form there.</p>



<p>We released these podcast episodes every Wednesday, but next week there&#8217;s going to be a break. I&#8217;m going to be heading to WordCamp Europe in Athens to record some more interviews. And if you&#8217;re there, I do hope that our paths cross. Normal service will resume soon.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today we have Mike McAlister, and he&#8217;s here to talk about his experiences creating a block-based theme.</p>



<p>Mike is a veteran product developer and designer in the WordPress space. He founded and sold multiple WordPress products, like Array Themes and Atomic Blocks. Now he&#8217;s focused on the future of WordPress with his new product brand, Ollie.</p>



<p>Mike kicks off the podcast by telling us about his WordPress journey, and how WordPress blocks have renewed his passion for the platform. We get into some history and talk about the era when WordPress themes were extremely popular. Marketplaces like in Envato made it possible to sell themes and creates a career in ways hitherto unimagined.</p>



<p>Mike explains what the key differences are between a block-based theme and a classic theme. How it&#8217;s possible to create themes inside the editor and how you can do this without needing to know much code.</p>



<p>We talk about the fact that, if you are a coding expert, you could always create complex themes, but this fresh approach opens up the possibilities for those with less technical backgrounds. The experience in the editor might not be exactly what everyone wants, but it&#8217;s evolving quickly and maturing with every new release of WordPress.</p>



<p>The conversation moves onto why Mike is so confident that block-based themes are going to succeed. You don&#8217;t need to use one, and your trustee classic theme and the associated customizer, will work for the foreseeable future.</p>



<p>We then turn our attention to the technical hurdles that Mike has had to overcome. What new workflows and tools did he need to adopt and master to make his work possible? Mike&#8217;s been really focused on using WordPress core blocks to create his themes, digging into the weeds of what they can do and what their limitations are. It&#8217;s been a part of steady learning punctuated with minor setbacks when the editor and blocks are updated in unexpected ways. Thankfully, these bumps in the road are now relics of the past, as breaking changes have given way to stability.</p>



<p>We then talk about a specific theme that Mike has just released. It&#8217;s called Ollie, and it&#8217;s the focus of the rest of the podcast. How did Mike build Ollie, and what is he hoping to achieve with this new brand?</p>



<p>Patterns feature heavily in Ollie we talk about how it&#8217;s possible to alter the look and feel of your site quickly. Typography and colors are easy to change with the new suite of design tools which ship with WordPress.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re wanting to develop block-based themes, or are just curious about how other developers are building them, this podcast is for you.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all of the other episodes as well.</p>



<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Mike McAlister.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Mike McAlister. Hello, Mike.</p>



<p>[00:04:51] Mike McAlister: Hello. Thanks for having me.</p>



<p>[00:04:52] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, you&#8217;re very welcome. Mike is going to be talking to us today about block based themes, block patterns, blocks in general, I&#8217;m sure. And if you haven&#8217;t been in the WordPress space for any great length of time, you are about to learn about Mike&#8217;s pretty impressive history in the WordPress space.</p>



<p>So Mike, it&#8217;s a fairly generic question, but I hope you don&#8217;t mind us asking you at first, just to orientate the listeners. Would you mind just telling us a little bit about yourself and your history, coding, theming, and whatever kind of other work you&#8217;ve done in the WordPress space.</p>



<p>[00:05:24] Mike McAlister: Absolutely. Yeah, I&#8217;ve been around WordPress for some time now, probably since about 2010. 2009, 2010. So fairly early on. And I think I came upon WordPress like many folks, building client sites and looking for just a better way to do it. You know, when you&#8217;re in that world and you stumble upon WordPress, you&#8217;re like, whoa, light bulb moment. This is going to be a game changer.</p>



<p>So yeah, I started pretty early on using WordPress to build websites for clients. And then at some point, I started to see the commercial aspect of it, right? Instead of building one theme for one client, I could build one theme and maybe sell it to a thousand different clients.</p>



<p>And so I experimented pretty early on with, you know, I have a history in design and so that was my focus. I thought that could be a differentiator for me. I&#8217;ll make themes that are just beautifully crafted, really lightweight. Maybe they don&#8217;t do everything under the hood, but they do specific things very well.</p>



<p>And so Array was the first theme shop that I had. And I operated all over the place. I had themes on my own site. I had them on the Themeforest marketplaces. I was selling themes on wordpress.com. So I was kind of everywhere and growing. And then at one point blocks became a thing, and so I dipped into there and started experimenting with blocks, via the Atomic Blocks theme which grew really quickly, it was one of the first block themes out there. And I think it was, blocks were still a really new thing and people were trying to understand what they were and what the benefits could be.</p>



<p>And so having a plugin out there with all these examples in it, and kind of showing that, oh no, you can replace all kinds of stuff. Like short codes and all of these other archaic ways of building could be done with blocks now.</p>



<p>So I worked on that for a bit. And then in 2018 WP Engine acquired both the theme shop and the Atomic Blocks plugin. And worked there for four and a half years, and then just recently I have gone back into the freelance and entrepreneurial space.</p>



<p>[00:07:21] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you very much indeed. That&#8217;s really, really interesting and it sounds to me at least anyway, as if you arrived on the WordPress scene, not only with the right products, but also at the right time. You kind of managed to hit that tidal wave just as it was creating out in the ocean somewhere.</p>



<p>And you had the product. Everybody was buying themes at that time. Became really, really popular. Do you consider yourself to have had a lucky break there, in the sense that, do you feel that that is something which can be repeated in the year 2023? Or do you think that block themes and just themes in general, the shine and the commercial prospects of that has dwindled a little bit?</p>



<p>[00:08:04] Mike McAlister: That early era was certainly something special. I think there was just so much attention focused on themes, and as this new shiny thing. And they unlocked a lot of capabilities for people. They were able to go from, trying to make their own sites. To making their own designs. To having these tried and tested templates.</p>



<p>And so that was a huge thing. And the rise of the Envato market at the time was a huge part of that success. Love it or hate it, at the time, that was a huge thing and proliferated WordPress themes out into the world, beyond our bubble. And so that I think was a huge deal at the time.</p>



<p>Now, whether or not now we can kind of replicate that is really tough to say, because since then the market has become quite saturated, in that there are so many different ways of building with WordPress. And you have things that are spinning off like Elementor going off into their own world.</p>



