WP Tavern

On the podcast today we have Chris Reynolds. Chris has been working with WordPress for over 15 years, and is now at Pantheon as a CMS Ecosystem engineer, and WordPress technical lead. He’s spoken at WordCamps and at OpenWest about all aspects of WordPress. He's here to talk about Composer and what it can do to assist you with your WordPress website workflow. I suspect that many of the people listening to this podcast are not using Composer, and to Chris, this is something that you should think about implementing. We then get into the weeds of what Composer is, and the benefits that it brings. It’s essentially a package management system and makes it easy to set dependencies for your project and manage them within Composer. Chris describes scenarios in which he thinks Composer is a good fit; if you want to add in specific packages, and how those packages are managed and updated. He explains how you can install Composer depending on the OS that you’re working with, and how it structures the files and directories that are created. If you’ve thought about using a package management system such as Composer, this episode is for you.

On the podcast today we have Talisha Lewallen. You might have found your way into WordPress intentionally, or perhaps you stumbled across it and decided to explore further. Whichever it was, you've learned things along the way. Perhaps you’re a coder, or a designer. In fact, there are dozens of different pathways in the WordPress ecosystem. Given the broad range of knowledge you might possess, how can you prove that you know what you know? With WordPress being such a dominant force in the world of websites, would it be a good idea to have a certification for WordPress? Talisha certainly thinks so and has founded CertifyWP to try to make that happen. We approach this subject through the work that she’s been doing at WPConnects in which she’s been trying to provide training to military veterans, so that on their departure from the services, they have the prospect of finding work in the WordPress space. Is there a need for a certification for WordPress and how such a certification would come about. We discuss whether the WordPress community is ready for a third party to be certifying people’s abilities and whether this strays away from the approach that we’ve had so far, in which routes into employment have relied upon other, less formal, methods. If you’re curious about certifications in the WordPress space, this podcast is for you.

On the podcast today, we have Sé Reed and Courtney Robertson, and they’re here to talk about the WP Community Collective, or WPCC for short. The WPCC is a non-profit that is hoping to fund contributors to the WordPress project. WordPress is built on top of a dedicated base of volunteers. People give up their time and expertise to contribute towards the project, and in this way make it free to download and use. But we all have to earn money at some point. Most are not in a position to donate their time completely freely; they have to put food on the table. Often contributors are sponsored by the companies that they work for, either part time or full time. There’s nothing wrong with this model, but what about the capable, willing volunteers who are not in this position? The people who have the skills and motivation to contribute, but not the time or finances to make that a reality. The WPCC wants to act as a go between for companies or organisations who are willing to spend money improving WordPress, and the individuals who can implement those improvements. Listen to find out how it's all going to work.

On the podcast today, we have Bob Dunn. If you’ve been using WordPress for any length of time, and you’ve been consuming content in the ecosystem, it’s highly likely that you’ve come across Bob before. He’s been using WordPress since 2006, WooCommerce since 2011, and has been podcasting since 2014. In another life before he discovered WordPress, Bob ran a marketing company, but now his endeavours are all about WordPress. We talk about how Bob found WordPress back in the day when he was creating websites with HTML and Flash. Bob branded himself as BobWP and has never looked back. Given the size of the WordPress community, Bob was able to discover his niche within the greater whole and concentrate on WooCommerce. His popular Do the Woo podcast was born, and he’s been working on it ever since. We talk about how Bob has managed to keep the momentum going, and what he thinks are unique about his podcast and community. We also talk about how growing a community such as this can be financed, as well as the ways Bob is trying to innovate in the near future to give value back to the WordPress project more generally. It’s an interesting conversation about how content creators can find a place in the WordPress ecosystem and what impact they can have.

On the podcast today, we have Patrick Posner. Patrick is a solopreneur and has been developing with WordPress since 2010. He’s worked in many environments, as a freelancer, a senior developer in a WordPress product company, and since 2020 he’s been working full time on his own projects. One of his projects is a plugin called Simply Static. Its purpose is to make a static version of your website. This, of course, begs the question, what is a static site? We explore the idea of 'flattening' your website, only putting the files needed for your website, whilst taking WordPress offline. We get into the pros and the cons of why you might wish to do this as well as some plugins and services which will enable this. It’s a really interesting subject and one that you might like to explore, and this podcast is a great primer for that.

