Episode 13: Mike Demo

WEBVTT
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Welcome to Community & Code,
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the podcast where we talk to the human
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beings behind the commits.
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I am here today with Mike Demo,
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who is a technical account manager at
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Hosting.com.
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Although,
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we actually met up last week in WordCamp
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Canada and, like,
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I want to let you explain what it
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is that you actually do,
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because I don't know that the words that,
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uh,
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are in your title necessarily represent,
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uh, accurately the things that you do.
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Yeah.
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So my title has actually been updated
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since I filled out your form.
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Um, uh, I'm going off of LinkedIn.
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So you need to update that buddy.
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I updated LinkedIn.
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Um,
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At least I thought I did.
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Anyway, whatever.
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So, yeah.
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Partnerships lead.
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Okay.
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You updated your title.
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You didn't update your headline.
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That's the thing.
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Oh, okay.
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Yeah.
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So I did not update my headline.
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I do need to do that.
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Yes.
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So partnerships lead North America.
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Yeah.
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slash technical account manager line is I
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help agencies and their developers be more
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efficient in what they do.
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So that could mean helping them get set
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up on the right type of server or
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helping them optimize their RFP process so
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they can sell more.
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slash basically just connecting people and
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trying to help humans meet other humans in
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a very non-sales way.
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So that's basically what I do.
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My title at InMotion Hosting when I worked
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there was lead handshaker,
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and that's basically still my role today.
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That sounds appropriate.
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What you're not saying is that we see
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each other basically at every WordPress
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event that I go to,
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and I'm sure there are many that I
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don't go to.
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So also,
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I understand that there is a fair amount
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of travel,
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which makes it feel to me as someone
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who is in DevRel,
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that you kind of do a lot of
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like the dev rally stuff,
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maybe not the developer advocacy stuff,
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but definitely like the going places and
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talking to people and trying to figure out
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solutions and best practices for what
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works for the people that you're talking
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to at things like this.
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Is that not accurate?
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No, I would say that's very accurate.
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Definitely not like pushing like a set of
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APIs or anything like that.
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But I'm talking to developers that work at
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agencies,
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specifically larger agencies about their
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pain points.
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What do they like with their existing
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provider?
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What don't they like?
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What do they wish they could do from
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a platform perspective?
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And then, you know, helping them,
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if it makes sense,
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utilizing some of our services, or if not,
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you know, making recommendations for,
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different things that might help fulfill
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their needs.
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And a lot of the time,
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it's just edge case stuff where, hey,
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I have this client who needs this
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certification I've never heard of.
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Do you have this?
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And I'm like, yes, yes, we do.
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Here's the documentation.
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Okay, great.
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So it really just depends.
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But bottom line, just trying to add value
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Wherever it makes sense.
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Sometimes that involves our products.
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Sometimes it doesn't.
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Sometimes that means recommending other
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providers.
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It just depends on what's best for the
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people I'm talking to.
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And at the end of the day,
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that's what people remember is you being
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helpful, not product A or product B. Yeah,
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yeah.
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Well,
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I have the extra bonus benefit of knowing
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you from the very beginnings of your
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WordPress origin story because what folks
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who don't know either of us or both
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of us might not know is that Mike's
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first WordCamp was my WordCamp,
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WordCamp Salt Lake City, that I was...
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either organizing or co organizing.
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I can't remember what I was doing then.
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If it was, I'm looking at your thing,
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if it's was,
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if that's the year I probably was probably
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lead organizing that one.
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I don't remember.
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It was a long, long time ago.
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But yeah, so like, tell the story of,
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of,
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of your how that how that became your
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entry point into WordPress.
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Yeah,
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so I've been in open source a very
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long time.
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I steal a quote from Jessica Dunbar,
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who was the evangelist for Concrete Five
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CMS.
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I'm not married to a CMS.
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I'm in an open source relationship.
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And I started in Joomla.
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Well, technically,
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from a community standpoint,
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I started in Joomla.
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So I was in the Joomla community a
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very long time,
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and I was doing senior dev stuff at
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agencies,
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mostly Joomla sites for banks and credit
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unions and then private equity portfolios
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and things like that.
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And I ran into Todd at a hosting
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conference.
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It was Hosting Con in New Orleans.
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And I was speaking there on behalf of
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Joomla because I was the finance team lead
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at the time,
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which basically means selling sponsorships
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to, you know, companies I want to sponsor,
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which basically means selling to hosting
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companies to sponsor the project,
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just like hosting.
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all the open source projects still do um
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and i ran into todd and i met
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todd before at the jumla world conference
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um he's the co-founder of in motion and
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they were promoting bold grid which was
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their big uh a new push into wordpress
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at the time we started talking they were
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looking for an evangelist he said it's not
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jumla i said that's fine and uh
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I basically was offered a job,
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but he wanted to make sure I wouldn't
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burst into flames if I walked into a
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WordCamp.
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So he sent me to Salt Lake City
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as kind of like an interview.
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And yeah, that was my first WordCamp.
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And the funny part about that is the
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agency I was at was a downtown agency
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in Minneapolis.
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They were a WordPress agency,
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and I just finished a year-long project
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converting them all to Joomla.
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I left to go work at InMotion as
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a WordPress evangelist.
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So that's kind of how I started in
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WordPress,
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and the rest is kind of history.
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I don't know that we've ever talked about
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this, but that just makes me wonder...
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Why Salt Lake City?
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Why was my WordCamp the WordCamp that you
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got sent to?
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Is there any particular reason?
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I don't think so.
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I think InMotion,
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they were a global sponsor,
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or at least a North American global
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sponsor.
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Yeah, I think I remember their logo.
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and i think it was just the closest
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the neck whatever the next one was yeah
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they had people going to um i don't
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think there was any specific reason um it
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was my first time in salt lake city
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so that was cool i got to see
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the tabernacle choir so that was exciting
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um did you get to do anything fun
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in salt lake city though uh
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That first trip,
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not so much because I came in so
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late at night.
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And I was also nervous because it was
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a job interview.
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I didn't really know what to expect.
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So I didn't really do a lot of
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that trip.
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I did the Tabernacle Choir and Temple
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Square and that was better.
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From an architecture standpoint,
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it was super pretty.
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But future trips,
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I've been to Salt Lake many,
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many times since then.
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And I've done lots of other things like
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Park City and all that.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I always, like I said,
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we just came back from WordCamp Canada,
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and I always have this problem with going
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out to events because, like,
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unless you're going to tack on a day
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or two or something, basically, like,
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you're not going to a place,
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you're going to a conference center and a
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hotel, you know, like,
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I didn't see Ottawa.
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I saw the inside of my hotel.
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I saw about one block's worth of downtown.
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I saw a small corner of Carleton
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University.
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And, like, I saw a... What was...
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I guess...
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a pool place.
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Dooley's is, I think, a Canadian thing,
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but I didn't have the context for that.
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And then, like, a bar.
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That's what I saw.
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And a very eclectic vegan fast food
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restaurant.
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And a very eclectic vegan fast food
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restaurant.
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Yes, correct.
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Yeah, so people are like, oh, man,
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you're so lucky.
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I travel way less than I used to,
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but at the height of my travel was
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one hundred and fifty seven days a year.
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and so that had good and bad parts
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of it but i would always say yep
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conference rooms around the world you know
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so what i always try to do although
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i've been doing this less the older i
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get is i try to get the latest
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flight out on the last day and try
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to have like
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a half day to do something in the
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city.
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And I still always try to do something,
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but it doesn't always work out.
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And I also find myself going back to
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the hotel and sleeping when I plan to
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like,
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but I had these grand visions in my
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head to,
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do this or that.
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But I was in London a few weeks
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ago with some coworkers and we went to
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the Jurassic world expedition exhibit.
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So we did that for a couple of
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hours.
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So little things like that,
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but definitely it's not,
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it's not a vacation,
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but the art works with it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, for sure.
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Yeah, I feel that way too.
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Yeah,
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when I went to Atlanta for DrupalCon,
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I would like to be able to say
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that, at least for some of these places,
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I would like to be able to say
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that I've been there and done things.
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And for some WordCamps,
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particularly when I was at Human Made,
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When we went as like sort of a
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big group,
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we would do stuff together as a group
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that often meant like, you know,
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things outside of the conference.
00:10:56.916 --> 00:10:59.197
So I think that in Nashville,
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one of the engineers,
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principal engineer at Human Made now,
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had a contact at like one of the
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record pressing plants.
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And so they gave us a tour of
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the record pressing plant.
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That was pretty cool.
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I think I had a couple extra days.
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So like went to the museums and went
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to the Johnny Cash Museum,
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went to like a Museum of Modern Art
00:11:20.671 --> 00:11:21.071
or something.
00:11:21.091 --> 00:11:22.212
And that was cool.
00:11:23.354 --> 00:11:23.573
St.
00:11:23.614 --> 00:11:26.037
Louis got to go to City Museum.
00:11:26.736 --> 00:11:28.759
That was where the after party was,
00:11:28.798 --> 00:11:30.081
but I didn't go to the after party.
00:11:30.541 --> 00:11:32.783
But I then heard so many good things
00:11:32.823 --> 00:11:34.846
about the after party at City Museum that
00:11:34.886 --> 00:11:36.227
like I had brought my family out there
00:11:36.248 --> 00:11:36.609
with me.
00:11:37.068 --> 00:11:39.451
So like we all went then on a
00:11:39.511 --> 00:11:39.952
separate day.
00:11:40.013 --> 00:11:41.575
And then I think we went again because
00:11:41.595 --> 00:11:42.255
it was so cool.
00:11:44.873 --> 00:11:45.573
In Nashville,
00:11:45.594 --> 00:11:47.096
did you get a chance to go to
00:11:47.535 --> 00:11:49.038
tour Hatch Show Print,
00:11:49.158 --> 00:11:50.799
the print shop in the Country Music Hall
00:11:50.820 --> 00:11:51.100
of Fame?
00:11:51.460 --> 00:11:52.140
I did not.
00:11:52.662 --> 00:11:55.004
So this might be a deep cut,
00:11:55.124 --> 00:11:56.385
but do you remember the giveaway,
00:11:56.885 --> 00:11:58.567
the little poster we had at Bold Grid?
