Milestones and Timelines: Our Long WordPress Journeys
As WordPress approaches it’s 20th birthday, Michelle and Kathy review our own personal journeys with WordPress, from our very early days of working with blogs and websites to our first introduction to the worldwide WordPress community. Like us, WordPress has come a long way from the early days, and we think that the community and open source contribution means that it will continue to innovate for years to come. We’re lucky and excited to be a part of it.
Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:02 Happy Friday, Kathy.
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Happy Friday, Michelle. How are you?
Speaker 0 00:00:07 I’m good. I tend to sing song things a lot. Like, hello Kathy, whatever. And then I hear it back, played back later, and I’m like, oh, that’s so cringey. So like, I even posted on Twitter last week, like, um, you know, I, I do the sing songy thing. Um, should, you know, should I stop being Weird? Or that’s something that people are like, no, keep the weird. And I’m like, yeah. I’m like super like, cause I called my own attention to it now. I’m like, I, I’m like, happy Friday. Happy. Like, I don’t do that anymore. Like, I sound so terrible. Anyway, so Happy Friday.
Speaker 1 00:00:37 . Happy Friday. Woo-hoo. Yeah, I am. I’ve been really like self-conscious this week too because we have like team meetings and, and Ben, I’ll ask like a question and I’ll have like this big long story and then other people are just like, yeah, this other thing. And I’m like, I am so over the top and I’m oversharing so much, and I get like really self-conscious and then I’m like, tone it down and people don’t need to know the whole story. Like, chill out, save it for Michelle on Friday. ,
Speaker 0 00:01:04 I’m the same way, right? Because especially like today, like I have Jeff in the office, right? So Monday, yeah, Tuesday, Friday Jeff and I work together in the office. But Wednesday, Thursday I’m home alone. I live alone. I have three cats. Unfortunately, they’re not good conversationalists, but I, so I get on these work calls and I realize like, oh, they just wanted to hear like a quick update. And I’m like, and then last night, you know what I had for dinner. No, I’m not, I don’t go quite that far. But I do get a little verbose when I get the opportunity to talk to real people.
Speaker 1 00:01:33 . Yeah. Yeah. I get the, I get it. I’ve got so many stories to tell. That’s why I am doing all this podcasting stuff and hey, we can share our stories.
Speaker 0 00:01:42 Absolutely. So one of the things that I’m working on right now over at Post Status is celebrating 20 years of WordPress. So I’ve got two posts out there. One is a form where you can tell your WordPress story. Um, I’ve told my origin story a million times. I’ve told people, if you, you’ve probably heard it before, had to do with Spaghetti and Friends and WordPress and all of that. Um, and so like if you just Google Michelle Ette WordPress Origin, you’ll probably get the whole story. I’ve put it out on a bunch of different Yeah. And pro in a bunch of ways. But, and I’m sure I’m, I mean, I know that you started with coding and security and things like that too. We’ve talked about those and both of us have talked about those publicly. And I’m sure they both exist on the internet somewhere. But like, our story isn’t just like, we joined WordPress and that was the end, right? Like our story is, there’s so many things. Like for example, if you go back to, I think it’s Word Camp US 2018 in Tennessee.
Speaker 1 00:02:42 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:02:43 There’s pictures on the website of you and me in the same shot. Like we were a table side by side, right? Yeah. So like, there’s more to our story, not only together, but separately. And so I was like, what about some of the other milestones that we’ve both had in WordPress? So tell me me, what are your mile, we’ll go back and forth. You start, tell me a milestone in WordPress for you in your journey. Cuz I wanna hear it. Look,
Speaker 1 00:03:05 Gosh, I used to, when it, when WordPress first came out, I was like tearing things apart left and right. , I like him. I, there’s like one Facebook, you know how Facebook gives you the memories? And there’s one where I wrote Tearing Apart WordPress in my Quest for World Domination. And it was like, . I look at that and I’m like, I remember that. And then WordPress updated and it was like, yeah, that was dumb. . But I mean, I was like,
Speaker 0 00:03:34 You learning, you were learning.