On the podcast today we have Paul Halfpenny. Paul is the CTO at Filter, a remote-first digital agency that specialises in open-source tech, as well as a WordCamp speaker. He has an interest in making websites a more personal experience. Website personalisation is the idea of amending content served by your website to match the conditions of your current users. It might be that you want to show (or hide) content to people during certain times of the year. Perhaps it would be helpful to translate content if the user comes from a specific locale. Or maybe you would like to offer a product based upon pages that a user had previously visited, or items that they have bought. All of this falls under the umbrella of personalisation, and it’s an area that Paul thinks is going to be more important in the future. We talk about what techniques you can use to offer up personalised content. That could be WordPress plugins or options within blocks, but there are also more complex setups with a whole range of ‘at the edge’ technologies. It’s an interesting chat with many insights and tips, and so if you’re looking to explore this subject further, this episode is for you.

On the podcast today, we have Naoko Takano. A few days from now, from the 17th to the 19th February 2023, to be precise, the first in-person WordCamp Asia will take place in Bangkok, Thailand. If you follow WordPress events closely, then I’m sure that you’ve seen the excitement mounting. Naoko is on the podcast today to talk about this important event; how it came to be and why it matters. We start off getting some background on Naoko and her personal journey with WordPress. She’s currently sponsored full time by Automattic to work with the wordpress.org community and polyglots teams. The conversation then turns to the event itself. It’s sold out, but you can still take part by watching the live streams of the three tracks that are running. Towards the end of the podcast, we get into the important question of why we need a WordCamp Asia. Naoko makes the point that the other ‘flagship’ WordPress events are not that accessible for some people. This could be because of the difficulty in acquiring visas for the U.S. or Europe, but also the costs of travelling to the event and accommodation whilst there. If you’re attending WordCamp Asia in-person or online, this podcast will give you a new perspective on the event, and if you’re not planning on being there, maybe this episode will make you rethink.

On the podcast today we have Robert Rowley. Robert is Patchstack's security advocate, where his time is spent interacting with open source communities to share the word about security best practices. Given his background, the podcast today is all about internet security. We start off with a topic which is very much in the news at the moment, the LastPass security breach. LastPass is a password manager. It will lock up your passwords, and any other data for that matter, in a secure vault, which can only be read if you decrypt it with the correct password. Towards the end of 2022, LastPass announced in a series of blog posts that customer vaults had been taken from their cloud storage. The way that this was communicated left many of their customers questioning their use of the service, and whether they now could trust LastPass with their data. Robert explains how the incident occurred, and if you should be concerned. This then leads to a conversation about the broader issue of website security and the security of WordPress websites in particular. If you’re curious about website security, then this is a podcast for you.

On the podcast today we have Mike Demo, Tracy Apps and david wolfpaw. Unusually, it’s less of an interview and more of a roundtable discussion about their experiences in the WordPress community. A few weeks ago, I put out a call for anyone who might be interested in coming on the podcast. Mike Demo reached out to me and said that it would be good to discuss how the WordPress community deals with LGBTQ matters. We start things off with each of the guests introducing themselves and telling us how they ended up working in tech and, more specifically, WordPress. This leads to a discussion of how the job market can be different for people with different identities. We then move onto WordPress and talk through some of the ways that the community has responded to underrepresented groups. We also get into the open source nature of the WordPress project and whether this makes it more or less difficult for change to take place, given that authority is structured differently from most for-profit entities. And we round it all off with the sharing of resources and websites which listeners may find useful, which you can see below.

On the podcast today we have Corey Maass. Corey is a full-stack web developer who works with agencies and businesses, large and small. He specialises in advanced WordPress functionality and building products for, and using, WordPress. Over the last decade or so, SaaS apps have become more and more popular. Not only are we using our computers more, but with the rise of smartphones, we’re connected to our services all the time. There does not appear to be any corner of life where online platforms don’t have some presence. From email to taxis, fitness to food planning and delivery. You can find it all in a SaaS app somewhere. Corey is on the podcast today to talk about why he thinks that building a MVP, or minimum viable product, app on top of WordPress is a good way to start your product journey. We talk about how WordPress comes bundled with many of the features that apps require, user login, roles, permissions and the REST API. This means that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel for the things that WordPress already does. If you’ve toyed with the idea of creating a SaaS app in the past, but never quite got there, this episode is for you.

