A WordPress Community Chat Before Boarding the Train

BobWP:
Well, this is the official kickoff. Yeah. We are in Seattle. I am in Seattle with Mike Vin, friend Camby. I can’t believe this. Off to the train after this. And it was a major accomplishment to even get this stuff set up here

Cami:
Slightly. Yes. It was very entertaining. But this equipment is amazing. I will say that.

BobWP:
Well, Tammy, it is one of these things that I think if who could I have kicked it off and it was, oh, it was so perfect.

Cami:
I am so glad you picked me, Bob. I mean, you were one of my first contacts in the WordPress community way back in 2013 when you were having a meetup in West Seattle. And from there we’ve seen each other at all of our Seattle Word camps and now here. So I’m really, really happy to send you off on this journey.

BobWP:
Well, and if you see the picture, I’ll have a picture on the post. It’s actually behind us is the

Cami:
Yeah. Lumen Field. They changed the name all the time. It’s where the Seahawks play

BobWP:
All Seahawks, man. Go Seahawks. Nobody else who suck. Okay. So enough of the sports come from Terry. Well, we’re just going to just talk a little bit, maybe a little bit about state of the word. I do have to, since this is my official first podcast, I do have to thank my sponsors. I’m going to lead one for last just for a specific reason. But there’s Cloud Ways is supporting and mind size and post status. And what’s interesting is when I did this, it was like, oh, can I work it to get certain people connected to sponsors? And it was tough. Let me tell you when you’re doing something like this. But Cammy’s a ambassador for GoDaddy Pro, which is one of them. And Adam, if you’re listening to this, which you better be listening to this at one point or another. I mean, she’s like the premier. You’ve got the star of hearing. This is beyond belief.

Cami:
Yeah. Adam, I hope you’re listening. We love Adam and I love GoDaddy Pro too. So I’ve been involved with them since 2018. I was the very first pro ambassador that they ever sent to a word camp. I believe I saw you there too, in Nashville,

BobWP:
Right? Yep. That was it. Yeah. Remember that one. And so yeah, I really want to thank the sponsors. This is a pretty incredible trip that took a lot of resources and they just all stepped up to the place. So I’ll be mentioning them throughout the trip in all sorts of ways. That will be even kind of fun. You’ll never know when I’ll talk about one of my sponsors as I’m staring out the train window. So for those of you that don’t know who Camie is, why don’t you just tell us a little bit about what you do at the WordPress?

Cami:
Sure. My name is Camie McNamara. I own Webc Camie site design. I have been designing websites for 20 years in February of 2022, so I have a big anniversary coming up. I built websites the old school way with H-T-M-L-C-S-S and JavaScript. And then along came WordPress. And it was around 2007 or 2008 that I had my first client say, I want you to connect my website to this thing called a blog that I’m writing blog posts on. So that was my very first impression of WordPress, and I was worried that it was going to ruin my business. Anybody could build a website, but of course that didn’t happen. And by 2010, I thought, I’m just going to start building all my websites with this and said goodbye to Dreamweaver and said hello to WordPress. And that’s what I have been building websites for clients with ever since.

BobWP:
Well, and I know that Cam has been on a podcast before, and I hate to say if I am trying to remember, do the Blue or was it,

Cami:
So I had a very short appearance on your podcast way back in 2017 from Ward Camp Portland when we were at Lewis and Clark. And believe it or not, Adam was there too. I didn’t know him at the time, but he was speaking at that Word camp and then I was on Do the Woo last year.

BobWP:
Cool. So she’s kind of a veteran.

Cami:
I think I’ve been on when you’ve podcast from the Word camp in Seattle too. I think

BobWP:
That’s right. Yeah. That was another fun adventure I took. This adventure drove away. Before we get into, okay, I’m going to the state of the work, and that’s kind of what this is all about. Is there anything that you’ve, by the rumblings that what Knit mulling we will be talking about, is there anything that you’re looking forward to or you’re hoping that he might cover or just any thoughts on what you’re anticipating or if it’s just like, I have no idea, we’ll see what happens.