Speaker 1 00:03:36 Oh, totally. Like I, but you know, in the early days it was pretty easy to like te you know, I mean to update a plugin when plug-ins first started, you had to like FTP it up and there was all this, you know, it wasn’t easy like it is now. Right. You know? Yeah. So it was much more complicated, but, you know, everything was much more complicated. So, I mean, I got started really early with, with Word WordPress. Um, I was doing early, early with active server pages and micro mm-hmm. , Microsoft SQL Server and stuff like that. And then when MyQ and P H P really started maturing, I was like, and, and asp.net was coming out and I’m just like, I don’t wanna learn how to do this over again. It was hard enough the first time, I’m gonna go do this same thing over with P php in MyQ L but anything you did had to be on the command line.
Speaker 1 00:04:22 And so, like, WordPress used the same like database class that I was using in my projects. And I was like, oh, well I’m just gonna blog with this now. Cause I was using movable type and stuff. So I just kept using WordPress for like 10 years. And it wasn’t until, wasn’t until I think that, um, automatic bought WooCommerce. And then I was like, okay, we’re getting serious now mm-hmm. . And then I, I just moved all and I’m like, I don’t wanna, I have my shopping card I wrote and stuff like that. And I was like, I’m tired of maintaining my own code. I’m just gonna move everything over to WordPress. And that’s kind of like when I went full in. Yeah. And that had to have been, what, 2014 or 15? When did they buy WooCommerce? Oh, I d’s like 20 14, 20 15 maybe. Anyway, that was kind of like, I made a decision of like, okay, I’m, I’m done coding everything from scratch. Now I’m just gonna be an expert at using other people’s code. Mm-hmm. . And so that, that was kind of a milestone.
Speaker 0 00:05:22 That was your, and I never looked back moment like I started using WordPress and I never looked back kind
Speaker 1 00:05:26 Of thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think it was also about the same time that, um, responsive, like being able to view a website on mobile. And I was like, I am not gonna try to figure this out right now. I had, you know, younger kids and I was helping my husband run his business and I was just like, you know, I’m done trying to figure all of this stuff out and if I’m gonna stay on the code side of things, I’m gonna have to figure stuff out all the time. But then I got bored and I kind of wanted to do more with the code again. And that’s when all the security stuff happened. So just
Speaker 0 00:05:56 Close you back in. Just sexy right in. It does . It does, it still does sometimes, but it’s fun. That’s so funny. It’s, it’s funny. How about you? For sure. Well, I’ve, I, it’s funny. I say only sometimes, like, I’ve only been using WordPress 11 years, but now that’s actually like more than half of the life of WordPress. So yeah, I’ve been, I’m, I’m gonna drop the only, I’ve been using WordPress for 11 years. My first site was in 2012. It was for a nonprofit that my, my best friend and I had built for massage therapists to have continuing education and have, um, a network of support in their job because they’re all, all, well, not all, but so many of them are, you know, business owners, small business owners of, of either just one or two employees, uh, uh, usually just themselves. And they’re not built, their education does not come with a lot of business, um, acumen.
Speaker 0 00:06:46 And so they have to learn and be supported. So we started this nonprofit Yeah. And our husband built a website for us and told us, you guys get, here’s your login. Fill it in, put the stuff there, take it over, it’s all yours, you know, kind of thing. And it was terrifying at first, and then it was infectious. Like, it was like, oh. And then I was like, I could build this if I knew how. And so he taught me how to, how to like buy. I, like, I knew how to buy a domain and I knew how to buy a hosting. I did not know how to get a domain on hosting. And that was where I was just like, I need help. So he taught me how to do that. And, and it was so funny cuz now it’s like, I, I don’t listen to this advice anymore, but back then it was like, don’t do the one button install, learn how to do the download, upload, ftp, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 0 00:07:33 What I’m glad I did. Right. Because that gave me the infrastructure to be able to know how to fix things. And like, oh, my plugins are all broken. I can’t even log into my website. Well, I can go into the files and rename the plugins folder and like I know how to do all those things, but because of that. Right. Yeah. And I, I don’t have to Google how to do those things, but, um, but at the time I was like overwhelmed a little bit, but I, I left his house that night. Um, and the, like, the spaghetti, if you wanna know all about like why I was at, you know, with my friend’s house and that kinda stuff, read the story and made his family spaghetti so he would be able to devote some time to me. But, um, I left there with a piece of paper, I, God, I wish I still had it.