<p>They&#8217;re still kind of one foot in WordPress, one foot out. And we have all of these other. website builders that we didn&#8217;t have back then, other platforms. So there&#8217;s just so many different ways to build a website. WordPress is still massively popular, even if it&#8217;s slowly declining.</p>



<p>We still have such a huge footprint on the web that it, there&#8217;s a ton of potential So, I don&#8217;t think we&#8217;ll see the same wave we saw before. I do think though that this whole new world of the block paradigm and block themes. It is the biggest opportunity commercially in WordPress I think that we&#8217;ve seen in a very long time. It may be the biggest we see for a long time.</p>



<p>[00:09:38] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. I think we should probably stray into that right, the outset, if that&#8217;s okay. Because, there&#8217;s probably a proportion of people who are listening to this podcast who are very, very technical. They completely get what you mean by block based themes and the opportunity afforded there.</p>



<p>But equally, there may be a bunch of people who are listening to this who genuinely have no idea that there is such a thing as a block based theme. They&#8217;ve got a, what we would now call a classic theme, and it&#8217;s installed and it has been for a long time. And as far as they&#8217;re aware, there&#8217;s no change in their WordPress website. Things just carry on as normal.</p>



<p>But are you able to describe to us, I know this is a difficult question, and certainly trying to cram it into a portion of a WordPress podcast is a big ask. But are you able to give us a high level view on what a block theme is, and how it differs from a classic theme? Something which you might know, if you&#8217;ve got access to the customizer, you have a classic theme. If you don&#8217;t, you don&#8217;t. And so let&#8217;s take it from there. What are they and what do they promise?</p>



<p>[00:10:34] Mike McAlister: Absolutely. So, let&#8217;s first just do quick block refresher in general. So blocks, instead of throwing your content all into TinyMCE or the content area, and kind of making it mostly text-based, and throwing some other little elements in with things like short codes, like we used to do in the past. Blocks, they&#8217;re basically content elements. It could be anything from a button, to a paragraph, to an image gallery, to a slider.</p>



<p>And all of these things you add to the WordPress editor. And they could be used to build, you know, more beautiful content. They could be used to build page sections. They can be used to build a full page. And you put together enough blocks, and you can build an entire theme with it, right? So, WordPress comes with many blocks built in. And all of these things you use to build your website now.</p>



<p>So with that in mind, block themes are effectively entire WordPress themes that are built entirely with blocks. And the benefit of that is that it makes your website almost entirely editable by you, in the editor. So instead of having to, you know, if you want to change your header, instead of going into the code and opening up the code editor and tinkering there and saving and going back to your site. You can go into the site editor and WordPress, which is effectively a interface inside the WordPress admin, where you can create your header.</p>



<p>You can modify it. You can change the colors. You can add new links. You can change out your site logo. And all of that happens in the editor. It can be a no-code or low-code experience for you. So the benefit here is the customization, right? We can now get closer to the experience that you might have seen at something like a Squarespace or Wix where the interface and the experience is tailored around creation, and it&#8217;s more focused around that.</p>



<p>[00:12:31] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I guess if you are an expert themer and you&#8217;ve been creating themes for years, what it brings to the table, the way that you construct them is different. But you&#8217;ve always been able to achieve whatever it is that you wanted to achieve because you could write the code. But I suppose what this is bringing is the capability for non-technical people to be able to modify just any part of the site.</p>



<p>I guess the header is typically fairly constrained, you know, header, navigation, logo, that kind of thing is normally what we see. But perhaps a better example would be a footer. Because typically your footer would be controlled by the theme and you&#8217;d go into the customizer and modify whatever options were available to you.</p>



<p>Whereas now you can just build out rows, columns, put in images, put in contact forms, whatever you like, other navigation menus, anything. If you can imagine it as something that you can build in the block editor, that can then become your footer. You don&#8217;t need to dabble in any code at all. There&#8217;s a lot going on there, but you don&#8217;t need to be involved in that.</p>



<p>And so non-technical people can become involved in that process and, you know, enjoy creating different aspects, different parts of their theme. That being said, what are your thoughts on the state of the UI for editing themes at the moment? We&#8217;re in May 2023. Version 6.2 of WordPress is the current latest version.</p>



<p>And I think it&#8217;s fair to say that it&#8217;s not where it probably wants to be in the end, but how do you think about it? How do you think about the UI? You&#8217;ve probably been in there, you&#8217;ve ironed out all the kinks, and got over all the road bumps that were in the way. But for a typical user, a non-technical user, do you feel it&#8217;s delivered on the promise that it hoped to?</p>



<p>[00:14:09] Mike McAlister: I don&#8217;t think so yet. I talked to all kinds of WordPress users from novices to veterans. And the number one thing that always comes up is the UI the UX, the experience. And, you know, I get it because we&#8217;ve known WordPress for 20 years now. We&#8217;re celebrating a 20 year anniversary right now.</p>



<p>And it has been one way for a very long time. And even some of the big changes that came, like the customizer, they weren&#8217;t that big of a change, right? They were bolted on and they were additive and iterative. But the block editor and going into the site editor and full site editing, these kinds of things, it&#8217;s quite different.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s adding a lot to WordPress. It&#8217;s a lot of new context. It&#8217;s a lot of new paradigms. It&#8217;s a lot of new workflows, and I think that is a very difficult thing for people to figure out. Especially with the past few years where things have been shifting so much and people don&#8217;t know quite when to hop in. And then when they do, it doesn&#8217;t work exactly like they had anticipated.</p>



<p>Or some of the features are released as working prototypes. We&#8217;re kind of met with these things. And so I get the frustration when you hop in there and somebody&#8217;s telling you, oh, it&#8217;s way better, and you can do all this stuff now, and you&#8217;re, you install a block theme from dot org and it&#8217;s like half busted, and the styles don&#8217;t work and you don&#8217;t know your way around. So I get it. It can be a very frustrating experience.</p>



<p>I will say the past few releases I think have been a lot better. And they&#8217;re ironing out a lot of the kinks. The ground underneath the software isn&#8217;t moving as much from release to release. And if you follow along on some of the GitHub tickets or you stumble into some of those, there&#8217;s a great deal of discussion going on about the many shortcomings of the UX. And so it is something that&#8217;s always being worked on. And I think it&#8217;s important to just remember that.</p>