Cami:
Well, I recently wrote a blog post called There’s More Than One Way to WordPress. And what I hope that is the focus of what he speaks about or what he touches on is it seems like there’s a lot of people who believe that the way that they use WordPress is the best way to use it. And many circles that I am online, I hear so many people saying, you got to use Gutenberg. You have to forget all the page builders. They’re terrible. And I’m totally in the other camp, so I am a huge user of Beaver Builder. I love it. It helps me build websites for clients in a fast way. I think there’s room for everyone in WordPress, and I would really like to see more focus on the inclusion of all the solutions that WordPress can offer somebody like me as a web designer. So for those who want to use only Gutenberg, awesome, that’s great. But I really feel like there’s kind of like a push and pull. And Paul Lacey recently did a blog post about that that really resonated with me, which made me write my own blog post about it. Okay.

BobWP:
Okay.

Cami:
Yeah,

BobWP:
Sure. I’ll tweet about, I’ll tweet that blog post out sometime on my trip.

Cami:
Yeah,

BobWP:
I’ll look it up and make sure that gets noted for people

Cami:
To check it out. Yeah, thank you. But I really just, I love the WordPress community and as a designer, I am fully in the designer camp. There are developers, but we’re all in the WordPress space together and I just think that there’s exciting things happening in all the different spaces, so, well,

BobWP:
I hope Beaver Builder stays around because actually my redesign of my site, they use Beaver.

Cami:
Yeah, well, it works really well. I think it’ll stay around, especially the Beaver theme. Part of it is the big strong selling point for me, but I dabble in a little bit of everything. I have so many clients. Some clients come to me, their sites an Elementor. I might do maintenance for them in that, and then when it’s time to redesign, I’ll give them the nudge for a Beaver builder.

BobWP:
Well, it was interesting. I used to have Beaver Builder on, and when they did this, they walked me through the trainee and it started all coming back. It been a while. It was like, oh yeah, I remember this. Yeah, I’m sure it’s changed obviously since I used it, but after a while it was like, okay, and nine one, okay. I was using green dirty down using Beaver Builder because that’s what they recommended, and it was like, oh, I can do all this

Cami:
And you can use both, so you can run your blog on Gutenberg and you can then have your pages on Beaver Builder. And it all works. It all works together.

BobWP:
And actually, I built my landing page for this event one day. I got in there and just started copying all the stuff that they, putting modules in and doing this and that, and thought, okay, now I have my landing page. So yeah, it was awesome. So cool. Well, good.

Cami:
Yeah, and I love the new site, by the way.

BobWP:
Oh, thank you. Thank you. I haven’t had the chance to ask anybody this, but what did you think? You know me well, yes. We’ve known each other long time ago, and when you saw me even start talking about this and what I was doing and then actually announcing it, what did you think? You thought, oh, is it, that’s Bob. I know.

Cami:
My first thought was like, that is one long train trip. Okay. As a Seattleite, we often use the train to go to Portland, and it’s really fun. I absolutely love it. Three and a half hours and drops you off right downtown Portland, but all the way to New York City. I thought, man, that’s a long trip, but I am excited for you. I would love to do that. And I’ve known a few people who have gone to Chicago and least made it that far, but I think that you’re going to have a great time.

BobWP:
Yeah. Well, I’ve learned a lot. I added somebody, Fred of mine, a WordPress space. Some of you may know. Bud Kraus did a big journey, I don’t know, a couple of years ago, maybe it was longer than that trade trip, and he was giving me some advice on it, and then I learned that a lot about the Amtrak journey.
It’s amazing when you get out and just hear people talking with little tips of what to do and what not to do when the food sucks, but you have to live with it type of thing. So it’s like, okay, that’s all cool. Right, right. I’m ready to do it. But yeah, and for those of you that kind of when we’re first starting here, yeah, I’ll be in Chicago and we’ll be doing, I’m going to have somebody be joining me in St. Paul. Actually, somebody almost as insane as me because he’s going to be coming on trade writing job. It’s about an eight hour trip to Chicago, so we are going to be doing some fun stuff there and then doing a dinner in Chicago. And I think I’ve been mentioning, I’m not going to spoil the surprise if you don’t know it, you just have to weigh down. But yeah, it is fun because I’ve tried to find ways to, how can a community, I mean, I’m on a train, I can’t jump off at the same time I have 60 little cities.