On the podcast today, we have Lax Mariappan. Lax is a web developer based in the Philippines. He’s an Open Source enthusiast, and lover of all things WordPress, and has been tinkering with websites since high school, but it all changed when he discovered WordPress in 2010. Lax currently works as a Backend Engineer at WebDevStudios. We talk today about Headless WordPress, and it’s a complex topic. Headless is the concept of decoupling the WordPress admin from the frontend of the site. WordPress will continue to work as expected, but the presentation layer will be done by a different technology. React, Gatsby and Remix being some popular choices. This implementation of WordPress is complex, requiring technical knowledge above and beyond that needed for a more typical WordPress install, but it has its benefits. Lax explains how problems can crop up, and how it’s possible to plan ahead and build in solutions for all the problems that you might encounter. If you’ve ever thought about going Headless with WordPress, then the podcast today is for you.

On the podcast today, we have Damon Cook. He’s a longtime user of WordPress, trying it first in around 2008. He’s worked for some of the largest WordPress agencies over the years, but his current role is that of Developer Advocate with WP Engine, where he engages with the WordPress community, trying to figure out where WordPress is headed. Damon is on the podcast to talk about styling WordPress, and how it’s changing. Block-based themes are revolutionising website styling. You’re going to be able to change any aspect of your website from the UI that you’re familiar with. The hope is that it’ll make styling more accessible to a wider audience. Damon talks about the fact that we’re in a period of flux right now. The documentation and tooling needed to work with website styles is maturing, but is by no means complete. We talk through some new concepts which are underpinning all of this.

On the podcast today we have Chris Badgett. Chris is behind LifterLMS, which is a learning management system built as a WordPress plugin. He’s been in the WordPress space since 2008, and has moved his agency away from general website building to concentrating upon e-learning membership sites, course creation and marketing automation. He’s on the podcast today to talk about how WordPress and e-learning are a good fit. Although there’s a flourishing SaaS side to e-learning, Chris is convinced that WordPress allows you to make your LMS site exactly what you want. You won’t be facing the limitations imposed upon you by the platform, and can, if you have the time and skills, modify almost anything to suit your brand and niche. We begin by talking through how well a WordPress based LMS site can scale. We then get into a broad conversation about how online courses have taken off in the last few years. Even before global lockdowns, individuals and businesses were adopting online courses in innovative ways to educate their customers, staff, and the wider public. It’s an interesting podcast and digs into yet another area where WordPress can help people thrive online.

On the podcast today, we have Dennis Dormon. Dennis is the founder of MainWP. A WordPress plugin which enables you to manage multiple WordPress websites from a single dashboard. As you'll hear, the business has changed over the years, as Dennis has learned more about the plugins' target audience. Dennis talks today about how, in the recent past, he's been trying out working with partners as an effective way to increase the plugins reach. As you'll hear, it's a strategy that he's enamored with, given the right partner. We talk about why Dennis built MainWP, and who the plugin was originally aimed at. And it's not what you might expect. It turns out that MainWP is a business which is in just about the perfect spot for bringing on partners. But if you're a developer and have not considered this type of approach with your business, this podcast is for you.

On the podcast today we have Steve Burge. He leads the team at PublishPress, which is a plugin company focusing on improving the publishing experience for WordPress users. The topic of today's podcast is very much in his wheelhouse. If you’ve been following recent developments, then you’ll know that we’re currently in the site editing phase. When that’s done, it will be time to turn our collective attention to multi-author collaboration. But what is that and what does it mean? Steve talks today about why this is an elegant and necessary update to WordPress, but also why it’s a difficult feat of engineering to pull off. WordPress has a history of working with all manner of hosting configurations, and it’s one of the reasons that it’s so successful. Will it be possible to run WordPress on more affordable tech stacks given the burden that multi-author collaboration will require? We also get into the projects that Steve has found from community members which try to lay some of the foundations of how this might be implemented, as well as talking about how Steve’s finding it hard to discover new information concerning this important topic.

On the podcast today we have Matt Medeiros. Matt is the driving force behind many WordPress initiatives. That could be the creation of plugins, WordPress news media, as well as podcasts about all manner of WordPress specific subjects. He likes to juggle multiple projects at once. Currently he’s the Director of Podcaster Success at Castos, which is a podcast hosting company with a WordPress plugin. He’s on the podcast today to give his take on the past, present and future of WordPress. The Matt Report and The WP Minute have enabled us to hear about what the community is doing, what it wants and where its points of friction are. He’s talked to hundreds of people about what WordPress was, is, and might be, and so is in a unique position to pontificate about what WordPress, beyond the software, is. It’s a lovely chat with a thoughtful and far sighted member of the community.