Speaker 0 00:08:09 I’d frame it and put it on the wall. Just had four, like 1, 2, 3, 4 things. And, and I remember number three was change the salt keys. Like, I literally, that’s like, all I remember was change the salt sakis. And like, I think one of the other things was like, never use admin as your admin login. Like Yeah. Little things like that. Right. And the rest of it was just like, sponged it up. And I’m sure that I had to Google things once in a while, but at least I had like, the understanding of how to build a, a create a WordPress website. Um, and I never looked back. . Yeah. Yeah. So, but there are of course, you know, other milestones along the way too. So I went to the first ever, um, work camp us in, uh, in Philadelphia. Right. In 2015. I did, um, I, I had just started going to events.
Speaker 0 00:08:57 I had started my first ever Word camp ever. Was the fall bef, or was, it’s either earlier that year or the fall before. Um, I didn’t even just spend earlier that year. And I was like, wow, this is so cool. There’s people and there’s topics and I get to learn from these names that I’ve heard of and seen before. And so I sat down with Andrea Middleton at the time and I was like, so we have a meetup in Rochester, but we’re paying for it. And she’s like, oh, oh, oh, oh, let’s, let’s fix that for you. Right? Yeah. And so then we, we became a, an official WordPress meetup so we didn’t have to pay outta my pocket anymore to organize a meetup. I said, well, we’ve been thinking about maybe having a Word camp someday. She’s like, why wait, why not do it now? You know? And so that was December. We had our first ever word Camp Rochester in the following October.
Speaker 1 00:09:41 Wow.
Speaker 0 00:09:41 And here’s my little secret. So we held it on my birthday cuz then I got to have a birthday party with 140 word pressers
Speaker 1 00:09:49 . That is so cool. It
Speaker 0 00:09:52 Was a lot, it was a lot of fun. So organizing my first word camp was just a blast. And getting to get speakers and, you know, rub elbows with people and feel like I was really part of the community was pretty exciting. So that was definitely milestone too. Was that word Camp Rochester?
Speaker 1 00:10:08 Yeah. Yeah. I did. I was really, well, I was up in Mount Shasta in the closest Word Press meetup was like Sacramento, or maybe there was one in Redding, I don’t know. But it was like down in Sacramento, the one that Jennifer born and Jennifer and Brian ran that one and mm-hmm. , you know, I didn’t know them at all. I didn’t know anything. And I had to go down to the San Francisco Bay area for something and I’m like, I’m gonna just pop my head in and see what this whole community thing is all about. And Jennifer, so Jennifer was like, really my first introduction to Word process, Uhhuh . And she’s like, oh yeah, I go to Word, word camps all over the place, like multiple times a year, . And I’m like, really? What? I had no idea that this was like even a thing.
Speaker 1 00:10:52 And just started like, just really exploring it. And I’m like, oh, this sounds like fun. And so I just like dove. I, I actually like pitched a talk to Sacramento and I got accepted cuz I was kind OFISH local. Mm-hmm. . And so that was my first word camp that was, and that was just such an amazing experience. The first one I ever went to was, um, in St. Louis at WP Campus. So it was like the niche higher AED one. Mm-hmm. . And that was fun. And I had so much fun and I got to, um, spent a lot of time with Adam Warner from GoDaddy, like Yep. And he, but he was at SiteLock then
Speaker 0 00:11:28 Together. He was a site back then. Yeah. Mm-hmm. .
Speaker 1 00:11:30 And so we were like competitors sort of. But I’m like, oh my gosh, you’re so nice. .
Speaker 0 00:11:35 Yes. It
Speaker 1 00:11:35 Was so much fun. I had so much fun at that one. I’m like, I can see how, and he told me all of my best friends are in WordPress, you’re gonna love this. And he was like, my first, like, this is how it all works and mm-hmm. . So that was kind of, kind of really cool to have Adam and Jennifer be like my first real introductions to the WordPress community as a whole. Yeah. So that miles those milestones that year of like really exploring the WordPress community and then moving to Phoenix and like getting introduced to everybody there. Yeah. And yeah, I was bit by that , I’m just like,
Speaker 0 00:12:08 Exactly right.