Cami:
You can do a shout out as they go through if you’re awake. If it’s not in the middle of

BobWP:
The night, shout out 10 and tell them basically, I’m asleep and this is automated, but you’re in my dreams or something. I

Cami:
Don’t know what else. Well, I think the coolest part for you is going to be that when you’re on the train, you’re not on the beaten path of a freeway or just you’re not on the normal route that people are traveling. And so you really get to see a whole lot of places where it’s just pristine countryside and I think you’re going to really enjoy that.

BobWP:
Yeah. Well, I had to drive to Seattle from, I was actually going to take the train from, which is state capital in Washington here, and it seemed kind of insane. I was getting on an hour train, then I was going to have seven hour layover or some in Seattle. So I thought, why don’t I just drive straight to Seattle? But on the way up, Hitler three hour drive to Seattle, two and a half hour traffic, everything. I thought, man, it’s going to be nice to on that train. This sucks being on the road. My God, you got probably been insane and tried to drive, and so I hope somebody would just lock me in a room or something.

Cami:
Right.

BobWP:
You’re not going anywhere.

Cami:
Well, you can just kick back and it’s a whole different feeling than an airplane. It’s a little bit of a rougher ride and you hear all the sounds and it’s really loud, but it’s cool. And you have a whole lot of other passengers. You might make friends you never know, and you can download treating spaces. You should watch that movie on the train while you’re old time, a little bit of train, right. Movies.

BobWP:
Actually, you can’t see this, but I’m going to put on my headphone just because I think I have a sound of train here. That’s a little war here, and we’re going to talk, let me see if it’s actually it. Okay, so talk.

Cami:
Okay. Okay, well,

BobWP:
Yes. Keep on the train.

Cami:
This is what it’s going to be like.

BobWP:
Yeah, this is what you’re going to hear for days.

Cami:
We’re going to have several days on the way back, or are you going to have stops or are you getting out the same route back as you have on the wing there? Okay.

BobWP:
Right. Yeah, and it is kind of interesting because I figured it’s kind of redundant to do some of the things I’m doing. I actually, I was going to do something in Chicago on the way back, but it’s so close to the holidays, I can’t really expect people to come drive downtown Chicago for a podcast. So I thought, well, I’ll just go shopping Christmas shopping.

Cami:
Oh, that would be really fun.

BobWP:
I thought I’ll just do that and then

Cami:
Just soak up some of the holiday cheer in the city you’re in. That’ll be great.

BobWP:
I have about a three, about four hour lay over there. And so I thought, well, I’ll do that because it’s that time of year. It’s tough to get people.

Cami:
It

BobWP:
Is things, they’ve got other stuff, more important things than say no, I’m going to drive an hour to sit in some little room with Bob podcast. Oh, I got a Christmas party to go to Screw Bob.

Cami:
Oh yeah. I was looking forward to this. I got to ride the West Seattle water taxi over here. Our bridge is currently out, so I’m on an island right now and I was super excited to get off the island and to downtown Seattle to come see you in this not so tiny room. So it’s great.

BobWP:
And I believe you even took a picture.

Cami:
I did. And I hashtagged it.

BobWP:
Yeah. Okay. So it will be on Twitter hashtag Wu train clan.

Cami:
Yes.

BobWP:
That’s Woo Train claim. It’s like a clan of one.

Cami:
I think it’s the best hashtag ever. And I’m a fan,

BobWP:
But I just wonder after that, what I will use it for, maybe memories, maybe I’ll just keep using it from memories. Something will occur to me, oh, I forgot to tell you all about this.

Cami:
Well, occasionally you could do a big word camp and take the train like, oh yeah, we could go to the Portland Word camp together and take the train. We could revive it.

BobWP:
We did something like that several years ago with Were you involved with Bi Nick?

Cami:
No, I wasn’t. No, but it sounds familiar

BobWP:
Online in person Dean, way back, many, many years ago. And we actually, about seven of us went down for a workshop.

Cami:
Oh, cool.