00:11:59.509 --> 00:12:00.770
I don't think that I do.
00:12:01.989 --> 00:12:04.730
um anyway long story short uh they're the
00:12:04.831 --> 00:12:09.475
oldest uh um uh printing company in uh
00:12:09.514 --> 00:12:11.657
tennessee is called hat show print and
00:12:11.677 --> 00:12:14.918
they do wood block carve printing and they
00:12:14.958 --> 00:12:16.600
do it to this day now it's part
00:12:16.640 --> 00:12:19.003
of the country music hall of fame um
00:12:19.722 --> 00:12:22.605
which is a non-profit and uh we hired
00:12:22.644 --> 00:12:25.888
them to do our giveaway posters for uh
00:12:25.927 --> 00:12:28.590
word camp that year and it was funny
00:12:28.610 --> 00:12:30.291
because everyone that wasn't local was
00:12:30.331 --> 00:12:30.552
like
00:12:31.471 --> 00:12:32.331
It's a cool design,
00:12:32.392 --> 00:12:33.072
but I don't get it.
00:12:33.352 --> 00:12:34.613
But then all the locals were like,
00:12:34.692 --> 00:12:35.352
is that Hatch?
00:12:35.413 --> 00:12:36.052
And I'm like, yeah,
00:12:36.413 --> 00:12:38.453
because it's like people that are into it.
00:12:38.474 --> 00:12:40.154
Oh, I remember that now.
00:12:40.195 --> 00:12:42.014
And I totally remember not getting it at
00:12:42.034 --> 00:12:42.455
the time.
00:12:42.975 --> 00:12:43.275
Yeah.
00:12:43.416 --> 00:12:45.375
So anyway,
00:12:45.995 --> 00:12:47.216
they also do a tour and you can
00:12:47.317 --> 00:12:48.956
make your own little poster and you learn
00:12:48.976 --> 00:12:50.238
about how they carve out the wood and
00:12:50.278 --> 00:12:50.518
stuff.
00:12:50.577 --> 00:12:53.759
So that was that's super interesting.
00:12:56.129 --> 00:12:57.929
Yeah, there's good memories everywhere.
00:12:58.009 --> 00:12:59.149
I do have a question for you.
00:12:59.210 --> 00:13:02.191
So I don't like traveling with my family
00:13:02.331 --> 00:13:04.591
at work things because I feel like one
00:13:04.611 --> 00:13:05.513
or two things happens.
00:13:05.852 --> 00:13:09.094
Either I ignore my family or I feel
00:13:09.134 --> 00:13:10.214
like I'm ignoring my job.
00:13:10.754 --> 00:13:12.115
So what are your thoughts on that?
00:13:14.854 --> 00:13:15.453
Yes.
00:13:16.634 --> 00:13:19.375
My thoughts are yes.
00:13:19.674 --> 00:13:20.336
It's rough.
00:13:21.035 --> 00:13:24.777
And that's a conversation that we have
00:13:24.917 --> 00:13:26.177
ongoing with my partner.
00:13:27.018 --> 00:13:27.258
Like...
00:13:28.490 --> 00:13:29.072
There's a bunch,
00:13:29.412 --> 00:13:32.553
there's various different layers, right?
00:13:32.573 --> 00:13:35.875
One of the levels is like the places
00:13:35.936 --> 00:13:38.999
that events are aren't always or
00:13:39.058 --> 00:13:41.379
necessarily places that we,
00:13:41.779 --> 00:13:42.961
either her and I,
00:13:43.301 --> 00:13:44.883
or we as a family would want to
00:13:44.942 --> 00:13:45.082
go.
00:13:46.484 --> 00:13:47.725
So, there's that thing.
00:13:47.804 --> 00:13:48.426
So, like,
00:13:48.686 --> 00:13:50.086
if it's not a place that's interesting,
00:13:50.388 --> 00:13:51.749
I mean, we had a lot of flexibility,
00:13:51.769 --> 00:13:55.011
you know, more years ago when,
00:13:55.331 --> 00:13:56.693
because we were homeschooling our kids.
00:13:56.714 --> 00:13:56.793
So,
00:13:56.813 --> 00:13:58.075
we could pretty much pick up and go
00:13:58.095 --> 00:13:58.455
wherever.
00:13:59.375 --> 00:14:01.837
Now, my daughter's in high school.
00:14:02.318 --> 00:14:03.419
My son's not in school, but, like,
00:14:03.539 --> 00:14:04.280
my daughter's in high school.
00:14:04.301 --> 00:14:05.621
And so, like, we have to,
00:14:05.642 --> 00:14:07.644
that would also be a conflicting factor.
00:14:10.227 --> 00:14:11.149
First of all, it's the place,
00:14:11.229 --> 00:14:12.309
and is the place interesting?
00:14:13.030 --> 00:14:15.153
And then secondly, yes,
00:14:15.173 --> 00:14:16.174
there's always the problem.
00:14:16.394 --> 00:14:17.416
Obviously now,
00:14:17.755 --> 00:14:19.798
and particularly since I've put on the
00:14:19.818 --> 00:14:20.940
developer advocate hat,
00:14:22.701 --> 00:14:26.145
where going to the event is much more
00:14:26.326 --> 00:14:29.048
a distinct responsibility of my job.
00:14:31.038 --> 00:14:35.841
then I feel more compelled to be present
00:14:35.941 --> 00:14:37.062
at all of the other things,
00:14:37.101 --> 00:14:39.062
like the after parties and the hangouts
00:14:39.102 --> 00:14:42.304
and whatever, because I'm on the clock.
00:14:42.544 --> 00:14:43.605
I'm here.
00:14:43.706 --> 00:14:44.806
I might just be hanging out,
00:14:45.086 --> 00:14:47.048
but I'm wearing my swag.
00:14:47.148 --> 00:14:48.749
I've got my Pantheon stuff on.
00:14:49.188 --> 00:14:50.970
i'm having conversations i'm looking for
00:14:51.029 --> 00:14:53.051
people probably to have a particular
00:14:53.091 --> 00:14:55.292
conversation with even if it's just to
00:14:55.331 --> 00:14:57.172
like make a connection but just you know
00:14:57.732 --> 00:14:59.874
to to be able to bring back to
00:15:00.033 --> 00:15:02.174
to work or you know just to have
00:15:02.335 --> 00:15:04.696
that sort of like good pantheon vibe uh
00:15:04.775 --> 00:15:08.537
at the event um and that's something that
00:15:08.856 --> 00:15:11.077
um when i did go to things with
00:15:11.359 --> 00:15:13.599
um with my family i was doing much
00:15:13.700 --> 00:15:16.100
less of because we'd want to do stuff
00:15:16.301 --> 00:15:16.561
you know
00:15:17.221 --> 00:15:19.022
like it's you know the conference is what
00:15:19.081 --> 00:15:21.104
five six seven hours or something and so
00:15:21.144 --> 00:15:22.304
like the rest of the time it's like
00:15:22.345 --> 00:15:24.525
okay we should do something together um
00:15:25.527 --> 00:15:27.788
there's like then you can do the sort
00:15:27.808 --> 00:15:29.289
of thing where like you you kind of
00:15:29.450 --> 00:15:31.630
offset it like you know we'll there's a
00:15:31.650 --> 00:15:33.893
couple days of the conference but then you
00:15:33.913 --> 00:15:36.615
know the weekend after or a couple days
00:15:36.634 --> 00:15:38.797
before whatever you can do stuff um and
00:15:38.836 --> 00:15:40.597
i've done that too but this is that's
00:15:40.878 --> 00:15:43.519
that's sort of a like a it's an
00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:45.480
ongoing conversation um
00:15:46.522 --> 00:15:46.741
And, like,
00:15:46.761 --> 00:15:48.403
there are places that I'd like to go.
00:15:48.464 --> 00:15:49.783
Like, I would have loved to, like,
00:15:49.844 --> 00:15:51.846
have hung out in Ottawa for a couple
00:15:51.885 --> 00:15:52.505
days and, like,
00:15:52.966 --> 00:15:54.748
done stuff with my partner.
00:15:55.368 --> 00:15:56.869
Because I wouldn't want to do it alone.
00:15:57.730 --> 00:15:59.110
But also, like, in the future, like,
00:15:59.750 --> 00:16:00.711
will I go back to Ottawa?
00:16:00.772 --> 00:16:01.032
I don't know.
00:16:01.072 --> 00:16:01.413
Maybe.
00:16:01.732 --> 00:16:02.072
Maybe.
00:16:02.153 --> 00:16:03.553
But it's probably not high on the bucket
00:16:03.594 --> 00:16:03.854
list.
00:16:03.913 --> 00:16:04.894
Like, there's other places.
00:16:05.836 --> 00:16:08.116
So then it's, like, you know, yeah,
00:16:08.136 --> 00:16:08.738
then it's just, like,
00:16:08.977 --> 00:16:11.480
going to a traveling on an airplane to
00:16:11.500 --> 00:16:12.139
go to a hotel.
00:16:12.620 --> 00:16:12.880
Yeah.
00:16:13.708 --> 00:16:17.613
But yeah, Nashville and St.
00:16:17.653 --> 00:16:19.975
Louis brought the fam.
00:16:21.256 --> 00:16:22.937
I have gone to,
00:16:23.339 --> 00:16:26.642
I don't think I brought anyone to Portland
00:16:26.701 --> 00:16:27.943
for a WordCamp,
00:16:29.006 --> 00:16:30.687
but we've been to Portland.
00:16:31.388 --> 00:16:31.548
Um,
00:16:31.567 --> 00:16:34.229
we all went to San Diego for WordCamp
00:16:34.389 --> 00:16:36.809
US when it was in San Diego, um,
00:16:37.110 --> 00:16:39.691
because that was a cheaper for us.
00:16:40.030 --> 00:16:42.052
Um, and also like San Diego is awesome.
00:16:42.432 --> 00:16:43.792
And that's sort of the other thing too,
00:16:43.851 --> 00:16:46.513
is like how much stuff is there where,
00:16:47.293 --> 00:16:47.432
yes,
00:16:47.452 --> 00:16:50.193
I'm going to be gone doing work things.
00:16:50.695 --> 00:16:53.436
So how many things are there available for
00:16:53.475 --> 00:16:55.755
everyone else to go and have a good
00:16:55.796 --> 00:16:57.037
time?