On the podcast today, we have Hannah Smith. Hannah is the Operations and Training Manager for the Green Web Foundation and founder of the Let’s Green The Web campaign. It’s pretty easy to forget that the device that you’re reading this post on is consuming power. We plug things in or charge them up, and they just work. They are sleek and sterile. No pollution comes out of the device directly. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that many of us never make the connection between our use of technology and the impact this has on the environment. Enter Hannah Smith. She’s been thinking about this for years and is on the podcast today to highlight the issue, and hopefully get your ideas about what users of WordPress can do to make sure that the websites we create are having the smallest impact possible. Her approach is not that we need to cease and desist using our technology. Rather, it’s about coming up with new and innovative ways that we can reduce the impact that we have. It’s a fascinating and thought-provoking topic.

On the podcast today we have Adam Lowe. He’s here to talk about a new website building plugin from Pinegrow. Adam does not represent the company, but is an avid user of their products, and experienced in how they work. The ‘Pinegrow Web Editor’ is a desktop tool that lets you build websites with a GUI. The closest comparison would be a page builder, but this is not entirely accurate. Unlike most page builders, which require very little technical expertise, Pinegrow does require an understanding of key technologies to make use of the platform. Given the popularity of WordPress, the Pinegrow developers have created a WordPress plugin, which is just about to be released. It’s been in closed beta, and Adam has been using it as his go-to solution for several months now. We also get into a discussion about the fact that Pinegrow is intended to be a ‘no dependency’ solution. Once you’ve finished creating your theme, block or whatever else you might want to create, you can export that in a way that no longer needs Pinegrow at all.

On the podcast today we have Fränk Klein. Fränk is a self-taught developer. He started out learning PHP in 2011 and from there found his way to WordPress. Over the years he’s worked for Automattic at WordPress.com and WordPress VIP, and is now a principal developer at Human Made, an enterprise WordPress agency. We talk about how Fränk decided early on that he was going to start developing with blocks and, more recently, with the full site editing capabilities now built into WordPress Core. Fränk explains how he sees the adoption of Gutenberg as inevitable. WordPress is moving away from the classic approach of content creation to a more visual, block-based experience. He thinks that it’s important to become an expert at building websites and custom solutions for clients, and for taking the time to learn the new tools that this future will require.

On the podcast today we have Matt Cromwell. Matt is Senior Director of Operations and Marketing at StellarWP, and also one of the founders of GiveWP, a donations plugin which uses the freemium model. He's on the podcast today to talk about whether the WordPress.org plugin repository is still an effective place to host your free plugin. Over the past few weeks, the repository has been in the news for the unexpected removal of stats which many plugin developers said they relied upon. The podcast focus' on a post by Alex Denning in which he spells out why he thinks the repository is no longer viable. Matt disagrees and puts his side of the argument. Can you get noticed given the enormous reach of the incumbent plugins? Is it possible to convert enough users to your paid plugin to make it worthwhile? What can be done to improve the repository for plugin authors? It’s a fascinating chat and is sure to interest anyone thinking about starting a freemium plugin.

On the podcast today we have Christina Deemer. Christina is a senior UX developer at Lede, where she champions accessibility and headless WordPress in her work with publishers and nonprofits. At the recent WordCamp US, Christina gave a presentation called "embracing minds of all kinds, making digital content usable for people with cognitive disabilities". And it's this talk which is the foundation of the podcast today. First, Christina talks about what the term cognitive disabilities actually means, and what it encompasses. It's a wide range of things, and so we talk about how people may differ in the way that they access the web. Memory, over complicated interfaces and readability are a few of the areas that we touch upon. We also discuss what legislation there is in place to offer guidance to those wishing to make their sites more accessible, and as you'll hear, it's a changing landscape. Towards the end, Christina talks about her own late diagnosis of autism and how this shapes her experience of the web, particularly with auto-play content and when web design includes elements which flash or flicker.