BobWP:
That way. It was fun. We had a great time. We think a couple of people, we might’ve come from Seattle and they picked us up in Olympia and we just all went down and it was, yeah, it’s actually, maybe this is the new way to get to, maybe not across the country.

Cami:
No.

BobWP:
The new way to get to Europe,

Cami:
But I did go to Word Camp Portland in 2017 on the train. My husband took his bike with us, and while I was at Word Camp, he was off biking around Portland, and it’s a pretty easy trip to go to Portland. So maybe we should plan that if they have a Word camp in person. Again, I sure miss Word camps in person. In fact, I’m going to Alabama. Are you? Yeah. So I’m excited about that. I miss seeing people. I hadn’t seen you in two years until today.

BobWP:
Not far

Cami:
Before.

BobWP:
Yeah. It is amazing.

Cami:
What

BobWP:
I’m thinking about this is, I mean, it’s a smaller crowd of us, but it’s like these people, I don’t even remember the last time, some of them, and some of them maybe I’ve never even met.

Cami:
Yeah. My last word camp was 2019 Seattle, and I think a lot of people went to Miami in 2020. And that was Sarah last one.

BobWP:
Yeah, I think mine might’ve been us.

Cami:
Yeah. Seattle or right before,

BobWP:
Before it was Seattle or

Cami:
In St. Louis. Yeah, I was at that one too. That event night at the museum that we all went to. That was awesome. That was so memorable.

BobWP:
Yeah, that was an interesting place too. I’ve never been in the museum.

Cami:
It seems like you could spend several days, I think it was called the City Museum in downtown St. Louis.

BobWP:
Yeah,

Cami:
I’m pretty sure. But wow,

BobWP:
That was the one that just had all the strain,

Cami:
Several floors and

BobWP:
Yeah. Did you go up to the spiral staircase?

Cami:
I did not. I had had a broken ankle, so I was recovering from that. So I did not do much. I was just out of my boot for about two weeks when I made my trip, but I didn’t go. A lot of people went and crawled through the things that were outside and all that. I didn’t do that.

BobWP:
Yeah, I remember Annette, I dunno if you’ll be listening to this, somebody take him talk with for moment, yo, we were at that one, and he convinced me into going up the stairs, which was, you could go up like five and then you could go up the next level, and then you’d go down the slider to the bottom to reach the top. Well, they were winding rotten. Iron stared in the dark.

Cami:
It did not feel safe in Plex.

BobWP:
I thought I was going to kill myself. And Taco took out his phone and helped the flashlight for me before I see where I was going, because he said it’d be a really bummer for Word Camp be with, and Bob fell to his desk why they want that to happen. I said, please help me.

Cami:
Yeah. There were several places that looked pretty scary, and I was glad to have an excuse to like, oh, can’t do it.

BobWP:
I got the liability because it was really dark and yeah, it was interesting. Then we went down the slide. I actually been down the slide too, so I mean, that’s the only way I could get down. He goes, let’s go back down the stairs. So

Cami:
Right.

BobWP:
Okay.

Cami:
Yeah,

BobWP:
The slide.

Cami:
But that place was something else made an impression on me that, I mean, of all the things of going to St. Louis, that’s what I remember the most.

BobWP:
Yeah, yeah. I tried to describe it to somebody and I said, all, you just have to go to it because it just, there’s really no way to describe. It sounded like a museum that has this kind of theme or that kind of theme is just

Cami:
Weird

BobWP:
Stuff.

Cami:
Weird stuff all over the place.

BobWP:
Anyway. But yeah, that was a lot of fun. Well, yeah, I’m going to be catching the train here soon, and I don’t even know what time.

Cami:
Yeah. What is it that you are looking most forward to Bob about? State of the word.

BobWP:
It’s so funny because really every time there’s been a stated of word, God bless you, Matt, if you’re listening or ever listen to this. Nothing really ever floors me or phases me, and I don’t really anticipate anything. I have such a weird perspective on WordPress where it’s like, okay, tell me what’s the vision for this? See what the community does with that vision. And I’m there kind of in the middle, writing the ways with them and whatever. So I don’t know if I really, I’ll be interested to see what he talks about the NFTs and the Bitcoins, because I still don’t really understand any of that. Probably by the time he’s done, I still won’t understand it much of a difference, but it’ll be interesting to see what he kind of thinks about.