00:16:57.116 --> 00:16:57.437
Yeah.
00:16:57.880 --> 00:16:59.302
WordCamp US San Diego.
00:16:59.462 --> 00:17:00.445
I loved that year.
00:17:00.625 --> 00:17:00.924
It gets,
00:17:01.065 --> 00:17:03.629
it gets knocked down a lot because it
00:17:03.649 --> 00:17:04.190
was small.
00:17:04.429 --> 00:17:06.653
It was all like tickets sold out within
00:17:07.114 --> 00:17:08.215
seconds or whatever it was.
00:17:09.076 --> 00:17:10.498
Yeah.
00:17:10.538 --> 00:17:12.500
It was hundreds of people, not thousands,
00:17:12.541 --> 00:17:14.504
you know, it was, but,
00:17:15.058 --> 00:17:17.480
The venue was at that really cool
00:17:18.822 --> 00:17:20.442
mid-century modern hotel,
00:17:22.045 --> 00:17:25.607
which definitely had its flaws as far as
00:17:25.688 --> 00:17:26.788
modern hotel amenities.
00:17:26.868 --> 00:17:28.670
But being somebody who likes tiki culture,
00:17:29.931 --> 00:17:31.932
that is the same hotel that they hold
00:17:31.972 --> 00:17:33.854
the annual Tiki Oasis convention in.
00:17:33.894 --> 00:17:34.875
So I was in love with it.
00:17:34.974 --> 00:17:36.155
I was super happy with it.
00:17:36.175 --> 00:17:37.257
I did not know that was a thing.
00:17:38.101 --> 00:17:38.901
Um, yeah.
00:17:38.921 --> 00:17:40.342
Uh, so I, uh,
00:17:41.082 --> 00:17:44.163
which is why I stayed there and didn't
00:17:44.222 --> 00:17:45.323
try to stay at a Marriott.
00:17:45.343 --> 00:17:47.643
Like I always try to do simply because
00:17:47.903 --> 00:17:51.003
I wanted to be at that hotel and
00:17:51.624 --> 00:17:51.943
I don't know,
00:17:51.963 --> 00:17:53.325
it was one of my best word camps.
00:17:53.404 --> 00:17:55.224
I feel from a, from a work perspective,
00:17:55.724 --> 00:17:57.465
the people that came were super,
00:17:57.846 --> 00:18:00.365
were like there to have conversations.
00:18:00.425 --> 00:18:02.467
It was a lot less, uh,
00:18:02.487 --> 00:18:04.646
people that might've founded or decided to
00:18:04.707 --> 00:18:06.528
come like, you know, uh,
00:18:07.048 --> 00:18:07.949
The side effect of it,
00:18:08.028 --> 00:18:09.028
I feel like there was a lot less
00:18:09.169 --> 00:18:09.630
users,
00:18:09.730 --> 00:18:13.051
but there was a lot more BD conversations
00:18:13.071 --> 00:18:13.971
happening that year.
00:18:14.471 --> 00:18:15.573
And I think it was just a side
00:18:15.613 --> 00:18:17.713
effect of the people that knew to watch
00:18:17.773 --> 00:18:20.316
the drop with the people that are doing
00:18:20.675 --> 00:18:21.195
all the time.
00:18:21.576 --> 00:18:23.478
So but I liked that.
00:18:23.518 --> 00:18:23.637
Yeah,
00:18:23.698 --> 00:18:24.818
I thought it was a really good year
00:18:25.479 --> 00:18:26.900
and the venue was really nice.
00:18:26.980 --> 00:18:27.279
Yeah.
00:18:27.780 --> 00:18:28.342
Yeah, no,
00:18:28.541 --> 00:18:31.086
I have good memories of that event,
00:18:31.125 --> 00:18:33.970
but part of that is just because it
00:18:33.990 --> 00:18:34.951
was in San Diego,
00:18:35.111 --> 00:18:37.314
and San Diego is awesome.
00:18:37.494 --> 00:18:39.277
I find excuses to go to San Diego,
00:18:39.557 --> 00:18:41.339
like, on any day.
00:18:42.780 --> 00:18:43.101
Yeah.
00:18:43.181 --> 00:18:45.041
And I, I mean, honestly, like, um,
00:18:45.701 --> 00:18:49.262
WordCamp Long Beach, uh, I spoke at, um,
00:18:49.323 --> 00:18:51.344
this would have been twenty, um,
00:18:51.784 --> 00:18:53.625
seventeen, maybe, I think,
00:18:53.704 --> 00:18:54.505
maybe twenty-nineteen.
00:18:55.224 --> 00:18:56.605
Um, somewhere in there, in the,
00:18:56.746 --> 00:18:57.865
in the pre-COVID days.
00:18:58.346 --> 00:18:59.186
But, like, really,
00:18:59.247 --> 00:19:02.188
the only reason why I was even, like,
00:19:02.407 --> 00:19:03.347
the only reason why it was on my
00:19:03.387 --> 00:19:06.028
radar is because it was in Long Beach
00:19:06.209 --> 00:19:07.789
and, like, it could, we could, like,
00:19:07.910 --> 00:19:09.450
justify, like,
00:19:09.630 --> 00:19:11.590
just going to California and going to the
00:19:11.611 --> 00:19:11.790
beach.
00:19:12.423 --> 00:19:14.944
So that WordCamp and that year was the
00:19:14.964 --> 00:19:15.986
camp I turned vegan.
00:19:16.626 --> 00:19:19.990
I literally decided to be vegan.
00:19:20.490 --> 00:19:21.090
Cold turkey.
00:19:21.951 --> 00:19:23.093
Cold turkey.
00:19:23.833 --> 00:19:26.935
Well, cold tofu.
00:19:26.955 --> 00:19:27.777
That's even worse.
00:19:28.076 --> 00:19:30.038
But you went full stop.
00:19:30.058 --> 00:19:31.840
You just like, I'm vegan today.
00:19:32.896 --> 00:19:35.858
I did because I have a lot of
00:19:35.898 --> 00:19:36.359
allergies.
00:19:36.599 --> 00:19:37.621
Huge long allergy list.
00:19:38.520 --> 00:19:41.323
So I was basically only eating dairy and
00:19:42.865 --> 00:19:45.646
eggs and poultry because I was allergic to
00:19:45.707 --> 00:19:46.267
everything else.
00:19:47.788 --> 00:19:48.828
But I was still getting sick all the
00:19:48.848 --> 00:19:49.108
time.
00:19:49.328 --> 00:19:53.251
So I googled morning sickness and I ended
00:19:53.291 --> 00:19:54.333
up on PETA's website.
00:19:54.752 --> 00:19:55.093
Of course,
00:19:55.113 --> 00:19:56.515
they're talking a different thing.
00:19:56.595 --> 00:19:58.596
They were talking about when you're
00:19:58.635 --> 00:19:59.056
pregnant.
00:19:59.576 --> 00:19:59.797
But
00:20:00.391 --> 00:20:01.976
I was like, well, I'm in California,
00:20:02.217 --> 00:20:06.269
good as places any to try and.
00:20:06.672 --> 00:20:06.972
And yeah.
00:20:07.685 --> 00:20:09.047
Um, I was friends with, uh,
00:20:10.067 --> 00:20:11.567
I don't know, uh, Tommy Tallarico.
00:20:11.587 --> 00:20:13.429
Uh, he, uh,
00:20:13.750 --> 00:20:15.351
is the person who created video games
00:20:15.391 --> 00:20:17.491
live, the orchestra touring thing.
00:20:18.511 --> 00:20:19.133
He was vegan.
00:20:19.173 --> 00:20:21.013
And so he gave me some tips and
00:20:21.713 --> 00:20:23.414
yeah, the rest is a history.
00:20:23.654 --> 00:20:26.356
I've since done other testing with my
00:20:26.396 --> 00:20:29.878
doctor and I also have allergies to dairy
00:20:29.939 --> 00:20:32.259
and other, you know, as well.
00:20:32.319 --> 00:20:33.240
So basically, uh,
00:20:34.300 --> 00:20:35.662
most everything animal related.
00:20:35.721 --> 00:20:36.001
I'm alert.
00:20:36.082 --> 00:20:37.103
I'm actually allergic to,
00:20:37.163 --> 00:20:39.624
and I have tests to prove that, um,
00:20:39.943 --> 00:20:40.884
they're different things.
00:20:40.904 --> 00:20:42.385
Like I have the tick bite allergy for
00:20:42.405 --> 00:20:43.465
the red meat and then, okay.
00:20:43.506 --> 00:20:43.806
Yeah.
00:20:44.046 --> 00:20:45.227
Yeah.
00:20:45.487 --> 00:20:46.448
Um, but yeah,
00:20:46.508 --> 00:20:47.768
so I stopped getting sick all the time.
00:20:47.868 --> 00:20:48.568
So, but yeah,
00:20:48.608 --> 00:20:49.710
but that was the word camp where I
00:20:49.750 --> 00:20:52.310
tried to go vegan and, uh, uh,
00:20:54.372 --> 00:20:57.035
it it stuck so yeah that's uh i
00:20:57.075 --> 00:20:59.297
mean speaking of travel and going to
00:20:59.336 --> 00:21:03.182
events like that's that's often how how i
00:21:03.261 --> 00:21:06.105
rank uh the places that the events are
00:21:06.244 --> 00:21:08.126
is how easy it is to find vegan
00:21:08.146 --> 00:21:10.829
food um and i feel like you probably
00:21:10.869 --> 00:21:13.953
travel a lot more than me um what
00:21:14.394 --> 00:21:14.634
what
00:21:15.454 --> 00:21:17.135
I guess an interesting thing to think
00:21:17.155 --> 00:21:20.157
about are what places have you been where
00:21:20.479 --> 00:21:24.422
there was a surprising lack of
00:21:24.561 --> 00:21:26.663
availability of vegan food?
00:21:27.123 --> 00:21:29.965
Maybe surprising is not the correct word,
00:21:29.986 --> 00:21:30.685
but it might be.
00:21:31.246 --> 00:21:36.230
And what places were surprising in the
00:21:36.289 --> 00:21:38.932
availability of vegan food for you?