Speaker 1 00:12:09 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:12:10 Yeah. I say that was bit by the word press bug, but I think it was Wampoo. Like we were bit by Wampoo . . That’s the bug. Yes. Bug. Yes. Totally. It’s funny cuz like, you know, peop we were laughing, was it last week we were talking about becoming influencers or two weeks ago, I can’t remember now. Yeah. We were talking about being influencers and um, you know, I don’t, I don’t ascribe that word to myself, but I recognize that people see us as, you know, leaders in the community, whatever. Yeah. Um, so with humility, I say this, but there was almost like a little turning point. Like, you don’t recognize as you’re going through your journey that all of a sudden it’s like, people are asking me to do things. People recognize me, people are like, mm-hmm. , oh my God, Michelle Che followed me back on Twitter.
Speaker 0 00:12:56 And I’m like, dude, I’m just a person. You know, like, yeah, whatever. But um, but I remember when like somebody else would’ve followed me back and I’d be like, oh my gosh, posts status followed me. Like, I was just like ecstatic. Well now I run the post status Twitter and I follow people back and I’m like, I wonder if somebody just went, oh my God, post status followed me, you know, kind of thing. So yeah. So I do recognize that even though there are no such things as real celebrities, celebrities, like, we’re not making movies and like people aren’t asking for our autographs of interrupting our dinners and things like that. Right. But there are people who are more renowned in WordPress, um, yeah. Circles, you know, and that people, um, can look up to or ask or, or vilify whatever, . Like I know they’re, like I said, I’m not everybody’s cup of tea and I’m okay with that same making a, I’m, I’m gonna start an Etsy store with stickers, by the way.
Speaker 0 00:13:50 So we’ll talk about that later. I’ve been designing stickers and Sticker Giant has given me a discount code to use. And Sticker Giant followed me on Twitter last week. And I was like, I turned to Jeff and I was like, oh my God, sticker Giant just followed me. Like, I don’t know that other people think that’s a big deal, but to me it was a big deal. So Yeah, no, whatever. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I don’t know where I’m going with this, but anyway, you start a journey and you don’t realize that you are not just walking from point A to point B, but you are in a snowball that starts rolling down a gentle hill and then before you know it, you’re like, holy shit, we’re still greening down this mountain now, picking up speed and hopefully helping people along the way because that’s how I, I think that you and I really operate a lot in the community. Oh,
Speaker 1 00:14:36 Totally. I mean, that’s the whole reason I’m
Speaker 0 00:14:38 Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:14:39 Yeah. I’m, uh, you know, WordPress helped me do a lot of things and tech helped me do a lot of things. And I understand that starting that journey can be, starting any journey can be very, very difficult because you kind of go into things and you have, you, you just follow a passion or follow an intuition, or maybe you’ve seen other people do something really cool and you have no idea what the stepping stones are. You know, some of my greatest moments have been sitting in the start of a word camp, you know, at opening remarks or whatever. I’m sitting next to somebody mm-hmm. , I always go sit by people I don’t know at opening remarks. Yeah. And they’re, oh, how are you using WordPress? Us? And I just start conversations with people I don’t know. And I love sitting next to people. I just start my blog and I don’t know what I’m gonna do.
Speaker 1 00:15:27 And I Yep. I don’t understand any of this stuff. And like, helping them decide like what sessions are going to be most helpful to them and helping them navigate all of this. Because this one woman, she was like, I think I’m gonna go figure out what this bash thing is. And I’m like, oh honey, please don’t , we do not wanna go to Bash today. We wanna go to this thing about Google Site Kit and how to use Google’s tools in order that you can reach your market better. Right. And so it’s just like being able to like, help people make those kinds of decisions. That’s what I’m here to do, you know, I’m here to give back, I’m here to help make all of this make sense mm-hmm. and to do so in any way possible. It’s, um, yeah, I love talking to, I mean, I love all of us old timers and stuff too. Yeah. There’s so many neat friendships that I’ve made over the past few years in WordPress, but the new people who come in make my heart just feel so good because I know I can help them. And I don’t, it’s not like, oh, well here, take all of my knowledge. It’s like, where are you right now and where you think you’re going and helping them figure that out. Mm-hmm. love it.