Cami:
Amen.

BobWP:
The one thing I do like about Matt is he’s very visionary,

Cami:
Right. Thinking about things that we haven’t thought of yet.

BobWP:
So we’re hoping to have him on a podcast in the new year, specifically around just talking about the future rather than everything now stuff. But yeah, I don’t think there’s anything, I’m so wrapped up in the actual, just the people and the event that I am more interested in hearing what other people say. Really. I am hoping that I’ll be able to give some, I’ll be doing podcasts before and after it, so I’ll, like I’m talking to you, what are you anticipating? And then afterwards, well,

Cami:
Oh, good. Yeah, there’ll be a whole other topic, reflections on the state of the word.

BobWP:
I’m hoping that maybe some people on my way back since. Yes, I’m taking the train and we’ll have some time if somebody wants to record something, I think I’ll be putting up a zip message. If somebody wants to do it, I’ll compile it. Oh, cool. So I’m going to be tweeting out stuff and to follow a Wu train clan, and you’ll see that. And even at the event, I hope we have a reception afterwards. And I have a little tiny, teeny tiny, I took a picture of it, microphone I have for my iPhone, and I’ll be using that and maybe go around and try to get people to give me,

Cami:
That’s what you do. That’s a great idea.

BobWP:
So that’s what I’m looking forward to is hearing what others anticipate and then what they feel afterwards and what they think afterwards. Because my thoughts don’t matter. Everybody else is so good. I

Cami:
Think everyone is just going to be so happy to see each other in person that that’s going to give it such a lifted mood to start out with anyway.

BobWP:
And kind of a smaller group, so you’re not strict about crowds.

Cami:
Exactly. Yeah. The Alabama Word camp is going to be smaller too,

BobWP:
So Yeah, so that’s great. So anyway, well, before we go, and I’ve got stuff spread out, and if you’re wondering why it’s so echoey, I rented a little room at WeWorks and they gave us a conference room, so we could have literally had a podcast with about,

Cami:
We could

BobWP:
15 people here.

Cami:
We could have a board meeting

BobWP:
Of some sort, a board meeting about the stage of the word start the WordPress Wars right now, Cam’s president and I’m Vice, so if you want to join it, that’s the state of the word board.

Cami:
Yes, exactly. It’s huge in here. Definitely. We could fit at least 20 more people.

BobWP:
Yeah, it is big. So before we go, tell us about a webinar that’s coming

Cami:
Up. Oh, okay. On Monday. It’s 10:00 AM Pacific standard time. So I’ll let all of you compute that to wherever you live. I’m going to be on a panel with GoDaddy Pro discussing design trends and trends in WordPress and WooCommerce and just overall trends in WordPress for 2022. And so that’s going to be on, you can go to GoDaddy Pro events to register for that. And then you can also check out GoDaddy Pro on Twitter. I believe they’re promoting it right now. And also on my Twitter, which is webcam is my handle. And yeah, it’s going to be fun. Paul Lacey’s on it, a couple other people that I’ve not met before, but it’s always a good time on a panel with GoDaddy and we just have kind of a casual discussion. All of their events are great. They have several events for business owners, and I participate and just join in to learn new things on GoDaddy events all the time.

BobWP:
Cool. Well, if you don’t show up, I will personally yell at you outside the train window, cast your town and say, why didn’t you go see Kenny? And of course we’ll be able to hear me, and you probably won’t even be nearby, but I’ll do it anyway just because I can.

Cami:
Okay. Well that sounds great.

BobWP:
Yeah. Alright everybody. Well, thanks for tuning in for the first one. And yeah, we’re going to have all sorts of fun stuff coming out in the next eight days, believe it or not. So thanks Ka.

Cami:
Oh, Bob, thank you so much. I feel honored to be the person sending you off on this epic journey. I’m so excited for you, and I can’t wait to follow along all the way to New York City and all the way back.

BobWP:
Cool. Alrighty. Well everyone, yeah, again, hashtag woo trained clan. Yeah, all that. And had a lot of fun stuff. So see you on the flip side.