00:21:40.694 --> 00:21:43.576
Yeah, so first off,
00:21:43.737 --> 00:21:45.057
shout out to the Happy Cow app.
00:21:45.417 --> 00:21:46.718
If anyone for sure.
00:21:46.758 --> 00:21:46.978
Yep.
00:21:47.479 --> 00:21:49.299
If anyone needs to find vegan or vegan
00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:50.339
friendly options,
00:21:50.420 --> 00:21:51.881
like not even full vegan restaurants,
00:21:51.901 --> 00:21:53.402
like let's say you have, you know,
00:21:53.481 --> 00:21:54.942
a friend or something visiting wherever
00:21:54.961 --> 00:21:55.323
you are.
00:21:56.682 --> 00:21:58.744
it's amazing it saves so much time but
00:21:58.825 --> 00:22:02.307
anyway uh so as far as a place
00:22:02.347 --> 00:22:04.009
i was really surprised that had a lot
00:22:04.048 --> 00:22:08.071
of options i would say uh um when
00:22:08.132 --> 00:22:10.054
i was in bangalore india so i was
00:22:10.413 --> 00:22:11.855
surprised all the vegan options there
00:22:11.875 --> 00:22:14.717
which again shouldn't be surprising um
00:22:14.817 --> 00:22:16.459
thinking about it now but like
00:22:17.019 --> 00:22:19.122
at the time i wasn't thinking about that
00:22:19.221 --> 00:22:21.505
same with like island and like israel and
00:22:21.565 --> 00:22:25.028
things so like um like tel aviv had
00:22:25.088 --> 00:22:26.891
tons of options and i didn't even think
00:22:26.911 --> 00:22:29.413
about that but then looking back i'm like
00:22:29.453 --> 00:22:29.673
well
00:22:31.007 --> 00:22:33.148
it kind of makes sense because a lot
00:22:33.169 --> 00:22:34.088
of these places,
00:22:35.130 --> 00:22:37.092
vegan checks a lot of the boxes, right?
00:22:37.112 --> 00:22:38.732
So it can be halal,
00:22:38.813 --> 00:22:39.513
it can be kosher.
00:22:40.193 --> 00:22:40.594
Now, granted,
00:22:41.414 --> 00:22:42.836
there's certifications and different
00:22:42.875 --> 00:22:45.077
levels of that depending on what you
00:22:45.117 --> 00:22:45.518
follow,
00:22:45.617 --> 00:22:50.821
but it was way easier in Asia and
00:22:52.583 --> 00:22:55.224
the Middle East type area than I ever
00:22:55.244 --> 00:22:55.885
thought it would be.
00:22:56.145 --> 00:22:58.428
Where it's really hard is...
00:23:00.915 --> 00:23:05.078
like Eastern Europe is really hard as well
00:23:05.199 --> 00:23:09.423
as like coastal Europe like Barcelona and
00:23:09.462 --> 00:23:13.546
things because a lot of many things are
00:23:13.605 --> 00:23:16.208
marked vegetarian or vegan that have fish
00:23:16.248 --> 00:23:18.150
in them and things like that so
00:23:20.474 --> 00:23:23.196
and that i was really surprised about so
00:23:23.217 --> 00:23:24.557
i was at a conference once it was
00:23:24.577 --> 00:23:27.200
a jumla conference and i was in barcelona
00:23:28.119 --> 00:23:29.861
and there was nothing in the hotel where
00:23:29.881 --> 00:23:31.342
the conference was that i could eat not
00:23:31.362 --> 00:23:33.983
a single item um besides just like a
00:23:34.023 --> 00:23:37.306
roll so literally what i did is every
00:23:37.326 --> 00:23:37.527
day
00:23:38.406 --> 00:23:41.088
I ordered Domino's pizza because they had
00:23:41.108 --> 00:23:41.568
vegan cheese.
00:23:41.588 --> 00:23:42.609
By the way,
00:23:42.869 --> 00:23:45.432
how do these American companies in every
00:23:45.471 --> 00:23:47.192
other country have vegan options on the
00:23:47.333 --> 00:23:47.953
regular menu,
00:23:47.993 --> 00:23:49.134
but we don't get that in the States?
00:23:49.394 --> 00:23:50.234
I don't understand that.
00:23:50.434 --> 00:23:52.076
Yeah, right.
00:23:52.277 --> 00:23:53.877
So I would literally just order a Domino's
00:23:53.897 --> 00:23:58.181
pizza every single day of this week-long
00:23:58.221 --> 00:23:58.701
conference.
00:23:58.901 --> 00:24:01.163
People made fun of me because I was
00:24:01.182 --> 00:24:02.023
doing that, but there was...
00:24:02.963 --> 00:24:05.226
literally nothing else around and where
00:24:05.246 --> 00:24:07.468
the hotel was there was nothing walkable
00:24:07.528 --> 00:24:12.031
so I find that's why I try to
00:24:12.051 --> 00:24:13.532
stick with Marriott's a lot people make
00:24:13.573 --> 00:24:15.494
fun of me they're like you only want
00:24:15.555 --> 00:24:17.256
American chains when you travel to Europe
00:24:17.276 --> 00:24:19.877
in Asia and I'm like yeah two reasons
00:24:19.998 --> 00:24:20.679
one points and
00:24:21.727 --> 00:24:23.768
And two, I,
00:24:23.827 --> 00:24:25.587
I know there's going to be options at
00:24:25.607 --> 00:24:28.548
a full service Marriott or Sheridan or
00:24:28.568 --> 00:24:30.230
West.
00:24:30.329 --> 00:24:30.490
Right.
00:24:30.589 --> 00:24:32.210
I understand it's not the most exciting
00:24:32.570 --> 00:24:34.111
menu at the restaurants, but at least,
00:24:34.250 --> 00:24:35.310
you know, there's something.
00:24:35.330 --> 00:24:36.832
So what about you?
00:24:36.852 --> 00:24:38.972
What have you been surprised on?
00:24:39.292 --> 00:24:39.432
Like,
00:24:41.114 --> 00:24:43.076
I think when I think the first I
00:24:43.096 --> 00:24:46.219
think sort of the origin story of this
00:24:46.278 --> 00:24:51.304
question or thinking about this was when I
00:24:51.384 --> 00:24:53.727
went to WordCamp Denver,
00:24:54.587 --> 00:24:56.589
because I didn't necessarily expect that
00:24:56.670 --> 00:24:58.412
Denver would be a really good place for
00:24:58.451 --> 00:24:59.071
vegan food.
00:24:59.952 --> 00:25:01.835
But it had lots of stuff.
00:25:01.875 --> 00:25:02.576
And again, it's like,
00:25:03.345 --> 00:25:06.188
It's not super surprising, surprising,
00:25:07.929 --> 00:25:11.132
but, you know, because it's a hip, cool,
00:25:12.692 --> 00:25:14.555
free weed sort of place.
00:25:14.634 --> 00:25:15.355
Like, you know,
00:25:15.375 --> 00:25:18.538
there's a lot of hippies and the hippie
00:25:18.577 --> 00:25:20.240
and vegan overlap is pretty,
00:25:20.420 --> 00:25:22.201
the Venn diagram is pretty strong.
00:25:23.583 --> 00:25:23.883
Also,
00:25:23.923 --> 00:25:26.085
like I went to Sri Lanka and that
00:25:26.125 --> 00:25:27.445
wasn't hard at all.
00:25:29.048 --> 00:25:30.028
I did a retreat there.
00:25:30.429 --> 00:25:32.849
Hardest was definitely,
00:25:33.490 --> 00:25:37.554
and surprisingly hardest, Italy was hard.
00:25:38.194 --> 00:25:39.955
I did a human-made retreat there.
00:25:39.976 --> 00:25:41.396
I think my first human-made retreat.
00:25:42.038 --> 00:25:43.959
And it was the same sort of like
00:25:44.019 --> 00:25:46.060
European thing where like they don't
00:25:46.280 --> 00:25:49.542
really get the criteria and trying to
00:25:49.603 --> 00:25:51.285
explain it and like all the things.
00:25:51.325 --> 00:25:53.185
And also there's often a language
00:25:53.226 --> 00:25:54.886
difference and like things it's like,
00:25:56.023 --> 00:25:57.484
It was, it was rough.
00:25:57.924 --> 00:26:01.366
Um, Japan wasn't super easy.
00:26:01.406 --> 00:26:01.666
Like I,
00:26:01.787 --> 00:26:03.888
we went to Japan as a family last
00:26:03.929 --> 00:26:04.249
year.
00:26:04.568 --> 00:26:06.769
Um, we, we had like an Airbnb,
00:26:06.809 --> 00:26:07.830
so we ended up like cooking a lot
00:26:07.851 --> 00:26:09.571
of stuff, but like going out was like,
00:26:09.612 --> 00:26:10.813
we had to be very careful,
00:26:11.252 --> 00:26:12.453
like happy cow again.
00:26:12.473 --> 00:26:14.355
Uh, but also there's like, there's like,
00:26:14.775 --> 00:26:16.296
I think there was some, uh,
00:26:16.336 --> 00:26:18.517
Google maps thing that somebody made of
00:26:18.576 --> 00:26:20.278
like all the vegan places and like all
00:26:20.317 --> 00:26:21.919
of the, all of Japan.
00:26:21.959 --> 00:26:23.440
And that was very helpful that other
00:26:23.460 --> 00:26:24.421
people had done that homework.
00:26:26.126 --> 00:26:28.230
Hong Kong was similarly hard for me when
00:26:28.269 --> 00:26:29.050
I was in Hong Kong.
00:26:30.692 --> 00:26:31.493
Although, thankfully,
00:26:31.574 --> 00:26:33.915
I was staying at the Disneyland Resort.
00:26:35.137 --> 00:26:36.199
So it was,
00:26:36.700 --> 00:26:38.142
Disney's always been very good in all
00:26:38.182 --> 00:26:39.923
their parks, so there's options there.
00:26:40.984 --> 00:26:42.205
But I think it was funny, like,
00:26:42.326 --> 00:26:43.988
I was in Adventureland and, you know,
00:26:44.048 --> 00:26:45.490
they had a squid on a stick.