Speaker 0 00:16:31 I also love doing that at like the lunchtimes at a work camp, right. Like at lunch I will look for an open seat at a table with people I don’t know and be like, is the seat taken? You know? And then just talk to people and find out where they’re in their journey. Sometimes you find out that they are like the developers behind like a huge project product that you use all the time. And you’re like, oh my God, you guys are the people behind X, Y, Z. And sometimes, like you said, it’s somebody who’s like, well, I just signed up for a blog the other day, you know, and then they’re like, you know, should I go to the, um, cli like the WP C L I ? Like, uh, no, you should go. The difference between posts and pages and tags and categories, like,
Speaker 1 00:17:09 Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:17:11 So yeah, let’s start at the, let’s start it with the basics and then add the difficult things .
Speaker 1 00:17:16 Yeah, totally. How do, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:17:18 How do I install a plugin? That’s where you should be right now. ,
Speaker 1 00:17:22 Right? Yeah. I love hearing all those stories though. It’s so, it, it really helps you understand, you know, it, it, in my job, it helps me a lot in terms of like, who am I talking to? You know, there’s, bless you, Jeff .
Speaker 0 00:17:36 Kathy said, bless you, Jeff .
Speaker 1 00:17:40 But it helps you, um, it helps you really understand who you’re talking to so that you’re talking with them, you know, you’re meeting them where they’re at and mm-hmm. , you know, I mean, that’s, that’s, you know, I, I probably can make a ton more money if I like went and developed a plugin or something like that and just like did all the code stuff. But I really love what I do. I love being able to talk to people who are building businesses and WordPress building businesses with Cadence. It’s really super exciting right now. So I just, I don’t know, that’s what I’m here for.
Speaker 0 00:18:11 Yeah, absolutely. And that we get to not only blog for ourselves and blog for our company, but we get to contribute across, you know, you get invited on podcasts, I get invited on podcasts and ask to write, you know, guest posts on other blogs and things like that. And I think it’s, yes, it’s exciting to be able to contribute like that and hopefully help people along the way.
Speaker 1 00:18:32 Right, right. And oh, and to be able to, I mean, having been in the WordPress space for a long time, it’s like, okay, I understand how things work, but also to have those conversations of like, like I’m doing stuff with Do the Woo, and we’re talking about like crypto payments and WooCommerce, and that’s like super cutting edge, like change the world kind of stuff. And I just get, I get to talk about that. I get to take my interest of something, like on a weekend I’ll be sitting and watch documentaries about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and stuff, and I get to talk about that with WordPress. Mm-hmm. , I just, I am, this is, I’m blessed, I’m really blessed to be, so I’m not talking about all my milestones, but I’m talking about all of these, it, my, my journey with WordPress keeps expanding into all of these different areas and mm-hmm. , as long as it keeps being fun like this, it’s like,
Speaker 0 00:19:20 Yeah. And you how to pick a lock from all those years at
Speaker 1 00:19:24 I do pick the word fun
Speaker 0 00:19:25 Too. I do, I still never got a lock picking kit, and I’ve never learned how to pick a lock, but someday I’ll get one. I Do you have a few extra Kathy
Speaker 1 00:19:33 ? I do. They’re out in the garage, which I think is so funny. Every time I lock the garage door, I’m just like, if criminals only knew
Speaker 0 00:19:41 , I’ve given them the tools. Let’s see if they can find it. The funny thing is, is
Speaker 1 00:19:47 Like, I, I’ve known people who have taken those like clear locks and they put ’em on their gym lockers and stuff like that because it’s like nobody knows what
Speaker 0 00:19:55 To do with. That’s
Speaker 1 00:19:56 Just like, why is that lock?
Speaker 0 00:19:57 You know? But it’s funny. Yeah. But like, and Raj just became like the escape room. Like, if they could find the tools, they can get out
Speaker 1 00:20:05 . They could, I gotta go move everything I’ve told, I’ve spoken too much.
Speaker 0 00:20:11 They’re in the basement now, folks. You can’t find them .
Speaker 1 00:20:16 They’ll never find them now.
Speaker 0 00:20:17 Oh my goodness. That’s right. We’ve hidden them 12 spots around the city. No, I’m kidding. Yeah. Yeah. Too funny. Oh my goodness. Have you ever hidden an Easter egg on any websites that you’ve built? I did. Did you?