<p>It is never going to be easy to change, to drastically change, a piece of software that is being used for so many use cases, for so many people. We know it powers half the web and to make a leap into the block era like this, it was never going to be easy. It was never going to be comfortable.</p>



<p>We hope that it will be worth it in that, these kind of growing pains in this transition will give us a new era. It will refresh WordPress. It will make it viable for another 10, 20 years. It will give us the new tools to keep up with these other platforms that are maybe outperforming us. And so while the growing pains are there and the experience is a little rough, I do think that it is all for the greater good of the software.</p>



<p>[00:16:45] Nathan Wrigley: Let&#8217;s explore the sort of reverse of that, if you like. And I&#8217;m going to use a product that I have as an example. I use Gmail to do my emails. And I have this Chrome extension, and the Chrome extension alters the Gmail interface in a way, which allows me to be slightly more productive. I won&#8217;t get into the detail, but it does that.</p>



<p>And every couple of weeks something breaks, because Gmail alter some aspect of their interface. And the guy that makes the Chrome extension, he&#8217;s not in the loop of that. And the thing breaks and he has to contact all of his users and say, right on it. And gets it fixed and so on and so forth.</p>



<p>And I feel, as we&#8217;re going to discuss in the future, you are now really committed to having a proportion of your income come from block based themes, and yet at the same time, although you&#8217;ve got, you&#8217;ve got a voice there and you&#8217;ve definitely got skin in the game. You are reliant upon the technology stack that is WordPress and it&#8217;s in a constant state of flux.</p>



<p>You said it&#8217;s not quite there yet. I just wondered, and I don&#8217;t wish for you to become incendiary or anything like that. I wondered if you could highlight some of the grievances that you, well, not grievances, some of the things that you wish were better right now. Some of the areas where, if you could be in control of just fixing it by clicking your fingers, what would you amend?</p>



<p>[00:18:03] Mike McAlister: Ooh, that&#8217;s a, that&#8217;s a really good question. Although I&#8217;m just releasing a block theme now, I&#8217;ve been dipping into and exploring block themes for years now. And only until recently did I feel like, okay, this is ready enough to put something out there. Because I&#8217;ve run a product business before, and a WordPress theme business before and support is a huge part of that, right?</p>



<p>And in these early days of the block editor and block themes, with it being, you know, on a bit of shaky ground. Putting something out there I&#8217;ve seen it as like a support nightmare. I&#8217;m going to end up not just supporting my theme, I&#8217;m going to end up educating people on tons and tons of WordPress features, which I think that&#8217;s okay and great. And I think it&#8217;s actually a business model in itself.</p>



<p>You don&#8217;t want to take on the frustration of the users, and have them funnel that through to something that&#8217;s your product, right? And they look at something I&#8217;m making and say, this thing sucks, or whatever. When really it&#8217;s just they don&#8217;t know this new WordPress yet, or they haven&#8217;t had the time, or that the pitfalls and the UX hurdles are being kind of painted onto your product. So yeah, I think up until recently I&#8217;ve felt like, okay, this is, it&#8217;s still going to be a bit of a transition, but I think it&#8217;ll be less painful.</p>



<p>So that being said if I could snap my fingers and have one thing, well I&#8217;ve just recently written a post about responsive controls, which is another big hurdle. But I think even more than that, I would snap my fingers and bring together this UI UX in a way that makes a lot more sense.</p>



<p>I feel like we&#8217;re in two worlds here. I think we have many remnants of the old WordPress. In fact, if you&#8217;re not in the site editor, you maybe wouldn&#8217;t even know that there&#8217;s a new WordPress. You&#8217;re looking at the same sidebar, same posts, pages. All of that is the same and that&#8217;s great. That&#8217;s worked well for a long time.</p>



<p>But now we have our other foot in this whole new era of the site editor and block editor and blocks and block themes. And then when you&#8217;re in the site editor you can edit things live and do all this stuff. And so I feel like there are two entirely different WordPresses existing in WP admin. And it is, to me, not a great experience. I feel like if we&#8217;re going to go this route, I feel like it should be almost entirely wrapped around the site editor experience, and we&#8217;re able to do almost everything in there.</p>



<p>And that gives us an opportunity to maybe rethink, and this is, I know, grandiose and big ideas, and there&#8217;s probably a lot of people who are cringing at the thought of redoing a lot of WordPress. But I think that there is an argument to be made about kind of moving forward in a more bold and meaningful way. And tying that experience together. So that when you&#8217;re editing a page, it looks like you&#8217;re editing a page, and not like you&#8217;re editing a page with content field or something like that, you know? So the great unification of sorts.</p>



<p>[00:20:57] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you. That&#8217;s really fascinating. In terms of the skillset that you&#8217;ve had to adopt over the last period of time. When you decided, okay, I&#8217;m going to go all in on blocks. And it sounds like you&#8217;ve been doing this really, right from the beginning, which is fairly impressive. Very prescient of you.</p>



<p>What are the new interesting, perhaps difficult, things that you&#8217;ve had to learn? The new tooling that you&#8217;ve had to acquire? What has had to become part of workflow over the last few years, which is different from how it would&#8217;ve been five, six years ago?</p>



<p>[00:21:26] Mike McAlister: Yeah, it&#8217;s It&#8217;s quite fascinating actually, because I think those of us who are in WordPress a long time, you would typically think that the answer would be like, oh, I had to learn Webpack or React or whatever. And if you&#8217;re building blocks, that might be the case. When I&#8217;m talking about block themes, it&#8217;s not a technical skillset that I&#8217;ve had to pick up.</p>



<p>But literally just spending the time in WordPress and understanding how all these things work together. Learning fluently how to build with all of the core blocks, in a way that you can build a layout using columns and groups, and the alignment settings, and justification and the row block. It is a skill that has to be learned use all these things fluently, and to just know it like the back of your hand so that you can go and build out a pattern, a page, whatever it is.</p>



<p>And that did take, even for a WordPress veteran like me, quite a bit of time to get fluid with that stuff. But learning all of that stuff and then kind of dipping into block themes, that made that process a whole lot easier. Because block themes are just all of those things. It&#8217;s the row block. It&#8217;s the group block. It&#8217;s using the padding settings and building a design system with theme json.</p>