On the podcast today we have Adam Silverstein. Adam is a WordPress core comitter where he works to fix bugs and improve modern web capabilities. As a Developer Relations Engineer in the content ecosystem team at Google, he works to invigorate the open web by empowering and educating developers. At the recent WordCamp US, he gave a presentation entitled ‘Images on the Web - past present and future’. In it, he outlined his thoughts on where the web is going in terms of support for different image formats. This then forms the basis of the podcast. How do browsers actually display images to your website visitors, and what formats are most appropriate where? We also talk about the new image formats, which are seeing more widespread adoption; WebP, AVIF and JPEG XL. We learn about the roll out of browser support, how they have smaller file sizes and when we can safely to use them.

On the podcast today we have Nick Diego. Nick is a Developer Advocate at WP Engine. He can be found creating educational content, building plugins and themes, and contributing to WordPress Core. He’s on the podcast to talk about his passion and optimism for the future of WordPress using blocks. At the recent WordCamp US, Nick gave a presentation entitled, ‘Let’s Build a Custom Block in 15 Minutes’. It was his attempt to show a group of WordPress enthusiasts that the barrier to creating blocks is slowly being eroded, due to the creation of new tools. These tools are creating opportunities for people who might otherwise have stayed away from block development. It’s clear that Nick is all in on blocks, and during the podcast he makes the case for why you should be too. They offer so many opportunities for what can be displayed on a page, and their capabilities are only getting better. It’s a fascinating chat, especially for those who are, as yet, undecided about whether they want to embrace WordPress blocks.

On the podcast today we have Alex Ball. Alex is a Lead Software Engineer at Mindgrub, a digital agency in Baltimore, Maryland. His website leadership experience continues to inform his decision-making today, especially for training clients and making the block editor as easy to use as possible, and that, in essence, is the subject of the podcast today. During WordCamp US 2022, Alex gave a lightning talk in which he laid out some suggestions on how the block editor can be made more straightforward for clients. Most regular WordPress users have become accustomed to the way the block editor works. Over time, we’ve understood how things work and where we need to go in the UI to alter things. For many clients, this familiarity simply does not exist, it's confusing and mistakes occur. Alex talks about solutions to this problem, and he comes at it from different angles. Maybe you lock certain features down so that only certain users can achieve specific tasks. Or it might be that you need to take time to educate your clients more about the block editor and how it works.

On the podcast today we have Joe Dolson. Joe is a WordPress plugin developer, a core committer, and a web accessibility consultant. He’s part of the Make WordPress Accessible team, the team dedicated to improving accessibility in the WordPress ecosystem. His recent presentation at WordCamp US entitled ‘Finding and Fixing the Six Most Common WCAG 2 Failures’, highlights some of the key areas where websites are not as accessible as they should be. The areas we discuss are, low contrast text, missing alternative text, empty links, missing form labels, empty buttons and missing document language. Joe explains what each of these problems are, both in terms of how they can be fixed, as well as what people with accessibility requirements might experience when they visit your site. We also chat about the fact that there’s an ever growing legal compulsion to make websites follow accessibility guidelines. Lawsuits are going through the courts with greater regularity, so now might be the time to look into this topic.

On the podcast today we have Nick Ahmann. Nick works for Inisev, a company which provides SaaS services for WordPress and other platforms. They have a range of products, but today we focus on TasteWP. TasteWP is a service which allows you to spin up a disposable WordPress install in a matter of seconds. From there, you can use the site for free for two days. If you’re wanting to test out a plugin or theme, but don’t want the hassle of creating a site on your own hosting, or local machine, TasteWP could be a useful option. It behaves as a normal WordPress website and you’re not limited to what you can install on top of the defaults. We talk about what promoted Nick to work on this plugin and how he sees it as helping the WordPress community, as well as being a vehicle to make people aware of the products and services that his company offers. If you’ve ever wanted a WordPress site to play with for a few days, then this episode is for you.

On the podcast today we have Marcel Schmitz. Marcel is a freelancer at Codeable for Pluginslab, a small agency based in Porto, Portugal. He builds solutions for WooCommerce, often connecting them with native mobile applications. We talk on the podcast today about the opportunities Codeable has offered him and how it fits in with his life. As you’ll hear, he’s pretty keen on the fact that it gives him a reliable stream of work without the need for him to go out and find it. He explains the nuts and bolts of how you get started, what developers need to bring to the table and how Codeable mediates disputes which might arise. Towards the end of the podcast, we talk about Marcel’s work using AR and WooCommerce, as well as a brief foray into how he sees headless WordPress working with WooCommerce in the future; what are the benefits and what are some of the drawbacks?