00:26:46.290 --> 00:26:47.830
And not because it was an adventure land,
00:26:47.871 --> 00:26:49.571
just because that was, you know,
00:26:49.592 --> 00:26:50.652
you're in Hong Kong.
00:26:50.692 --> 00:26:51.612
So that was interesting.
00:26:51.632 --> 00:26:53.553
So that wasn't too hard,
00:26:53.653 --> 00:26:55.432
but only at the sit down restaurants.
00:26:55.532 --> 00:26:57.713
It was almost impossible to do the counter
00:26:57.753 --> 00:26:58.814
service or fast food.
00:26:59.653 --> 00:26:59.993
Right.
00:27:01.095 --> 00:27:01.295
Right.
00:27:01.355 --> 00:27:03.134
And that's I feel like to like that
00:27:03.154 --> 00:27:04.915
was it was a little bit for me
00:27:04.955 --> 00:27:05.336
anyway.
00:27:05.355 --> 00:27:06.576
It was a little bit of a bummer
00:27:07.135 --> 00:27:09.237
because you hear and you read so much
00:27:09.257 --> 00:27:10.096
stuff about like
00:27:10.836 --> 00:27:13.698
um, street food, um, in,
00:27:13.857 --> 00:27:16.397
in these places and like going down
00:27:16.518 --> 00:27:18.598
through an area where there is street food
00:27:18.618 --> 00:27:20.578
everywhere and being like, can't eat that,
00:27:20.638 --> 00:27:21.740
can't eat that, can't eat that,
00:27:21.759 --> 00:27:22.319
can't eat that.
00:27:22.359 --> 00:27:23.680
Like when you finally land on something
00:27:23.700 --> 00:27:24.619
where you can eat, it's like,
00:27:24.660 --> 00:27:27.540
Oh my God.
00:27:28.080 --> 00:27:28.421
Yeah.
00:27:29.021 --> 00:27:30.501
And it's good to have people that like
00:27:30.521 --> 00:27:31.241
are local too.
00:27:31.301 --> 00:27:32.041
Like I had a,
00:27:32.442 --> 00:27:33.623
when I was at Codable and I was
00:27:33.702 --> 00:27:37.644
in, um, Thailand, he's like, Oh, just,
00:27:37.844 --> 00:27:38.463
he's like, just,
00:27:39.690 --> 00:27:40.853
When you get to any restaurant,
00:27:40.873 --> 00:27:42.056
say you want to prepare J,
00:27:42.236 --> 00:27:44.521
which is a type of preparation for.
00:27:47.704 --> 00:27:50.988
one of the common religions there.
00:27:52.548 --> 00:27:53.730
I don't remember exactly which one.
00:27:53.769 --> 00:27:55.912
But he's like, it's super common.
00:27:56.472 --> 00:27:58.314
If you say that, you'll be fine.
00:27:58.374 --> 00:27:59.875
Because he's like,
00:27:59.955 --> 00:28:01.656
that excludes all of these things,
00:28:02.017 --> 00:28:03.999
which basically makes it vegan for you.
00:28:04.759 --> 00:28:06.221
And I was at a lot of places
00:28:06.260 --> 00:28:08.343
that I had nothing on the menu.
00:28:08.363 --> 00:28:09.523
Then I'd be like, Jay.
00:28:09.544 --> 00:28:10.545
And they'd be like, oh, OK.
00:28:10.644 --> 00:28:11.665
And then they were bringing me a different
00:28:11.705 --> 00:28:11.905
menu.
00:28:12.226 --> 00:28:12.967
And it was interesting.
00:28:13.167 --> 00:28:13.548
Interesting.
00:28:13.568 --> 00:28:14.569
Yeah.
00:28:14.651 --> 00:28:16.594
Uh, even if I didn't speak the language,
00:28:16.614 --> 00:28:16.733
he,
00:28:16.894 --> 00:28:18.597
he told me how to pronounce the thing
00:28:18.617 --> 00:28:18.999
to say.
00:28:19.038 --> 00:28:19.499
And it was like,
00:28:19.720 --> 00:28:22.244
it was like a secret password to vegan
00:28:22.265 --> 00:28:22.846
in Thailand.
00:28:23.567 --> 00:28:24.970
Um, but, uh,
00:28:25.951 --> 00:28:28.593
Which funny story on that is we took
00:28:28.613 --> 00:28:30.473
a lot of our developers who are local
00:28:31.013 --> 00:28:33.674
to Trader Vic's Tiki restaurant.
00:28:34.515 --> 00:28:36.996
And a lot of the devs weren't,
00:28:37.296 --> 00:28:38.236
they don't drink alcohol.
00:28:38.415 --> 00:28:40.037
So I was like, I told my boss,
00:28:40.217 --> 00:28:41.376
oh yeah, it'll be fine.
00:28:41.696 --> 00:28:43.238
You know, it won't be that bad.
00:28:44.405 --> 00:28:47.068
Little did I know that they had the
00:28:47.108 --> 00:28:49.751
entire menu with a zero proof version.
00:28:50.271 --> 00:28:53.496
So it was the most expensive tiki night
00:28:53.536 --> 00:28:57.660
I've ever seen because nobody had alcohol
00:28:57.700 --> 00:28:59.261
charged tiki prices.
00:28:59.301 --> 00:29:00.903
So that was that was fun.
00:29:01.463 --> 00:29:02.365
But everyone had a good time,
00:29:02.384 --> 00:29:03.205
which is what's important.
00:29:04.859 --> 00:29:06.500
So a question I ask a lot of
00:29:06.519 --> 00:29:09.040
the guests that come on this show is
00:29:10.060 --> 00:29:14.082
what brought you, what got you into,
00:29:14.201 --> 00:29:15.922
interested in tech,
00:29:16.481 --> 00:29:17.682
whatever that tech may be.
00:29:18.623 --> 00:29:20.182
And I think for you, I'm interested in,
00:29:20.403 --> 00:29:21.482
well, we can talk about it later,
00:29:21.502 --> 00:29:24.324
but I'm also interested in like how you
00:29:24.364 --> 00:29:27.065
got to Joomla to begin with and what
00:29:27.525 --> 00:29:28.305
sorts of things
00:29:30.405 --> 00:29:32.846
like the sort of differences between
00:29:32.906 --> 00:29:34.846
WordPress and Joomla that you've seen,
00:29:34.866 --> 00:29:36.386
but, but we'll start, start with like,
00:29:36.527 --> 00:29:38.028
what, what, how did you,
00:29:38.167 --> 00:29:39.647
what is your sort of origin story for
00:29:39.667 --> 00:29:41.489
getting into technology broadly?
00:29:42.868 --> 00:29:43.368
Yeah.
00:29:43.429 --> 00:29:46.670
So my dad used to work for data
00:29:46.730 --> 00:29:49.009
general, which then got bought by GE.
00:29:49.931 --> 00:29:54.172
And we had the first Apple to compute
00:29:54.211 --> 00:29:56.352
home computer in the state of Minnesota.
00:29:56.692 --> 00:29:58.133
Oh.
00:29:58.212 --> 00:29:59.512
In the early, early in like,
00:30:00.506 --> 00:30:01.746
eighties or nineties or whatever it was.
00:30:02.047 --> 00:30:02.207
Um,
00:30:02.727 --> 00:30:04.647
so I've always been really big in the
00:30:04.728 --> 00:30:05.587
tech and he,
00:30:05.887 --> 00:30:07.107
my dad was like the president of the
00:30:07.147 --> 00:30:08.429
local rocketry club.
00:30:08.548 --> 00:30:11.750
And, um, he was an engineer on the,
00:30:12.289 --> 00:30:14.730
for NASA before working for data general
00:30:14.790 --> 00:30:16.932
for the Viking satellite project.
00:30:17.031 --> 00:30:20.252
And, um, so I, I get it.
00:30:20.333 --> 00:30:21.834
I've always been introduced to it a lot
00:30:21.874 --> 00:30:22.913
from my dad.
00:30:22.993 --> 00:30:24.615
So, uh,
00:30:26.569 --> 00:30:28.451
I was always trying to make websites and
00:30:28.491 --> 00:30:29.172
things like that.
00:30:30.212 --> 00:30:31.233
So like in middle school,
00:30:31.934 --> 00:30:35.999
I wrote my papers in HTML.
00:30:36.118 --> 00:30:37.881
And then when I was a freshman in
00:30:38.641 --> 00:30:39.301
high school,
00:30:40.303 --> 00:30:42.525
I took HTML one and I finished the
00:30:42.565 --> 00:30:46.628
entire course in three days.
00:30:46.729 --> 00:30:48.410
It was my first ever elective in high
00:30:48.450 --> 00:30:48.690
school.
00:30:48.871 --> 00:30:51.252
And then my teacher sent me to a
00:30:51.313 --> 00:30:52.193
college course
00:30:53.730 --> 00:30:56.030
got the school to pay for it.
00:30:57.411 --> 00:31:02.332
And then he had me help him write
00:31:03.011 --> 00:31:07.593
HTML two, the next HTML two or one,
00:31:07.893 --> 00:31:09.213
which they never even had yet.
00:31:10.294 --> 00:31:11.634
So I basically was a TA the rest
00:31:11.653 --> 00:31:12.034
of the course,
00:31:12.054 --> 00:31:13.575
because I literally completed the entire
00:31:13.615 --> 00:31:14.194
class in
00:31:15.372 --> 00:31:16.732
three days.
00:31:18.295 --> 00:31:19.255
And so I've had a lot of great
00:31:19.275 --> 00:31:19.756
teachers.
00:31:20.737 --> 00:31:23.038
And then I got into DECA,
00:31:24.299 --> 00:31:26.461
which is a business club group,
00:31:28.042 --> 00:31:29.684
which I have a funny story about that,
00:31:30.885 --> 00:31:31.826
which I'll tell you in a second.
00:31:31.946 --> 00:31:34.989
But they had website development and
00:31:35.009 --> 00:31:36.471
something called the seven up challenge.
00:31:36.510 --> 00:31:38.972
And so I would enter that and I
00:31:39.012 --> 00:31:42.596
won my senior year of college.