<p>So that becomes a skillset in itself. And that&#8217;s where I spent so much time. And I think that&#8217;s why when I released this Ollie theme that we&#8217;ll talk about, I think a lot of people were kind of like blown away. Like, oh, you can do all this with this new stuff. And it&#8217;s all core and native features.</p>



<p>But it took me a long time to pull all that stuff together and to be able to present it and a package that was like, oh, okay, this is coherent and well made and well designed and it actually works.</p>



<p>[00:23:07] Nathan Wrigley: How much does the sand shift beneath your feet? So you mentioned earlier about getting skilled with the interface and using the group block and managing it to make these pixel perfect, really beautiful layouts which we&#8217;ll get onto in a moment. How steady has that process been?</p>



<p>Or have you noticed that your designs from, well, let&#8217;s not say month to month, maybe half a year to half a year. Are there things which come along in the core blocks, changes which are made in the core blocks, which upset what you&#8217;ve managed to lay out in this perfect way? Or has the progress been steady away? Everything looks the same today as it did a year ago.</p>



<p>[00:23:43] Mike McAlister: At this point, it&#8217;s very steady. The core blocks, the group blocks and things like this, buttons. These are not changing in any major way. There are little additions being made, but they&#8217;re iterative, and they&#8217;re backwards compatible as far as I&#8217;ve seen. There might be every once in a while, the spacing&#8217;s a little off or something like that and usually gets fixed pretty good.</p>



<p>But I think with the amount of people using the Gutenberg plugin, where a lot of these big features are tried and tested and workshopped. I think there&#8217;s a good amount of eyeballs on these features there. That definitely helps, by the time it gets to core, it&#8217;s been vetted, it&#8217;s been worked out.</p>



<p>People actually build with Gutenberg enabled. So I think there&#8217;s that. And so these days, when creating a theme, I didn&#8217;t have any major issues with the fundamentals.</p>



<p>[00:24:31] Nathan Wrigley: Nice. I&#8217;m going to direct everybody listening to this podcast. Maybe just pause and go to this URL. The URL is olliewp.com. It is, as you might expect, o l l i e w p .com and have a little poke around. Have a look at what Mike has built, and what&#8217;s on offer. But just tell us about the theme itself. I&#8217;ve had a little bit of a play.</p>



<p>I downloaded it. Currently, we can get onto this and the reasons for moment, it&#8217;s on, available on GitHub. You download it from there, and I installed it on a local install and had a play. Tell us a little bit, what&#8217;s the thinking here? Are you trying to make one theme that anybody can use? Do you have a particular niche in mind? What&#8217;s going on with Ollie?</p>



<p>[00:25:13] Mike McAlister: I think Ollie started as an experiment for myself. I used it as an opportunity to, like I was saying, to learn all of these features. And one of the best ways to learn them is to build a block theme. Because it forces you to use all these different things, like patterns and global styles, and theme json. All of these features that make up a good block theme.</p>



<p>So, I started it as an experiment to learn, and then along the way, you know, as a product minded person, and somebody who&#8217;s had a theme shop before, I thought, no, there is some commercial value here. I don&#8217;t know what it is yet. But I thought on top of it being a potential pivot for me to do, I just saw it as an opportunity to dip back into WordPress in a more meaningful way, in the product space.</p>



<p>And I like creating things that people can learn from. I like putting things together in a package that you can hand off to somebody or send them the repo and they can see, and pick through the code and learn. And so that was the kind of intent behind Ollie. And right now it is, it&#8217;s just one theme with a bunch of beautiful patterns in it that you can use to quickly build out pages.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m just using this early phase of Ollie to see what people think. How are people building with block themes? Are they building block themes? I think there&#8217;s so much unknown about this space because it&#8217;s so new, I&#8217;m just kind of sitting back and just learning and listening and watching people.</p>



<p>Do they want more patterns? Do they want pre-made sites with block themes? There&#8217;s so many questions that I have. I&#8217;m using it as an opportunity to effectively ask these questions and learn.</p>



<p>[00:26:41] Nathan Wrigley: The thing that really struck me, I should add at this point that I saw this from an article in the WP Tavern, which Sarah Gooding wrote on April 26th, 2023. I&#8217;ll link to that in the show notes. The thing that struck me immediately was the patterns. And I saw screenshots of the patterns and I thought, wow, they look great.</p>



<p>And there was a video that I think she put together, scrolling through some of the patterns and thought actually that&#8217;s new, that&#8217;s interesting. They are right on the money for me. They look how I wish I could do things. And so downloaded the theme and really discovered that you really have gone to town with the patterns. I don&#8217;t know what the number is. It certainly looks like it&#8217;s more than 50 or 60 or something like that.</p>



<p>That feels like where a lot of your endeavors have gone. So you&#8217;ve categorized them, obviously now in the site editor you can you click on the patterns button and then subcategories come down. And then a nice thumbnail appears, and you can enlarge those if you wish, on a big modal, which takes up the whole screen and so on.</p>



<p>You&#8217;ll see straight away that the effort in building a typical website, brochure site for somebody has been taken away. So that&#8217;s my question. Did you approach this with patterns in mind? Like this is going to be a repository of great patterns and the rest hopefully will build itself, if you know what I mean.</p>



<p>[00:27:56] Mike McAlister: Yeah, absolutely. I knew right away patterns were and are going to be a huge deal. Way back, late 2019, I was even playing with this rudimentary idea of what patterns could be with my friend John Paris. We experimented and prototyped out this idea of sections and layouts in WordPress. And it was effectively what would become patterns. This idea that you have pre-designed sections of your site, that you can click together like Lego pieces and make full layouts.</p>



<p>I&#8217;ve always looked at patterns as a huge opportunity because it takes the pain out of building websites or even just sections. If I&#8217;m able to put together a beautifully designed hero section, or a featured section with blocks and make it look great and hand it over to you. You can throw that on your page. You don&#8217;t have to mess with the design. You just tweak the colors if you want, and change the content. And then you go about your business.</p>