Speaker 1 00:20:34 I did. I’ve seen some really cool, I know somebody, somebody I met in Phoenix has the cool, they have like JavaScript video games on mm-hmm. as Easter eggs on their website. If you just do do a couple few strokes, it pops up.
Speaker 0 00:20:48 Mine wasn’t anything that you’d find unless you were looking at the code. Right. So, and, and if anybody wants to come after me and tell me that I, what I did was unethical, I’m perfectly okay with that because of what it was. But, uh, years ago I posted on, this is before 2020, so we’re talking like five, six years ago, um, before I was even at gwp. So a lot longer ago than that, black Lives Matter had become a, a political and life type thing, right? I shouldn’t even tell you. It was, it’s, it’s not politics, but it becomes politics, right. When I mm-hmm. Start to get people involved, and I had posted something on Facebook with pictures of my daughter, my daughter’s biracial black woman, and I said, you know, um, it isn’t all lives matter. It’s Black Lives Matter, and if you wanna know why, it’s because of her.
Speaker 0 00:21:32 Right. So I post this on Facebook and people started coming after me like, no, it’s all lives matter, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, don’t come after a mama that way. And one of them was this guy who I had worked on his website, built his website, and he was in my networking group, and I was like, all right, listen here, Mr. I just went into the code and I commented, black Lives Matter in the code of his website. So like, hes, he’s never gonna find it. Nobody’s ever gonna see it. But sitting in the middle of his code of his website commented out, it says, black Lives Matter. And it gave me a little bit of joy. Yeah. And yes, it might not be the most ethical thing in the world, but I also don’t care.
Speaker 1 00:22:14 Too funny. Yeah. I used to post rants and code comments. It was never anything that you’d you source on, but it was more like before it was, you know, yeah. Rendered type of things. So like the PhD p comments, I would post little rants and things like that. So yeah. So, but only the dev, you know, if you’d have to actually like, log in and like open up a PHP file and actually look at it to see it. So it wasn’t output or anything. But yeah, I had some, a few epic rants, keep things spicy and interesting.
Speaker 0 00:22:45 This was just in a child theme that I built. So probably somebody could find it if they really wanted to look for it. I honestly don’t think the site exists anymore. I, I certainly am not working on his site anymore. But, uh, it was one of those little things that, well, you’re gonna put down my kid and you’re gonna put down everything I believe in. Well, I’m just gonna put a little code in comment in your code. So, yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. Moving on. It’s funny, if you wanna check that, you can, if, if you listened this far and you’ve actually heard that, then you have absolutely every right to tweet about me too funny. It’s funny, it’s too funny. But Yeah. Um, what milestone do you look forward to? So like, if you were gonna put like one more big old flag in the WordPress timeline that said Kathy’s aunt was here, what would it be? Um, you know, I, I’d come up with these questions, then you’re like, ah, sugar, I gotta think about this for a second. .
Speaker 1 00:23:41 Yeah. I do have to think about that one. You know, I do wanna speak at an overseas Word camp. I gotta solve some things in my life to make sure that I can do that. But yeah. Word Camp Europe, I’m coming for you. Yeah. One of these days.
Speaker 0 00:23:53 Yeah. Yeah. I definitely hope I get picked to speak at Word Camp Europe. I am picked to speak at Word Camp Asia. My passport has not yet arrived, so it is still very much up in the air whether or not that’s going to happen. And I’m eek very anxious about it, but I’m also just gonna, whatever will be will be and what is meant to be will happen. Um, but it will definitely be here in time for work in Europe. So I’ve applied to speak there and I think that would be a really great place to put my next flag as well.
Speaker 1 00:24:21 Yeah. Uh, so cool. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:24:26 it is so cool. If you’re listening and you have timeline events, we have built a timeline over@poststatus.com. Um, I don’t remember exactly the R url, but hit me up. I, I’ll post it on Twitter as well. And let’s see, I’m looking to see if I can find it really quick. Oh, yes. Post status.com/wordpress, WordPress WordPress dash historical dash timeline. And, um, I won’t be able to put everything in there. Of course. Every little thing. But if you’ve started a business, if you’ve create, you know, created a plugin, um, if you’ve started a word camp, any of those things, I wanna add them in there because I don’t want it to be the WordPress only timeline. I want it to be the WordPress community timeline. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:25:06 Love it.