00:31:42.675 --> 00:31:43.396
high school,
00:31:43.977 --> 00:31:45.878
I won at the International Career
00:31:45.898 --> 00:31:47.039
Development Conference,
00:31:47.579 --> 00:31:49.340
first place for the seven up challenge
00:31:49.402 --> 00:31:52.003
banner ad design and website campaign
00:31:52.044 --> 00:31:52.483
design.
00:31:53.085 --> 00:31:54.605
I built that in flash.
00:31:56.287 --> 00:31:57.907
Super, super fancy.
00:31:58.509 --> 00:32:01.892
And the deca still exists in college,
00:32:02.251 --> 00:32:03.432
it was called collegiate deca.
00:32:05.114 --> 00:32:07.936
I ended up winning first place for website
00:32:08.416 --> 00:32:09.317
development there.
00:32:10.359 --> 00:32:18.482
I built that in PHP Nuke, I think.
00:32:18.522 --> 00:32:22.105
Funny story, Jesse from Automatic,
00:32:23.986 --> 00:32:25.846
he was also competing that same year,
00:32:26.326 --> 00:32:28.988
and I beat him.
00:32:29.008 --> 00:32:29.708
Just saying.
00:32:29.807 --> 00:32:30.028
I mean,
00:32:30.488 --> 00:32:32.368
you can argue that he ended up way
00:32:32.388 --> 00:32:33.509
more successful than I did,
00:32:33.588 --> 00:32:34.849
but I beat him.
00:32:35.826 --> 00:32:37.508
at uh that year so and we didn't
00:32:37.548 --> 00:32:39.068
figure this out till like two years ago
00:32:39.088 --> 00:32:40.509
when he's like i've only been at
00:32:40.530 --> 00:32:42.011
disneyland once it was have you heard of
00:32:42.031 --> 00:32:44.273
something called deca i'm like two
00:32:44.314 --> 00:32:45.414
thousand five career developed
00:32:45.494 --> 00:32:46.415
international career development
00:32:46.455 --> 00:32:49.157
conference collegiate he's like yeah like
00:32:49.699 --> 00:32:51.619
and then he's like i've never anyway long
00:32:51.660 --> 00:32:56.384
story short so uh and then from there
00:32:56.644 --> 00:32:58.926
uh i i was an intern
00:33:00.034 --> 00:33:01.714
I went to college for website development,
00:33:01.734 --> 00:33:02.675
but I knew a lot of the stuff
00:33:02.715 --> 00:33:04.596
already and just super into it.
00:33:06.157 --> 00:33:10.820
How I found Joomla was SiteGround was my
00:33:10.881 --> 00:33:11.882
first host.
00:33:11.942 --> 00:33:16.523
So if you don't count like AngelFire and
00:33:16.564 --> 00:33:18.925
some of those other like shared services,
00:33:19.266 --> 00:33:19.405
right?
00:33:19.987 --> 00:33:22.428
So I was like a customer of SiteGround
00:33:22.528 --> 00:33:24.670
back when they only had one product,
00:33:24.990 --> 00:33:26.451
you know, it was just hosting.
00:33:28.252 --> 00:33:31.557
And they had cPanel with Fantastico for
00:33:31.576 --> 00:33:33.400
the auto installer because it didn't
00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:33.819
exist.
00:33:34.641 --> 00:33:36.784
And I was just installing CMS is playing
00:33:36.804 --> 00:33:37.305
around with it.
00:33:37.365 --> 00:33:38.767
And then I found on Mambo and fell
00:33:38.787 --> 00:33:39.166
in love.
00:33:39.627 --> 00:33:42.852
And then I noticed Mambo wasn't getting a
00:33:42.892 --> 00:33:43.172
lot of
00:33:45.441 --> 00:33:49.383
development after a while uh and then i
00:33:49.763 --> 00:33:51.003
started clicking around again and found
00:33:51.044 --> 00:33:52.444
joomla i'm like this is a lot like
00:33:52.484 --> 00:33:54.086
mambo i didn't know it was a fork
00:33:54.105 --> 00:33:56.367
at the time um because i wasn't in
00:33:56.387 --> 00:33:58.249
the community and then i just kept
00:33:59.650 --> 00:34:03.553
building websites for small businesses and
00:34:03.593 --> 00:34:07.836
then started freelancing and just kept
00:34:07.875 --> 00:34:08.376
doing that.
00:34:08.416 --> 00:34:10.218
And I self-taught myself all the Joomla
00:34:11.538 --> 00:34:16.782
and then PHP and stuff and then started
00:34:17.002 --> 00:34:18.263
using it in my job.
00:34:19.845 --> 00:34:21.287
And then that's how I ended up in
00:34:21.307 --> 00:34:22.086
the agency life.
00:34:22.146 --> 00:34:22.426
And then
00:34:23.752 --> 00:34:24.733
The more I got into Joomla,
00:34:24.773 --> 00:34:26.114
the more I went to the conferences and
00:34:26.155 --> 00:34:28.958
met people who helped me volunteer.
00:34:29.257 --> 00:34:31.159
Because I still think the biggest,
00:34:31.500 --> 00:34:33.240
hardest part of all these projects is
00:34:34.001 --> 00:34:34.603
contributing.
00:34:35.302 --> 00:34:36.704
We all say it's easy to contribute.
00:34:36.784 --> 00:34:37.744
Like, oh, you need to contribute.
00:34:37.764 --> 00:34:38.445
You need to contribute.
00:34:38.525 --> 00:34:39.367
Go to Contributor Day.
00:34:39.887 --> 00:34:40.547
It's really,
00:34:40.568 --> 00:34:42.869
really hard for somebody brand new to our
00:34:42.909 --> 00:34:45.692
community to contribute.
00:34:46.152 --> 00:34:47.614
Like, for me, for Joomla,
00:34:48.253 --> 00:34:50.056
I sent email and email and email,
00:34:50.175 --> 00:34:50.856
filled out forms,
00:34:50.916 --> 00:34:52.036
and no one would get back to me.
00:34:52.878 --> 00:34:54.438
It wasn't until I went to a Joomla
00:34:54.458 --> 00:34:56.559
conference and said the team leader and
00:34:56.579 --> 00:34:56.739
said,
00:34:56.818 --> 00:34:58.840
I want to join your team that anything
00:34:58.880 --> 00:34:59.280
happened.
00:34:59.920 --> 00:35:01.081
And it's not a knock.
00:35:01.141 --> 00:35:02.721
It's just everyone's volunteering.
00:35:02.780 --> 00:35:06.523
So it's just the onboarding process of any
00:35:06.583 --> 00:35:06.862
of this.
00:35:06.922 --> 00:35:07.822
Even at WordCamps,
00:35:07.902 --> 00:35:09.824
it's not easy for someone just to show
00:35:09.923 --> 00:35:12.385
up and contribute because it's still
00:35:12.425 --> 00:35:12.764
clicky.
00:35:13.244 --> 00:35:15.766
yeah like uh you have to really push
00:35:15.806 --> 00:35:18.047
hard and i feel like that's a huge
00:35:18.088 --> 00:35:20.670
opportunity that nobody's cracked the nut
00:35:20.730 --> 00:35:22.030
on yet i feel like there needs to
00:35:22.050 --> 00:35:25.432
be an onboarding path for people that want
00:35:25.452 --> 00:35:28.333
to volunteer uh like oh what are you
00:35:28.373 --> 00:35:29.675
interested in what do you want to do
00:35:29.835 --> 00:35:31.775
oh let me introduce you to so and
00:35:31.795 --> 00:35:35.018
so and whatever um you know just throwing
00:35:35.059 --> 00:35:36.719
a big doc and saying here's how to
00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:38.481
prep for contributor day pick your team
00:35:38.820 --> 00:35:42.222
good luck it's it's intimidating uh
00:35:43.635 --> 00:35:45.056
Anyway, so that's how I got into tech.
00:35:45.076 --> 00:35:46.077
That's a very long answer.
00:35:48.117 --> 00:35:49.378
On the contributing topic,
00:35:51.460 --> 00:35:53.362
so I went to DrupalCon for the first
00:35:53.402 --> 00:35:54.322
time this last year.
00:35:55.143 --> 00:35:56.443
I stayed for Contributor Day.
00:35:57.083 --> 00:35:58.885
Contributor Day at DrupalCon is the last
00:35:58.925 --> 00:35:59.266
day.
00:35:59.746 --> 00:36:01.407
At WordCamps, it's often the first day,
00:36:01.467 --> 00:36:03.027
although it's kind of been either way.
00:36:05.489 --> 00:36:05.769
And...
00:36:07.684 --> 00:36:09.865
DrupalCon sort of starts off,
00:36:10.706 --> 00:36:11.686
Contributor Day starts off,
00:36:11.726 --> 00:36:14.688
like you kind of figure out where, what,
00:36:14.809 --> 00:36:15.570
if you're a developer,
00:36:15.590 --> 00:36:16.550
you go with the developers,
00:36:16.590 --> 00:36:17.331
if you're marketing,
00:36:17.411 --> 00:36:19.192
you go with like marketers, and if you're,
00:36:19.291 --> 00:36:19.972
you know, other things,
00:36:20.032 --> 00:36:21.193
I don't know where you go.
00:36:21.893 --> 00:36:23.074
But they kind of divide people up a
00:36:23.114 --> 00:36:23.514
little bit.
00:36:24.355 --> 00:36:27.157
And then at least for the developer track,
00:36:28.376 --> 00:36:30.679
you, for first time contributors,
00:36:30.858 --> 00:36:32.800
you are paired with a mentor.
00:36:33.746 --> 00:36:38.248
Um, so every new contributor has somebody,
00:36:38.849 --> 00:36:40.829
one person who has at least gone through
00:36:40.869 --> 00:36:42.190
it and probably has gone through it a
00:36:42.250 --> 00:36:43.670
couple of times, um,
00:36:44.090 --> 00:36:46.532
sitting with you and like, this is,
00:36:46.952 --> 00:36:48.632
we're going to look for an easy ticket
00:36:48.672 --> 00:36:49.994
for you to work on.
00:36:50.414 --> 00:36:52.074
We're going to like read up on what's
00:36:52.135 --> 00:36:52.554
needed.
00:36:52.574 --> 00:36:53.996
We're going to find the line of code
00:36:54.016 --> 00:36:54.556
or whatever.