<p>We&#8217;ve removed the pain of even you having to build your own blocks or your own patterns. And hopefully that is the paradigm that we go with. Hopefully people latch onto this idea that maybe I don&#8217;t have to tinker with every single part of my website. Maybe just going with these beautiful designs, changing the content, changing the color, and then focusing on my content, and focusing on my audience and focusing on my following. And I think the patterns are going to be a huge deal for sure.</p>



<p>[00:29:21] Nathan Wrigley: Truly I think the designs are absolutely fabulous. They are categorized into posts, texts, call to action, cards, features, heroes, pages, prices and testimonials. Who knows, maybe that will be expanded over time. But in each of those there&#8217;s in some cases a handful and in many cases multiple dozens really of different patterns that you can select.</p>



<p>And if you&#8217;ve never had the experience of doing this in a theme, you just pick on one that you like, and you just click on the icon and there it is. It&#8217;s now the next part of your website. And you can then amend it, you can change it.</p>



<p>Give us a bit of an insight into what people can do in terms of saving things. So let&#8217;s imagine that they&#8217;re using yours as sort of boiler plate and they&#8217;re going to click things in, but they want to amend the colors. Yours is fairly opinionated. It&#8217;s nice dark black, and there&#8217;s this lovely kind of blue color, which dominates everywhere. But obviously that might not fit with everybody.</p>



<p>Is it fairly straightforward, again for inexperienced users, to save those and modify them and keep their own modifications with this new site editing interface?</p>



<p>[00:30:25] Mike McAlister: Absolutely. That&#8217;s kind of the beautiful part about this, right? Is that you can go into one of your preexisting pages and click to add one of the patterns I&#8217;ve designed, and put it on your page. Or you can throw a full layout, which I&#8217;ve included a few full layouts, like home, about, and features, and things like this.</p>



<p>You throw it onto your page. You customize it how you want. You can change the content inline. You can change the colors on the page if you want. Or you can go to the global styles in the site editor, and you can change that bluish purple color that I&#8217;ve chosen to whatever color you want, your brand color. And instead of going through and changing it in every little pattern, it will change that color on every single pattern I&#8217;ve included in this theme.</p>



<p>So you don&#8217;t have to go change the colors anywhere. It will literally propagate that color throughout the whole site. Because this whole thing is a live design system, right? It&#8217;s effectively a design system that is tied into every aspect of WordPress. So when you&#8217;re in the site editor, when you&#8217;re in posts, when you&#8217;re in pages, all of these styles travel with these patterns.</p>



<p>Even typography, you don&#8217;t like the font? You can change the font. It&#8217;ll propagate through the whole thing because that&#8217;s how this is all wired up. So yeah, so if you want to go in and change a page, all you do is, you go in there, add a pattern, save it. Save it just like you would any other page. And it&#8217;s good to go.</p>



<p>[00:31:47] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, it is increasingly becoming a really compelling system. It just requires people like you to get as many people over that hump as possible and experiencing it. But I can only say if you download it, have a go. Within minutes I suspect that you&#8217;ll have something that you are very, very happy with and that you can modify.</p>



<p>In terms of the patterns of themselves, is that an area that you&#8217;ve explored? Or would like to explore commercially? So okay, I know you&#8217;ve got Ollie, but have you given any thought to the commercial possibilities of just patterns, simply patterns? Not bound to any theme. Just a downloadable set of patterns. And obviously you&#8217;re a very, very credible designer, we can see that. That you could then give to people, sell to people, so that they can download them into any site no matter what block-based theme they&#8217;re using.</p>



<p>[00:32:34] Mike McAlister: I always knew patterns were going to be a big deal. But I think, after just releasing Ollie to GitHub and seeing it get picked up by a few news outlets and some people on YouTube, were making videos about it. I think the number one thing everyone always raves about is the patterns. And maybe if they&#8217;ve explored patterns before on wordpress.org or used other themes that have patterns.</p>



<p>I don&#8217;t know if they&#8217;re just kind of underwhelming typically. But I think I did spend a great deal of time making sure these patterns were making a statement. They are saying, no you can do this in WordPress. I wanted to prove that I can design something as good, if not better, than what we had before. And I&#8217;ll do it all with blocks, native blocks. Not one custom blocks in there. These are all just core blocks, and they&#8217;re going to be beautiful, and they&#8217;ll be fully responsive and fully customizable.</p>



<p>And so, I think that&#8217;s what people see. And when they see these patterns and how they all cohesively fit together. You can pop these onto a page in any different order and they kind of just fit together and that&#8217;s part of the overall design system. But yeah, so I see patterns as a huge opportunity and I wasn&#8217;t sure commercially. And still I don&#8217;t know. I&#8217;m using this opportunity to ask a lot of questions.</p>



<p>But I think the first few weeks, the response has been largely very positive about patterns. And so I&#8217;m definitely curious about that. And I think there&#8217;s opportunities to do more advanced patterns, and maybe use some pro blocks to make patterns even more appealing. So yeah, pro patterns is definitely something I&#8217;m exploring</p>



<p>[00:34:07] Nathan Wrigley: You mentioned that you&#8217;d spent a lot of time learning the core blocks, and you also just mentioned that everything that comes with Ollie is based around a core block. Was that a straightforward experience? Or did you find that there are certain limitations in what you could achieve based upon the capabilities of core blocks? Or would you say basically you can implement almost any design you wish with core block? Certainly looks like you&#8217;ve managed to achieve that.</p>



<p>[00:34:34] Mike McAlister: Sometimes I&#8217;d have an idea of what I wanted to do, and couldn&#8217;t quite do it. But I think if you get clever, you can get really close, right? For example, I would love if WordPress had a icon block. A core icon block that we could tie into. I don&#8217;t want to have to make my own, because there&#8217;s a bunch out there.</p>



<p>And I also, you know, in terms of the ease of distribution and giving customers designs right out of the box. I don&#8217;t want them to have to install a plugin to do it. And icons are so prolific. I would just hope that we could have that in core. Well, we can&#8217;t have that yet. And so, when doing simple things like wanting to add an icon here for people to see like, kinda like a placeholder for an image or an icon.</p>



