WPblab – 100th Episode Mastermind – Lifelong Learning with Our Community

On this episode, Jason Tucker and Bridget Willard get sentimental and invite past guests to jump on and share what they’ve learned recently in WordPress. We’re all life-long learners. Come join in the fun in the chat and see more details in our Facebook Group.

 

100 Episodes since October 2015!!

  • Bridget Willard
  • Jason Tucker

Bridget: “As we learn and grow and teach, our bio’s change and grow!”

Russell Aaron

  • Has been on WPblab off & on since the beginning and was on nearly weekly in the beginning when it was more of a Q&A show
  • His girlfriend was super supportive of his journey in WordPress and let him spend the time he needed coding and ‘leveling up’ his skills. They now have a little boy, which is also a big learning journey for them!
  • Never thought he could work for a company like WebDev Studios but met the right people and answered the right questions and here he is! Over 2 years with them now!
  • If you are ever having errors, you have 3 options – make a backup and try turning things on and off, have a staging site, and reach out to people you are connected to in the community – lean on other people!
  • WordPress is so cool! Put your heart into it and you’re gonna love it!

 

Kevin Hoffman

  • Kevin remembers WPblab when it was still on the Blab platform!
  • Blab was an interesting beast, you never knew who would pop in! Bridget: it was like Chatroulette!
  • Had to keynote WordCamp Pittsburgh on 2 days notice, so he covered his WordPress journey, which basically all started with WPblab.
  • Decided to try and run his own blab – talked for 30 minutes and no one showed up! Realized that he wasn’t putting things on record – not writing blog posts or sharing his work.  People don’t always operate on your time. I have value to offer but it doesn’t mean the person on the receiving end is ready at that moment. He worked on WordPress for 7 years before he wrote his first blog post!

 

James Tryon

  • Easily Amused, Inc and Wapu.us
  • James has been on & off the show for a long time, helping with show notes too!
  • Bridget: For a long time WPblab was a virtual meetup!  It was a great option for people who had meetups far from them.
  • James looks forward to it every week, it makes his Thursday night! Loves the chatting, and hanging out with everyone!  Even though he’s across the country, it feels like everyone is together on Thursday nights!
  • Jason: it’s so strange because he’ll see people online and through Blab all the time and then see them in person and it will be like they’ve just seen each other, even though they are on opposite coasts – all thanks to WPblab
  • James’ word of wisdom – he has been thoroughly enjoying an hour a day of yard work lately! Exercise and fresh air!
  • He really loved WP Watercooler but WPblab feels like home to him. He looks forward to it every Thursday and feels bad when he has to miss it. We all feel like family!
  • Bridget: “It’s so true! If I have a panic attack while I’m at WCEU, will any of my friends be there?” And so many people jumped up to say they would!

 

Roy Sivan

  • Had him on several WPblab shows in the past & interviewed him several times
  • His favorite memory was getting in a deep conversation with Bridget about open source
  • One thing that impresses Bridget most is that Roy and none of the WP Crowd ever talk down to her about WordPress & her level of knowledge/skills
  • “For every good developer, there is a user to give that developer purpose!”
  • You’re a user and without you, I have no reason to build this thing – but you give us purpose and a reason to create!
  • Bridget: you can have a cognitive dissonance if you aren’t using your product. Even if you knew it once a few years ago, if you haven’t used it since, everything has changed!

 

The whole crew

  • Roy’s shoutout – go over to Matt Cromwell’s twitter to check out a video of trolling Ben
  • Roy – he loved how Jason was always doing tech support with Blab!
  • Bridget – you want Jason to be the “guy” – you certainly don’t want it to be me!
  • Bridget – I don’t build websites, hire Roy!
  • Bridget – just wrote her first WordCamp talk on GitHub with Markdown!
  • All – discuss how much (or if any) company logo can appear on WordCamp talk slides and still be acceptable for WordPress.tv
  • Bridget – WordPress has taught me how to go to bars – true story LOL
  • Bridget – WordPress.TV is the best – free learning! Lynda is great, but WP.tv is free
  • Russell – when I got to WordCamp, I want to learn, I don’t want to be bored!  WordPress.tv – if you ever want to see the energy of the community, that’s the place
  • Russell & Bridget both dream about their WordCamp talks

 

Tools of the week:

  • James: Google Drive is amazing for working as a team – we can all take notes on the same documents and share the same files. We use it all the time, along with Slack.
  • Russell – WP-CLI (command line interface) – if you don’t know what the command line tool is and how amazing it is, go learn about it – it’s the best tool!
  • Kevin: Look into BEM – Block Element Modifier (CSS naming convention)
    https://twitter.com/kevinwhoffman/status/987005921510526976
  • Roy: SVG.js – complex animating with SVGs – really great library with lots of cool plugins – wrote a plugin called the Gutenburg Object Plugin. Takes the data and saves it properly in the database as an array instead of in markup format.
  • Bridget: TouchNote – will send postcards of your photos & even canvas prints Also: STEP program with the State Department – connects you to US Embassy and give them your info for when you are traveling overseas
  • Jason: Markdown editor: https://macdown.uranusjr.com/ – simplest and free – MacDown. It’s 2 panes, type text on one side, renders Markdown on the other side

 

Roy Question for Bridget – where you used to believe Open Source was not a good thing, how do you feel now? – When you have intellectual property and you give it away for free – it is your choice. The thing that’s great about WordPress, it’s not about planned obsolescence.  They don’t create something that will break to create new customers. This is the issue that she has with Gutenberg. WordPress believes that everyone has the right to publish and stands upon the idea that they will never break your site. Gutenberg might break that. What is the best solution for your customer/user?

Bridget:

  • The relationships and people are what makes WordPress valuable.
  • WordPress is at a crossroads, do we want to stay with our core beliefs that it’s all about ‘democratizing publishing’ or do we bow to capitalism?
  • I love WordPress, I love the community and I love the WPblab group even more!!

 

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Show notes contributed by:

Cheryl LaPrade – @yaycheryl

Sherie LaPrade – @heysherie

 

In:

Weekly Watercooler Discussions about WordPress and it’s community.

5 responses to “WPblab – 100th Episode Mastermind – Lifelong Learning with Our Community”

  1. Bridget Willard Avatar

    This is going to be rad.

  2. It’s showtime!wpwatercooler.com/video/wpblab-1…
    Hangout you, come chat!

  3. I just finished watching the WPblab – 100th Episode. It was interesting to hear all different people share their story.
    If you haven’t watched the video, go check it now.wpwatercooler.com/video/wpblab-1… via @wpwatercooler

  4. WPblab – 100th Episode Mastermind – Lifelong Learning with Our Community wpwatercooler.com/video/wpblab-1…