00:36:55.155 --> 00:36:55.295
Uh,
00:36:55.635 --> 00:36:57.938
and then you make your first merge request
00:36:58.237 --> 00:36:58.978
and, um,
00:36:59.197 --> 00:36:59.438
Um,
00:36:59.458 --> 00:37:00.539
walks you through the whole sort of
00:37:00.579 --> 00:37:02.478
process and the mentor is also,
00:37:02.539 --> 00:37:02.878
there's like a,
00:37:03.119 --> 00:37:04.539
there's like mentor leads and all the
00:37:04.579 --> 00:37:05.239
tables or whatever.
00:37:05.260 --> 00:37:06.199
So like, you know,
00:37:06.260 --> 00:37:08.221
like when they have questions, they go,
00:37:08.460 --> 00:37:08.981
so like there's a,
00:37:09.021 --> 00:37:09.922
there's a whole process.
00:37:09.961 --> 00:37:12.202
And I think that like that level of
00:37:12.362 --> 00:37:15.103
one-on-one, uh, interaction, like,
00:37:15.282 --> 00:37:17.483
like mentorship is really, uh,
00:37:17.503 --> 00:37:18.304
really valuable.
00:37:18.644 --> 00:37:18.764
Um,
00:37:18.824 --> 00:37:21.025
it's also something that gets tracked on
00:37:21.065 --> 00:37:21.846
drupal.org.
00:37:21.885 --> 00:37:24.706
So like you, like my drupal.org, uh,
00:37:24.766 --> 00:37:27.748
profile now says who my mentor was at
00:37:27.807 --> 00:37:28.708
DrupalCon Atlanta.
00:37:29.201 --> 00:37:32.601
And his Drupal.org profile will show that
00:37:32.661 --> 00:37:35.443
he was a mentor and maybe the event,
00:37:35.523 --> 00:37:35.864
I don't know.
00:37:36.764 --> 00:37:37.844
And then, yeah, like you,
00:37:37.943 --> 00:37:38.744
you do your thing.
00:37:38.764 --> 00:37:40.625
And then like a lot of the stuff
00:37:40.824 --> 00:37:42.045
that I feel like
00:37:43.532 --> 00:37:46.313
in WordPress is, is standardized now,
00:37:46.393 --> 00:37:48.773
but like maybe at one point in time
00:37:48.813 --> 00:37:49.114
was,
00:37:49.233 --> 00:37:51.896
was more like ad hoc or like at
00:37:51.916 --> 00:37:54.916
the, uh, like for props and things, uh,
00:37:54.936 --> 00:37:56.336
like all that stuff is, uh,
00:37:56.538 --> 00:37:59.079
is sort of like built into like how
00:37:59.119 --> 00:38:01.300
they've integrated with like GitLab and
00:38:01.340 --> 00:38:01.980
things like that.
00:38:02.019 --> 00:38:02.380
Like it's,
00:38:02.871 --> 00:38:05.333
It's, it's, it's actually a pretty good,
00:38:05.373 --> 00:38:08.293
like it's far, it feels far less like,
00:38:08.313 --> 00:38:09.273
I don't know,
00:38:09.313 --> 00:38:11.434
chaotic and you're kind of left to your
00:38:11.454 --> 00:38:12.873
own devices then, uh,
00:38:13.193 --> 00:38:15.315
then contributor days that I've been to at
00:38:15.335 --> 00:38:15.835
WordCamps.
00:38:17.034 --> 00:38:17.474
Yeah.
00:38:17.574 --> 00:38:19.655
So I think that's great.
00:38:19.715 --> 00:38:20.275
Cause I agree.
00:38:20.315 --> 00:38:21.396
Like when I was at the Doomload World
00:38:21.436 --> 00:38:24.197
Conference and I met, um, uh,
00:38:25.027 --> 00:38:27.208
Tessa Mero, who was in charge,
00:38:27.329 --> 00:38:28.849
her and her partner at the time,
00:38:29.849 --> 00:38:31.110
were in charge of the Gmail extension
00:38:31.130 --> 00:38:32.590
directory because I thought that's what I
00:38:32.610 --> 00:38:34.351
wanted to do because I liked, you know,
00:38:35.592 --> 00:38:36.333
learn very quickly.
00:38:36.353 --> 00:38:37.373
That was not the place for me.
00:38:38.313 --> 00:38:39.634
I was much better at the asking for
00:38:39.673 --> 00:38:40.855
money part.
00:38:42.014 --> 00:38:44.556
looking at code quality and standards and
00:38:44.615 --> 00:38:46.277
for plugin submissions, sorry,
00:38:46.336 --> 00:38:47.476
extension submissions.
00:38:48.818 --> 00:38:50.157
But she sat down and showed me the
00:38:50.177 --> 00:38:53.139
whole process and it was way less
00:38:53.820 --> 00:38:54.559
intimidating.
00:38:56.121 --> 00:38:57.842
That mentor idea is great.
00:38:57.862 --> 00:39:00.081
I know that they started kind of like
00:39:00.101 --> 00:39:01.963
a WordCamp mentorship thing at WordCamp
00:39:02.182 --> 00:39:03.384
U.S., WordCamp U.S.
00:39:04.563 --> 00:39:06.284
um so there's definitely a lot of good
00:39:06.364 --> 00:39:09.166
ideas that's going around at like joomla
00:39:09.186 --> 00:39:10.985
does this thing called pizza bugs and fun
00:39:11.907 --> 00:39:14.547
uh and that is like basically bug
00:39:14.568 --> 00:39:18.469
squashing and uh you can do it remotely
00:39:18.509 --> 00:39:19.969
or in person and then you get some
00:39:19.989 --> 00:39:21.929
cash to you know buy pizza or whatever
00:39:22.369 --> 00:39:24.550
that's very easy to join because somebody
00:39:24.570 --> 00:39:27.331
who's new can just do the testing part
00:39:27.391 --> 00:39:29.092
or you know whatever uh
00:39:29.713 --> 00:39:31.875
It's very set process wise.
00:39:32.094 --> 00:39:34.016
I feel like there needs to be good
00:39:34.155 --> 00:39:35.958
on ramps for people who are interested
00:39:36.018 --> 00:39:39.820
because I feel like it's still the onus
00:39:39.860 --> 00:39:42.182
is still on the volunteer to really push.
00:39:42.822 --> 00:39:45.485
And I feel like that's too bad because
00:39:45.644 --> 00:39:46.786
I feel like a lot of people would
00:39:46.806 --> 00:39:48.708
give a couple hours a week if there
00:39:48.748 --> 00:39:50.208
was just an easier on ramp.
00:39:51.177 --> 00:39:52.737
for lack of a better analogy,
00:39:52.978 --> 00:39:54.018
I feel like when you show up to
00:39:54.039 --> 00:39:54.820
a contributor day,
00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:56.521
it should feel like you're walking into a
00:39:56.621 --> 00:39:58.702
church for the first time where everyone
00:39:58.742 --> 00:40:02.164
is overly happy to see you do whatever
00:40:02.204 --> 00:40:03.346
they can to make sure you have a
00:40:03.405 --> 00:40:04.447
great experience.
00:40:04.686 --> 00:40:08.730
Uh, uh, I don't, you know, I'm not,
00:40:09.050 --> 00:40:09.971
not to knock anything,
00:40:10.030 --> 00:40:10.710
but you know what I mean?
00:40:10.771 --> 00:40:13.233
Like there's like that, that,
00:40:13.273 --> 00:40:15.114
that culturally, you know,
00:40:15.394 --> 00:40:17.436
over welcoming culture.
00:40:17.896 --> 00:40:18.356
Yeah.
00:40:18.637 --> 00:40:19.438
And, uh,
00:40:20.838 --> 00:40:22.420
I think we can all kind of learn
00:40:22.460 --> 00:40:23.981
from each other and make best practices.
00:40:24.021 --> 00:40:25.521
But that Drupal process you're talking
00:40:25.541 --> 00:40:26.483
about sounds awesome.
00:40:26.563 --> 00:40:29.846
And at the end of the day,
00:40:30.425 --> 00:40:31.065
I think a lot more,
00:40:31.367 --> 00:40:32.947
there's a lot of ways people can
00:40:32.987 --> 00:40:33.487
contribute.
00:40:33.547 --> 00:40:34.469
It's not just code.
00:40:37.090 --> 00:40:39.652
And that's what I always try to tell
00:40:39.693 --> 00:40:42.514
people is you can contribute to projects
00:40:42.554 --> 00:40:43.255
in lots of ways.
00:40:43.315 --> 00:40:44.735
It's not just sitting there and working on
00:40:44.775 --> 00:40:47.157
code or documentation.
00:40:47.237 --> 00:40:48.798
There's lots of ways you can use your
00:40:48.838 --> 00:40:49.260
skills in.
00:40:50.019 --> 00:40:50.860
whatever that may be.
00:40:51.320 --> 00:40:52.101
Yeah, for sure.
00:40:53.663 --> 00:40:54.143
So yeah,
00:40:54.163 --> 00:40:56.784
getting back to the last part of the
00:40:56.824 --> 00:40:58.445
very long question that was actually three
00:40:58.485 --> 00:40:58.967
questions.
00:41:00.427 --> 00:41:02.708
Having come from Joomla,
00:41:03.869 --> 00:41:08.032
I'm interested in what parts of Joomla you
00:41:08.552 --> 00:41:09.594
really appreciated
00:41:11.014 --> 00:41:12.635
Well, Joomla, Mambo, whatever.
00:41:13.896 --> 00:41:17.519
And what sort of you see as kind
00:41:17.559 --> 00:41:20.702
of fundamental differences in either the
00:41:20.742 --> 00:41:24.324
approach or things that are just different
00:41:24.364 --> 00:41:27.447
between Joomla and WordPress.
00:41:28.168 --> 00:41:29.548
I was on a panel recently.
00:41:30.009 --> 00:41:30.708
at Badcamp,
00:41:31.469 --> 00:41:33.030
where we had somebody who had experience
00:41:33.050 --> 00:41:35.851
with Joomla and me as the WordPress guy.
00:41:36.271 --> 00:41:39.652
And then there's a DrupalCon or camp.
00:41:39.672 --> 00:41:41.271
So obviously everyone else is
00:41:41.411 --> 00:41:42.512
understanding things from a Drupal
00:41:42.552 --> 00:41:42.992
context.