<p>I used the HTML star, right? And I use that in ratings, you know, in design, like if you want to put a rating there, I put like five HTML stars, and I use it on feature sections. So, clever little things like that. It&#8217;s giving people enough to understand, oh this is what this is meant to be. This is the design. Oh, I might put my own icon here. Or even things like cleverly using the rows and group blocks to get things aligned how you want. Grouping of blocks to do unique things with them, spacing wise. It&#8217;s just a lot of clever usage of what&#8217;s there.</p>



<p>And I think part of that does come from tinkering enough. And if you really want to get that design out of your head and on to the page, you&#8217;ll figure it out. But it might take, it might take some tinkering.</p>



<p>[00:36:01] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I&#8217;m on the install that I have at the moment and I&#8217;m on the star rating. You&#8217;ve got five stars, and I can see that they&#8217;re using paragraph blocks. And then elsewhere you&#8217;re using the social icons block to display those social icons. And I guess that&#8217;s the experience you would want, is just pick an icon, much like you do in the social icons block and make it more straightforward. That&#8217;s really interesting.</p>



<p>Why GitHub? Why not the WordPress repo? Was there some sort of decision there? Again, I should emphasize it, at this moment in time, if you want to grab this theme, you&#8217;re going to be heading over to GitHub and downloading it. Why there and not in the repo? Is there a decision behind that?</p>



<p>[00:36:36] Mike McAlister: No philosophical decision. I think it will be on the repo soon actually. Like I said, with these block themes, there&#8217;s so much to learn and I wanted to put it out there. You know, it worked great for me when I was building it and making it. But I wanted to get it out there and get people using it to understand if there was any major shortcomings or just catch any early usability patterns that I was seeing. Any issues like that and see like, oh, actually people don&#8217;t love these patterns.</p>



<p>Or, is there something about the workflow that I could improve before releasing it to a wider audience? So, I just mostly wanted to iron out all the kinks and GitHub was just the obvious place to do that. But to be honest a lot of the quirks that people have brought up with the theme on GitHub and the GitHub issues and stuff, are largely just Core issues. Just usability, preferences and workflow preferences and things like that.</p>



<p>I haven&#8217;t uncovered any major issues and so I feel like what I&#8217;m going to do is kind of wrap it up. It&#8217;s already fully tested and gone through the theme check and everything. So it&#8217;s pretty much ready to go. And I think I&#8217;ll do that in the next week or two.</p>



<p>[00:37:41] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, okay. In that case, by the time this podcast airs, this question will be somewhat moot. But anyway, worth, asking I think. I noticed as I was moving around on the site, olliewp.com. I noticed buried somewhere was referenced to Ollie Cloud, and that got me thinking, okay, in that case, is Ollie something bigger than simply this one theme?</p>



<p>And so that&#8217;s where I&#8217;m going to take the conversation next. Is Ollie, in the same way that you had Array Themes and you had Atomic Blocks. Is Ollie something bigger for you, Mike? Is that a direction that you&#8217;re going to take it in? Are you now hoping to, sort of, have a bunch of things wrapped around in the Ollie branding?</p>



<p>[00:38:22] Mike McAlister: I think so. I wasn&#8217;t sure about that initially. Again, this just kind of started as a experimental WordPress theme. But I don&#8217;t know the product creator in me, the entrepreneur in me, always tries to see things from that sphere as well. And so as I&#8217;m looking at the WordPress ecosystem, and I&#8217;m exploring what is this thing like now? It&#8217;s been a while since I&#8217;ve had a product out there.</p>



<p>I do see all kinds of opportunities, and I&#8217;m still learning what they are. But I also have my own opinionated ideas about how we could wrap up this new, all these new capabilities, and deliver a new experience. A premium experience with some of this stuff. And so, on the Ollie WP website I had, I do have a box at the bottom about Ollie Cloud. And the idea there, I think is it could be Ollie Cloud, it could be Ollie Pro. I don&#8217;t know. I&#8217;m really just gathering feedback and seeing what people want, as I mentioned.</p>



<p>But the idea is that all of these new features, these theme assets, patterns and theme json files and all that stuff. They&#8217;re all very lightweight, and very movable, and very modular, and they can kind of plug and play in to WordPress. And I don&#8217;t know, I think there&#8217;s an interesting idea about the experience about how we build sites these days.</p>



<p>Should you have to start from scratch on every site? And should we still be copying and pasting themes around like it&#8217;s the mid two thousands? And is there a better way of doing that? Is there a better way of pulling in a site template?</p>



<p>There&#8217;s a lot of interesting things there and I think, another thing I&#8217;m learning, and I think we&#8217;ve seen just generally is that, I don&#8217;t know, I think users are maybe a little fatigued with that in WordPress. Starting with a blank slate and being like, ugh, I have to find a theme and then I have to maybe try out a few themes, and then I don&#8217;t know if I need to pay for one, and then I need a form block, and then all of a sudden I need a buy a contact form.</p>



<p>And then there&#8217;s a bunch of upsells for contact forms. And I don&#8217;t know. All that stuff to me, after all these years on WordPress, feels kind of icky. Uh, I guess. And I think customers and users want experiences and solutions more than they want individual themes and plugins. So a premium offering or a premium experience is something I&#8217;m interested in. What kind of experience can we do differently that delivers the same result, but takes all of the pain building on WordPress?</p>



<p>[00:40:46] Nathan Wrigley: It kind of feels as if you may be repeating history for yourself here in that, you know, 2010. Array themes, we mentioned you were right there at the beginning of that tidal wave. Maybe with a fair wind, the same thing may happen again here? You may well have discovered that seam of gold, just as it&#8217;s starting to take off. Because all the chatter that I&#8217;m listening to at the moment is very much related to blocks and exploring patterns, blocks, block based themes, and how you can maybe tie those three things together.</p>



<p>And pro blocks, which bring additional functionality. You know, areas where Core perhaps doesn&#8217;t cut it. I&#8217;m thinking, in my case, one that just keeps coming into my head is a superior navigation block, that does a whole load of styling and what have you. And who knows what&#8217;s going to be around in two or three years time? But there do seem to be companies who are straying into this and dabbling with it and trying, like you are, I guess, to figure out what the landscape may look like.</p>



<p>[00:41:43] Mike McAlister: Yeah, I&#8217;m just as unsure I think as anybody about where this thing goes. But I&#8217;ve never been afraid to try and put in the work to get something going and see where it goes. Like I said at the top, I think there&#8217;s an opportunity here that we&#8217;ve not seen in a long time in WordPress and may never see again.</p>