Speaker 0 00:25:06 So add your stuff. I can’t wait to like see that thing grow and grow and grow. I don’t care if it takes five minutes to alone. I wanna see as many things on there as possible. Um, really cool plugin too. Uh, let me see if I can get in there and give you a shout out to the plugin developer. It is called, um, oh, gimme a minute. Talk about something, Kathy, while I look it up. .
Speaker 1 00:25:29 Um, well, if you are new to the channel on YouTube, follow us. Like, subscribe and like the video. And if you’re listening to us on your podcast or app, like go to whatever you’re listening and give us a review. Let us know you’re listening. Yeah. Or go to the website, wp motivate.com and drop a comment because we’d love to hear from you. We don’t want this to be just a one one co well, two-way conversation. We want it to be 3, 4, 5, like all of our listeners. Five absolutely. Hundred ways we wanna hear from you.
Speaker 0 00:26:04 Absolutely. And, uh, yeah, we, and we, we do, we wanna talk about things in the open with y’all and we wanna hear your feedback. Yeah. And yeah, it’ll be fun. What
Speaker 1 00:26:14 Things, what things you guys want us to talk about. Not just, you know, don’t make us with, with the work of like, all of our ideas. Hmm. What are we gonna talk about this week, Michelle? Like what do you want us to talk about? What do you want our hot takes on? Cuz we’ve got Hot Takes. Oh, I’ve got Hot Takes. More hot takes than Money. ,
Speaker 0 00:26:34 Say as many hot cakes as I do. Hot Takes. I’d never be hungry again. .
Speaker 1 00:26:38 Yeah, . Love it.
Speaker 0 00:26:41 Oh, I’m honing in on this. It’s, you know, it takes a little while for you to load stuff in and try then also remember what it’s called.
Speaker 1 00:26:48 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:26:49 Um, it is a timeline thing. It’s called,
Speaker 1 00:26:56 It’s just a WordPress plugin.
Speaker 0 00:26:57 It’s a WordPress plugin that creates timelines. Let me see if I can just search it here it is called, Nope, that’s not it. Um,
Speaker 0 00:27:10 Oh, nope, that’s not it either. Hold on. Sorry folks. You can laugh at me if you want, but I’m not fighting it. Timeline block, it is called Timeline Block by Cool Plugins. And as a responsive timeline block for the Gutenberg editor, they do have a pro version. I’m using their free version from their repository though. And it’s, it’s got a really nice display you can actually display. This is not apl they’re not paying us to do this. I just think it’s a cool plugin and I like to shout out cool things when I see them. You can include photos and you can include descriptions and you can include hyper texts. So, um, if you go and you see the one, the timeline I’ve created started to create on post status, every one of those things on the timeline links to things. So like, if it says the first word, camp Us, you click that, you’re gonna find the WordPress, the website for the first word, camp us. Um, cool. It could be much bigger. I chose not to include photos and descriptions because I’m hoping this thing is gonna grow and I want it to be, you know, easily searched. Um, yeah. And not be 50 miles long, so , but it’s a nice little plug-in. So whoever the developers are at Cool. Plug-ins. Congrats on this really cool thing cuz it’s really nice.
Speaker 1 00:28:16 Amazing.
Speaker 0 00:28:17 Yeah. Pretty cool stuff. And like I said, I don’t even know who they are. Let’s see about us. Um, but yeah, let’s, so just, um, yeah, of course. I love what it doesn’t say who people are. Oh, let’s see. Two friends, satin Sing and Narinder Sing released a free plugin inside the wordpress.org plugin directory in 2016. So, um, satin Sing and Narinder sing. Thumbs up on the timeline block. Nicely done.
Speaker 1 00:28:41 Amazing.
Speaker 0 00:28:42 Yeah. Very cool. I’ll tag them.
Speaker 1 00:28:45 , I have to go play with it.
Speaker 0 00:28:46 Yeah, it’s a really fun, it’s really cool thing to, and and it’s just really well done, really well written, so
Speaker 1 00:28:53 Excellent.