On the podcast today we have Laura Nelson. Laura is a Content Marketer at WooCommerce where she’s responsible for creating and planning engaging content for their users. Prior to WooCommerce she worked at MailPoet, an email marketing plugin for WordPress, and it's this experience that she is bringing to the show. Her pitch is that email newsletters can themselves be a product. That people will pay to receive your emails, and she’s got data and examples to back it up. I suppose that the closest analogy would be people who create an online course. You have an area of expertise; you do the hard work of creating the course and people will pay for a membership to have the benefit of learning from your expertise. Laura is describing something similar to that. The only difference being that instead of a course, people will pay to receive your emails, knowing that you’re going to bring value to them regularly. This is not a get rich quick scheme. It’s hard work and you’ve got to cultivate your audience and give them something of value, repeatedly.

On the podcast today we have Andrew Palmer. Andrew has been in the WordPress space for many years as a product owner and open source advocate. He founded and later sold Elegant Marketplace, and more recently is the co-founder of Bertha.ai, which is a WordPress plugin which assists you in creating text content directly in the WordPress admin. We get into how you can create AI content and when it’s suitable to do so. Can you rely on the text that’s created and hand over complete editorial control to the plugin, or does the generated content still need human intervention? We also dig into some aspects of AI which have people concerned. Are we going to become too reliant on AI tools, and will they put copywriters out of work? Will people create content simply to swamp the search engines and make it harder for truly important information to rise to the top?

On the podcast today we have Marieke Van De Rakt & Taco Verdonschot, and they’re both from Yoast SEO. I sat down with them both at WordCamp Europe and we talked about some of the recent changes that have taken place within the company. Having worked hard to build and maintain their company's reputation, they decided that it was time to steer the business in a new direction by selling it to Newfold Digital. We get into the reasons for this acquisition and the subsequent reshuffling of the management of the company. What were the details of that agreement, why did they join forces with Newfold Digital in particular, and how has the acquisition gone? We also talk about their longstanding commitment to contributing back to the WordPress project. Why have they done this and what benefits have they seen from this approach? Why do they bring so many of their team to WordCamps? Finally, we talk about their move into the Shopify space with their SaaS Shopify app.

On the podcast today we have Paul Bearne. Paul is a WordPress enthusiast who loves to come up with ways to make WordPress do things it doesn’t normally do. Having engaged with WordPress almost from the start, he specialises in the creation of highly performant, scalable, accessible and SEO friendly code. In the podcast today Paul talks about the many ways in which it’s possible to work within the WordPress ecosystem. He’s tried many of them out over the years. Paul talks through some of the different ways that you can work and draws out the benefits and drawbacks that they have. How can you find the work and what can you do to make sure that it’s as stable as it can be? If you’re already a remote worker, much of this conversation will resonate with you, but if you’re not, but are curious about your options, this podcast will be of interest.

On the podcast today we have Jonathan Wold. Jonathan joined the WordPress community seventeen years ago, and he’s been here ever since. He likes to think about WordPress as an operating system for creating on the open web, and invests his time and energy into growing the WordPress ecosystem. With that in mind he gave a talk at the recent WordCamp Europe called "Growing in WordPress through partnerships", in which he laid out his thoughts on how WordPress companies can enable greater growth by joining with other, like minded companies. Jonathan talks today about how strategic partnerships can, in some cases, make the job of selling a product easier and more rewarding. Are partnerships for everyone, or are they only for a subset of companies? How do you go about finding a partner and what are the ways that you can ensure that you’re working with the companies which offer the most benefit to you and your customers?

On the podcast today we have Sean Blakeley. Sean works for a large agency called American Eagle, a platform agnostic organisation working with enterprise clients on a wide variety of projects. After years of experiments with different approaches and collaborations between designers and developers, their team has begun to rely heavily on block patterns, and they’ve found it is greatly increasing their productivity. It’s fair to say that block patterns have revolutionised the team's approach to the entire design process. We talk about how and why Sean’s team decided to jump in early with block patterns. When they did, this was a somewhat risky strategy. There was no guarantee that patterns would begin to be widely adopted, but this strategy is now starting to bear fruit. It’s allowing their team to work with their clients in new and unexpected ways. It’s an interesting episode, and if you’re curious about how you can start to use blocks and patterns with your clients, there’s sure to be something here for you.