<p>And if these are the early days of the new generation of WordPress, I&#8217;m certainly going to try and throw my hat into the ring and craft a new experience, and maybe rebrand WordPress, and help outside folks see WordPress in a new light. Because I think that&#8217;s a huge part of this new reboot. Is that WordPress maybe hasn&#8217;t been traditionally like, quote unquote cool, to a lot of web folks.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s certainly very popular and very prolific, but we maybe haven&#8217;t attracted the best talent and the best coverage in the wider web world. So, I look at it as an opportunity to rebrand that and maybe grab another cohort of the web that we haven&#8217;t had yet. And I think part of that is new products, and different products, and better looking products, and better experiences, and taking some of the pain out of WordPress that we&#8217;ve traditionally had.</p>



<p>[00:42:57] Nathan Wrigley: If somebody listening to this is inspired about block themes in general, because that&#8217;s been the broad tenor of what we&#8217;ve talked about. Do you have any names to drop or resources that you&#8217;ve used, that enabled you to learn this kind of stuff? And if you do mention anything, I will endeavor to link it into the show notes.</p>



<p>I don&#8217;t mean like a laundry list of hundreds of things, but a couple of things which you thought, actually, for those that are exploring this, this is a really great resource. This is a really profoundly interesting person and so on.</p>



<p>[00:43:24] Mike McAlister: Yeah. First I would start, I&#8217;m somebody who I need to work from examples. I need to see the code and I need to see the, a working thing to get inspired and know how to do things. So, on that note you mentioned that Ollie is on GitHub. It will remain there. This version of Ollie that I&#8217;m putting out is always going to be free. And always going to be on GitHub. So it is a great resource for picking through the code, especially theme json, where I think there&#8217;s so, so much you can do in there, but it is hard to understand what you can do when you&#8217;re kind of looking at it from the outside.</p>



<p>So if you&#8217;re curious, start there, because I&#8217;ve wired this thing together. I think how it should be, or largely how it should be at this moment in time. And so it&#8217;ll give you a great headstart and great understanding of how all these things tie together. So start there.</p>



<p>And in terms of people, I actually, on my Twitter list or on my Twitter page, I have a list of WordPressers. And on that list is a great many folks who are a lot of voices in this stuff. WordPress Core folks like Nick Diego and Rich Tabor, and Carolina Nymark. These people spent a great deal of their time in WordPress, and listening to WordPress conversations, and taking part in the GitHub conversations. So I would check out that list. I can actually send it over to Nathan as well if he wants to include it?</p>



<p>[00:44:43] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that&#8217;d be great. I will in some way copy and paste it into the show notes or somehow link to it. But yeah, that&#8217;s really helpful. Thank you so much.</p>



<p>[00:44:50] Mike McAlister: Twitter is, love it or hate it. It is where traditionally the WordPress community has hung out, and so it still is the case, even though some people are coming and going. It still is where a lot of conversation happens on WordPress and WordPress development and what&#8217;s new. And so it is a good place even if you just want to read and follow along. It is a good place to see those conversations.</p>



<p>[00:45:13] Nathan Wrigley: I will link to whatever it is that you send me, Mike. Thank you for that. Okay, just one final question. It&#8217;s more about people finding you really. If somebody&#8217;s listened to this and their interest has been peaked. What are the the best ways, it sounds like it might be Twitter, but it may not be. What are the best ways to get in touch with you, Mike?</p>



<p>[00:45:32] Mike McAlister: Yeah, I&#8217;m most active on Twitter. Like I said, I think that&#8217;s kind of where our community is still thriving. And so, yeah, I&#8217;m on Twitter largely. My personal account is @mikemcalister. I do a great deal of tweeting about WordPress and design and the intersection of all these different things.</p>



<p>And then, there&#8217;s a dedicated Twitter account for Ollie as well. You can follow that, that&#8217;s @buildwithollie. I&#8217;m also writing on the Ollie WP blog fairly regularly. So this is another place where I&#8217;m able to share my learnings of all of this stuff with block themes and WordPress in general. And, I&#8217;m writing some long form content, some short tips and tricks and, that&#8217;s all the time I have to hang out.</p>



<p>[00:46:17] Nathan Wrigley: You have other important things to by the sounds of it. Mike, really appreciate you chatting to us today. Thank you so much, and every success with Ollie, whatever direction you take with that.</p>



<p>[00:46:28] Mike McAlister: Thank you so much. I love chatting about this stuff and this was a great form for that, so thank you.</p>
</div>



<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://mikemcalister.com/">Mike McAlister</a>, and he’s here today to talk about his experiences creating a block-based theme.</p>



<p>Mike is a veteran product developer and designer in the WordPress space. He&#8217;s founded and sold multiple WordPress products like Array Themes and Atomic Blocks. Now he’s focused on the future of WordPress with his new product brand, Ollie.</p>



<p>Mike kicks off the podcast by telling us about his WordPress journey, and how WordPress blocks have renewed his passion for the platform.</p>



<p>We get into some history, and talk about the era when WordPress themes were extremely popular. Marketplaces like Envato made it possible to sell themes and create a career in ways hitherto unimagined.</p>



<p>Mike explains what the key differences are between a block-based theme and a classic theme. How it’s possible to create themes inside the editor, and how you can do this without needing to know much code. We talk about the fact that, if you’re a coding expert, you could always create complex themes, but this fresh approach opens up the possibilities for those with less technical backgrounds. The experience in the editor might not be exactly what everyone wants, but it’s evolving quickly and maturing with every new release of WordPress.</p>



<p>The conversation moves onto why Mike is so confident that block-based themes are going to succeed. You don’t need to use one, and your trusty classic theme and the associated Customizer will work for the foreseeable future.</p>



<p>We then turn our attention to the technical hurdles that Mike has had to overcome. What new workflows and tools did he need to adopt and master to make his work possible? Mike’s been really focussed on using WordPress Core Blocks to create his themes, digging into the weeds of what they can do and what their limitations are. It’s been a path of steady learning, punctuated with minor setbacks when the editor and blocks are updated in unexpected ways. Thankfully, these bumps in the road are now relics of the past, as breaking changes have given way to stability.</p>