Speaker 0 00:28:54 All right. I, I can’t think I’ve, I I’ve had a million different things. My, you know, first speaking was Word Camp Buffalo a million years ago. First organizing was Word Camp Buffalo, also a million years ago. Um, you know, driving to my first word camp, us speaking internationally for the first time at Word Camp, um, Toronto. Um, but I’ve also spoken, I love speaking at, um, word Camp Ottawa, Toronto, uh, Niagara Falls in Canada. And then also, um, Montreal is always a wonderful time. Um, wow. First time down at Work Camp Miami was really cool. You know, it’s just, there’s Oh my that’s wonderful. Oh, for sure. Um, the first time I got on a flight for a word, word camp was exciting. I mean, like all of those things over the years and, um, yeah. Install it or uploading my very first plugin, only plugin to the WordPress repo was pretty cool. So like, I have a plugin in the, in the repo called Hello Beautiful. Which needs to be updated. I know that. So look, get it , don’t yell at me. It’s just a like a fork of Hello Dolly. Um, which has also been, but my plugin Hello Beautiful. Was forked into another language. Um, and that was exciting too. So
Speaker 1 00:30:06 Amazing. That’s so cool. You have things like that. Tons of milestones,
Speaker 0 00:30:10 Just fun stuff, right? It’s all fun. Yeah. And it’s all because I just try challenge myself to understand more of our community by doing things in other parts of the community too.
Speaker 1 00:30:20 So amazing.
Speaker 0 00:30:21 Fun, fun,
Speaker 1 00:30:22 Fun. I am so glad you’re a part of the community. You are, you’re a very important part of the community and I am very grateful for all you do.
Speaker 0 00:30:30 Well, I think you are an important part of the community. I love, I think we should also talk about you were part of a, a movie, a short film in the community. Yeah. That’s a milestone too, right? So that
Speaker 1 00:30:42 Was a milestone. Yeah. Yeah. That was, there was a
Speaker 0 00:30:44 Lot of work
Speaker 1 00:30:45 On that. A lot of fun. Yeah. That was, you know, that the best part about that was just like, okay, who I got to pick who, who gets interviewed? Who gets mm-hmm. , who are the important voices that really need to, because when when we started it, we didn’t really know what the story was gonna be really. Yeah. And it wasn’t until we were able to interview Matt Mullenweg that the story, everybody’s story just kind of like supported the one main story of like how Yeah. The, how WordPress would not be what it is without the community. Yeah. You know, I mean if this, if somebody put out, uh, if a company put out a for-profit WordPress, it, none of this would’ve happened, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It’s the fact that everybody has so much ownership with it that gives it so much success. So
Speaker 0 00:31:34 Absolutely. It’s,
Speaker 1 00:31:36 Yeah. Nothing else like it that I’ve seen.
Speaker 0 00:31:39 Agreed. I talk about this as an o more than open source software. It’s open source community and that’s cause we all are able to connect with one another so easily. Often I get asked to make connections for people cuz people assume I know everybody, which is not true. Um, but I do a lot of people and, but the truth is, if you reach out to these people yourself, you’re gonna be able to connect with them too. Because everybody is pretty open about wanting to network well and be connected within the community. So Yeah, definitely. But I definitely, but I always understand though, getting an introduction is always helpful if you know people. So. Sure. Yeah. I know. It’s like, I, I I, our weekly podcast, this WP motivate, um, we aren’t giving you platitudes like, you know, that you’ll read in Monday, motivation hashtag Monday motivation on Twitter, whatever.
Speaker 0 00:32:23 Um, and sometimes we just , sometimes we just ramble. Uh, but it’s always about positivity and, and if you take one thing away from this podcast, it’s that deep friendships can come from WordPress, communicate, you know, community and networking. And then I think if Kathy and I both walked away from WordPress tomorrow, which is not on our agenda, but if we did, we would still have a deep friendship between us. And that is something that wouldn’t have happened without WordPress. Definitely. Because that’s definitely it, definitely best to each other. So yeah, definitely. So have carry that through with you for this week. Have wonder, make wonderful connections, make milestones, talk about your milestones, be excited about where you’ve been, and let us be excited with you for where you’re going. And, uh, we’ll see you guys next week. Bye-bye. Thanks. Bye.