On the podcast today we have Akshat Choudhary. Akshat is the Founder and CEO of BlogVault, MalCare, WP Remote and Airlift. These WordPress plugins allow their customers to build, manage and maintain their WordPress websites. He’s based in Bangalore, India and we begin the podcast talking about the state of the WordPress community there. We also talk about why Akshat sees it as useful to bring himself and other members of his team so far to attend WordCamp Europe. What’s in it for them and what’s their approach to the return on this investment? We then get into a discussion of the security landscape and how the products that Akshat and his team make enable site owners to rest more easily. We go into some of the technical details of how the products work and how they fit neatly into an agency wishing to sell care plans to their website clients.

On the podcast today we have Felix Arntz. Felix is a Developer Relations Engineer at Google and a WordPress core committer. He is the lead engineer for the Site Kit plugin for WordPress and has been a regular contributor to WordPress for several years. He’s also been involved in the newly created WordPress performance team which is trying to work out how WordPress can stay ahead of the performance curve. He's on the podcast today to talk about how the WordPress community need to be focussing more on performance. Not only do search engines place more emphasis upon speed, but the rise of other CMSs might also reflect their ability to optimise their platforms, given that they don't have the plugin and theme architecture which WordPress does. It’s an interesting conversation about an area which is going to matter more and more in the months and years to come.

On the podcast today we have David Lockie. David is the Web3 Lead at Automattic, which is a new role. He’s trying to understand what Web3 is and how it’s going to alter the course of the internet in the future. Web3 can be confusing. It's new and has many different meanings depending upon which implementation you're working with. It also works in a fundamentally different way to how the web has been thus far. Perhaps you've encountered crypto currencies or NFTs, and maybe they've convinced you about the future of Web3. Perhaps they've raised concerns. David tries to explain how this decentralised approach to gathering and storing data is just beginning to find some practical applications.

On the podcast today we have Daisy Olsen. Daisy works for Automattic as a Developer Relations contributor on the WordPress Project, and she's on the podcast today to talk about Block Themes. These new themes bring additional possibilities for WordPress users in what they're able to build in the Block Editor. Now, non-technical can start to add and style things like headers, footers and navigation menus. Daisy talks about how this all works as well as what's not quite ready. We also get into what new skills you'll need to learn, as well as what new tooling might be required. It's an interesting subject and a good primer on Block Themes if you're considering jumping in.

On the podcast today we have Milan Ivanovic. Milan is a WordPress Developer at Valet.io, and is a WordCamp volunteer, speaker, and organizer. He’s the WordPress.org global translation editor, WordPress Serbia lead, and is now part of the WordCamp Europe alumni. As if that weren’t enough, Milan is one of the lecturers of the WordPress Academy in Serbia, where he has given talks and WordPress Workshops. He’s also a member of the Theme Review and Community Get Involved Teams. It’s pretty clear to see that WordPress and WordPress events play a major role in Milan’s life, and that’s what this podcast is about. We talk about the importance of the WordPress community as a whole, as well as exploring what the situation is like in Milan’s home country of Serbia. We also get into the subject of diversity and how Europe as a continent might face diversity challenges which differ from other parts of the world.

On the podcast today we have Matt Mullenweg. Matt is the co-founder of WordPress, and as a result, he has been a user for as long as anyone. We recorded this podcast whilst at WordCamp Europe in Portugal a couple of weeks ago. It’s a wide-ranging discussion, covering a lot of ground. First, we cover the topics of what's happened to WordPress over the last 19 years, and which aspects he likes and which would he wish to alter. We then get into how the last two years have changed the WordPress community. Towards the end we get into the possible stall in WordPress's market share, and how Matt views the future of the platform in an era dominated by artificial intelligence.

On the podcast today we have Remkus de Vries, and he's kicking off what might be described as a mini series on the Jukebox podcast. Last week almost 3,000 WordPressers from all over the world gathered together in Porto, Portugal for the first in-person WordCamp Europe since 2019. Expectations were high, and the event did not disappoint. It really was excellent. Remkus is one of the founders of WordCamp Europe, just over 10 years ago. I wanted to get him on the podcast to talk about how the community's largest WordCamp got started. I also wanted to find out how the current event compares in terms of size and organisation. What's changed over the years? We talk about the importance of events like WordCamps for the community, and how over the last few years the lack of in-person events altered the community.