<p>We then talk about a specific theme that Mike has just released. It’s called Ollie, and it’s the focus of the rest of the podcast. How did Mike build Ollie, and what is he hoping to achieve with this new brand?</p>



<p>Patterns feature heavily in Ollie and we talk about how it’s possible to alter the look and feel of your site quickly. Typography and colours are easy to change with the new suite of design tools which ship with WordPress.</p>



<p>If you’re wanting to develop block-based themes, or are just curious about how other developers are building them, this podcast is for you.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Useful links.</h2>



<p><a href="https://themeforest.net/user/arraythemes">Array Themes</a> on Themeforest</p>



<p><a href="https://atomicblocks.com/">Atomic Blocks</a></p>



<p><a href="https://olliewp.com/">OllieWP website</a></p>



<p><a href="https://github.com/OllieWP/ollie">Ollie GitHub repo</a></p>



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/i/lists/1648871212645318658">WordPressers Twitter list</a> mentioned by Mike</p>



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/mikemcalister">Mike&#8217;s Twitter</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 31 May 2023 14:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Nathan Wrigley";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"Do The Woo Community: Let’s Meet or Do a Quick Recording at WCEU 2023 in Athens";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=75259";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"https://dothewoo.io/lets-meet-or-do-a-quick-recording-at-wceu-2023-in-athens/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:412:"<p>If you are going to be there, and I know I'm going to be there, hope we get to see each other. </p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/lets-meet-or-do-a-quick-recording-at-wceu-2023-in-athens/">Let&#8217;s Meet or Do a Quick Recording at WCEU 2023 in Athens</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 31 May 2023 09:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"Do The Woo Community: Builder Tips from WordCamp Europe 2023 Speakers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=75225";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:51:"https://dothewoo.io/wceu-2023-speaker-builder-tips/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:369:"<p>We continue our tradition and highlight some of the voices from WordCamp Europe 2023 speakers.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/wceu-2023-speaker-builder-tips/">Builder Tips from WordCamp Europe 2023 Speakers</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 30 May 2023 07:42:20 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Matt: Power of One";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=85361";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://ma.tt/2023/05/power-of-one/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:671:"<p>I think part of what <a href="https://ma.tt/2003/01/the-blogging-software-dilemma/#comment-445">Mike Little showed with his comment on my blog</a> that led to the creation of WordPress, is that it&#8217;s not about how many views you have, how many likes, trying to max all your stats&#8230; sometimes a single connection to another human is all that matters. </p>



<p><em>All it takes is a spark. </em></p>



<p>That&#8217;s what is beautiful about blogging. It&#8217;s too bad the advertising and social media platforms got us all caught up in status games for the past 15 years.</p>



<p>All you need is one view, one like, one comment, to change your life.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 29 May 2023 17:23:50 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:24:"Donncha: WordPress at 20";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://odd.blog/?p=89589836";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:44:"https://odd.blog/2023/05/27/wordpress-at-20/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1813:"<p>Happy birthday, WordPress!</p>



<p>What does that even mean, though? WordPress is the community of people who have built it and contributed to it over the last <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/celebrating-20-years-of-wordpress/">two decades</a>, and before that, when it was a little known blogging package called b2. So, thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to WordPress over the years.</p>



<p>WordPress has given me, and countless others, many opportunities we couldn&#8217;t have dreamed of. Just over two years <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2003/05/wordpress-now-available/">after WordPress was first released,</a> I joined Automattic. Working on two machines, <a href="https://ma.tt/">Matt</a> and I started work on the first WordPress.com. Here I am, almost 18 years later, and still working on WordPress related software. What a journey. Matt <a href="https://ma.tt/2023/05/wp20-audrey-scholars/">marked the occasion</a> by announcing a generous <a href="https://audrey.co/scholars/">scholarship programme</a>. Matt was also <a href="https://ma.tt/2023/05/with-mike-little-and-dries-buytaert/">on stage in London</a> with Mike Little and Dries Buytaert last week in a conversation I must listen to yet, but I&#8217;ve heard some good things about it WRT Gutenberg.</p>



<p>Anyway, it&#8217;s almost midnight here, but I wanted to get some words down on this blogging platform we all love. May we all be here for the next twenty years.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">

</div>



<p>Oh, and before I go, you can hear me say a few words about meetups at Automattic in the <a href="https://distributed.blog/2023/05/26/episode-30-meetups/">latest episode of the Distributed podcast</a>. It&#8217;s edited well, that&#8217;s all I&#8217;ll say!</p>



<p></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 27 May 2023 22:56:55 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Donncha";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"Matt: WP20 &amp; Audrey Scholars";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=85238";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"https://ma.tt/2023/05/wp20-audrey-scholars/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1140:"<p>Today is the 20<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2003/05/wordpress-now-available/">first release of WordPress</a>. None of us knew what we were getting into when it started, but we had a shared conviction that the <a href="https://ma.tt/2014/01/four-freedoms/">four freedoms of the GPL</a> combined with a mission to democratize publishing was something worth spending our time on. There will <a href="https://wp20.wordpress.net/">be celebrations in cities around the world</a>, please join if there&#8217;s one happening near you.</p>



<p>Twenty years later, I am proud and humbled by what the community around <a href="https://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a> has created, and jazzed about what we will create in the coming decades.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m also excited to mark this milestone by publicly launching the <a href="https://audrey.co/scholars/">Audrey Scholars program</a>. It is, like all things, an experiment, but I&#8217;m curious to see how it unfolds and perhaps one day an Audrey Scholar could even take the responsibility of leading WordPress, when my capacity to do so has passed.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 27 May 2023 22:10:17 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";O:42:"Requests_Utility_CaseInsensitiveDictionary":1:{s:7:"*data";a:8:{s:6:"server";s:5:"nginx";s:4:"date";s:29:"Thu, 22 Jun 2023 03:09:55 GMT";s:12:"content-type";s:8:"text/xml";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Thu, 22 Jun 2023 02:45:30 GMT";s:4:"vary";s:15:"Accept-Encoding";s:15:"x-frame-options";s:10:"SAMEORIGIN";s:16:"content-encoding";s:4:"gzip";s:4:"x-nc";s:9:"HIT ord 2";}}s:5:"build";s:14:"20181226181337";}