00:41:43.012 --> 00:41:44.132
And so it was interesting having the
00:41:44.193 --> 00:41:45.233
conversation about like,
00:41:45.632 --> 00:41:48.773
how do each CMS kind of approach things
00:41:48.813 --> 00:41:49.233
differently?
00:41:49.253 --> 00:41:51.614
And I'm interested in sort of like your
00:41:51.655 --> 00:41:53.675
take from particularly from being so
00:41:53.755 --> 00:41:54.976
embedded in Joomla.
00:41:56.518 --> 00:41:56.878
Yeah,
00:41:56.938 --> 00:41:58.179
so I used to be on the board
00:41:58.778 --> 00:42:00.840
of Joomla, well, technically,
00:42:00.860 --> 00:42:01.800
of Open Source Matters,
00:42:01.840 --> 00:42:03.360
which is the legal entity.
00:42:03.420 --> 00:42:04.019
But anyway,
00:42:04.099 --> 00:42:06.221
we don't need to get into governance.
00:42:07.820 --> 00:42:09.681
I think from a code perspective,
00:42:09.760 --> 00:42:12.101
what Joomla has that's really interesting
00:42:12.282 --> 00:42:21.724
is they are not afraid to be beyond
00:42:21.784 --> 00:42:22.063
modern.
00:42:23.936 --> 00:42:25.797
be on modern code bases and modern
00:42:25.836 --> 00:42:26.398
frameworks.
00:42:28.018 --> 00:42:29.920
That's also could be, you could argue,
00:42:29.980 --> 00:42:32.940
be the detriment to the project because,
00:42:33.442 --> 00:42:33.702
you know,
00:42:33.782 --> 00:42:36.262
breaking BC has kind of become a meme
00:42:36.603 --> 00:42:37.103
in Gen one.
00:42:37.344 --> 00:42:38.045
It's gotten better.
00:42:39.072 --> 00:42:40.213
especially more recently.
00:42:40.753 --> 00:42:42.554
It's very easy to, well,
00:42:43.074 --> 00:42:44.635
it's much less painful than it used to
00:42:44.655 --> 00:42:45.717
be, from what I understand.
00:42:45.797 --> 00:42:46.257
Obviously,
00:42:47.217 --> 00:42:48.659
I'm now using it more as a hobby
00:42:48.760 --> 00:42:50.360
instead of as a daily thing.
00:42:52.483 --> 00:42:53.923
So I think that's super interesting.
00:42:54.463 --> 00:42:56.626
Joomla was the first ever open source CMS
00:42:56.666 --> 00:42:57.947
to mandate PHP seven.
00:42:59.675 --> 00:43:01.836
Um, and host hated us,
00:43:02.938 --> 00:43:04.498
like tons of hosts were mad,
00:43:04.998 --> 00:43:06.278
hundreds of hosts were upset.
00:43:07.159 --> 00:43:07.300
Um,
00:43:07.340 --> 00:43:09.920
but the project made that decision and
00:43:10.420 --> 00:43:12.983
because of that, it may, it,
00:43:13.063 --> 00:43:15.244
it pulled up the standard for everyone
00:43:15.304 --> 00:43:15.643
else.
00:43:16.543 --> 00:43:19.166
Um, and so it all, we all,
00:43:19.306 --> 00:43:20.246
all the projects,
00:43:20.286 --> 00:43:22.047
especially in the PHP open source world.
00:43:22.626 --> 00:43:23.188
So, you know,
00:43:23.447 --> 00:43:25.648
affect each other in different ways in
00:43:25.688 --> 00:43:27.028
ways that we might not even think about.
00:43:27.829 --> 00:43:28.050
Um,
00:43:29.014 --> 00:43:30.135
Uh, so I,
00:43:30.155 --> 00:43:31.255
I really liked that about it.
00:43:31.635 --> 00:43:31.856
Um,
00:43:33.416 --> 00:43:36.039
what I like about Joomla is that the
00:43:36.079 --> 00:43:37.519
governance is cause I was there when it
00:43:37.539 --> 00:43:38.360
was reorganized.
00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:40.740
Um, the governance is very public.
00:43:41.702 --> 00:43:42.141
Um,
00:43:42.181 --> 00:43:43.463
you can see how the government is set
00:43:43.543 --> 00:43:45.143
up and it's all laid out.
00:43:45.423 --> 00:43:47.125
And, uh,
00:43:47.244 --> 00:43:48.846
as far as how voting goes and things
00:43:48.865 --> 00:43:49.266
like that,
00:43:49.306 --> 00:43:52.788
similar to Drupal where you can join and
00:43:53.407 --> 00:43:55.128
get, you know, vote and things like that.
00:43:55.168 --> 00:43:57.610
So, uh, I appreciated that,
00:43:57.670 --> 00:43:58.670
but on the flip side,
00:43:59.740 --> 00:44:00.400
On the reorg,
00:44:00.521 --> 00:44:03.242
Joomla became a very flat organization and
00:44:04.583 --> 00:44:06.242
I've seen lots of stuff stall.
00:44:06.402 --> 00:44:11.103
So where other projects like Drupal and
00:44:11.144 --> 00:44:13.724
WordPress have, I would say,
00:44:13.864 --> 00:44:16.465
more clear direction because they have a
00:44:16.525 --> 00:44:20.266
lead and that has significant benefits
00:44:20.306 --> 00:44:20.487
too.
00:44:25.255 --> 00:44:26.456
I'm just a, you know,
00:44:26.777 --> 00:44:29.038
my whole philosophy is figuring out what
00:44:29.057 --> 00:44:31.219
makes sense for open source in general,
00:44:31.280 --> 00:44:34.942
because I think the battle is not with
00:44:35.481 --> 00:44:36.023
each other.
00:44:36.822 --> 00:44:38.864
It's with closed source systems that
00:44:39.684 --> 00:44:42.485
um can hijack your data or can you
00:44:42.525 --> 00:44:44.606
know handcuff you and make it very
00:44:44.646 --> 00:44:46.226
expensive very quickly and shopify is a
00:44:46.286 --> 00:44:48.728
perfect example of that shopify is a great
00:44:48.807 --> 00:44:51.228
user experience i'm not it's an amazing
00:44:51.309 --> 00:44:53.349
user experience for a store owner and it's
00:44:53.469 --> 00:44:56.130
very easy to enter but then when you
00:44:56.170 --> 00:44:58.570
have success it gets very expensive very
00:44:58.610 --> 00:45:02.713
quickly um and that is where i feel
00:45:02.753 --> 00:45:03.733
like um
00:45:04.771 --> 00:45:05.815
we need to focus on.
00:45:06.295 --> 00:45:07.659
And there's been initiatives like this.
00:45:12.519 --> 00:45:14.280
like there's All Things Open and other
00:45:15.081 --> 00:45:16.882
like open source conferences where people
00:45:16.902 --> 00:45:18.603
try to come together and share best
00:45:18.643 --> 00:45:19.704
practices and things.
00:45:19.784 --> 00:45:22.244
And there's been nonprofits,
00:45:22.264 --> 00:45:22.844
like in Germany,
00:45:22.864 --> 00:45:24.326
there was a nonprofit called the CMS
00:45:24.346 --> 00:45:25.806
Garden, which had, I think,
00:45:25.867 --> 00:45:28.088
twelve open source projects part of it.
00:45:29.369 --> 00:45:31.070
So there's been initiatives and things.
00:45:31.170 --> 00:45:34.190
But I feel like in every open source
00:45:34.291 --> 00:45:34.831
project,
00:45:34.851 --> 00:45:37.132
there's so much tribalism and I feel like
00:45:37.172 --> 00:45:38.052
it doesn't help anybody.
00:45:40.193 --> 00:45:41.815
being number one in WordPress,
00:45:41.835 --> 00:45:42.315
that's amazing.
00:45:42.375 --> 00:45:43.114
WordPress is great.
00:45:43.255 --> 00:45:44.056
I love WordPress.
00:45:44.815 --> 00:45:47.416
Uh, but does it,
00:45:47.476 --> 00:45:49.577
is that what's really important or is
00:45:49.617 --> 00:45:51.179
getting more people onto the open web
00:45:51.219 --> 00:45:52.860
regardless of what that means more
00:45:52.880 --> 00:45:53.260
important?
00:45:53.780 --> 00:45:55.601
Yeah.
00:45:55.661 --> 00:45:58.181
Well, thank you, Mike, for coming, uh,
00:45:58.222 --> 00:46:00.242
that we're kind of at time at this
00:46:00.302 --> 00:46:00.603
point.
00:46:00.922 --> 00:46:02.784
Uh, but before we go, uh,
00:46:02.963 --> 00:46:04.965
where can people find you on the internet?
00:46:06.670 --> 00:46:06.929
Sure.
00:46:07.010 --> 00:46:08.811
So you can find me on my website,
00:46:08.871 --> 00:46:10.592
Mike demo.com.
00:46:11.934 --> 00:46:13.534
MP Mike on X.
00:46:15.536 --> 00:46:16.777
And that's where I'm most active.
00:46:17.677 --> 00:46:20.440
And yeah, I'm also can,
00:46:21.601 --> 00:46:23.161
you can find me at hosting.com and
00:46:23.483 --> 00:46:25.543
different webinars and things over time.
00:46:25.563 --> 00:46:28.206
But pretty much all my links from Mike
00:46:28.226 --> 00:46:30.447
demo.com will get you to all of the
00:46:30.507 --> 00:46:32.068
socials and all of the things.
00:46:32.940 --> 00:46:33.201
Awesome.
00:46:33.822 --> 00:46:35.224
Well, thanks again for coming on.
00:46:35.764 --> 00:46:37.445
It was a pleasure to have you on
00:46:37.465 --> 00:46:37.927
the show.
00:46:39.007 --> 00:46:40.369
And yeah,
00:46:40.389 --> 00:46:41.891
for everyone else that is watching or
00:46:41.931 --> 00:46:42.771
listening to this,
00:46:43.413 --> 00:46:45.755
we will see you on the internet.
00:46:45.795 --> 00:46:46.376
Awesome.
00:46:46.456 --> 00:46:46.677
Thanks.