On the podcast today we have Mark Root-Wiley. He’s on the show to talk about why he thinks that it would be useful for WordPress to adopt some CSS standards. Mark thinks that it’s time for WordPress to lay out some simple standards which are easy to understand, and if they became universal, would save us a lot of time and head scratching. He’s not proposing anything radical, just some basic advice for the most commonly used CSS, and it’s quite a compelling idea which would need a lot of community buy-in, and possibly some top-down approval if it were to move forwards. It’s very much the kernel of an idea at present, but thought provoking nonetheless.

The Pattern Creator is a online tool which allows you to create block patterns for inclusion into the WordPress Patterns Directory, a place where you can access freely available patterns for your websites. On the podcast today we have Ana Segota and Kelly Choyce-Dwan, who share two different perspectives. Ana is a themer and Kelly is on the team building out the Creator. We talk about how the Creator works, how you can submit your patterns and what constraints are there for having your submissions accepted. So, if you’re curious about how patterns can speed up your website building workflow, this episode is for you.

On the podcast today we have Courtney Robertson. Courtney is a Developer Advocate at GoDaddy Pro who has a passion for teaching and learning, specifically about how to use WordPress. Her work involves outreach to developers but it also includes time to help contribute to WordPress as well. Courtney uses this time to assist with the WordPress Training Team as well as Learn WordPress. We talk about what the Learn Project covers as and how the content is curated and maintained. We also talk about how you might get involved with the team if you’re keen to help others learn more about WordPress.

So on the podcast today we have Joe Casabona. Joe is a podcaster and educator, which makes him perfect for the discussion today, ‘Why WordPress Is a Great Choice for Your Podcast’. We talk about a broad range of podcasting topics including why WordPress and podcasting are such a great fit, what equipment do you really need to get up and running with your first podcast, are podcasts only for entertainment and what tips and tricks has Joe learned over the years as a podcaster. So if you’re curious about how to set up a podcast, or if you’ve already got one going and just want to hear some fresh perspectives, this episode is for you.

On the podcast today we have Aki Hamano. He's a fan of creating WordPress blocks and currently has five available in the repository. We talk about the WordPress community in his home country of Japan and then give deeply into what all of this blocks do, and why he's been creating them. It’s an interesting discussion, and you never know, perhaps you’ll find yourself using Aki’s blocks at some point yourself.

On the podcast today we have Cate DeRosia. Cate is a familiar face in the WordPress community. Along with her husband, Topher, they run the HeroPress Network. She describes herself as a 'serial volunteer in the community'. In early 2022 Cate was hired by Automattic to be a sponsored member of the Community Team, and it’s this role which finds her on the podcast today. We talk about her recent ‘blue sky thinking’ post, which is a forum for people to engage with her and her team, so that future WordPress events can be made different. What does the community of 2022 want from WordPress events? Are we happy with how things have always been done, or do we want something new, something different?

On the WP Tavern Jukebox podcast we're talking about how the block editor is being used by Daniel Schutzsmith and his team. We learn about the transition that they underwent after they'd decided to use the block editor on their government websites. What procedures did they have to put in place to make the transition as smooth as possible and what learning materials were needed. We talk also about his thoughts on where WordPress and, more generally, the web is headed, which can be summed up by the words AI and automation.

On the podcast today we have Chris Coyier. Chris has been a user and educator in the WordPress and web development space for many years. He’s an author, podcaster, developer, but is perhaps best known for his website CSS-Tricks. CSS-Tricks has been a valuable source of information about CSS for over 15 years. Updated multiple times a week, the site has articles about every aspect of styling your website. It’s gone through several iterations over those years. A few weeks ago Chris decided it was time for CSS-Tricks to find a new home and it’s now owned and operated by Digital Ocean, a popular cloud computing service provider. This podcast is all about the journey that Chris has had running CSS-Tricks.

On the podcast today we have Oliver Sild from Patchstack. Patchstack is a product which is designed to help you identify plugin vulnerabilities in your WordPress sites. We talk about how, over the past couple of years, Patchstack has released an annual report concerning the state of WordPress security. What are the broad security trends which have emerged over the past 12 months in WordPress Core, plugins and themes. Listen now...

On the podcast today we have Evangelia Pappa & Bernhard Kau. They're two of the WordCamp Europe 2022 organising team. They are here to talk about the upcoming event, happening during June, in Porto, Portugal. We talk about the measures that they've put in place to ensure that the event is as safe as possible. We also get into a discussion about the diversity of the organisation of the event, following a recent debate about whether or not more needed to be done in this area.